I thought of this a while ago before they announced the new density changes and had posted it on the official forums, but never got much attention. While I think the density changes are a great start, I feel they need new systems to make the game feel less grindy. I'd love to see what others think about this type of system.
Here's what I wrote:
After being fairly bored with running act 3 constantly, I decided to make a new character and play through the game again. I found that I actually really enjoyed finding random events and dungeons, but was very disappointed when there was little to no reward when finishing them. Often they have fewer monsters than in the static dungeons and provide next to nothing for loot at the end.
I thought of a system that will help get players back into exploring the world rather then running super efficient farming runs.
This would work similar to Nephalem Valor and would be fine along side it without causing that system have issues as it would only effect bosses and chests.
The key feature:
Nephalem Exploration(NE)
- Grants a higher chance of dropping better quality loot from bosses. At 5 stacks(or a certain stack amount increases the chance up to 5)
- Causes chests to have a higher chance of better loot
I have two different ideas for awarding the buff:
- Finding and completing a random dungeon/cave
OR
- Finding and killing all of the Rare/Elite packs within a random dungeon/cave.
This helps exploration because players will be looking for chests and random dungeons and actually be excited to open them instead of passing them by to speed up their farm.
For bosses, it gives players a better reason to want to kill bosses, and also removes the problem of having players run directly to a boss(because you need the stacks of NE first)
This should be balanced to a point where players who enjoy farming routes more will still feel like farming that way is worth while. But for players who want to explore the game more and play through different acts will be rewarded for doing so.
Additional ideas to make this system more rounded and enjoyable for players:
-Playing through an act from starting quest to end boss of that act will give the boss a 25%/50%(whatever) chance to drop a legendary or high quality rare. (only if the player has 5 stacks of NE by that point)
-Completing a random world quest will rewards players a random buff similar to shrines but with a longer duration. Alternatively random quests award a much higher amount of gold or chance to drop rares.
-Random dungeons/caves, include a chest at the end that has a better chance to drop high quality rare/legendairies(better then resplendent). Think dungeons in Skyrim, You always want to open that last chest.
This type of system can be combined with countless other systems to make a much more enjoyable item hunt. One idea cause be to include much better quality craftable items or class specific legendary crafting items. These items need special materials (other than the normal dropped mats) that will only drop from chests/containers/bookshelves only when you have max stacks of NE, or whatever. The possibilities are endless.
This is basically an expanded version of NV but works in tandem with NV. It doesn't work on normal monsters or rare/elite packs, only on chests and bosses.
Hopefully somebody enjoys reading this, let me know about your thoughts.
I may go a little off topic with my post so bear with me hehe.
First, I think NV should be uncapped. This would then basically accomplish what you have suggested. It would encourage dungeon exploration and chest hunting.
Secondly, attach specific legendary items to bosses. This would included bosses like Azmodan, The Skeleton king, etc. Along with adding them to big name bosses, add them to event bosses such as Sardar (Act II event for those who don't know).
With these two changes you could really create a lot of runs to this game and add a lot of unique elements.
Right now it's farm for exp, farm for keys, farm for organs. With some changes it could be farm (insert boss here run) and full act clears. With incentives to kill people such as Diablo, who would have thought.
I really don't think this game lacks "end game", it just lacks proper design to encourage end game. Whoever thought farming elites was end game should be out of a job (Oh wait,......)
To the original poster, most the dungeons (if you played the new patch on test realm) have all got a work over with mob density, actually makes me want to enter these places now as part of my run for xp/loot. Whilst the idea of "better" items from chests sounds ok, remember that if you make the legendaries fall like candy, the game becomes pointless and people will then complain how easy it is, causing the game to run the "WoW" cycle. That is, buff gear - game becomes to easy, buff boss - game is to hard QQ, buff gear again - game becomes too easy, buff boss again - more QQ. <<multiply that by 50 and that's where WoW is atm, i dont wish the same for D3 as i still enjoy investing my time into the game as it's still a challenge on Hardcore.
I do agree that having legendaries dropping too often is not a good thing. But I also think chests should be an interesting thing to run into, and I think having more incentive to go into a random dungeon then having more monsters to grind is not exactly what is needed.
Its either, grind monsters on a specific route or grind monsters as you go through dungeons.
While I understand that grinding monsters is basically the point of the game. They can easily make the game have a bit more then just that by adding some changes to the loot system.
Opening a chest yields the same chance to drop a rare and up item as killing a zombie. So I most likely won't be interested in opening the chest as it takes longer for me to run to the chest, open it and wait for the spray of items to appear then just moving on to the next group of monsters.
As I said something like this would work well once they lower the drop chance of everything. Otherwise it probably wouldn't work.
Secondly, attach specific legendary items to bosses. This would included bosses like Azmodan, The Skeleton king, etc. Along with adding them to big name bosses, add them to event bosses such as Sardar (Act II event for those who don't know).
I'm like 99% sure this was confirmed as a change they WILL be making. If memory serves me right, Blizz even gave the example of attaching the Butcher Sickle to the Butcher specifically etc etc...
Secondly, assigning "legendaries" to bosses will just mean that when i wake up in the morning, decide to play D3, google what boss has what i want, then farm that .... no thanks.
As I said above, this will most likely be implemented. They had a similar dynamic in D2, where certain bosses had a better chance to drop X.....if I remember correctly (I may be wrong) Tyrael's Might only dropped from 1 or 2 bosses (Baal and Pindle?).
I found the mentioning of this and it wasn't as solid as I thought. Though they did term it as "being discussed", I'd have to feel as though they wouldn't put this out there unless it was under serious consideration. http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/8953696/
One idea that we have discussed is “targeted Legendaries,” where named NPCs have an increased chance of dropping specific legendary items. For example, The Butcher could have an increased chance of dropping The Butcher's Carver.
Another idea is that we introduce a system that will help alleviate some of the bad randomness players encounter by ensuring that at least some of the Rare and Legendary items you find will be something good for your class.
We've also discussed allowing bosses the first time you kill them in each difficulty to have a guaranteed chance to drop a Legendary.
I just think its poor game design to have elites be end game content. Killing ubers is even pointless after you craft a decent enough Hellfire. Why can't the ubers drop good gear? Why not a set items from ubers?
While my solutions may not be the best offered, I am not a game designer, I am only a player. My opinion is that this game revolves around killings elites. Want a key? Go farm 5 elites. Want to kill an uber? Better kill 5 elites first. Want a chance at a legendary? Go find elites.
There is NOTHING wrong with having elites. I don't want them taken out. I don't want them to not drop legendary items. I don't want them nerfed. My point really is that there is more things to do in this game and the currently design allows players to easily neglect killing any boss or doing any event or going into any dungeon. Yes I know events give NV but they are pointless after 5. Because they don't drop loot. Which is why I'm bringing these points up, while they aren't exactly on topic they address the concern that the OP has.
Sure someone may have gotten a legendary off an uber once, or skeleton king once, you can link me 10 youtube videos of it, go ahead. Of all the gear you found how much has been from ubers or bosses? Hell I get just as many legendary items from trash mobs than I do actual elites.
I just think its poor game design to have elites be end game content. Killing ubers is even pointless after you craft a decent enough Hellfire. Why can't the ubers drop good gear? Why not a set items from ubers?
I think Elites are a good thing in the game. If they weren't there it'd just be mindlessly killing the same trash mobs over and over with no deviation. Monsters sometimes having threatening abilities gives the chance of death. If all the monsters were just normal nobody would ever die or even be threatened. That being said, I don't think they are meant to be the only thing players are farming. Once I get 5 stacks of NV I don't really care if I'm killing trash or elites, they all drop legendaries.
I think they should take elites to a further level and have stronger random monsters that are similar to bosses in the field. Say they changed the unique monsters to have the health and abilities that a boss would have, and also yield better rewards to compensate. That would be pretty cool.
What I was trying to do with the original thread is to give an idea that will add more to the game then just killing the same monsters in the same place all the time.
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Here's what I wrote:
After being fairly bored with running act 3 constantly, I decided to make a new character and play through the game again. I found that I actually really enjoyed finding random events and dungeons, but was very disappointed when there was little to no reward when finishing them. Often they have fewer monsters than in the static dungeons and provide next to nothing for loot at the end.
I thought of a system that will help get players back into exploring the world rather then running super efficient farming runs.
This would work similar to Nephalem Valor and would be fine along side it without causing that system have issues as it would only effect bosses and chests.
The key feature:
Nephalem Exploration(NE)
- Grants a higher chance of dropping better quality loot from bosses. At 5 stacks(or a certain stack amount increases the chance up to 5)
- Causes chests to have a higher chance of better loot
I have two different ideas for awarding the buff:
- Finding and completing a random dungeon/cave
OR
- Finding and killing all of the Rare/Elite packs within a random dungeon/cave.
This helps exploration because players will be looking for chests and random dungeons and actually be excited to open them instead of passing them by to speed up their farm.
For bosses, it gives players a better reason to want to kill bosses, and also removes the problem of having players run directly to a boss(because you need the stacks of NE first)
This should be balanced to a point where players who enjoy farming routes more will still feel like farming that way is worth while. But for players who want to explore the game more and play through different acts will be rewarded for doing so.
Additional ideas to make this system more rounded and enjoyable for players:
-Playing through an act from starting quest to end boss of that act will give the boss a 25%/50%(whatever) chance to drop a legendary or high quality rare. (only if the player has 5 stacks of NE by that point)
-Completing a random world quest will rewards players a random buff similar to shrines but with a longer duration. Alternatively random quests award a much higher amount of gold or chance to drop rares.
-Random dungeons/caves, include a chest at the end that has a better chance to drop high quality rare/legendairies(better then resplendent). Think dungeons in Skyrim, You always want to open that last chest.
This type of system can be combined with countless other systems to make a much more enjoyable item hunt. One idea cause be to include much better quality craftable items or class specific legendary crafting items. These items need special materials (other than the normal dropped mats) that will only drop from chests/containers/bookshelves only when you have max stacks of NE, or whatever. The possibilities are endless.
This is basically an expanded version of NV but works in tandem with NV. It doesn't work on normal monsters or rare/elite packs, only on chests and bosses.
Hopefully somebody enjoys reading this, let me know about your thoughts.
First, I think NV should be uncapped. This would then basically accomplish what you have suggested. It would encourage dungeon exploration and chest hunting.
Secondly, attach specific legendary items to bosses. This would included bosses like Azmodan, The Skeleton king, etc. Along with adding them to big name bosses, add them to event bosses such as Sardar (Act II event for those who don't know).
With these two changes you could really create a lot of runs to this game and add a lot of unique elements.
Right now it's farm for exp, farm for keys, farm for organs. With some changes it could be farm (insert boss here run) and full act clears. With incentives to kill people such as Diablo, who would have thought.
I really don't think this game lacks "end game", it just lacks proper design to encourage end game. Whoever thought farming elites was end game should be out of a job (Oh wait,......)
I do agree that having legendaries dropping too often is not a good thing. But I also think chests should be an interesting thing to run into, and I think having more incentive to go into a random dungeon then having more monsters to grind is not exactly what is needed.
Its either, grind monsters on a specific route or grind monsters as you go through dungeons.
While I understand that grinding monsters is basically the point of the game. They can easily make the game have a bit more then just that by adding some changes to the loot system.
Opening a chest yields the same chance to drop a rare and up item as killing a zombie. So I most likely won't be interested in opening the chest as it takes longer for me to run to the chest, open it and wait for the spray of items to appear then just moving on to the next group of monsters.
As I said something like this would work well once they lower the drop chance of everything. Otherwise it probably wouldn't work.
I'm like 99% sure this was confirmed as a change they WILL be making. If memory serves me right, Blizz even gave the example of attaching the Butcher Sickle to the Butcher specifically etc etc...
Can anyone confirm?
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As I said above, this will most likely be implemented. They had a similar dynamic in D2, where certain bosses had a better chance to drop X.....if I remember correctly (I may be wrong) Tyrael's Might only dropped from 1 or 2 bosses (Baal and Pindle?).
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/8953696/
BurningRope#1322 (US~HC) Request an invite to the official (NA) <dfans> Clan
While my solutions may not be the best offered, I am not a game designer, I am only a player. My opinion is that this game revolves around killings elites. Want a key? Go farm 5 elites. Want to kill an uber? Better kill 5 elites first. Want a chance at a legendary? Go find elites.
There is NOTHING wrong with having elites. I don't want them taken out. I don't want them to not drop legendary items. I don't want them nerfed. My point really is that there is more things to do in this game and the currently design allows players to easily neglect killing any boss or doing any event or going into any dungeon. Yes I know events give NV but they are pointless after 5. Because they don't drop loot. Which is why I'm bringing these points up, while they aren't exactly on topic they address the concern that the OP has.
Sure someone may have gotten a legendary off an uber once, or skeleton king once, you can link me 10 youtube videos of it, go ahead. Of all the gear you found how much has been from ubers or bosses? Hell I get just as many legendary items from trash mobs than I do actual elites.
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I think Elites are a good thing in the game. If they weren't there it'd just be mindlessly killing the same trash mobs over and over with no deviation. Monsters sometimes having threatening abilities gives the chance of death. If all the monsters were just normal nobody would ever die or even be threatened. That being said, I don't think they are meant to be the only thing players are farming. Once I get 5 stacks of NV I don't really care if I'm killing trash or elites, they all drop legendaries.
I think they should take elites to a further level and have stronger random monsters that are similar to bosses in the field. Say they changed the unique monsters to have the health and abilities that a boss would have, and also yield better rewards to compensate. That would be pretty cool.
What I was trying to do with the original thread is to give an idea that will add more to the game then just killing the same monsters in the same place all the time.