Well I was too slow posting my S6 PTR feedback, and it’s moot now post-campfire, but one last topic remains that I want to suggest because I think there’s still space for it. I think D4 would benefit greatly from having a significant increase in the variety of random encounters.
I’m talkin GOBLINS, I’m talkin EVENTS, I’m talkin NPCS, I’m talkin ENCOUNTERS, I’m talkin SHRINES, I’m talkin DEMONS THAT WANNA SMASH YOUR FACE IN.
Not necessarily an increase in the frequency of them, maybe a slight increase, but rarity gives them value. And they fill a space because they aren’t controllable or required for builds, they’re just extra flavor on top of the entire game to make the entire experience more interesting and more fun.
Ok so, I’ll give some detailed examples of the kind of things I’m talking about. Take the following with a pinch of salt, and feel free to help brainstorm your own ideas that would fill Sanctuary with grimdark awesomeness and exciting surprises possibly lurking behind every corner.
GOBLINS
More variety in reward-type and mechanics
- Goblins with focuses on runes / gems / crafting & summon mats
- Gold goblin w/ massive gold explosion (ex. drags a giant sack super slow because it’s comically too heavy, but it spawns the escape portal almost right away)
- ancestral item w/much higher chances of getting multiple greater affixes (ex. beefcake goblin with much more hp)
- mythic (ex. special purple glowing sack but they run or escape through portal much faster to increase the difficulty in also getting one to amp up the challenge.
- Elixirs
- Really rare items like scroll of tempering
- unique items that ONLY goblins drop
- i.e. consumable that lets you choose the masterworking “crit” affix or which tempering affix you want
- Goblin-tier elixirs like increased experience +100% or movement speed +50% for 30 mins
- Mythic Item - Goblin Mask that disguises your face as a treasure goblin so that treasure goblins don’t try to run from you and chance to encounter a treasure goblin by 200%.
- Massive explosion of EVERYTHING, but other Goblins appear through portals and start grabbing some of the loot and running off with it.
- Two goblins fighting over one loot sack with a portal on each side.
- Giant chest slowly being pulled into a portal that can be attacked and pop open before it gets pulled all the way in.
- scared goblins that hide inside of chests or barrels that occassionally wobble with a muffled goblin noise and when you break it open, they run away screaming with their loot sack.
- Speedracer gobs that keep running really far and fast, prioritizing going through the middle of enemy groups and dropping banana peels or something to slow you down. They only try to summon a portal when they’re nowhere near you.
- Goblin Thieves that try to sneak up on you during combat to pickpocket a non-ancestral/mythic item from your inventory (or Gold or something) and run off with it.
I mean that kind of stuff is kind of worthy of having an entire Season of the Goblin, complete with a little goblin hub town and goblin vendors.
Hell. Yeah.
EVENTS
- Just some more interesting ones with more dynamic aspects and more variety to the ones in dungeons.
- i.e. ones that summon tons and tons of mobs like jar of souls on steroids
- Helltide Rituals (in a non-Helltide area) that if engaged, trigger a mini-Helltide threat event on you with portals of demons and Hellborne attacking you
- mini bosses with unique mechanics
- unique debuffs that get stronger over the course of the event, making it more of a fight to survive.
- Co-op focused “smart” Events that only trigger when with other nearby players or a party that either require or are much more advantageous to have more than one player in order to complete the mastery in time.
- i.e. very simple - requiring two pedastals to be stood on for X amt of time simultaneously
- i.e. more complex - like the blood drain fountains, but instead of the event itself increasing its own damage over time, it adds a stacking debuff that you have to alternate going in and out of with another player so it doesn’t overwhelm you but you can keep the event active longer by doing that.
RANDOM NPCS & ENCOUNTERS
- Rare overworld or dungeon NPCS, like vendors that sell ultra-rare items
- Old Goblin vendor that sells a Scroll of Retempering for 50mil.
- A wandering vendor that sells rare horses and horse armor
- A mystic that you save from some demons and they reward you transmogs or several free enchants
- A random-spawn altar or pedestal that you can exchange items or some currency for a unique buff, enslaved demon follower, or another item.
- Chance of a cellar to have various special events going on inside, indicated with some kind of commotion or activity outside to catch your attention.
SHRINES
More interesting gameplay mechanics, like…
- “Class Buff” shrine - grants unique effects specific to the class you’re playing, like Necros may get bonus minions
- Ricochet shrine - all ranged attacks bounce once off targets or walls toward another enemy, melee attacks all become a short-range cleave-wave attack
- Seeking shrine - all ranged attacks auto-seek targets, melee attacks “shadowstep” you immediately to enemy
- Explosion shrine - all melee attacks cause an AoE damage shockwave that stuns, ranged attacks explode like grenades (same damage type as attack)
- Basic Attack shrine - all basic attacks deal +1000% damage and basic attack speed is increased by 30%
- Spirit Army shrine - spawns a multitude of ghosts or spirit monsters that follow you and fight at your side
- MamboMambo shrine - Gargantuan Fetish follows you around and wrecks everything
- Mayhem shrine - every kill increases your size, movement speed, and attack speed by 2% up to 100% bonus
- Elemental Empowerment (specific elements, maybe tied with a thematic entity for more flavor) – i.e.
- Frost Yeti shrine gives bonus cold damage / chill / freeze, extra armor
- Flame Sprite shrine gives bonus fire damage and causes burning, kills cause explosions, bonus mvt speed and leave fire trail where you walk
- Spider shrine gives bonus stacking poison damage, periodic poison novas, enemies that melee attack you become webbed
- Taunt Thorns shrine - all nearby enemies are taunted every 3 seconds and you deal +10000% thorns damage
- Resurrection Shrine - Slain enemies continue to fight for you for 10 seconds before dying.
- Blood Shrine - 10% life and resource leech, increased mvt & attack speed and damage, but lose 10% current life per second.
- Vision Shrine - lantern spirit follows you that reveals stealthed enemies, large nearby map radius including marking all enemies (red dots) as well as any chests/shrines, including SPIRIT CHESTS only visible in the lantern’s light.
ASSASSINS & HUNTERS
More enemy encounters similar to the Butcher and the Blood Seekers -
- Butcher & Hellborne invasion during World Boss Fights
- World Bosses that can spawn in the middle of another World Boss fight
- Tied in with Goblins, but maybe sometimes if a Goblin “escapes,” Butcher will walk out of its portal and kill it, then chase you instead.
- Shadow Demon - curses the area with darkness trapping you inside a barrier and reducing your visibility/light radius to 5m, and you have to find them to kill them to get it back and escape. During this time, you’ll be attacked by shadow beings.
- Hatred Demons - similar to Butcher, but they function like a Nemesis that each time you defeat them, the next encounter they will come back stronger fueled by more hatred but drop better rewards. If it kills you, its power and rewards are reset.
- Assassin Cultists poison you with a doom-like debuff that you have to kill them and drink the antidote they drop (it auto-consumes on pickup) within say, 10-20 seconds, or you will die.
- Region/Dungeon biome specific ultra-elites that spawn specifically to kill you, like a Spider Queen that summons a crapton of little spiders to get you from all directions, or a Corrupted Witch Doctor that summons hordes of zombies from the ground in a very large area.
for more goblins, and those are some creative ideas! There might even be most of a Season there… Season 777: GoblINVASION!!
Yeah I definitely, like, think in general just adding more flair to the game can be some very welcome distractions and just make the game so much more dynamic and appealing and have this sense of wonder and magic to it all. It’s when things start to feel really monotonous and repetitive, like the same formulaic structure, same reward every time, that you begin to just be like, nah. skip. ignore. and your brain shuts it off cause in an ARPG where ultimately you prioritize efficiency, it’s nice when there’s both a plethora of unexpected and unexplored and unknown things thrown at you that you’re both like “oooo what’s that!?” in the moment and throughout the experience, but also even better if it is ACTUALLY an interesting and meaningful reward that is gated in rarity so that it can be that powerful.