Shard dungeons as competitive, evergreen content in Reborn

[Arthanos]

There are a few small changes to the shard dungeon system that could really expand it into something that is more than just a content tier in Reborn. Currently, shard dungeons are where you go to gear up after normal Tradu and before Hard mode raid. Adding daily potion rewards was a nice step towards encouraging more players to run shards regularly, however it did not return the community-driven competitive nature of shards that existed before hard-mode raid released (or perhaps before all level 10 dungeons were completed in time).

My proposal: Allow shards to scale to levels past 10 (or whatever the max will be in Reborn), theoretically infinitely.

Loot beyond shard 10 would of course need to be adjusted. Since I only have the current game to go on, here’s an approximation of how this could work:

Shard dungeons release, with loot scaling up to shard 10. Additionally, there is a 10% chance of a bonus piece of shard 10 loot per shard level above 10.
(ie. A shard 14 offers shard 10 loot, but with a 40% chance of a bonus piece of shard 10 gear)

Hard-mode raid releases, increasing gear cap up to tier 12. The shard dungeon loot table remains capped at 10, however the bonus loot awarded from shards above ten is now tier 11.5.
(ie. A shard 14 offers shard 10 loot, but with a 40% chance of a bonus piece of shard 11.5 gear)

Expert-mode raid releases, increasing gear cap up to tier 14. The shard dungeon loot table remains capped at 10, the bonus loot awarded from shards above 10-12 remains tier 11.5, the bonus loot awarded from shards 13+ is now tier 13.5.
(ie. A shard 14 offers shard 10 loot, but with a 40% chance of a bonus piece of shard 13.5 gear)

This system incentivizes pushing shards past 10, without allowing shard gear to surpass end-game raid gear, or make gear past t10 too easy to farm (since the existing daily roll for completing a shard dungeon would still award t10 gear even at shard levels beyond 10). Because the gear scales to just below raid gear, it allows an alternate progression path for players who are unable to raid regularly, but wish to remain competitive, as well as offering raiders a way to augment their gear while working towards a full raid set.

Allowing shards to continue scaling also keeps the community-driven competition for completing the highest shard dungeons alive indefinitely. This means top guilds/players always have a way to attempt to progress. Shard dungeons remain “evergreen”, because as gear levels increase, so too does the upper-limits of possible shard levels. Currently, shard 10s have become relatively easy for t14 geared players, and the only way to ‘progress’ is to push for the fastest possible times (which, IMO, isn’t terribly fun). Because (I assume) dungeons in Reborn are being designed with shards in mind, the current frustrations with certain dungeons being much harder, or much harder to complete on time, should be lessened, reducing the amount luck plays in getting higher shards. To be clear, I don’t expect this to be implemented into the current game, I just used the current game to model how the system could work with whatever the plans are for Reborn, and it is likely many of the numbers I propose would need to be adjusted.

[aRkker]

In my opinion the shard dungeon system would work fine with the way Greater Rifts work in Diablo 3. Theoretically, there is no cap on how big of a level you can go to (that I know of anyway, might be different now, been a while since I played the game). The only “cap” is your skill, and gear to a degree. Gear’s progression curve mellows out quite fast, so you still get upgrades but ever so small ones and as such, skill (and RNG to a degree) becomes much more important.

As to for the gearing bit, shard dungeons could have their “own gear” past T10 or what ever the cap in Reborn is gonna be. That is, you would get items on tiers greater than 10 that have bonuses on top of the “normal” bonuses that work only on shard dungeons, and not outside of them. That way, you could still get decent pre-raid, or even raid-equivalent gear from shards, but at the same time restrict them from overtaking the raid gear.