Thoughts on Why There Is No Map Tab in Path of Exile

Many players would feel uncomfortable when they manage maps in the stash in PoE. Owing to lack of space and the difficulty in keeping all maps organized manually, many players think managing maps in the stash is one of the most frustrating and tedious things in this game. So many of them argued to allow stacks of maps, especially white maps because white maps have no traits, they can and should stack. 

 

However, some players don't expect the map tab because it is impossible to achieve. They hold maps are item not currency therefore they can't stack; maps have different item levels and such, cant stack them; maps have any number of unique traits they are different inherently from stackable items.

 

 

To be honest, I think map tab would be a great change but there is a strong possibility that GGG won't add a map tap considering the following reasons:

 

First, there are a lot of reasons why there might not be a map tab. A significant possibility is that their code doesn't allow for it. You don't have to be a programmer to throw out "Array" or "List" or "Hash" as buzzwords for a solution. I don't know how their source works, you don't know how it works, no one outside of the devs at GGG know how it works. A lot of people play this game, its been expanding for awhile, and the code gets complicated. Seemingly "easy" or "small" changes might not be so easy or small at all.

 

Second, from a product perspective, a poorly or half-assed implementation of a concept is often worse than no implementation. Let's pretend there are limited immediate barriers to create a white map tab. Perhaps they anticipate (and rightly so, given how much this subreddit likes to complain) that people will bitch about blues and rares and other affixes. Perhaps they think that releasing a tab that only considers white, 0 quality, no corruption maps will be worse than not releasing one at all.

 

Maybe from their statistics, this is a low priority problem to solve. Again, people bitch about so many things on this subreddit, and for better or worse, the devs tend to at least see and make note of a lot of these complaints. They might have a lot of other things on their plate that they consider to be more important.

 

Finally, GGG has stated before that they're extremely cautious with giving players the ability to potential dupe or exploit the game. Does that mean that exploits and dupes don't happen? No, but their policy is to minimize that chance. This is why guild stash doesn't have a convenient ctrl+click storage/withdrawal option, as well why other player actions are constrained. This is intentional, since the more areas where players can potentially fuck with the game, especially in a game so focused on economy like this one, the more devastating it would be for the game were it to be a widespread or easily exploitable hole in the game. A half-assed map tab could increased the chance or risk of duping maps, which might be something they're considering.

 

Personally, I would like give a solution to the problem. We don't need a special tab, we just need to make white maps of the same quality stack. For example, only white maps with the same name would stack; maps with quality only stack with maps of the same quality; applying any sort of rarity change, mod adding or corruption would make a map unstackable; a map can only be altered in any way when not in a stack.

 

What is your opinions?