Maps! (dedicated group?)

[magicrectangle]

So myself, DickScotchFist, and IncubatorJones are either finished with, or soon to finish merciless difficulty, and we'll be looking to start doing maps groups (softcore). Hopefully there are others here interested in doing maps, and if so it would be great if they could post their character names here once they've finished a3 merciless and are ready to start maps.

What are maps? Maps are the end game of PoE. Unlike Diablo 3, where you find yourself endlessly farming act 3 over and over again, PoE has item drops called maps, which you take to the eternal laboratory to open portals to the map zone. The eternal laboratory waypoint is unlocked by talking to the gemling queen after beating the game.

Most maps that drop in the game will be white items. You can increase their quality with orbs just as you would any other item. The properties maps gain generally make them more difficult, but also increases the quantity of items they drop. A good strategy for how you should orb your maps is outlined in this post on the official forums:

Map Management Resource

Map looting etiquette appears to generally be that items go to the person named (so people aren't rushing to pick stuff up and getting killed - or wiping the group), and that any additional maps that drop go to the person who opened the map - thus if you use your maps, your maps get replenished. As a group we have also decided that valuable white/blue items (namely 5/6L armors and weapons) will go to the map opener.

Higher level maps only drop inside maps themselves. In merciless only level 66 maps will drop. In 66 maps you can get 67 and 68 maps, and so on. The map drop rate is good enough inside of maps that having to go back to farm more maps in merciless is not too likely, so long as you start with 10+ maps (to account for the RNG).

When you open a map in the eternal laboratory, six portals are opened connecting to the map. Going through one of the portals consumes it, so that if you die or town portal out, there will be five remaining, etc. Town portals don't take you to town, they take you back to the eternal laboratory. Conveniently, they are also permanent in the map. Opening a town portal has the effect of simply moving the entry portal for that map to your current location.

Happy map running, looking forward to playing with you guys!

For convenience, I'll edit the map runner list into the OP here, as they are posted:

Character name - incgamers name
ArsVishnu - magicrectangle
Incubator_Jones - IncubatorJones

[magicrectangle]

From the patch notes:

End-game Map Changes:Added 11 new types of Maps: Arsenal, Arcade, Ghetto, Promenade, Temple, Colonnade, Bazaar, Crematorium, Precinct, Shipyard and Shrine.

Map progression now extends to area level 77.

Maps which had the same level topologies as other maps now have their own new layouts.

The Labyrinthine mod now provides a more consistent increase in maps and is comparable to the Massive mod on applicable maps.

Some existing maps have had their bosses changed or reworked.

Some recipes for upgrading maps produce a different map than they did previously.

I haven't had a chance to test this on many maps yet, but it looks like the labyrinthine change means it will no longer be necessary to do this:

Vaal Pyramid (68): Transmute and alter until mazeCells (73): Chisel, transmute, alter until it gets Maze and a useful second mod, then regal
Maze (74): Chisel, transmute, alter until it gets Maze and a useful second mod, then regal

[quote]
Instead, we'll probably just roll for any of the good mods same as the other map types.

[DickScotchfist]

That's a good guide!

Sorry I play on a stupid mac and can't do any maps non-solo >.<

Hopefully they'll come out with a better wine, otherwise I'll have to remedy the situation for sure.

[magicrectangle]

Did a couple of maps with IncubatorJones earlier today. Other than the fact that I died like an idiot from being over-eager, they went pretty well. Blessed Orb for IJ and Gemcutter's Prism for me were really the only good drops, but still it was pretty fun. IJ also got a couple of replacement maps out of the deal, which is always good. It really sucks when you do a few maps and no maps drop in them.

I'm looking forward to trying out some of the new maps they added this patch!

[IncubatorJones]

You can add my name to the list.

I'm not sure how useful I am, I tried to solo a map yesterday... Didn't really work out that well

[tyren]

You never mentioned wich server, EU? US? Hardcore or Scrubcore? this is vital info!

[IncubatorJones]

Softcore, servers don't really matter since you can just create and join games freely, no area restriction.

[magicrectangle]

We did one of the new maps they added in 10.1, arcade. It is the market tileset from act 3, and the boss was a set of ribbons. I saw two ribbons with orange names, but it was not a twinned map. One lightning ribbon, one fire ribbon, it looked like. They were not difficult, but there were a bunch of tentacle miscreations behind the bosses, and because of the geometry of the map we couldn't get at them without standing in full line of sight, which caused difficulties. Ultimately I think it qualifies as an easy map, when it doesn't spawn chock full of tentacle miscreations.

[tyren]

Softcore, servers don't really matter since you can just create and join games freely, no area restriction.

Cool, I was not aware of that.

[kestegs]

Good guide on the maps, thanks!

I'd love to join you guys once I get past merciless, which hopefully will be this weekend.