Map Equity test

Karv's Equity Test

In this Q&A post ( https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3130696 ) GGG answered my questions regarding an Atlas mechanic 'Map Equity' which was added to the game in 3.9 with Conqueror's of The Atlas expansion. Before this Q&A post we only knew that it "helps you get T14+ map drops when fully upgrading Atlas to T14-T16 maps.

However, their answer regarding higher tier maps (such as T14) being able to affect lower tier map drops (in this case, T1-T13) didn't quite clarify one thing: Will that T14 (that didn't drop and was added as equity) BE EVER ABLE to affect those lower tier maps in the future? Their answer in the context doesn't clarify if I could run a bunch of T16 maps (without being able to drop T14-16) and use that massive equity generated by those to upgrade say, T1-T5 map drops to T10 while running T9s as the equity threshold for T10 is over capped like crazy from the T14, T15 and T16 maps.

So, I'm doing a simple test to figure that out:

Part 1:
1a) Start by cleaning your equity as much as possible (go T14-T16 Atlas and run a bunch of T14s) - when you drop 2-3x T14 in a row it hopefully indicates that you reached equity threshold to drop it from lower tier maps instead of being a natural drop. This isn't guaranteed to be the case of course, but it's the closest we got.

1b) Set your Atlas to Drop T6-T9 maps and T14-T16 maps. So all regions filled entirely with the exception of a corner region of your choosing that has 1. I will use Hamlet and run T9 Atolls.

Skipping all additional mechanics that drop maps that I can easily (so strongboxes, Incursions, Breaches etc)

Run a certain amount of T9 maps (I will do 50 20%Q, unrolled maps with 1 sextant adding monsters) without killing map boss (to keep it simpler and not making T11s ever be able to drop and add equity) and record map drops. Equity from T1-T5 should build up and upgrade to a bunch of only T6s, as it's the first threshold to be met by lower maps. What we don't exactly know, is what does equity from T10 maps do. It will either yield us T9s (as it makes equity reach threshold for that), or nothing. This is also why we don't kill map bosses, as that one T11 could be enough equity for 9x T9 maps.

Now there's our first dataset. Then Part 2:

2a) Run a juiced (ideally few) T16 without allowing anything but T1-T9 drop. We don't want lower tier maps add to equity as it could screw this, we only care about equity from maps above our target map. This setup is done by having all regions at 0 watchstones, except one of the corner regions with 1 (Hamlet for my test).

2b) Now we repeat the first set (T6-T9 + T14-T16). We should have a bunch of T10-T16 maps added as equity and every time a T1-T5 were to drop, it has to upgrade to T9 from any monster that we kill in the juiced T9s, because the stored equity is enough to always guarantee that and all monsters are capped to dropping only T9 maps as we don't have T10-T11 available and T12+ won't drop naturally

Now we should have the results.

If higher tier maps' equity is not usable for lower tier map upgrades, we should have roughly the same amount of drops within all tiers that can drop. (T6-T9)

If higher tier maps' equity is usable for lower tier map upgrades, due to T1-T5 non-dropped maps upgrading to T9 as it's the first available map to drop (starts from T16 -> T15 -> T14 but none of those can drop due drop level restrictions or not existing in the Atlas), the second dataset should have a massive difference in T9 map drops (second set having more of them)