New Rift Type - "Guardian Rift"

General Discussion
1

I want to bring this idea to the discussion table. It came up in another thread, but lost in the shuffle. See below for the original post. These are just my ideas to expound on the concept. I really like the idea and concept, and hope you guys can add to it, and that the devs would consider implementing this. It’d be a lot of fun and add much needed end-game content.

Guardian Rift - similar to GRs, all players must have a key to enter. Keys can drop from GR Guardians (rarely) and EN chests if players reach EN Tier 150.

  • contains 25 floors that get progressively harder, cannot go backwards
  • every 5th floor (so floor 5, 10, 15, 20, 25) players have the option to accept rewards and exit the rift. If they choose to exit before one of these milestones, they forfeit the rewards for the next tier (so if a player chooses to exit at 9, they receive the floor 5 reward, but not floor 10) - This gives HC players an opportunity to bail if needed.
  • cannot port to town (but each 5, 10, 15, 20 milestone contains a repair blacksmith), cannot die, or be resurrected - you forfeit all rewards if you die or port out.
  • every 5th floor should contain a major boss, such as a rift guardian, and each consecutive 5th floor contains an additional major boss, so floor 20 has 4 rift guardians to fight.

Rewards - each successful reward tier (floors 5, 10, 15, 20) grants players one redeemable ticket - so somebody who successfully completes 15 floors and chooses to exit earns 3 tickets total.

Reward vendors - upon choosing to exit the Guardian Rift, you are brought to the Guardian’s Realm. There, multiple vendors will be available to spend tickets - you can choose from a variety of rewards in exchange for tickets including: crafting and bounty materials, legendary items, ancient items, primal items, set items, gems, or a “random bag” that might give another two entry keys, EN keys, GR keys, etc, or a random prize like 20 Act 1 bounty materials.

-If players complete floor 25, the final floor, they receive all eligible rewards, PLUS, they are announced server wide as “MrDemonEliminator123 has conquered the Guardian Rift”. Their completion time can be posted onto a leaderboard.

Scaling of difficulty - floors 1-5 → GR 45-75; floors 6-10 → GR 75-100; floors 11-15 → GR 100-130; floors 15-20 → GR 130-149; Floors 21-25 → GR 150-160 (or whatever the game limit is).

2

Interesting idea, but a bit too gimmicky for me. It also gears towards groups, which is fine, but it’s another way of gimping us solo players.

1 Like
3

Complete hard pass, for many reasons, namely:

  1. Requires yet another resource to grind, which can only come from another resource that comes from grinding, which comes because of grinding – I would prefer if something like this were to exist that it would be more similar to a Nephalim Rift or a Bounty. Rather than make a resource, make some other “hard lock” like an achievement of some sort, perhaps, or just something else to choose to do.

  2. Requires use of Echoing Nightmares which, for hardcore, are much less fun or desirable, especially now that all they really do is provide cheap (ie, not earned) Augments – everyone, apparently, can get 150 Whispers… there is no real challenge to it, so this is a useless “baseline.”

  3. Way too complex for reward system. No need for multiple vendors. Just stick in that huge goat from PTR - it offers everything. Can make 1 single selection, though, perhaps, there should be lesser rewards as no one wants to play and play and play without getting anywhere/thing. If you fail, there should be consequence but that does not mean failure has no function – in fact, it may serve one better to fail.

  4. There should be no maximum depth.

  5. Other stuff I’m too bored to type or mention.

1 Like
4

I find it interesting how people complain about lack of end game, then here is a viable activity, and it is dismissed as “gimmicky”, whatever that means.

A rebuttal to all the asinine points:

  1. You are already grinding other activities, and this is a grindy-looter-crawler game, so what is actually your point?
  2. Who said it requires EN? Also, you seem incredibly misinformed with your information - the EN gem maxes at 125. So again, what is your point?
  3. What is complex about a ticket reward system? Lol. You earn tickets, you spend tickets.
  4. You do realize this game does have a maximum depth due to the calculations the engine has to make - it cannot progress into GR243 difficulty, for example, because the software literally is incapable of handling these integers.
  5. You are bored to actually make a point. What is your point again for instantly shutting down a viable idea? It might need some refinement, but it certainly has its merits.
5

White knighting your own idea (especially when it’s a bad one) isn’t a good look.

Just sayin’.

6

Some people complain about having to do 16 floors with the Darkening of Tristram. If they cannot finish something in 2-3 minutes they do not want it. It is all about speed for them. Nothing else maters.

7

25 floors! Way too long. Honestly, I don’t like it when a GR takes more than 5 minutes.

8

This seems like an idea @dmkt had.

I liked the original idea, and this has merit too. :slight_smile:

But I would definitely use the same key we use for GR’s, maybe increased cost could be an option.

All for new end game variants.

9

Would imagine that’s a fairly normal reaction considering more time spent means less rewards/time spent.

10

It reminds me of that one event (permanent thing?) from Immortal where you had a multi level dungeon as well but you entered it with a standard setup and after every level you could purchase certain items to create a build you choose to attempt it with.

I only tried it once but I really liked the concept. You start with a semi naked character then try and complete the rift with buffing X skill or Y and if you are a bit better at the game you can forgo some survivability for damage. Should be quite replayable if done right.

11

Imagine 25 floors of Caves, Keeps and Corvus…

12

It wouldn’t matter as much since it isn’t timed. You may actually want a smaller floor to quickly advance to the next. (The Reverse of GRs).

Looking at this spin off concept, I personally wouldn’t want to start from a preset GR. Like with Echoing Nightmares, starting from tier 70 is just a waste of my time. Let me set the starting point.