we had quite a few nerfs on campaign loots especially maiden, fabius, SOT etc, because thats all people got previously before crucible and SR came out. Now we have these two enormous loot generators that can pump sets after sets in a short time, i feel campaign is abit left behind even though it is a core of grim dawn.
You clear all 4 skeleton key dungeons in an hour only to get about 8 legendaries on average while you’d get 40+ from repeating SR runs. Additionally there isnt much point in hunting rare MI in campaign either, all the nemesis MIs are obtainable directly from SR and in huge quantities at once, you dont even have to painstakingly search nemesis for it.The only good thing about campaign is the rare crafting mats like ugdenbloom, but these doesnt encourage you to finish any of the content. Once you collect the ugdenbloom drops it feels unrewarding to finish the rest of the ancient grove for example.
SR and Crucible is also superior in a sense that you dont have to exit a game session to reset it. Once you set up a multiplayer team you can run them indefinitly, while campaign you have to repeatly close open a session to farm with friends.
So i suggest, to make campaign abit more attractive and profitable, as to increase the variety of farming spots:
Increase nemesis loot across the board. The previous nerfs are outdated when crucible and SR pump out multiple times more reward at the same time. I honestly dont mind if they increase the difficulty of nemesis either, at least you are only dealing with one at a time.
Dramatically increases the chance of double rare and MI drops in campaign. People go to these campaign spots just for MIs (this include purple MIs) so make them feel abit more rewarding. Provides an incentive to farm MI in campaign rather than crucible or SR.
Last might not be possible but provide us a way to reset an instance or at least skeleton dungeon. We can reset crucible and SR in same session, it’d be nice if we can do the same for skeleton dungeons too.
This. But there’s also the bounty system which could do with some updating, like spawn a nemesis with a posse of heroes/boss sidekick when appropriate in the target region.
Campaign is still the core of the game and is a shame less and less time spent here as you each end game. I’d love to have that incentive to visit all the scenary again without feeling being poorly rewarded.
I think that comparing Campaign and SR/Crucible drop rates is kinda moot without considering the difficulty gap between them. When people say it rains legendaries they usually mean at least glad 150 and SR 60-65. Meanwhile a character that speedruns SoT in 5 minutes has a hard time clearing SR20 on ultimate and probably will have a hard time doing a loop on challenger.
So I honestly don’t see anything unfair about it.
You mentioned multiplayer so I can guess where it comes from. Sorry, but if anything multiplayer doesn’t scale the challenge well in accordance with the number of players, especially in SR and Crucible due to their mechanics. I wouldn’t want the loot to be balanced around how easy it is in multiplayer.
EDIT: nemeses aside campaign is better for MI target farming.
I’d like to see a character actually speedrun SoT without grim internals’ warphack in 5 mins, session start to reward chests. that also struggles with challenger or normal/elite SR65-66.
Note that each SoT run requires blood investment, which then requires either targeted blood farming or dynamite farming or at least aether crystal farming, cutting into the time spent getting loot, while both Crucible and waystones are self-sustaining for the most part (SR waystones need eldritch essence which are also dropped in sr reward chests)
If I remember correctly my beginner blademaster guide had a video of me doing a SoT run in less than 8 minutes from riftgate to chests. I derped there quite a bit, I think that with some practice I could come close to 5 min.
The mentioned above blademaster could comfortably do SR on normal to 30, then it gets a bit too risky for a HC character. Maybe 40, but lack of damage would begin to show I think.
Ultimate I barely managed 15 to get a skillpoint (or was it statpoint?). Haven’t tested on elite.
As for the challenger I haven’t tried it with Blademaster. Last time I did such a research was about a year ago with more or less fully slotted avenger warder. My conclusion was farming SoT and farming challenger yielded about the same amount of legendaries time-wise, but SoT was much more lazy. But it was before challenge area mechanic was introduced, SoT is harder now.
That’s about the only thing I’d claim seriously needs adjustment. Either cheaper recipe or a free key on ultimate from end chest.
This will never happen because Nemesis were made with the “he’s hunting you and not you hunting him” design. Having him spawn through a bounty would contradict that.
I have timed a SoT run recently - 5:46. And that’s counting from the riftgate and going after Ilgor and that undead you have to kill for Anasteria. But ouside of SoT and inside of SoT also counts toward loot because you can run into several heroes. I’m also pretty sure a Vanquisher build can do in like 4 minutes given how fast that build can move around.
I sure felt hunted knowing Benn’Jahr is most likely twiddling his thumbs sitting on his nemesis trove in one of the other chthonic rifts . If they were hunting you, there’d be a (cumulative) chance of them to spawn nearby every time you kill a hero or boss, and instead of having a nemesis trove on the ground it’s guarding, they’d just pop down a loot box orb.
Except the loot disparity is way too big at this point, especially with buffs to campaign difficulty and yet their loot nerfs in the past was not reverted.
Since we have mutators now campaign dungeons can go up to SR 30-40ish (a conservative estimate) in difficulty where stuff like Garbol and Valbury will still obliterate your character if you playing as a squishy build or not careful. Yet SR30 loot is comparatively richer and there is no sudden nemesis that you have to deal with either. On top of that, even if my char can farm crucible and SR there is no reason for campaign to be left behind either, it is a core of the game, the main attraction with lots of interesting environments and interactions, my suggestion doesnt make campaign drop more stuff, but make it better for target farming, which you already do, but makes it abit more rewarding.
the mentioning of multiplayer is purely from resetting from a dungeon perspective, nothing to do with gameplay. Infact even if i run singleplayer i’d still want this feature.
Garbol at SR30 and at Grove both one shot your character if you dont dodge his stuff though. And the Valbury trio nearly killed my AAR spellbinder another day because they have buffs debuffs that help each other.
SOT may be SR10 since it is probably the easiest skeleton dungeon, but Bastion’s environmental crystals are still dangerous. The only thing thats really easy about them is the end bosses which mostly do some damage without special gimmicks like Valbury or Ancient grove.
I know you buffed the loot already to compensate, i just think they could be made abit better.
I don’t quite agree with your assessment regarding the equivalent SR to skeleton Dungeon. Simply put, once you die in a rogue-like dungeon, the run is over - the same is untrue for SR (well, if we don’t take hardcore into account), which makes SR inherently more forgiving.
Another aspect is, that the rogue-like dungeons have a different power level. Steps of Torment may be quite easy, but I still would say it is at least SR 10 (especially if you do all the events instead of running to the boss). Valbury and Bastion would be around 15 at least, and Ancient Grove up to 20 at minimum. As I said, that is with consideration that one death is the end, as well as killing all ‘sub-bosses’ you encounter.
I agree SR is less forgiving, but similar to skeleton dungeons the big price is still at the end. And SR keys are comparatively easier to farm since it usually pays itself and you get eldritch essence dropping alot in FG content, but skeleton key you have to farm SOT/Bastion together to make it.
And to be fair bosses at SR 20 are like kittens, you dont even meet any of the nemesis with full abilities like you sometimes do in skeleton dungeons. Kuba in Ancient Grove is scary as hell because he also splits unlike SR.
I’m not asking for dramatically buffing the loot quality, but little things like better rare rolls, more matts drop or may be more legendary at the end chest can go a long way to make player keep getting back to these contents. As dev it would feel good right? Ancient grove and Valbury feels like a true dungeon with so many areas and designs, would be a shame if player start to skip them. Those unique belts from Valbury is a step into the right direction but i feel other skeleton key dungeons could be buffed too.
And not just skeleton key dungeons but campaign nemesis which are hard to find yet generate alittle. Making them drop more MIs or better rolled MIs would be worth the trouble finding them, especially Aleksander who can spawn like 20 different spots.
. If they were hunting you, there’d be a (cumulative) chance of them to spawn nearby every time you kill a hero or boss, and instead of having a nemesis trove on the ground it’s guarding, they’d just pop down a loot