First things first, will start from identification of the problems (you might or might not agree on the first one, but the other two I think are pretty much spot on)
The 3 big problems with the Pit are:
It is controversial to its main purpose. Difficulty increase mechanism that punishes risk-taking (instead of incentivizing or even rewarding it)
It has low risk of being beaten, has high chance of timer expiration. In other words you don’t fail cause your character is not ready to fight there, you fail cause a timer expires
** (this is a sub-claim of 2nd claim) Because there is timer and absolute min-maxing of DPS output is required, it is a super high intensity button or key mashing slogging-progressed experience of 15 minutes just to barely make it (or fail)
Reward is already pre-known before a run starts, and too uninspiring as well
You probably have heard so far my set of ideas how to address this
Suggestion Set #1
Significantly reduce timer and drop several pre-leveled Glyphs
Randomize portal opening condition (even if requires renaming of the feature itself)
Diversify the reward (by making Glyph upgrading/specialization function in a slightly different manner)
Suggestion set #2 [Mythrael]
Remove the Pit
Events in the Overworld, HT, NMDs have a chance to drop Glyph (or an altar for Glyph XP)
No more difficulty unlocking mechanism (all are available, let players choose for themselves)
Suggestion set #3 [Aumvaar]
Decouple the difficulty unlock and Glyph leveling from Pit, use it for DPS testing purposes instead
P.S. we need a kill counter (not just the progress bar) ASAP
Suggestion set #4 [SCRSCRSCR]
Remove the mandatory glyph leveling from there and let it be a “regular” activity like the Horde
Suggestion set #5 [LazyLoaf]
Change the map to resemble actual dungeons with RNG tiles in the Pit. No need to make changes to Glyphs
It’s fine if you don’t agree with my suggested fixes, but hope you agree with most of the claims
Remove it would fix the problem.
Also lorewise.
Why has a mini minion triple the health amount of a T4 lord of hell?
To be more serious, what you are doing here is cherry-picking and I don’t think in a good way.
Nearly all problems, that this game has, are depending or based on each other. Can’t fix one in a good way without touching the others.
For example: out of control spiraling damage numbers is the reason, there is even a rift or pit.
Without these, you wouldn’t need such a mechanic. People could test their builds on the highest difficulty. Maybe a T6 or 7 or whatever. But with ALL content being on this difficulty.
I hit Paragon 299 last night and will hit P300 tomorrow night so I’ve been grinding a lot of Pits lately. They don’t need to change anything although I would like an alternative to Pit’s that is no more/no less rewarding just for variety.
Some people in life make all kind of excuses for not wanting to do something that needs to be done for a specific goal, be it a game or a career goal. Other people just do what needs to be done.
There were these miniature vampire/zombies back in S1 that took a lot of beating, almost took no damage, and had high HP return rate (not everything is as looks it is )
Exactly, run 100 pits to gain 25 more Paragon board points to increase my Pit level by 2 and start comfortably running T4
Great advice, you’re genius, how did I not think of that ?
Oh wait, just because I can, does not mean that I should
I mean it’s mainly just hp. When you are hitting in the quadrillions/quintillions and something is still standing that’s a problem. “Legit” kills at least as of S6 all relied on add echo damage on bosses, the rest I imagine were when antivenin was broken.
Anybody with a fairly decent fleshed out (or overleveled) build should be able to get their glyphs to 100. They want some extra “unclearable” levels with no tangible reward? Fine. I like achievements and titles personally, but the problem is the more elitist got to be wow M+ key players. If not they sound the same.
And paragon 300? Worst experience ever. Honestly I was glad for the antivenin bug so even though I did 150 already I could speed farm them for xp hitting for integer 64.
Anyone ok with the high level pits the way they are is masochistic and/or enjoys gatekeeping people in an easy af game out of elitism. There’s no “skill/effort” involved.
I’m not against an unreachable content, the problem is there is zero adjustability to the current system
What are your options ? - run a 3 levels lower pit over and over and over and over to gain ~20 more paragon points so you can continue doing the same with one or two Pit levels higher
If the unreachable (or say barely reachable) has options to try out (some adjustments or min-maxing flexibility/fine-tune mechanism), I don’t have a problem, the problem is there isn’t any
And even if there is (say you got an item upgrade), you need to go back to “15 rounds of Dante’s inferno” (i.e. horde runs) to MW your new piece and put it to the “real test”
As I stated, remove it, balance the damage output of players, offer more difficulties for testing the borders of builds.
Bind glyph leveling on another existing game content or do it with mats you can get from every content.
I believe you’ve suggested before to make it 5 minutes without a timer. I wholeheartedly agree with this iteration of it. As is it’s the least fun part of the game. Yet it’s what we have to “look forward to” the furthest into the game.
I reached a point where maxing out in the pit to max my glyphs was all I had left to do.
I opted to stop playing instead. The pit is what we should look forward to the most. Oh boy oh boy the pit the pit! Is how we should feel when we get to it. Does anyone feel like they’re about to have fun when they enter the pit or do they feel like they’re doing this for the sake of their glyphs?
If anything they could get rid of the pit and replace it with a completely different activity that lets us level our glyphs. Blizzard should develop the attitude that if it’s not fun, fix it or forget it.
The Pit is excellent for one purpose: giving people a place to test their DPS builds under “live fire” situations. It is entirely inappropriate for anything else. Glyph leveling & unlocking of Torment levels need to move to other activities, or else players should at least be given options for doing those things via other activities.
The problem is not how The Pit functions; the problem is what it’s used for.
I actually am against unreachable content (unless infinite scaling) but that was a concession. Like AoZ 25 I was ok with as I realized 21-22? Idr was my limit. 50 out of 150? That sounds like a waste to me.
I agree with more player agency, but as to fully fixing it? I have to go with the devs should be able to do what they get paid to do. I’ll check back like now before a new season/if bored, but my gripe with pit is hp. If I’m near BiS and you put a limit on it? It should be completable.
Edit-timer is interesting, I believe you actually can do 150 and get credit if you run out of time (which I found out later lol). That’s another can of worms though, so much in this game has a timer.
6 minutes (and yes without boss timer, opened portal is opened)
Easier to count when even number (6 minutes to kill 30 elites, or 100 non-trash monsters, or 200 burning/frozen monsters, or 50 elites or champions), kinda harder to calculate that if it was 5
Yes, I did, I still think one of the potential fixes is “diversify” the condition for opening the portal (but then should probably be renamed to something like Crucible)
You could do the same with the testing chamber. Make a test chamber with an integrated dungeon with some variance in layout and monsters and good it is. You can only fail not die, so maybe even a thing a hc char can do.
And if you have no (out of control) high dps builds you maybe even don’t have the need to test them.
The timer doesn’t bother me as much as one shot mechanics that serve largely to frustrate a challenging experience. I expect there will be a ceiling to my performance but to get through a pit and get the boss down to 1/8 with ten minutes left and then get axed out of nowhere is not what the challenge should be about.
In the Undercity, you have objectives to meet. Those objectives are quite clearly marked on the map. You do the objectives, you go to the next level.
There is no such with The Pit: you have to kill X many monsters in order to open the boss’s portal, but you have no way of knowing how many you’ve actually killed or how many you have left to kill. Adding in trash with ridiculous amounts of health makes it even worse. As it stands right now, it’s the single worst content in D4, but it’s “mandatory” for any sort of meaningful progress.
If it were up to me, glyph leveling would be moved to encompass all other 60+ content. Unlocking Torment levels would be done by completing Infernal Hordes, NMDs, & T1 Lair Bosses. The Pit would be relegated to e-peen waving via “leader boards.”
I’m pretty sure they removed the Mother’s Curse (or Brown Lillith icon) stacks
Personally think wasn’t a bad idea, all they had to do with that was to add an expiration timer to somewhere around ~20 seconds (i.e. dodge everything for 20 seconds and you’re “clean” again)
