Greater Rifts - an interesting hybrid of maps and races...

Blizzard has just announced some of the features in D3 patch 2.1.0 and their idea of "Greater Rifts" was, I thought, an interesting take on end game + racing.

What do you guys think we could learn, if anything, from this?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/14244559

P.

That emulating, learning from and perhaps eventually improving upon the work of your superiors is good.

The title made me think of a new type of 1 week race, where each instance has random map mods.
For example, Normal: 1-2 mods, Cruel: 2-3 mods, Merc: 3-4 mods.
Alternatively, for a shorter race, A1N: 1 mod, A2N: 2 mods, A3N: 3 mods, A1C: 4 mods, etc.

Blood Magic should probably have a 0% chance to spawn in this league.

Well, what I like about the concept of Greater Rifts is that:
- Your gear and skill are the primary determinant of whether you can progress, not primarily RNG
- There appear to be tangible gameplay rewards for pushing yourself to achieve the highest rifts you can (infinitely upgradeable gems)
- The Greater Rifts are tracked on the leaderboard, so they are like a rolling "race" which you do in your own time, whenever and as frequently as you like

P.

Interesting, there seem to be only one layer of RNG (getting the key), before you get to the real H&S action, instead of the usual dozen layers of RNG in PoE :)

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morbo wrote:

Interesting, there seem to be only one layer of RNG (getting the key), before you get to the real H&S action, instead of the usual dozen layers of RNG in PoE :)

List the dozen layers pls

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Xavderion wrote:

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morbo wrote:

Interesting, there seem to be only one layer of RNG (getting the key), before you get to the real H&S action, instead of the usual dozen layers of RNG in PoE :)

List the dozen layers pls

This, and also especially considering that these zones will be timed, explain why you're not counting all the other factors that will affect your performance(such as monster types, pack density, zone layout, luck in finding the right direction to run to for the next floor etc) as part of the RNG for D3.

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morbo wrote:

Interesting, there seem to be only one layer of RNG (getting the key), before you get to the real H&S action, instead of the usual dozen layers of RNG in PoE :)

It's yet to be made available on the PTR, but my suspicion is that getting the Greater key won't be at all an issue - I suspect they want people to be spending most of their play time pushing themselves in Greater Rifts. Seems to have their community quite excited actually.

For anyone who hasn't/can't/won't read the link in the OP, the concept of Greater Rifts is a bit like a timed endless dungeon, whereby the content gets harder and harder with each "level". The way you progress is by completing a Greater Rift within a set time, which moves you up a difficulty level (if you chose). The rewards for progressing are upgrades to parts of your gear not otherwise available, leaderboard kudos and self-satisfaction (if that's your thang).

P.

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Hodari wrote:

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Xavderion wrote:

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morbo wrote:

Interesting, there seem to be only one layer of RNG (getting the key), before you get to the real H&S action, instead of the usual dozen layers of RNG in PoE :)

List the dozen layers pls

This, and also especially considering that these zones will be timed, explain why you're not counting all the other factors that will affect your performance(such as monster types, pack density, zone layout, luck in finding the right direction to run to for the next floor etc) as part of the RNG for D3.

bigger/harder packs will award you more progress,bigger rifts will have more time to complete,so it is not really rng dependant

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Xavderion wrote:

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morbo wrote:

Interesting, there seem to be only one layer of RNG (getting the key), before you get to the real H&S action, instead of the usual dozen layers of RNG in PoE :)

List the dozen layers pls

"Dozens" was of course a joke, but let's look at content availability in PoE.

Atziri layers:

1.) spawn corrupt zone
2.) get a frag drop instead of vaal gem
3.) get the correct frag drop

All the above is done in boring faceroll low-level areas, and you can go 2 hours or more of "farming" without getting any closer to >>starting<< the boss run. That's like wanting to go for a ride, but instead you are stuck in the parking lot trying to jump start the car for two hours. Muh fun. :))

Mapping layers:

1.) availability of chisel rng
2.) availability of alc rng
3.) availability of chaos rng
4.) rolling the map rng (an action decreasing the availability of the first three layers)
5.) ultimately map drops still depend on luck
6.) not only that, you must also be lucky to drop a higher map and not a lower one

The availability of orbs needed for mapping can itself be de-constructed into several layers of rng - hammers, whetstones, low maps, chaos recipe ingredients, blah blah... economuh solves all your problems, yes I know.