With multiplayer on the horizon, I wanted to leave some suggestions for endgame monoliths. While I am looking forward to trying it out one question I am asking myself is “Why would I want to play in a multiplayer lobby?”
I do not mean to say I am disinterested in it. I am wondering what the experience will add to the game after the novelty wears off of just being able to play with other players. Some drawbacks of playing and coordinating with multiple players is that it takes time away from playing the game, leading to a less rewarding experience in raw rewards.
One worry that I have is with such time and investment put towards this feature there will be little incentive to engage with it vs. solo play as far as rewards are concerned. I have here a possible system and various idea I think would contribute to a very unique and interesting system that would both make multiplayer interesting and rewarding that isn’t something boring like generic quantity seen in other games. While these ideas are my idea of a complete system, I think a few could be taken as a stand alone or piecemeal to make another system.
- Upon selecting a monolith each player is given the option to select a reward upon completion of the monolith. Each player gets that reward in the monolith reward chest. The rewards are separate for each player (as my current understanding is that there is no shared loot)
I like this idea as it gives an important bonus for trying to answer the question “why am I playing with many people and slowing myself down?” I think this is a good starting place for an interesting system.
- Each map type in the game has either exclusive or biased options available for different rewards in their “pool” of options.
What I like about this is that it gives interesting points of decisions within the monolith for pursuing different objectives and reward types. Do you want a better shot at exalted bows? Look out for this tile set, looking for unique rings? this other tile set on the horizon is great for that!
- An individual that dies in the monolith loses their reward contribution to the group.
I believe this form of punishment pushes more interesting ways to work together as a team. To get the most interesting and rewarding results everyone needs to make it through. If one player dies (or two, or three) They still get rewarded for contributing, and there is no outsized reward for unbalanced groups where one player carries multiple. If you want juicy rewards, the best results mean everyone needs to be up to snuff and avoids some problems in other games where one person is super stacked.
- New reward types in pools that effect the monolith chest. When choosing initial rewards at the start, there would be a possibility for there to be new interesting modifiers that effect other rewards. The tradeoff being something like foregoing items to make my party members body armor reward to drop with class specific ability rolls, or a modifier that makes all item type rewards exalted when other party members only have rare rewards, or more chance on LP on unique rewards from those chests. The idea is to offer interesting interactions with your party members reward choices that are not something boring like generic quantity or rarity.
The benefit of a system like this is from the get-go there are unique reward interactions you can’t get from solo play. It offers a different experience that makes up for some of the things that slow you down in multiplayer and the types of reward modifiers are only limited by imagination.
- There are interesting things in your monolith system that add more depth to systems like these and could add to an amazing, complex, satisfying, and rewarding multiplayer endgame system.
Things like beacons become interesting as you can see what options you might have on the horizon. Different reward pools would make for interesting decisions. Vessels of chaos would need a new function and I don’t currently have a solution for. Vessels of memory become very interesting as if your party gets a juicy reward set up, you have another shot at however many you came up with. The individual zones have a lot of potential to add even more complexity and choice as they are already an interesting source for uniques to farm and there is potential to make even more interesting decisions with reward pools and types.
I understand there would be a few challenges with making a system like this. One problem that jumps out to me right away is how to deal with multiplayer rewards and how they persist over changing players in the party. How would they persist over multiple sessions?
Overall this is my attempt to make an interesting system for multiplayer that gives me a reason to play it. I have found other ARPGs miss the mark in this aspect of multiplayer systems and if they dont have interactions between having multiple players that allow for better rewards, or more interesting play from single player, I find little reason to engage with it after the new and shiny stuff wears off.
I want to say that I really love this game so far and can’t wait to see what this talented team comes up with next.
Cheers!
-Warrek