Yea, it could be more than just exp since this game uses more than just exp to progress. While having a corruption gain bonus would be nice, I think what would really be needed to speed up the progression to the end game would be a stability/instability gain bonus. That way you could complete timelines faster to open up the Emp Mono faster.
There are thousands of ways to make the catchup easier/faster and so less repetitive and boring. It’s like any other reputation system in any other game and so there are so many examples of how to do it.
In my eyes the problem is not how to implement a mechanic but wether EHG is willing to do it. Are they fine with the current grind? Are they aware actively working on a solution? It depends on their philosophy.
In the current state of the game it feels a bit like they had to stretch the content they have to not be able to rush through. There needs to be content for the player to go through in order to max the character level. The easiest way is to generate infinite scaling content. And to repeat content in higher difficulty.
While the infinite scaling content can be a lifetime decision for the entire existence of the game (a philosophy pillar to base the game on), the repetition of content is propably just a temporarely fix until theres more content created.
Imho if we had a differentiation between normal and empowered that not only revolves around a higher difficulty and better rewards, but adds different mechanics:
- boss mechanics, map mechanics, side content on maps
- or even a different quest echoes with different “story” twists
- different map bosses
- maybe different tilesets, map layouts or even completely new timelines
The empowered timelines don’t feel any different than the normal ones. Nobody could tell the difference besides the modifiers scaling harder. Buts that’s just numbers on a screen and a good build won’t really feel the difference for a long time.
Having an empowered timeline could be an opportunity to introduce new stuff even with “recycling” the most content. Adding new boss skins, map layouts and alter some of the bosses attacks, add new enemy types specifically for empowered, giving them some cool themed abilities.
This all would make the playthrough feel less repetitive. It would not necessarily create the feeling of deja-vu and “why do I have to do it all again”. There should new things be there for the player to discover. New mechanics, new content.
In this case I think we wouldn’t talk about catchup mechanics or account wide progression so much because people would enjoy repeating that content more.
Currently it’s a matter of content recycling because there isn’t enough for the player to do to progress and it starts feeling repetitive very fast. For some people more and sooner, for others less and later (never).
I am just adding my voice to the No side.
If you want to get to empowered mono’s just rush to the last 3 mono’s and complete them; people in the tournaments (VisionGL’s) manage it with new characters by about the end of the second day.
1 Like
Totally agree with OP and while they are at it… they can get rid of the multiple timelines per Monolith. Once is enough… thanks. I’m not sure if any are skippable… etc.
And that is probably based on 30-40 hours of game play? Using that logic means yet another quality arpg that base’s character progression on a 70hr per week hardcore gamer/streamer. No thanks. To be clear, I don’t want to zoom to high end game or even be able to reach 500 corruption with a character ever, but there needs to be some balance.
3 Likes
Yeah I don’t think this needs to happen, I would like to see once you beat a monolith having the option to challenge the boss instead of having to run the monolith a bunch more and do 2 other quests before i can fight him each time for each monolith.
I absolutely agree with OP. For a normal Player with a job and family it takes way waaaay to long to get there and it doesnt get more exciting with each alt char. Its not only going through the Story but also to All normal monoliths and then do ALL the empowered once again and doing each Monolith takes a lot of time onnits own.
If it stays that way I can play one char per season Max as I dont have that much time and it will be too twdious after some time.
That is the same Problem with the Story geind in POE and therefore I stopped playing it completely (POE).
So you don’t want to be able too hop in to empowered monos whenever you feel your character si strong enough but you do want to totally ignore the vast majority of the mono content so you can farm the boss quickly? Which presumably would also work on empowered…
My idea is a balance between ‘too easy’ and ‘you have to do normal monos on every character’.
So here it is : upon completing 10 empowered monolith (you can even do the same monolith 10 times if you wish) you are rewarded with a ‘TOKEN’. You can pass that token to any of your other character by putting the token in the stash. The other character then can ‘use’ the token by right-clicking it . Which consumes the token and instead grants an access to the empowered monoliths (only for the character that used it)
2 Likes
I mean there are a couple of ways they could do it. After you beat the monolith the first time the other nodes go away and you only have to stack 100 points or something to get the boss again. I’m just tired of having to run 10-15 nodes plus two extra quests in order to fight a boss once. If I stack up a bunch of points and want to try farming target items, its really annoying to have to do a half hour/45 minutes of running nodes to fight the boss again, once, and not even have a guarantee it won’t drop what im looking for.
and we have to do this every monolith? Stack 100’s of stability points to fight a boss once, who has a unique item only he drops, but isn’t guaranteed.
I mean couldn’t we have a “sealed” monolith status where after you complete it or get so high on corruption you have the option to attack the boss or running nodes. Running nodes should be more impactful after you beat the boss.
Leaving a +1 for the OP, unlocking it over and over never feels rewarding. It always feels like a slog, progressing through the story on every new character is enough of a gate.
Totally agree, it’s main reason i don’t make new chcracter anymore.
I have many builds to test, but grinding normal monos for no real reason is boring, especially when I have some good gear already prepared for new toons.
1 Like
I completely disagree. In fact, I think the game should offer a newbie tutorial, 5 hours minimum of learning every in-game concept and mechanic, that each character is forced to complete. There should also be lengthy cut-scenes, that cannot be skipped. Because, purist gaming reasons…and arbitrary feelings of accomplishing redundant content.
3 Likes
Hey there,
Imho, this has nothing to do with account wide monolith unlock or implementation of any kind of catchup mechanic.
This topic is not about skipping campaign - that already functions as a tutorial.
Maybe I’m missing a specific post your answer is meant to respond to?
I think you’re missing the sarcasm.
1 Like
He’s German, he’s allowed to miss the sarcasm…
1 Like
Oops… yeah, that’s the case, obviously. 
From a game design perspective, there’s really only a few good reasons to lock a player out of doing some particular content.
-
Narrative - It makes no sense to let a player go directly to the crater as soon as they get the airship in FF7 because within the context of the story there’s nothing there yet. This doesn’t apply to empowered monoliths because there’s really no story to them.
-
Reward Content - This is content that has access restricted so it can act as a reward to the player. This could be because the developers want it to feel special so they limit access to prevent the player from over-exposure, as is the case with the game’s dungeons. It could also be access to some benefit for completing some very hard objective. Empowered monoliths don’t fit this category either, once unlocked the player has infinite access so over-exposure isn’t prevented and the thing that needs to be done to get access to them is much easier than the empowered monoliths the player is unlocking.
-
Difficulty Progression - The designer may lock off access to some types of content until the player completes some easier objectives. This is generally done because giving players access to content that is too difficult too quickly can lead to frustration and eventually leaving the game entirely. This fits perfectly with the monolith → empowered monolith progression, so it’s likely the reason that they put that restriction in place.
The thing about option (3) is that it can also become a point of frustration if the player becomes strong enough to handle the content much faster than the time it takes to unlock that content. They end up doing a lot of what feels like busy-work in an effort to unlock a feature that their character is already strong enough to handle.
In a first-character scenario this is mostly fine. The progression is perhaps a bit slow, but overall a new character does need to spend some amount of time acquiring gear and levels in normal monoliths before they can handle the empowered monoliths. That all sort of goes out the window with alts though. Through the shared stash they can grow in power far faster than the first character, and as a result they can quickly outpace the progression from the normal monoliths. They’re ready for empowered monoliths way before the game allows them access, resulting in a tedious experience.
I agree that this should be addressed, and there are many ways to do it. It could be a flat unlock to the account. It could be an item that needs to be transferred, like the ones that unlock difficulties in Grim Dawn. It could even be something like allowing stability of a timeline to carry over so you could farm it on a main and then quickly run through just the quest line on the alt to demonstrate that it’s strong enough to move up without doing the whole monolith progression, probably combined with a faster way to farm normal monolith stability on a character that already has access to the empowered version. There are lots of options, but they really shouldn’t keep it in a state where players feel like they have to do a lot of content that isn’t challenging to their alt characters just to get to something that is.
1 Like
No, I just felt like sarcasm was the only way to express my disgust with the ‘purist’ attitude towards fun in games, and redundant content.
2 Likes