With implementing a checkpoint system please be aware that it must not be abusable to get new rolled map choices. So that people die intentionally to reroll the next echo to get a quest echo.
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Just a thought, since not everybody is onboard for checkpoints as far as I am aware. Would it be possible to create optional checkpoints, for example you start the run, and if you want you can try with or without checkpoints, where if you play without you get a bit of a boost like exp and drop rate increase. This way you are rewarding the players who want the game to be risky and harsh, while you leave the less frustrating option for casual players.
This might raise some concerns when it comes to ladder since it gives an unfair advantage for players who use checkpoints, but ladder system could be available only for non checkpoint runs.
3 Likes
Really digging the idea. Optional extra challenges are always welcome IMO
I feel like this kind of risk/reward gameplay is fairly adequately covered by the Arena?
More than just Checkpoints, I just want a way to wipe the modifiers I’ve gathered in the run so far. I don’t think I should have to die to reset them (also resetting my Echo count). Yes, I’ll get lesser rewards, but at least I’ll be able to complete the questline. The content is intended to be repeatable; maybe next time I won’t need to reset the mods.
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Sounds good, as Checkpoints I’d consider the finished Questechos.
If you have defeated the first Quest echo you’ll automatically start on the first normal echo of the 2nd quest echo circle. If you have finished the 2nd quest echo you will further start on the first echo of the final quest echo line. Once a questecho is finished the chosen modifiers should be reset. The difficulty of the modifiers should increase after ech questecho tho.
I wanted to start a fresh solo char to simulate a new player entering the game to test the difficulty of the new mof, but I’ll delay that till the announced adjustments are made.
Difficulty, especially on bosses in the lower Timelines (55 and 62) has to be looked at very closely, you don’t want to generate frustration for players entering the endgame for the first time, thus the challenge on those timelines shouldn’t be as great as in later timelines, but it shouldn’t feel like endgame has nothing challenging either…
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This way you are rewarding the players who want the game to be risky and harsh, while you leave the less frustrating option for casual players.
I disagree that it is only casual players who want checkpoints. Many of us who want a challenging game also want them. But we don’t want the challenge to be the same as Arena, where you get one life which can wipe out hours of gameplay on death (or worse, crashing or a bug.)
I think if they were to do ladder monoliths, then that should be similar to Arena where it is scaled to level and tougher than normal monoliths.
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I’m not really sure about the suggestions to wipe modifiers. The normal echoes or quests aren’t that unplayable. I ve played on echo 28 with my lvl 71 paladin in the lvl 68 timeline. Besides the bossfight after that the content was doable. Rayeh on the other hand oneshot me after about 1 minute into the fight.
Imho there should be an increasing chance to get a quest echo everytime you finish a normal echo. I had about 12 normal echoes in a row before getting the chance to beat the boss. Don’t know what the chances are for getting a quest echo. But RNG can be an idiot sometimes.
The problem with the current system without a checkpoints is that you quit the playing session with a negative event. You play hours to get to the boss. It’s around 23.30 local time. You have to work tomorrow. You go for the boss that wipes you away like you were just a tiny little bug. You think “WTF!!!” and quit the game. You won’t do another attempt because it would take hours to get back.
Nobody is immune to this. Not even hardcore players.
If I’d get the chance to try again, I would propably do it. Maybe it would also take me an hour to beat the boss at least. But there would be a motivation to play on and if I would be successful at the end I might also try the next area. Next day I would be tired as fuck, but I would be happy. Not frustrated.
This is how you motivate people to forget about time and play your game for hours.
Needing to repeat hours of grind with minimal progression in xp and gear to get beaten a second time… I died 3 times in a row to the first boss. Yeah, when I finally beat him, it was great. But just until I saw my blessing reward (increased gold find or idol drop chance…)# but this is for another topic…
No matter what EHG does to tweak the content, I don’t see a universe with Monolith not having checkpoints… 
4 Likes
I have no issues having to play through level 55 content on my level 82 Paladin to get him to relevant content.
My problem with the current Monolith system is I’ve now TWICE got to the Boss with the 4 pillars, i kited him, i killed the pillars, started focusing on him and dodging attacks and get 1 shot and have to start over.
1 Shot at level 82 by a level 55 Boss, while I have 60% Necrotic protection and 850 health. I also have a skill that is SUPPOSED to consume a sigil if I take over 25% damage in one shot… that didn’t seem to help.
So I’ve now played 4 hours of Monolith content and I haven’t progressed AT ALL 
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Before the patch, I played several hours per day, having a lot of fun.
Now, I’m afraid to do monoliths, knowing that one bug or crash can wipe all progress. Hearing about these bosses that one-shot scares me as well, why would I want to keep playing when I could have a chance to die and wipe that progress again.
Seeing Mox reply to this thread makes me feel better, but still I’m not sure I want to play until the fixes are done. At least not in Mono, maybe I’ll level up some more characters until then.
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I think the way of zooming thru the monolith is also a problem. Just spamming teleport till you get to the objective is not really fun. Maybe have a condition on the map before the objective spawns.
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Besides all the complaints here, theres no need to be afraid to play .
Playing still is fun, the new maps are cool. There are new affixes to chase. The 9only real problem are the bossfights.
Saw a video of the lvl 100 bossfight from boardman on his yt channel. He’s not immune to oneshots, too 
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The whole boss situation really sucks. I understand that they want to make bosses actually mean something and making players do mechanics but I just feel so weak now… What is the point of making a stronger character if it doesn’t matter for bosses? I thought the whole point of Mono was to take the risk of stacking up a bunch of modifiers for better rewards but also for stronger bosses. This artificial difficulty of making us do no damage to them is not satisfying or fun. I would expect to struggle against a lvl90 boss for example but not a 55 one…
5 Likes
I am a new player and I absolutely hate the new Monoliths. At first I didn’t know what was going on, just saw that my leveling up became much longer (level 62 right now). After realizing I had to beat the time zone to get higher level monoliths, I started to only rush to the end of monolith and skipping all the content.
Comes the boss, the fight was really clunky, especially around the soul vessels which would get my character stuck from time to time… I spent the entire fight running around, to get one-shot when I could finally damage him (playing an abyssal echo FG).
Back to square 1, have to run through all the monoliths again for a chance to beat him this time, meanwhile my character isn’t progressing at all. Right now I will most likely start new characters to explore the other classes, but I sure hope this system is reviewed to actually be fun eventually.
3 Likes
I’m the kind of player that enjoys clearing monoliths, especially if i’m getting some ok xp, level appropriate gear rolls and a fun challenge level. One side effect of this new mono system as a level 95 is that even though there are some cool new maps, I have had to change my style to just speed running past the content.
I’m on my 3rd (and maybe last for a while) try at the 68 boss which has been over 30 monos to clear to get there. As a dev, it was a little sad that I was unable to enjoy the new content because I wanted to spend only an hour doing no reward trash vs 2 hours.
I don’t agree with your tone, but I’ve crashed twice from the same way and it is very frustrating.
However, I haven’t crashed since I repaired the game files and updated my graphics driver. Try doing the same and see if it helps you.
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Whether monolith was designed for starting right after the campaign or not, I agree with the broad sentiment that overlevelled and geared character should be trivializing low level bosses. That’s the expectation in ARPGs.
But I do support the exploration of this experimental boss defence mechanics on late end game bosses to prevent overgeared character from trivializing them in end game.
4 Likes
I would prefer a mutation of this: dying wipes accumulated modifiers but saves the number of normal echoes you have conquered since you conquered a quest echo. Every time you conquer a normal echo, there is a stacking increased chance that the next roll will include a quest echo. If a quest echo is entered but not conquered, the stack remains but accumulated echo penalties/bonuses are erased. If the quest is conquered, the stack resets to the default chance of finding a quest echo.
Conquered quest echoes are saved towards progress making the final quest appear.
Even if a player fails after several echoes, they’re still making a sort of soft progress. If they just can’t complete quest echoes while penalties are in play, the stacking likelihood of a quest showing up (retained through death) means that they’ll inevitably get to run the quest with fewer or perhaps no penalties. This helps to prevent the difficulty spike from skewering the forward momentum of more casual builds completely.
What if the timeline itself had a progression bar? Killing enemies and finding chests in the timeline fills the bar and successfully completing an echo is worth a good chunk of progress. Each echo cleared adds a stacking multiplyer to the progress earned, so players who go undefeated will fill the timeline’s bar faster. Players choose whether or not to take on additional penalties, so they can always play the game at a level of difficulty they’re comfortable with.
At certain points in the progress bar, a new quest echo unlocks. The unlocked quest is always available to be selected, progress can still be earned towards additional quests, and quests can be beaten in any order. Beating a quest is worth a healthy amount of timeline progression.
After all of the quests are cleared, a timeline’s final boss or challenge is unlocked. Clearing the final quest echo grants the timeline’s boon and a new timeline opens.
In this way, players are given agency in how challenging they want their time spent with the game to be. Players who simply want to smash mobs in the face can choose to keep one or two echo penalties, and those with hyper optimized builds can choose to accumulate a dozen.
Players can adjust their difficulty until they’ve found an experience that allows them to keep a good momentum at challenge that’s right for their build.
I feel like too many people are trying to rush to completing the monolith progression. I think that the monolith was reworked exactly to make it more challenging. You only have to beat a boss once to unlock the next timeline, so why is it 15 monoliths way too much or frustrating to do? It’s only frustrating if you continuously fail to beat the boss.
For the people who haven’t beat it yet, hate to break it to you, but the 3rd or 4th timeline takes like 30 monoliths to get a shot at the boss(based on the 3 attempts I’ve had). The entire monolith, in my opinion, is set up this way to actually provide a challenge and a more long term goal.
Working so much to get a chance at the boss, for me, also makes the fight that much more important. I have felt more invested in those fights than any other fight I have experienced since early alpha because guess what, I too don’t want to grind another 30 monoliths to get another shot.
This is the moment where you either take a breather, swap characters, or let the game go for the day. This is still beta and aside from the boring arena, this is the only endgame we have so why rush to complete it. Take your time, gear your toon, and do your homework on the boss fights from people who have already beat it.
Once you beat it you will be back to being out of new content and will either repeat monoliths until no end or do arena, again, until no end.
I also want to mention the positive side of having a separate monolith progression on every character. With every timeline beaten, you get some sort of directed gear drop bonus(i think they call it runes). This means that you can set up different characters in such a way that you’d be able to farm specific types of gear rather than having to redo any given timeline of which you want to change a given rune.
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Hate to break it to you but that’s why you(we) are here. The game is still in beta and aside from the very limited in-house testing, we are providing the feedback for things to be fixed.
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