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

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morbo wrote:

"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.

^ all of this

the over-reliance on RNG to gate content in PoE is one of the most annoying things I've encountered. Difficulty should be all that's necessary to gate content.

Content in PoE is gated by a time tax of RNG-dependant boring tasks, that usually involve collecting ingredients in faceroll easy areas. Only then, after the chores are done, your badass 90+ lvl champion, can have a shot at challenging content.

I'm sorry. I like PoE and play it a lot (maybe too much, even). But this concept is of gating is retarded. (and I suspect it exists only to fuel the economy machine)

Eg:
In Std I have more 77 & 78 maps I can chisel. Mapping is therefore interrupted by sporadic trips to Act2 Riverways, where I roflstomp monkeys (with my 91 badass mara), to collect hammers... -_-

E:
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This "Great rift" concept sounds like something designed to push player into challenging themselves, instead of avoiding challenge (roll pack size + magic monsters, as this is the best way to get more maps)

I don't own D3 or RoS. But getting rid of the economy, seems to have some beneficial effects on ARPG H&S. (ofc there are some negative effects, but in this case it's positive.)

The problem with stuff like this is simply that the leaderboards wouldn't be a reflection of skill at all and the leaderboards would effectively be gated not by RNG but simply by builds.

Especially in path of exile there is such a huge variety of skills and most importantly there are skills that just outright perform better than others, so it's safe to assume that the leaderboards would probably be dominated by 2-3 of the most efficient builds/skill gems and in that sense it would simply reflect which builds are more powerful and not who is the better player.

And if you are going to have a leaderboard the only way it ever means anything is if it reflects people's skill and not just their build choices.

And it's exactly for that reason why I think leaderboards in D3 are a joke, the game is trivially easy and most of the content is gated behind gear progression and not the player's ability to perform the right actions at the right time... I mean the same is true for PoE aswell, but to a much lesser extent. (flask management, movement in PoE is more responsive, you can manually dodge more reliably, etc..)

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SlixSC wrote:

The problem with stuff like this is simply that the leaderboards wouldn't be a reflection of skill at all and the leaderboards would effectively be gated not by RNG but simply by builds.

Especially in path of exile there is such a huge variety of skills and most importantly there are skills that just outright perform better than others, so it's safe to assume that the leaderboards would probably be dominated by 2-3 of the most efficient builds/skill gems and in that sense it would simply reflect which builds are more powerful and not who is the better player.

And if you are going to have a leaderboard the only way it ever means anything is if it reflects people's skill and not just their build choices.

Of course this is true regarding leaderboards. Winners min-max. But it is no more or less true for Greater Rifts than for "levelling" (note, the new season ladder in D3 will not track character "levels" based on xp).

What is cool, to me, about Greater Rifts in the D3 context, is that it appears:
- it has tangible RNG-free gameplay rewards (I'm not anti RNG generally!)
- encourages racing/playing the game (against the clock)
- is entirely optional
- is entirely 100% flexible around MY schedule
- cannot be trivialised via the economy/RMT

It's a hybrid of endless ledge+race, on a rolling schedule-free basis.

P.

"

mrpetrov wrote:

"

SlixSC wrote:

The problem with stuff like this is simply that the leaderboards wouldn't be a reflection of skill at all and the leaderboards would effectively be gated not by RNG but simply by builds.

Especially in path of exile there is such a huge variety of skills and most importantly there are skills that just outright perform better than others, so it's safe to assume that the leaderboards would probably be dominated by 2-3 of the most efficient builds/skill gems and in that sense it would simply reflect which builds are more powerful and not who is the better player.

And if you are going to have a leaderboard the only way it ever means anything is if it reflects people's skill and not just their build choices.

Of course this is true regarding leaderboards. Winners min-max. But it is no more or less true for Greater Rifts than for "levelling" (note, the new season ladder in D3 will not track character "levels" based on xp).

What is cool, to me, about Greater Rifts in the D3 context, is that it appears:
- it has tangible RNG-free gameplay rewards (I'm not anti RNG generally!)
- encourages racing/playing the game (against the clock)
- is entirely optional
- is entirely 100% flexible around MY schedule
- cannot be trivialised via the economy/RMT

It's a hybrid of endless ledge+race, on a rolling schedule-free basis.

P.

So the point of the leaderboards wouldn't be to evaluate who is the more skilled player but to give people an opportunity to stroke their own egos?

I don't see a point in that.

I mean in PoE, take for example Low-life ST, someone with a shavs will always have a simply stronger build than someone with no shavs (normal ST compared to low-life ST, low life is several times stronger), so there is effectively no way for a person without a shavs to compete with someone who has a shavs.

So all the leaderboards would effectively show is that person A has a shavs and person B doesn't.

What is the point in that?

"

SlixSC wrote:

So the point of the leaderboards wouldn't be to evaluate who is the more skilled player but to give people an opportunity to stroke their own egos?

I don't see a point in that.

I mean in PoE, take for example Low-life ST, someone with a shavs will always have a simply stronger build than someone with no shavs, so there is effectively no way for a person without a shavs to compete with someone who has a shavs.

So all the leaderboards would effectively show is that person A has a shavs and person B doesn't.

What is the point in that?

Dude, I don't care. this thread wasn't (meant to be) about what people's views are on leaderboards. I don't care about leaderboards, probably because I'm not good or committed enough to ever be on one.

This thread was meant to be about the idea of Greater Rifts and how the gameplay aspects thereof might be interesting for PoE.

P.

"

mrpetrov wrote:

"

SlixSC wrote:

So the point of the leaderboards wouldn't be to evaluate who is the more skilled player but to give people an opportunity to stroke their own egos?

I don't see a point in that.

I mean in PoE, take for example Low-life ST, someone with a shavs will always have a simply stronger build than someone with no shavs, so there is effectively no way for a person without a shavs to compete with someone who has a shavs.

So all the leaderboards would effectively show is that person A has a shavs and person B doesn't.

What is the point in that?

Dude, I don't care. this thread wasn't (meant to be) about what people's views are on leaderboards. I don't care about leaderboards, probably because I'm not good or committed enough to ever be on one.

This thread was meant to be about the idea of Greater Rifts and how the gameplay aspects thereof might be interesting for PoE.

P.

Then I fail to see what that has to do with races. Sure they could come up with something like greater rifts for PoE and I wouldn't have a problem with that as long as GGG don't treat them as races and don't introduce leaderboards for them.

So Seasons and Conquests are like Leagues and Challenges?

And the Greater Rifts are like timed maps and are only unlocked by Greater Rift Keystones which you can only get as a random drop from a Rift Guardian.

It seems that Rift Guardians are only in Nephalem Rifts which you access by using 5 Rift Keystones and you only get the Keystones by completing Bounties or by opening Horadric Caches which themselves you only access by completing all 5 bounties in an Act?

As well as this; every player in the party has to contribute a Greater Rift Keystone if they want to get into the rift.

And it seems the Greater Rift Keystones come in several different levels of quality, with the higher level Greater rifts needing higher level/quality Greater Rift Keystones.

Here's a link to the wiki's page: http://www.diablowiki.net/Nephalem_Rifts
There're links to the pages for Bounties, Horadric Caches, Rift Guardians, keystones and all the rest from that page.

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SlixSC wrote:

I mean the same is true for PoE aswell, but to a much lesser extent. (flask management, movement in PoE is more responsive, you can manually dodge more reliably, etc..)

LOL, tell me you did not just say that. Movement is more responsive in PoE?

Are you forgetting the fact that desync is a major reason why accurately chaining movement skills -- like Leap Slam and Whirling Blades -- in rapid succession is nigh impossible? You can attempt to "manually dodge" in PoE, but will most likely end up stuck behind a rock or wall because the server disagrees with your client.