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Eh, no. Diablofans _beta site_ tomorrow!

Now that BlizzCon is over and we've all had some time to go through many of the panels, interviews, and reviews I'd like to discuss one of my favorite new features, Nephalem Rifts.

I absolutely love the idea of random dungeons, never quite knowing what you're going to encounter in terms of maps, monsters, and bosses. It really will be a breath of fresh air for many of us after playing countless Act III, Crypt, or Uber runs. However, I still think Blizzard can do so much more with the concept and take this already great idea and turn it into truly one of the greatest features in, dare I say, any Diablo game to date. The good news is Blizzard is listening to our feedback and is still making changes to the expansion, so there's still time to offer our own opinions. I'm going to quickly go over a couple of my own suggestions which I feel would make for a much more fun experience, at least for me, to the overall Nephalem Rift feature.

Keystone Quality


Why do we have to choose only one of the options Lylirra mentions? Dividing Keystones into different qualities would allow all of the above. Not all rifts need to be equal in terms of risk and rewards. The quality could have influence on the difficulty/mob density, number of levels, and potential loot rewards. If someone wants to spend their entire night running rifts they should be able to do so, not be limited to only a couple because of drop rates.

Different qualities of Keystones can be indicated by the color of its name and accompanying text:

Magic - These Keystones produce rifts 1-3 levels in depth and have an average monster density.

Rare - These Keystones produce rifts 1-7 levels in depth, have a moderate monster density and also have a slightly higher chance at rewarding high quality items.

Legendary - These Keystones produce rifts 1-10 levels in depth, have a high monster density, and have a much higher chance at rewarding high quality items. These could also provide more challenge by giving monsters special abilities or having more champion/elite packs. Imagine if every monster, including trash, had one elite affix such as molten or fire chains... There are many possibilities which could deem a rift worthy of legendary status.

Searching for Keystones

I think Blizzard is pretty spot on in terms of how players should be able to obtain Keystones. Completing Bounties or finding Keystones as random drops in Adventure mode is a great way to get people out exploring different areas they may not have visited otherwise. The only suggestion I have is to make sure Bounties always reward you with at least one Keystone, but follow my suggestion above and reward a random quality such as magic, rare, or legendary.


Difficulty

One area I haven't heard much about and hope we get some clarification on soon is how the new difficulties work when it comes to Keystones and rifts. If they work in a similar manor as Infernal Machines players will be able to farm lower difficulties for Keystones to create rifts in higher difficulties. I really hope this isn't the case and instead Blizzard makes Keystones usable only in the difficulty they were found in. I want there to be progression and players earning their way into these harder rifts where they'll be getting a better shot at high quality items.



I would love some sort of a challenge which is sorely missing from the current Diablo III. Even if I couldn't ever complete one myself it would be awesome to see streams/videos where players have to theorycraft and strategically try to complete a Legendary Torment difficulty rift. The words Blizzard keeps throwing around when they talk about the expansion is "End game for all" and this could be their chance to add something for the hardest of the hardcore which hasn't been present since early release.

Incentive to go Deeper

One of the first things I asked my friends shortly after they got back from BlizzCon was "What was at the end of a rift?". To my surprise none of them could even answer this question. All of them said that they completed the required number of kills to spawn the Rift Guardian before making their way to the end of the rift. I hope this isn't the case when the expansion is shipped, otherwise it's going to feel pretty lame.

I feel there needs to be an incentive to finish all of the Rift levels instead of just completing the required monster kills, but at the same time not punish the players that don't have more than 20 minutes. One easy option I could see is to have a counter for each individual level in a rift instead of one for the entire rift. That would mean a Rift Guardian spawning after each level. Is that a little excessive? I'm not really sure, but it would encourage people to finish a rift completely so they get to clear all guardians.

Named Keystones

This is just a fun suggestion I have when it comes to Nephalem Rifts. I think it would pretty cool to have some named legendary Keystones that generate rifts with unique content.



Examples like the one above could be used to open special rifts to things like unique monsters, tile sets, and even have the potential to drop items not found anywhere else. From the elusive secret cow level to a map populated entirely of champion/elite packs or perhaps a rift littered with treasure goblins and include greed himself. There are so many fun possibilities here.



I'd love to hear what other suggestions the community might have to improve the Nephalem Rift feature in its current iteration.

P.S. Please forgive me for any grammatical errors. I could hardly keep my eyes open at the time of writing this.