The real problem with delve

I hardly ever play delve. I've hated it ever since it was created. I am just not a fan of a ticking clock (darkness) that forces me forward at ITS rate, rather than my own. But...its rather ridiculous to read that fossils are rare drops in delve.

The sheer amount of fossils I have had to buy for a single craft. And the amount of time it takes to delve and collect sulphite and delve and get lucky with nodes and delve...seems like poor design.

I agree with the above statement that EVERY node on Delve should drop at least 1 fossil, but I would go further and say every node should drop at least 2 different fossils. Because 1 fossil by itself basically has no use.

Side areas people, need to go to side areas.

Yeah, I will agree. Got to 95 in the event and the amount of fossils I got were quite low honestly. For a while I was venturing into pretty much all darkness side paths, but in the last few levels I just went for broken walls.

Never did get a six link, but that's not delve related.

Side areas are not enough, even when you explore a lot they are pretty rare and also its a giant pain delve is painful ebough of a pace let alone searching the dark constantly make the damn fossils just drop along the path.

fossils are way to hard to come by until you get around 200 depth which 90% will struggle to get to. Especially when they got no gear , crafting bench, or fossils to make good gear with.

Guarantee they all have over 100 resonators , doesnt take a genius to figure out this event/delve was completely busted.

Every time GGG makes a challenge that says I need to delve to a certain depth, I know for a fact that league is one I'll never get 40/40 on even if I felt hopeful it'll be my first. Delve is such an unrewarding league that makes me move at its speed rather than my own that it makes me burn out faster than anything else in the game.

Far as I'm concerned, delving is just a waste of time that could've been better spent mapping or doing literally anything else. Add the shoehorning of Archnemesis into the game, and you've got an activity that's an exercise in pure frustration.

People who say "move at its speed" probably don't delve properly. You are supposed to run in front of the cart and make it follow YOU. Its a legit strategy - blow up the whites and rares while the real dangers - rare delve monsters, keep charging their attacks instead of chasing you. By the time they are done - you are gone.

the pacing of delve is fine, you have flares if you need to stop and the cart will keep up if you're zooming.

the rewards are what is not fine.

Oh yes, rewards are absolute trash. Guess this is because of detonate dead. Too easy to push down with little investment. If they buff up the rewards we might end up with a detonate dead league, haha

I like Delve as a mechanic because this is the only mechanic in the game that scales indefinitely, you don't just stop at tier 16 map, level 83 heist or whatever.

The issue is that the rewards don't scale with it. And its gameplay loop is annoying, the sulphite cap is small even at maximum upgrade level.

Reward structure of the nodes is outdated as hell.

Generic items / armor / weapons / jewellery nodes must be removed past depth 150-200 because you are never getting anything of value from those. This is what Kalandra league mechanic had, they removed those generic nodes and then the mechanic felt way more rewarding.

Perhaps new types of nodes need to be introduced too - expedition encounter (drops fragments and reroll), eldrith / eater encounter (drops ichors and eldrith currency), boss guardian encounter (drops influenced maps and very rarely a fragment).

Sulphite cap needs to be greatly increased, up to 1 000 000 units at maximum upgrade level. Players should be allowed to stockpile a significant amount of it. I would even make the sulphite currency tradeable, in stacks of 50k or bigger. Like heist coins for example. You shouldn't be required to run maps if you want to engage with this system. SImply make UI change to the delve console where you're able to load the fuel into the system. Once loaded it can't be taken out.

I see the real problem with delve not as a quantity of rewards issue, but as a quality of rewards issue.

There are very few "chases" left.

Top-end fossils have been heavily nerfed with respect to their effects (with the best ones having been removed), and too many (the best) delve-only (Subterranean / of the Underground) mods have been removed.

I love delve for its infinite scaling, but the reward aspect has a feeling of being almost completely absent. In other words, I don't have any expectation of finding much of anything useful which will contribute to a best-in-slot item for any of my builds.

That said, I find a few cool things now and then, but the top end is gone, and we are left with "decent/pretty good stuff". This is a bummer, because the mechanic of Delve is ingenious in its design and in the challenge it poses.

It could very much use a rework with top-end rewards.