Hi all!
Just wanted to share this mock-up infographic I designed for a new endgame option within D3. I've been traveling quite a bit for work, so to deal with my Diablo withdrawals I've pieced this together based on some existing ideas I've seen within the community as well as some new ones of my own.
Would love to hear some feedback on the concept as well as thoughts on what endgame means to you in Diablo.
Direct Link: http://i.imgur.com/JadEbrk.jpg
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Why? The endgame in Diablo has always been about farming for better loot so you can farm for better loot.. better.
I agree! This is purely intended to augment that loot hunt we all know and love and extend the game's replayability, not replace it.
Why not just include Trials and Towers in Adventure Mode?
Good question. Each mode has a specific purpose that not everyone will be interested in, so overloading Adventure Mode with additional features feels like messy design to me. Story Mode = Enjoy the story, Adventure Mode = Play the item-hunt game (heart of Diablo franchise), Challenge Mode = Optional, augmentative content that extends the lifespan of the item-hunt game. But of course these modes could be joined, this is merely personal preference.
Does that mean no gear rewarded in Challenge Mode?
Yes. Only cosmetic rewards, competitive rankings and XP are offered in Challenge Mode. If Challenge Mode offered loot rewards, it would diminish the inherent purpose of Adventure Mode. The aim is to bring the heroes you've built into Challenge Mode to see what they can do, i.e; to improve your capabilities in Challenge Mode you need to farm Adventure Mode.
TL;DR: I like to compartmentalize.
Are Trials and Towers randomized to any extent?
No. By removing the random elements in regards to layouts, monster types and density, the Trials and Towers can serve as directly measurable content in a competitive sense. If random was at play, someone could simply perform well due to having "lucky RNG". So to summarize, randomization has been removed in Challenge Mode in order to level the playing field.
How does Difficulty work in relation to Trials and Towers?
Trials that are not affected directly by difficulty (like Race Trials) exist as static events that are played and ranked the same across all difficulty levels. Trials that contain monsters and are therefore affected by difficulty selection are ranked as per the difficulty in which the player achieved their result (see: Seasonal Leaderboards UI). Pandemonium Towers are capped on lower difficulties, higher ascension only becomes available with higher difficulties, with the Pandemonium Tower becoming "uncapped" on Torment VI.
The Tower is Endless?
Theoretically, yes. The increase in difficulty is dynamic up until the fixed rewards cease (Level 100), after that, each level sees a static increase (additive percentage) in Monster Damage and Hit Points. For the purpose of this concept let's say that's 5% per level, this means the most godly geared/skilled players can truly test their heroes to the absolute limits.
Couldn't you just skip mobs? Change to a more defensive spec for higher levels? And what happens when you die?
To access the next level you would be required to kill all the monsters on the current level. Skill selection would be locked from when you enter the Tower with a checkpoint every 25 Levels at which you can change your skill spec. These checkpoints also act as respawn points upon death, but they no longer appear after Level 100 (which would be very hard to reach as is).
Overall I haven't put too much thought into how tower progression would work, but I think losing all of your progress upon death would be a bit too much considering how long the climb is. I would love to hear some other ideas/suggestions regarding this!
What is this simultaneous instance nonsense?
When there are other players in your game and you choose to start a Trial or Tower, a dialogue box appears asking them if they would like to join in and challenge you. If they accept, they will be transported to their own instance of the same challenge. You are able to see the "ghosts" of other players according to where they are in their instance (see "Festering Circuit" race screenshot), but you have no direct affect on their game environment. For Tower Races, you would receive toast notifications in your chat each time a player reaches a new level.
Why not just have them in the same instance?
The competitive factor in Trials and Towers is based around how well each player performs, not how effectively you can impede your rivals. This is especially applicable to wave-type Trials and Pandemonium Towers, in which you can't have both characters in the same instance without it being Co-op.
Are the Bosses in Boss Time-trials different from their typical versions?
Yes, they would essentially be Uber versions of their normal encounters, with additional modifiers, more minions, larger HP pools etc.
Do Race Trials have other variables?
Races have additional factors in play outside of simply getting a character from point A to B. For example, Speed-boosting Nephalem Glory orbs can spawn along the route but might not always be in the most desirable of locations. In addition, obstacles such as Bear Traps and Barricades can impede your progress (another reason for separate instances). P.S- I love Mario Kart.
Uhh.. Where is PvP?
Ideally, Challenge Mode would also accomodate any type of future PvP implementation. I haven't included it in my concept as it's such a gigantic feature that it would probably need it's own infographic.
What's with the groan-worthy TV show references?
Because geeknerd.
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Dec 5, 2013DamienJohn posted a message on [Endgame 2.0] Challenge Mode InfographicPosted in: Diablo III General Discussion
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MrMonstrosity posted a message on Nephalem Trials, adding competition to Diablo.We want to compete, it's huma...err Nephalem nature. Not only do we want to compete against others but we want to challenge ourselves. Besides completing the hardest difficulty, comparing player stats, or earning Paragon levels there's nothing really at all used to compare our characters in game. Even Paragon levels can't be used to judge a players skill level, it's basically just an indication of time played. We're instead left to visit third-party sites like diabloprogress or YouTube to see where we rank amongst Diablo III's playerbase. It's these sites where we find people competing for the highest dps/stats, experience earned per hour, or even Uber boss kill times. I've even personally watched popular streamers hold competitions going head to head in a legendary hunt race, and it was actually rather enjoyable. Why don't we have the ability to do this in Diablo III? Why exactly are we staying up all hours of the night hunting for loot if we can't do anything with it? Some people might argue there was nothing to do with the gear we found in in Diablo II either, but remember this is the sequel. Gamers have different standards today, especially when it comes to games that are exclusively online.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
With that said I think I've found the solution, and it's nothing we haven't seen before.
Nephalem Trials
Nephalem Trials aren't exactly a new concept. Blizzard first mentioned them at Gamescom and has since mentioned them many times as we've been nearing closer to the release of Reaper of Souls. It really saddened me when we got news of the feature being delayed.
Originally Posted by (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
Nephalem Trials are indeed still alive in some form, but they will not be added with the launch of Reaper of Souls. We absolutely love the idea behind the Trials (challenge-based systems can be so much fun), but before we implement them we want to make sure they have a strong underlying reward structure and tracking system. That kind of hook is important for a system like this and we didn’t want to add in Nephalem Trials to the game without it.
Oh really a "reward structure and tracking system"... My gut feeling tells me there's a reason why both Nephalem Trials and Ladders (never announced but hinted at) are both being delayed. The simple reason being that Blizzard wants these two features to be connected in order to create a new ranking and seasonal ladder system.
You have to admit that Blizzard is pretty damn good when it comes to creating rankings, ratings, or other systems which let players compete against each other either directly or indirectly. We've seen this demonstrated in World of Warcraft with its pvp arena, server first achievements and challenge modes. Starcraft's success and popularity is widely recognized as being directly related to its ranked system and ladder, did you see the competition at Blizzcon!? Even their new free to play game Hearthstone has a pretty good ranking system being added to it and most likely their newly announced Heroes of the Storm will follow suit. Diablo III is pretty much the only current Blizzard title that doesn't have any way for players to test themselves or compete against other players, I think it's about time we get something similar.
Endless Horde
What better way to test your survivability and killing speed then a trial made of an endless horde of demons. Play too defensive and you'll be eventually overrun, play too offensive and you'll quickly find yourself taking a dirt nap. Find the perfect balance in gear, manage your cool-downs, and hone your strategies either alone or in group play.
Each new wave is released at an increasingly faster rate, with each being stronger than the previous. Killing a wave earns players a higher score. The trial ends only when every Nephalem falls. Will you be forever remembered as the Nephalem champion that held his ground the longest against the burning hells?
Perhaps to even compensate for situations where a player might only have a limited amount of playtime, certain checkpoints could be reached letting players pickup where they left off and continue their progress at a later time.
Timed Dungeon
Inspired by World of Warcraft's challenge mode players test their efficiency to earn honors for the fastest run. Players compete against each other by clearing every monster in the dungeon. Players can even help their time by earning bonuses by opening chests throughout the dungeon.
To allow this to be a fair competition, every season will have a different map with a predetermined number tile sets, monsters, chests, and champions. A map's layout should still be randomized each time to ensure every attempt is slightly different and allows for a player's dungeon navigation skills are also a determining factor. Players will need to discover new builds and try different gear combinations to compete for the top rank.
Goblin Hunt
Race against time to kill as many of the devious little creatures as possible found randomly scattered throughout a dungeon.
There are many types of treasure goblins in Diablo III, they could possibly be even be worth different point values in this trial.
Rankings & Ladders
This isn't going to be the conventional ladder Diablo players are used to. Game time shouldn't be the main contributing factor when competing for top spot in a ladder. With the shift to skill based challenges, players with varying degrees of playtime will all be able to compete for top rankings. Advantages will still be present for players with more playtime in the form of getting their hands on more legendary items or earning a higher Paragon level to use in Nephalem Trials but at least time will no longer be the only decider.
Your highest score from each Nephalem Trial will be used to determine your overall "Nephalem Score" (yeah, yeah, I know another usage of the word Nephalem). There will still be individual ladders for each trial which would offer special rewards but the most prestigious honor would go to the players with the highest overall Nephalem Scores.
It would be impossible to balance classes so probably the best solution would be to have separate rankings for each class.
There could also be separate ladders depending on if you chose to play in groups with 2-4 friends. You might not be able to get a team rating, but you would still earn individual scores for your chosen class based on 2 player, 3 player, or 4 player games.
Seasons
Seasons don't have to mean wiping every character completely and starting from scratch. One of my most disliked features regarding ladders in Diablo II was when it came time for a ladder reset. I really enjoyed a fresh new competition but I didn't like losing my character's progress in terms of all the the gear I've worked hard to obtain in the process. Sure he was only moved to non-ladder but more than likely I would never touch him again. I could see how it may have been necessary in Diablo II due to inflation caused by trading and bots but that shouldn't be the case in Reaper of Souls where, it feels strange saying it, but there isn't going to be an economy anymore. With the introduction of BoA items and increased protection against dupes and bots it should be safe to not have to do a complete wipe. The introduction of shared Paragon levels is also another key reason why I feel it would be a pretty big disappointment if we were required to start from nothing. It would basically make the system we waited so long for pointless.
A season in Diablo III could simply mean resetting everyone's Nephalem Score back to zero and introducing new Nephalem Trial maps, monsters, and rewards. Blizzard could even introduce new types of trials in later seasons but that might be pushing things. There's already the great feature to create randomized dungeons, it would be as simple as Blizzard creating one new randomized dungeon for each trial when a new season is released. New combinations of maps and monsters should allow players to come up with unique builds, item combinations and strategies every season to compete for the honor of being ranked the top Nephalem of their chosen class.
Rewards
Rewards don't have to be given to just the top players in each class. It could work in a very similar manor as how Blizzard implemented WoW's PvP rewards or the Challenge Mode transmogrification gear where players need a certain rank in order to purchase cosmetic options such as new banners (improve these!), transmogrification gear or even perhaps cool new wings.
Save some unique rewards to hand out to the top ranked Nephalem of each class and ladder every season and you'd see people never getting bored.
Conclusion
Reaper of Souls adds so many improvements to the game but I believe in order to give some much needed improvements to the overall longevity of the game there needs to be a way to compete against one another. We might not be seeing any PvP introduced in the near future but there are definitely many options to implement competition based on the great PvE elements we already see in game.
Feel free to discuss other possible options for Nephalem Trials below, I know there were many types in some of the datamined information we've already seen but I'd love to hear your thoughts on new types they could implement.
Cheers,
Monstrous -
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user-12612958 posted a message on [proposal] Orb of NightmaresHello all, and thanks for reading. In this post, I would like to present an endgame system I’ve been thinking about the last few days, which I’ve called Orb of Nightmares. English isn’t my mother language, so sorry for my typo. Every comment is wellcome, it would be great knowing your opinion about.Posted in: Diablo III General Discussion
Let's go with it:
What’s the system about?
The Orb of Nightmares is based on combats with uber monsters. Those monsters have a real identity like Leoric, Nihlathak or Diablo, presented as shadow memories from the past you can face and defeat. Once you defeat one of those characters, you get a temporal buff.
Let’s divide the system in 3 parts: Before the Orb to talk about how to access one of those encounters, During the Orb to talk about the encounter themselves, and After the Orb to talk about the rewards.
Before the Orb
There are some considerations about how to enter one of these fights:- Avoiding a must-do system. Same as Nephalem Valor and the reason why it will be removed: we don’t want a task you have to accomplish every run to feel you’re not wasting your time.
- Making it flat: it becomes boring when there’s only one encounter that’s worth to fight.
The Archivist, new (and known) character. He travels through Sanctuary looking for lost pieces of information, and now he have listened about your great feats. That’s why he needs you to help him in a task: he have an artifact called the Orb of Nightmares. This legendary object lets revive ancient nightmares from the past and face them. For the Archivist, this means a great source of information given he could explore other’s nightmares to discover forgotten facts from the past, but he’s not in good shape to face such strong things. But with the help of a hero, he could get into even the worst nightmares (such those about The Butcher or even Diablo) to gather some information.
Tokens would be the new kind of item you can find. They could be anything personal (a journal, a doll, a small charm), an object loaded with the nightmares of someone who felt true fear about something. You can find those objects anywhere, but if you do, hurry up! Once in your hands, their charge will run out slowly (let’s say, 5 minutes). You have to take them to the archivist; he’s the one who can focus the token power into the orb. Once done, the token is destroyed and the orb is ready to take the archivist and you to a shadow world. Talk with him when you are prepared (there’s no countdown now).
During the Orb
The combat can be very different from one to another enemy, but in all cases, the scenario and the boss should look as something made from shadows and memories. The infernal machine’s ubers actually looks a bit this way with that smoky and dark appearance, so the thing would be taking them as a model and making them a bit less collourful.
We know that enemies should be recycled (models, textures, animations) so this system can be viable as a minor system, and same with scenarios. This is a limitation, of course, but we’ve seen how some effects can totally change a place as it happens in the Nephalem Rifts. As well, these combats refer to someone’s nightmares, so the idea is making everything dark, big and scary (not realistic).
Some examples I think that could be done with few effort:
The Dark Wanderer
Boss: Diablo
Senario: Old Tristam
Diablo himself walked through the roads of Tristam by his own feet. Despite of he was in a human form, the demonic chaos he unleashed fed the nightmares of both children and old men. It would be awesome fighting Diablo in this scenario (and even better if adding some fire to the town).
The Mad King
Boss: Leoric
Scenario: Leoric Countryard could look really awesome with a dark filter, as well as Leoric Manor.
Yes, Leoric as Skeleton appeared at Tristam Cathedral. But having his manor as an abandoned and enchanted place, local folks would probably feel fear about what lie into it. So, great reason to create an epic combat here.
The Flesh Ripper
Boss: The Butcher
Scenario: Tristam Cathedral with a dark filter looks really nice, and creating a closed arena with this appearance would be perfect. As well, adding some crippled corpses and blood would create a better feel of what the Butcher was.
The Betrayer
Boss: Necromancer (as Nihlathak)
Scenario: One of the caves of Act 1 would be ok, but creating a hall big enough for this combat. Some skeletons would also fit really well, even creating a short dungeon before reaching the big hall where Nihlathak would be waiting.
The Infernal Commander
Boss: Azmodan
Scenario: Diamond Gates (outer).
We know that Azmodan commanded some attacks against the High Heavens. He is supposed to be a great commander, meaning that even Angels may fear him. Of course, many demon militia would be needed.
The Summoner
Boss: Zoltun Kulle (as Horazon, a hat would fit well)
Scenario: Pandemonium Fortress with a cool filter could fit as the Arcane Sanctuary. Add Zoltun (Horazon) using many different elemental spells and some ghosts and you got it!
There are many possible combats to re-create by using D3 elements, so those are only a few of the many ideas I’ve been thinking (I’m still looking for an excuse to fight against the Ancients again, the most epic battle in D2 in my opinion). I want to hear your suggestions!
After the Orb
You fight the Boss, you defeat him and it’s corpse fades away in shadows. What now?
The reward is a really important part of the system. Not having rewards, or having a reward that doesn’t worth your time means that the system will be obsolete (see actual uber fights, wich you don’t really have to do if you are leveling in MP10).
In the adventure system we have the XP/Gold/Legendaries rewards almost covered with bounties, rifts and classical farming. Giving an extra way of getting these rewards is, at the end, making the equation more complicated and therefore is more possible for one of the systems to get obsolete.
That’s why I think that the best reward for these events is a temporal buff. You always say yes to improve even a little bit, and this will help you to get into the rest of the systems. Doing bounties is cool, but doing bounties with an extra 20% to all resistances for a while sounds better. As well, sounds cool watching all the shadows from the boss corpse converging around you and some letters saying “You have defeated this Nightmare! It power surrounds you, granting an extra 20% to all your resistances”.
The discussion here would come from:- How long would the buff last?
- How powerful would it be?
- 7 Minutes buffs (one per combat): +15% movement speed, +30% to all resistances, +15 to pick-up radius, +50% maximum resource, etc.
- 1 Hour buffs: +9% movement speed, +15% to all resistances, +9 to pick-up radius, +25% maximum resource, etc.
- Permanent buffs (for the rest of the actual game): +6% movement speed, +10% to all resistances, +6 to pick-up radius, +10% maximum resource, etc.
On the one hand, 7 minutes buffs would give you the same sense of a shrine: you have to run to take advantage of it. The way you play could change a lot, so a special care should be given to them.
On the other hand, permanent buffs doesn’t change so much the game, but can be accumulated, so the more you play, the more you get (long runs get better that short runs, as long as you are strong enough to defeat the bosses).
To sum up- Orb of Nightmares is a system based on uber bosses and exclusive for the adventure mode.
- You can only fight them when certain item drops, so there is no “must-do” system as Nephalem Valor was.
- The encounter is random, so you will fight every boss during the endgame.
- The reward is a buff, and this is welcome at Normal mode as well as at Torment VI mode.
- The Archivist is back!
- Possibility of bringing back lots of epic fights from the Sanctuary History.
Thanks for reading!
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