"Trial" instances of game content.

I've been itching to do a lot of this game's end content. I feel like my character is ready, has been ready, and I just want to know what I'm capable of.

But it's not cheap to get into these things. For god's sake, a single Mortal Hope is 100 Chaos.

What if there were "trial" versions of these sort of things? You get no loot and no experience - probably even maintain exp loss on death - but other than that, it's exactly the same. Let's say you can only gain access to it by having previously opened that place's portal, that way you don't get to "prepare for it and be ready for the first real time," or something. I dunno.

But wouldn't it be great to be able to do this content just for the fun & excitement of doing it? No rewards, no cost, just go & do it.

That's something I would want, anyway... Maybe even make it so you have to have completed it already, not just make the portal. Maybe even deathless. Anything, really, would be a great addition, in my opinion.

I'm just talkin'.

Uber Atziri isn't really that expensive to farm your way into. Mortal Fragments are not THAT rare. Farm some sac sets (run corrupted maps with 3 bosses, like Courtyard/Arena/Vaal Pyramid, etc.), or just buy sets outright. Yes, you could get unlucky and not see a Hope in 50 runs, but you could also get lucky and get one on the first go. Also, if you are considering running Uber Atziri, running a whole bunch of Apexes makes for good practice, in terms of mechanics.

Content that has a high entry cost like this also all can be accessed without "buying your way in". It takes longer, obviously, but it is possible.

Having these top level encounters be accessible without the legwork would just cheapen the experience IMO.

I get the "cheapen the experience" bit, but that's why I think it'd be acceptable to make trial runs only accessible if you've already cleared them for real. Maybe you just enjoy doing it, maybe you wanna run times, etc etc. But why spend 100+ Chaos each time, ya know? Or, of course, why run 500 Normal runs before each Uber?

I've done Normal Atziri about 10 or 15 times, I only have a couple Rage's and a Grief (the two minimal values, naturally). I've ran a million Sacrifice maps, zero Midnights. Ran a healthy handful of T11-12 Rare Corrupted maps, zero Midnights. My only source of Midnights has honestly been Uber Lab runs, lol. (Which honestly isn't a bad source, considering there's plenty of other great things to be gained there, and it could even get you its own Offering back.)

On the note of practice, I got it down for the most part. I just still have no clue what the trio does. Something about kill order & stuff, I dunno.

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ShadyC wrote:

On the note of practice, I got it down for the most part. I just still have no clue what the trio does. Something about kill order & stuff, I dunno.

You are not ready for Alluring Abyss. Save your currency.

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ShadyC wrote:

I get the "cheapen the experience" bit, but that's why I think it'd be acceptable to make trial runs only accessible if you've already cleared them for real. Maybe you just enjoy doing it, maybe you wanna run times, etc etc. But why spend 100+ Chaos each time, ya know? Or, of course, why run 500 Normal runs before each Uber?

Certainly for the first time you run Uber you will likely want the experience of running 100+ normal before doing it, preferably with a character with limited DPS so that you aren't one-shotting everything to trivialize the experience.

Uber mobs / bosses have something like 3x the HP and damage of normal, so if you rely on instantly nuking down the trio and ignoring the mechanics you'll be in for a bad time on Uber unless you have truly insane gear. Same with Atziri's split phase; most meta builds these days are strong enough to not have to dodge too much and just kill the split phase fast enough, but that doesn't work as well for Uber.