Glyph leveling concept: level up glyph nodes instead (updated in S4)

PC General Discussion
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(Possible workaround/strategy at the bottom of this reply…)

This should be a net gain regardless, because if the devs make multiple changes - including adding new sources of “glyph” xp - the switch should shave off several dozen NMD runs per character. Sources of xp could (reasonably) include: everything in the game that gives xp. Just scale certain activities higher than others - NMD’s, uber bosses, etc. - incentivizing us to do them for that purpose… rather than for “merely unlocking the full power of my character”.

I’m also including a few assumptions about dev philosophy, e.g. that they feel locked into the glyph-levelling system in part because they built it around that f_kin stand. A new system built around a “no stand” principle, frees up the paragon grind & makes it less tedious. Drastically cutting down on “lane activity” tedium = I don’t much mind attaching those “backup boards” later on, to level them up. But IMO it’s a wash either way because:

  1. I’m swapping in a “board grind” for a “glyph grind”.
  2. It’s more tedious to have to level up a “backup” glyph for an alt build… because the activity itself is tedious… because I’ve been forced to do it 100-200 times on that char already, and sequentially… bc everything else is a waste of time while glyphs are sub-optimal.

(This might also be moot for the player base at large, if players are more likely to level up different classes than to gear up different builds in the same class which call for switching out boards. I know this describes me.)
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Workaround/strategy for the ‘fomo’ of “backup boards”:

Assuming that (a) you ought to be just as content to level up a glyph node as you might’ve been to level up a fresh glyph, that (b) this ‘fomo’ is no more serious than the ‘fomo’ of doing any other activity besides NMD while your glyphs are sub-optimal; and that (c) the player should reasonably be expected to come up with level 50-100 “slumming” strategies that attach boards just to level them up efficiently - given that 50-100 is the “slumming” phase for most new chars anyway, and “leveling” content is easy…

…devs could treat this ‘fomo’ as a 2ndary problem & still help us out:

  • attaching a board could be what “activates” xp gain for that board’s node. So, even while you can’t put a glyph in it, it’s now leveling up. Might be the simplest way to address the ‘fomo’ of “backup boards” collecting dust; and a growing glyph node is a satisfying enticement for when we’re ready to fully activate it.
  • the number of boards you attach could grant a boost in glyph node xp gain - a sort of glyph node synergy, incentivizing us to stack them up early or to stack up “backup boards” even when it’s awkward.
  • generally re-working the boards (re-positioning normal/magic/rare/legendary nodes) to make them more stackable

This opens up “7 board” or “8 board” leveling strategies for some, but for most players it doesn’t affect them at all… because the trade off for maybe wanting to level up another board later, is: a less tedious paragon grind (worth the ticket for me) where I’m not forced to do 100-200 of what feels at this point like the most mind-numbing activity I’ve ever done in a Diablo game, just to pump xp into a glyph that doesn’t do anything for me until level 15 & 21 (making each run more soul-crushing than the last); and all glyphs are now instantly transferable because they’re equal, boosting in-build diversity & experimentation.

Adding, rather than reducing, options. And devs have plenty of freedom to tinker, once they abandon that f_kin stand.

The glyphs wouldn’t be leveling up at all - that’s the point of leveling up glyph nodes instead. Glyphs would have no level.

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Other ways of boosting “backup boards” for alt builds (without resorting to a “slumming” strategy of sub-optimal board configuration just to level up more boards simultaneously) could include:

  • A challenging questline which rewards the option of swapping out a glyph node’s “power” level to a dormant (unused) glyph node - i.e. “de-levelling” one node, and transferring its xp to an un-levelled one. This could be mutually exclusive with the other strategy, i.e. if you’ve started levelling up a glyph node, then it’s not eligible for this boost. (It’s whatever, let’s experiment. This is what testing is for.) Conversely, once a glyph node is “de-levelled” this way, it becomes eligible.
  • Make this quest reward persistent & stackable for the season (allowing for 2-board swaps, for example), and make it account-wide. Earn the reward as many times as you want, and use it to swap glyph node “power” as many times as you want. Or don’t.

I get that this might as well apply to glyph levels instead - but again, IMO the underlying problem is the tedium of having to do 100-200 NMD’s per char. Also, making build decisions around 6-8 boards, making their configurations meaningful while leveling to 100, and allowing us to use any glyph for any node at all times, just seems more fun & versatile to me.

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I think that system is kind of okay, but the leveling up process is really boring. That’s because the glyphs stay the same, and only have higher numbers. There are no checkpoints, where the glyphs evolve, or give you something cool

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what about the lvl 15 checkpoint where you gain +1 radius for the glyph?

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I mean the game is still kind of new. Not even a year old at this point. The radius thing feels like it’s needed ro activate the glyph, but it’s not really … an evolution. It’s more like an activation of its effect.

1 Like
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Not just boring, it’s wrong

All “guaranteed unlockable power” needs to go (or as much of it), that’s what turns the game into bunch of chores/tasks, need to randomize it and not guarantee it

BUT that’s a totally different problem altogether, I deem the devs want to give us all “equal final footing” so we can “compete”, which is another totally bad decision in my book tbh

The final impact of builds/skills/choices/paragon should be individualized (as opposed to equalized, generalized and guaranteed)

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Why are diablo players so obsessed with gearing though. I think gearing is one of the smallest issues the game has. Sure, it can be improved, and it should feel a bit less grindy, but improving gear will not fix the problem that their systems feel extremely grindy. Imagine they made rewards even rarer with the existing systems. It would become a pure headache to play the game.

The game has good gameplay, but the systems are designed for gearing, not for the experience. The developpers intention can be easily read by the player: The goal is to keep you playing long, so you buy microtransactions. The goal is not the fun experience. That’s the problem in the end. It’s an artificial infinite grind. The gameplay itself though and the art design of the game is wonderful. They only really messed up the systems very hard.

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If gearing doesn’t work do you think “static” collections will do better ?

  • Renown paragon 20 points = unlock and everyone on equal footing
  • Codex = collect all and everyone has all the same
  • Tempering manuals = unlock it and again, equal footing
  • Leveling glyphs to 21 = equal footing

So that’s not 1, not 2, not 3, but FOUR CHORES that don’t do anything except keeping players busy (and then eventually bring on equal footing)

Where’s the “individualism” in performance then ? :person_shrugging: , that’s where gearing should take over, don’t you think ?

IN FACT, one can argue the game is driven to a “no gearing” spot to be found. 404 gearing, look elsewhere, perhaps another game

It’s all about permanent unlocks and collections that bring everyone on equal footing, and is just MIND-BOGGLING to me how people dismiss this argument hap-hazardly

What is your solution then ?, you don’t like gearing, fine, what is the right way to do things ?

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You haven’t read my post. The systems of the seasonal game are completely designed for gearing.

My solution would be to shift attention to putting more focus into fun gameplay changes seasonally, and not gear acquisition. I’d also focus more on stuff like good seasonal stories, and add more goals other than gearing, which should give you cool rewards like skins, etc. , but that’s hard, if they have no intrinsic interest in improving the experience. The seasonal boss experience is oneshotting loot pinatas to wear your seasonal battlepass transmog, that has nothing more to it than the 10 dollars you spent. There are no seasonal challenge rewards, and no trophies, because they are fixated on the microtransactions. The mechanical spider only gives you passive support. You cannot control it, and it doesn’t change the gameplay. Their designers are only fixated on gear and retention metrics.

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If anything this is a hot-topic because of S4, one might argue and make the argument for the exact opposite

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This is important to point out. In my eyes it’s a huge problem with glyphs.

There shouldn’t be a point where you’re not pushing higher. Glyphs don’t magically make everything better at max level. Sure there’s a bump at the size increase but that should happen at a point where you’re struggling.

The concept of not pushing out of fear of difficulty is the number one reason glyph leveling is tedious. If you’re only playing low level NMD to get lower amounts of glyph xp then of course it’s going to get boring. That’s mind numbing tedium. The devs already called this player base wide behavior out when they boosted NMD glyph xp rewards.

I’m not trying to single you out SilverHawk, you just happened to say it but you’re not alone. The significant majority of D4 players do not push NMD out of risk/reward fears or ideals. It’s a self selecting problem that can be overcome.

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While a good idea for players it would basically make NMD runs kinda bad and Blizzard would have to retool them for it. As is, you can level glyphs to 15 fairly fast from lvl 1 once you beat the game. Takes about an hour of efficient NMD spam, maybe 2. But the grind from 15-21 is real lol. Unless you get a buddy to carry you through T100 NMD or something, then it’s pretty fast.

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S4 ash power is get more xp for glyph i think i seen it.

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:stop_sign: Added outline up top :arrow_double_up:

The original version of this post was auto-flagged & manually removed, but since the message in my inbox doesn’t highlight what the no-no was, I’m left to assume it was a quaint non-obscenity included in the phrase “it would punch them in the ------”, the “it” here being tedium. I’ve replaced the word with “gut” to see if

Eh nvm feels like whac-a-mole. I’ve put the phrase through a Terry Pratchett filter instead. Hopefully the Metaphor Directorate is placated.
:person_shrugging:

Re-posting:

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Not quite sure what you two are debating…

But this is correct:

Preety seemple.
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I reject the implication that 21 is optional… I’m premising the whole argument on the devs’ putting 21 forward as a core component of character progression/power. Not a garnish or a flavor topping, but on par with fully unlocking the skill tree.

The problem is probably a dev perception issue - I haven’t pinned it down (can’t interview them). I don’t expect my question will be picked for the livestream, but: I do wonder if the core devs fully level up 2 or more characters per season (including glyphs to 21), mostly solo. If they did, they’d surely feel the tedium, because it would snare drum them in the red panda. I bet they’re deviating: non-maxed out glyphs every time, or PTR style dress-up, or some other shortcut, thus missing out on the real player experience.

I reject the implication that the only way the glyph grind is tedious is if you’re not pushing higher and higher NMD’s. If I weren’t pushing higher & higher NMD’s I would probably just quit the game in lieu of leveling up several gimped characters per season.

The glyph grind (given that it also necessitates the NMD grind be sequential, or close to it) is flat-out boring. In fact, once was enough: almost a year ago. Doing it this exact way, every 3 months, on however many characters I want to level up, is doom.

No point in complaining ofc, unless I propose a solution, which I did. Said solution IMO doesn’t reduce challenge, but only adds variety & smoothness, thus reducing tedium.
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…na-ah bro.

Yes - retool them for the better. :raised_hand: :raised_hand:

(See outline up top)
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…~… …~… …~… …~… …~… …~…

:stop_sign: Added outline up top :arrow_double_up:

I’ll say again what I suspect happened in the development of this glyph levelling system:

  • It was a half-baked idea that was never fully tested (by which I mean each core dev levelled up several characters to full 21 glyphs under normal game conditions, and has kept doing so);
  • one of the design features (the stand) acts as a subconscious limiter to innovation (thus the highest innovation is the occasional glyph xp bonus);
  • and they don’t see the actual tedium problem (or they’ve placed it on a back burner).

Breaking it down simply:

  1. Paragon progression is core character progression, glyphs included. You’re not done until you’ve arrived.
  2. Confining part of that progression (glyph grind) to a single type of activity is bad game philosophy, if the goal is fun (which it ought to be).
  3. The activity itself happens to feature a tragically unsatisfying xp-allocation ritual, in which the work I’m doing (including the xp allocation) for several runs does not get me tangible results in power progression (for 90% of interactions) because it’s locked behind 2 arbitrary markers(*). That’s bad game philosophy.

(* I’d like to harp on this point: Just imagine 15 and 21 were instead “2” and “3”. Now run the grind in your head, and picture yourself clicking that stand to reach “2” and then to reach “3”. That’s what we’re technically doing… which is bad enough. But now pretend you’re a dev, tasked with coming up with a placebo designed to give the test subject the illusion of progress… i.e. “3” and “4” and “5” etc., which mean literally nothing… so that the perceived futility of each run is papier-mâchéd over. It only fools the player superficially - deep down inside they all grasp the hollowness of the ritual. This is why instead of doubling down on the concept, they should’ve pushed the xp gain to the background and made glyphs simple & versatile activators of the main power of the paragon board, which is the paragon board itself.)

The concept needed to cook a while longer IMO.

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There’s nothing wrong with glyph xp. What’s wrong is so many entitle people want to be level 50 with max out level 21 glyphs. It seems reaching Nightmare Dungeon Tier 70 is an impossible task without a fully slotted paragon board.

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Tweaked the (placeholder) strongholds idea.
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Nothing in your post indicates you’ve read & understood the OP, so there’s nothing here to respond to. Typing with one’s adrenal glands is a clunky hobby.

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Thought someone in another thread wrote that there’s going to be glyph XP in the pit but guess I misread it. Don’t see why it shouldn’t… early pit is already like high nightmare dungeon, might as well have something in the boss room.

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NMD don’t even have their sigils anymore, it’s like someone wrote the directions to the dungeon on a napkin. There isn’t a lot left to those poor things than being the source of glyph xp.

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Glyph leveling is sooo annoying in D4. It is WAY too slow… not even much better in S4.
And when you need other glyphs you start at level 1.

My solution:

  • Let us collect glyph xp, stored as just a number by our character.
  • Let us spend this glyph xp on glyphs.
  • Give us any way that we can respec it and use our glyph xp for other glyphs. Make it for gold… let us collect mats for doing this… no matter how, but let us not spend another 100 hrs in NMD for leveling other glyphs.
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Old draft:

Updated the outline with several changes, suggested 2 different tracks, suggested a sigil option for the reset reward, formatted for legibility, etc.

To reiterate: I don’t care if they DOUBLE or TRIPLE the grind. I don’t care if they effectively lock 15-21 behind T100 content. It just needs to be more engaging.

Retool the system itself because it’s tedious & doesn’t seem to have been thoroughly tested for repeatability.

Thought I’d level up 4 characters & post an update… took a month longer than I expected, because of tedium. By the 4th char (now level 21 glyphs, but under 100) I’m jumping into games, and soon quitting. I have 2 stash tabs of boss mats, but I specifically wanted to test the tedium of leveling up (+ glyphs) multiple characters.

Glyphs were way faster this time, b/c you boosted xp twice (sigils + battle pass). So you tacitly acknowledged the tedium of glyph leveling, and… shortened it. Probably the wrong approach. Any “must-do” content needs to be engaging. So my OP is still relevant. I’m sure devs can come up with many more interesting progression loops than I did. NMD’s in their current state, ain’t it.

I think there’s only one way to attack this as a dev: play the game. Play it straight. Embrace the core philosophy (class fantasy, class variety, power progression, with skills + paragon intrinsic to those) and set reasonable minimum goals: every dev should be leveling up at least 2 classes per cycle, to full 21 glyphs, from level 1, no shortcuts, no power boosts - including solo play. I got bored of this formula by season 2… how are you not (unless you’re boosting)?

Like a proper n00b, I discovered a practical way to (part-way) mitigate the tedium of the stand:

  1. select a glyph
  2. click XP button and…
  3. immediately switch to another glyph
  4. repeat

…you don’t have to wait for that stupid bar to fill up? Wow. So the bar filling up is just there to be stared at & admired? Please get rid of this.

The stand still just plain sucks. The core reason glyph leveling is tedious is because the levels mean nothing… except “15” and “21”. So they’re fake levels. It’s really just “level 2” and “level 3”, let’s be real. And on top of this… you have us stare at a level-up animation? For fake levels.

Please redesign this whole interaction.

The core thread suggestions are still an improvement IMO:

  • One or more additional sources of glyph (node) XP… could be minimized by making NMDs more engaging, but why not at least Pits? Pits are supposedly T100+ as is, and there’s a boss room.
  • Get rid of the stand, it might be core to the tedium. (Change the animation in a hotfix asap… the way you tweaked the MW animation, which is still unnecessarily tedious.)
    • (Instead of forced manual XP allocation at the end of NMD, consider a persistent XP pool to be allocated whenever, from wherever. Ofc that would obviate the stand… good - kill it!)
  • A way to re-assign glyph (node) XP. My idea = challenges resulting in a unique mat that can be used to transfer a single level 21 glyph node’s XP fully to an under-21 glyph node (see OP). Cerveyio suggests a straightforward glyph XP “respec”, from glyph to glyph… I find that boring, but I’ll add it. I think glyph node XP would both revolutionize the system & make it more interesting, while simultaneously streamlining the loop itself & making it less tedious… it adds more of what’s good (gameplay variety) and removes more of what’s bad (clicking buttons to add fake levels to a glyph).

Please note: these & other suggestions can be independent of one another, and there’s overlap (e.g. whether you switch to glyph node XP, or you don’t).