MidnightDuel wrote: »

Unfortunately, our feedback and suggestions during U49 were ignored and nothing positive has changed for rare zone maps during testing of U50, which update will now go live in just over a week from now.

Speaking of U50, does it still have a 5-part furnishing with all leads found only in Thieves Troves in ONE ZONE (Glenumbra)? Or have they realized that this will probably lead to epic levels of complaints from the Codex completionists and furnishing folks?

Ok, not sure if it's indirectly causing the problem, but I believe there might be a hidden lead cap of around 80 active leads per account. (i.e. the ones with expiration dates) I was farming for certain leads for my codex and just could not get it.

Examples:

Netchbeak Clasps from Telvanni Peninsula chests - opened more than 200 chests on diff chars
Carved Stone Key - Solstice quests. Nothing for a week or so on 10-20 chars.
Ancestor Samite Sash - Telvanni Dailies. same.
Harmonic Bismite - Solstice ore nodes. Over 400 and nothing over multiple days.

Multiple days, multiple chars, nothing. I decided to screw it and go dig up 10 or so leads for my codex that were waiting.

The very next day. Immediately got the lead for Netchbeak Clasps and Stone Key. Got a bunch of IA leads too, all gold in the same run. My hunch is that there IS a cap and once you hit it practically nothing drops in terms of leads. I can't confirm 100% this is true. But the people reporting abysmal drop rates might have been fighting against this, as the common purple leads take up "inventory space". Try digging some stuff up, even the useless stuff in base zones, and see if stuff starts dropping again.

yes, just Removing Map Based Leads

Gabriel_H wrote: »

15 WW treasure maps, 0 antiquities. This has to stop ZOS.

I've been trying to get one of the GREEN quality tapestry leads from the West Weald maps. 20+ maps, no green quality leads, not even any of the ones I don't need. Lol

They just announced 2nd and 3rd codex will drop at the same rate as 1st. Nothing about leads being removed from maps but it's a start

lillybit wrote: »

They just announced 2nd and 3rd codex will drop at the same rate as 1st. Nothing about leads being removed from maps but it's a start

That's welcome news indeed. Is that across the board, or just for map-based leads? Despite doing the IA regularly, I'm still missing most of the 2nd and 3rd codices from IA antiquities.

BretonMage wrote: »

lillybit wrote: »

They just announced 2nd and 3rd codex will drop at the same rate as 1st. Nothing about leads being removed from maps but it's a start

That's welcome news indeed. Is that across the board, or just for map-based leads? Despite doing the IA regularly, I'm still missing most of the 2nd and 3rd codices from IA antiquities.

Yes, it'll be across the board from the sound of it

MidnightDuel wrote: »

No mention of changes to Map drop rates, however, which is the biggest pain point with double-locked leads (with nested RNG) for Solitude, West Weald and Necrom Antiquity furnishings. The only real way to fix that is to curate the unopened maps upon opening based upon player location.

While the map leads aren't changing, one of the new alchemy ingredients is from treasure maps so maybe people will stop hoarding the unopened ones. Maybe. It's something to hope for at least

If I understand things correctly, when the changes hit the 2nd and 3rd leads will have to same drop rate as the 1st lead.
That's an improvement, but it doesn't fix the issues with map based leads.

We still have no way to reliably farm maps for a particular zone. We still have to rely on RNG to get a map for the zone we need, or we have to hope one is on the trader for a price that won't burn our resources. I don't count maps sold via IA or telvar vendors, since not everyone does that content.

So while the improved drop rate will help, we still have dozens of leads tied to maps that we can't reliably source.
As far as I know , these leads aren't curated either, so my chances of getting a map for the zone I need, of getting a lead, and of getting the lead I actually want, still seems to be pretty abysmal?

I plan to hold off and see if other people have improved luck with zones like West Weald, Solstice, Telvanni/Apocrypha, before I try my luck at those zones again. Hopefully we'll be pleasantly surprised..

allochthons wrote: »

Everything @onyxorb said.

MidnightDuel wrote: »

I for one will continue to leave my Unopened Treasure Maps unopened until at least when the PTS for U51 starts at the end of July. Who knows after that and when U51 goes live.

I have noticed that the unopened treasure maps seem to be dropping more frequently overall, and in pairs from Thieves Troves again.

Is there any evidence that opening the unopened maps in an instance, a particular zone, or anything, can affect which map you get? In other words: is there a reason to leave unopened maps unopened? I've heard rumors, but nothing backed up by data or Dev. I do my base game/early DLC maps every day so I don't get a huge stockpile and then quail at the task.

I have been getting tons of maps in thieves troves, including pairs, so can confirm that. But I seem to be getting fewer from daily crafting writs. I never got a ton from writs, but none recently.

As far as I can tell, the map is zone is fully randomized on opening - I've rarely had one from the zone I'm in, and occasionally had a duplicate. I think the only reason people are keeping them as unopened containers is because they take up less storage space. At least, that's my reason. I'll occasionally open a bunch and go grab the loot, but I don't open them unless I specifically have a period of game time set apart for treasure maps. For example, the Night Market event dropped so many leads that I'm still clearing them, so I won't open any more treasure maps until those numbers are down.