Nephalem Rifts
Nephalem Rifts (formerly known as "Loot Runs") are special dungeons accessed via the Nephalem Altar in town. Rifts require five Rift Keystones to open, are only present in Adventure Mode (not Campaign Mode), and are found only in Reaper of Souls, not Diablo 3. (Blizzard initially planned to include them in D3, but changed that plan during RoS' development.)
Nephalem Rifts are highly-randomized content, and are intended to be the most rewarding[1][2][3] (in terms of item gains) style of play in Reaper of Souls/. Rifts are mini-dungeons with from 1-10 levels. They are completely random in tilesets and monsters, and can offer combinations of levels and monsters that will never be seen elsewhere in the game.
Blizzard plans to further expand the concept of Nephalem Rifts with Tiered Rifts, coming in Reaper of Souls' first major content patch,[4] due in Summer 2014.
Contents
Rifts Rules and Procedures
Rifts are meant to be a quick, intense game mode with variety and unpredictability keeping the content fresh. Rifts generally take 10-20 minutes to clear, depending on the number of players and their strength relative to the difficulty level, and there are Achievements for completing in less than 10, 5, and 2 minutes.
An unlimited number of Rifts can be run in the same game, providing players have enough Rift Keystones to keep opening up a new Rift after completing the previous one. During the Reaper of Souls beta it was possible to abandon a Rift and open a new one, but that option is gone in the live game and a new Rift can only be opened once the Rift Guardian has been slain. Early in RoS that required just one character in the game to click on Orek, but after player complaints about Rift closing before all the loot could be bethered, Blizzard added a thirty-second timer.
That delay is not enough for some players and there are many requests[5] for longer timer, or for every player in the game having the option to veto the Rift ending. The issue is complicated by the substantial EXP/Gold reward for completing a Rift, which players can not retrieve until they finish the Rift and tell Orek to shut it down.
Opening and Closing Rifts
Five Rift Keystones are required to open a Rift. These are granted for completing bounties and are also found in bounty bags (Horadric Caches). Running Bounties and/or Rifts works better in groups, since each Bounty and Bounty Bag rewards all characters who take part with the Rift Keystone(s), and only one player needs spend 5 Rift Keystones to open a Rift, which all players in the game can enter. Thus four players working together to clear an Act of Bounties will get enough Rift Keystones for four Rifts, while a solo player will only get enough for one.
Clicking the Altar starts a five second loading bar (added in Patch 2.0.4), and then the Altar opens up to reveal a yellow portal that can be entered by all players in the game. In a Rift players must kill ~500 monsters to complete the progress bar to 100%. At that point a Rift Guardian will spawn nearby, and when defeated will drop a huge fountain of items, gems, materials, and a large stack of Blood Shards (20+ shards, increasing by difficulty level).
Once the Guardian is killed the Rift can be closed or ended by speaking to the NPC Orek who stands near the Nephalem Altar in town. When any player clicks on him after the Guardian is dead, Orek will give all players in the game a substantial bonus to Exp and gold, and start a 30 second countdown to ending that Rift.
Nephalem Rifts Announced
When first announced, this feature was called a "Loot Run," indicating Blizzard's design goal of an intensive gamemode with high rewards potential. This feature was first revealed in Blizzard's official Reaper of Souls FAQ, in a section about new game modes:[6]
Shortly after that announcement the developers confirmed that Loot Runs would be patched into Diablo 3 as well as appearing in Reaper of Souls:[7]
This changed during development when Loot Runs became Nephalem Rifts, and grew much more involved/complicated in structure, and wedded tightly to the whole Adventure Mode gameplay option.
Several screenshots showing off what appeared to be Nephalem Rifts were included in the Gamescom 2013 press kit. These showed dungeon tile sets known from Acts 1, 2, and 3, but all have monster types that are never found in those areas in D3C, and that sort of randomized variety is what Nephalem Rifts are said to feature.[8]
Act One dungeons with Fallen Angel enemies.
Act Two ZK's dungeons with new Act 5 skeletons.
Act Three dungeon with new Act 5 skeleton types.
Rifts debuted publicly in the Blizzcon 2013 gameplay demo, with the entire Adventure Mode game system available, including Bounties and Rifts.
Datamined Information
Code strings in early Reaper of Souls datamined information lists some information about how to enable Loot Runs and the content that will be found on them. The information is from an early version of the game and will likely see modifications by the final product.[9]
From the information in the RoS datamining, Loot Runs are an end game feature, enabled only after a player finishes Act 5 on Inferno difficulty. (Or possibly enabled for any difficulty once Act 5 is beaten on that difficulty.) There are multiple (at least 10) different Loot Run dungeons, all of which are randomized each time. Players earn the right to enter them by finding Loot Run Keys and taking them to Zoltan Kulle, who returns as an NPC in Reaper of Souls.
Zoltan Kulle opens the portals -- only one at a time may be active -- and players pass through them to conduct Loot Runs.
The data strings on Loot Runs are incomplete, but they give indications of the content.
- Kill enemies to fill this bar. When it is full, a portal will open to the Loot Run guardian.
LootRunBarComplete - You have opened a portal to the Loot Run guardian! Enter the portal and defeat it!
- LootRunBarComplete_title - Loot Run Boss Portal
LootRunComplete - You finished your first Loot Run!
- When you find additional Portal Keystones, take them to Zoltun Kulle to open new Loot Runs.
LootRunItemPickedUp - You have found a Portal Keystone!
- Take it to Zoltun Kulle to open a Loot Run.
MenuLabel - No Loot Runs
- Line0 - Finish what you're doing now, then I'll open another portal for you.
MenuLabel - Loot Run
- Line0 - Be patient. I cannot open another portal for you until the raid guardian is defeated and everyone has returned.
Loot Runs sound much like the Infernal Machine portals, in that only one can be active at at time and another one can not be opened until the previous one has been defeated.
