So I’ve had this game for a couple of years, and have played it on and off. I have to say, having come back after about a year of not playing it, there are some huge improvements to the endgame! Keep it going guys! I wanted to throw my ideas out there (pretty much the ol’ “throw it at the wall and see what sticks” philosophy, in this case if anything does stick).
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Stronger themes in the monoliths/echoes.
Currently, I love the story elements built into the monoliths, as it gives a good sense of story building to the world. A great example of this is the timeline story where the Void is slowly wiping out the Empire. This was something I was really intrigued by during the campaign. However, it’s a bit jarring to have one quest mission where Void and Empire enemies are fighting eachother, and the next randomly generated one they’re standing side by side united against me. My suggestion on this is to either limit or tailor the different zones in the end-game to have specific enemy types (for example, in the previously mentioned timeline, Void/Empire enemy types will never spawn together). I also find it a bit weird to fight random animals in the middle of a primarily void or undead map, but that’s just me. -
I know this has been mentioned, but allowing an option to auto-pickup shards would be amazing. Even better if they also go straight into the forge from my inventory.
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Scalable UI.
- This is a big one for me, because I play on a TV, not a monitor, and the UI is massive. Item tooltips are sometimes so big that they freak out and jitter all over the place (particularly an issue with some set or unique items that have a lot of affixes on them) when I hit Alt. I don’t know how many other people have this issue, but introducing UI scaling should be fairly easy, coding wise?
- Also, having mouse-over item windows appear in a set part of the screen (say, in the middle between the Inventory and Forge, for example) rather than on top of the item would be very helpful, as the tooltips completely cover most of my inventory.
- Having a “push to display” button option to show/hide items on the ground would go a long way. When I’m trying to shoot an enemy, and the random items on the ground keep showing their pop-up screens all over the place, it becomes very frustrating. Being able to hold “Alt” to show items based on Loot Filter would be immensely helpful, particularly for builds that rely more on aim and less at throwing AOE all over the place. It makes singling out enemies somewhat tricky. There’s a reason most, if not all loot based games have this option.
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More interesting monolith modifiers.
I would love to see some more interesting modifiers built into the monolith. They just seem a bit bland to me right now, with it primarily being damage/health increases or chance for X buff when hit/on hit/at half health. Something like “increased likelihood of Void enemies”, “Mage enemies have x% increased AOE size”, or “Range enemies now use Multi-shot” would make it a lot more interesting (though some of those may be a bit harder to code than others, admittedly). Even something like “double monsters spawned” would be really fun! -
More set/unique variety.
One thing that I’ve noticed in this game is that 95% of real end-game builds rely almost entirely on crafted items. I have not once found a unique item or set item that made me go “Wow, I’d like to try a build around that”, because odds are that I can probably craft an item better than that. Case and point, on my lvl 86 VK Rive melee build, I have the Forgotten Knight sword/amulet, and tried it on the dummy. Full buffs, I did 3K DPS LESS than with my T13 Deicide sword and T14 Jade Amulet. Those aren’t even that high (two items that are top of my replacement list). I would like to have SOME sense of excitement around these items, but as is all they mean is a $500 vendor item, mostly. Either that, or something interesting to do with uniques/sets, such as shattering them for a chance at a very rare affix. Not sure, but itemization at end-game is pretty much craft or nothing, and having played POE, Grim Dawn and a bunch of other ARPGs, I do miss impactful unique/set items a bit. Honestly, Idols are a lot more impactful to build variety than unique/set items are (these are a move in the right direction, IMO). -
More detailed Skill summaries.
I’m a min-maxer. I’ll admit that. Right now one of the things that is a bit frustrating is that I need to do a ton of math on the side to figure out what my actual, for example, crit/crit multi or ignite/bleed chance is with a specific skill. I have the basic stats on my character, but there’s no way for me to know exactly how my skills, such as Shield Throw or Wandering Spirits, for example, are impacted or increased by the nodes I take in that skill. For anyone doing theorycrafting it’s a bit of an exercise in mathematics because there’s no built in summary. Something where I can see the skill specific crit, crit multi, ailment, etc chances would be absolutely amazing. I know the DPS on the tooltip is coming, but I also hope that this will be included somehow. The more details the better! -
More exciting monolith goals.
I have to say, there are some types of monolith goals that just bore me. Prime example of this is the “Cleanse the forge” or “Spire” types. They are absolutely no challenge. The spires deal no damage (literally none of my characters have ever been in any danger from them), and their AOE size is tiny so they’re very easy to side-step anyway. These encounter types need to be reworked in some way, IMO. Maybe the spires are guarded by a boss of some kind? Or have an extra large spawn of enemies around them? Maybe they fling different spell types based on their damage type throughout the map (Imperial spire casts raise dead, hungering spirits, or flame spire casts fireball, meteor, etc). Similarly, the forges are just dull. They spawn a few weak enemies, then poof it’s gone. Something needs to spice it up a bit. The only thing that the forges do is block movement and range skills, so the encounter is a little more annoying for the 5-10 seconds that they last, depending on class. Maybe the forge spits out elemental spells based on their type, or they spawn a boss at the end (not just a rare enemy type), or do something other than a mini-arena. Anyway, just my 2 cents on this one. -
Arena.
Honestly, Arena is a bit boring. I couldn’t get enough of Grim Dawn’s crucible (essentially an arena). I played it tons. It had a lot of interesting modifiers, bosses that are exclusive to it, etc. Even just including a boss in the arena every 10 levels would make it more interesting. Imagine running into Lagon at Wave 100! As is it pretty much entails endless waives of the same enemies over and over, which gets really dull eventually, even if they do get harder.
That’s about it. Maybe some of those sparked ideas, who knows. Thought I’d throw it out there. Love the game, keep up the improvements!!