Breaches and their Lords : Stats, Feedback and Suggestion (ongoing research)

My other thread about Zana's perandus mod inspired me to to some research/testing about breaches and breachlords too. Because lets face it, even after the "buff" people still cant find certain breaches or their lords. So before we go into feedback and suggestions here are the breachspawn and breachlord stats from my last 3 days of play.

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Breaches and Lords in white maps/other merci areas


Xoph's ------ 12 Breachlord 0
Tul's -------- 16 Breachlord 1
Esh's -------- 11 Breachlord 1
Ul-netol's --- 3 Breachlord 0
Chayula's --- 1 Breachlord 0
Unknown gender breach 1 (means that no splinter droped and nothing indicated what breach it was)
No breach 5
multiple breaches 4 (2 breaches 3 times, 3 breaches 1 time)

From the total of 44 area/map instances 11.36% had no breach at all

From the 44 breaches encountered
27.27% were Xoph's
36.36% were Tul's
25% were Esh's
6.81% were Ul-netol's
2.27% were Chayula's
2.27% were UNKNOWN GENDER BREACHES

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Breaches and Lords in yellow maps

Xoph's ------ 34 Breachlord 2
Tul's -------- 18 Breachlord 1
Esh's -------- 24 Breachlord 1
Ul-netol's --- 10 Breachlord 2
Chayula's --- 4 Breachlord 1
No breach 20
multiple breaches 7 (2 breaches 5times, 3breaches 2times)

From the total of 101 map instances 19.80% had no breach at all

From the 90 breaches encountered
37.77% were Xoph's
20% were Tul's
26.66% were Esh's
11.11% were Ul-netol's
4.44% were Chayula's

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Breaches and Lords in red maps

Xoph's ------ 73 Breachlord 4
Tul's -------- 59 Breachlord 5
Esh's -------- 69 Breachlord 3
Ul-netol's --- 27 Breachlord 0
Chayula's --- 16 Breachlord 0
Unknown gender breach 4
No breach 72
multiple breaches 33 (2 breaches 28times, 3breaches 5times)

From the total of 282 map instances 25.53% had no breach at all

From the 248 breaches encountered
29.43% were Xoph's
23.79% were Tul's
27.82% were Esh's
10.88% were Ul-netol's
6.45% were Chayula's
1.61% were UNKNOWN GENDER BREACHES

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Grand Total

427 instances / 97 had no breach at all or 22.71%

382 breaches encountered

31.15% were Xoph's
24.34% were Tul's
27.22% were Esh's
10.47% were Ul-netol's
5.49% were Chayula's
1.30% were UNKNOWN GENDER BREACHES

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Ofcourse thats a very small samplesize and only a fragment of my mapping and breachhunting experience (3 last days i kept track). I had found Esh, Xoph and Ul-Netol during leveling way before maps, Tul 2 days ago and Chayula just today. By any means dont take that those are the chances breaches and breachlords appear.

Having said that we can still come to some conclusions, based on those.

1) And what i want to adress first is, Why so many instances have no breach? at 20% or 1 in 5 instances with "Area contains breaches" description are without a breach, isnt that kind of... you know. Maybe change the description to : "Area Most likely contain a breach" *cough* *cough*. That actually is the reason that made me to want to keep stats on breaches. I once went 7 consecutive maps (before keeping track in paper) without finding a single breach.

2) Even after the buff to the Chayula breach appearance rate, his breaches make an apperance once every 22 breaches encountered. Isnt that kind of low, when you consider you first need to actually KILL his minions (which are by far the deadliest from all the breachmobs), you usually will see them in red maps meaning the mods will make them even harder, the number of splinters might be zero even if you cleared pretty much everything and that you need 100 of those to enter his realm... Dunno feels kinda disappointing.

3) The bosses appear way to little in breaches, even the common ones can be a problem for people to find, no need to talk how Chayula is still way too rare. Not only that but there are times (and i am 100% sure about this) that a breachlord might made an appearance but the player was busy with breachmobs in the other side of the breach and didnt even noticed the lord or simple the clusterfuck that breaches usually are hided in plain sight what was happening.


So having said that i want to make some suggestions, some that will affect directly and others inderectly everyone's experience with dem breaches and dem breachlords.

1) Make every single area have at least one breach. Like 1 is guaranteed. If you are afraid that people will cheese small areas, make it so that this rule applies to MAPS ONLY. There is literally no reason for such a frustrating experience.

2) Find a way to make it so that breach mobs dont cause such huge amounts of fps drops. Maybe preload them when loading an area could help? Or make the same thing you did with the strongboxes.

3) When a breachlord appears add those two things :

-Each boss says a line fitting his element/personality.
-A red circle appears on the map targeting the breachlord, similar to how some Zana's quests have a red marker for bosses or exiles etc.

4) Allow clasped hands to remain and be interactable even after a breach closes. Having to click on chests while fighting with a bunch of demons not only is a bad design but counter-intuitive to what breaches are. Not only this but this will allow players to focus on the fighting and even fix somewhat the scenarios were a huge obstacle blocks any kind of breach interaction/proper clear


I may have completed my goal for the league and probably will take a break now, but those are things that will probably help a lot of people enjoy breaches more. I might continue the research, depending the mood and appetite.

Update 2/1/2017 : Around 100 more runs added (80 or so on red maps). Percentages remain similar. The no breach scenario is still very common 1 at 5 runs have no breach on average. Chayula on red maps seems a tiny bit more common these last couple of days. Boss sighting still very rare or im totally blind not careful enough.

Update 13/1/2017 : Added another 200 runs (173 red maps). The no breach scenario on red maps is way too high 1 in 4 has no breach. Bosses dont appear often enough.

I have very similar results.

I got most of my splinters and breachstones(total of 3-4 each) spamming Wraeclast merc areas while multitasking finding Vaal Bosses/div cards and completing some prophecies. Chayula is extremely rare with maps that I ever did run (only 2 breaches so far and no shows). Glad that Im not too hard pressed to complete the totem because I completely loathe the RNG with that breachlord. And to think it was buffed already.

PS. totally agree with some way of knowing a breachlord has spawned. There are many times my totems killed them already even before i noticed they are there. You just see an abnormal amount of splinters in one place lol.

I can deal with everything, except one: I want to lord show somehow a fact then he came into breach. Right now you can miss them if you do not run back and forth along the breach all the time.

Esh can shriek while cast, so lords not silent at all. Add one or two epic phrases!

I agree that the only thing I think needs changing is that there is almost no way of knowing that a Breachlord has arrived, especially when you are in a map that has walls/doors/rooms that a breach is spread across.

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Regulator wrote:

3) When a breachlord appears add those two things :

-Each boss says a line fitting his element/personality.
-A red circle appears on the map targeting the breachlord, similar to how some Zana's quests have a red marker for bosses or exiles etc.

+1
One of the best suggestions I have read in a while.

added another 100 or so runs to the total, mostly red maps (and mainly t14-15). Chayula breaches seem a tiny bit more common in red maps but not enough to make a difference. Bosses apperance rate still way too low for my liking.

"

Regulator wrote:

added another 100 or so runs to the total, mostly red maps (and mainly t14-15). Chayula breaches seem a tiny bit more common in red maps but not enough to make a difference. Bosses apperance rate still way too low for my liking.

In my experience, Chayula breaches seem to occur far more often in Tier 15 and 16 maps than in others. I would be interested in seeing numbers from like... 100 tier 15s and 100 tier 16s. Obviously that would take a bit of time, and investment.

I think breaches are really frustrating in in-door maps and it de-incentivizes you to play them this league. Breaches are already too rare (1/5 to not get one DOES suck) for the amount of splinters you need to farm. Many times a breach will contain few monsters in it...

This mechanic really needs a tune up. Lots of small gripes from me, especially the fact in indoor maps you can open a breach and be unable to get to monsters in time because of pathing issues.

Updated op again.

Added around 200 maps, 173 exactly were reds, from those : 19 were t16, 31 were t15, 49 were t14 and the rest 74 were t11-13.

The no breach scenario is still insanely high , 1 in four red maps have no breach at all, and i still dont get WHY? Am i that unlucky or is it the same for the rest? With white and yellows included the chance is still 22% for an instance not to have a single breach.

Breachlords spawn way to rarely, unless the whole clusterfuck blocks my vision completely. THe suggestions in the OP could adress this easily without any substancial cost.

I completed my first chayula breachstone after 8.9k tiers. And only 2 Ul-netol at this time.


In case breach stays as a zana mod they better put something : 6-8c - area contains at least 2 breaches.

It always feels so lame when you don't get the league special thingy in a map. I'd rather there always be just 1 than have it range from 0-3. Essence and perandus were the same way.