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Greater Rifts Tweaks

Grimiku posted a few more replies today on the thread about the purpose of Greater Rifts. They reveal what are the current views of the developers on randomness and Greater Rifts as a competitive measurement tool. He explains that while RNG is used as a replayability tool in Reaper of Souls, as a staple of the franchise, the devs also feel like being 100% at the mercy of it when getting a GR rank is not something that's very engaging. We can certainly expect tweaks in the future. Check the details below!

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

You need to add "luck" in that statement.

GR is mostly luck.. at a certain level though, if your hero is stronk then yeah, you dont need luck, but the top 10 of a class is, most certainly, luck based GR.

In general, we use randomness in Diablo III to increase the replayability—Greater Rifts included. At the same time, we don’t want Greater Rifts to be so random that it feels like your success is completely at the mercy of a random number generator. Ideally, the randomness within Greater Rifts should keep each Rift level feeling fresh and provide for some unexpected moments of excitement, as well as test how well a player is able to adapt to controlled amounts of unpredictability (i.e. randomness). 

At the moment, though, we do feel randomness plays too heavy a role in Greater Rifts, and will be making improvements along those lines. No firm date on this, but just wanted to note that we’re on the same page. Valid feedback, and thanks!
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Conduit Pylon a very good measure of power growth, No?

Pylons can be a hell of a lot of fun to encounter in game, and that’s one of the big reasons we added them to Greater Rifts. 

That said, we do agree that pylons, at least in their current form, have had negative effect on Greater Rifts for the top end. Ideally, we don’t want to remove pylons from Greater Rifts, since we like the variety they provide, but we also don’t like the current situation where certain classes and builds are able to defeat a Rift level multiple ranks higher than could normally thanks to a single pylon (in this case, a Conduit Pylon). 

As with other factors in Greater Rifts—density, monster types, Rift Guardians, etc—finding a good balance between random vs. predictable is something we’re going to continue to iterate and improve upon for Greater Rifts, and that includes pylons too. Ultimately (as I noted in another post), randomness in Greater Rifts should create positive variety and a sense of excitement. We don’t think we’ve nailed that in all areas just yet, so we appreciate all the discussion and dialog on this topic in the meantime.
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As for what they are intended to be, I am happy with how Greater Rifts work myself. I have found that getting gear upgrades have allowed me to consistently beat ranks I was previously having trouble with, and keep pushing a little further. This has added longevity to the game for me currently.

I will echo the sentiments of many others in stating that empty rifts and long tunnels are not the sort of fun experience I am looking for and I hope you are able to iron out the relevant algorithms and provide a more consistent experience in the future.

It’s certainly our goal to continue to tweak and edit and improve the Greater Rift experience, so thank you for the solid feedback. I’m glad you’re having a great time, though. In addition to beating your own personal best, we also want to make sure the rewards along the way feel worth it. Greater Rifts should be a fun and rewarding activity for all players, even if you aren’t on the leaderboards (or necessarily working your way towards them).

Maintenance Reminder

As a heads-up, there will be the usual Tuesday maintenance tomorrow. Something to note is that while you will be able to play normally, clans will not be available.

Originally Posted by Blizzard (Blue Tracker / Official Forums)

We will be performing maintenance beginning on Tuesday, October 14 at 1:00 AM PDT and we expect it to be complete at approximately 3:00 AM PDT. During this time the game will be available for play but clans will be unavailable.

Thank you for your patience.

Rank #1 Barbarian

Dutch Freak managed to beat a Solo GR level 47 in about 8 minutes - a current world record. While he did use a Conduit against the boss (mostly because Barbs' single target damage in the current end-game is pretty awful), the achievement still required a lot of commitment and execution skills - so congratulations Dutch! For those who want to see the footage, check below!