In Rifts we never know what we are going to get going in. Its going to have different enemy types, different zone and layouts, different boss fight.
If D4 has 150 dungeons then are the dungeons going to be set in stone and be unique? The layout, enemy types, boss? If its more randomized then I imagine the zone layout not biome and enemy type would randomize. If this is the case then very quickly its going to devolve into a list of the best dungeons to farm based off class/spec. If its all unique to the dungeon then the same will happen.
Will we get rifts in the future to mix things up rather then waste the time to run to another dungeon just to feel something different?
Most likely, at least to an extent. And quite honestly I’d prefer that over rifts that are completely randomized in terms of layout, monsters, etc.
That said, some time after Diablo 4 is released, they may also add in a special rift content that, like D3, has the layout, terrain, enemies, etc, randomized, which would be completely fine, so long as it’s not the best content to run in terms of challenge and reward.
We’ve crafted a difficulty of Diablo dungeons straight out of your nightmares. No, really! Nightmare-difficulty dungeons in Diablo IV unlock upon locating your first Nightmare Sigil. Each sigil corresponds to a specific dungeon somewhere within Sanctuary. These sigils will add special modifiers to their dungeon, increasing the ferocity of the hell-servants waiting for you inside and providing higher-rarity loot. Through completing Nightmare dungeons, you will recover even more powerful sigils, introducing increasingly death-defying modifications and challenges for you to overcome. As you progress into higher and more challenging World Tiers, new Nightmare Dungeons will become available for you to explore.
Do we ? Rifts are actually limited to a rather small pool of 30ish maps. Randomised monsters tarnish their specificity, at long everything feels like the same. There’s only one objective, no matter the map : kill a fixed amount of monsters then kill the boss.
Nightmare dungeons will have fixed enemies and boss (when they have one) but still randomised tileset, 150 biomes instead of 30, unique objectives and an undisclosed number of modifiers that will change how each dungeon is played.
Plus, they will be grounded into the world instead of an arbitrary portal in town.
I’m not against Rifts though, the more endgame activities there is in D4 the better.
I sure hope it is the latter, where enemies* and layout is random, but biome is not.
Static dungeons in a modern A-RPG endgame would be a massive mistake imo.
*Enemies should be semi-random, as in, taken from a pool of possible enemies that fit the dungeon. Ensuring that it also isnt static from run to run.
Giving each one a static thematic background, and real place in the game world on the other hand is great. No more portal spawning runs in towns.
Yeah, definitely one of the risks about static dungeons.
However, we know there are some random elements, in the “keys/sigils” that are used to generate the dungeons.
Everything you just said is just, have a list of mob types, bosses and biome layout. Its still going to come down to whats the most efficient dungeon to run then. Special modifiers if applied to all dungeons would not make a difference.
Maybe, but you’re still going to need to find the specific sigil that corresponds to the nightmare dungeon that you want to run. So it’s not like you’ll be able to pick and choose the easiest/fastest dungeon to run as a nightmare dungeon (not without the right sigil anyway), at least that’s how it sounds like it’ll be.
I prefer that the dungeons are static in the theme, small differences in the randomized layout but you should recognize that you are in this particular dungeon.
Basic monster type should also be static but there can be can be an affix that switches up the monsters such has -“Area is inhabited by Undead monsters with +18% life”.
As funny as it sounds but i find rifts in D3 incredibly static. It feels like ure doing the same thing over and over again. With absolutely no randomness or variety.
You are right that people will eventually find out the good dungeons from the bad, and some will be like Bangalore traffic , and other will be like Sahara desert.
This happens to games like PoE. Or even Diablo 2, where people just farm the same few efficient places.
There are many ways to “solve” this issues can all they have their pros and con.
Like
More bonuses to run unpopular maps.
Less bonus from running same maps repeatedly. More bonus from dungeons you have not run for a while
Randomize bonus at certain zones which include dungeons in these Zones
The cons are people will feel “forced” but that’s the idea top of my head
They do in PoE, which has a very similar system.
The dungeon run issue is very specific to D2, maybe I’m mistaken but I don’t think more recent games had to deal with it.
Indeed. You will still be able to farm any dungeon infinitely but without a Nightmare Sigil they won’t be worth it.
I very much expect these kind of modifiers. Or even a simple “Area is inhabited by unknown monsters with +27% Damage.”
Completely agreed. But a big part of that imo is because all enemies feel the same.
That is the bigger issue that really needs to be fixed, otherwise nothing else about the enemy composition in dungeons will matter anyway.
Optimally, each enemy type (family and type) should feel like a unique combat challenge.
Yeah, that is (part of) what is needed to counter the “running the most efficient dungeon over and over”.
Sure, you might do that, but if only 1 of 150 sigils gives you that dungeon, you are now going to run way fewer dungeons overall, which presumably would be more inefficient than just doing some more dungeons even if they are less efficient individually.
Another important part of the above puzzle imo.
Seems reasonably safe to assume they are not, based on what else we have heard about trading restrictions.
But yeah, if they are tradeable, that sure as heck needs to change.
Not really. Fishing is only for leaderboards. It is not efficient on its own.
Imo, leaderboards, if they even exist, should be based on your average clear time across for example your last 50 dungeon runs. That would make fishing statistically unviable.
In general, the unfortunate existence of leaderboards should not hurt the game design. Fishing is bad, and should be addressed, but it should not affect the basic game design for anyone not hunting leaderboard spots.
Another alternative would be to have a few static dungeons each month for leaderboards only. Like a new version of Challenge dungeons (but with your own character). Thus not affecting the normal key dungeons, nor the efficiency of running those, or the loot hunt.
Yes, it’d be something else if you simply needed a nightmare sigil to run any nightmare dungeon you wanted. But from how they described it in their blogs, you actually need nightmare sigils that corresponds to a specific nightmare dungeon before running that specific dungeon as a Nightmare Dungeon; and since they’re drops, it’s highly unlikely that you can control which nightmare sigil you find.
In theory, the difference is that there is no chance to level up a gem and one gets a honkin’ chest. Hopefully, sometimes, it is a mimic and the actual dungeon guardian.
Or they are static and occupied with the same things making them hugely predictable and therefore a challenge of memory rather than skill, eventually.