Looking back at D2, why every boss that is worth doing is gated?

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Ghai wrote:

In D2 you could just go and do baal or diablo or meph runs... whatever you liked. Without relying on random variables, or gated content (which is also gated by RNG)

In POE, elder, gated. shaper, gated. guardians, gated. Atziri, gated.
act bosses are not worth your time. Map bosses are not worth you time.
Maps themselves are gated, as they are randomly dropped.

So unless you wanna buy a specific map, you won't be able to run it as mush as you like to.

This is kinda annoying at some point...
what do you think?

In D2, diablo clone: RNG gated (start multiple instances on different "hot" servers, use a technique to keep your instance running, and hope diablo clone appears. Very rich people could get enough SOJ to start the world event but it's still gated). Ubers: gated (you have to find 3x3 keys).

Fact is, end-game content was pretty much inexistant in D2.

I mean, to me it's just taking the pandemonium event a bit too far.

Atziri and uber atziri were, in my opinion, amazing--and given that the map device always had 4 slots long before map fragments exist, she was clearly planned very early on.

Their introduction perfectly reminded me of the days of farming for keys, to get portals, to kill super-bosses, to get organs, to kill ultra-bosses. I always loved getting my first hellfire torch on each ladder reset. It felt like an actual accomplishment.

Shaper and the council were... fine (I remember during prophecy league when you could actually farm for a damn high-quality bow), but uber elder just took it too far with the fiddliness. I'm fine grinding but I'm much less fine being fiddly *while* grinding. And it's increasingly clear that they plan to use this same map fragment method for all non-league-specific bosses going forward.

I can't name any other game that gates endgame content behind RNG, period. I find it kind of hypocritical that GGG is terrified of letting people farm bosses, but has no issues with people blowing up entire maps in less than a minute, which is exponentially more profitable. Content should be gated behind the player's ability to overcome the challenge. It's kind of hard to feel like I've accomplished anything when the biggest factor is a random roll of the dice.

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laxcrazy wrote:

let me just sell some SOJs and hope uber diablo spawns, then i will pray he spawns at the first unique monster in the game because i know if that ass hat doesn't spawn there then ill spend 6 hours looking through the enter game trying to find him

Once dclone was in he has a 100% chance to spawn at the first super unique monster you visit. IE thresh socket, eldritch the rectifier, Bishiboshi etc.

The easiesf place to spawn him was the palace level 3 from the arcane sanctuary waypoint or the inner cloister waypoint since most people did not kill those super uniques as part of a standard run.

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gladiatorpie wrote:

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laxcrazy wrote:

let me just sell some SOJs and hope uber diablo spawns, then i will pray he spawns at the first unique monster in the game because i know if that ass hat doesn't spawn there then ill spend 6 hours looking through the enter game trying to find him

Once dclone was in he has a 100% chance to spawn at the first super unique monster you visit. IE thresh socket, eldritch the rectifier, Bishiboshi etc.

The easiesf place to spawn him was the palace level 3 from the arcane sanctuary waypoint or the inner cloister waypoint since most people did not kill those super uniques as part of a standard run.

Rakanishu !

like other ppl pointed out diablo clone, uber tristram are the analogues of atziri/uber elder in d2.

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Ghai wrote:

In D2 you could just go and do baal or diablo or meph runs... whatever you liked. Without relying on random variables, or gated content (which is also gated by RNG)

In POE, elder, gated. shaper, gated. guardians, gated. Atziri, gated.
act bosses are not worth your time. Map bosses are not worth you time.
Maps themselves are gated, as they are randomly dropped.

So unless you wanna buy a specific map, you won't be able to run it as mush as you like to.

This is kinda annoying at some point...
what do you think?

One of the major reasons to run certain bosses in D2 was because they were quick and easy to get to.

This created "mindless bossruns." That was one of the major complaints for end-gamers in D2.

D3 tried to counter that, somewhat, by making bossruns unprofitable and a waste of the player's time. Yeah, that didn't work out so well, since players actually looked forward to bossloot 'splosions.

It seems GGG has tried to solve all of those problems with bossruns with a "gate" mechanic.

1) Bossruns for the bosses you'd want known drops from aren't "spammable" and the process is not "mindless." They are, in and of themselves, "achievements" and require significant effort to get to.

2) Because of the difficulty involved, and to award the player with a sense of achievement, there is loot that only certain bosses can drop. (D3 didn't have that, really, for major bosses.)

3) Generic Minibosses/mapbosses still have a bonus to their drop tables (Map drop bonus), making them desirable targets.

There's a bonus, too - The early and mid-game market doesn't get flooded with end-game items by uber-players mindlessly running bosses over and over, looking for the ultra-rare drops or the perfectly rolled drop.

IMO, it's a better game mechanic than D2's mindless running of convenient or easy bosses. Yes, you have to repeatedly "unlock" the ability to get to the end-game bosses, but at least there's some satisfaction in that achievement, however slight, rather than just the mindless respawning of a map and everything hinging on what the boss drops.

I do miss boss runs. It's hard to describe why. Maybe it was the mindless nature of it. The constant pulling of the lever on the slot machine. Maybe even the ability to party up in public groups with little risk of losing anything.

I honestly think they could return some version of this just by adding an up-scaling capability for the story line. Allow the player to change the area level ranging from the initial level of the area up to level 68.

This wouldn't just open up boss runs (Dominus, Piety, Voll, etc.), but it would also open up old ledge runs, dried lake runs, aquaduct runs, etc. as well. It would even open up divination card farming.

That would take focus away from the end game, which isn't a priority I think....also a mistake. Let players define their end game a bit more (this is not an invitation to make it rain loot) and then you'll see more player retention.

In general I think it's better to get rid of endless/mindless boss runs and make killing trash either required or much more rewarding than it was in D2. I'll take POE's system over D2's any day.

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FrodoFraggins wrote:

In general I think it's better to get rid of endless/mindless boss runs and make killing trash either required or much more rewarding than it was in D2. I'll take POE's system over D2's any day.

They are not mutually exclusive though. If I had to pick, sure POE. But it's a false dilemma.