Of course, that’s not saying much: The Pit isn’t “fun” at all. I will maintain that if we were allowed to level glyphs elsewhere, most people would never set foot in The Pit again. IMO that is the definition of failed content: something that people don’t see as “fun” or “rewarding” but which they do simply because they see a “need” to do it. I don’t know about anyone else, but I play games for fun, not because I “need” to, & if there is content that I don’t see as “fun” I’ll ignore it.
NMDs, by contrast, are fast & fun. They remind me a good deal of D3’s Bounty mode, since you can teleport straight to them from town. Go in, bash a few demons, beat up on the boss, go back & do it again. No timers involved, which to me is an added bonus. The NMD escalation is the only part of S9 that interests me; too bad reports from the PTR are indicating it’s a “meh.” But I’ll keep doing NMDs anyway, because fun.
In the future, Buzzard: more “fun,” much less tedious grind. The Pit is the epitome of tedious grind. The fact I need to do it to progress the seasonal journey makes my skin crawl
Nothing Buzzard, or any other game developer, can do to stop people from complaining. That’s exactly why they should just concentrate on making “good” games, rather than trying to please everyone – even if marketing instincts cause them to want to expand their sales as far as possible.
Can’t argue with that. Just comparing two aspects of the game, & finding one of them badly wanting.
The issue for me is the tile sets. The Pit copies tile sets from the NMD’s, instead of being procedurally generated. What I loved about D2 and D3 was the random layouts. Now yes, granted not all areas were procedurally generated, but there was enough there to make it feel different every time you stepped out of town.
D4 has the same thing everywhere you look. It’s stagnant, unappealing after so long. At least for me anyway. Now I do enjoy the VoH dungeons more so than the older dungeons, but there’s only so many times you can run those without getting bored too.
It’s mildly amusing that I have 6 NMD keys, but of course every time I clear one, I get another key It’s also nice that I’m regularly getting a few boss mats along with temper recipes & obducite.
I get nothing from The Pit except tedium & glyph XP. But I have to do it to open Torment levels & progress the seasonal journey? I’m not sorry, that’s two middle fingers
I used to have fun blasting through pits. Didn’t impact anyone else’s experience but now with the changes/omega nerfs my build can’t even do high level pits
From what I recall (before glyph experience was moved out of Nightmare Dungeons), the primary complaint wasn’t about glyphs — it was that Nightmare Dungeons were boring. This was before The Pit existed.
Instead of reworking Nightmare Dungeons to make them more engaging, Blizzard chose to:
Shift glyph experience to the newly formed Pits (at the time)
and change glyph progression from guaranteed to chance-based.
Both of these changes were unpopular, and the backlash was clear — both on the forums and elsewhere.
Now we’re left with “reworked” Nightmare Dungeons that are essentially the same experience but 3x longer. No real mechanical or structural changes. They’re still linear and lack the dungeon-crawling feel. Why? Because streamers and “seasonal tourists” didn’t like getting lost in the older spiderweb-style layouts. That was part of the charm. The demand for more “streamlined” layouts catered to speedrunners and not the core player base.
So no — I don’t know if all players would still complain. But if they do, it’ll probably be the seasonal tourists again.
My personal #1 problem is that the Pit (by design) is a time-sinker
Ofcourse some may object and say - why push when can “farm” on lower pit number e.t.c.
Well, first of all - can’t do that forever as you have to progress pit to upgrade glyph levels… That’s fine, BUT
My bigger issue is that it is a mechanic designed to “test your might” that you should play with an approach of risk-averse ?
Just reduce that “timer” to 6 minutes, require to kill 30 or 50 (whatever the number suits the purpose of a healthy metric), open the portal, stop the timer and fight the boss with no timers… Bonus Obducite and an additional item granted if not died in the process (you lose when you die 4 times)
Done
Ofcourse have to figure out how HC would work but still…, the mere notion to “spend 15+ minutes” to gain nothing is what infuriates me the most I’d say
The other part which I also dislike (accumulated power based on quantity of effort) instead of some kind of a surprise reward system is a big deal to me, but can live with just redesigning it to no longer be defined a timer type event
So, just curious, what would you find fun? What things would you like in the game that you would enjoy doing over and over all season? Realize that anything you do requires you to kill monsters repeatedly - that’s the nature of the genre.
So again, what specifically would you do different?
No different than now. You can find mixed opinions on everything. Call them tourists, streamers, casuals, experienced etc. the bottom line is both activities, done ad nauseam, will be complained about.
NMD offer Obducite, too, which is far more valuable than glyph experience, as the glyph experience is finite in need. I usually get glyphs to 46 then don’t touch them again until everything is MW’ed to do the highest pits I can, efficiently, to do the least amount I have to.
Blizzard doing rewards correctly. NMD currently offer Obducite, but changing the reward structure and asking Blizzard to add glyph exp, you know they are going to adjust them to favor the house.
Currently that activity works because it provides a reward that’s reasonable. But NMD are just as boring as the pit. The only good thing is no timer. So consider what you’re asking, who is controlling the reward structure and think if you trust them to do it right.
It’s nice to say put this here because this other activity is boring. But the grass may not be greener after a change. Blizzard long history of messing things up.
It’s not a would you rather type of decision, the way the Pit is designed is absolutely terrible and lame
With a very simple adjustment they can make it so that:
1 - Glyphs drop pre-leveled with one extra random affix added to them. (several random Glyphs drop at completion of each run)
2 - Maximum level of a Glyph drop is the difference of level between your character and Pit level - 50 (but not lower than 5 less than that)
Done
So for example let’s say you wanna upgrade your Exploit and play pit 55, several Glyphs drop at the end of the run and you got lucky so got 2 Exploit Glyphs:
Exploit Glyph 1
Exploit Level 52
Bonus affix = all affected Magic nodes gain 5% bonus to their rolls for Chance
Exploit Glyph 2
Exploit Level 55
Gain additional 10% Critical hit damage but “neutralize” 20 Dex (not count to glyph or your character). in radius affected
e.t.c.
See how it’s just immediately more interesting ?, heck, you might even wanna replay pit 55 to gain something that fits your build (specifically) better
The problem with the Pit is that it’s a zero room for surprises long slog, just do something cool and surprise players either inside or at completion at the end
That’s just a very simple (random) idea I gave and it already feels much more dynamic (and therefore better) tbh
Why would you (or heck anyone else for that matter) play the Pit over and over for 5 hours just so to increase a number that you have already preselected ?, that is just lame (let alone the fact that it’s a risk-averse progression-system, w.t.h.)
What Blizzard should do is make sure that everything we use—gold, experience, gems, runes, Masterworking materials, etc.—has multiple sources, all equally viable.
I HATE NMDs.
They’re not fast at all, they’re full of dead-end hallways, and you waste 1 or even 2 minutes just getting to the other side, etc.
For efficiency, I prefer the Pit.
But that’s it. Both NMD and the Pit are boring after doing them a few times.
Or maybe, the truth is, they’re boring because the loot doesn’t impact me in any meaningful way.
I see the same kind of items in T1 as in T4—with the same stats and mediocre affixes.
It’s also nice that I’m regularly getting a few boss mats along with temper recipes & obducite.
