(If you want to get to the idea and ignore the intro then scroll down 2 paragraphs or check out the video here: http://youtu.be/vgTAlZvYGKs )
Ok, so we’ve all been there. You don’t feel like grinding another Greater Rift after you’ve just cleared one. Your roll on the legendary gem you want to upgrade is 5%. We’re just not in the mood to hold onto that next GR token and the legendary gem roll is a waste. It’s the reason so many people resort to just farming up Torment 6 rifts, although with several changes that recently took place in 2.1.2 and the inclusion of Ancient items, it now seems far too easy to clear Torment 6 for most full-time and some part-time players. One simple solution would be to add more Torment difficulties, and while that might certainly be required, this idea goes beyond that. . I click on public games for Rifts and it’s at 800 available games. Greater Rifts are at 65. Nobody wants to play GRs unless it’s with people they know or they play solo. The reasons mentioned above are just a brief summary as to why people do not really care to play greater rifts, amongst others. Not everyone is out to climb the leaderboards and would prefer to remain casual. So this idea gives the casual player a reason to play greater rifts while simultaneously appeasing to the more devoted player through rewards. The entire idea is based around the premise that no new created artistic content is technically needed and current content would only need to be manipulated in different ways, although new content would certainly be welcome.
The idea is to make a 3rd option once you’ve cleared a Greater Rift on time. Don’t clear the GR on time, you don’t get access to it. The 3rd option is an optional level that is based around current maps, but with different scenarios that will generally be time-based or time- and objective-based. A player that would consecutively do a Trial run, successfully clear a Greater Rift in potentially 15 minutes, and then be resorted to another 10-15 minutes would not be ideal for most casual players, so this is why these would mostly be shortly-timed, yet difficult events. This option would ONLY be available at the time of completion of the GR and would not award a token of any kind to come back and do it later. The choice would be a selection between 2 maps. They would each be a certain game type and also have a unique set of circumstances to complete them. The optional levels would also be on par with the current greater rift completed or could even be 0-3 levels higher for each map (i.e. If you cleared GR 40, Map 1 would be difficulty 42 and Map 2 would be 43. Or they would potentially be the same difficulty for each map and based on the GR's level). This would give people a reason to debate on which map type fits them best at which difficulty and the skill required. I have developed some map ideas that could get the ball rolling. Having a pool of 50-100 maps with different scenarios would be easy with the depth of the game and existing content, or even just 25-50. This would allow for several random maps to ensure people would need a reason to repeatedly run Greater Rifts to find certain maps or to make sure they have variety. Certain map reasons explained below. .
Some ideas for possible benefits of the bonus level would be the following: . - Slight bump in legendary drop chance, but not much. Or just another option of content with legendaries. - Maybe a slight bump in ancient drop chance, but that would be tied to legendaries anyways. - Rewards top level players for participating in Greater Rifts by potentially rewarding them for their top-level efforts. - Rewards low level players and gives them a reason to participate in something they generally don’t like to do, Greater Rifts. - Builds the Greater Rift public game option to help populate it. - Lower level players don’t have to try and go into such higher greater rifts to upgrade gems when their skill set doesn’t match the difficulty required to level them further. Their progression will come naturally from this option by giving them a reason to test themselves without the only reward being “leveling your gem”. . Ideas that could potentially be added: . - If the level were to be based on a tier completion time (clear a 2-minute level in 1m 30s or less) you would have a Kadala-like vendor appear that would allow you to spend X amount of shards, or a different variation of shards, at a much higher rate on items. This vendor has a higher legendary drop chance and thus a better chance at ancients. (Alternatively you can utilize the existing blood shards, but adding another element to the game would be great.) . - If you finish in X amount of time you get a token to use on a horadric cube-type item that allows you to put in an existing legendary for a chance to roll it to an Ancient item. If you do a bonus objective then you get a second token. (Alternatively you could just re-roll the stats on an existing legendary with this token) Re-rolling an item is permanent, but can be rolled again in a future bonus rift area. The token or chance must be spent at the time of completion. Roll % is based on difficulty level. The higher greater rift you complete, the higher your chances. Perhaps even have each item have a roll % (i.e. a regular SMK would have a lower chance to roll as an Ancient, where an Andariel’s Visage would have a higher chance to roll as an Ancient). This idea can be toned down so that progression would not be so rapid, but not too low as to keep people coming back for more. This could also simply be that you have an option of re-rolling ALL stats on the current item. Say you found a Furnace with extremely low damage and bad rolls, so this great item is not actually useful to you when you hoped it would. This option would allow you to roll the Furnace for better stats. Clear a Greater Rift in time and you get the chance to do a bonus map. Clear the bonus map to receive the extra horadric cube, you get a chance to roll the stats on the Furnace. The difficulty would certainly give people reason to run over and over, but the reward would be worth it. . - The option at this Kadala-like vendor to receive an item full of crafting materials like a horadric cache that goes in your inventory. This could help supplement people to receive crafting materials. Furthermore, this cache item could include a Ramaladni’s Gift as a rare drop from the cache. Perhaps you have to spend shards on the cache, but repeatedly buying the cache for the chance at a Ramaladni’s gift would be great. . - Having certain maps drop a class-specific legendary in the future could be an interesting idea. For example: In Rat Race there is a Monk fist weapon that is not a lootable item in other game content. So that when you have the option to choose between 2 maps, you could knowingly “farm” the Rat Race map. This leads to people repeatedly running Greater Rifts so that they have a chance to “farm” just the chance at even getting the Rat Race map. Thus this completes the cycle of having people do bounties > trials > greater rifts. This drop would only be available from completing perhaps the second-tier to receive the bonus chest or it gives it a chance to drop in the regular chest by achieving a certain objective or time limit. Having requirements would give people a reason to run a higher difficulty for a higher drop chance, and also a reason to try and complete the bonus objective on a higher difficulty. Just helps add to the cycle that could now look like: Bounty > Rift > Greater Rift > Bonus Level (w/bonus objective complete). Adding depth to the content while simultaneously keeping simplicity will add to HOURS of continued gameplay. This creates purpose for playing, but hopefully not too in depth. This can be simplified. . - Back to the previous point, having 2 maps to choose from can give you an option to find a map that fits your playstyle better; one that you feel you have a higher success at completing it. Selecting the option to go to the bonus area could hide the available maps or they could be shown when you select the option before declaring ‘yes’ through a prompt. This can go either way so it’s a surprise which maps you get or you knowingly select the bonus level because you know you have a chance of completing by seeing the maps first. . - For group play, these maps could be potential winners and losers based on diversity of groups and how the maps play at with a full 4-person group or any combination. . - Different legendary combinations that have synergy, but doesn't necessarily have to be set pieces, can be found in different maps or game types. Have items that have group synergy (i.e Item A gains X effect when Item B is within Y yards. Item A being a Wizard item and Item B being a Crusader item) this could allow for positive clan interaction and diversity. Different groups could potentially do more damage than something like a necessary Monk-WD Tank combo. . - Or you can have it so that as long as there are 4 different classes then you receive the 4 person group bonus, so it doesn't have to be specific combos. If you have 2 Demon Hunters, a wizard, and a monk, you only get a 3-person bonus since there are 2 DH, but they each must be wearing the piece of gear or have item in inventory or have certain gem. Legendary gem or something is possible here as well, which gives each person a reason to level it. So long as each person has theirs leveled up, the stronger the gem. Captain Planet effect. By your powers combined… If nothing else, have a default buff that rewards diversity by classes. 5% more damage for each different class perhaps, up to a potential 20% damage buff in bonus areas. . - Possible solutions to not completing the bonus level would be to have tiers of completion. If after X time passes you miss out on shards or vendor. If Y time passes then you miss out on some option. If it takes any bit longer then you just get a resplendent chest or two, so no matter what happens, as long as you clear the level, you get a resplendent chest or some type of new chest that just has a lot of loot in it. If you complete it quicker, then you still get the chest(s) no matter what. Maybe it's a super chest and if you finish quick enough then you get more than 1, much like finishing a shrine challenge quick enough, as well as the other options. Just could be a reward-based tier depending on completion time. Drop rates would inherently be affected by difficulty level. Can’t have Paragon 700 top-tier people farming level 20 Greater Rifts to win and get multiple chests over and over with the same drop rate. . - To tie in the chest idea, when you beat the regular Greater Rift, instead of the GR boss dropping items, he could spawn a chest. This chest could be carried over to the next level so that the same drops from the GR Boss would be contained in that chest. If they don’t complete the bonus level then that’s all they get, just the original chest. Clear it in time and you get more rewards or a second chest where you get the same amount of loot that you would get from a rift guardian, but twice. Perhaps this would just be 1.5 as opposed to 2x. This would mean that players could farm greater rifts to improve their chances at clearing higher greater rifts down the road, thus keeping people active in the Greater Rift game type. Simplified: Your chest from the regular Greater Rift boss would be carried over and if you complete a 120 second time-based objective, then a second chest would be available to you. . - Far-fetched idea would be that a shrine would be placed at the end of the bonus level. This shrine would have a 1h game-time buff that would ONLY be usable in Bounty/Adventure mode and would not be active for Rifts or Greater Rifts. This could be a reason people farm a greater rift before they do bounties or it could just be a supplement that people use for when they finish to go do something different. These could potentially stack if they wanted to do a few G Rifts and then go back to the adventure gameplay. . - Remember that the bonus level is contingent on completing the Greater Rift in time. No GR completion, no bonus level. . Please keep in mind that some ideas are explained further in-depth in the video and some are more drawn out here. All ideas could easily be simplified or made into bigger and better ideas. I am using this idea as a start and simply listing every single detail here would be mostly looked over, so while this is a longer post, the idea is far greater.
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Blizzard will never allow new content without some type of lore behind it. It wouldn’t make sense to just add new content without a story. I’m not a huge history buff when it comes to Diablo lore, but perhaps this could be a “flashback” or an alternate reality so that you can justify using similar content with different scenarios. I hope that people who follow the lore much more closely than I do can help create a story behind this idea. For anyone that does make that effort, thank you very much.
These room ideas are based around a bonus content area that is explained in this post: . Some of these maps are also featured and explained in the video here: http://youtu.be/kdcsa6knau8 , but explanations are also below. . There are many more possibilities for maps, but this was a handful to show that many can be created using existing content. . Bonus room ideas: . - Royal Rumble: Utilizing the round corner platform on your way to Belial, you could have a large number of monsters that are involved in a battle that you must survive. After every 5 or 10 seconds, a new wave of enemies spawns, thus increasing your need to kill enemies quick enough, or eliminate them. Every 15 or 30 seconds an elite would spawn, so you have to choose how you focus your targets and how you manage your cooldowns or characters. These elites could possibly have the Horde or Illusionist affix, however this may cause frame rate issues and is debatable on how densely you want to pack this area. Kill all enemies before the 2 or 3 minute timer is up and you win an extra chest full of goods similar to the one carried over from the Rift Guardian. . - Twisted Hell: Utilizes the Tower of the Damned maps in Act 3 where you can only get to the second level by going in a spiral pattern. You could place Pylons strategically in out-of-the-way places. These pylons could automatically spawn an elite and so you’d have to weigh whether the tradeoff would be worth it. Make it to the bottom in the allotted time and you will spawn the second chest. Complete it in a quick enough time and you can spawn the Kadala-like vendor or Horadric Cube idea. You could alternatively have 2 levels so you have to get through one and go to another. It would be a super spiral so that you're technically going deeper but with 2 maps combined. If you went with the 2 map idea, by clearing the first map in time you are able to enter level 2. If not, you get to open the chest carried over from the Rift Guardian. if you clear both levels then you get the bonus chest and other possible scenarios. . - Rat Race: This involves the EXTREMELY long sewer map. The idea would be that there is a Speed pylon placed at the beginning of the map. You would utilize this to run down the map and kill all enemies in your path. The timer on these pylons can be reduced back down to 30 seconds or even 15 seconds. Every so often there is another pylon. Not utilizing these pylons will make it impossible to clear the map on time, so you would essentially be using the speed pylon permanently if you are able to clear fast enough. The challenge is to be able to balance these correctly to get from pylon to pylon so that you can reach the end in time. . - Slaughter fields: Have an act 1 map where you fight the little monsters from the beginning of Diablo and they are all boosted health. Small ones may be easy to lose and the idea would be to kill them all before time runs out. They are easy to lose as they tend to run away at times, so this would be the frustrating challenge, but rewarding if you killed them all. . - Slaughterhouse: Bring back a hidden cows map. This would be super rare and have some type of objective, but just the idea of it having a chance to spawn is nice. . - The Grid: This is based on the the jail scheme in Act 1. While there are plenty of options here, the idea for this one would be to have a Shrine in each corner of the map that spawns an elite. It’s similar to the current setup in the campaign in that you have to activate each to fight the Warden. Having this to where each Shrine or Pylon activates an elite that you must work your way around to kill. Strategizing your movement throughout the grid would be important and ultimately lead you back to the middle to fight a strong elite or even a buffed Warden himself. . - Angels vs Demons: Utilizing the already existing map in Act IV, you could utilize the protectors already in place and create an even more epic battle. Since they are already melee then you could use that, but what if as a melee class they would be more effective at range and you could make an option before you start the map to choose what type you want to fight beside you: ranged or melee, much like choosing a follower. You could possibly also use your banner as a rallying point for your Angels that are following you and can only be used once every 15 seconds. This could potentially make or break you as they would help defend when you were in trouble. In a group, only the leader of the group would have control over banner placement, so picking a good leader would be important. . - Royal Rumble Part 2: Diablo’s final room as a battleground and have waves of enemies being spawned. Could do pillars of flame that come out of the ground or different skills that diablo casts like jailing with bones or cracks in the ground. The animations are already in place and just have waves come in while those are going off. Next wave comes in on a timer, so if you haven't cleared out existing enemies, then eventually you will be overwhelmed. If you run out of time then they all disappear so that people can finish the task. This could be a 2 minute blitz, perhaps. . - Jigsaw Puzzle: This utilizes the side areas in Act IV. By moving about on the different platforms, it requires movement and strategy and planning. You could essentially add any type of monster type here. A challenge for melee more than range, but there has to be maps for different classes to excel. Perhaps you go through multiple levels so that when you finish one a portal opens to the second one. These are small and perhaps multiples are needed or you get bonuses based on how many puzzles you can complete. Complete 2 and you get a bonus chest or some other proposed idea. People need challenges and frustrations to try again and again. It’s how it works. . - Desert Storm: Using the sands of Act 2, you could create a sand storm to come through and disrupt view and what you can see. This sand storm could also potentially slow your movement and attack speed considerably, so movement would become a priority. You could reuse the tornadoes from other areas of the game and have them spawn at a greater rate, thus keeping you on your toes to kill all enemies on time or faster for a bonus reward. . - Storming the Fort: This would make use of Rakkis crossing on the way up to the Siegebreaker area. This is already opened up in rifts, so you could put a story behind it. Perhaps you start where the broken caravan area is closer to the end of the bridge. You start here and there would be an epic battle going on in the large, round area at the end where Siegebreaker is. Perhaps the battle is simply fighting many monsters and Siegebreaker simultaneously while there are several NPC guards that have joined the fray. You would have to defeat in a certain amount of time to receive the bonus reward. . - Mind Your Manors: Starting from the gate of Leoric’s Manor, you have to go in and kill everything in site and also “heal” or “cleanse” every dead body on the ground. There are many already in the game and sometimes they are hard to see. By doing both at the same time, you would have to clear the entire area in a certain amount of time. By clearing in a fast enough time you open the door to inside the manor. Once inside, the idea is to clear out everything in site and when you “cleanse” the dead body in the final room, he turns into a purple elite that must be destroyed in a fast enough time frame. You could even have him alive before he dies to show how he died, whether it be to an elite or some type of mini-boss. . - King of the Hill: Requires you to fight your way UP a map and at the end you have to hit the G key to place your banner. Brief explanation, but so many possibilities for maps here. . - Going to the Chapel And…: Fighting your way OUT of the chapel to stop a male and female elite character who just got married and are trying to get on the ferry to go to Tristram to wreak havoc. The idea is you have to fight your way up to the boat in time in order to stop them from leaving. A 2-minute time frame seems reasonable and the elites could have special affixes like “Horde”, which could be perceived as the “wedding party” trying to keep you away. . - Uber maps with different Uber bosses. Can locate them out in the main world or areas that may be difficult to play like a cave area. Old school uber Diablo style. Any type of Uber would be fun. . While there are many more ideas I have, I wanted to put something together to at get the ball rolling. Some ideas are also explained better in the video. . What ideas do you have for bonus levels? Please share below!
Well first off, we all know this would be way to much work for blizzard to implement. It would take them 5 years at the pace they go lol. Second, Highly doubtful we will see any Huge game changes/Content until the next Expansion. I mean look how lazy Ancient Items are?? If that's the best they can do in 6 months for a patch that really didn't change to many things. Something like this would take them years.
Love the ideas and creativity. Diablo 3 has endless game content that could be brought to the game. Sadly we are only stuck with..Bounties, Ubers, rifts and Grifts. Which would be okay, but they only offer one objective and really not much depth to them at all. I have said it many times, Blizzard does comes up with some great ideas, but then they leave them simple and plain. With no depth whatsoever. Latest Example of that is Ancient Items.
I can see you're excited for this game. Unfortunately, D3 is not a money-maker (no subscription, no micro transactions) and thus will remain a "fun" (ie; under-developed) game for its lifetime. Thank you for your time.
Okay, I have heard numerous amazing ideas on how to improve this game but the truth is, none of these will get into the game because Blizzard does not care about the game as much as we'd like to. I can clearly see the tendency of the updates they call "patches": they update the game very, very slightly, here is how I mean this:
Ancient items: clearly not a hard thing to program, does not take a lot of time at all -> players have more things to farm, look forward to. Win-win for Blizzard.
The whole expansion pack, but let's say Rifts in general: they consist of the zones and mobs that have been in the game since release (12th May, 2012), not a hard thing to make, does not take that much time either, win-win for Blizz again.
Paragon level: Now I genuinely believe nobody would play this game if it wasn't for paragon levels. Clearly didn't take a lot of time to figure it out and implement it, win-win.
For me these are just not exciting things at all. I have no idea how they can be for someone, imagine unique events for unique bosses, zones, items that can only be obtainable in those time frames, etc... What are paragon points? You get .1 cc! Such wow!
I can go on all day long, they are just trying to change/add little things to the game, nothing new. I come back to play this game from time to time but I get bored of it in a week. This really could have been the best ARPG ever but it failed on every level. I have absolutely no idea how can people play this game every day for hours when there is nothing competitive about it, nothing new, you get geared for T6 in a couple of days and that's it. You are a min-maxer? Cool, by the time you'd get perfect hellfire amulets, ancient pieces, etc, there is a new expansion or another set of "Antique" Legendaries with 30% increased stats of those Ancient ones. I'm not hating, just saying, the community have had so many amazing ideas that would make players stick to this game and have something different to do or look forward to every day but the truth is none of them will be added to the game cause they just simply don't care or don't want to/have the time to add these things.
Diablo 3 Greater Rift Bonus Level Idea:
(If you want to get to the idea and ignore the intro then scroll down 2 paragraphs or check out the video here: http://youtu.be/vgTAlZvYGKs )
Ok, so we’ve all been there. You don’t feel like grinding another Greater Rift after you’ve just cleared one. Your roll on the legendary gem you want to upgrade is 5%. We’re just not in the mood to hold onto that next GR token and the legendary gem roll is a waste. It’s the reason so many people resort to just farming up Torment 6 rifts, although with several changes that recently took place in 2.1.2 and the inclusion of Ancient items, it now seems far too easy to clear Torment 6 for most full-time and some part-time players. One simple solution would be to add more Torment difficulties, and while that might certainly be required, this idea goes beyond that.
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I click on public games for Rifts and it’s at 800 available games. Greater Rifts are at 65. Nobody wants to play GRs unless it’s with people they know or they play solo. The reasons mentioned above are just a brief summary as to why people do not really care to play greater rifts, amongst others. Not everyone is out to climb the leaderboards and would prefer to remain casual. So this idea gives the casual player a reason to play greater rifts while simultaneously appeasing to the more devoted player through rewards. The entire idea is based around the premise that no new created artistic content is technically needed and current content would only need to be manipulated in different ways, although new content would certainly be welcome.
The idea is to make a 3rd option once you’ve cleared a Greater Rift on time. Don’t clear the GR on time, you don’t get access to it. The 3rd option is an optional level that is based around current maps, but with different scenarios that will generally be time-based or time- and objective-based. A player that would consecutively do a Trial run, successfully clear a Greater Rift in potentially 15 minutes, and then be resorted to another 10-15 minutes would not be ideal for most casual players, so this is why these would mostly be shortly-timed, yet difficult events. This option would ONLY be available at the time of completion of the GR and would not award a token of any kind to come back and do it later. The choice would be a selection between 2 maps. They would each be a certain game type and also have a unique set of circumstances to complete them. The optional levels would also be on par with the current greater rift completed or could even be 0-3 levels higher for each map (i.e. If you cleared GR 40, Map 1 would be difficulty 42 and Map 2 would be 43. Or they would potentially be the same difficulty for each map and based on the GR's level). This would give people a reason to debate on which map type fits them best at which difficulty and the skill required. I have developed some map ideas that could get the ball rolling. Having a pool of 50-100 maps with different scenarios would be easy with the depth of the game and existing content, or even just 25-50. This would allow for several random maps to ensure people would need a reason to repeatedly run Greater Rifts to find certain maps or to make sure they have variety. Certain map reasons explained below.
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Some ideas for possible benefits of the bonus level would be the following:
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- Slight bump in legendary drop chance, but not much. Or just another option of content with legendaries.
- Maybe a slight bump in ancient drop chance, but that would be tied to legendaries anyways.
- Rewards top level players for participating in Greater Rifts by potentially rewarding them for their top-level efforts.
- Rewards low level players and gives them a reason to participate in something they generally don’t like to do, Greater Rifts.
- Builds the Greater Rift public game option to help populate it.
- Lower level players don’t have to try and go into such higher greater rifts to upgrade gems when their skill set doesn’t match the difficulty required to level them further. Their progression will come naturally from this option by giving them a reason to test themselves without the only reward being “leveling your gem”.
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Ideas that could potentially be added:
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- If the level were to be based on a tier completion time (clear a 2-minute level in 1m 30s or less) you would have a Kadala-like vendor appear that would allow you to spend X amount of shards, or a different variation of shards, at a much higher rate on items. This vendor has a higher legendary drop chance and thus a better chance at ancients. (Alternatively you can utilize the existing blood shards, but adding another element to the game would be great.)
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- If you finish in X amount of time you get a token to use on a horadric cube-type item that allows you to put in an existing legendary for a chance to roll it to an Ancient item. If you do a bonus objective then you get a second token. (Alternatively you could just re-roll the stats on an existing legendary with this token) Re-rolling an item is permanent, but can be rolled again in a future bonus rift area. The token or chance must be spent at the time of completion. Roll % is based on difficulty level. The higher greater rift you complete, the higher your chances. Perhaps even have each item have a roll % (i.e. a regular SMK would have a lower chance to roll as an Ancient, where an Andariel’s Visage would have a higher chance to roll as an Ancient). This idea can be toned down so that progression would not be so rapid, but not too low as to keep people coming back for more. This could also simply be that you have an option of re-rolling ALL stats on the current item. Say you found a Furnace with extremely low damage and bad rolls, so this great item is not actually useful to you when you hoped it would. This option would allow you to roll the Furnace for better stats. Clear a Greater Rift in time and you get the chance to do a bonus map. Clear the bonus map to receive the extra horadric cube, you get a chance to roll the stats on the Furnace. The difficulty would certainly give people reason to run over and over, but the reward would be worth it.
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- The option at this Kadala-like vendor to receive an item full of crafting materials like a horadric cache that goes in your inventory. This could help supplement people to receive crafting materials. Furthermore, this cache item could include a Ramaladni’s Gift as a rare drop from the cache. Perhaps you have to spend shards on the cache, but repeatedly buying the cache for the chance at a Ramaladni’s gift would be great.
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- Having certain maps drop a class-specific legendary in the future could be an interesting idea. For example: In Rat Race there is a Monk fist weapon that is not a lootable item in other game content. So that when you have the option to choose between 2 maps, you could knowingly “farm” the Rat Race map. This leads to people repeatedly running Greater Rifts so that they have a chance to “farm” just the chance at even getting the Rat Race map. Thus this completes the cycle of having people do bounties > trials > greater rifts. This drop would only be available from completing perhaps the second-tier to receive the bonus chest or it gives it a chance to drop in the regular chest by achieving a certain objective or time limit. Having requirements would give people a reason to run a higher difficulty for a higher drop chance, and also a reason to try and complete the bonus objective on a higher difficulty. Just helps add to the cycle that could now look like: Bounty > Rift > Greater Rift > Bonus Level (w/bonus objective complete). Adding depth to the content while simultaneously keeping simplicity will add to HOURS of continued gameplay. This creates purpose for playing, but hopefully not too in depth. This can be simplified.
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- Back to the previous point, having 2 maps to choose from can give you an option to find a map that fits your playstyle better; one that you feel you have a higher success at completing it. Selecting the option to go to the bonus area could hide the available maps or they could be shown when you select the option before declaring ‘yes’ through a prompt. This can go either way so it’s a surprise which maps you get or you knowingly select the bonus level because you know you have a chance of completing by seeing the maps first.
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- For group play, these maps could be potential winners and losers based on diversity of groups and how the maps play at with a full 4-person group or any combination.
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- Different legendary combinations that have synergy, but doesn't necessarily have to be set pieces, can be found in different maps or game types. Have items that have group synergy (i.e Item A gains X effect when Item B is within Y yards. Item A being a Wizard item and Item B being a Crusader item) this could allow for positive clan interaction and diversity. Different groups could potentially do more damage than something like a necessary Monk-WD Tank combo.
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- Or you can have it so that as long as there are 4 different classes then you receive the 4 person group bonus, so it doesn't have to be specific combos. If you have 2 Demon Hunters, a wizard, and a monk, you only get a 3-person bonus since there are 2 DH, but they each must be wearing the piece of gear or have item in inventory or have certain gem. Legendary gem or something is possible here as well, which gives each person a reason to level it. So long as each person has theirs leveled up, the stronger the gem. Captain Planet effect. By your powers combined… If nothing else, have a default buff that rewards diversity by classes. 5% more damage for each different class perhaps, up to a potential 20% damage buff in bonus areas.
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- Possible solutions to not completing the bonus level would be to have tiers of completion. If after X time passes you miss out on shards or vendor. If Y time passes then you miss out on some option. If it takes any bit longer then you just get a resplendent chest or two, so no matter what happens, as long as you clear the level, you get a resplendent chest or some type of new chest that just has a lot of loot in it. If you complete it quicker, then you still get the chest(s) no matter what. Maybe it's a super chest and if you finish quick enough then you get more than 1, much like finishing a shrine challenge quick enough, as well as the other options. Just could be a reward-based tier depending on completion time. Drop rates would inherently be affected by difficulty level. Can’t have Paragon 700 top-tier people farming level 20 Greater Rifts to win and get multiple chests over and over with the same drop rate.
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- To tie in the chest idea, when you beat the regular Greater Rift, instead of the GR boss dropping items, he could spawn a chest. This chest could be carried over to the next level so that the same drops from the GR Boss would be contained in that chest. If they don’t complete the bonus level then that’s all they get, just the original chest. Clear it in time and you get more rewards or a second chest where you get the same amount of loot that you would get from a rift guardian, but twice. Perhaps this would just be 1.5 as opposed to 2x. This would mean that players could farm greater rifts to improve their chances at clearing higher greater rifts down the road, thus keeping people active in the Greater Rift game type. Simplified: Your chest from the regular Greater Rift boss would be carried over and if you complete a 120 second time-based objective, then a second chest would be available to you.
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- Far-fetched idea would be that a shrine would be placed at the end of the bonus level. This shrine would have a 1h game-time buff that would ONLY be usable in Bounty/Adventure mode and would not be active for Rifts or Greater Rifts. This could be a reason people farm a greater rift before they do bounties or it could just be a supplement that people use for when they finish to go do something different. These could potentially stack if they wanted to do a few G Rifts and then go back to the adventure gameplay.
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- Remember that the bonus level is contingent on completing the Greater Rift in time. No GR completion, no bonus level.
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Please keep in mind that some ideas are explained further in-depth in the video and some are more drawn out here. All ideas could easily be simplified or made into bigger and better ideas. I am using this idea as a start and simply listing every single detail here would be mostly looked over, so while this is a longer post, the idea is far greater.
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Blizzard will never allow new content without some type of lore behind it. It wouldn’t make sense to just add new content without a story. I’m not a huge history buff when it comes to Diablo lore, but perhaps this could be a “flashback” or an alternate reality so that you can justify using similar content with different scenarios. I hope that people who follow the lore much more closely than I do can help create a story behind this idea. For anyone that does make that effort, thank you very much.
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These room ideas are based around a bonus content area that is explained in this post:
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Some of these maps are also featured and explained in the video here: http://youtu.be/kdcsa6knau8 , but explanations are also below.
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There are many more possibilities for maps, but this was a handful to show that many can be created using existing content.
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Bonus room ideas:
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- Royal Rumble: Utilizing the round corner platform on your way to Belial, you could have a large number of monsters that are involved in a battle that you must survive. After every 5 or 10 seconds, a new wave of enemies spawns, thus increasing your need to kill enemies quick enough, or eliminate them. Every 15 or 30 seconds an elite would spawn, so you have to choose how you focus your targets and how you manage your cooldowns or characters. These elites could possibly have the Horde or Illusionist affix, however this may cause frame rate issues and is debatable on how densely you want to pack this area. Kill all enemies before the 2 or 3 minute timer is up and you win an extra chest full of goods similar to the one carried over from the Rift Guardian.
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- Twisted Hell: Utilizes the Tower of the Damned maps in Act 3 where you can only get to the second level by going in a spiral pattern. You could place Pylons strategically in out-of-the-way places. These pylons could automatically spawn an elite and so you’d have to weigh whether the tradeoff would be worth it. Make it to the bottom in the allotted time and you will spawn the second chest. Complete it in a quick enough time and you can spawn the Kadala-like vendor or Horadric Cube idea. You could alternatively have 2 levels so you have to get through one and go to another. It would be a super spiral so that you're technically going deeper but with 2 maps combined. If you went with the 2 map idea, by clearing the first map in time you are able to enter level 2. If not, you get to open the chest carried over from the Rift Guardian. if you clear both levels then you get the bonus chest and other possible scenarios.
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- Rat Race: This involves the EXTREMELY long sewer map. The idea would be that there is a Speed pylon placed at the beginning of the map. You would utilize this to run down the map and kill all enemies in your path. The timer on these pylons can be reduced back down to 30 seconds or even 15 seconds. Every so often there is another pylon. Not utilizing these pylons will make it impossible to clear the map on time, so you would essentially be using the speed pylon permanently if you are able to clear fast enough. The challenge is to be able to balance these correctly to get from pylon to pylon so that you can reach the end in time.
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- Slaughter fields: Have an act 1 map where you fight the little monsters from the beginning of Diablo and they are all boosted health. Small ones may be easy to lose and the idea would be to kill them all before time runs out. They are easy to lose as they tend to run away at times, so this would be the frustrating challenge, but rewarding if you killed them all.
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- Slaughterhouse: Bring back a hidden cows map. This would be super rare and have some type of objective, but just the idea of it having a chance to spawn is nice.
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- The Grid: This is based on the the jail scheme in Act 1. While there are plenty of options here, the idea for this one would be to have a Shrine in each corner of the map that spawns an elite. It’s similar to the current setup in the campaign in that you have to activate each to fight the Warden. Having this to where each Shrine or Pylon activates an elite that you must work your way around to kill. Strategizing your movement throughout the grid would be important and ultimately lead you back to the middle to fight a strong elite or even a buffed Warden himself.
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- Angels vs Demons: Utilizing the already existing map in Act IV, you could utilize the protectors already in place and create an even more epic battle. Since they are already melee then you could use that, but what if as a melee class they would be more effective at range and you could make an option before you start the map to choose what type you want to fight beside you: ranged or melee, much like choosing a follower. You could possibly also use your banner as a rallying point for your Angels that are following you and can only be used once every 15 seconds. This could potentially make or break you as they would help defend when you were in trouble. In a group, only the leader of the group would have control over banner placement, so picking a good leader would be important.
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- Royal Rumble Part 2: Diablo’s final room as a battleground and have waves of enemies being spawned. Could do pillars of flame that come out of the ground or different skills that diablo casts like jailing with bones or cracks in the ground. The animations are already in place and just have waves come in while those are going off. Next wave comes in on a timer, so if you haven't cleared out existing enemies, then eventually you will be overwhelmed. If you run out of time then they all disappear so that people can finish the task. This could be a 2 minute blitz, perhaps.
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- Jigsaw Puzzle: This utilizes the side areas in Act IV. By moving about on the different platforms, it requires movement and strategy and planning. You could essentially add any type of monster type here. A challenge for melee more than range, but there has to be maps for different classes to excel. Perhaps you go through multiple levels so that when you finish one a portal opens to the second one. These are small and perhaps multiples are needed or you get bonuses based on how many puzzles you can complete. Complete 2 and you get a bonus chest or some other proposed idea. People need challenges and frustrations to try again and again. It’s how it works.
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- Desert Storm: Using the sands of Act 2, you could create a sand storm to come through and disrupt view and what you can see. This sand storm could also potentially slow your movement and attack speed considerably, so movement would become a priority. You could reuse the tornadoes from other areas of the game and have them spawn at a greater rate, thus keeping you on your toes to kill all enemies on time or faster for a bonus reward.
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- Storming the Fort: This would make use of Rakkis crossing on the way up to the Siegebreaker area. This is already opened up in rifts, so you could put a story behind it. Perhaps you start where the broken caravan area is closer to the end of the bridge. You start here and there would be an epic battle going on in the large, round area at the end where Siegebreaker is. Perhaps the battle is simply fighting many monsters and Siegebreaker simultaneously while there are several NPC guards that have joined the fray. You would have to defeat in a certain amount of time to receive the bonus reward.
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- Mind Your Manors: Starting from the gate of Leoric’s Manor, you have to go in and kill everything in site and also “heal” or “cleanse” every dead body on the ground. There are many already in the game and sometimes they are hard to see. By doing both at the same time, you would have to clear the entire area in a certain amount of time. By clearing in a fast enough time you open the door to inside the manor. Once inside, the idea is to clear out everything in site and when you “cleanse” the dead body in the final room, he turns into a purple elite that must be destroyed in a fast enough time frame. You could even have him alive before he dies to show how he died, whether it be to an elite or some type of mini-boss.
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- King of the Hill: Requires you to fight your way UP a map and at the end you have to hit the G key to place your banner. Brief explanation, but so many possibilities for maps here.
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- Going to the Chapel And…: Fighting your way OUT of the chapel to stop a male and female elite character who just got married and are trying to get on the ferry to go to Tristram to wreak havoc. The idea is you have to fight your way up to the boat in time in order to stop them from leaving. A 2-minute time frame seems reasonable and the elites could have special affixes like “Horde”, which could be perceived as the “wedding party” trying to keep you away.
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- Uber maps with different Uber bosses. Can locate them out in the main world or areas that may be difficult to play like a cave area. Old school uber Diablo style. Any type of Uber would be fun.
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While there are many more ideas I have, I wanted to put something together to at get the ball rolling. Some ideas are also explained better in the video.
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What ideas do you have for bonus levels? Please share below!
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Love the ideas and creativity. Diablo 3 has endless game content that could be brought to the game. Sadly we are only stuck with..Bounties, Ubers, rifts and Grifts. Which would be okay, but they only offer one objective and really not much depth to them at all. I have said it many times, Blizzard does comes up with some great ideas, but then they leave them simple and plain. With no depth whatsoever. Latest Example of that is Ancient Items.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/russell3773-1387/hero/22070364
Ancient items: clearly not a hard thing to program, does not take a lot of time at all -> players have more things to farm, look forward to. Win-win for Blizzard.
The whole expansion pack, but let's say Rifts in general: they consist of the zones and mobs that have been in the game since release (12th May, 2012), not a hard thing to make, does not take that much time either, win-win for Blizz again.
Paragon level: Now I genuinely believe nobody would play this game if it wasn't for paragon levels. Clearly didn't take a lot of time to figure it out and implement it, win-win.
For me these are just not exciting things at all. I have no idea how they can be for someone, imagine unique events for unique bosses, zones, items that can only be obtainable in those time frames, etc... What are paragon points? You get .1 cc! Such wow!
I can go on all day long, they are just trying to change/add little things to the game, nothing new. I come back to play this game from time to time but I get bored of it in a week. This really could have been the best ARPG ever but it failed on every level. I have absolutely no idea how can people play this game every day for hours when there is nothing competitive about it, nothing new, you get geared for T6 in a couple of days and that's it. You are a min-maxer? Cool, by the time you'd get perfect hellfire amulets, ancient pieces, etc, there is a new expansion or another set of "Antique" Legendaries with 30% increased stats of those Ancient ones. I'm not hating, just saying, the community have had so many amazing ideas that would make players stick to this game and have something different to do or look forward to every day but the truth is none of them will be added to the game cause they just simply don't care or don't want to/have the time to add these things.