14 DAY TRIAL // The development team at Blizzard continues to reveal the various features that Diablo 3 will get from the 2.1.0 patch by talking about the Greater Rifts mechanics and the way they've been defined to show off hero progression and to allow access to some interesting treasure.
The official announcement says that the Greater Rifts are a special case of the Nephalem Rifts and can be accessed once a gamer gets a Keystone of Trials through battle.
The company states, “Visit a Nephalem Obelisk in any town hub, right-click on the monument, and place your keystone into the appropriate slot near the top of the window. Click ‘Accept’ and your trial will begin. Be sure to prepare your skills and gear ahead of time, because once inside the Realm of Trials, you cannot change either until the trial is over.”
Then the player character will be tested through a number of enemy waves in order to determine the difficulty of the Greater Rift content that will be then launched, and will obtain a special Greater Rift Keystone.
Blizzard adds, “The goal in Greater Rifts is to progress through each level and kill the Rift Guardian as quickly as possible. If you slaughter a Greater Rift Guardian before time expires, you'll be eligible for a higher level Greater Rift Keystone. If you perform exceptionally well and have a lot of time to spare, you'll be able to skip multiple Greater Rift levels and can receive a keystone of a much higher rank!”
Players will not encounter much loot as they actually explore the rift because the developers want them to actually fight as many enemies as possible, but the Rift Guardian has a bigger amount of loot ready to drop than before.
At the same time, they also get access to a new type of Legendary Gems which can be updated over time and will offer enhanced powers and upgrades when they are socketed into weapons.
In addition to superior loot, gamers will also be drawn to the Greater Rifts by the fact that special leaderboards will track their progress and will allow them to compare their performance with that of friends and rivals.
The 2.1.0 patch for Diablo 3 will also introduce the new Vault and a Season mode, which is also designed to allow players to get access to gameplay mechanics that are different from those of the core single-player.
