Randomized Miniature Quests, Secret Rooms and more

+ 1, nice ideas

I would LOVE quests with choices to make and consequences. I would like to have less random things...

What was so great (terrorizing) in Diablo 1 was the progression that make you feel you're going down straight to hell :-D

(Omg crafting can be so frustrating and boring ^^)

This was from my 0.9.5 general feedback/suggestion thread, so its great to hear from another person, that thinks very likely as i do. Though this hadn't have enough interest back then, unfortunately. But your thread seems made a bigger impact, so let's hope devs would be interested about suggestions going on.

Edit: Pity that suggestion(s) like these are very rarely made nowadays. Diablo I is a game that should be inspired notably by its unique design such as randomized quests mechanic.

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BrecMadak wrote:

Spoiler

● Altering Quests;

Altering Quests were a part of the Diablo I, it was randomly generated just like as the maps were. This was bringing us a distinctive gameplay eventually. The quests that will appear in a single game are chosen at random. But there is some structure in the way they are chosen. There were some obligatory quests that are always present in every game. The other quests are all organized into groups. From each group a specific number of quests are chosen for every game.

How about implementing this mechanic with a tweak to PoE ? In each difficulty, quests (side quests of corpse) are choosen different than the previous difficulty level, all goes in this style, at the end, one would not cry over that he/she couldnt do x quest before he beated Ruthless f.e. He/She should already had done all the available quests in game within completing Ruthless. This would be splendid for variety, and will dramatically increase the replaybility.

@BrecMadak:

Indeed, it's a bis disconcerting, to say the least.
In my opinion, variations are what guarantee the longevity of a game. It's the same with everything where you play an already beaten path: Things become boring, and your mind starts to wander. Which is why developers need other methods if they want to keep you playing (item reward systems for example).

But that still means that repetition is bad in any game. So anything to lighten/interrupt the feeling of treadmilling should be welcome.

Good suggestions Avireyn.
About what iRrational said. If all the "cookies" will not be there at once, that anxiety shouldn't have place to be. Like Avi already posted, that stuff can be unlocked step by step and most at the end to dilute grinding, will make more replay-ability. You get that when grinding over and over again, stuff like those "cookies" just need to be.

The feeling I get from reading this thread is that there should be tiered random events/secret locations.

For example, take the long list of prefixes and sufixes and insert events instead. Once an instance is created there is a chance that an event or a secret area spawns in that instance. If an event or secret area is spawned one of these from the list is spawned. Each event and secret area is increasingly rare.

What happens here is that different events gets different rarity and just as you look for great loot you also look for great events and secret areas. The replayability would be immense.

BrecMadak's signature says it all. :)

I'd love to see randomized monsters in each zone. Not knowing what you're going to face is important IMO.

Just realized that at least the beta of D3 doesn't do this either.

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johnschroeder02 wrote:

I'd love to see randomized monsters in each zone. Not knowing what you're going to face is important IMO.

Just realized that at least the beta of D3 doesn't do this either.

Unfortunately, apart from the original Diablo, I have not played a single ARPG that featured this mechanic. And I have no idea why.

Perhaps they all saw Diablo II and thought: "Well, everybody is gushing about how superior it was to its predecessor. Let's build our game after D2 rather than the original".

And that, in my mind, is a fallacy. Diablo II was gushed over because it was built on the original and added a lot to that. It added size, it added loot, it added more story, it added serious multiplayer (remember how your mage killed your friend's warrior by using chain lightning? Yes, Diablo had friendly fire). It added "you really can see what your character is wearing". It added five classes with a heap of unique skills (compared to one unique and shoddy skill in Diablo).

And with all that candy, players didn't ask: "Hey, were did those other cool things go?"
But they were there. Diablo II is not better in every respect than the original.
edit: Perhaps that is the fallacy. Going only to Diablo II: LoD as the cornerstone and inspiration of every ARPG, while completely dismissing its predecessor.

Erm, yes. Anyhow: I still do think that this needs to be in. And not as in "would be nice" but as in "will help player retention enormously".

I very much support this idea, one of the things I loved most about D1 was the randomness of some monsters, for example sometimes you wouldn't get the butcher on lvl 2 but would instead get leoric on 3 (or could have been 4) but generally wouldn't get both. This made replaying the game much more fun and I definitely love the idea of them being partially secret so people have more incentive to explore areas completely instead of rushing through

It's a shame that no dev has ever responded to this topic.
OP says just about everything that needs to be said, an opinion I as well fully support.

Imho, one of the defining changes from D1 to D2 was the death of these small random quests.
Torchlight tried to revive it a bit, but (disregarding the awesome modders) it didn't really flesh out.

D2, although very popular to many, in the end was just a repeated grind of ones chosen favorite killing ground.