[MXLS] Quest Portals

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Marco
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In sigma, one of the main features is the implementation of new areas into the game. As many of you know, this was not possible in vanilla median, so to create new areas, it was necessary to remove existing ones. But not only will new areas be added, but also there will be lots of different ways to access them. In this topic, I'll explain some of the options to do this:

Portal Scrolls, Tomes & Tokens


These are items that give you access to certain uberquest. These can be one-time use (scroll), multi-use (tome) or infinite (token). This adds more items to the market that could be highly valuable. Not only will this allow you to access a certain uberquest, but there can be scrolls to access the same area on different places.

For example: we could have an item called "Valthek's Portal Scroll" that when used, creates a portal directly to the end of Yshari Sanctum. Then, you could give Valthek a 10% chance to spawn such item when killed (or it could be a regular drop in the uberquest). Or you could take it one step further and give Valthek a 0.5% chance to spawn a "Valthek's Portal Token" which could be used infinitely.

Of course this is just an hypotetical case, I'm not saying this will necessarily happen. You could have some less-impressive ones like "Assur's Portal Token" that would still be really good as it would make duncraig farming much more efficient (because it could be used in town).


Cube Recipes


Cube recipes would simply be taking scroll portals to the next level. When performing recipes, you can create complex conditional formulas based on different aspects from your character. This ranges from setting a level requirement or a class requirement to limiting access to characters that completed their class charms, for example. There are tons of other ways to limit access.

But another cool thing in spawning portals from recipes is that you could have one reagent that can give access to different areas, depending on what you cube it with. For example: let's say we have an item called "Catalyst of Let Me Try Again Plz" that when cubed with any charm would take you to that specific boss fight instantly, consuming your charm but saving you the walk to there.

Again hypotetical scenario, I'm just throwing ideas out there.


Missiles and Skills


Finally, portals could be spawned from missiles, and thus, skills, and thus, procs. For example, there could be a monster with high health and fast run speed (similar to Treasure Goblins in d3), that when killed, summons a portal to a specific quest. Then you could make this monster spawn very rarely on some or all levels. Another example would be for example, giving monsters in unformed land a 0.001% (or whatever) chance to spawn a portal to Hidden Fortress (where you fight Zorun Tzin), and remove the direct entrance on the level. This would add a farming requirement to access specific boss areas, rather than just skipping the whole thing.

This could also allow for multi-stage uberquests, where you can only transition to the next stage after the boss was killed.
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Firien
Jungle Hunter
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Some ideas/food for thought:

Could portals spawn when you clear an area? There's a couple of places in the game where x already happens when you clear (den, seals/diablo, throne room). This is another option vs. your idea for unformed land, especially if you require multiple playstyles to complete an area (a la Ultra Elementals at Kabraxis).

Considering Uldyssian als a multi-stage uberquest, could a (rare) single-use item allow you to 'skip' one stage? Perhaps using the aura value from the boss currently in range to determine which portal to spawn.

Can creation of portals be an oskill when wearing a full set?

Could portals spawn depending on the speed with which you complete a level? E.g. compared to Dragon's timer. Slow clear, you get an easy version of a boss, but proportionally poorer rewards. Fast clear, you can take on the boss in hard mode. Speedy clear, you can take on the heroic-shielded boss in hard mode.

Could portals spawn depending on the speed with which you kill a boss? Again, killing a boss fast enough will take you to the tougher version of the boss with e.g. a higher damage divisor and a better drop rate.
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Nitz
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"This would add a farming requirement"

Finally, I always felt like I didn't farm enough.
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Marco
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Firien wrote:Some ideas/food for thought:

Could portals spawn when you clear an area? There's a couple of places in the game where x already happens when you clear (den, seals/diablo, throne room). This is another option vs. your idea for unformed land, especially if you require multiple playstyles to complete an area (a la Ultra Elementals at Kabraxis). Not directly (yet), however the effect can be accomplished by making a monster that is immune to everything while there are allies nearby, however this mechanic is limited to small places only.

Considering Uldyssian als a multi-stage uberquest, could a (rare) single-use item allow you to 'skip' one stage? Perhaps using the aura value from the boss currently in range to determine which portal to spawn. I believe not with current set-up. If uldyssian was expanded to be a multi-level quest (rather than several stages in same level), then yes.

Can creation of portals be an oskill when wearing a full set? Yes

Could portals spawn depending on the speed with which you complete a level? E.g. compared to Dragon's timer. Slow clear, you get an easy version of a boss, but proportionally poorer rewards. Fast clear, you can take on the boss in hard mode. Speedy clear, you can take on the heroic-shielded boss in hard mode. Not directly, but it can be achieved using using the same mechanics bremmtown uses (apply a temporary aura as soon as player enters a level, however it will always get removed on death)

Could portals spawn depending on the speed with which you kill a boss? Again, killing a boss fast enough will take you to the tougher version of the boss with e.g. a higher damage divisor and a better drop rate. Same as before. Not directly, but the mechanic can be simulated, but it's not very pretty.



@Nitz: these are just examples.
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DacianDraco
Cog
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Tomes with varying and finite charges seems best, with just a scroll you'd be prone to sell it without trying or try and fail then regret not selling it, possibly at a later time just sell all others you find, and an infinite token hurts the value, you'd endlessly swap or resell it or not buy and farm till you get one and that's it, you'd use it with all characters and all your friends will end up use it as well instead of farming or buying one.

Not too excited about cube recipes for this, seems more of a quality of life thing than anything new or uniq, not against it just don't think it's necessary.

Definitely yes for chance to spawn portals, be it just a secret area or a whole uber with this progression mechanic. Maybe some would require melee hits, merc kill, poison dmg death, etc to spawn such portals, so you'd try to strategize or optimize your gear for such occasions, instead of just spamming whatever till the portal appears.
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spinheadmickey
Prowler
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For Yshari, could always add portal as skill 'with full set'. Have to get full set to open portal to Valthek...
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AzureGladiator
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Wow! I love these ideas! Especially the rare monster one! Great work!
Maybe some uberquests could have multiple underground levels too... :)
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Arc_Razer
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This sounds good, could it also be done by collecting items from a few different ubers, say, and then cube those together to create portal? Or on a different thought, could it be tied to a monster counter (like the den of evil quest) that only opens a portal to the next level when an area is cleared?
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Leerek
Thunder Beetle
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Really nice idea, i saw whist's videos about this, and that little experience can create a lot of different ideas.
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