@Shawmeck mentioned a good point about terror zones being the same for everyone in a region, having a concern that masses of people may flood the NA/EU/ASIA servers just because they are running an ideal terror zone area, which could cause a surge in activity, potentially overloading the region. To stop this from happening, I’m wondering if Terror Zones should be random per account.
If they are random per region, you know there will be websites that will track and notify people of which region is running what Terror Zone. If Terror Zones were random per account, this wouldn’t be possible.
Another big benefit of making them random per account would be that it would promote group play… If friend #3 has an ideal terror zone and the other friends don’t, they could join friend #3’s game and run it together.
I like the idea of Terror Zones staying a complete unknown of which one is coming next, it helps keep the game fresh.
I could support that if you can also trigger new Terror Zones by clearing the old one. Something like this dynamic:
1: When you create a new game, the Terror Zone on creation is the one that is randomly set for your account for that hour.
2: You finish “clearing” the Terror Zone, and then a new random Terror Zone in that game becomes active.
At this point you have two options. You can leave the game and create a new game, that has your current Terror Zone for that hour, or you can go clear the new Terror Zone.
3: After clearing the new Terror Zone, another new random Terror Zone triggers in that game (limited to a list of Terror Zones that have not yet triggered in that game). Basically, the Terror Zone in that game becomes disconnected from whatever the on-hour setting is, so the Terror Zone only changes in that game when the old Terror Zone is cleared.
This allows the Terror Zone feature to be used the way different players want to. The Type A farmers and grinders who want to just play the same Terrror Zone over and over will leave and create new games.
The Type B who likes to play off meta builds and thus takes longer to clear a Terror Zone doesn’t have to worry. If it takes him 80 minutes to clear a specific zone, that’s fine. The Terror Zone in his game is unaffected by what time it is on the server.
The Type C who likes the story/roleplay aspect and likes to play with a party gets to play end game acting like a rapid reaction force to wherever the hordes of Hell are invading this time. And sometimes the Terror Zone is one his character shines in, and other times the new Terror Zone is something a different character in the party can shine in.
It also gives a goal that people could try to attempt for bragging rights: Clear all the Terror Zones in a single game.
I could see the Terror Zone changing if for example you cleared all super uniques (if applicable), unique/champion packs as well as at least 75% of normal monsters. If those criteria are met before the normal Terror Zone end “fading” starts, the current Terror Zone will start “fading” over the course of a few minutes and then change to a new one.
I can see a full 100% clear being a bit on the annoying side… Think of those times when we’re clearing the Den of Evil… 1 monster left…
True, which I why I’d suggest the trigger be killing the super uniques in the Terror Zone. All the Terror Zones except the Black Marsh have at least one super unique. Just add Flamespike back into the game in the Black Marsh and suddenly that zone has a super unique too.
Yes, that would work as well… However, as I said, I’d rather the Terror Zones be a completely random event for everyone, as in not trackable by websites.
That would give an edge to streamers with a lot of followers. They can easily ask a lot of followers to create games to get a favorable zone, such as chaos, then hold the game so they can join in to fight.
Believe me, streamers are going to have an edge no matter what happens. It doesn’t matter, they will always have followers buzzing around helping them just to get the chance to video bomb their content.
Streamers already have an edge. So the question becomes, do we not implement a change that benefits the rest of the player community just because the streamers still get an edge?
Indeed, is the edge the streamers get under this system better than their current edge under the endless Baal Runs?
And what are the benefits to the community?
I’d say the answers to those questions are:
1: It depends, if the benefits to the rest of the community are large, and the benefits to the streamers relatively small, it makes sense to me to still implement the change. I mean, my higher priority is getting rid of the bots and making sure the game is fun for non-streamers.
2: Not really, streamers already benefit hugely under the current Baal system, and have a much greater edge than the typical player base. Meanwhile under this system for Terror Zones the edge certainly still exists, but most likely becomes smaller, since it’s not nearly as laborious to find friends who can check what Terror Zones they have and call you to their games as it is to organize Baal/Diablo runs - which is what the streamers are doing currently.
3: The benefits to the general community are quite large. Less risk of server overload that makes it impossible for people without high quality computers to play. Probably makes it more difficult for bots to exploit Terror Zones, since they don’t know what Terror Zone they are going to get until their bot account creates a game that hour.
Looking at that I figure the benefits to the community outweigh the edge that streamers will still have.
