How to improve Monolith Of Fate Endgame System [0.7.10c]

[Heavy]

So first of all, i want to say, i really like MoF as a core endgame system.
It is really fun and very modular, it can so easily be build upon by the devs and i am eager to see what they have in store for us.

I want to point out some key things that i really like in the current implementation:

• “Choose your own difficulty”, you can run various level timelines the high or low you want and can reset at any time if you feel like it’s getting to daunting

• Progress on each individual timeline gets saved and you can leave and return as you desire

• Target farming via specific loot tables

• Meaningful and fun progress until you reach and complete all timelines(including the empowered Timelines)

• Replayability for Min-Max rolling blessings, since you can keep your old blessing

• Meta-Blessings and Player Stat Blessings do not compete

• Choosing between only doing the objective or clearing the map is noticeable and worthwhile (for the endchest in the Echo Of A World)

But now we are here to discuss flaws and things that could be changed, to make this already great system even better!

Here are some key things i dislike about it in the current state, as of 0.7.10c

• Relatively small pool of objectives

• Relatively small pool of enemy modifiers

• Quest Echo’s deny 1 potential modifier, if you do not want to run the quest Echo and go for high echo run

• Empowered Timelines don’t feel “empowered”

So let me elaborate on those things and throw in some suggestions, that could potentially make the system even better IMO:

1. Relatively small pool of objectives
   The list of objectives is pretty small and alot of them are kinda the same with different mobs.
   But i would wish for some brand new objectives, like for example:

• Killing marked mobs across the map
• Collecting stuff across the map
• Having big groups of mobs protecting high value chests

If we get more mobs and different areas/map, the variety will probably we already alot better over time, but anything that “feels” slightly different would be appreciated

2. Relatively small pool of enemy modifiers
   I very often feel like getting the same modifier over and over and over again. Having more variety would feel more varied.

I think devs can go really creative with more modifiers. Like:
[Insert Enemy Base Type] spawn as rares across the area
Rare mobs put a DoT on player after dying
Explosive Barrles spawn around the area and mobs do have increased area

I also thought about modifiers not affecting mobs, but the player instead. For example:
Player loses health over time when [insert any thing here] (not in combat; standing still etc.)

3. Quest Echo’s deny 1 potential modifier, if you do not want to run the quest Echo and go for high echo run

This is probably the biggest gripe for me personally in the current system. I really like to push for very high echoes and not wanting to fight the boss or quest echoes at all.
Having the Quest Echo deny you the option to choose between two different modifiers feels really bad, and even after re-rolling(which should not be forced upon you, because you don’t like the ONE modifier) getting another quest echo again does make it even worse.

My solution: Make Quest Echoes a 3rd option, when appearing. That way you can simply ignore them if you don’t want to do them. This way you have 2 options and can re-roll to 2 other options, if desired

4. Empowered Timelines don’t feel “empowered”

The 3 timelines that are currently available as empowered are some of the low level timelines, which makes sense. Having a appropiate endgame choice to target farm to bosses, while having a relative good challenge is great, but they increased modifiers do not feels very powerfull in scaling the enemies up.
The mobs from echo No.1 feel alot weaker than Mobs from the “Dragons Reign” Lvl 100 Base Timeline.
On top of that, the amount of completed echoes to have a chance for quest echoes is the same, as with the base timeline.
The amount of echoes required to be able to spawn quest echoes should be similar to the Lvl 90 and Lvl 100 Base Timelines. This would already make them more challenging.

Just to be clear, i do like the base “scaling” of needing more echoes in higher timelines to be able to spawn quest echoes. It feels like with each higher timeline you need more and more to be able to continue, which is great. I just don’t like how the “empowered” timelines feel like a cheap lvl 100 version of the base timelines.

What are your guys thoughts? Do you agree or disagree with some of my points? Do you have different ideas and suggestions?

[XLVI_carpo]

I agree with you. The biggest issue for me currently is the modifiers.

There are only 2 choices and it can take a lot of time until you encounter a good challenge.

Would be cool to be able to add more modifiers instantly.

Also the variety of mods is not that huge.

There was a thread with mod suggestions where imho a lot of them are really interesting.

Monolith Modifier Suggestion Box

Drop your suggestions for interesting monolith modifiers to be added into the pool. I suggest asking yourself these questions: Does this modifier change how the player will play through the map, or does it merely extend the time a player deals with the map (increased enemy HP/dodge)? Does this modifier have interesting interactions with other modifiers? 50% fewer enemies, but 100% chance for giant enemies to spawn. Enemies may explode on death. [Charges up for several seconds and then explod…

[ponpoko]

I agree with 1, 2, 3.
I have another thinking about 4.
At this point, “Empower” does not change timeline-story, it only effect Bless-roll in fact.
So I think, In the first place is Empower system not necessary now?
…If Empowered-timeline gives us something new changes, it become more fun. So I am waiting it.

In addition I wish make more stability Client.
Losing progress by crash is sad

[Tibone]

@Heavy I am going to start by Posting what I did in discord

Basically a short version would be.

● Continue after boss. But every few echoes get the quests and bosses again to keep things spiced up.

● Have the option to every time you kill the boss again to be able to ean a higher chance at a better roll for your blessings. And magic find for loot so it feels more rewarding to farm.

●Give more exp. That way it is a viable way to level once in monoliths.

Basically the short bare bones version. Harder empowered zones.

All these are for the Empowered versions. The regular versions are fine except for the exp rate.

I think replayability and chase it what is hurting the player retention atm. But I will stop there before getting even further off topic.

I have Spoken with @boardman21, @VisionGL, @LizardIRL and @McFluffin Extensively on this topic. I am sure they have some feedback that they would like to add.

[boardman21]

Unknown Variables

• Will MoF be intertwined with other endgame systems? Will this make MoF more interesting?
• Will there be more timelines?

What I Like About The Current System

• While i agree with heavy’s points about the good feelings about the current implementation of MoF i would just like to also add that i also like:
• Maps/Mobs are not all on all timelines, they are thematically separated.

What I Dont Like About Current System

• Again most of Heavy’s points i agree with ESPECIALLY if your chosing to bypass quest that your limited to 1 option and its no longer a choice
• Feel’s Bad Man when you defeat the boss and the timeline just resets and you lose your entire streak. Definitely would like the timeline to continue and only reset either when you chose to or when you die.

What I would like to see added

Empowering Timeline Changes

• All timelines having an empowered version
• Empowered timelines having 3 unique modifiers added to them at the beginning of the timeline. These unique modifiers would pool from a separate pool of modifiers such as but not limited to:
• You can no longer use movement skills
• You deal 25% less damage while wielding a 2 handed weapon
• All Skills now have 1 addition second Cooldown
• All Skills cost 25% more mana
• Empowered Timelines give a bigger boost of gold/exp/item drop

New Challenges

• New quest such as but not limited to:
• Kill X number of a specific type of mob to finish
• Kill all rares on map
• Open all treasure chest to finish
• Survivor Challenge where you only have 1 minutes inside timeline in order to finish you must stay alive, mobs start heading your direction like in arena, you start in the middle of the map.

Hybrid Blessings

• New blessings that give an increased version of current stat but a negative one with it such as but not limited to:
• +350% Minion Health -50% Minion Health Regen
• +100% Void Damage -10% armor
  and so fourth

New Features

• Echo Time rifts insides echoes that take you an echo in an echo (New maps/mobs/Uniques) are located inside the echo time rifts and can only be obtained there, these rifts can appear at anytime on any timeline.
• Random NPC’s inside of Echoes that appear at random and support exploring whole area’s these NPC’s can have but not limited to:
• Shops with Uniques/Idols
• Crafting Shop that gives 10% better stability when crafting an item in it (limited to 5 enchant attempts)
• Blessing Shop: A shop that can reroll any blessing you currently have equipped and give it a new power roll (this could make it worse roll than you have)
• Affix shop: A shop full of random affixes to purchase

Shrines

• Shrines need to have more options and have negative options
• Hide what a shrine does until you click on it
• New negative effects include but not limited to:
• Spawns a ghost that follows you around applying bleed/poison at random every 10 seconds on you
• Spawns random mobs with increased stats
• Spawns treasure chest
• Spawns random NPC with random shop from above

TLDR - Right now the repeatability of timelines just gets really old. There’s really no limit to what can be added to them to spice them up.

[Heavy]

@Tibone

● Continue after boss. But every few echoes get the quests and bosses again to keep things spiced up.

● Have the option to every time you kill the boss again to be able to ean a higher chance at a better roll for your blessings. And magic find for loot so it feels more rewarding to farm.

@boardman21

Feel’s Bad Man when you defeat the boss and the timeline just resets and you lose your entire streak. Definitely would like the timeline to continue and only reset either when you chose to or when you die.

Not sure about this. I really like having to choose between farming boss or wanting to reach high echoes for just overall more items.
The current system needed to be adjusted to make such suggestion work IMO.
Depending on how many echoes you need to do to re-encounter a boss echo, it sounds way to easy to reroll blessings.
Having to “complete” and finish a timeline by killing the boss leading to reseting the timeline has ups and downs.

I think what would be more fun is having certain “thresholds” giving extra bonuses when defeating the boss above Echo No. X, there could be multiple thresholds increasing the boss specific loot and/or generally leading to more statisfying lootplosions.

But timelines resetting after boss kills is not a bad system IMO, because with your suggestion you would only go on and on and on and on. Players having to make a deliberate choice if they want to kill the boss or not is good.

But together with the suggestions of @XLVI_carpo

@XLVI_carpo

There are only 2 choices and it can take a lot of time until you encounter a good challenge.
Would be cool to be able to add more modifiers instantly.

This could lead to being able to ramp up a “new fresh” timeline faster, especially after killing the boss.

Potentially only allow this, if you have beat a given timeline once already.

@Tibone

●Give more exp. That way it is a viable way to level once in monoliths.

This sounds like MoF is not a good way for leveling. I disagree, the leveling pace in MoF is great IMO.
I think this is more of a problem, that arena gives way too much exp/time.

@boardman21

Empowered timelines having 3 unique modifiers added to them at the beginning of the timeline. These unique modifiers would pool from a separate pool of modifiers such as but not limited to:

Your suggestions is great, but sounds more like a 3rd difficulty.

I think having all the non-lvl 100 timeliens available in a “basic” lvl 100 version with appropriate scaling (like the suggestions i did) is already a good step to give all the timelines a “endgameworthy” farming state.

What you did suggest are really cool modifiers, that alter the way you play. But i think this could be a even “higher” Timeline difficulty. Maybe unlocking after beating a empowered timeline.

@boardman21

Hybrid Blessings

All of those suggestions are great. I really like trade-offs for great power.
If we get more timelines in the future i think this modifiers are a great place for some timelines, not sure if those modifiers should exist on each timeline. Because i think there are alot of people disliking negatives in itemization.

@boardman21

New Features

I really like the random npc’s/vendor suggestions

The Crafting Thing i am not so sure about. We probably need to see what Eternity Caches will be, but having to hold back on items with crafting untilk you encounter such shop would not feel good to me.

@boardman21

Will MoF be intertwined with other endgame systems? Will this make MoF more interesting?

@boardman21

Echo Time rifts insides echoes that take you an echo in an echo (New maps/mobs/Uniques) are located inside the echo time rifts and can only be obtained there, these rifts can appear at anytime on any timeline.

We don’t know much yet, but this sounds strongly like Epoch’s Call endgame system. But we will have to wait and see.

I am sure we will get more timelines eventually and from the sound of it, all the endgame system that are currently not implemented will be linked somehow.

[boardman21]

@Heavy

Not sure about this. I really like having to choose between farming boss or wanting to reach high echoes for just overall more items.

If they just added the quest in a seperate option slot id be ok with the current setup.

If the made it so you cam continue after you defeat boss but no more boss show up id be ok with it. Either way id settle for it

[Shrukn]

@boardman21

• You can no longer use movement skills
• You deal 25% less damage while wielding a 2 handed weapon
• All Skills now have 1 addition second Cooldown
• All Skills cost 25% more mana

No thanks

Ive had plenty of ideas for this game but not right now. I can only tell you what I don’t want and anything that lowers build diversity even further can go away, especially anything related to Mana
The only idea I have is-

• Remove the Forges // Spires and only have bosses - these just suck and are so boring to deal with…or at least buff the Forges to be faster and less obstructive

• Monoliths cannot be finished until you kill a minimum % of mobs - no just running to the exit

• Monoliths should allow a risky version where if you die you lose all progress whether at M1 or the actual boss - the reward is you get to choose the blessing

Some of the ideas are just weird ive read such as -

@boardman21

Shrines need to have more options and have negative options

Err then people just wont click on them unless they spawn monsters

[boardman21]

@Shrukn

Err then people just wont click on them unless they spawn monsters

Thats why i also added right below that quote that shrines bo longer tell you what they are its a click on at your own. risk

[Tibone]

@Heavy

Not sure about this. I really like having to choose between farming boss or wanting to reach high echoes for just overall more items.

Why not have the option to do both?

[Llama8]

Surely you do already by not taking the one that takes you to the boss? Though I agree it would be nice to not have to loose your progress. Maybe have that as an option on Empowered monoliths?

[Tibone]

@Heavy

This sounds like MoF is not a good way for leveling.

It isn’t even if arena didn’t give as much experience, you get more exp for level scaling.

If I had to just level through monoliths I would tear.my eyes out bc it would take forever

[Tibone]

I am agree I mean for empowered monoliths regular monoliths are fine how they are just give exp boost.

I should probably make that clearer above

[Heavy]

@Tibone

Why not have the option to do both?

Because, when you always can have both without thinking it does not become a player choice. And player choice during endgame to prioritize certain things is always welcomed. Maybe this gets better once we get other endgame modes, but currently with it would be bad to be able to always take bosses and not lose progress. IMO

@Tibone

If I had to just level through monoliths I would tear.my eyes out bc it would take forever

I literally level all my characters with MoF, i didn’t played arena for more than my very first or two chars for like 50 waves maximum, after that i never thouched arena again.

And i still have my sanity and the leveling pace/time needed to reach level milestones felt great.

[Tibone]

@Heavy

Because, when you always can have both without thinking it does not become a player choice. And player choice during endgame to prioritize certain things is always welcomed.

You can have the choice to skip and continue or farm the bosses as you go up with harder modifiers. and reap better rewards for doing so. Or just skip them till ready and do echoes. that doesn’t seem that hard to me and also give you a choice for rewards or not.

@Heavy

I literally level all my characters with MoF, i didn’t played arena for more than my very first or two chars for like 50 waves maximum, after that i never thouched arena again.

And i still have my sanity and the leveling pace/time needed to reach level milestones felt great.

So the fact that I can do empowered monoliths in my 80’s is good leveling?

[Heavy]

@Tibone

So the fact that I can do empowered monoliths in my 80’s is good leveling?

In the current system, i do believe having to do the same timeline multiple times is ok for progress. This will most likely change slightly, in case we get more timelines. (Especially ones that are not lvl 100)

So being ahead of the level of timeliens is ok, if you build is good enough for it.
Empowered Timelines are a bit too easy, as i already mentioned in my OP.

@Tibone

You can have the choice to skip and continue or farm the bosses as you go up with harder modifiers.

Not sure, i did understand that with your suggestion, you would be able to go up echoes, doing a boss and continue to do echoes and eventually encounter a the boss again.

This will lead to taking the boss when ever available.

[Tibone]

Keep in mind this os all for empowered not regular.

Keep doing the echoes, do the quests and kill the boss, still be able to progress with echoes instead of being wiped.
continue to get quests and bosses and kill them for higher chance to roll better rewards/ blessing ranges. till you get to a point to where you can no longer continue and I dio think there should be a suto barrier for you build that you can not progress futher without becoming more powerful. and eventually not at all.

Make more sense?

[Heavy]

I would rather keep the old system, where the boss kill resets the timeline, but maybe give higher echo numbers powerful buffs to possible boss drops.

Like the boss has higher chances to drop their specific gear, that is more rare(one of the boss specific drops is always very much rarer than others)

I feel like working towards the goal of beating the boss ONCE, in an appropiate but rewarding difficulty feels better.

[Llama8]

Hence my comment about having it as an option for Empowered Monoliths.

[Heavy]

Not sure if empowered and normal timelines should have such different mechanics/appraoches.

Having the same base mechanic, but with increased appropiate scaling and new reward pool sounds enough to me.

And as i already pointed out earlier, the suggestion RAW did, would very nicely fit in with, where you would be able to ramp up difficulty faster, when you already completed a given timeline.

That way resetting would not feel that bad.