Currently I find that that the risk and rewards in the echoes are rather bland and mild, with most of them involve in entering an echo, clear ASAP and leave for rewards. Varieties should be added to avoid the same repetitive feeling over and over again, which would make the players numb.
The good side is that in LE, we could apply modifiers to echoes and their surroundings, which directly impacts the monsters and rewards in the echoes. LE is not the first ARPG, which is why we do not need to reinvent the wheel in order for the game to become more successful. A few ideas are as the following:
Delirium â Completing a delirium echo will modify a large area of echoes around it, making them into delirious echo while changing their rewards and modifiers. The players are unable to view the modifiers and rewards while the monsters are much stronger compared to a normal echo. Completing a modified delirious echo will carryover the reward to the next delirious echo, ie clearing 1st delirious echo has a rare scepter rewards, the 2nd delirious echo has its own reward AND another rare scepter reward
Metamorph â Metamorph fragments are droppable from a rare metamorphed monster, carrying a modifier from the monster (monster buffs). These metamorphs items can be assembled to create a metamorph echo, where all the monsters carry over the modifiers with each fragments have their own item rewards, %item rarity and %exp). New echo objective can be added to the game, which the players have to hunt the metamorphed monster.
Breach â We have the void in the game, so we should use it as a unique mechanic. New voidbreach echo could be introduced which randomly spawns in the game. Completing the voidbreach echo will apply a modifier called voidbreach to a large area of the nearby echoes. Killing monsters in a voidbreached echoes has a chance to open a void portal, summoning void monsters unpredictably with added rewards.
Legion â A large group of echoes are interlinked together, with 2 sides fighting each other. Each sides have their own sets of rewards, and clearing one side would increase the opposing sideâs rewards, monster modifiers, and monster quantities. The player has the option to clear both sides back-to-back to balance the risk and rewards or clearing one side first, increasing the risk and rewards from the opposing side.
Ritual â A ritual echo that is connected to its surrounding echoes and allows the players to skip it and enter the surrounding echoes. Clearing the surrounding echoes are considered as âsacrificesâ, which would increase the modifier and rewards of the ritual echo.
Blight â A defensive echo which is similar to arena but the players have to defend npc. Various types can be applied to blight echo, such as defending villagers who wont fight back, defending a garrison with soldiers npc, defending a siege with castles and towers.
Essence â We have a lot of affixes, what prevents the monsters from using them? Essence echoes have monsters which are modified by item affixes which drops them after being killed.