D3
Re-balancing Greater Rifts
With the infinite scaling of damage on greater rifts I think the design philosophy for combat pacing that came with RoS has been lost. The original posts are now gone from bnet but can be found other places. These are the posts I am talking about:
http://diablo.somepage.com/blue/10039514450-expansion-tidbits-and-defensive-slower-pace-of-game
I think higher greater rifts have failed at these philosophies almost entirely. With the high incoming damage and vastly increase healing in Greater Rifts with 2.1 we are now back to "almost one shot" "back to full health" play style.
Some of these ideas have been put out before but I think alone the changes are not enough and that a combination would work.
I think that monster HP increases will still be needed and are one way to increase the difficulty. It might need to be tuned later but for iteration one the current scaling would work. For damage as these are end game, I feel they should be fixed at T6 levels from start to end. With damage not scaling in greater rifts healing should also be tuned back down, maybe not all the way back to pre 2.1 level but at least a little lower.
I believe that what makes elites dangerous are the affixes so to increase the difficultly greater rifts should change the available affixes champions can have.
1-15 3 elite affixes
16-30 4 elite affixes
30-45 6 elite affixes
46-60 8 elite affixes, in addition 2 Strong CC affixes allowed from here up
61-75 10 elite affixes, in addition any Aggressive affix combo is allowed again
76-90 12 elite affixes, in addition 2 Defensive affixes allowed from here up
91-105 14 elite affixes, in addition Invulnerable Minions are allowed >:D
105+ All affixes
In addition to more affixes the rate of which they are cast can also increase difficulty, so giving elites cooldown reduction will allow them to spam their skills more.
1-10 0% cooldown reduction
11-20 10% cooldown reduction
21-30 20% cooldown reduction
31-40 30% cooldown reduction + 25% cast range
41-50 40% cooldown reduction
51-60 50% cooldown reduction
61-70 60% cooldown reduction
71-80 70% cooldown reduction + 50% cast range
81-90 80% cooldown reduction
91-100 90% cooldown reduction
100+ No cooldown
To help balance lucky rifts or fishing for rifts the simple solution is to progress like the game along with removing pylons and shrines from greater rifts
1-20 Act 1 Mobs Only
21-40 Act 2 Mobs Only
41-60 Act 3 Mobs Only
61-80 Act 4 Mobs Only
81-100 Act 5 Mobs Only
100+ Act 4/5 combined
The last change is to the CC resistance that elites build up. Last I have heard before ROS is it builds to and caps at 65%, so to increase difficulty increasing this cap slightly
1-30 65% immunity
31-60 73% immunity
61-90 81% immunity
91+ 90% immunity
TL;DR
Stop scaling damage, keep scaling hp (maybe with a revisit), change the difficulty of elites with affixes and mechanic changes.
Thoughts?