[Proposal] Configurable Greater Rifts

#1 - Feb. 13, 2017, 1:33 a.m.

I've read the recent blue post about how rift fishing is undesirable but ultimately impossible to avoid and then got my FB Archon wizard into a rift with several levels of Keep Depths filled with zombies (not exactly willing to follow me around) and it got me thinking: can't we improve the system to coerce the rift into some configuration we like more?

I can't know the exact details, but from my recent experiences there ain't that many map configurations and there are a dozen or two monster sets that come with their respective densities and placement patterns.

What I propose is simple - at the start of a (an empowered maybe?) rift show a dialog box to the player with three clickable cards. On each card, the background image corresponds to a certain level type (like blood marsh, sewers etc) and the foreground image represents a monster set (boggits and bogan trappers for example). The cards are randomly generated for each rift instance and the player can only choose one of the three. Selecting a card will drag you into a rift whose first floor is guaranteed to have the chosen map/monsters and subsequent floors are more likely to get map layouts and monster groups similar to the chosen one.

What problem does it solve?

- First off, it gives players more control on what enemies they face without making the game overly repetitive. There are many map/monster combinations out there and you only get to choose from three so not like it's gonna be the same rift all over.
- Second, different classes and builds might want different rifts and this is a tool to customize the game for a particular character.
- Last, but not least, it will give the devs a tool to objectively weed out or rework bad rift combinations. See that a particular combination that never gets chosen? Well, chances are that it's really bad, but now it's not just player feedback, it's real data. GR's are core gameplay, every player goes into hundreds of them each season, so the amount of data should provide excellent statistics.

Tyvalir

Community Manager

#9 - Feb. 15, 2017, 3:23 a.m.

02/12/2017 09:33 AMPosted by Gurebu
I've read the recent blue post about how rift fishing is undesirable but ultimately impossible to avoid and then got my FB Archon wizard into a rift with several levels of Keep Depths filled with zombies (not exactly willing to follow me around) and it got me thinking: can't we improve the system to coerce the rift into some configuration we like more?

I can't know the exact details, but from my recent experiences there ain't that many map configurations and there are a dozen or two monster sets that come with their respective densities and placement patterns.

Totally fair feedback, and thanks for passing this on Gurebu.

Getting the same or similar tilesets too often can be frustrating. To help resolve this, we are making changes in our upcoming PTR patch that should reduce the occurrence of certain areas that are similar in their structure, including the Keep Depths as well as Caves and Zoltun Kulle's Archives.

While some of these tilesets are technically different, many of them are part of the same location – for example, there are five Keep Depths maps, and these were previously given equal weight in terms of how often they appeared in Greater Rifts. With this change, all maps in the same location are treated as one in terms of how likely they are to appear next to, say, Pandemonium Fortress (which along with Festering Woods and Arreat Crater have fewer maps).

While variability is part of Greater Rifts, this and other changes coming up should lead to a better and more balanced rifting experience, and we’ll continue to look for ways to improve it further going forward.