http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/32snfb/trials_will_be_removed_from_the_game_wyatt_cheng/
First of all, I have to get kudos to them for deciding to remove trials from the game.
During the PTR when they instituted the trial key design, I made the following post regarding the core design flaw with trials.
I do understand the “measuring stick” aspect of the system (even though variances could lead to getting key ranks that weren’t accurate). The problem was not just the boring/tedious repetitiveness of the implementation, it was also the terrible reward structure for this task (small amount of gold and experience).
The above interview also notes some of the issues they are facing with the removal of trials in their internal builds. Those issues are a result of the larger issue with the design of Greater Rifts. One of the problems he mentioned was “how do players know what Grift difficulty they can do when it comes to upgrading their gems?”
The problem is that exact system they went with for upgrading legendary gems. That design makes it easier for the devs to create those tension points for those gems due to the power creep involved from difficulty that scales infinitely. That’s the reason for why each 100% upgrade chance, requires a Greater Rift that is at least 10 difficulties higher than the rank of the gem. It’s like so many systems in the game; linear. And the power levels associated with those ranks, determine key damage and mitigation numbers that work alongside items, to determine a characters specific comfort zone plus that tension point where that character could do the next higher difficulty subject to other factors including game play strategy and RNG (rift tileset, monster spawns, pylons).
Basically, it’s a spreadsheet design that allows easier balancing. Trials was integral to this because it provided a key measuring stick (not always accurate, but it made it far easier to implement the above design). Remove Trials, and they now have this design conundrum.
Back up a bit, I never liked this Greater Rift design where you level up legendary gems this way. It feels way too contrived. Once you unlock rank 25, the rest of the upgrades are small increases meant to push higher and higher up on difficulty levels that are never ending (again, monster mechanics and their AI remain the same; just bigger health pools and damage which).
But there is also eventually a point where those increases from gems, won’t scale unless actual gear slot items also see power increases (ancients are a stop gap – and I am pretty sure the devs are hoping these will last until the next expansion when they can raise the level cap again, and basically do a rinse and repeat by rapidly obsoleting level 70 gear + the highest ranked legendary gems going from 71-80).
A design that I like are gems that would gain experience along with you so long as it in play (this is how skill gems work in Path of Exile; but you still need to make choices whether to upgrade them or not since higher level ones may require enough of a specific stat and/or consume extra resources). And it would be these XP levels that level up the rank of the gems. The following was written off the top of my head so it isn’t properly fleshed out.
Yes, there are core design challenges involved with this system as well. Balancing is made more difficult because that experience would be a lot more dynamic. Furthermore, the algorithm for that experience has to be solid and completely self-contained. Why? Because attempting to tie it into the current systems used for leveling and Paragon experience would result in unintended power increases.
The kind of system I would prefer would take into account the timer aspect of Greater Rifts. And it would also scale according to whether these rifts were done solo, 2-player, 3-player, and 4-player. As it stands right now, solo ranking gems takes a lot more time compared to running Greater Rifts in a group. In a group, progression is amplified and provides a larger benefit for getting to higher rifts and therefore, leveling gems. In a nutshell, truly solo Greater Rifts and leveling gems, requires more time compared to doing it in a group.
If legendary gems could gain experience (using its own self-contained algorithm), both the timer and solo/co-op, could be used as key parameters for calculating that experience. The faster you clear a specific Greater Rift difficulty, the more experience that will be earned. To prevent abuse (of just running lower level Greater Rifts), your highest completed difficulty and completion time will be utilized as a key measuring stick. Likewise, part of that calculation will be based on solo versus co-op where solo leveling also awards more experience.
This is of course counter to the current co-op philosophy (such as the “strength in numbers” multiplayer buff) where there are so much more benefits over solo play. Yes, monster damage and health pools are increased, but that aspect is mitigated because you are still talking about more damage and crowd control than what is possible in solo play.
The key rationale is to bring back some of this “rewarding players for their efforts”. The dev team has lost sight of this on way too many occasions and that includes the solo playing experience. The calculation for solo experience would utilize ones previous highest solo difficulty and completion time and have greater weighting. Multiplayer would utilize a percentage of ones previous highest group difficulty and completion time for each specific player number (2,3,4). The specific percentages for each is something that would hold less weight because not taking that into account, would totally gut the solo leveling experience (since again, it is foregone conclusion that a group will have a higher completed difficulty and completion time).
Going back to the design though, the above proposed system would allow a more organic experience. The system would not need this clunky gem upgrade mechanism with Urshi and the associated conundrum of giving a player an idea of what Greater Rift difficulty they need to do upgrade their gems (since again, the upgrade chances are known for each rank).
Experience gained is determined by playing performance through the rift and takes into account your prior highest difficulty and time. One can gain gem experience in both solo or co-op level that ranks up ones gems more in-line with the content that is being played. A player can select any previously cleared Greater Rift difficulty for solo and separately for groups.
So how does this work in the game? Right now, trial keys are potentially awarded after completing a regular rift. Those will again be like it was in the first PTR iteration but without any kind of ranking. It will just be a Greater Rift key. The actual difficulty is going to available for selection when using that key at the obelisk. While the difficulty in Greater Rifts are independent of the games base difficulty, the game already knows what content level your character can handle. Like if you managed to clear a T6 rift, whenever you decide to use your Greater Rift key at the obelisk, it will already show you a range of difficulties that you can select (with one that is highlighted and recommended based on that regular rift clear).
This gets rid of the initial trial aspect as well as requiring everyone to start from a level 1 Greater Rift. You can still select it in the obelisk but the benefits of the experience calculation algorithm for ones gem, would not result in any advantages since you gain less XP compared to starting from the recommended level. This does away with having to stash multiple ranked keys since this is automatically stored with the obelisk. The only inventory would be Greater Rift keys (since I believe they still want some “tangible” virtual token).
What about solo versus co-op? Solo is straightforward since it follows the above. With co-op, there is more of a design challenge since different characters bring different strengths and weaknesses to the table. Currently, one just needs keys of at least the same or higher rank to enter the desired difficulty. In otherwords, there seems to be a system, but it is just a symptom of the current design where players have various keys from either solo and/or co-op play.
In this proposal, those numbers have just moved off into the obelisk. However, it can be taken further than this where it looks at each characters previous highest completions, and uses that to come up with a group recommendation. The same mechanics apply (the group can start off at 1 but would not reap any XP benefits compared to starting at the recommendation) with one difference. Say if one other player happens to have previously completed a higher difficulty compared to the rest of the players in the group. At the obelisk, that would also show up as a selection for the team. That specific player would have to be the first one to insert their Greater Rift key into the obelisk and specifically select that difficulty. The remainder of the team contributes their key to start that Greater Rift.
This kind of design naturally requires far more development work as it would be a complete overhaul of the existing design. And I think for this dev team, they would have problems with figuring out the right breakpoints (experience to rank level) where it will be balanced properly.
