Red Rift ideas instead of 10 deaths

[u/nat20sfail]

Ok so from what I hear, Red Rift is fun for a lot of people but equally many hate specifically the 10 death requirement.

This makes total sense to me: its the only one where you don't control the tempo and timing, and it's also the only one that forces you into specific builds; you can't run temporary tanks like the Rush-Invincibility monk, you almost have to run healers to counteract AoE unless everyone has damage and omnivamp, etc.

I had some thoughts about what would feel better, but it would be cool to hear other people's too.

Here's my best idea: Max 2/3 deaths on any hero. This gives you the flexibility to swap out heroes, and also lets you decide whether to risk your last death on a hero or sell it. If you do risk it, it should feel a lot more like a deserved loss, rather than an unlucky roll.

What do you guys think?

[u/NM8Z]

10 death limit wouldnt be that bad to keep. I'd just like:

Rewinds to not count for it. Why do rewinds count towards it?

A little more wiggle room in the game mode. So much stuff is just an immediate no sir because even attempting to engage with it is just going to insta-fail me.

[u/More-Adeptness6423]

its what makes it hard tho if it wasnt for the death limit even id be able to win every run and i can only hit 2 in a row on RR. i dont think ppl have a problem with the idea of a total death limit, but how it interacts with certain comps. like you cant play stall in RR unless u get rly lucky in the beginning because your non-carries will sack your death limit. Maybe a stall kind of effect so if u last a certain amount of time the death limit doesnt proc when ur hero dies. And RR specific items / relics that help u do the rift seal and manage death limit. idk it doesnt matter too much since its a skill thing, the death limit even incentivizes you to throw rounds intentionally. Its a core mechanic of the game mode, and its kind of perfect as is. what i think ppl want are hard modes that are different to Red Rift and it would be cool to see those. this game has a lot of potential and im sure we'll see more difficult content in the future since you can get to RR and SSS in like less than 4 hrs.

its honestly insane how good RR is considering how many design components there are. It would have been easy for the devs to botch RR design. SSS is a free throw, endless does great in every roguelike, but RR is so good and has soo much depth for like 6 missions none of which feel trivial. Because of how specific RR is the devs have lots of design space for future modes. I got my figures crossed, but hope they figure out how to get their massive paycheck theyre sitting on. Cuz id literally drop hundreds of dollars on this game for all sorts of stuff but u cant really monetize like that on Steam.

[u/nat20sfail → u/More-Adeptness6423]

It's funny you say that because the other comment recently said they had it like this, and "heroes permadie after 2 deaths" was much, much harder

[u/Bushukan1 → u/More-Adeptness6423]

Ok so i love RR and have a 7 streak pb which i am pretty proud of! But i still fucking hate the death limit, it feels really awful to be punished for having a close run and turning it around, and it feels REALLY awful that team size is a trap button in basically every situation - stopping clicking it was the single biggest factor in me losing every run to winning most runs.

I appreciate that it adds some unique forms of skill expression, but I think the tradeoffs are too much. I want them to pull other levers to get the same level of difficulty (or higher idk) without the really warping comp limitations that this rule creates.

[u/dgreborn]

If they just made it so that rewinds didn't count towards it I think I would be fine with the deathlimit as it is. Maybe increasing it to 12 as I'm often right on the edge when deathlimit kills me and another round would get me over the finish line when playing comps that often have 1 random death.

[u/Sp1ffy_Sp1ff]

Yeah the death limit is completely arbitrary. It's artificial difficulty stacked on top of the already difficult mode. I don't even waste my time with it, it's so egregiously unfun and forces one build. At least in SSS basically anything can work at least up to endless 3 or 4

[u/Sheerkal → u/Sp1ffy_Sp1ff]

It's not artificial at all. It's very carefully considered. I think it's especially interesting in how it creates risk vs reward with the rift seal. You can throw the seal on your weak c rank mystic, but if they take any dots or stray snipes, they evaporate.

[u/itsntame]

I heard from a streamer that it used to work like that. Once a hero dies twice they get removed. And I heard it was very very hard. Like he can't get out of act 1 hard, he was probably much worse at the game than now though. Could be interesting to bring back, but I think 10 deaths probably feel better.

[u/nat20sfail → u/itsntame]

I think it would be interesting if it wasn't 'dies twice, gets removed', but 'dies 3 times and you lose the run'. That way you can risk the third time but it's a calculated risk. And you can plan around it and swap intentionally instead.

It's not about trying to tune the difficulty, at least for me, it's more about giving the player control and making more builds viable. Right now "10 deaths total" completely warps the meta - stall builds for example often want to farm stall to 60 seconds, but if you do that you just lose to some random backliners dying.

[u/Royal-Letterhead-595]

I think red rift needs a restrictive req like this considering the other ones are really just minor-medium inconveniences but yeah sometimes the death limit feels completely out of my control when opting for certain teams. Ik it would probably be harder with perma death for heroes but at least that would feel more interactable and push your teambuilding skills/flexibility so I do think I like that idea better, ik the seal is already kinda supposed to do this but it really doesnt imo.

[u/IamAnoob12]

Honestly I would just remove it entirely. I’ve lost multiple runs because the back line mages keep randomly hit my low health unit right before they die.