My previous suggestion had closed but I’ve since revisited it. So here, I feel, is a more realized version of that original system with some additional improvements.
Objectives
- significantly reduce the length of time required to find desired prophecies
- make it faster to both view and select prophecies
- allow players to easily participate in the content of their choosing
- allow players the ability to limit their visits to the Observatory
Proposed Solution
All lenses will be baked into the UI rather than being purchasable items at the CoF faction vendor. This removes the clunkiness of having to purchase lenses that you may or may not use one time and then discard or place in your stash for later, taking up valuable stash space.
There would be 5 lens slot categories; Item, Rarity, Content, Event, and Uses. Each lens slot contains several options available to it and more than one lens can be selected in each slot, allowing for multiple Items, Rarities, Content, Events, and Uses to be used when populating the prophecies that appear.
Item
You select each item slot you’d like to be given prophecy options for, providing prophecies for only those selected. For example, the Arctus telescope would provide options for Helmet, Body Armor, Belt, Gloves, and Boots.
Rarity
You select the rarity of the item prophecies that appear. The Arctus (armor), Eos (weapons), and Mesembria (accessories) telescopes all provide Rare, Exalted, Set, and Unique as rarity options. The Dysis (idols and consumables) telescope differs from these telescopes and would require different Rarity options, which I discuss later.
A fifth option, Weaver’s Will, could also appear here. This would further reduce the amount of unwanted options that could populate the prophecies window, if the player didn’t want to see these items. It also makes it easier to find prophecies of this type for those that do.
Content
You select the content you want to play, which would consist of the Campaign, Arena, Dungeon, and Monolith of Fate (MoF). I’ve divided the MoF option into Low Corruption MoF and High Corruption MoF options so that the pool of possible events have a difficulty that matches player expectations. I’ve played with several newer players that had mistakenly purchased high corruption MoF events that they were not equipped to complete so perhaps this could help reduce these instances.
I’ve defined Low Corruption MoF as 0-50 Corruption (being completed in Normal or Empowered Timelines) and High Corruption MoF as 100+ Corruption (being completed in Empowered Timelines) as an easy way to distinguish between the two for new players. I imagine the High Corruption MoF option would unlock when Empowered Timelines are unlocked.
Event
You select the event(s) you wish to partake in, which is dynamically populated based on the content selected. For example, if MoF is selected then “playlists” of events that can appear in the MoF will be available as options here. Possible playlists could include:
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MoF Playlist 1 - Kill Standard Enemies
- Death of Normal/Magic/Rare Enemy
- Death of Siege Golem, Giant Scorpion, Diamond Matron, Immortal Eye, Ice Goliath, Gold Elemental, Profane Flesh, Meruna Ogre, Scarab, Giant Crab, Marsh Beetle Queen, Draal Lava Keeper, Void Prophet, Archyrean, Bumblebear, Bolroth, Tyrant Maw, Desecrated Flesh, etc.
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MoF Playlist 2 - Kill Side Content
- Death of Exiled Mage, Nemesis, Champion, Rift Beast, Tomb Guardian, Woven Firstborn, Fateweaver Atropos
- I’ll admit, this playlist is a bit bare in comparison to the others and may need to include each individual Champion as an event to bolster its ranks, at least until more side content is added.
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MoF Playlist 3 - Kill Bosses
- Death of any boss, Death of each Timeline boss, Death of Goldthread Fateweaver, Death of Shade of Orobyss, Death of Harbinger
In addition, there’d be another option available to create your very own custom event playlist. You’d likely have to choose a minimum number of events to make it viable but it’d allow you to customize the content and events precisely to your liking.
Similar to the loot filter, there would be additional panels allowing you to view, edit, and delete custom event playlists. Prophecy events, in general, would need to be expanded so that each content segment has more options available to it, allowing for more varied event playlists to exist.
Uses
The “Refracting Lens of Rhyme”, which doubles the uses of a prophecy, would be removed and integrated into its own lens slot that allows the player to select options for 1-2, 3-5, 6-8, or repeating uses of a single prophecy. Prophecies with repeated uses will automatically be repurchased upon completion, provided you have the necessary favor, without the need to return to the Observatory.
Favor Costs & Rewards
Favor costs and reward amounts would have to be readjusted appropriately as both of the refracting lenses would be removed, with one (“Refracting Lens of Rhyme”) essentially being built into the system while the other (“Refracting Lens of Wealth”) is less needed considering the increased player agency over the prophecy system as a whole. However, it too could be something that’s unlocked through faction rewards and baked into the system, even if it were at a reduced rate.
Prophecy Selection
When you first open a telescope in the Observatory it displays a rotating animation of lenses, not unlike a clock, with the final lens appearing at the eleventh hour location (yet another nod to the EH of EHG). It should be a fairly quick animation but I imagine a lot of people may grow tired of it over time so I’ve already made a checkbox option to disable it. Each of the 5 lenses zooms in to display different prophecy options that meet your selections. Rerolling prophecies will quickly refresh your prophecy options with a short fade out and fade in, similar to what currently happens. Prophecies will be displayed in full so you no longer have to hover over each prophecy to view its pertinent information, saving you additional time in the process.
For mouse and keyboard users, each of the 5 prophecy options act as buttons in which to select them. The purple button in the middle can be clicked or the default keyboard key pressed (Spacebar in this example) to quickly reroll prophecies. For controller users, each of the 5 prophecy options can be highlighted using the left-thumbstick and the A button pressed to select it, similar to how the radial menu works. If the left-thumbstick is not moved in any direction it could default to the middle Reroll button allowing for a press of the A button to quickly reroll prophecies, or another button, such as the Y button, could be used instead to avoid possible selection errors.
Dysis Telescope
As mentioned earlier, this telescope is unique as the Rarity of its items differ from the others. To solve this I’d separate the telescope into two; one for Idols and the other for Consumables (Affixes, Glyphs, Runes, and Keys). In the Idols telescope I’d have 3 Rarity options:
- Normal (or Basic) - consists of the Eterran, Lagonian, and all class specific idols that currently exist.
- Weaver - consists of all Weaver versions of the Small, Minor, Humble, and Stout idols.
- Unique - consists of all Unique idols.
In the Consumables telescope I’d have 2 Rarity options:
- Normal (or Basic) - consists of everything not stated for the Rare lens below.
- Rare - consists of all Affixes with red text (i.e. Hybrid Health, class specific affixes, etc), Glyph of Despair, Rune of Weaving, and Rune of Creation. If the Rune of Havoc, Rune of Redemption, or similarly rare items ever make their way into the prophecy pool then they’d also be added to this category.
Gameplay Examples
These are some of the more recent examples I’ve personally encountered during this season. The times stated are only for myself and I’m sure others will take less or more time to perform these same actions, largely due to the RNG nature of the current system.
Example 1:
I only want to get Small Weaver Idol prophecies within the MoF. Currently this task takes ~28 minutes to perform when using the Refracting Lens of Wealth, Refracting Lens of Rhyme, and Focusing Lens of Time to purchase 48 prophecies for a total favor cost of ~740,000. I’m not picky in my selections and choose all 12,800 favor cost prophecies available to me, which requires a total of ~562 rerolls. I could choose lenses that reduce these values but that’d also reduce the rewards and increase my overall number of visits to the Observatory.
I’ve completed hundreds of these prophecies now in an effort bolster my collection of Health Regen or Health + Health Regen/Reflect idols for my build. It has been surprisingly hard to find high quality versions of these idols but my lack of overall success has made me quite committed to it.
I select Small Idols, Weaver rarity, both Low & High Corruption MoF (so any corruption in the MoF), add custom event playlist, and 6-8 and Repeating uses (as I know I’ll be doing a lot of these prophecies and hopefully I’ll have enough sustained Favor gain to support several repeating prophecies).
I create a custom event playlist that allows me to complete each prophecy within the Ending the Storm Timeline as I’m trying to get a good roll of the Grand Rhythm of the Tide blessing, which grants both increased and flat health regen, and considering how rare such a blessing is I know I’ll be at it for a while.
An example of possible prophecy results based on the lens selections made. Barring the cost of these prophecies, I’d likely never have to reroll the prophecies in this example.
Example 2:
I only want to get generic Rune prophecies within the MoF, with these prophecies being able to be completed within Tombs and Cemeteries in order to maximize the number of Runes of Havoc and Redemption I receive. Currently this task takes ~40 minutes to perform when using the Refracting Lens of Wealth, Obscuring Lens of Time, and Focusing Lens of Time to purchase 48 prophecies for a total favor cost of ~220,000. I’m very picky with my selections, choosing all 1,400 favor cost prophecies that can be completed within Tombs and Cemeteries (death of any boss, Exiled Mage, Nemesis, and Champion), which requires a total of ~685 rerolls.
The large pool of available prophecies at the Dysis telescope mixed with the surprising rarity of the generic Runes prophecy and my narrow choice availability make this one of the more lengthy prophecy selections possible, but the return of 50-100 Runes of Havoc and nearly double that in Runes of Redemption make it worth doing when the need arises. If you wish to pursue this yourself make sure to have several Tomb/Cemetery echoes available and select both the “Graveyard Prisons” and “Warden of the Dead” Weaver tree nodes beforehand so as to guarantee an Exiled Mage and Nemesis within these echoes.
If you substitute the Refracting Lens of Wealth for the Focusing Lens of Runes it’ll reduce the time from ~40 to ~30 minutes but also halve the rewards and thus the potential for Runes of Havoc and Redemption. This results in a total favor cost of ~115,000 and requires ~364 rerolls.
I select Runes, Normal rarity, both Low & High Corruption MoF (so any corruption in the MoF), my Playlist 2 example of “Kill Side Content” (as it generally meets my needs for this), and Repeating uses (as I’d likely be able to sustain the favor costs). Not every reroll would produce Runes as an option but considering the vastly reduced pool of available prophecies I’d definitely be rerolling significantly less than the ~685 or ~364 times found in the current system and be able to identify them amongst the other prophecy options far quicker.
Example 3:
I only want to get Unique Shield prophecies within the MoF. Currently this task takes ~12 minutes to perform when using the Refracting Lens of Wealth, Focusing Lens of Shields, and Focusing Lens of Time to purchase 48 prophecies for a total favor cost of ~280,000. I try to spread out the completion of these prophecies as I don’t want too many prophecies to complete in any given echo considering how much inventory space each shield takes up. I select all 5,050 favor cost prophecies that meet this goal, which requires a total of ~182 rerolls.
Considering these were only single use prophecies I was surprised to get two shields with the necessary rolls and 3 Legendary Potential (LP) that I wanted, which I then got lucky transferring all three Exalted affixes (Tier 7 and 2x Tier 6) onto in the Eternity Cache. Granted the item has a low Legendary Potential Level and thus a higher chance of LP, but I also used every gameplay mechanic available to me to improve my odds of success. I rerolled all 0LP, 1LP, and 2LP versions of the shield to get the rolls I wanted in the Gauntlet of Strife Woven echo, tried to get higher LP in the Farsight Turtle Woven echo, and then did a carousel of Nemesis and more Farsight Turtle Woven echoes until I finally achieved my goal of at least two 3LP versions of the shield so I could have two chances of success when combining it with my duplicated Exalted shield in the Eternity Cache.
I select Shields, Unique rarity, both Low & High Corruption MoF (so any corruption in the MoF), all MoF event playlists (in an effort to spread out prophecy completions), and 3-5 and Repeating uses (as I assumed it could take a while to get the item with the rolls and LP I wanted).
Wrap-up
While it was unfortunate I succeeded so quickly in my final example with the current system, I imagine you could substitute it with one of your own. Perhaps you didn’t succeed for a long time and found yourself returning to the Observatory ad nauseam to purchase prophecies in an effort to obtain your item. In such an example I’d hope my solution could provide you with less time spent in the Observatory clicking menus and more time killing monsters, which has been the overall goal of this rework. I want players spending more time doing the content and activities that they enjoy and less time stuck in the monotony of menu selections.
I spent way more time on these images then I care to admit. 
I apologize about getting a bit too much into the weeds on the details but my enthusiasm generally gets the better of me. I feel like I’ve hit many, if not all, of the pain points I currently have with the prophecy system but I’m always looking to improve the idea so I look forward to your feedback.
Oh ya, and while I didn’t include it here I’d still love to see my Prophecy Sort & Search Panel make it into the game. It’s certainly the lowest hanging fruit of everything I’ve suggested, or at least I’d imagine it is considering I modeled it after other menus in the game.