Endgame activity idea ahead.
I’ve been playing D4 since relaunch. For me what’s missing is endgame.
Season 2’s blood harvests were a great step in the right direction, and I’d love to see helltides also get similar activities. Especially the central one and the obelisk like (which is actually challenging unless you have a top tier endgame build). But, it’s still not true endgame. AoZ is nice, but repetitive and not much more than a stress test for your build and bugs discovery.
So, I’ve thought of a cool system, imo, that could also be added upon with new seasons and expansions. And which will be approachable for casual dad and exciting for the seasoned player.
Long read, so TL:DR:
during helltide use cinders to open instances of hell. Fight hordes of demons and special events. Then teleport back to safety or for the brave, fight your way up for better rewards while hellfire and scores of demons chase you.
Gameplay phase 1:
- During a helltide: spend a hefty amount of cinders to destabilize the barrier between sanctuary and hell, descending down to the first step of hell.
- There are 7 total steps, of which only the first 6 are accessible, while 7th is hell itself with the prime and minor Evil’s realms.
- Consecutive steps may be descended to by spending hefty amounts of cinders
- Each consecutive step of hell is more difficult, scaling monster health, damage and events.
- Demons keep dropping cinders, and players could choose to open chests, keep descending, craft consumables or all of the above if they can afford to.
- At the lowest (6th) step there could be a random world boss. With a small chance for an Uber unique to it.
- Hell themed random events could appear in each step. Like hell portals, a demon stampede, butcher, seasonal events, etc. and different consumables could be used to increase their probability or intensity (see consumables)
Gameplay phase 2 (optional):
- When the helltide recedes in the open world the rift between hell and sanctuary closes. Thus players must choose: either to teleport out, or ascend back the steps of hell.
- Ascending the steps of hell after the helltide closed, causes demons to be alerted to your presence and frenzy after you.
- As the time goes by in each step, demons attacking and chasing the players increase in number, and proportion of elites also increases. Monster health and damage scales with each step ascended.
- The lower the step from which the ascension started the harder the ascension would be. This could allow players fluid control over their difficulty level.
- There isn’t a timer, but a slow creeping hellfire chases players from the depths of hell upwards. It does increasing DoT damage and dizzy effect.
- Better and special rewards are dropped in this phase. Some of which can be found in the hellfire.
- Rewards could be loot, special crafting materials that cannot be attained anywhere else, etc.
- Introducing risk: If players resurrect to sanctuary during this phase they take a penalty. Like not keeping any item or materials collected during ascension (or throughout?)
Limitations:
- The steps of hell are instances. Players may move up and down the steps of hell they already opened, but if they leave back to sanctuary they have to restart the activity.
- Players may start the journey in parties, however, once started, new players can’t join.
- Players can be resurrected by team members, or by consuming a soul shard (see consumables). Otherwise resurrection takes place in sanctuary and a new rift to hell must be opened.
Aesthetics and level design:
- Steps of hell could have different themes: open, tunnels, etc. and appropriate art concepts to their depth towards hell.
- Ideally the steps would be semi/fully procedurally generated to greatly enhance the novelty in the replayability of the experience. As that is one of the main strong point it can have.
Consumables:
- Souls shard: spend cinders in one of the steps to craft a shard that allows for resurrection to take place in hell instead of back in sanctuary.
- Calm Soul Incense: craft incense to temporarily repel hellfire around you (the deeper the hellfire the faster the expiration).
- Forged in fire elixir: craft an elixir to grant immunity to dizziness effect in hell.
- “Fresh meat”: spend demon hearts to craft a bait for the butcher. (increases the probability to meat the butcher in the next step and could make him stronger).
- “Fragment of light”: craft a small shard with angelic aura to attract demonic portals from across hell.
- Other consumables for seasonally themed events.
- Special crafting vendors/locations would exist in the steps of hell. you can’t sell your items, but you could salvage for special materials or more cinders.
- Consumables for events can have tiers which increase the difficulty of their event.
Cosmetics:
- “Wings of the Demonic” emote for ascending from the lowest step without dying.
- Head horns in a few tiers for slaying large number of demons in hell.
- Hellfire aura/glow/shaders around weapons / armor for collecting loot and slaying demons while in hellfire.
- Demonic burning eyes for slaying world bosses in hell.
- Character titles galore.
- Awesome mount from hell.
- Store themed hellish cosmetic sets.
- And more
Prospect:
- Perhaps at later stages of the game (maybe after an expansion), the 7th and final step of hell would be accessible, granting access to the realms of the minor and prime evils. With repeatable opportunities to battle the minor evils’s spirits. Maybe even replayable opportunities to battle part or all of the primes. Depending on the state of the lore, which could also change the state of the replayable battles.
Thanks for reading all the way down to here! 
I know I’d be excited if there was such an activity in D4.
Share your thoughts?
Blizz pls?
