D4 endgame and progression suggestion

General Discussion
1

I would like to introduce this suggestion, as one that can enhance replayablility, end game content and that connect to the lore.

I started to think about it when I came across bookshelf in D3 and would only get some gold from it… For those who played Diablo 1, bookshelf was always nice to find and a great source of power.

lets get to the point, there is a lot to do with a simple bookshelf. See it as a source of intel, knowledge about the world of sanctuary and beyond, there’s plenty way we can use this. In a game that has such lore and dept there is no limit on what intel you can find, even more in an open world.

Makes us incarnate the sucsesors of the horadrim. Angel, demon and ancien tomes could give intel or knowledge that accumulate in the “book of Cain”.
That knowlege could then be researched (or spent) to open up thematic side quests. Its way more imersives and fun than warping to adventure mode locations, do listed objectif, get reward and redo.

Intel within bookshelf would be revealing dungeons location, secret passages location, hidden treasure. Intelect could be literaly an additional source of power creep attraction. At that point it would be valuable to gain some intel find beside magic find. That would make player caring not only about the drops they get, but the content they acces. Because it would allow characters to find exclusives location, and where it leads you is a trill that adds replayablility.

Bookshelf can be found anywhere from open world to high lvl dungons.
They could have hidden affix and then if you have enought cumulated knowlege, certain affix become visible to you.

Aside intel or knowlege, here is some idea of what could contain a bookshelf:

  • Lore, book of skills, magic scrolls. It would be nice to get some exclusive usable magic scrolls that dont belong to characters. Maybe of angel, demon or ancien origins.

  • Crafting plans, cube receip, some low tier could be learned forever wile others would be usable, offering differents goals and replayability.

  • Special rune word receip, yes we do want the old special runeword back and together with new rune trigger system. Some new type of rune could help doing so without messing with socket numbers. Enchant type of rune could be use into the cube to add the trigger&effect to a specific gear, using only the base item to create uniques runic item. Enhance type of rune could be use into the cube to upgrade the proc or the effect part.

-Charms, we do want them, not necesserly in their former aspect. You can rework them charimg a gear slot independent from the gear itself so you can switch either without affecting the other.
that would limit the quantity without affecting inventory.

  • Treasure maps that gives the location of an unclaimed hidden treasure. They could contain loads of gold and jewels or chest with same drop rate as worldboss for solo player. Special relics like the cube and the scroll of faith. Fixed lesser uniques like in D3 adventure mode maybe. Special maps, inspired by the pactole. These treasure map could lead to a free cosmetic.

  • Prophetic quest, it is written when and where you will encounter these challenging quests. You’d get special mods affecting your character for the duration of the quest. Some quest you get debuffs or tricky mods for a challenging different playstyle oriented quest. Others would grant you buffs giving power to chalenge hier lvl or harder content. It would be nice that a profetic quest may grant the ability to solo multiplayer stuff like a worldboss version for the quest.

  • Actualities, would spoil about when and where the next few event will start. Or literaly grant acces to some multiplayer coop or pvp event. Potential treasure goblin raids location. Anything about actuality, like the weather lol.

  • Other than papers we should not find gears or gold directly in bookshelf. I mean, its everywhere else. Maybe some jewelery box with random ring, amulet, gems along with gold would be good, but stay realistic.

-Dungeon keys, and that unnamed item that imbue gear with the affix of a unique would fit well.

About the progression, I am sure that replayability is way more apealing than endless leveling. To achieve that there must be enought choices so it is possible to restart over and over the same character, and have a differant game play. To push it furter, it would be best that even if im using the same skills, other choices that I have allow me to still have a different build and playstyle.

Thats it for now, some of the idea listed was as exemple but I stand for the main idea of knowledge and I hope players would enjoy such content.

7 Likes
2

I love the idea of the quest for knowledge in diablo. Its an original and immersive way to add content. Defenitly into it!

3

I would like this. There was the idea to use, for example:

  • The open world: a rock or wall you move or break, and discover a secret passage. Other things like rivers and forest could be use too, to block access to places.
  • The change of weather/seasons: snow, floods, and ice can block passages or entire areas we can only access during a specific moment of the year.
  • Day and night (i remember lord of the rings where you could see the clue to open the door during night or something like that).

(Something to take in account is that if an in-game day last 2 hours, the year last 1 of our months).

  • Another idea: a door could be open with a specific rune word or a combination of items, and some clues could be found in books and scrolls: ofc, other doors could be completely unknown.

Clues to this hidden places that open (and even show) under specific conditions, could be found in books or scrolls that tell us about how and when we can access to this places.

Yes, i had a similar idea of D4 Shared Skills. Skills that could be used by all classes. And also could have scrolls and items that cast non-class skills (could be the mythic items) like jester, blood star or apocalypse.

I think it could be breat to have the rune words back, and they could bring them back as cube recipes. I think this would be the easiest way to bring them back and still have the new rune system they show at the demo.

1 Like
4

I like the bookcase systems. I would also like random dungeon libraries to allow different and better lore to be found, but I want to expand a little on the lore part.

I hate the global RNG for legendaries. They are legendary, they should have background and stories that go with them. Instead of having a random drop, make the stories discoverable through interaction with the world and make it so that the legendary could only be found in one location, this changes the items from being farmed to hunted.

Example: in D2 make SOJ only drop in cave 2 (say) and that it’s the only legend that drops in cave 2. I could then have an NPC gossip about an adventurer with a legendary ring disappeared in the cave dungeon and hasn’t been seen since. The item would have a small chance of appearing there, but it’s exclusive to cave 2 and the only legend to drop would be the SOJ.

This means to get the items I would need to search the length of the world for the legendaries I want, instead of getting lots of random stuff I’m not interested in. It encourages player exploration and player decisions regarding which legendaries to get. Since D4 is the largest game, it might be able to enact such a system.

I feel it would be better than killing the same horde of monsters until RNG kicks in and gives you stuff.

I’d also add in monster/ boss tactics and weaknesses that the players can exploit to deal increased damage, instead of just hitting them with your best attack over and over. For instance if you hit a certain boss with a “freezing” attack (causes standard enemies to be frozen) then a fire attack, they take 1000% damage from lightning for the next 5 seconds. The bonus should be high to encourage players to use it.

I am a firm believer that knowledge and skill should surpass bonuses from items and levels with regards to gameplay.

1 Like
5

Plus, i would like to see the legend grow, bcs we could do great things with that item (like kill Diablo) which should become part of that item’s legend.

Ofc, this idea would be even better if there is a way to trade items bcs now we would be able to see the achievements other did with that item too.

This could work like achievements but for a specific item instead of the character.

They could also use the stagger mechanic for that. Need to lower the bar with x element to then deal damage with the y element.

Some enemies could use those items, and we need to take them by killing that enemy. Ofc, other items could be hidden in places and we need to find them.

1 Like
6

This might make an interesting endgame crafting mechanic… you have an NPC that assigns a quest to say kill 10,000 demons with the weapon and once done gains an affix related to killing them. The NPC would let you assign what affix and then determine the sort of quest needed to acquire it.
This could be applied to all items, but have legendaries and rares have 1. magic have 2 and non magic have 4 or so. if your going to do insane quests to strengthen a weapon, using a non magic weapon is the harder option and should result in the better item.
hmm… I think this is feasible, but not sure how it would be received.

1 Like