19 replies to this topic

[legendarz]

Hi.

I'd like to start a discussion regarding future PvM (Player versus Monster) endgame content.

Paragon levels have recently been introduced in patch 1.0.4. A welcome and necessery addition for players that give solid benefits to character development and a long term goal to strive for perfection.

However, variation is lacking. Apart from doing your farming runs in whichever act you're most comfortable with, there aren't any more options of slaying monsters or getting (better) rewards.

Levelling other classes and trying out new builds is all fine and gives a welcome change, but only so much. For me personally, I want something harder, more rewarding, for my decked out characters.

What are your thoughts on the future PvM endgame content? I'd like to see suggestions, I've posted mine below.

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I've broken down my suggestions into 2 topics;

- Harder content, better rewards
- More customization

1. Harder content, better rewards.

We all strive for that insane rolled rare/legendary to get your character as close to perfection, or sell it for some profit at the AH. But even at 500k dps, you can only get so much ilvl 62/63s per hour or per run. RNG is RNG, there will always be that ilvl 52 rare dropping off an elite pack in act3. Fuck that. I didnt pimp my character this way to flatten that elite pack within seconds, only to get loot that isn't even worthy of being worn by my follower.

Got dps? Good. Some suggestions;

- Timed runs. Enter a dungeon, the timer starts. Gauntlet-esque corridor filled with elites, and some sort of boss at the end. Gold, Silver, Bronze times set and rewards accordingly. At the end you can even choose your reward; random high level gems, assortment of ilvl 62/63s or gold. Quick 20-30 mins runs.

- The /players8 command. Those who have played Diablo 2 extensively know what it means. For those who don't; monster health, damage and loot drops increases for each value between /players 2-8. This can be the ultimate gearcheck for a player. Enrage timers are reinstalled for values between 2 and 8. Percentages of ilvl 61/62/63 are adjusted each value. At players 8 only 62s and 63s drop.

Pimp your gear? Look below;

- Remember that talisman that they were planning on implementing? Yeah, didn't make it....yet. For those of you who have played the D2 mod called Median XL, the talisman can be your class charm. You get your talisman when you defeat Diablo on Inferno (incentive to kill Diablo, hi!). Upon defeating certain bosses, completing different dungeons or achievements, you can upgrade your talisman with class specific bonuses. Any idea's?

- Throughout the new dungeons and at certain /player levels you can find new recipes, such as the Socket Weapon or Socket Armor recipe. After learning, the blacksmith can now add a socket to any weapon or item in exchange of an affix of your choice on the item, for the fee of 1 million gold and Inferno crafting materials.

- Those new procs on the legendary items are pretty badass, amirite? New artisan is added, the Mystic. Rune recipes will drop from the new dungeons and at certain /player levels. Runes can be socketed into weapons and armor, and will have on hit character skills bonuses. Example; Rune of Fan of Knives - 5% chance on striking to cast Fan of Knives.

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TL;DR - gieb suggestions for PvM endgame.

[Kblavkalash]

I am all for harder content, but how can you expect that if all patches were only nerfing the content? If only something is hard then crybabes start crying and Blizzard will nerf again stuff.

Btw most of your suggestions are quite good.

[KalikooJack]

I would like to see that mlvl64 thing with /players8. That talisman thing would also be super cool! I played Median alot and the endgame was just uber-great. We need something like that in D3.

I´m just afraid Blizzard will implemet an endgame solution with first expansion, which is far too late. But I´m hoping we´re gonna see some fun and challenging endgame content sooner than later.

[Formoor1986]

Hoenstly, I do not think blizzard will do any more end game changes. They are .. or they seem to be, focused on the pvp patch which should have been released 1 month after the premiere. Adding WoW:MoP and Starcraft:HotS nullifies any chances of that happening. The rune idea is great, but I really think new end game solutions will be added in the 1st diablo3 expansion.

P.S. There are 2 expansions planed for diablo3.

Edited by Formoor1986, 11 September 2012 - 08:46 PM.

[Shebnumi]

legendarz, on 11 September 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

- Timed runs. Enter a dungeon, the timer starts. Gauntlet-esque corridor filled with elites, and some sort of boss at the end. Gold, Silver, Bronze times set and rewards accordingly. At the end you can even choose your reward; random high level gems, assortment of ilvl 62/63s or gold. Quick 20-30 mins runs.

- The /players8 command. Those who have played Diablo 2 extensively know what it means. For those who don't; monster health, damage and loot drops increases for each value between /players 2-8. This can be the ultimate gearcheck for a player. Enrage timers are reinstalled for values between 2 and 8. Percentages of ilvl 61/62/63 are adjusted each value. At players 8 only 62s and 63s drop.

Pimp your gear? Look below;

- Those new procs on the legendary items are pretty badass, amirite? New artisan is added, the Mystic. Rune recipes will drop from the new dungeons and at certain /player levels. Runes can be socketed into weapons and armor, and will have on hit character skills bonuses. Example; Rune of Fan of Knives - 5% chance on striking to cast Fan of Knives.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TL;DR - gieb suggestions for PvM endgame.

I got a few issues to point out to you.

1. Time runs.  I think this would be fun, but it's not going to happen.  The content in D3 is all that you will get.  This is not an MMO where content will be added to the game.  D3 is the complete game.  The only way content, meaning dungeons and acts, will come in expansions.

2. /players8.  You will forcing people to play in public games.  It wouldn't be fair for those who prefer to solo.

3. Runes.  Runes are already in the game.  You can't have two different mechanics named Rune.  It's too confusing.

[rotes]

Quote

3. Runes.  Runes are already in the game.  You can't have two different mechanics named Rune.  It's too confusing.

Your response to an idea is just against its name?  Your first point is valid against new content.
But the other two are kinda narrow minded responses to pretty good ideas.  Who says /players8 makes you play public?  Because single player can't possibly do enough damage?  Because nobody playing D3 has 3 friends?  Because nobody wants to go back to having to avoid damage rather than faceroll with 500kdps?

(semi offtopic:)
If they let us crank the difficulty back up, it should be, and remain, hard.  They say they now want inferno to be hard but not punishing; but they should let us have a punishing difficulty if they bother to do player8.  If people can't handle it, they can ignore its existence, like they should have ignored Inferno if they couldn't deal with 4x affix enemies.

Ninja Gaiden & Ghosts 'n Goblins didn't get sequels for being easy.  Challenge endures,  click to move adventures don't.

Back on topic:
And call the OPs "Rune" idea any other arbitrary word that implies empowering an item via magic.  Problem solved?

[legendarz]

Kblavkalash, on 11 September 2012 - 07:51 PM, said:

I am all for harder content, but how can you expect that if all patches were only nerfing the content? If only something is hard then crybabes start crying and Blizzard will nerf again stuff.

Btw most of your suggestions are quite good.

What patches have done is have more people have access to the ilvl 62 and 63 loot. Only a small percentage of the total playerbase was able to farm act3 effectively, and thus get the best loot. The overall damage nerf to the content was more or less needed in order to save their game. Let's be honest, the gear standard needed for melee to survive in act2, let alone act3..was stupidly high. People were being pidgeonholed into ranged glass cannon cookie cutter specs in order to even have a shot at the loot.

Upping the difficulty the way I described in my topic just ultimately nets more ilvl62 and 63s. But this loot is already available to the masses. As you up your kill speed and survivability, I think you deserve a much better shot at getting more 62s and 63s then Scrubby McDerp who is struggling in act1.

KalikooJack, on 11 September 2012 - 08:25 PM, said:

I would like to see that mlvl64 thing with /players8. That talisman thing would also be super cool! I played Median alot and the endgame was just uber-great. We need something like that in D3.

I´m just afraid Blizzard will implemet an endgame solution with first expansion, which is far too late. But I´m hoping we´re gonna see some fun and challenging endgame content sooner than later.

Agreed. Median XL endgame was amazing Props to Brother Laz.

Im not talking about when these idea's should be implemented, just brainstorming about what kind of idea's could be implemented in the future! Although Im all for sooner then later on some new content

Formoor1986, on 11 September 2012 - 08:46 PM, said:

Hoenstly, I do not think blizzard will do any more end game changes. They are .. or they seem to be, focused on the pvp patch which should have been released 1 month after the premiere. Adding WoW:MoP and Starcraft:HotS nullifies any chances of that happening. The rune idea is great, but I really think new end game solutions will be added in the 1st diablo3 expansion.

P.S. There are 2 expansions planed for diablo3.

Sincerely hope they add some more content before that, but knowing Blizzard they will just make a bigass expansion with loads of new goodies. Any idea's for future endgame content to add?

Shebnumi, on 11 September 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

legendarz, on 11 September 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

- Timed runs. Enter a dungeon, the timer starts. Gauntlet-esque corridor filled with elites, and some sort of boss at the end. Gold, Silver, Bronze times set and rewards accordingly. At the end you can even choose your reward; random high level gems, assortment of ilvl 62/63s or gold. Quick 20-30 mins runs.

- The /players8 command. Those who have played Diablo 2 extensively know what it means. For those who don't; monster health, damage and loot drops increases for each value between /players 2-8. This can be the ultimate gearcheck for a player. Enrage timers are reinstalled for values between 2 and 8. Percentages of ilvl 61/62/63 are adjusted each value. At players 8 only 62s and 63s drop.

Pimp your gear? Look below;

- Those new procs on the legendary items are pretty badass, amirite? New artisan is added, the Mystic. Rune recipes will drop from the new dungeons and at certain /player levels. Runes can be socketed into weapons and armor, and will have on hit character skills bonuses. Example; Rune of Fan of Knives - 5% chance on striking to cast Fan of Knives.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TL;DR - gieb suggestions for PvM endgame.

I got a few issues to point out to you.

1. Time runs.  I think this would be fun, but it's not going to happen.  The content in D3 is all that you will get.  This is not an MMO where content will be added to the game.  D3 is the complete game.  The only way content, meaning dungeons and acts, will come in expansions.

2. /players8.  You will forcing people to play in public games.  It wouldn't be fair for those who prefer to solo.

3. Runes.  Runes are already in the game.  You can't have two different mechanics named Rune.  It's too confusing.

I know Diablo 3 isn't an MMO. Im just talking about what they COULD add in the FUTURE. You know..just discussing some idea's you might have. Surely you have thought of new cool stuff to be added to Diablo 3 that would make it better?

Not quite sure what you mean by forcing people to play in public games? With the /players command the damage, health and loot goes up. If you add more players, the standard Diablo 3 75% health increase to each mob is added for each player. Maybe the 25% health reduction would even start an incentive to play together, that would be amazing! Nobody is forcing you however, Im sure if you can manage the health in a multiplayer game, you can manage it in a solo game.

You're right. Runes are already in the game. My bad. We will call them Sparkling Rainbow Cookies. So in this case the example would be; Sparkling Rainbow Cookie of Fan of Knives. Maybe you have some better idea's?

rotes, on 11 September 2012 - 11:58 PM, said:

Quote

3. Runes.  Runes are already in the game.  You can't have two different mechanics named Rune.  It's too confusing.

Your response to an idea is just against its name?  Your first point is valid against new content.
But the other two are kinda narrow minded responses to pretty good ideas.  Who says /players8 makes you play public?  Because single player can't possibly do enough damage?  Because nobody playing D3 has 3 friends?  Because nobody wants to go back to having to avoid damage rather than faceroll with 500kdps?

(semi offtopic:)
If they let us crank the difficulty back up, it should be, and remain, hard.  They say they now want inferno to be hard but not punishing; but they should let us have a punishing difficulty if they bother to do player8.  If people can't handle it, they can ignore its existence, like they should have ignored Inferno if they couldn't deal with 4x affix enemies.

Ninja Gaiden & Ghosts 'n Goblins didn't get sequels for being easy.  Challenge endures,  click to move adventures don't.

Back on topic:
And call the OPs "Rune" idea any other arbitrary word that implies empowering an item via magic.  Problem solved?

Thanks for your reply If you can't handle a certain /players value, you know you aren't ready for it and need to upgrade your gear. Still you can farm higher ilvl loot faster then if you would faceroll "normal" mode, and on top of that it becomes a challenge again. Standing in plague or molten too long? That's too bad son. That shit actually hurts now.

Surely there are people out there who thought of new amazing idea's to improve Diablo 3's endgame? Im not talking about when or which expansion they should be in. Just. Idea's. Share them!

[Winnfield]

Shebnumi, on 11 September 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

D3 is the complete game.

Holy fucking shit dont ever say that again!

[Luchs006]

legendarz, on 11 September 2012 - 06:37 PM, said:

1. Harder content, better rewards.

It contradicts itself, better rewards means easier content,
if by "better" you mean more useful in clearing content.
And Harder content can only be hard if you cannot overgear it easly.

What i would like to see is hard content where you are only rewarded with
a rank in a ladder or some items/skils ec.that are just optical.

Otherwise old content is just replaced with new content, without much improvement.
I don't want a senseless spiral of harder content -> nerf with better loot -> repeat.
I want alternatives i want to open the game and have more options.

What i would like is some kind or "raid" or "Infinity tower", with multiple hard bosses.
Maybe even something only for 4 people and PvP in multiple different variants,

Why not going down a little the way of a mmorpg for endgame ?
Whats is left to copy from action-rpg's, which makes really a difference ?

Edited by Luchs006, 12 September 2012 - 04:42 PM.

[pewpewpeww]

Winnfield, on 12 September 2012 - 01:51 PM, said:

Shebnumi, on 11 September 2012 - 08:47 PM, said:

D3 is the complete game.

Holy fucking shit dont ever say that again!

LOL quite true

[iribuya]

I know it's an old topic, but I wanted to start it up again

I was thinking about the mystic and how i could come back. Make centain "tears" or whatever you want to call it drop to make only certain skills better: dmg, speed, area, distance, time better on them. But you must put it on a skill and can only remove it by destroying it. You can add 3 slots to the skills and this way perfecting your build. The items must be pretty rare and can only be aplied to the skill it's for. For example "tear dmg for poison hydra" can only be aplied to the poison hydra rune. You can switch skills, but the rune will only stay on the rune type you put it on in the first place.
These items are also salvagable in something the mystic can add to items. Not really thought of this.

[Zeyk23]

I don't think "endgame" content needs to fundamentally change. The Monster Power system is pretty good. I think there just needs to be more variety:

- Normalize mob density in all areas of Inferno
- Add a D2-style free roam mode
- Add a fully random dungeon generator
- Add a Horde mode

I think there are a variety of improvements they could make to gear acquisition but that's a separate issue really.

[Ethezial]

I know a lot of people who bring up the idea of adding an endless dungeon, or a map system where you create maps to go to randomly generated places. What I think is a problem with these ideas is that it takes you away from the rest of the game, so instead of doing runs like we are now, we'd either be making maps, or doing the endless dungeon, and the whole of the game wouldn't get played. What I think would be a cool idea is adding random maps from playing through the game in your regular runs. For example, you could give super uniques a purpose by upon their death, they spawn purple colored portals to the "shadow realm". This realm would be similar to the shadow realm from the Diablo fight or the ubers, in that its graphics are altered to resemble an area in limbo. These maps would be randomly generated segments that could use any dungeon/overworld base in the game. They could spawn a number of things, such as a map full of monsters seen throughout the game, or a "goodies" map of sorts, full of nothing but barrels and chests, and resplendent chests.

[Catalept]

As cool as endless dungeons sound, I'm sure there's a better way to implement that kind of feature without it being basically a "Vanish into this here portal and don't come out for hours"... and IMO, the randomization factor is vastly-overrated. Pretty soon, it all becomes so familiar that the specific theme and layout becomes so much background noise. (speaking from my Torchlight experience).

I think if Blizzard added a feature like elites having a chance to spawn a portal into a single-level 'pocket dimension' with semi-random properties, that'd be a great start (yes... Blizzard should steal Phase Beasts), and IMO now that they're letting us carry over stacks between acts, why not close the loop and give us the option to go back to the start of ActI upon completing ActIV?

Edited by Catalept, 11 February 2013 - 11:21 PM.

[Jaetch]

Hero defense!

Set up lanes to defend and just kill, kill, kill, kill. Rewards fall upon the completion of each "phase." Game ends when everyone dies or whatever needs to be defended gets wrecked by mobs... and just to make it fun, it can go on for 300 phases or something.

Old-school Starcraft and Warcraft mod players should know about Hero Line Wars and those Tower Defense games.

Edited by Jaetch, 12 February 2013 - 12:24 AM.

[Zeyk23]

Ethezial, on 11 February 2013 - 08:22 PM, said:

I know a lot of people who bring up the idea of adding an endless dungeon, or a map system where you create maps to go to randomly generated places. What I think is a problem with these ideas is that it takes you away from the rest of the game, so instead of doing runs like we are now, we'd either be making maps, or doing the endless dungeon, and the whole of the game wouldn't get played. What I think would be a cool idea is adding random maps from playing through the game in your regular runs. For example, you could give super uniques a purpose by upon their death, they spawn purple colored portals to the "shadow realm". This realm would be similar to the shadow realm from the Diablo fight or the ubers, in that its graphics are altered to resemble an area in limbo. These maps would be randomly generated segments that could use any dungeon/overworld base in the game. They could spawn a number of things, such as a map full of monsters seen throughout the game, or a "goodies" map of sorts, full of nothing but barrels and chests, and resplendent chests.

We've already played the campaign 4 times per character. Why do we also need to continuously play those levels again and again to farm? I know that's the only type of replayability Diablo 1 & 2 had, but that doesn't make it the best solution. These dungeons could simply be included in the base game as waypoints or whatever, and don't necessarily have to be any better farming than the main zones. I don't really see why running the Alkaizer route is good and running a generated dungeon made from those assets is bad.

[fulken]

Jaetch, on 12 February 2013 - 12:23 AM, said:

Hero defense!

Set up lanes to defend and just kill, kill, kill, kill. Rewards fall upon the completion of each "phase." Game ends when everyone dies or whatever needs to be defended gets wrecked by mobs... and just to make it fun, it can go on for 300 phases or something.

Old-school Starcraft and Warcraft mod players should know about Hero Line Wars and those Tower Defense games.

Diablo dota? I'll sign that one.

[inkcheese]

Boss rush mode...

[Bagstone]

fulken, on 12 February 2013 - 02:25 AM, said:

Diablo dota? I'll sign that one.

I might be the only one, but I love tower defense (this is what Jaetch describes), while I hate DoTA. I know that they're quite similar, and I can't say why, but I never enjoyed DoTA. Maybe because it's more PvP rather than PvE. Anyways. Idea sounds awesome, sure. Though it's a different game; we have enough DoTA clones out there, but no huge choice of PvE dungeon crawlers like D3...

Edited by Bagstone, 12 February 2013 - 05:26 AM.

[TheDFO]

[quote name='Jaetch' timestamp='1360628612' post='1127099']
Hero defense!

Set up lanes to defend and just kill, kill, kill, kill. Rewards fall upon the completion of each "phase." Game ends when everyone dies or whatever needs to be defended gets wrecked by mobs... and just to make it fun, it can go on for 300 phases or something.

Old-school Starcraft and Warcraft mod players should know about Hero Line Wars and those Tower Defense games.
[/quote]

This would be awesome. Although maybe a little better (or simpler to implement?) would be a combination of this and the endless dungeon.

Each map is based around one of the region themes (old tristram road, the highlands/FoM, festering woods, etc), and the defend point is randomly chosen to be one of the "event" layouts (such as what's her names cart, or the ancient portal hill, or one of the houses in act 1). You kill some number of waves, featuring enemies from that area. After some set number you change to a different random theme. Perhaps they implement invisible walls to keep players in "lanes." Perhaps they adjust the enemy count/strength to the choke points, so you have fewer, stronger enemies in wide open areas, and more, weaker enemies in the tighter areas.

As per general PvM, I don't really care, cause my end game goal is not to play this game for the next 4 months straight. When I got it, my goal was to level a few characters to 60. I did so with my WD and my Monk. I'm back now, and I'm trying to level all 5 classes in HC. I would like to take them until they get 60, or more likely, die. I mean, it's not a MMO, I'm not constantly paying, so when I get bored, I can go off to another game. When I come back in 8ish months, either the game will have changed, or it will be more fresh cause I'm not burnt out, and I'll play some. Which is what I did in D2. From 2005 (when I went to college) to D3, I'd play the game again every 10-18 months, and level a character or two up to mid 90's, then move on.

That's more than I can say for 90% of my game collection. Hell, probably 80% never gets played more than once. Let's see - I've gone through the Metroid games, DKC games, and Zelda games multiple times. As I have SPaZ. I went through Oblivion and Skyrim twice each (once plain, once with mods), and I went through FO3 three or four times. I've Bioshock one 3 or 4 times, and Bioshock 2 twice. I've gone through both Arkham games twice, and went through ME1 and 2 like 6 times each. Those, out of at least 20 360 games, 60+ steam games, 10ish Wii games, and who knows how many games I've had in SNES, gamecube, xbox, and PC before steam.

So that's 24 (including D2 and 3) out of at minimum 90 games (not including the at least 30 pre-steam PC games, 10ish each for SNES, GC, N64, and Xbox games). So right there, D3 is easily in the top 20% in time played.

TL;DR: sorry for the ramble, but the point is - why does the PvM have to change? It's a one time buy. The at least 50 hours everyone here has put should make the game a very good game. Maybe not the insane hit that D2 was, but I don't think anything Blizzard does named Diablo will ever be like that again, just because I don't think sequels can ever capture that kind of lightning a second time.