What's Being Kept from Ambush/Invasion? (Updated July 4)

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Chris wrote:

The concept of invading Unique monsters will not be integrated into the core game for now.

:(

Please reconsider this, Invaders are so much fun and straighten out the difficulty curve so good, i was really looking forward to seeing them in softcore leagues as well...

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GreenGuy wrote:

I just want to put this out there for people that whine about cartographer's box nerfs. I run a 350% increased movespeed build. I can run through 100+ iiq corrupted maps killing only the biggest packs and the boss + opening strongboxes and I clear each map in less than a minute or two. Each map I do gives me a couple 6s items, multiple maps, and every 5-10 maps I get another cartographers box containing even more maps. I get like 50 maps per hour. I have 5 stash pages of maps, I vendor all my lower maps for higher maps and none are less than lvl 68.

sounds like your build should be nerfed rather than the cartho boxes
or the unique armors you are using

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Ascendic wrote:

The whole 'guest monster' thing takes away from each area's uniqueness turning it into somewhat of a random mess with nothing to differentiate one area of the game from the next. The whole system should be removed imo.

This is the exact same problem I see in this.

1) Invasion bosses going away is a good thing. I absolutely hate them, and WILL hate them even more if they're rarer than appearing in every zone. This will be EVEN more horrifying to play with.

2) Guest monsters absolutely destroy each area's uniqueness. I definitely enjoy racing atm, because the areas are consistent and unique to each other. Please, GGG !

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Chris wrote:

Invasion League
Note that the following is our current thinking, assuming that the changes we're making soon have the results we want.

The concept of invading Unique monsters will not be integrated into the core game for now. The Invasion bosses that are the most fun will be kept to help bolster our set of Unique monsters that have been statically allocated to each world area (i.e. some world areas that were missing Unique monsters will now get them).

The system of guest base monster types was successful and will be integrated into the core game. It will be toned down substantially so that guest monsters are mostly noticeable in higher difficulties (we ramped it very high for Invasion).

Might I suggest keeping some of these specifically for higher difficulties? For example, adding Blood Morpher to Dread Thicket Cruel then add Blood Stasis in Merciless. Another could be adding Glassmaul or Harbringer with Chatters on Merciless.

One thing I always loved about Titan Quest was that each difficulty added specific bosses, and Invasion Bosses could be a good way to spice things up like that.

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GreenGuy wrote:

I just want to put this out there for people that whine about cartographer's box nerfs. I run a 350% increased movespeed build. I can run through 100+ iiq corrupted maps killing only the biggest packs and the boss + opening strongboxes and I clear each map in less than a minute or two. Each map I do gives me a couple 6s items, multiple maps, and every 5-10 maps I get another cartographers box containing even more maps. I get like 50 maps per hour. I have 5 stash pages of maps, I vendor all my lower maps for higher maps and none are less than lvl 68.

Claims to clear maps in 1-2 minutes. Highest character is 81. Sounds legit.

It's pretty much impossible to be that level if you are chaining higher maps, unless you are dying on all of them. No one cares about cartoboxes on 66 maps or the drop rates of 68 maps. The people who care about carto boxes are the people who get less than 2% xp from a 75 map.

As for your previous post regarding the economy being horrible - you find it horrible because there was not an influx of noobs like at release that you could scam out of alts at 30:1. For the rest of us it is fine.

Sad day for GGG for taking a decision by not getting the bosses at the core game...

Thing is that these should be much more rewarding at first place...personally i didnt like the nerf they did at first place, after all its a HARDCORE game!

While the majority of people don't want this, its bad...i don't get it really..you want this game to be easy?! why?! go play something else and let us having fun at this hard hardcore game ffs!

My thoughts:

I like the idea of having Ambush chests being treated as rollable, but as you mentioned there's a huge problem with Cartographer's chests. If I may recommend an idea; have Carto chests specifically spawn with 1-3 mods maximum when you alch them manually. The idea of using exalts on chests or even chaos orbs is something I'm sure most mappers would be willing to do once they reach end game. Otherwise I think the Carto chests are far too desirable, either remove them or change something about them drastically. You could also drastically increase the spawn rate of blue moded Carto chests.

Invading bosses will be important for later expansions and acts that will be added to the game, it would help you guys out in the long run. Definitely worth keeping so that you can work on actual storyline bosses and improve boss AI.

Adding invading monsters to the core of the game seems like a good idea once players reach mapping areas. Players generally know that these areas are more dangerous than regular areas so I think it will be accepted. Another possibility is adding a very frequent 'Invading' mod when maps are rolled. Maybe even letting maps have invading implicit mods?

I always notice how much the player base seems to drop as the season progresses, usually it has to do with players reaching the end game, but this season Ambush chests really accelerated this process. I would imagine greatly reducing the frequency rate of certain chests is critical for the game.

Looking forward to seeing what's new for next season.

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rrtson wrote:

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Chris wrote:

Ambush League
The ambush chests are great fun and will be integrated into the core game. Their spawn rate will probably be reduced slightly, and we'll have to rebalance how Cartographers ones work in end-game Maps (currently they're incredibly effective at dropping higher maps - this is an experiment we're currently willing to let run its course).

One of the currently most beloved aspects of Ambush is the Cartographer's chest. People enjoy having sustainable maps at high levels. This is what motivates people to stick around and play more endgame content.

In standard, endgame players constantly hit a brick wall of RNG when trying to sustain high-level maps and it's beyond frustrating. Frustrating != challenging. Instead of motivating people to play more, unsustainable high-level maps are making people lose interest in their characters, because they're always being forced to grind low-level maps that are already mind-numbingly easy.

Your introduction of Cartographer's chest in Ambush obviously solved this frustration. Why would you want to rebalance (nerf) their spawn rates when so many people enjoy that mechanic?

I agree! This is part of the reason I have not pursued grinding super high-level characters... not just because I have to grind low-level maps to get in the high lvl 60s, but because I lack currency to modify my sockets and stuff to really have a decent high-level character. I love the Ambush boxes for EVERYTHING they provide, not just the Cartographer ones. Because of the boxes, I got a reduced duration gem, armoror's scraps/blacksmiths whetstones, quality flasks... and even just a bunch of mirrored Quality items for vendoring. I think the boxes do a good job of making mid-level stuff more plentiful in general, allowing players of all levels and characters of all levels to experience aspects of the game at a more consistent rate.

Only thing I understood from this post is that ambush and invasion players are basically beta testers.

I still do not agree with the axing of Light Quivers.