Terror Zone will make 99 WAY TOO EASY if Monster Levels are not nerfed/adjusted

PTR Feedback
1

I got 98 on Hardcore Expansion Season Ladder 1 in 15 days and 99 in less than 1 month

I got to 98 in 15 days doing Chaos Sanctuary Runs Only.

91-94 was 1 day
94-95 was 1 day
95-96 was 2 days
96-97 was 4 days

Contrary to popular belief Baal, Diablo, and Nihlithak are NOT the best sources of exp at 96. Level 88 minions are without question the best source of experience.

This is because despite the monster level exp diminishing return from monster level 88 minions, the sheer volume of them and the speed at which you can kill them in Chaos Sanctuary and now Arachnids lair dramatically exceeds the exp yielded from Nihlithak, Diablo, or Baal.

I can say this definitively because i measured chaos runs at each level starting at 90+ in a spreadsheet tracking my exp with 3 variables:

Start Exp
Exp Before Diablo
Exp After Diablo

Using these i measured the ratio of % exp yielded from runs as Monster Exp % Vs Diablo Exp % as a benchmark to determine at each level if my strategy of speed “minion hopping” in Chaos Sanctuary runs was still the superior method for gaining exp.

96 and below without question “minion hopping” in chaos sanctuary with teleport in players 8 at lightning speed is by far the fastest method of exp gain as my measurements showed even at 96, 70-80% of the exp yield was from minion packs and only 20-30% was from diablo.

For those who know what “topping” is these measurements were done against doing top 1, top 2, and top 3 diablo as well as top 2 and top 4 baal in players 8 games.

To recap thus far, killing monster level 88 minion packs in high density and super fast to find areas like river of flame, chaos sanctuary, and arachnids lair are already incredibly good at getting to 97.

As for 97 the diminishing return penalty increase is just enough to where i had to adjust strategy slightly and find baal games (easy way to find player 8 games) with which i could usually get solo p8 experience killing the minion packs in river of flame, chaos sanctuary, and arachnids lair and depending on what players in the game sometimes top 1, top 2, or top 3 diablo exp.

Each Solo Minion Kill in Players 8 at 97 yields about 3,000 exp which sounds bad however if you factor in killing the whole pack solo:

3,000 * ~5 to ~10 minions = 15,000 to 30,000 exp which is about the same as nihlithak and almost as much as a top 3 diablo or top 4 baal kill which are around ~40,000 exp.

Thus at 97 i still opted to go for solo speed killing level 88 minions in chaos sanctuary, river of flame, and arachnids lair and either do top 1, top 2, or top 3 diablo (depending on who was in the game).

Level 88 minions were still equitable exp therefore to Diablo, Nihlithak, and Baal even at 97 so in reality level 97 did not feel hard essentially i was still essentially doing the same strategy for 96 and below, just getting more solo p8 exp instead of shared p8 exp.

In my personal opinion the only level that felt kind of difficult was 98 but even then didn’t even feel that hard once you have a super fast strategy in place.

Mind you I did all this on Hardcore all in random public games, no pre organized teams, “helpers” or “feeders” and thus is a good benchmark for evaluation as i essentially was a random solo player just playing with whoever was publically available.

Now with all that backstory and information as a baseline let me mention that I am not saying that “Terror Zones” are a “bad idea.” What is a really bad idea is the current implementation of monster levels, it will just be the equivalent of cows to 99 all over again and the whole reason why the monster level diminishing return was introduced in the first place.

Here is my exact suggestion:

Terror Zones are normalized to area level 85 for their duration.

-Terror Zone Normal Monsters are level 85.
-Terror Zone Minions are +3 level = level 88.
-Terror Zone Super Uniques are level 93.
-Terror Zone Super Uniques as well as Baal, Diablo, & Nihlithak have their experience slightly buffed
-Terror Zone Super Uniques as well as Baal, Diablo, & Nihlithak yield their full solo experience even if killed in party so that there no longer is an incentive to leave and reparty to “top baal” or “top diablo” for more experience due to natively gaining full undivided boss exp in party.

3 Likes
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Wahhhh I only have to grind 40 hours from 98 to 99 instead of hundreds wahhhhhh

thats you

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Only other idea I have is this:

-Change Andariel, Duriel, and Mephisto to monster level 93 so that all bosses give 100% exp yield at 98.

-Terror Zone isn’t automatic, you can only access by using a standard of hero (from ubers) OR absolution token.

-Terror Zone now affects all areas in the current game instance (since you had to use an item to open it).

In this case I would see it okay with monster levels as is because then terror zone is not readily accessible/spammable.

In fact it would encourage people to do Ubers, Baal Runs, Chaos Runs, Meph Runs, and Andy Runs at 98 because all these monsters would give you good exp at 98.

Then if you collect the items they drop you activate the terror zone and clear the entire rest of the game with higher monster levels for amazing exp.

4

They want 99 to be more accessible. You are advocating for it to not be. 99 is still going to be a long haul for most people even with these new terror zones, so don’t worry :slight_smile:

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Only thing I am advocating for is to balance them with the existing areas in terms of exp yield so as not to implicitly nerf the other methods/strategies.

96-97 was super easy and i did it in 4 days just killing level 88 minions in player 8 games with all of us smashing chaos sanctuary really fast.

The point i am trying to make is directly based on the math behind the monster level exp diminishing return for being 6 or more levels (or no penalty if no more than 5 above).

Which means at the current monster levels 98-99 would literally take like 1-3 days which is way too easy.

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6

Being #1 on a ladder… Definitely an achievement. With a large audience, team work is key. I know I’ll never be able to do it, I don’t try. I don’t play anywhere near enough compared to those that have done it. As a casual player, I don’t think I should be able to.

In the games current status, getting to 99 takes long enough that in order to be competitive, it requires a sacrifice of healthy sleep habits… Or should I say as little sleep, or none at all… Just to get or help someone get to 99 first.

I’ve heard of people running 20 hours straight doing nothing but Chaos runs. TWENTY HOURS STRAIGHT…

I like the game, but I can’t do that. I don’t WANT to do that. I do know there are people out there that can get by just fine with only a few hours of sleep. I need at least 5 hours of sleep to function. I understand that everyone’s biology differs.

Making the 99 grind a bit shorter gives the competitive playerbase a bit of a health boost. There are people who have perished playing games for too long without any sleep. The change lessens the chance of someone from the extremely devoted corner of the playerbase becoming another one added to that statistic.

:man_shrugging:

A reminder of the 1.10+ level 70+ experience nerf:

  • These penalties are applied after the normal experience calculations based on clvl/mlvl:
Level Experience Level Experience Level Experience
70 95.31% 80 48.44% 90 5.96%
71 90.63% 81 43.75% 91 4.49%
72 85.94% 82 39.06% 92 3.42%
73 81.25% 83 34.38% 93 2.54%
74 76.56% 84 29.69% 94 1.95%
75 71.88% 85 25.00% 95 1.46%
76 67.19% 86 18.75% 96 1.07%
77 62.50% 87 14.06% 97 0.78%
78 57.81% 88 10.55% 98 0.59%
79 53.13% 89 7.91% 99 —

Source

For me, getting up to 99 would be ~8+ skill points and ~40+ stat points. This is basing on my highest character level that I typically have at the end of a ladder, which is of course a Sorceress… Big whoop. If your character is well built, it isn’t going to matter much.

7

I agree with most everything your saying and also want to clarify some of the points you raise as I pushed 99 successfully on hardcore ladder.

Yes some people sacrificed sleep, however i did not i always got 8 hours of sleep.

I have multiple times done 200 or 300+ chaos runs in a day 12-14 hours.

Yes obviously people have died overplaying games.

I think the Terrorzones can be balanced so as to not obsolete current strategies while simultaneously making the higher levels a bit easier.

As mentioned before:

91-94 was 1 day
94-95 was 1 day
95-96 was 2 days
96-97 was 4 days

96 and below is not the issue its 97 and 98.

Therefore i think the minion monster level in terrorzones should be the same level as minion waves in baal runs and minion packs in chaos sanctuary which are level 88 so as to keep them as equitable leveling strategies up to 97 in that regard.

To ease 97 and 98 and keep all 3 leveling strategies equitable I would suggest the following:

The Super Uniques however should be at least 93 so at character level 98 they still yield 100% exp.

Then the solution simply lies in buffing the exp from super uniques, baal, diablo, and nihlithak.

It takes 291M exp to go from 98 to 99 so with some basic math if killing solo baal gives say ~100,000 exp currently it takes ~2,910 baal runs.

What if their exp value was buffed, would that alleviate the issue in your mind? What if they gave 200,000 exp per kill or 500,000?

291M / 200K = 1,455 Super unique kills
291M / 500K = 582 Super unique kills

As you can see it would be possible to keep terror zone monster levels “equitable” to chaos and baal by matching the monster levels and then buffing the super unique exp across the board so that all of these monsters alleviate the extreme nature of 97 and 98.

8

ty for being honest
i play 100 runs a day of something much faster than chaos or baal like trav or keys and thats a lot for my standarts
but i really dont think this change is aimed to people like you
you seem to be very efficient in lvling and i salute you for that but your numbers are so far ahead in dedication of a average d2r player i think

but thats not the point of TZs right? they made it clear, they want to make lvling to 99 more “accessible”

4 Likes
9

I’m sorry but if you play D2 all day every day to get to 99 you’re not the targeted audience of this patch, ofc it’s gonna be too easy if you play D2 all day.

Also Terror Zones becoming the meta is exactly the point of this content, the difference between doing Terror Zones all day and doing cow level all day is in the diversity of mobs and level, good for you if you can do the same zone with the same mobs over and over and over and over 5+ days a week 12+ hours per day but that’s definitely not for everyone.

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99 “accessibility” is a function of time which primarily is a function of two main factors.

-Monster Level exp penalty mechanic.
-Nominal/Base value of exp the monsters give.

Before the Monster Level exp penalty mechanic was introduced people could spam cow runs and be 1-99 in a few days.

The Monster Level exp penalty mechanic is core to what made the 99 grind actually difficult and of some merit and accomplishment.

As I said before, if you kill at fast speeds in areas with monster level 88 minions getting to 96 and 97 is not hard and does not take that much time.

What is hard is 97 and 98 because of the two factors above

-Monster level exp diminishing return decreasing minion exp yield
-Base exp of Diablo Baal not being high enough (level 94 and 99, no exp penalty)

As i posted before its a simple math problem at that point to determine what Base exp value is reasonable.

If 98 to 99 requires 291M and 1 Baal kill hypothetically gave 1 Million Exp it would only take 291 baal kills to go 98 to 99. With those hypothetical numbers 99 would be “more accessible.” I don’t think it should be that number, just using that as an example to show that “accessibility” is just a math problem.

So my points above still stand.

I still firmly think the monster levels should still be the same as chaos/throne so that all methods are equitable and then raise super unique and possibly unique levels to 93 in terror zones so that they give 100% exp yield at 98 and then buff all super unique exp across the board.

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how much do you think your suggestion would make reaching 99 less time consuming?

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Na bro, its chaos zones for more exp, risk reward. You cant always fight the same trash all the time if you want to level faster.

13

Shut up, you are the minority. Some of us cant play 15 hours a day supported by moms basement.
We dont care what a few streamers and no lifes achieve and how fast.

1 Like
14

There are some ppl who have lives, and this is for the ones that could not spend 10+ hours a day playing and want to get a char to lvl 99.

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15

Hanz it would depend based on how much you buffed the nominal exp yield from the suggested super unique level 93s

For example if Frigid Highland was terrorized there are 3 Super Uniques:

Eldridtch the Rectifier, Sharptooth Slayer, and Eyeback the Unleashed.

Lets say these 3 monsters, Diablo, and Baal as an example each gave 1 Million exp per kill (not suggesting this, just posing as an example to gain perspective)

Level 98 to 99 requires approximately 291M exp.

With this math it would take:

291 Diablo Kills or,
291 Baal Kills or,
97 Frigid Highland clears killing Eldritch the Rectifier, Sharptooth Slayer, and Eyeback the Unleashed

Then remember each character level lower the exp yield from the entire runs would substantially increase because level 88 minions are providing substantially more and more exp.

At 96 when I measured doing chaos runs and the level 88 minion exp was still about 70-80% of the run exp and solo/duo diablo was only 20-30%

The entire run would net about 200,000 exp per run and diablo would give about 45,000 exp.

At 93 those numbers are substantially different because the exp yield from level 88 minions is absolutely amazing due to 93 - 88 = 5 = 100% exp yield from level 88 minions.

In my opinion the issue isn’t with the exp yield from level 88 minions, it is the exp yield from the level 93+ boss monsters in relation to them, its simply too low.

91 to 94 took me a full 12 hour day of playing

This means 93 to 94 probably took about 4 hours of dedicated game play.

Would you say 4 hours to get 93 to 94 is “accessible”?

Would 4 hours to get 98 to 99 be “accessible” or “too easy”?

For me it took 15 days * ~12 hours a day = 180 hours to do 98 to 99

What if we agreed that ~4 hours a day is a reasonable number for most players?

What if 98 to 99 was rebalanced to take 15 days * ~4 hours a day instead of ~12 hours a day? So it only takes 60 hours of play rather than 180 hours of play?

How many hours of play do you think 98 to 99 should take?

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Grats on spending a month of your life accomplishing virtually nothing… Ladder bragging rights are reserved for #1 :rofl:

For those of us who actually played D2 since launch, the pre 1.10 grind was much more enjoyable.

You can literally hit 90+ on day 1, I don’t see how anyone can justify a month long grind to obtain the last 9 levels…

Hell, we used to get to 1 to 89 within an hour in Uber Tristram pre 1.13.

It’s not like these last 10 levels actually improve the character in any substantial way.

1 Like
17

endless lvl 99s complaining that their effort was wasted cause now other people will get there as well…

this is a great feature, ill finally be able to bring all my 90+ chars to 99.

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18

I like the Terror Zone mechanic to give more places to grind for level 99.

But I don’t think the bonus experience is needed at all. I’d recommend removing that, and instead just increase the monster density.

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ok TE should turn terror zones off and farm 10000 hours for his lvl 99 again, he is happy, and we are happy.

its a win win, so whats the prob if its optional? :slight_smile:

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I think simply put we should do 2 things to terror zone monsters:

  1. Set the monster’s resistance (all damage types) to a minimum of 40%. This minimum CANNOT be reduced by auras/curses. This would increase the monsters HP by 1.4-2.4x (depending on the importance of neg. res on your build).

  2. CAP the monster’s level EXCLUSIVELY for attack ratings to be 87 (or melee characters will suffer massive attack rating issues in TZ’s - especially those created by other higher level players in Bnet pub games).