Reaper of Souls: Hands-on with Adventure Mode

by Whitney "Neinball" Fairchild - 10 years ago     show comments

If you ask people what their favorite thing about about the RoS demo at Blizzcon was there was one universal answer.  Adventure Mode.

One of the complaints levied against leveling up new toons in Diablo III is having to go through all the cut-scenes, speeches, events and other dialogue of the story three times before finally getting to Inferno for end game content  and, of course, having to play through the story a fourth time.  Blizzard has answered the cries of the community and far exceeded many expectations, including my own.  Adventure Mode really feels like a return to some of the glory of Diablo II and it is the future of Diablo III.

Adventure Time!

Adventure Mode is essentially an open world mode for Diablo III and will feature the new Bounties and Nephalem Rifts systems which I’ll touch on later in the article.  You’re no longer tied to just a single Act, now all waypoints, all zones and all bosses are open for you to go and explore.  During my chat with lead producer Alex Mayberry he explained that Adventure Mode currently unlocks once you’ve completed the story campaign for the first time, but even this early into production they feel that maybe even that requirement is too much and they may unlock it even earlier.  Some other interviews with devs floating around in the post Blizzcon buzz have mentioned Adventure Mode unlocking at lvl 25 regardless of campaign completion.

Want to farm mobs in Keeps 2 and then hop into the Fields of Misery?  You can.  Want to just kill all the bosses?  You can do that too.  It’s just like Diablo II where you can go to any part of the game and to take this free reign even further you can actually use your town portal to go to any waypoint in the game without having to go to town first.  The new map system shows everything in the game and simply selecting an area will begin your TP to that waypoint.  Adventure Mode will also adjust the monster levels to always keep pace with your character, so they will continually be leveling up with as you romp around Sanctuary.  This open world aspect is just the beginning of the awesomeness though.

Bounty Hunters?

Adventure Mode also introduces a number of other new features to the game to help support the devs’ new mantra of “Endgame for Everyone.”  Early in the development of Adventure Mode the devs found that there was just too much to do, too many zones to explore and too many mobs to kill.  Where do you start?  Where do you end?  What do you do in between?  The solution they came up with was Bounties.

Bounties are a random selection of twenty five mobs or events spread throughout all five acts that give players a goal to aim for with every new Adventure Mode game you start up.  There will be five bounties in each act and they are normally going to be the unique purple mobs you can occasionally find throughout the game now.  This should help players that are looking to finish up their ‘Unique Collection’ achievement.  Some other objectives thrown around as Bounties will be random events such the Necromancer side quests in Act  II or the Nephalem Monument in the Festering Woods.  I also came across some bounties that required you clear an entire level of certain dungeons, much like the old Den of Evil quest in Diablo II.  This all sounds great right?  But what are the rewards?!

Every bounty completed will award the player a bit of experience and gold and there will be bonuses for completing all the bounties in an act.  As I mentioned earlier, every act will have it’s own set of five bounties and upon completing them you can go back to town and Tyrael will reward you for your actions.  In addition to increased experience and gold rewards you can also get some crafting mats and occasionally items as well.  Throughout all of my play throughs I was only rewarded one item but it was a legendary with stats customized to my character.  The biggest reward for completing Bounties however are the Rift Keystones which will unlock the other new feature of Adventure Mode, Nephalem Rifts.

Into the Rift

Nephalem Rifts have to be the biggest draw of Adventure Mode and it’s one topic the devs just couldn’t stop talking about.  The Rifts are going to be one to ten levels of random monsters, random environments, random weather, lighting, shrines, bosses, affixes!  Random everything!  It’s a literal overload of unpredictability.  Every new level will throw something different at you.  The first level could have you facing Mallet Lords and Khazra in the middle of Wortham while the next one pits you against Fallen, Ghosts and Cultists in the halls of the Silver Spire.  As you fight your way through the levels you’ll be working towards a completion counter that is tracking the number of monsters you kill.  When you reach 100% the game will spawn a boss mob with a very wide range of possible, and sometimes, unique affixes.  These bosses will spawn randomly in the level you’re on and will fight you along side the monsters you haven’t cleared yet.  To give you an idea of the type of challenges you’ll face I came across a boss with the unique property that dropped bombs of frost and fire damage on my character whenever I was in line of the sight.  This constant stream damage forced me to find cover and fight tactically, it was a great preview of some of the combat design changes the dev team has planned and I’ll talk more about those changes in later articles.

We’ve also been given some hints that there will be easter eggs hidden in the Rifts with some screen shots depicting a level full of dozens of treasure goblins.  I also personally got to experience another easter egg not many got to see while at Blizzcon, the return of the Hell Bovine.  It was amazing to see the old fan favorites back.  Not to be without a leader the Cow King was replaced by the Cow Princess, Heir to the Throne.  The only thing that would have made the experience better was if they had made a new tile set to replicate the Moo Moo Farm, but I can forgive the devs of this since it’s still early in development and they still have time to make it!

With the Rifts we’re seeing the return of cows in D3 (Shown is D2 as we have no footage of the D3 version seen at BlizzCon)

Throwbacks to Diablo II aside, the Rifts were a lot of fun and extremely challenging at times.  Some combinations of enemies and maps just make for a very difficult grind.  Imagine being chased through Wortham by a pack of fast Mallet Lords, spoilers there isn’t a lot of room to run away.  You can also get horror packs of Chargers alongside Armaddons with Wasps thrown into the mix.  To help you power through these combinations will be a new series of shrines to empower you and frankly break the game.  The new shrines are as overpowered as the monsters being thrown at you and include the following effects:

• Invincibility
• Speed Buff
• 400% Increased Damage
• All Cooldowns Reduced to Zero for the Duration
• A Damage Aura That One Shots Most Monsters

All of these shrines have a thirty second duration and you normally will only find a single shrine spawn per level, so when you come across them it might be best to hold off on using it just in case you may need it later.

Final Thoughts

Everything about Adventure Mode just blows Story Mode out of the water.  You get to play in any way you choose to, the rewards are incredibly compelling and most of all it just feels right.  This mode just makes the game feel a lot more like Diablo II and now I don’t want Diablo III to become Diablo 2.5 but this is one aspect where I feel the predecessor did it better then Diablo III, but not anymore.  Adventure Mode’s Bounties and Rifts offer a whole new experience that will blow away the aimless grinding or singular boss runs of the past.

As a Hardcore player the Rifts are a thrilling mystery where death could be lurking around every corner and that brings a certain level of excitement that I don’t think Normal players will ever really get to experience and it yet again reminds me of an aspect of Diablo II.  There were just some games where you’d get horrible mob combos in certain areas, like Gloams in the WSK or Viper Mages in the Halls of Vaught that just made it not worth doing and you’d have to leave game and try again.  It’s not that I enjoy death nor do I like it when games “cheat” but I do enjoy challenges and it’s been a rather long time since I’ve had one that’s made me stop and re-assess just how much do I really need to beat this obstacle vs accepting defeat and retreating to come again with a different strategy or gamble on a different set of variables.

I can’t wait until Beta comes along and we can try out multiplayer Adventure Mode with our own characters and with the advantages of Elective Mode for skill selections.

Did you watch the Diablo panels at home or get a chance to try out adventure mode for yourself?  I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences in the comments below!