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.
Like I noted above, how and when we drop Keystones will ultimately depend on how rewarding Nephalem Rifts end up being. If Nephalem Rifts end up being super-duper rewarding and lucrative, then we may not hand out Keystones all that frequently. Conversely, if Nephalem Rifts aren't super-duper rewarding and lucrative (and instead fall somewhere in the middle, where they're still satisfying but not overly giving), they we may hand out Keystones at a much more frequent clip. Overall difficulty is also a factor. Our tuning at the moment is focused on finding the right balance between the three.
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.
I like the idea of having a clear guage for every level, but I do think spawning after everyone one is a little OTT ;), it COULD be possible, if the "boss" that spawned on the first X floors was more of a "mid boss" slightly more powerful, with a higher chance of dropping something, but no Gold/XP bonus, then the boss on the last floor gave the good loot and bonus'
I think the idea of "named" rift stones is fantastic, I know Rift's are supposed to be totally random, but it would be cool if "themed" rifts were still random, but then the LAST level would fit with the theme and have a specific boss, so with your example of the Cow Bell, the last level would be Cow themed, with a Cow King boss.
I like it, hopefully a blue sees it and passes it on. This is the time when a lot of suggestions should be put in any of the threads where a blue asks a question, or posts that "they're watching". The devs have just finished doing Blizzcon, we have the most up to date info on where the game is currently, and they're about to get back to work on ROS and getting beta out. We have a good 6 months most likely until the earliest ROS will be released, so there's lots of time for them to take these suggestions and test them out internally.
First of all: great proposal. I enjoyed reading it and it shows some cool ideas. But I think that hype fueled you so much to write this that you had not even the time to stop thinking and developing those ideas more deeply. Again, I think this is a cool idea, but I also believe you can improve it, so let me drop some personal thoughts.
(also, sorry for my English)
Different qualities for keystones. Sounds cool, but also a bit poor. Don't we already have a difficulty system which should modify also the rewards of a Rift? Let's think in other way: let's make not better or worse keystones. Let's simply define different keystones.
You would have the chance to get new plans for artisans (Mystic?) from the monsters. Those plans teach her how to improve a basic keystone (the ones we know) and change it nature. So, for example:
-Combining a keystone with a Bottled Rainbow gives you a Colorful Keystone. This gives you a chance of finding a super-unique monster inside (Uber-Unicorn)in the rift who will drop an improved loot.
-Combining a keystone with a Radiant Square Rubi gives you a Burning Keystone. This opens a rift where all monsters are infused with fire, dealing an extra fire damage to players. This also increases the effect of all rubies socketed to your gear.
-Combining a keystone with a legendary mighty weapon or belt gives you a Mighty Keystone. This gives you a chance of finding The Ancients in the rift. Defeating them has a great chance of getting a different Mighty Weapon as reward.
Also, I think they should disable the counter of killed monsters. I don't want to know when the Boss is appearing >
Hope this could give you new ideas, I'll keep checking this thread!
This isnt new....ever heard about the game "path of exile"?
Yeah, we have. It's the game that isn't new either, because it was built on the foundations and ideas of many other games, including Diablo. Still a nice idea presented by OP. But thanks for constructive feedback.
Different qualities for keystones. Sounds cool, but also a bit poor. Don't we already have a difficulty system which should modify also the rewards of a Rift? Let's think in other way: let's make not better or worse keystones. Let's simply define different keystones.
You would have the chance to get new plans for artisans (Mystic?) from the monsters. Those plans teach her how to improve a basic keystone (the ones we know) and change it nature. So, for example:
-Combining a keystone with a Bottled Rainbow gives you a Colorful Keystone. This gives you a chance of finding a super-unique monster inside (Uber-Unicorn)in the rift who will drop an improved loot.
-Combining a keystone with a Radiant Square Rubi gives you a Burning Keystone. This opens a rift where all monsters are infused with fire, dealing an extra fire damage to players. This also increases the effect of all rubies socketed to your gear.
-Combining a keystone with a legendary mighty weapon or belt gives you a Mighty Keystone. This gives you a chance of finding The Ancients in the rift. Defeating them has a great chance of getting a different Mighty Weapon as reward.
Also, I think they should disable the counter of killed monsters. I don't want to know when the Boss is appearing >
I actually really love these suggestions; there is lots of potential here and actually making crafting more worthwhile. One drawback is if we need to start using stash space for “more" materials and we aren't getting any additional stash space.
Also going with the OP idea, normal mode gives your magic keys, expert gives rare, torment gives legendaries, etc...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Playing Diablo since 97. I know nothing and having nothing good to say, I be a troll.
Re: Incentives/Quality of Keystone
Incentives to go deeper into a nephalem rift is tricky. Is it a function of levels? Monster difficulty? There's also the issue that Magic level rifts may never be worth going into. The keystone colors address that somewhat but then you have the complexity of what a Legendary keystone means in Normal vs Torment.
It's also possible that the meter to activate the rift guardian takes the size of the rift into account, but I didn't really pay much attention to that in the 3 or 4 play-throughs I did.
Re: Unique Keystones
This sounds like the Nephalem Trials, but on a smaller scale and a really cool idea. (At Blizzcon, I did find a completely cow infested cave with the Cow Princess in it, which was hilarious)
Edit:
The keystone crafting mechanics sound great!
How nice of you to conveniently disregard the fact that he's talking about PoE's Maps mechanic (which is basically what the OP's idea is, not a lot of differences there), and start talking about the "big picture" (because it suits you).
He's right, the OP's idea is PoE maps, down to a 'T'. I hate it when you go all "crusader mode".
OK OK OK... but it's pretty damned douchey at this point for someone to even bring that up when people have been saying "we want a map system cause it was cool in TL2 and PoE."
You can't beg for a feature then whine that Blizzard "copied" it. That's not how it works. So it really doesn't matter if it was copied or not, this is Blizzard trying to give us what we want, right? This is one of the things I absolutely LOATHE about this community: it's so fucking two-faced about things.
"Hey, Blizzard, give us PoE/TL2 maps please!"
"OK, guys, we think we have a system similar to that which works in the D3 world..."
"You lazy fucks just copying from other games!"
It's a case study in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" frankly.
@OP
I'll wait to see how Rifts turn out before passing judgement on your improvements.
And they can copy whatever they want from wherever they want; just don't try to present it as the most original of ideas (which they do on a regular basis).
That's just projection. Them being excited about a a feature in their game is not the same as saying "this is the most original and cool idea".
Never once have I seen them acknowledge other games from where they took ideas, but I have seen many developers acknowledge Diablo as a source of many ideas and inspiration.
You said that Blizzard, on a regular basis, presents all of their ideas as the most original features (even ones they make take from other games). Where have they done this?
Then you claimed they've never acknoweldged were they've gotten ideas and/or inspiration, linked is an article where Metzen talks about exactly where the ideas for all of their games have come from.
People is going off-topic here, OMG DIABLOHAZ ITENS IT'S COPYING OTEHR RPGS... that's just stupid, and it's not a copy of PoE it's a variation since it's NOT PoE...
OT: i would only like to add that i really hope/want keys to be on a per player basis, (each player entering needs a key) to avoid ppl selling/buying rift runs...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Those Who Do Not Know True Pain Cannot Possibly Understand True Peace...
I definitely agree that the concept of Nephalem Rifts can be given a little more depth, and I think what you're proposing here would be a great way to do that.
And they can copy whatever they want from wherever they want; just don't try to present it as the most original of ideas (which they do on a regular basis).
That's just projection. Them being excited about a a feature in their game is not the same as saying "this is the most original and cool idea".
Never once have I seen them acknowledge other games from where they took ideas, but I have seen many developers acknowledge Diablo as a source of many ideas and inspiration.
I fail to see the point in either of your replies. Would like clarification, please.
Yeah, maka, with all due respect...I'm not really sure what you're expecting Blizzard to do there.
The guys behind Torchlight and Path of Exile are indie publishers, with funding not even close to Blizzard's. In addition, "Diablo" is accepted by the industry as a standard-bearer. A lot of things that appear in D1 and D2 inspired games not even in the same genre. So for Grinding Gear and Runic to acknowledge Diablo as inspiration is the "little guy" showing respect to the "big guy."
Looking at it the other way...Blizzard isn't paying tribute to Grinding Gear or Runic by using any of their ideas, dude. If D3 devs were like, "so we're introducing Rifts...we really liked how Path of Exile did this, so we're putting our own version in D3!" There is no way in HELL that the community would see that as Blizzard acknowledging someone else's ideas. The community would rail against it and, much like shaggy said, complain that Blizzard was copying the idea.
Personally, I don't know much about Torchlight Maps or PoE Maps. I played through TL1, TL2 doesn't work well on my current PC (hope to get a new one soon, though). TL1 maps, though, seemed similar...random-ish dungeons with a boss at the end, usually some sort of fetch quest attached. At the end of the game, there was an endless dungeon...which I think Rifts wanted to address.
D3 players haven't been happy with the dungeon situation since launch, and so looking at other games, people clamored for an endless dungeon. The reason Blizzard didn't want to just throw one in is because 1) it's an overly simple idea, without much creativity, and 2) other games did that exact thing. So, they're putting in Nephalem Rifts instead. ANY monsters, ANY area map, ANY boss, ANY weather condition, all thrown together in one spot...10 levels deep (if a player decides to descend that far), and you need keystones to activate the portal...
Scratches the random itch. Scratches the treasure itch. Scratches the challenge itch. Scratches the content itch. Could it be deeper? Sure. But truthfully, with the amount of randomness and loot potential? The fact you'll never know what to expect?
It's good the way it is, and is different enough from other games to stand on its own.
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
Originally Posted by Lylirra (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)
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.
I like the idea of having a clear guage for every level, but I do think spawning after everyone one is a little OTT ;), it COULD be possible, if the "boss" that spawned on the first X floors was more of a "mid boss" slightly more powerful, with a higher chance of dropping something, but no Gold/XP bonus, then the boss on the last floor gave the good loot and bonus'
I think the idea of "named" rift stones is fantastic, I know Rift's are supposed to be totally random, but it would be cool if "themed" rifts were still random, but then the LAST level would fit with the theme and have a specific boss, so with your example of the Cow Bell, the last level would be Cow themed, with a Cow King boss.
(also, sorry for my English)
Different qualities for keystones. Sounds cool, but also a bit poor. Don't we already have a difficulty system which should modify also the rewards of a Rift? Let's think in other way: let's make not better or worse keystones. Let's simply define different keystones.
You would have the chance to get new plans for artisans (Mystic?) from the monsters. Those plans teach her how to improve a basic keystone (the ones we know) and change it nature. So, for example:
-Combining a keystone with a Bottled Rainbow gives you a Colorful Keystone. This gives you a chance of finding a super-unique monster inside (Uber-Unicorn)in the rift who will drop an improved loot.
-Combining a keystone with a Radiant Square Rubi gives you a Burning Keystone. This opens a rift where all monsters are infused with fire, dealing an extra fire damage to players. This also increases the effect of all rubies socketed to your gear.
-Combining a keystone with a legendary mighty weapon or belt gives you a Mighty Keystone. This gives you a chance of finding The Ancients in the rift. Defeating them has a great chance of getting a different Mighty Weapon as reward.
Also, I think they should disable the counter of killed monsters. I don't want to know when the Boss is appearing >
Hope this could give you new ideas, I'll keep checking this thread!
Yeah, we have. It's the game that isn't new either, because it was built on the foundations and ideas of many other games, including Diablo. Still a nice idea presented by OP. But thanks for constructive feedback.
I actually really love these suggestions; there is lots of potential here and actually making crafting more worthwhile. One drawback is if we need to start using stash space for “more" materials and we aren't getting any additional stash space.
Also going with the OP idea, normal mode gives your magic keys, expert gives rare, torment gives legendaries, etc...
Incentives to go deeper into a nephalem rift is tricky. Is it a function of levels? Monster difficulty? There's also the issue that Magic level rifts may never be worth going into. The keystone colors address that somewhat but then you have the complexity of what a Legendary keystone means in Normal vs Torment.
It's also possible that the meter to activate the rift guardian takes the size of the rift into account, but I didn't really pay much attention to that in the 3 or 4 play-throughs I did.
Re: Unique Keystones
This sounds like the Nephalem Trials, but on a smaller scale and a really cool idea. (At Blizzcon, I did find a completely cow infested cave with the Cow Princess in it, which was hilarious)
Edit:
The keystone crafting mechanics sound great!
OK OK OK... but it's pretty damned douchey at this point for someone to even bring that up when people have been saying "we want a map system cause it was cool in TL2 and PoE."
You can't beg for a feature then whine that Blizzard "copied" it. That's not how it works. So it really doesn't matter if it was copied or not, this is Blizzard trying to give us what we want, right? This is one of the things I absolutely LOATHE about this community: it's so fucking two-faced about things.
"Hey, Blizzard, give us PoE/TL2 maps please!"
"OK, guys, we think we have a system similar to that which works in the D3 world..."
"You lazy fucks just copying from other games!"
It's a case study in "damned if you do, damned if you don't" frankly.
@OP
I'll wait to see how Rifts turn out before passing judgement on your improvements.
http://www.forbes.com/fdc/welcome_mjx.shtml
Then you claimed they've never acknoweldged were they've gotten ideas and/or inspiration, linked is an article where Metzen talks about exactly where the ideas for all of their games have come from.
Edit: Forbes gave me a bad link. Real one-
http://www.forbes.co...o-to-starcraft/
He also talks about how the fans have helped influence games or features within them through their contributions.
OT: i would only like to add that i really hope/want keys to be on a per player basis, (each player entering needs a key) to avoid ppl selling/buying rift runs...
Those Who Do Not Know True Pain Cannot Possibly Understand True Peace...
I definitely agree that the concept of Nephalem Rifts can be given a little more depth, and I think what you're proposing here would be a great way to do that.
Yeah, maka, with all due respect...I'm not really sure what you're expecting Blizzard to do there.
The guys behind Torchlight and Path of Exile are indie publishers, with funding not even close to Blizzard's. In addition, "Diablo" is accepted by the industry as a standard-bearer. A lot of things that appear in D1 and D2 inspired games not even in the same genre. So for Grinding Gear and Runic to acknowledge Diablo as inspiration is the "little guy" showing respect to the "big guy."
Looking at it the other way...Blizzard isn't paying tribute to Grinding Gear or Runic by using any of their ideas, dude. If D3 devs were like, "so we're introducing Rifts...we really liked how Path of Exile did this, so we're putting our own version in D3!" There is no way in HELL that the community would see that as Blizzard acknowledging someone else's ideas. The community would rail against it and, much like shaggy said, complain that Blizzard was copying the idea.
Personally, I don't know much about Torchlight Maps or PoE Maps. I played through TL1, TL2 doesn't work well on my current PC (hope to get a new one soon, though). TL1 maps, though, seemed similar...random-ish dungeons with a boss at the end, usually some sort of fetch quest attached. At the end of the game, there was an endless dungeon...which I think Rifts wanted to address.
D3 players haven't been happy with the dungeon situation since launch, and so looking at other games, people clamored for an endless dungeon. The reason Blizzard didn't want to just throw one in is because 1) it's an overly simple idea, without much creativity, and 2) other games did that exact thing. So, they're putting in Nephalem Rifts instead. ANY monsters, ANY area map, ANY boss, ANY weather condition, all thrown together in one spot...10 levels deep (if a player decides to descend that far), and you need keystones to activate the portal...
Scratches the random itch. Scratches the treasure itch. Scratches the challenge itch. Scratches the content itch. Could it be deeper? Sure. But truthfully, with the amount of randomness and loot potential? The fact you'll never know what to expect?
It's good the way it is, and is different enough from other games to stand on its own.