Changes Coming to the Legacy of Nightmares Set
by Whitney "Neinball" Fairchild - 8 years ago show comments
Senior Technical Game Designer Wyatt Cheng took to the forums yesterday to let PTR testers know that there will be some significant number crunching coming to the “no set” set, the Legacy of Nightmares.
There are some classes that are pushing Great Rift 100 with this new set and it’s clear the numbers are just tuned way to high. Because of this, the devs are bringing the damage bonus per ancient item down from 800% to 100%. You can read Wyatt’s full comments on the reasons behind the change below.
Hi everyone,
I wanted to pop in and let everyone know that our next PTR patch is changing the bonus damage from Legacy of Nightmares (aka the new “no set” set) from the current 800% to 100%. Please form an orderly queue for pitchforks on the left.
One of the things that we use the Public Test Realm for is to test ideas out—sometimes even crazy ideas. In our original images and communication, we had listed the bonus at a decidedly not-crazy 75%. But in the spirit of crazy ideas, we went live with 800% to give us a chance to gather data at radically different values and, eventually, find the value that’s best for the greatest number of our players. We need a lot of creative players testing the limits and the best way we could accomplish this was to turn it way overboard. Of course, drastic changes like this are inherent to what a PTR is used for, and players need to be prepared for these outcomes.
So why 100%? Well consider the way greater rifts scale. Every greater rift tier the monsters have 17% more health than the previous. If we were to lower the amount from 800% to say, 700%, this is basically equivalent to dropping by a single greater rift tier. One look at Legacy of Nightmares on PTR will show that this isn’t nearly enough. Even dropping from 800%=>400% only represents a change of 4-5 Greater Rift tiers – such is the nature of exponential growth (4.41 GR tiers to be exact because 1.17^4.41 = ~2). The reduction to 100% represents about 13 Greater Rift tiers in raw damage. Once you take into account further optimization and exploration that will happen this seems like the appropriate amount for LoN to come down.
We don’t want Legacy of Nightmares to become required for top-tier builds. We want it to be a viable option among many. We think Legacy of Nightmares is really going to shine in allowing lots of build variety for “fun” builds. The last few patch cycles have seen a massive number of builds emerge that are focused on activities other than pushing Greater Rifts. We’ve seen creative uses for In-Geom, a resurgence of builds that incorporate Sage’s set, the use of Manajuma’s to run around as an Angry Chicken and many others. It is becoming increasingly clear to everybody that items and builds are not just about what can clear the highest rift possible. What is good for speed runs? What’s good for public games? Or at the end of the day—what do YOU think is FUN? The hope for Legacy of Nightmares is that it will open up space to allow players to explore lots of Torment X-viable builds that play differently than the status quo. We hope to see you invent something of your own that you know might not be the best in the world, but rocks in public games or is a style of play you can call your own.
So, I want to call on you, the brave PTR tester, to continue to experiment alongside us and find the most fun, most powerful builds and help make the Legacy of Nightmares the best it can be. Thanks for your willingness to work alongside us in this whole crazy process.
