About Echo RNG and why i don't like it

[highq]

hi fellow warriors,

first, i’d like to vent about bad RNG that happened yesterday (and happened before), but it was yesteday that filled my cup so i’d like to vent a bit and maybe suggest a change.

i was playing The Last Ruin timeline, which is my last non-empowered one,
first, it took me 14 (yes, 14) echos to spawn a first quest.
i think it starts from 30% at 4th, and after 7th it’s 50% i think
guess what summed probablity for 1/3+1/3+2/5+2/5+1/2+1/2+1/2+1/2+1/2 to not get it spawned is? like bonkers low.

lucky i got second quest spawned right after it. Yup, quest on 14th and quest on 15th. Has anyone had two quests in a row?

Then BANG. strech of emptiness and utter RNG unluck. I got my final quest at 45. Forty Five echoes. Yes it starts low (i think minimum is 25 or so) with 10%, but last ~5 were also 50% chance. This is like throwing a coin and getting same result over and over and over again.

I had no deaths, no bailouts, no crashes. zero reduced progression. All continous.

Now, bad RNG is bad RNG. this happens. This is not the largest issue.

Stacking modifiers IS. I had full list of modifiers by that time. screen was literally filled. monsters hp: easily over double. damage? same ballpark. chill/dodge/slow? check. Enrage or crit avoidance? that too. And worse, the more echoes you go, the harder are the rolls. None of that 25% more HP. no-no-no. Lets make it +125% monster void damage, on a VOID mapset. that type of modifiers.

The issue is “next 5/6/7 echoes”. They stack more than they are aged/cleared. If RNG is on your side and you get away with lower amount of echoes, progress is considerably easier. But once RNG is not there or maybe you crash or even a death, it will bite and can bide hard.

Changes i suggest:
if you die/crash: you do get current progress removed (thats fine), but modifiers that was activated during these lost progress echoes, should go too. Lost progress is already a penalty. a Time penalty. I do crash time to time, on a certain Lakeside Trail echo. it’s a sound related bug. Now i cannot select that map, becase of high chance of crashing.

Make chance to spawn Quest Echo continously increasing, upto guarranteed. Like, minimum for first is 4 echoes. So lets start 33%->40%->50%->65%->80%->100%. So that at least by 10th echo you’re guarranteed a quest.
Same with second and last quest. So while there is minimum amount of echoes required, there is also a maximum, where it’s guarranteed.

Or alltogether another suggestion: make modifiers optional with exp/rarity penalty. For example: allow to select no modifier for reduced % for loot/exp or select modifier 1 or 2 for bonus rarity/experience. Then at least player has an option to have a bit of breathing room incase RNG hits hard.

[Heavy]

We are about to receive a major MoF patch with 0.8.2, so I would wait until that dropped before giving suggestions.

Only thing I don’t like is:

@highq

Or alltogether another suggestion: make modifiers optional with exp/rarity penalty. For example: allow to select no modifier for reduced % for loot/exp or select modifier 1 or 2 for bonus rarity/experience. Then at least player has an option to have a bit of breathing room incase RNG hits hard.

It’s necessary to have a difficulty increase in MoF the deeper you go into the time line.
Otherwise you could brainlessly farm blessings or unique with no difficulty.

[Llama8]

The RNG of when a quest echo pops can definitely suck.

[Shtrak]

@highq

Has anyone had two quests in a row?

Yes, two or three times, I don’t remember.

@highq

if you die/crash: you do get current progress removed (thats fine), but modifiers that was activated during these lost progress echoes, should go too.

I do agree with that.

@highq

Make chance to spawn Quest Echo continously increasing, upto guarranteed.

I also agree with that, this threshold that depend on the level of the timeline.

@Heavy

It’s necessary to have a difficulty increase in MoF the deeper you go into the time line.
Otherwise you could brainlessly farm blessings or unique with no difficulty.

Fully agreed.

[d3viant]

I hope they fix it in next patch, it’s horrible currently. Either WAY too easy starting and FAR too difficult at bosses, with no use control other than RESET (or (in) voluntary deaths)

[Llama8]

@d3viant

I hope they fix it in next patch, it’s horrible currently.

Since it’s not broken there’s no need to fix it. What you hope for is that the change it.

Either WAY too easy starting and FAR too difficult at bosses, with no use control other than RESET (or (in) voluntary deaths)

Not necessarily, you aren’t required to do the quest echoes as soon as they are available which gives you some control over what mods will affect the encounter. I would agree that a “turns remaining” on each mod would be a significant QoL to know how many turns that void enemies do xxx increased damage mod has to run before you face Rahyeh.

[highq]

While you could control a little bit about the modifiers for boss battle, in latter stages of monoliths, modifiers are not for just one or two echoes, but 5-6-7, meaning they’ll just stack and stack, upto pretty much indefinitely harder.

and here is the RNG issue. if you manage to spawn quest (boss fight mostly, these are much harder than regular quests and first quests do appear much earlier anyway) relatively early on, you get much easier modifiers, as they have not stacked as high yet. But if you manage to have bad RNG and go past 40 echoes (like my 45 echo deep adventure), there is pretty much no way to control anything anymore. You’ll get them all.

what is also interesting or strange, there seems to be smaller pool of modifiers for last three (fire/winter/last ruin) timelines, as these for some reason do not offer “Rare enemies…” modifiers. why, i cannot fathom…
I specifically look for these modifiers (as these are easier for me), but none of the time, on all these last 3 timelines, Rare enemies modifiers were not offered (considering around 100 echoes that was needed for me to finish these three).

[Llama8]

@highq

what is also interesting or strange, there seems to be smaller pool of modifiers for last three (fire/winter/last ruin) timelines, as these for some reason do not offer “Rare enemies…” modifiers. why, i cannot fathom…

To make the boss fight harder as the quest echo bosses don’t count as “rare enemies”.

[highq]

honestly, imo, if there’s one thing thats not really required, is increased boss battle difficulty. these are the hardest content in the game by a wide margin. it’s those clean up forges or spires that need difficulty, not bosses.

take emperor dragon for example. outside of cookie cutter S-tier builds, it is a major struggle.

[Llama8]

@highq

take emperor dragon for example. outside of cookie cutter S-tier builds, it is a major struggle.

It’s not that bad. It is a very mechanical fight with a few requirements (don’t get hit by any of the 3 big telegraphed AoEs), but you should be able to do it with a reasonable build after you learn the fight. There’s absolutely no shame in watching videos to learn it. If you want to share your build (via the build planner) in a different thread we can help.

There are also certain modifiers that are very bad to take.

[highq]

and here comes the kicker: after you learn the fight.
each time you die, you’ll lose progress of 3-4 rifts, but the modifier of just one. And then you get additional modfiers (that are already harder than at the beginning of the timeline), and no guarrantee to spawn after lost rifts anyway.

i switched to cookie cutter build (Werigan), because my own build (that was honestly stomping on enemies with regular monolith echoes) could just not do it (regular swipe druid). After the switch, everything is allright. But that’s an S-tier build and i got pretty much gg gears for it, so it gotta perform too.

i think i had done that fight 5-6 times, but never got close before the switch. Had to reset 3 times (i think). Not that large AOE around, that buidls up. i could avoid those, but being in melee, it’s not a good recepie for the dragon fight.

if anything, i’d increase diffculty of regular echoes. currently it’s feels just a drag, each time hoping for faster quest spawn and not “collecting” bad modifiers.

[McFluffin]

@highq

take emperor dragon for example. outside of cookie cutter S-tier builds, it is a major struggle.

Nah, like Llama said, once you really know the mechanics of that fight, you can do it with any build. There are a few modifiers to avoid though, so if you had one (or several) of those it could have made the fight much worse.

@highq

switched to cookie cutter build (Werigan), because my own build (that was honestly stomping on enemies with regular monolith echoes) could just not do it (regular swipe druid).

Swipe has one of the harder playstyles currently. Super close range without a lot of defenses, so you’re gonna get hit a lot, and hard, which means you’re also gonna get stunned a lot. It’s a fun skill but the imbalance between melee and ranged right now really shows on that particular skill. Even so, it can definitely do all of the content with decent gear and knowledge of the boss fights.

I agree with you that the Mono system brings a level of tedium when it comes to getting quest echoes to spawn, but the boss fights don’t need to be nerfed. They’re already pretty easy for vets.

[nerdherdv02]

@highq

first, it took me 14 (yes, 14) echos to spawn a first quest.

i think this is actually good rng, those quests are echoes where you dont need to add new modifiers making the echoes after them easier.

@highq

So lets start 33%->40%->50%->65%->80%->100%. So that at least by 10th echo you’re guarranteed a quest.

I haven’t farmed deep echoes but i suspect this proposal would mess with that, giving fewer options to those that want to continue pushing the IIR

[Llama8]

It was suggested a while ago that quest echoes would spawn as a 3rd option thereby allowing people who want to push as far as they go still have 2 options to choose from.

[d3viant]

Glad they (again) listened to US on topic of player agency vs. MONO mods (also); there’s a lot of potential in 82, that’s for sure!! Not hving to suck it up and full reset on shitty mods is pretty decent progress toward MORE player agency on difficulty.

[Llama8]

Yeah, it feels a lot better. I think you will enjoy it more when you actually get to play it.