D3 Rift Keys - Another Way

General Discussion
1

I push a lot of GRs and I find it’s the game mode I most prefer. At the start of a session, I’m usually out of keys, Before pushing, I commit about 10-15 minutes to farm them, depending upon how much time I have to play.

So I was reflecting on this patch. It definitely helped to make pushing less tedious, I find good grifts maps more frequently and I waste fewer keys because of that. With the expedited close rift feature, I burn through keys quickly. Overall, I am spending more time in greater rifts, but rift farming is still an unfulfilling pain point, right behind bounties.

I thought… how can we make this even better? So here’s my idea that I want share with you – let me know what you think:

What if….

  • You didn’t need a Greater Rift Keystone to open a Greater Rift.
  • The Rift Guardian no longer drops loot, he drops a Treasure Chest.
  • Greater Rift Keystones are used to open the dropped Treasure Chest.
  • If you click the treasure chest, you are prompted to ‘Use a Keystone’ or ‘Bash Open the Chest’.
  • Use a Keystone to collect loot like normal.
  • Bash Open the Chest and only collect the equivalent Forgotten Souls, just as if Haedrig salvaged everything inside the chest for you.
  • Experience gains and legendary gems remain unchanged.

I know D3 is long in the tooth, but this concept of ‘keys for reward’ instead of ‘keys to enter’ might be useful in other titles. What are your thoughts?

2

Not a bad idea tbh, you didn’t mention it but the normal rift guardians will continue to drop the keystones just like they do now.

Definitely find a merrit in your idea as at some point players have a nice level of gear and the XP gain is in focus. Therefore “bashing the chest” will reward us materials and XP thus allowing those that want, need to increase the paragon level to do so without the grind.

Edit

The only thing I can think of that would speak against this idea would be that the grind for keystones works as a hand break against extreme paragon gains.

2 Likes
3

Yes – rifts are a speed bump for the botters.

The delineation of purpose becomes clearer:

  • Rifts: Volume Loot
  • Bounties: Materials / Targeted Loot
  • Grifts: Exp / Leaderboards / Souls

Not very different. but Rifts would ultimately reign supreme for volume loot.

1 Like
4

D3 has a lot of iteration issues that I would like to see changed. The developers should play the game “Hero Siege” to see how D3’s world could have been setup.

D3’s adventure mode reminds me of Hero Sieges world map, except in D3, the world actually has no purpose other than bounties. D3 shrinks the overworld by heavily incentivizing Rifts/Greater Rifts which is counterintuitive to the reason adventure mode exists in the first place.

D3 streamlines way to many features to the point where everything is a linear path, including choice.

-Want “bounty material”? Do bounties
-Want 100% more legendaries? Do Rifts
-Want GR keys? Do Rifts
-Want Legendary gems? Do Greater rifts

The entire game tells you how to play. Whereas a game like Hero Siege (Which is very similar to D3 in many ways), has a more sandbox approach to the game. You can farm anywhere you want.

I think the D4 team can learn from this because I’m really hoping D4 isn’t as a streamlined/linear in choice like D3.

A quick example of what I mean by sandbox in terms of D3:

-Adventure mode would be the base overworld game where you go out and clear stuff, wherever you want.

-Bounty materials are now a global drop. Very rare from regular monsters, semi-rare from champions, and uncommon from rift guardians/act bosses.

-Regular Rifts are locked. Rift keys are a global drop. Regular monsters drop them very rarely champions semi-rare, and act bosses uncommon. (Rift difficulty can be selected like GRs in the game. Scales up to 150)

-Greater Rifts are no longer locked but there sole purpose is to push leaderboards and legendary gems (read below). (Still capped at 150)

-Legendary gems are now a rare global drop and are automatically leveled up based on your current characters highest greater rift clear.

-Caldesann is now based on your current highest GR clear and no longer uses legendary gems. Instead it costs materials: x500 Forgotten Souls, x25 Each bounty material, and a ramaladni’s gift.

-New Recipes for the kanai cube:

1.) x3 of the same ancient legendary: 5% Chance at Primal Ancient of same type and 95% chance at a rerolled ancient version.

2.) Turn x10 Forgotten Souls into x5 of each crafting material (x5 white, x5 blue, x5 yellow)

3.) Craft random ancient legendary : Costs x250 forgotten souls

2 Likes
5

A simple change to Cain’s set, make it drop double keys like Sage’s does with DB’s instead of the current “Chance” for an extra key.

2 Likes
6

The Cain’s set is inconsistent, more often than not I get 3-4 keys solo. Guaranteeing 6 or 8 keys would helps matters.

2 Likes
7

You’ve just added a couple extra steps to the current system. This doesn’t make things better or more enticing in any way.

8

I don’t see it from your perspective at all. Cutting out key farming to engage the primary exp gain activity is actually way fewer steps:

Time Comparison
2 clicks * 4 Grifts < open regular rift, clear rift, go to town, close rift, salvage gear, wait 30 seconds.

9

The gain of legendary gems should be included in the treasure chest so, it is not until your 20+ (or if you’ve already got the ones you want and are done augmenting) that you can skip it. After all, the only time you need to get through that faster or easier is when you’re pretty much done with finding loot/gems and only want paragon or pushing.

1 Like
10

If the difficulty scaled higher id honesty like to farm non gr mode. Instead of just raising torment levels how about a couple gr135 equilivent zones players can farm.

1 Like
11

You still need keystones. What time and effort have you saved?

12

I actually hate farming for Greater Rift keys. Not gonna lie. I like playing in Greater Rifts for a thrill, I like zipping around in the bounties for a few legendaries but farming Nephalem Rift is just tedious. I think there won’t be a third way for someone who wouldn’t socialize or change setup for speed but Nephalem Rifts are just a bit frustrating to overcome.

That’s kind of gamble. Even when you upgraded everything you still can land upon that Primal piece you soared way too long. Anyone who hit up GR70+ solo once to unlock Primals, would like to try their chance no matter what.

1 Like
13

What am I proposing is to Smash a chest and only collect Forgotten Souls, no keys required to do this. Only use a key to collect actual gear drops.

  • Smash a Chest = Forgotten Souls
  • Use a Keystone = Loot

There comes a point in the game when you just don’t care about the loot. Almost all of my Crusader and DH gear is well rolled across most sets. I may miss out on a +0.5% damage upgrade by skipping the loot.

I’m willing to exchange tiny gear upgrades to play the game mode of my choice 100% of the time.

It’s like putting gear upgrades on pause so you can push, which… happens regardless when you open and close a rift.

1 Like
14

I wouldn’t mind this either.

Sacrifice gem upgrades as well… that’ll work. I’d be willing to forfeit them too.