[D4] - Replaying the Campaign, Endgame Modes

General Discussion
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Not if you are 20% less efficient while doing it.

Also remember, while you are getting 10% more runes in key dungeons than camps in the example, you are also getting 10% less crating materials. That makes the actual reward difference even smaller (and again why 10% would probably be too small a difference).

A good portion of players are wrong, so not sure why that matters.
Nobody would ever notice a 1% difference between two builds, nor between solo and grouping.
A 500% difference? Yeah, that is noticed.

Anyway, it probably would not be gamebreaking if all end-game activities gave the exact same amount of all rewards. Not a mindblowlingly large issue. Still, an imbalance. And like all others, it should be addressed.

Btw, another way to address this could also be:
You do a key dungeon, and get a 30 min buff that increases rewards from all other end-game activites, except key dungeons. Similar for all other end-game activities. Can only have 1 buff at a time. Again to make it more balanced to do diverse content.

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I already said my piece about the campaign mode+, why do you think I will give a single thought to accepting campaign mode+ again?

As I said before, any standalone PvE endgame contents >>> afking in town >> imbalance PvP contents >> campaign mode+.

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Okay, you got us. :joy:
Campaign mode+ should be more rewarding than standing afk in town.

Except for that one however, since ‘any standalone endgame content’ should be more rewarding than campaign mode+, you would never have to feel like you had to do it.

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Let me rephrase then. Do you think there needs to be a long-form progression type endgame with an ultimate encounter?

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My answer remains the same. Even no endgame content is better than your campaign mode+. :sunglasses:

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Sadly Kilometer would only like the idea if it was in D3 or D:I.
The moment Blizzard added campaign+ to D:I, he would argue it is the best idea ever :upside_down_face:

You have yet to give any reason as to why. Not that I am expecting one. (note, you are of course more than welcome to dislike something for no reason)
I easily buy that some game activities can hurt a game. Like trading should not be allowed.
But we are talking about an end-game activity here with zero impact on the rest of the game, or how you prefer to play.

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127

It doesn’t matter. Most people have no clue if they are that efficient or not. They see 10% more and go I have to do that. Chances are if they are 20% less efficient in that one area they are 20% less efficient all around do it’s a wash.

I do like that buff to other activity idea. While you still don’t need to do the stuff you don’t want to, it gives you some incentive to try. Who knows? You might find something you like.

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20% less efficient was in comparison to them doing some other activity, not to some overall efficiency cap, nor a statement on their skill lvl.
Like, if you are using a GRift push build, even the very best in the game, and you are really good at it (clearing GR150 solo and all that), if you take that build into speed Rifts or Bounties, you are going to be inefficient with it, compared to if you used a different build.

I mean, this is a part of the ‘RNG = difficulty’ thing. The less diverse content, the more you can optimize for it. With free respecs it of course dont matter, as you can just optimize for each activity, but with respec costs, the player doing diverse content would be worse off compared to focusing on one activity, unless something tries to balance that.

(and only allowing dungeon keys to drop outside of dungeons can be another method for that too - it of course make it required to do more than key dungeons, but I dont see a problem there, as the aforementioned goal merely was that you could avoid doing some end-game activity you dont like, for example avoid bounties, while still doing Rifts and GRifts, or vice versa. I dont think it should be realistic to avoid all endgame content except a single thing)

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I don’t think you believe what you are saying at this point since literally having no endgame content would lead to doing the very thing you don’t want to do - rerunning the campaign, except on normal with no upgrades at all.

If the D4 developers came out tomorrow and said in addition to keyed dungeons we have an all new extensive story-based endgame campaign that will offer the toughest challenges in the game for players to test themselves against after gearing up through keyed dungeons, I don’t believe for a second you would tell them its trash and you’d just rather they scrap the whole thing and give you nothing instead.

But if you would indeed do that and want to offer feedback as to why, I’m more than happy to further engage with you on this topic. If not, then I’ll happily move on to something else. Thanks for bringing up the helliquary from D:I. It’s a really good idea I hope they blend with PoE: Beastcrafting and implement in some form in D4.

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Now you think you know me better than me. How arrogant can you be actually? :rofl:

Do you never play a video game without an endgame? People finished the game, and move on to another game. I rather play the game with no endgame than the game that the endgame is replaying the campaign mode. :rofl:

Yes, and I wouldn’t bother to attempt it unless the rewards dwarfed other contents and doable for casual players. I mean, I don’t even clear GR150 in D3 or care about D3 leaderboard and this content doesn’t even require me to replay the campaign mode, why do you think I would care enough about campaign mode+ that will offer the toughest challenge to test myself?

If the D3 team removed GR150 (the hardest content from D3) tomorrow, it wouldn’t bother me as it is not that I will reach GR150 one day.

You are not me. Don’t force your belief onto me or speak for me.

My feedback? Your campaign Mode+ idea is terrible, and I am not looking forward to it at all. The end. :sunglasses:

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Thank you for your feedback. I apologize if I spoke on your behalf, was just trying to understand your argument. I hadn’t considered the option of choosing to simply not play the game after the campaign. I suppose it is an option though and with that stance I’m not really sure what I can say.

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@Shadout, they would still rush through the story of the game once they have heard it all with a few characters. All seven if the dialogue is different for each class. The story is not something that a great deal of players will keep hearing ever utterance hundreds of times or more. That is what the campaign is the story. Heck the dungeons could actually utilize the same areas that are in the game. So in that regard they could be like a campaign plus already.

As long as we have other things to do other than focusing on keyed dungeons then we will be fine. That is what I hope that Blizz will do. Where the keyed dungeons in D4 won’t be the only endgame things we can be doing when playing endgame.

Even if more systems have to be added to endgame after launch.

I would rather have a focus on keyed dungeons if it means that we will be getting a superior itemization to how D3’s itemization turned out.

I still think you are overestimating what millions of players would do with such a feature. Plus you could be underestimating what the other endgame activities are for D4.

Look it isn’t a bad game design to have certain parts of a game to be designed with the intention of seeing limited use. It still is used by all even if it is only once in their lifetime as a player.

The whole point of the keyed dungeons is that you don’t know how they scale. Without knowing that could have the danger of having a high amount of difficulties like D3 does.

Keyed dungeons could be similar to GRs in the sense that while they could be huge as far as in size. But it doesn’t take you long to complete them.

So you are one that would keeping listening to D2’s story for infinity. Fine if that is actually fun, but for a lot of players it isn’t fun.

I was talking about other stories that are. I am not worried about D4 being on the rails. But still in time you no doubt will hear the whole story. Then unless you experience a different dialogue with each class you will have players, me included that will jump through cut scenes and dialogue that we can. A video game is not a movie.

There are quite a few players that do believe you need to be max level to be at endgame.

The way the keyed dungeons scale will greatly affect a campaign plus system. In order to make it a viable way to play as part of the endgame it would have to scale identical to keyed dungeons and if they have a huge number of difficulties then you will have a huge amount of difficulties to campaign plus.

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@Eigen9, it is not that players don’t like the story. The whole point is that a video game is not a movie. Even with the best story in the world the majority of players won’t want to be hearing every line again and again. That won’t get their alts to level cap faster. It won’t get them all of the cool gear faster. It won’t get them the reputation any faster either. Or any other type of progression that could be in a game faster.

You will always have something in a game to test your mettle against. Even though it might not be the type of challenge you would like. Where the challenge is more health and damage, you know the boring challenge.

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To all, IIRC there will be PvP in D4. So the PvP in D4 could have some sort of currency (ears) that could be used to purchase good gear. So the more fights won the more ears earned. The more ears mean you will get better rewards for winning. Also a way to test your mettle in a good challenge against another player. That could be part of an endgame as well. In D2 players went through the game to be able to compete in PvP.

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I 100% agree with you there. I’d sacrifice other endgame types at launch for a really satisfying item chase.

Agree here as well. I don’t think there should be any endgame system that forces players (due to exclusivity of rewards, or efficiency of rewards) to have the type of upper tier challenge that only a few builds remain viable for.

I agree that not everyone agrees on what type of challenges they like to have in a video game, or even if a game should be challenging at all. In an item hunt game should the challenge be a way to test your build/gear somehow? Yes, but what form that takes is open up to plenty of debate, and clearly there is some disagreement about it among those in this thread, so development time allowing, the more interesting endgame challenges D4 can throw at us the more likely there is to be some form of endgame content that pleases someone. A campaign replay system seemed like an easy way to put something into the game that wouldn’t require a lot of development time, but if people are so strongly against it even existing as an option (option, not forced to do it) then perhaps it shouldn’t be considered.

I’m super excited about PvP as an endgame goal in D4, so I’ll end my conversation on a high note, and say regardless of what the D4 developers decide to do there are already two endgame activities in the game I know appeal to me - keyed dungeons and PvP - and that’s a great start. Release date can’t get here soon enough.

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Amen to a release date!

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You are describing it, as if that is a problem? :confused:

No, a campaign is so so much more than a story.
Since you are so stuck on the story stuff, lets rip the story out of the campaign+. Would that help you move on?

Indeed. And campaign+ would fit greatly as one of those other end-game things.

Since doing the endgame activities are not exclusive to one another, it would not particularly matter what the other activities are.

No it is not, at all. It is just better game design to make better end-game, and when you can make better endgame at very little extra development cost, it is an obviously good thing to do.

I think that is what everyone expect. I would hope key dungeons take a bit longer though. Like 15-30 minutes. Due to slowed down combat and movement. Also, no timer!

Hopefully now.
How they scale is quite irrelevant for this thread however.

And they would not have to! Seriously.
But for some players, it would be amazing.

Some video games surely believe they are moves :smiley:

Nobody, and certainly not I, are trying to stop you from doing that.

Not even a little.

Exactly! You are getting so close to understanding. :heart_eyes:
Hence, it does not matter how keyed dungeons are scaling, campaign+ simply need to scale the same way.

That is clearly not true. Plenty of games offer no difficulty whatsoever. Often because they are not trying to. And sometimes because they failed in their attempt.

Please lord no.
PvP should offer basically no gear rewards. It is a place to fight other players. That should be its own reward, and nothing more.
Plus of course cosmetics and all that stuff.

Definitely. Itemization is one of the most important pillars of an A-RPG, along with character building, and combat.
End-game is pretty importa too though. But this only makes campaign+ an even better choice, since it allows you to have end-game at very low development cost.
I mean, in this imaginary scenario where end-game and itemization was competing for development resources, then it is key dungeons that should be removed, not campaign+

Yep. Stop scaling rewards much earlier than you stop scale the difficulty.
Like if there are 10 difficulty levels in end-game, stop increasing droprates at difficulty 7.

Well, speaking of important pillars. Release date is far down the list. Give me good itemization, character building, and endgame before a release date. Even if it pushes that date back years.

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Yeah but if you add a LOT of story, you can easily get 1000 hours out of it. I think D4 would benefit of having not only one big main story, but several smaller storylines (that would involve gameplay, like specific zones or dungeons or whatever the endgame will be in this) that enrich the main story and lead up to the eventual expansion this game will no doubt receive (as has been the tradition of the series). The thing I dislike the most about D3’s focus on the adventure mode is that there is absolutely no motivation for anything you do in the game, other than just the mechanical aspect of it/building a stronger character, which personally feels soulless. I feel like the only reason why adventure mode was necessary was because the story in base D3 was horrible (the lore was good, the storyline itself was awful) and nobody ever learned to care about it.

RPGs by their very definition involve harmonizing the gameplay with a motivating story.

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139

@Shadout I don’t think you would want a diablo game without a story.

Campaign plus is not needed if they got a solid endgame that doesn’t revolve solely around one activity. Although I would at the launch of D4 take an endgame that would focus on one activity as long as two things are true.

1.) Blizz will add more to the endgame in expansions.
2.) Having a good itemization system. If having more things to do at endgame will have as a cost a crappy itemization system similar or worse to what D3 was at launch then just focus on one activity at endgame till you got a solid itemization system.

Okay then they could have 50+ levels of scaling difficulty. According to this thread that would mean 50+ campaign difficulties. Now mind telling me how many players will play a campaign plus that would be like having a Torment 46 in this game. The story of a game is attached to campaign. It is the cut scenes and dialogue. But if you are rifle balling through it to get to the fighting then that means you are wanting to get to the action. Instead of listening to the story. listening to the story or cut scenes is time you could spend progressing your character. Think of town as lava and you will know what I am talking about.

Look I am aware that you and the OP think that keyed dungeons will have a very small scaling difficulty system. But that is where both of you can be wrong. If it has a high one then you will have trouble.

The challenges in a game are quite different from game to game. It is not always the higher health and damage that seems to be used so often. Sometimes it is a difficulty where you have to be more tactical in your approach to the fight.

I am just saying that it could be part of the endgame with rewards of gear if you wanted something separate from the normal endgame activity. MMOs have gear as a reward for PvP. Even though I know that D4 is not an MMO.

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…
Speechless.
Could you please stop doing that.

Campaign+ would be a good foundation for having a solid endgame.

Indeed.
Good itemization + campaign+ as the only endgame at launch it is!
Or just delay the game, and get it right the first time.

Indeed. That would be the consequence of your little thought experiment strawman.

Millions probably.
And again, the number would be the exact same no matter how many imaginary difficulty levels you added, since it would not in any way alter the concept.

While your sentence is highly debatable (you very much could have a campaign without a story), and you have games out there with literally zero cutscenes and dialogue, even if we ignore that part, a campaign is much more than a story.

A campaign can perfectly fine be action, it usually is.
As said previously, you are choosing to strawman too hard on the story thing. I think it would help you understand this better, if you imagined that the was zero story in Campaign+. Not saying there should be, but the story is simply a fairly irrelevant part of this, so lets pretend it isn’t there.

As much as I dont like how much of D3 happens in town (Kadela/cube), the entire “town is lava” concept is unhealthy and bad game design.
And it would be very easy to solve that in a campaign+ mode. I even already said how; if quests are rewarding, turning in that quest in a town would, by definition, not be detrimental to your characters progression.
In general, D4 should get away from non-stop action! Let exploration be efficient! Your line of thinking is infected by D3s GRift gameplay as I see it.

Strawman.
I dont think it will (sadly, as this is Blizzard). I say it should have very few difficulty levels.

Only one being wrong here is you, because as has been said countless times by now, the concepts described for campaign+ are 100% unaffected by how many difficulty levels the game has. Could be <5 (hopefully), or 13 million. Does. Not. Matter.

And hopefully that is how D4 difficulty will be.

Yes, and some games have zero challenges. Not sure how it has any relevance for the topic though.

It could be many things.
Are you saying you want it to be like that? Otherwise, what is the relevancy?