Feedback: Delves in Season 2

In Development Undermine(d) PTR Discussion
1

Greetings delvers,

We want to take some time to go over changes coming to delves in the Undermine(d) patch and Season 2, along with our goals.

Changes in Undermine(d)

Tank Brann

Starting with the patch launch, players will be able to choose a new spec for Brann – tank. Tank Brann will wield a pistol and a shield while doing his best to taunt enemies. This spec is focused on improving the experience of running delves as a healer. There will still be damage and attacks for you to dodge as a healer, but you should see your delve run times be more comparable to those who play as damage or healing.

Modified Map Mechanics

We’ve modified several of our existing map mechanics. Our goal here is to add some variety to existing delve variants. Be sure to check out the modified sporebits in Fungal Folly.

Bountiful Delve Rotation Changes

We’re changing the logic under the hood for which bountiful delves are active. Previously it was one delve per zone chosen as bountiful. This led to some behaviors where it felt like the same delve was bountiful back to back, especially in areas like Ringing Deeps where there were only two delves available. The new logic will rotate through delves from the original launch until all of them have had some time in the sun as bountiful before turning on new ones.

New Delves and New Variants

We’re adding two new delves: Sidestreet Sluice in Undermine and Excavation Site 9 in the Ringing Deeps. Additionally, almost all existing delves have new variants.

Season 2 Changes

Improving Tier 9+ Rewards

In Season 1, we purposefully did not add extra rewards in Tier 9+ as we wanted to reserve those delves to run just for the challenge and for achievements. We did not want the majority of players to feel like they needed to reach tier 11 levels.

However, players seeking to tackle the higher challenges of delves, such as defeating Zekvir, had a very long road to upgrade their gear due to the availability of Runed and Gilded Crests. We still want the repeatable source of Gilded Crests to come from Mythic+ and Raids, but we also wanted delves to start to reward reliable Gilded Crests at a high level for players who want to push.

In Season 2, tiers 9, 10, and 11 delves will reward more Runed Crests. Tier 11 bountiful delves will reward Gilded Crests up to three times a week. This will be from a separate chest in the bountiful delve, so players will not be required to get a key to acquire the Gilded Crests. We will not change the Great Vault’s requirements in Season 2. Tier 8 will be the highest delve to run to get rewards from the Great Vault.

The Delve Map System

In Season 1, you have a chance to find Delve Maps at the end of a run. These maps give you a large boost in rewards when used on another delve, including acquiring Gilded Crests. However, some people never found a map during their runs due to bad luck. Other players received multiple maps a week, followed by nothing for months.

In Season 2 we’ll increase your chance to get a map with each run if you do not find one. We’ll also limit it so you can only earn one map a week.

Brann’s Missing Hat and New Curios

Season 2 begins with the introduction of our new nemesis, a mad goblin who purchased a deed to all delves from the one and only Gallywax. Gallywax? Don’t ask Underpin to check the contract for validity. Underpin ambushes Brann and destroys the curios he collected in Season 1. What’s even worse: he steals Brann’s hat!

Players in Season 2 will earn new curios for Brann. You’ll be guaranteed to loot rank 1 curios when you start running any delve in Season 2. We want to explore new strategies and metas for Brann in season 2, along with exploring more of what we can do with the curio system.

Most importantly, Brann will wear random hats and helmets he has acquired until you help him recover his hat from the Underpin’s lair. Don’t worry though, if you really enjoyed Brann’s random hats you can ask him to continue rotating through his collection afterwards.

New Affixes

With a new nemesis comes new affixes. In Season 1, we experimented with two types of affixes: one where Zekvir’s image would empower players, and another where the spawn group would be replaced by Zekvir’s minions. While Zekvir’s image was noticeable, it wasn’t always clear what impact he was having on enemies. Meanwhile it was abundantly clear what Zekvir’s minions were doing in tier 9+, but they often felt too punishing to encounter. In Season 2, the affixes will be focused on Underpin’s minions occasionally replacing normal enemies in delves. This will happen across all tiers, with a focus on these replacements not being as difficult as Zekvir’s. They should offer an increase in difficulty, but not to the level where your delve run is over when you encounter them.

Tier Reset and Item Level Changes

When Season 2 launches, we will reset tier progress, and players will be able to start at tier 4. The difficulty and rewards of tier 4+ delves will increase to match the new item level caps in Season 2.

New Vignettes and Treasure Powers

Players will find new vignettes and treasure powers to earn in Season 2. The goal with these original powers was that players would modify their runs to go after these when they were spotted. We also wanted to make sure they weren’t so powerful that a failed delve run would be blamed on not getting the exact power you wanted. A successful delve run should still be based on player gear, skill, and your curio loadout. However, season 1’s vignette and treasure powers weren’t rewarding enough to risk lives at higher tiers. We’re going to push the powers in season 2 a bit more.

Powers found in treasures will be shards of curios that were destroyed by Underpin. Players will find shards of the Amorphous Relic, Arrowhead Idol, and the (now) not-so-Unbreakable Iron Idol.

Powers acquired from defeating powerful vignettes will now focus on modifying Brann for your run:

  • Shield Alert: When you fall beneath 50% health, Brann will shield you, reducing your damage by a massive amount for a short period of time.
  • Silencing Potion: Brann will throw out a healing potion that will also trigger an AoE silence to nearby enemies. This means non-healer Brann specs can now have some access to heals, and healer Brann will throw out even more healing.
  • Heroism Cannister: Brann can activate a smaller version of Bloodlust at the start of combat with a cooldown.

Only the team leader will be able to modify Brann with these powers. Other players will receive a buff for themselves.

We’re also adding improved rewards to the Treasure Wraith encounter. We understand there’s an aversion to trying this encounter with the high risk of death. There will be a special wraith-only power that will drop to increase player’s maximum health in addition to another existing power.

Our goal with these changes is to push the amount of power received from vignettes and treasure powers to help create more of a decision moment of whether or not you’ll take the risk to get these abilities.

Thanks for reading, and for testing delves with us on the PTR. Please note: most numbers mentioned here are subject to change.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on what we’re working on!

3 Likes
2

The aim to make it more “fair” also limits how quickly players in delves might gear up?

So we’ll start on level 60 Brann with zero curios?

These are interesting changes.
How high can we test delves on the PTR?

1 Like
3

would have been nice to have the stories for each dungeon rotate

4

“We acknowledge bad RNG meant not seeing maps for months, so we have made it less RNG” - It’s still RNG and the same problem will still happen.

Just change it to:
First Bountiful Delve run of the week with lives remaining has a bonus chest.

This way no one misses out on bad map RNG, and it is still limited to 1 per week.

Please make easy fixes like this to remove frustration from your game.

1 Like
5

So M+ will still be the only way to farm gilded, because it obviously can’t be allowed to have a dip in participation.

Was really hoping for another option, M+ spamming gets old.

3 Likes
6

Yeah, this seems frustrating.

It sounds like the intent is now for you to do one map per week, but lucky people will get it naturally doing 2-4 for some casual vaults. While unlucky people…who knows how long it might take them.

I would be willing to bet they don’t want to guarantee it on a first or second map, as that will then feel “mandatory” to some group of players that might not want to do delves. However, seeing as the reward ilvl on Delves is still capped (which is fine) I just can’t imagine that being a concern for more than a week or two.

And if they only have to do two delves because it’s guaranteed every week - that is a pretty limited commitment also but also removes any frustration or time constraint worries around bad rng for delve focused players.

7

Sounds awesome! Like that the powers and vignettes are getting a boost and should feel more impactful as an option and the Wraith feeling more worth it is nice as well. Like new Curios to experiment with and I guess we’ll see how that goes but with a new change up, new curios, more impactful powers, and even the option to have a tank it should be quite fun! Also appreciate more crests for each run and getting increased chance at a map even if just 1 would feel good.

Starting at level 4 again and having no Curios shouldn’t be a huge issue for me as at least it’s new progression.

2 Likes
8

Ion : Hey, it is Ion, we have a problem. Gamers dont like M+.

Random Dev : Ohhhh. I have an idea… Let s limit the gear from Delves so we can keep M+ shi-tty and they wont have a choice to come. what do you think?

Ion : brilliant :slight_smile:

9

Blockquote We still want the repeatable source of Gilded Crests to come from Mythic+ and Raids, but we also wanted delves to start to reward reliable Gilded Crests at a high level for players who want to push.

Blockquote

This is a choice. Why does M+ have to be the source for repeatable gilded crests other than Raids? This is a choice that doesn’t have to exist. There seems to be an assumption that this is the way it should be. But, it really doesn’t have to be that way. These could be awarded for every T11 bountiful delve. There is no reason not to. Maybe award fewer than in M+ but at least award them more often.

1 Like
10

When you look at the numbers, M+ is the only actual choice for farming gilded crests.

11

This is a silly way to do it. A cap of one per week will make it feel hollow, and it’s still RNG. It’s very likely someone might have to run more delves than they intended to get this map. As mentioned by someone above, just have the first bountiful delve of the week drop the map with the quest it always drops. It gives a strategic way to anticipate how and when you’ll use the map.

Edit: Likewise, I could see people being upset if the map dropped at an earlier tier than they wanted. When season 2 starts we go back to the beginning at tier 4. If I got a map and I was stuck until next week with a tier 4 map I will be furious

1 Like
12

I know this is old news but there seems to be a major disconnection here.

With the assumption of 1 map being guaranteed a week that is 21 (18+3) gilded crest per week which means at the bare minimum someone who only does solo content and delves will take 24-26 weeks to fully upgrade their gear. This is completely ignoring crafted gear which would take significantly longer.

I understand the hesitancy because you want people to do m+ but why the 18/21 cap? 30 would make more sense as this would mean 2 upgrades per week or a crafted item every other week when you get a full spark. This would put delve only players to finishing off their last hero piece around the 17-18 week mark. It will flow better in terms of the feeling of progression.

A side note is I assume crest become uncapped around the 13-15 week mark in which case collecting orbs in zones and trading crest up becomes a significantly faster and much less effort method of acquiring gilded crest so again there seems to be a disconnection here.

1 Like
13

They are also increasing runed crest drops from t9-t11. By the time you unlock crest conversion, you won’t be getting any upgrades from the vault so you’ll be taking tokens instead. Between the two it shouldn’t be hard to get enough runed crests to upgrade and craft whatever you need.

1 Like
14

You are still susceptible to the 90 weekly crest cap which all that means is you are running less t8-11’s.

Assuming its still 90 per week.

15

I did notice that. Certainly easier to deal with. But i did often enjoy setting up the others as boobytraps for mobs. So time will tell if I prefer these overall.

Ok, stop. This is the wrong attitude to go into development with. Are delves one of the legitimate end game pillars or not? Don’t treat it as second class just to prop up the other systems.

1 Like
16

Okay, please hear me out as a returning player SOLELY BECAUSE of the new Delve system that was introduced…

I rather really ENJOY the Delves the most because I have a disability in my joints that is a side effect of my Cystic Fibrosis (which give us brittle bones prone to osteoporosis which I was diagnosed with when I was 23 years old), so the super hard content for me is inaccessible. And I know I am the only one in such a situation OR even in a time-constraint situation or any other reason you can think of. I don’t mind that is a slower process to get, but I do mind that it is absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to get.

You should never make any part of this game INACCESSIBLE to the majority of your player base. And I can unequivocally tell you that the majority of your player base does NOT play high keys in M+ or the Mythic raids.

Okay, if you’re not changing Delves to include Myth gear from the Great Vault, then why are you limiting Gilded Crests? That’s insane.

I think we should be able to get SOME Myth gear from the GV in at LEAST 1 slot and having more options for Myth gear is NOT a bad thing, especially for those in rather distinct situations as I described above.

This… is… a… REALLY… REALLY… bad change.

The drop rate does need to be increased ever so slightly, but a CAP on Delver’s Bounty maps that give you HERO level gear is really NOT necessary!!! That RNG is a BIG BIG driver for doing Delves at all! If you take that away, you WILL KILL DELVES!

Instead add a different type of RNG to them that has a chance of a single MYTH level item for T11 delves and cap that at 1x per week. You want increased activity in Delves without nullifying the spot that M+ takes which in S2 will give better rewards.

17

This is the developer equivalent of the classic forum response “why do you need high level gear to do world content?”
At least they’re being blunt about it for a change.

1 Like