Dynamically empowered monolith system

[Revelasti]

The current end game system is a hot topic, lots of people don’t like the flow towards empowered monoliths. There is an issue with how to balance this flow so that people who want to jump to monoliths quickly can but also not make it feel like a snooze from people that complete the campaign first. The static system we have in place just doesn’t work for making everyone happy, it has to be more dynamic.

To start we need to look at what it’s like when you first start monoliths. The level of your first monolith right now is 58, which is already an upgrade after chapter 9 was added. If we keep upping this level with new chapters we run into a problem with players that want to skip half the campaign. The idea I have here is similar to the Delve system in Path of Exile that adjusts the start based on your level, up to a cap. This allows you to keep a lower starting point for the first monolith for people that skip half the campaign, but adjusts the intro challenge upwards to match players who continue the campaign.

The second issue then is the progress towards empowered. I don’t believe there’s any good reason for the monoliths to be so linear, I say get rid of all the gated access between them. Getting rid of these gates makes the changes to flow much easier, because now we can just adjust the whole monolith setup together. Have all the monoliths be the same level. Give players the freedom to choose which monolith they want to tackle first, and next, and so on. Let monolith bosses be the means of upgrading the entire system. Kill a boss, raise all monoliths 10 levels(arbitrary for now). You could even have this upgrade more dynamic by having it adjusted by how many mods affect the last quest, for bonus upgrades.

The last part is getting to empowered. Since we eliminate the need for the linear progression, we need a new threshold. Ultimately empowered doesn’t actually mean anything any more at this point though. You simply upgrade your monoliths to level 100, 100 corruption. This new system would cut the number of monoliths necessary to get to “empowered”, but have a better flow without making it feel like a shortcut.

[Orcdoc]

To be honest, I like the 58 Monolith for my new chars. For some builds it allows to power level once you reach End of Time.

On the second point, I hope the devs come up with a good solution to easier unlock empowered for any char beyond the first one. Right now it feels like an unnecessary grind towards endgame. Once you have some items accumulated, any new char will power through the normal Monolith content and all you wish for is finally see how it performs in empowered Monos.

On the same note, it would also be great to see discovered Blessing being saved and swapable - preferably even Accountwide per game mode. This follows the same philosophy of the shared stash for items: the presence of the stash does not reduce the incentive to continue hunting for uniques you already have but rather it give you the option to chose and switch your playsytle (character) and therefore reduce boredom/burnout in your pursuit of better rolls.