Additional "(pre)endgame" ideas/suggestions.

I would like to open up for some ideas that could improve some of the action that can be done in the later stages of the game. I would not really classify them as endgame, but more of areas that players can do for fun or alternate between iir boss/corrputed farming and mapping/atziri.

Additional ideas or improvements are very welcome :)

First i'll add some info behind my ideas, and hope it opens up for others to come up with ideas of their own.
I've been a huge diablo 2 fan, been playing a lot on b.net and a LOT of mods. Eastern sun and Median XL have been clear favorite.

Looking on Diablo 2 and some of the mods i see a lot ideas that can be mixed around to improve PoE to the game that it should become. I feel that, even though PoE is FAR better than all arpgs i've played so far, it is not the best it can and should be.

In D2 you have more or less the same endgame that PoE has, Diablo/Baal runs(equiv to maps) and Dclone + Ubers(equiv to atziri). But diablo 2 also had Andy/Meph for farming, Countess/Hephasto for runes, and of course cows for fun. Even Tombs gave a decent amount of exp, especially for an act 2 zone.
Pvp was of course also a big factor for the game being played for many many years.

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Ideas goes as such:

E* Just to clarify, these are NEW areas, and not maps. They can be run as much as you would want as an alternative to map. But of course they will be harder than the maps of the same lvl to prevent this from taking out the option of even bothering mapping. Either only hard monsters or cominations of them should be in most of the areas. Maybe the density can be regulated or exp of area changed so they will give less exp/hour equiv of the same map lvl(roughly).

-Area where boss has increased chance of gem drop(with quality preferably)
-Area where boss has increased chance to drop additional currency. This can be hard to balance somewhat, so maybe 2-4/3-5 currency drops, but it drops as low as transmutes for example. Runs would net avg. approx amount perhaps, excluding very random mirror/exalts drops :)
-Area where monsters give additional exp, with only "hard monsters"(devo, dropbears, dischargers, demons, etc). Similar to Untainted paradise, but compared, less rewarding exp and generally tougher considering you can chain this area endlessly.
-Area where boss has increased chance to drop an unique item above lvl xx or tier x(To limit this maybe only add the chance% for unique or add the lowest limit on lvl or tier)
-Area where boss has increased chance of dropping item with additional socket, or 4/6 linked items.
-Area with increased drop of divination cards, either all or boss only. For this idea i would actually think of a zone with 3 bosses perhaps, each boss with its own card drop. Hard fight for reward!
-Area with lvl of around 70-73, which is set in Act 4 merciless only!! Boss can drop maps of area +2. (Maybe also set min lvl of map to 70-72, and change the % of map drop, 10-15%?) This could provide for a a greater reason to clear most of act 4, plus giving an additional way of getting a bit higher maps than starting from 66-68.

Not all of these places need to have a boss, but some should considering the drops that could potentially be farmed for. In my mind i would see most of the areas around lvl 70-75, i don't want them to be too low, because they will be most often too easy early on, and not too high or so hard that you can only farm certain places with certain builds. All areas will be merciless only!

As for the bosses, GGG could either come up with new ones, use league bosses(warbands/beyond/invasion(if any left now)/etc or buffed exiles. Maybe these can even be prespawned with a random ghost to improve the challenge and make it even more random to increase the thrill a little. With a presawned infected boss you sort of combine some ideas also.

There are different "dead" side areas that maybe could be used for this unless it crashes with lore or GGG interests i guess. Otherwise it could be added throughout act 2-4. I dont see act 4 as a good alternative to mapping, which is was sort of meant to be.

One zone could be in act 2, using the monsters from the act, preferably most of the toughest. Perhaps dread thicket could be used here(at least as an example). You will not see apes and zombies in places like this, but generally harder ones, devo, dropbears, monsters with chaos dmg, puncture mobs. Their dmg can also be adjusted somewhat(if possible, if not, the amount of monster could be increased here and reduced exp gain to even it out?) to make it harder than normal/white maps with same lvl.

Another zone could be set in act 3, filled with a vast amount of guards/chimerals ,or one with discharges/evangelists/voidbearers. A golem/totem would come in very handy in many of the zones ;)

As for the size of the areas i would like for them to be larger than corrupted zones, since these will be meant for as a small challenge, plus also having to go through a bit to get that reward.

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I think that's most of it, at least what i can remember for now. Any feedback is welcome, especially considering it can help GGG to decide implement such things. Sorry if post may seem a bit out of order or not clear. Thanks for reading :)

Most of them are interesting ideas, that being said, the whole "boss has a improved chance of dropping a unique" is somewhat redundant with Divination Cards.

I think Uberquests (from Median XL) could be the best thing that could happen to this game, and most of them could serve as you wrote.

So, I really like some of the ideas posted here.
However, I think that some of the "problems" that are trying to be fixed by this suggestion are supposed to be fixed by divination cards. The cards are supposed to allow you to farm a specific area for a specific drop, and give you a sense of progress along the way. Similar to these ideas. HOWEVER, I believe the cards have mostly failed in this regard, simply because they are, on the whole, too rare. However, I could see certain completely optional side areas get a reason to farm them. Maybe add more cards to those side areas would have the effect the you are looking for.

This sounds like a suggestion of content that is gated by difficulty rather than RNG...

GREAT IDEA!

If I never have to run a map again, I'll be quite happy. They always seemed like an excuse to not put in actual content.

Yes, people will create builds that trivialize the new content. So what? Make it very difficult to do so. HOWEVER, do it intelligently. Don't just increase monster damage, that's really quite dumb and ruins the game. Implement time limits on areas, make monsters tricky to kill (not necrovigil, more like a traditional boss fight). Give stuff more health! Do interesting things to make content challenging, without just making it rippy.

Hah lol, even though i've played warbands for some weeks i kinda forgot about divination cards in this manner. Personally i dont think the cards are in a good state and has not been rewarding for me at all.
I mostly just find "gambler" and "the lover", which so far has rewarded me with crap and regal jewelry.
I could be feeling about cards this way because i play somewhat self-found and dont use much time to sell 1-10c items.

If cards would be in a better state(more or less a little higher drop rate...) it would combat my ideas here somewhat for sure. But even with that in mind, i'd like to see new areas with some challenge and reward, instead of mindnumbing farming of easy cruel/merci areas for a single certain card, either it be a unique or currency.

Some time ago Brother Laz (Median XL modder) was helping to create a unique(abyssus) for PoE, and when i first heard of him having some kind of connection with GGG i was very happy, but sadly it ended on the unique it seems. I think a guy like him could be an awesome sidekick for maybe helping out on some new uniques/monsters/areas.

The time spent on just doing the different challenges and such in Median XL is something i maybe have enjoyed the most in my time in D2. Always pushing to get the next area done :D. Even though it was easier to put out a hard reward in Diablo, i think GGG has plenty of options to be creative enough to give us something similar, where people would WANT to farm or try out harder areas, without having to go for atziri or insanely rolled maps, and most often get nothing in return...