Nightmare Sigils WILL NOT improve the current Dungeon Experience

PC General Discussion
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Disclaimer: This post may seem negative, but overall, I’ve absolutely loved what I’ve experienced in Diablo 4 so far, and I think the team has done an amazing job. But after today’s interview where Rod & Joe seemed to allude to the fact that end game Nightmare Sigils may improve the dungeon experience, I feel like this needs to be said

Nightmare Sigils WILL NOT fix the OVERALL dungeon experience.

For reference, I’m referring to these comments:

Joe Shely: …And then when you get into the endgame, after you’ve completed the campaign and you get access to the Nightmare Dungeon system, we have the sigils that modify dungeons in really cool ways, with buffs and nerfs, and those dramatically modify the dungeon. But because the dungeons are designed with some properties to start with, you can get a sigil for a dungeon and have some context for what that means - it’s not just a random name that can be anything.

Rod Fergusson: People are seeing dungeons at the baseline level. It’ll be interesting the feedback once people get to experience what it means to go through sigils and get to see now there’s more monsters, now they have a different ability, now you’re being debuffed this way and they’re being buffed that way. And it’s going to feel like a much different experience.

Source: can’t post links, but it’s the Eurogamer interview

The problem with Nightmare Dungeons is, we will still have the exact same objectives to complete (albeit with affixes from the Sigil that adjusts content within the dungeon). So, if the dungeon objectives are “off” fundamentally, Sigils will not improve the overall experience. And I (and many, many other players judging off all the feedback I’ve read) feel like the dungeon objectives could certainly use some improvements. On top of objectives, monster density is seriously lacking in dungeons, but I won’t talk about that, since that may or may not be fixed with Sigils/potential updates before launch.

Here’s some problems with some of the current objectives (and potential “quick fix” suggestions):

  • “Return the pedestals/x name of thing to return” - this objective is probably the worst of them all in terms of time it takes to complete AND the backtracking it requires. Not only can you only carry one at a time, you have to backtrack multiple times through the dungeon to complete it, often times through empty corridors after you cleared the content the first time.
    • Quick Fix: Allow us to carry multiple objects at a time. This makes it so if we run into one object and then find another one before we can drop the original one off, we don’t have to back track all the way back to it.

  • “Kill all monsters in x” - This objective requires us to kill all monsters which are spread out in a large area, a lot of which are easily missed. It’s really not fun to backtrack to kill only a few remaining monsters, then have to walk allllll the way back to the next dungeon door. This objective IS NOT like the Den of Evil (as I’ve seen some redditors allude to). In the Den of Evil, it is only done ONE TIME per difficulty, not throughout multiple Dungeons which we will assumedly be running multiple times with Sigils. And besides, it was STILL frustrating in Diablo 2 when you had to backtrack through it.
    • Quick Fix: Give us a “kill a % of monsters” objective with a progress bar instead. This will dramatically reduce the risk of backtracking/searching for one or two remaining monsters.

As you can see, since these objectives will still be present even WITH Nightmare Sigils, the Sigils WILL NOT fix the fundamental problems with Dungeons. They will still have these issues. IF Nightmare Dungeons are to be a huge part of the end game, I truly think there needs to be some reworks/fixes for them to be fully enjoyable for us players.

FINALLY, I sincerely apologize for the negative tone of this post as I generally have enjoyed - even loved - Diablo 4 so far. Again, this game is shaping up to be AMAZING!

24 Likes
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I think objects and density is likely easy to fix. I think layout of larger dungeons is easy to fix. I feel like difficulty scaling/rewards for it, should be worth it. I don’t want gr90 and gr150 to give out sale # of items and only matter is experience…since level 100 cap here, i want different dungeons scale with diff/etc but so would the rewards, so if it takes you a 1-2 hrs to clear 1 of the harder ones, you should get a proper regard…

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i completely agree here!

we should be rewarded for pushing higher. In D3 there was hardly ANY incentive to push higher GRs - after 90 all the only benefit was extra bloodshards and gem levels.

we should be rewarded proportionate to the content we are doing!

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it is healthy ballance between path of exile (mindlessly slaying monsters map bosses are useless)
lost ark (trash mobs are nonexistent and useless, only boss matters and he have telegraphed mechanics)
diablo 3 (all the afixed are copy pasted and layouts are bland)
aaand a new world dungeons (stones that u craft to upgrade your dungeon content)

what in your opinion you would like to do in dungeon if not the mix of above ?

although they should fix backpedaling in dungeons, or give us obrainable shortcuts
like for example layout that let us slide/jump to medium of map

obviously we need dungeon finder and ability to teleport to friend in dungeon
i dont want this to be mythic + toxic enviorment or classic where u need to go half year to a dungeon, just so the other 4 people ar arseholes and wait summon

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yeah i agree with your last few points, and i do see how they are a mix between a few different game mechanics (D3, PoE, LA), but i feel like the objectives themselves lead to more backtracking and mundane tasks more often then not

i think, at least, some sort of improvements to the already existing objectives would at least kept a bit (for example, allowing us to carry more than 1 pedestal at time)

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maby they dont want groups to split run dungeon or something ?

i go left you go right sigil and we meet in the middle LOL

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As someone who played the endgame beta, I can attest that nm sigils do not improve the dungeon experience.

It was still a grind. And the rewards (loot) at the end of the grind, in most cases was not worth it.

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Nightmare dungeons need to be more immmersive. Things like random mini bosses and super uniques would be a good start. Perhaps even some skin changes to certain monsters that justify their trait changes.

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So basically it is Mythic + Diablo Nightmare Dungeon mode. Idk tho I’ll have to wait to try it out but if it feels too overly similar I’ll hate it.

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Reserve judgement until we have an actual experience with it. If people play it and they hate it i’m sure they will make changes.

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I didn’t mind the little objectives that much, but then again I’m not really a speedrager.

The ones that bothered me were the dungeons that didn’t even have a real boss at the end but just had you do something like free 6 prisoners and poof dungeon is over. Felt lame.

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imo, as soon as you split up = point of a group is done… means dungeons are too easy, but laborious enough…

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so you say in my journey to dungeon boss i couldnt drop anything valuable ?
cause in beta that wasnt the case. i still dropped items on a road to boss and in the end

this is what was bad in diablo 3
you speed to the endboss, get loot shower

meanwhile in diablo 2, EVERY monster could drop something valuable

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The “return the pedestals/x name of thing to return” is by far my biggest problem with the current dungeons. There is no way to complete these objectives without backtracking through cleared areas of the dungeon which is simply a waste of time. Maybe maybe if there was a way to fast travel back to the pedestals immediately once finding the item it would be better, but I think the dungeons would be better if this objective was simply removed. Honestly I would prefer just beat the final boss objective to this objective. And to that point I’m not sure any of the objectives add to the fun of the dungeons right now. They all boil down to chores. I would prefer that beating the final boss counts as a clear and that there be chests, rare enemies, etc to encourage exploration of the dungeons instead of forcing exploration through chore tasks.

3 Likes
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In the end game beta, drop rate % was much lower. Uniques and legendaries did not drop the way they did in last weekend’s beta.

So, no, D4 drop rate should be normalized at WT2 from 1-50 when D4 launches in June

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completely agree here. that sounds far better then required objectives that are tedious and not that interesting (imo)

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I want each dungeon to feel like an epic experience; not a task on a long checklist. Dungeons should have interesting mechanics and unique challenges that are memorable.

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Lol what? PoE is the only ARPG that did this correct. You don’t even just mindlessly slay monsters, there are a ton of mechanics that can change a map with various things to do within.

Also, they have how many bosses and how many layouts? D4 has a single layout and probably like 6 different bosses. At this point, D4 would count as a single mechanic in PoE. Blizz dropped they ball.

They should have done something similar to the mapping system in PoE but dungeons instead. They have no real intention on innovating and just copy and pasted code from D3 and D:I to create D4.

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I agree.
My hype level went down a lot after reading that.
Also, exploring all kinds of randomly generated dungeons was one of the most exciting things about playing these type of game.
I thought I’d be quitting PoE and moving over to D4 for good but it looks like PoE’s endgame is still superior. Of course PoE is much older so D4 might get someting similar or surpass it with enough time.

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They should just make carrying the key item periodically spawn mobs near you, so your not running back through an empty dungeon, maybe make it linked to distance travelled, so if your afk or something you don’t get swarmed but after your char takes enough steps to move a screen and a half worth of distance it spawns some more enemies.

so between a key item wing and where you need to put the key there is probably between like 12-24 environment set pieces just make it spawn a pack of enemies every other set piece so its just out of screen.