When my internet was not working one day, I decided to theory craft a seasonal theme that would be something unique, and offer a fresh take to the game, but also not require a ton of resources to implement (Correct me if I am wrong). I really want a season that is based on the depths of hell, that offers us something other than GR’s and Rifts for our end game.
Introducing, “The Catacombs of Hell”, the season theme would work as follows:
Upon reaching level 70, the player will gather fragments of hell, which work as keystones to enter the catacombs.
Entry into the catacombs is not unlocked until you clear a GR70 in unison with unlocking primals
This game mode will start you on floor one, equivalent to GR70, and every floor that you clear, you move to the next, which also increases in GR level to GR71, GR72, and so forth. This will not be time based, no rush, just more and more challenging each floor!
Every 3rd floor will be a boss floor, and if you so choose, you can stop after beating the boss and collect your rewards for the journey so far.
If at any point you die in the catacombs, you fail to gain a reward other than the xp you have earned.
Every boss that you kill opens up that level as a starting point, so that you do not need to start from the very beginning every time unless you choose to.
Introduce new rewards with this dungeon crawling mechanic such as additional legendary gems, new crafting materials that let you reroll the stat affixes on a primal item, and various cosmetic rewards as you reach certain depths in the Catacombs.
Upon reaching the 66th floor, the catacombs will begin to alter in appearance, looking more and more like Hell itself.
The depths of the Catacombs are infinite (doubt players would pass GR170 or floor 100 range) allowing for a new end game for people to compete in.
Of course, I would want this to be designed to be an integral part of the game moving forward, and most of all, it would open up a better balance in builds between defense and offense, with the removal of a time limit. If a player wants that slow dredge down the depths of the Catacombs, more power to them!
I would be open to numerous suggestions for this, if we were ever to get a “LAST” seasonal theme, THIS IS WHAT I WANT.
This seems too big for simple seasonal theme. Other than that I think the concept is cool. My main problem is that I don’t like the idea of tying important rewards to a mode that promotes getting a 6pc, gear full defensive (including high APS + LoH) and spend hours to clear a level due to there being no time limit.
No just no. I don’t like hardcore, I will never play hardcore, I will never like hardcore. never. Why not give you the reward from the last treasure chest / boss you unlocked before you died? That sounds more fair.
I would not be looking to have floors be massive, probably the same size as a rift level. Thus, I think there is a choice to go full defensive and take awhile, or go full glass cannon, and maximize the number of runs you perform, and I like that concept.
This is a fair point, if the general consensus was to receive the rewards up to the previous boss, I have no issues with that at all.
It is not really forcing people to do anything, you choose if you want the legendary gems, or if you want to try and farm a reroll item, or earn those cosmetics.
Sure, if D3 wasn’t in maintenance mode. I think this is too big of an idea to be done now. If deve6was still active this would be neat. Well it would still be neat regardless, just no going to happen.
People were “forced” to play seasons if they wanted new legendaries and cosmetics in the past. This would be no different than having special gear in raids that you van only get from raiding. Participate in the activity or you don’t get certain rewards. Nothing is forced. And by that logic, we were all forced to play D3 to get the loot and see the campaign.
The only “new” things would be the cosmetics, legendary gems, and crafting tools.
They could use layers from rifts as a pattern for the catacomb floors, bosses are already in game, and the floor by floor system is already in the game. The hardest part would be designing new leaderboard ladders and keys to track progress, but I would think those would function like a GR as well.
Sesaonal themes will use ingame stuff…not new mechanics, graphics etc.
S19 for example uses the kill streak mechanic plus certain things already in the game and they add numbers to it.
That’s all they will do…not new mechanics.
For instance, the meteors that rain down at 400 kill streak bonus are the same meteors when you kill Diablo…all seasonal buffs are from an already ingame thing.
Cosmetics maybe but not for new legendarys because at the end of season the legendarys were available to drop in non season, so it wasn’t that you was forced to do seasons to get the legendaries because they ended up dropping in non season anyway
It was stopped because people cried because people got the items before them and saw it as unfair even though they would end up with the legendaries anyway without having to do seasons
What about getting the Realm of Trials back? They were cool, IMHO.
The dev team could balance the number of enemies (to avoid lag) and the time required to clear the wave.
It could be a way to find some new builds or play different characters.
I had suggested a few times in the past for it to be brought back. While it was rather disliked by the community, I’ve always believed that the Realm of Trials had a lot a potential; and thus was disappointed when it was completely removed instead of changed so that you needn’t run Trials in order to get a greater rift key among a few other things.
If Trials were indeed changed and offered a moderate reward depending on how many rounds you’ve cleared, it could’ve been a nice little alternative game content to have.
You can accomplish pretty much everything with in game resources, that simply need fine tuning. They are making NEW sets, why not just add a few legendary gems and a crafting mat as well? If cosmetics are too much, cycle prior seasons cosmetics into the seasonal theme, once it becomes core, non-seasonal players can even earn them then?
The old rift keystones were given at the end of bounties (1-2) and in the Horadric Caches after bounties were completed… it was often annoying to acquire enough of them to Rift until split bounties became a thing, and even then people were constantly looking for ways around getting them, hence why Rift it Forward was created.
GR keystones are based on difficulty, and plentiful to the point that you can get a lot of them in short order, as long as you’re doing reasonably high Torments.
Point being… a required material for an activity can be implemented well or badly, and all you wrote about it was a vague sentence.