post merciless grinding - a sugestion

were not calling it endgame because, people have their own interpretation of that term. But theres some of us out there who really love the idea of a bit of variety in their post game finish arpg grinding. Some people didnt like maps, would rather a fixed content grind, and for those people Im really glad GGG made the changes to act 3 so they could get their Koams etc.

But the rest of us who liked the idea of maps as a grinding platform are coming unstuck in large numbers, spending far too much currency and being left unfulfilled and locked out of challenging content that exists. GGG say they dont want maps to fill that roll, ok I trust their vision for the game, its a fantastic game so far.


So my idea, one which has maybe been posted already in slightly different forms, I looked and couldnt see anything recent. In act 2 and 3 there would be a lvl66 side area somewhere, we will discuss the act2 one for simplicity. You would be taken to a jungle/forest type area, heavily randomised. In this area would be transitions to further areas that randomly spawn between lvl66 and 68. Every time you take a transition, it has the effect of just starting a new instance, you are now lost in this jungle. You cant get back to that pervious area if you didnt leave a tp open in it, and the zones time out much quicker than normal zones. Once lost out there your only way back is through a tp, and to prevent a lack of scrolls being an issue there should be one 'stone' or 'shrine' or whatever in each area that will spawn a town portal when activated.

In these zones dungeons, caves, spider layers, all manner of random subterranean zones will be found, I will call them collectively 'dungeons'. They will have many levels, just randomised existing tile sets, and each level down will increase the level of the zone. GGG have talked about maps being high level item acquisition, and gating that. So the highest level of items that will drop will be the max merciless stretches to, 68 as it stands. But, as you go down the zones will go beyond lvl68, and instead a slight buff to item rarity or currency will act as the incentive to keep going, along with the increased xp of the zone. So whatever the highest level they want to go to, 72? 73? whatever, the depths of these random dungeons will offer a way to level outside of maps without effecting high level item scarcity.

The zones can have affixes, Id say something like blood magic is too much to put on a zone you are walking into blind, but certainly a lot of the map affixes like curses, frozen ground, extra damage etc can exist in these areas.

In act 3 it can be endless ruins at night maybe, but the same deal, you are lost out there finding a lot of random content that is more fun and challenging than the fixed act grind if thats your thing. I feel like the random is what drives these games,, they started randomising areas so it wasnt the same fixed map. Randomising affixes on items, monsters, now affixes on areas, it makes things more interesting. What I think we need is a way to use all the games assets and random capabilities to make endlessly grinding as varied and interesting as possible. If maps are not designed to fulfil this role, I think something like this could.

It can be added to, once its in place if a new idea for a fun set of 'rules' for a dungeon can be thought of it can just be added into rotation, race against the clock, monster waves, whatever, its a lot easier to expand than fixed content with its story, dialog etc, and offers, imo, a lot more longevity and spice.

support all the way, wicked idea but i would imagine it would be very very hard to implement.

It reminds me of Minecraft. You just mine some diamonds unsuspiciously, when you just find an entrance to a mine, an underground lake, a dungeon or something. I would love it.

With some time it could be designed to kick some serious ass :)

I could imagine it like in dedicated areas entrances would have a chance to spawn, like large chests, so you would do lunaris runs to find the entrance for example.
The only thing that should be nonRNG, is the entrance type vs the area it opens.
It would be strange to find a city gate or upwards stairs in marketplaces that leads to flooded depths. So with some careful planning, a system like this could generate the illusion of a HUUGE and amazing world.

yeah the type of transition would have to make sense, like a cave entrance leads to a cave etc.

It would be a lot to set up, for sure, but because its just using the existing content in terms of models, textures etc, I kind of feel like its value for dev time in that a new act will probably take 10x as many man hours but this idea will give at least 10x as much playtime, maybe 100x as much playtime for some people.

The idea is that its an infinite area, ultimately your creating 1 randomised map out of an existing tileset but the effect is being let lose in an infinite, completely open world that can be added to with tiny little features or really big ones. You cna go crazy theory crafting it, like maybe the random jungles spawn between 66 and 69 when you move around, and the lighting level changes, so a 69 area is at night like fellshrine. You could have unique monsters or dungeons that are as likely to spawn as a unique item is to drop, and these give specific rewards, be it respect points, a boss that uses a unique item you can only get by finding and killing that boss, a boss that drops a lvl72 map and some chisels, you could go on all day thinking of small little interesting things that can be put in the system.

Once you got one, you just duplicate it but make it mudflats map, and put it in act1, and another in act3, maybe 2 or 3 per act found in different places. So the effect is you got the story game and the areas relating to that, but around these areas is an infinite rng world you can go and explore. I feel like that would do so much for breaking down how linear and functional to the story every zone feels, you dont just continue through each zone without really thinking as you can end up out in the wild at lvl55 getting smashed up by lvl68 monsters in the dark, bring sin that feel of fallout/elder scrolls massive world or the first time you walked out into the fields of Diablo 2 and it felt like you were exploring this massive world, not playing a small 'zone' that makes up a string of zones in a linear, easy to mentally map sequence.