(POLL) Do you like the new unformed land?

I wanted to get a poll out to gauge people reception to it this patch. Personally I really think its a huge downgrade from how amazing last patchs divided zone was. Being able to target farm elemental stones to me took so much of the tediosness out of this area. I want to hear from others in the community what they think about it. Try to keep it civil.

if you want it would be nice to hear your feedback below why you do or do not like it :bounce:

Agreed. Being able to farm what you needed specifically was nice.

No. All iterations of unformed land sucked colossal shit, imo. It's the most boring farm ever playing dodgeball just to acquire some nutty ass runewords. The previous unformed lands in act 5 was better only because of that seperation it provided so you could forcefarm the elements you needed. The current one is just a little bit less boring because I'm not running through the sewers and Nihlathak's mapsets.

I voted for "no", last season was the density of monster much higher, in a full clean of UL you have found in every run anything. Sometimes a few essences, in some runs primals and essences. If you needed fire-runes you have to go to the last area and farm the essences. All good...

Now the density is pretty much lower, today I have done 5 runs with 90% clearing, result: 1 primal, 4 essences (3 lightning for sure). The location of Teganze is a way to go, without any good benefits, except some gold-signets and a few exp-signets, not a big deal at all. The whole Toraja Jungle isnt a good farming place, so I didnt believe that so many people farm there.

Pub wrote:No. All iterations of unformed land sucked colossal shit,

pub since you arent a fan of any versions of unformed land how do you think it could be improved? If last ladder wasnt nice enough is there a vision you have for it? Just curious since you said you didnt like any version of it.

Since I mostly skipped last ladder, the answer is obviously yes (sewers bestest).

I don't mind the new UL. In half a clear I have gotten 3 primals, 2 fire and 2 light essences. The drop rate is decent. I will miss being able to farm a specific element now though... I'm just searching for magic essence right now.

PS. My only complaint is the game wide nerf on SU drop's. I haven't gotten a single su from UL this ladder in 4 clears.

I haven't been in the area for a long period of time but (if i didn't see any kind of difference between enemies) I Don't like not being able to recognize every element from each enemy.

shnurr214 wrote:
Pub wrote:No. All iterations of unformed land sucked colossal shit,

pub since you arent a fan of any versions of unformed land how do you think it could be improved? If last ladder wasnt nice enough is there a vision you have for it? Just curious since you said you didnt like any version of it.

This I'll have to go into detail about so I sound like I'm talking as objectively as possible instead of a rager. I will also acknowledge any unforseen circumstances (from our end) that the developers can't do anything about due to engine limitations with modding and try to be as in the middle as possible with it. Impending wall of text, proceed with caution. TL:DR at end of it.

The main reason why I don't like any of the versions is that they are just so boring, but this could be just a personal thing and a subjective opinion. My focus as to why they are boring is just that monsters shoot their elemental ball of doom, you either dodge or have summons to soak and just keep hitting them until they die. While I have the choice to not farm it and can go elsewhere, it ties into the next point which overwhelms me with boredom - how valuable the elemental runes are. Last season, I decided to farm 4 poisons to prepare for as best a success rate to kill Laz only because I was very inexperienced. Slapping into a barb shield (and due to the bug that existed), it created the normal 4x poison shield so I had the easiest way to access high % chance to block and in combination with gladiators dominance, 75% block was very easily achievable. I also helped a friend farm 6x fire elemental runes for his body armor and got 6x of my own for offhand sword to have the benefit from huge fire pierce for bosses. This was all with the most convenient unformed land and on a summon barb which was extremely strong to farm that area. While it was super convenient for a casual like me, it was extremely boring and everytime I finished, my first thought was "finally, fuck that place."

I'm not great at game design and two ideas come to mind that could help spice it up but once again, I don't know the perspectives of the developers and what they are limited to. Idea one is a on death mechanic similar to TA. Evading the fact that you can erase TA in minutes with an overgeared character (or ignore the on death mechanics with a range powerful character such as stampede barb), your average geared player will have to pay attention to broadside from the dying zons. It lingers long enough that you don't have a simple just run and farm route, you have to decide between running backwards (this is generally the case in the small pathways) or zigzagging to dodge the arrows in a route that allows you to dodge the broadside arrows while dodging the zon arrows and farming them at the same time. It's nothing super advanced but it keeps me alert at the earlier stages of my progression. Idea two is adding some sort of minibosses. Stronger than elites but weaker than ubers/heroics, similar to act bosses I assume(?). One for each element that can spawn in a game that has a bit of a decent drop rate for the element essence and elemental stone. It doesn't have to be something stupid like 25% because it'd be clear that people would run right through it all and farm those bosses exclusively. I can't currently come up with a mechanic that would make such minibosses interesting, but I'm sure if they could behave in a unique manner that makes the fight interesting, I would be okay with the mundane farm that leads up to it. I would assume the inclusion of the minibosses would require a layout rework for Teganze but I'd be ok with that. Heck, even if the implied fire element miniboss used rain of fire similar to the act 2 veteran monster, it'd be more interesting just because I can't stand still without dying.

These are all just my thoughts which can potentially be a bit incoherent due how much I like to criticize things. But without the developers thoughts on as to why they made things the way they are, I can't be completely analytical. I don't ever expect to love every piece of content and that is completely okay too. I'm the type of guy who likes bosses like ubers like Laz because it's barely gear related and completely mechanics. It's my fault completely when a fight gets out of hand or I die.

TLDR: I had no fun farming any iterations of the uber. Add some interesting mechanics like on death for the mobs or add minibosses which have mechanics. Same minibosses can be element specific and have static (or dynamic so you can't run a set route) locations with a bit of a drop bias towards element essence/element stone. The drop bias should reflect how difficult the miniboss is. More difficult, more likely it drops. While the last ladder unformed land was good to farm due to its convenience, it still wasn't fun to farm - it was a chore if you needed the element runes and nobody likes doing chores.

I tend to agree with Pub, in that this uber is not the most exciting in the world to farm. I would love to see a more challenging way to get runes consistently.

The first thought that comes to mind would be to give them to a powerful single elemental type mob similar to Kabraxis' guys. Maybe have one full rune drop from each. That way you know it will be challenging and each boss would have a theme you'd need to work around to get them but you wouldn't just be mindlessly farming.

(POLL) Do you like the new unformed land?

Do you like the new unformed land in m17 1.1.2