I agree with your post when it comes to Diablo 3. This game doesn't have an end-game that is even remotely different from the mid-game.
Your attitude, however, is something I have a problem with. I might be wrong, but I got the impression that you don't think this game needs an end-game (and, after seeing your edit, I was correct). Every game needs an end-game. Not having an end-game is the #1 problem I see in Diablo 3. Farming is extremely boring and the endless-farming style of this game is why only the "hardcore" remain outside of major patches.
Endless farming isn't fun. There needs to be an objective outside of "get better gear to do more of the same boring stuff."
This ^. Pretty much. Having objectives to work towards parallel to farming can make a huge difference in replay-ability and make the game not stale. Having different builds is interesting because you can approach each objective differently so it becomes fresh even when you've completed it before. The way the current game is, if you do not have a certain setup, you cannot compete at the highest levels of play because the people at the highest levels of play have optimized each class to do said highest levels of play. Because of this, we know exactly what we need to do to get there. Having every build viable for end game is also not healthy because you then make gear meaningless because why strive for something exceptional when anything will do? By implementing an end game that is not randomly generated dungeons, people can accomplish set goals without falling off (provided they actually have good builds.) Just my thought on it.
That's why I hope we're here on the forums in such a thread; to discuss, and hopefully be noticed, on how this game can bring value to it's players. Which helps everyone out. The players enjoy the game, and also support Blizzard and gives them a solid understanding of what their fans want in future titles.
As for PoE, they did a LOT of things right. Like you said, the currency system is great. It is thought out, not complicated, and engaging. Along with the currency system, is the crafting system which is incredible. Converting specific currencies into crafting actions is genius; it throws out the middle man (gold) and lets you go ham on how you want to craft almost any item in the game, from damage types, number of sockets, type of sockets, stats... anything. It makes every item in the game have value, even common loot because with the right currency item and right piece of equipment, you could roll a chance for a specific legendary. (Example: I remember trying to find a specific legendary item to help boost my lightning witches damage. I found out that if I found very specific pair of common gloves, I could use an orb of chance for a chance to convert it into the exact legendary I needed.) An item I felt was mundane became very important to me and I found myself not just digging through piles of loot (actually sitting there and reading through piles of loot) but finding which areas were more likely to drop the said item. It felt good hunting for it and even better after I got it.
It's funny seeing people claim that "ARPGs don't have an endgame" and "That's just not what this game is about" when Diablo 3 DID have a very strictly defined endgame at one point. It was called Inferno, and it was exactly what you'd expect out of an endgame: brutally difficult for most people, with really good rewards if you could clear it efficiently. Then a bunch of people complained, and it got nerfed into the ground to the point where Blizzard felt comfortable removing it entirely, since it no longer served its original purpose (you know, actual challenge). Those same people now complain about how the game feels "empty" and "boring".
Moral of the story? Most people don't actually know what they want. I wish Blizzard would go back to doing their own thing without worrying about focus testing. It resulted in better games.
I agree completely. I remember my friends playing inferno and talking about how crazy hard it was. I jumped on reaper of souls after all the changes so I never had the pleasure.
Hows Gr100 for endgame? At least 50 at this point in the game (solo)
Greater Rits are more akin to scoreboards on an arcade game than leaderboards. They serve basically no purpose for improving your character, and are purely optional.
While challenge is an important part of endgame, I make the distinction that a proper endgame has to have interlocking systems of progression and challenge. If your "endgame" content offers the same drops as everywhere else, it's not much of an endgame. Likewise, an infinitely scaling statistical system is more of a curiosity and time-waster than a structured challenge.
While challenge is an important part of endgame, I make the distinction that a proper endgame has to have interlocking systems of progression and challenge. If your "endgame" content offers the same drops as everywhere else, it's not much of an endgame. Likewise, an infinitely scaling statistical system is more of a curiosity and time-waster than a structured challenge.
Greater Rifts are almost offensive to me as "content."
They are rifts... with a timer... and infinite scaling. It's just not my cup of tea in terms of "something I'd like to do forever and ever into the future" which means, from my perspective, it's not really "endgame." I have come to expect Blizzard to be innovative and think outside the box, and Greater Rifts don't feel like any thinking, let alone thinking outside of the box, ever happened during the development process. They just seem like panem et circences - stuff to keep us entertained enough that we don't realize how crappy the stuff we have is.
I would honestly prefer if the "leaderboards" amounted to who could clear T6 rifts fastest and not who could manage to ninja-click their way through the most one-shot mechanics. I'm just not into such binary challenges. If you fuck up and misclick at any time it's over. To me that sounds more like a bullet hell game than an ARPG, and I guess that's what fundamentally has held me back from really enjoying 2.1. The "challenge" seems to be something that really isn't appropriate to an ARPG. It seems misguided and off-target.
Also, I hate that Blizz overlooked the single player disadvantages in this regard when they fixed rift keystones to require one (and only one!) per player. Why do 4 players get 4 amulets for the price of 1?
Because Josh and friends really seem to think that there is one "best" way to play the game and anyone who doesn't follow that exact mold is doing it wrong and has no business playing the game. In addition to Hellfire Rings/Amulets, it's plenty obvious that the only "right" way to level your legendary gems is in co-op games. Why? Because the scaling between solo and co-op isn't even close to right. Things like this SHOULD be plenty apparent and should be fixed - there's no reason that co-op players should be able to get more ranks on their gems than a solo player. Then again, this is also a testament to how ass-backwards the current gem leveling paradigm is. It shouldn't have anything to do with what GR level you're clearing. This was echoed by almost EVERYONE during the beta.
Well, while the build diversity in D2 was considered better because the low difficulty of the game allowed you to stomp anything anway, I wouldn't want that back. In D3 there are plenty of opportunities to create such exotic characters, you just don't get to excel in grifts with them. Just like you don't bring a stock car to a Formula 1 race. Also, even in D2 you could very well get alienated if you didn't bring your Java/Hammerdin/Smiter. Now the addition of a game mode that enables players who like efficiency to test their limits is a good move. It has some flaws, but it doesn't hinder anyone playing their melee Wizards in t6 and below.
If they removed the legendary gem ranking up from Greater Rifts, then this problem would *mostly* rectify itself as Greater Rifts would basically be for ePeen only.
So long as Greater Rifts have actual rewards (in this case, more powerful legendary gems) then the issue that they stifle diversity matters. It's an absurdly simple fix, though. Which makes me wonder why they went with the LEAST-FAVORITE method for leveling legendary gems among the community. Tying gem progression to Greater Rift level is just so bad and creates far more problems than it solves.
Just give us an xp-based system. Separate legendary gem progression from Greater Rifts. If you do that then suddenly trials are so very easily removed because it doesn't matter one goddamned bit if you can "spam" high-level Greater Rifts and you've killed two major problems with one, very straightforward, change.
Diablo 3 doesn't have end game. This is bullshit game. Same legendaries with 4 affixex 2 stat + 2 random roll. Same rift's, super easy get to legendaries, casual gameplay, same builds etc.. Diablo 2 was much better variable items, intresting gameplay, has trade, intresting find items. Path of exile successor Diablo 2 with true end game content.
I would actually like to switch the topic at this point if we can. We now know that there are people that do feel there is no "end game." Let's say that someone that could potentially could influence the direction of D3 sees this. I'd want them to see some ideas on what direction they could take this to fix the problem. I have an idea or two, but I'm sure plenty of people could give better input than myself as they've probably played way longer than I have.
My idea is to assign tiers to all items (and future ones) that prohibit them from dropping below a certain torment difficulty. By gauging item strengths, we can make players work for their gear outside of RNG. It's really distressing that a game that is designed around loot and the progression of getting stronger to get better loot, doesn't actually require you to get any stronger to get said loot. Hitting Torment 1 unlocks access to all items (aside from bounties... which the legendaries can drop in normal which is also silly) defeats the point of working towards the higher difficulties. Yes the drop rate goes up, that does not change the fact that in theory, a player through pure luck and lack of skill can get end game gear. As a gamer in general, I find that a little upsetting.
As players begin to round out gear in T1, they will start to move into T2 and have incredible difficulty. However if they persist and use the mechanics they have worked on all this time, they could net a legendary exclusive to T2 and under. This could help tip the scales to let them work through T2 comfortably. Thy round out their build and work towards T3. Etc, etc.
My other idea involves the crafting system and allows a complete revamp of how materials interact with items: By assigning multiple affixes to crafting materials that already exist (such as... "this item has a chance to imbue x life on hit, or x life %, or life regen"), players can craft white items into blue items, then to yellow items as they imbue more affixes. They can't reroll affixes but can improve existing affixes for a hefty price and materials. Everyone seems hurt on "the hunt" for the perfect item, and by limiting the improvement per material to a minimum (one material improves a statistic by 1-2), the hunt will be not only on for the next big drop, but specific materials that could "make" your next big drop. By also assigning better drop rates to specific creatures and/or types, players will have goals that they can set to gather materials in general. I believe the last unique material system was boring because it was always a boss that dropped the legendary crafting material which made it repetitive because you know exactly where to go. By assigning it to monster types, players can explore the world but keep eyes out for specific elites/mobs that drop what they are looking for creating a new experience that sends them place to place in a controlled setting dictated by their desires. Just throwing out some ideas.
It's funny seeing people claim that "ARPGs don't have an endgame" and "That's just not what this game is about" when Diablo 3 DID have a very strictly defined endgame at one point. It was called Inferno, and it was exactly what you'd expect out of an endgame: brutally difficult for most people, with really good rewards if you could clear it efficiently. Then a bunch of people complained, and it got nerfed into the ground to the point where Blizzard felt comfortable removing it entirely, since it no longer served its original purpose (you know, actual challenge). Those same people now complain about how the game feels "empty" and "boring".
Moral of the story? Most people don't actually know what they want. I wish Blizzard would go back to doing their own thing without worrying about focus testing. It resulted in better games.
Inferno wasn't end-game. It was a higher difficulty level. That's all. People complained about it because it wasn't balanced in the slightest. I agree that it was a lot of fun, but it got old knowing that my Demon Hunter would never survive getting hit by a boss or elite. I played through the entire game in one-shot mode and it was fun until I had finally killed Diablo and now had to farm gear in one-shot mode.
End-game implies that you're doing something different now that you've reached the "end" of the game. Doing the exact same content on a higher difficulty is not end-game.
Hows Gr100 for endgame? At least 50 at this point in the game (solo)
Greater Rits are more akin to scoreboards on an arcade game than leaderboards. They serve basically no purpose for improving your character, and are purely optional.
While challenge is an important part of endgame, I make the distinction that a proper endgame has to have interlocking systems of progression and challenge. If your "endgame" content offers the same drops as everywhere else, it's not much of an endgame. Likewise, an infinitely scaling statistical system is more of a curiosity and time-waster than a structured challenge.
Greater Rifts serve a direct purpose in improving your character -- Legendary Gems.
I would actually like to switch the topic at this point if we can. We now know that there are people that do feel there is no "end game." Let's say that someone that could potentially could influence the direction of D3 sees this. I'd want them to see some ideas on what direction they could take this to fix the problem. I have an idea or two, but I'm sure plenty of people could give better input than myself as they've probably played way longer than I have. ...
edit: Sorry for the triple post.
I like the idea of multiple tiers of gear, but I'd want a pretty solid difficulty revamp if that's the direction they're going to go. I'd also like for there to be more source-specific legendaries. Like how some legendaries are restricted to caches -- have other legendaries restricted to other modes, or to bosses, or to chests, etc.
I came up with a mode that I'd like to see in Diablo 3. I'm going to copy and paste my reddit post.
One of the most common complaints I see about the Greater Rift system is how random it is. It's supposed to be competitive and, yet, no rift is the same... so, I was thinking... what kind of activity is easily measured and still competitive? BOSS RUSH!!!
What Is It?
Boss rush mode is a fairly common mode in action games where the player faces off against (most) every boss in the game, one after another, to see how many of them they can beat and how fast they can do so.
How Would It Work In Diablo?
Picture a large, specially designed room. Probably somewhat circular, though with little nubs along the edge. Plenty of room to move around in and pick strategic positions. Upon entering this room, you could click an object (or button) to start the Boss Rush mode. After a short countdown, the first boss appears and you kill it. Upon death, the next boss spawns. And so on until you finally kill Malthael. At this point, the bosses would start cycling through again, more powerful than the last time.
Okay, But Can't We Spice It Up a Bit?
Absolutely! You remember those little nubs around the edge of the room that I mentioned earlier? Well, let's put orbs there that will allow players to spawn the bosses early. That way, those of us that can kill each of the first wave's bosses in seconds can just spawn all the bosses right away and clear the first wave, bringing down our overall time.
Also, there could be specially placed buff shrines (non-random) that will recharge after a certain amount of bosses are killed, allowing for more potential strategies.
Let's Go Over Some Specifics
How would we start this mode? Well, people are starting to get bored of Greater Rifts already, so we could either add another drop to the final Greater Rift Guardian (meaning, you get it when you either choose not to upgrade your rift key or when you fail the timer). Alternatively, the Keystone of Trials could be used as the key.
Difficulty? Simply set the difficulty based on the game's difficulty level. Torment 6 players automatically start with Torment 6 bosses. Naturally, the only really interesting leaderboard for this would be the Torment 6 leaderboard, but other difficulties would still be present for those that can't handle Torment 6. Boss difficulty would obviously increase with new set of bosses.
Rewards
There would be three obvious sets of rewards for this mode...
Leaderboards: Fastest wave clears, most waves cleared. This way you could either choose to go for speed or for longevity.
Loot: Players would obviously expect some kind of loot reward, so why not add some more legendaries to be dropped specifically from this game mode? Utility items like Ramalandi's Gift could also be included. Perhaps the player would be guaranteed one item that would add a specific affix to a piece of gear for a specific slot. Say, you get an item that adds an All Resist roll to a ring, or an item that adds Cooldown Reduction to your helm. There are any number of potentially appealing items that could be made specifically to drop in this game mode.
Achievements: 'Nuff said.
Wouldn't This Just Get Boring, Eventually?
Much like everything else in Diablo 3, yes, repeated use of this game mode is bound to get boring after so long. But now that we've got this system in place, what's to stop Blizzard from updating it on a regular basis?
Tired of Boss Rush mode? We'll add a new challenge! New bosses! Bosses from Diablo 2! Famous Nephelem of legend to test yourself against! There could be the Set Item challenge, where you fight bosses based upon the set items in the game. Finally, you get to fight Bul-Kathos, Natalya, Roland, and everyone else! Danger mode, where you have to actively avoid non-random (or random, though I'm trying to avoid that with this idea) environmental affects that limit your ability to navigate the room while fighting bosses. Really, there's no end to the new challenges they could come up with.
Tell Me What YOU Think
I think that this could be a great addition to the game... how about you? Comments, concerns, critiques? Go for it!
One last thing:
This just occurred to me, but Diablo 3 could really use something like the Brawler's Guild from WoW. For those that don't know, Brawler's Guild is an Arena where you fight progressively more difficult and unique bosses.
I am really digging the Boss mode idea! I'm also agreeing with source specific legendaries. It falls in line pretty well with what I'd want out of the game.
Tying gem progression to Greater Rift level is just so bad and creates far more problems than it solves.
Just give us an xp-based system. Separate legendary gem progression from Greater Rifts. If you do that then suddenly trials are so very easily removed because it doesn't matter one goddamned bit if you can "spam" high-level Greater Rifts and you've killed two major problems with one, very straightforward, change.
I could live with a simple bandaid fix that would give us both, the gem upgrades and the higher keystone after a succesful grift. I don't see any reason why not, picking the higher keystone mostly feels like the worse deal. Haven't done that in a long time. So (to me) there's no reward for beating the lvl.
However an xp-system would be better, (almost) no doubt. But that's from PoE, so we can't have that. Remember the time when Blizzard's greatest strength was to combine every good aspect of every similar game into their product?
I've actually been curious about this for a while; do you all feel like Diablo 3 has an actual end game right now? Currently I feel like I'm just going to the casino to get loot. When I get enough good loot, I pack up, move to a high rollin' casino (torment II-VI) and try again. Maybe some don't feel the same way as I do, but an end game to me has always been the hardest challenge with precise detail on what you'll be facing.
"That last dungeon of that game, man it was hard. I had to go back and farm to even put up a fight."
"The final boss is just cruel. We party wiped like 5 times before we beat it."
I miss that feeling. T-T
First of all we're only discussing "end game" here because of WoW. Even the quotes you've used are WoW flavoured lol
Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 both had things for you to do with all the gear you've acquired. That's what made people to continue playing the game for so long. (that and d2 put out and amazing patch back in the day that was almost like an additional expansion, but that's another story).
Diablo 3 doesn't have this. It's RNG layered upon RNG upon RNG upon RNG. It gives the illusion of "depth" or the "end game" you're asking for. RNG is the ONLY thing keeping you playing this game for the long run, or it will be the reason you stop playing it.
I've actually been curious about this for a while; do you all feel like Diablo 3 has an actual end game right now? Currently I feel like I'm just going to the casino to get loot. When I get enough good loot, I pack up, move to a high rollin' casino (torment II-VI) and try again. Maybe some don't feel the same way as I do, but an end game to me has always been the hardest challenge with precise detail on what you'll be facing.
"That last dungeon of that game, man it was hard. I had to go back and farm to even put up a fight."
"The final boss is just cruel. We party wiped like 5 times before we beat it."
I miss that feeling. T-T
First of all we're only discussing "end game" here because of WoW. Even the quotes you've used are WoW flavoured lol
Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 both had things for you to do with all the gear you've acquired. That's what made people to continue playing the game for so long. (that and d2 put out and amazing patch back in the day that was almost like an additional expansion, but that's another story).
Diablo 3 doesn't have this. It's RNG layered upon RNG upon RNG upon RNG. It gives the illusion of "depth" or the "end game" you're asking for. RNG is the ONLY thing keeping you playing this game for the long run, or it will be the reason you stop playing it.
D2 endgame was just as, if not more, RNG-centric as D3.
I've actually been curious about this for a while; do you all feel like Diablo 3 has an actual end game right now? Currently I feel like I'm just going to the casino to get loot. When I get enough good loot, I pack up, move to a high rollin' casino (torment II-VI) and try again. Maybe some don't feel the same way as I do, but an end game to me has always been the hardest challenge with precise detail on what you'll be facing.
"That last dungeon of that game, man it was hard. I had to go back and farm to even put up a fight."
"The final boss is just cruel. We party wiped like 5 times before we beat it."
I miss that feeling. T-T
First of all we're only discussing "end game" here because of WoW. Even the quotes you've used are WoW flavoured lol
Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 both had things for you to do with all the gear you've acquired. That's what made people to continue playing the game for so long. (that and d2 put out and amazing patch back in the day that was almost like an additional expansion, but that's another story).
Diablo 3 doesn't have this. It's RNG layered upon RNG upon RNG upon RNG. It gives the illusion of "depth" or the "end game" you're asking for. RNG is the ONLY thing keeping you playing this game for the long run, or it will be the reason you stop playing it.
D2 endgame was just as, if not more, RNG-centric as D3.
I'm not saying d2 didn't have any RNG in it, this is still an aRPG...it comes with the territory. There is no way d2 is more RNG than d3. The itemization a lone in d2 proves this.
I'm not saying d2 didn't have any RNG in it, this is still an aRPG...it comes with the territory. There is no way d2 is more RNG than d3. The itemization a lone in d2 proves this.
How long did you play diablo 2 for ?
A decade. Started I was like 12 when I first played it.
Now it depends on how you define endgame. But in general the D2 endgame revolved around one of three things
1) PvP
2) Ubers
3) Min/Max
PvP was basically an epeen-fest that in serious circles was gated behind raw rune RNG (much worse than D3 gear RNG, probably a bit more forgiving than rift RNG as a whole, maybe not). Ubers had a lower RNG requirement to get in to, but it's defintely very exacting on who's going to solo it. Min/Max is easily as RNG dependent if not more RNG dependent than current D3 min/max mechanics. We're talking runes that essentially don't exist outside of botting needed for runewords, items that are unimaginably rare, and of course farming up skill charms hellfires and annihilus.
Botting basically floored the RNG in D2, so people remember it as so easy. And yes it was easy to hit minimum gear requirements for most stuff (botting or not), but the stuff people came back for actually had an exceptional amount of RNG behind it if you look at what's actually going on. Just because botting and trading obscured the RNG doesn't make it go away.
D2V PvP was pretty good to be honest. LoD ruined it because without a 70 page rulebook it was unbalanced as it gets. Cheated gear was only the final nail in the coffin. Oh and don't forget about those ludicrous cross-class-skill-items. Teleport for everyone, yay! Fun!
As for PoE, they did a LOT of things right. Like you said, the currency system is great. It is thought out, not complicated, and engaging. Along with the currency system, is the crafting system which is incredible. Converting specific currencies into crafting actions is genius; it throws out the middle man (gold) and lets you go ham on how you want to craft almost any item in the game, from damage types, number of sockets, type of sockets, stats... anything. It makes every item in the game have value, even common loot because with the right currency item and right piece of equipment, you could roll a chance for a specific legendary. (Example: I remember trying to find a specific legendary item to help boost my lightning witches damage. I found out that if I found very specific pair of common gloves, I could use an orb of chance for a chance to convert it into the exact legendary I needed.) An item I felt was mundane became very important to me and I found myself not just digging through piles of loot (actually sitting there and reading through piles of loot) but finding which areas were more likely to drop the said item. It felt good hunting for it and even better after I got it.
Moral of the story? Most people don't actually know what they want. I wish Blizzard would go back to doing their own thing without worrying about focus testing. It resulted in better games.
While challenge is an important part of endgame, I make the distinction that a proper endgame has to have interlocking systems of progression and challenge. If your "endgame" content offers the same drops as everywhere else, it's not much of an endgame. Likewise, an infinitely scaling statistical system is more of a curiosity and time-waster than a structured challenge.
They are rifts... with a timer... and infinite scaling. It's just not my cup of tea in terms of "something I'd like to do forever and ever into the future" which means, from my perspective, it's not really "endgame." I have come to expect Blizzard to be innovative and think outside the box, and Greater Rifts don't feel like any thinking, let alone thinking outside of the box, ever happened during the development process. They just seem like panem et circences - stuff to keep us entertained enough that we don't realize how crappy the stuff we have is.
I would honestly prefer if the "leaderboards" amounted to who could clear T6 rifts fastest and not who could manage to ninja-click their way through the most one-shot mechanics. I'm just not into such binary challenges. If you fuck up and misclick at any time it's over. To me that sounds more like a bullet hell game than an ARPG, and I guess that's what fundamentally has held me back from really enjoying 2.1. The "challenge" seems to be something that really isn't appropriate to an ARPG. It seems misguided and off-target.
Because Josh and friends really seem to think that there is one "best" way to play the game and anyone who doesn't follow that exact mold is doing it wrong and has no business playing the game. In addition to Hellfire Rings/Amulets, it's plenty obvious that the only "right" way to level your legendary gems is in co-op games. Why? Because the scaling between solo and co-op isn't even close to right. Things like this SHOULD be plenty apparent and should be fixed - there's no reason that co-op players should be able to get more ranks on their gems than a solo player. Then again, this is also a testament to how ass-backwards the current gem leveling paradigm is. It shouldn't have anything to do with what GR level you're clearing. This was echoed by almost EVERYONE during the beta.
If they removed the legendary gem ranking up from Greater Rifts, then this problem would *mostly* rectify itself as Greater Rifts would basically be for ePeen only.
So long as Greater Rifts have actual rewards (in this case, more powerful legendary gems) then the issue that they stifle diversity matters. It's an absurdly simple fix, though. Which makes me wonder why they went with the LEAST-FAVORITE method for leveling legendary gems among the community. Tying gem progression to Greater Rift level is just so bad and creates far more problems than it solves.
Just give us an xp-based system. Separate legendary gem progression from Greater Rifts. If you do that then suddenly trials are so very easily removed because it doesn't matter one goddamned bit if you can "spam" high-level Greater Rifts and you've killed two major problems with one, very straightforward, change.
My idea is to assign tiers to all items (and future ones) that prohibit them from dropping below a certain torment difficulty. By gauging item strengths, we can make players work for their gear outside of RNG. It's really distressing that a game that is designed around loot and the progression of getting stronger to get better loot, doesn't actually require you to get any stronger to get said loot. Hitting Torment 1 unlocks access to all items (aside from bounties... which the legendaries can drop in normal which is also silly) defeats the point of working towards the higher difficulties. Yes the drop rate goes up, that does not change the fact that in theory, a player through pure luck and lack of skill can get end game gear. As a gamer in general, I find that a little upsetting.
As players begin to round out gear in T1, they will start to move into T2 and have incredible difficulty. However if they persist and use the mechanics they have worked on all this time, they could net a legendary exclusive to T2 and under. This could help tip the scales to let them work through T2 comfortably. Thy round out their build and work towards T3. Etc, etc.
My other idea involves the crafting system and allows a complete revamp of how materials interact with items: By assigning multiple affixes to crafting materials that already exist (such as... "this item has a chance to imbue x life on hit, or x life %, or life regen"), players can craft white items into blue items, then to yellow items as they imbue more affixes. They can't reroll affixes but can improve existing affixes for a hefty price and materials. Everyone seems hurt on "the hunt" for the perfect item, and by limiting the improvement per material to a minimum (one material improves a statistic by 1-2), the hunt will be not only on for the next big drop, but specific materials that could "make" your next big drop. By also assigning better drop rates to specific creatures and/or types, players will have goals that they can set to gather materials in general. I believe the last unique material system was boring because it was always a boss that dropped the legendary crafting material which made it repetitive because you know exactly where to go. By assigning it to monster types, players can explore the world but keep eyes out for specific elites/mobs that drop what they are looking for creating a new experience that sends them place to place in a controlled setting dictated by their desires. Just throwing out some ideas.
End-game implies that you're doing something different now that you've reached the "end" of the game. Doing the exact same content on a higher difficulty is not end-game.
edit: Sorry for the triple post.
I like the idea of multiple tiers of gear, but I'd want a pretty solid difficulty revamp if that's the direction they're going to go. I'd also like for there to be more source-specific legendaries. Like how some legendaries are restricted to caches -- have other legendaries restricted to other modes, or to bosses, or to chests, etc.
I came up with a mode that I'd like to see in Diablo 3. I'm going to copy and paste my reddit post.
One of the most common complaints I see about the Greater Rift system is how random it is. It's supposed to be competitive and, yet, no rift is the same... so, I was thinking... what kind of activity is easily measured and still competitive? BOSS RUSH!!!
What Is It?
Boss rush mode is a fairly common mode in action games where the player faces off against (most) every boss in the game, one after another, to see how many of them they can beat and how fast they can do so.
How Would It Work In Diablo?
Picture a large, specially designed room. Probably somewhat circular, though with little nubs along the edge. Plenty of room to move around in and pick strategic positions. Upon entering this room, you could click an object (or button) to start the Boss Rush mode. After a short countdown, the first boss appears and you kill it. Upon death, the next boss spawns. And so on until you finally kill Malthael. At this point, the bosses would start cycling through again, more powerful than the last time.
Okay, But Can't We Spice It Up a Bit?
Absolutely! You remember those little nubs around the edge of the room that I mentioned earlier? Well, let's put orbs there that will allow players to spawn the bosses early. That way, those of us that can kill each of the first wave's bosses in seconds can just spawn all the bosses right away and clear the first wave, bringing down our overall time.
Also, there could be specially placed buff shrines (non-random) that will recharge after a certain amount of bosses are killed, allowing for more potential strategies.
Let's Go Over Some Specifics
How would we start this mode? Well, people are starting to get bored of Greater Rifts already, so we could either add another drop to the final Greater Rift Guardian (meaning, you get it when you either choose not to upgrade your rift key or when you fail the timer). Alternatively, the Keystone of Trials could be used as the key.
Difficulty? Simply set the difficulty based on the game's difficulty level. Torment 6 players automatically start with Torment 6 bosses. Naturally, the only really interesting leaderboard for this would be the Torment 6 leaderboard, but other difficulties would still be present for those that can't handle Torment 6. Boss difficulty would obviously increase with new set of bosses.
Rewards
There would be three obvious sets of rewards for this mode...
Leaderboards: Fastest wave clears, most waves cleared. This way you could either choose to go for speed or for longevity.
Wouldn't This Just Get Boring, Eventually?Loot: Players would obviously expect some kind of loot reward, so why not add some more legendaries to be dropped specifically from this game mode? Utility items like Ramalandi's Gift could also be included. Perhaps the player would be guaranteed one item that would add a specific affix to a piece of gear for a specific slot. Say, you get an item that adds an All Resist roll to a ring, or an item that adds Cooldown Reduction to your helm. There are any number of potentially appealing items that could be made specifically to drop in this game mode.
Achievements: 'Nuff said.
Much like everything else in Diablo 3, yes, repeated use of this game mode is bound to get boring after so long. But now that we've got this system in place, what's to stop Blizzard from updating it on a regular basis?
Tired of Boss Rush mode? We'll add a new challenge! New bosses! Bosses from Diablo 2! Famous Nephelem of legend to test yourself against! There could be the Set Item challenge, where you fight bosses based upon the set items in the game. Finally, you get to fight Bul-Kathos, Natalya, Roland, and everyone else! Danger mode, where you have to actively avoid non-random (or random, though I'm trying to avoid that with this idea) environmental affects that limit your ability to navigate the room while fighting bosses. Really, there's no end to the new challenges they could come up with.
Tell Me What YOU Think
I think that this could be a great addition to the game... how about you? Comments, concerns, critiques? Go for it!
One last thing:
This just occurred to me, but Diablo 3 could really use something like the Brawler's Guild from WoW. For those that don't know, Brawler's Guild is an Arena where you fight progressively more difficult and unique bosses.
However an xp-system would be better, (almost) no doubt. But that's from PoE, so we can't have that. Remember the time when Blizzard's greatest strength was to combine every good aspect of every similar game into their product?
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Diablo 1 and Diablo 2 both had things for you to do with all the gear you've acquired. That's what made people to continue playing the game for so long. (that and d2 put out and amazing patch back in the day that was almost like an additional expansion, but that's another story).
Diablo 3 doesn't have this. It's RNG layered upon RNG upon RNG upon RNG. It gives the illusion of "depth" or the "end game" you're asking for. RNG is the ONLY thing keeping you playing this game for the long run, or it will be the reason you stop playing it.
How long did you play diablo 2 for ?
Now it depends on how you define endgame. But in general the D2 endgame revolved around one of three things
1) PvP
2) Ubers
3) Min/Max
PvP was basically an epeen-fest that in serious circles was gated behind raw rune RNG (much worse than D3 gear RNG, probably a bit more forgiving than rift RNG as a whole, maybe not). Ubers had a lower RNG requirement to get in to, but it's defintely very exacting on who's going to solo it. Min/Max is easily as RNG dependent if not more RNG dependent than current D3 min/max mechanics. We're talking runes that essentially don't exist outside of botting needed for runewords, items that are unimaginably rare, and of course farming up skill charms hellfires and annihilus.
Botting basically floored the RNG in D2, so people remember it as so easy. And yes it was easy to hit minimum gear requirements for most stuff (botting or not), but the stuff people came back for actually had an exceptional amount of RNG behind it if you look at what's actually going on. Just because botting and trading obscured the RNG doesn't make it go away.
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