So I had another idea for a system, that would allow players to target farm, while also tailoring the system to their needs.
So the system I imagined would consist of two parts, gaining blessings/boons/favour/card (what ever would thematically fit the best) through “rare drops” (but not in the sense of an item dropping) and a “deck building” component.
“Deck building”: The player can choose between X number of boons/cards from a vast variety. (For example 30 different are available and you can only pick 3 or 4 at a given time). These would unlock over time, with a small portion being avaialbe from the start (or when you enter MoF). Another portion would unlock over time, when you meet certain conditions (which are fixed and known in advance).
Acquiring the boons/cards: These would rarely been granted when killing monster, similar to loot, but when you “trigger” this you will get a fancy animation with some cool sounds (maybe even some decent UI element showing up, which of your boons/cards you received. Possibly some visual indicator over your head). I would imagine these to be roughly as rare as a direct drop fo a rare affix shard currently (the ones that are coloured orange as of the latest patch).
The player needs to get several of the same type for the “rewards to trigger”. Like 1/4, 1/8, depending on the type of rewards.
Different type of rewards could be, but not limited to:
Unique Item of Item Type X (e.g. Unique Body armour)
Exalted Item of Item Type X (e.g. Exalted Two-Handed Axe)
5x +to skill level of X affix shards
Idol of a specific type (e.g. Huge Idol)
Class-specific Idol of a specific type (e.g. Huge Sentiel Idol)
I think this system could fit in with and besides Monolith very well.
It can be usefull outside of monolith, but there could also be rare Monolith Echoes rewards like: +1 to all of your selected boons/cards
There is obviously a lot of things that are subject to change/adjustment, like if these are items instead of just some fancy DING animation.
Also the possible rewards could potentially go as specific as unique items fro mcertain bosses or uniques with at least X amount of LP etc.
And yes I am aware this is essentially a hybrid between PoE’s Divination Card System and Torchlight: Infinite’s Card System. But I really like the idea of "tailor your own reward"
So this is in essence a personalized loot table that exists alongside the normal loot of the game.
I don’t like the farming focused blessings at all, but with them in the game there is already a way of tailoring your own reward.
I think this is a better solution than the farming blessings, but I don’t think that both should exist in the game.
Aside from that, my main issue is that the system you are proposing sounds very complex (both from the point of view of the player, and from an implementation standpoint).
So it could probably be streamlined in some way.
Everything is a remix, I don’t think there is any need to defend your ideas the similarity to other concepts.
Div cards (at least in theory) are an incredibly good idea.
The torchlight system I am not familiar with.
My proposed ssuggestiosn could repalce blessings, but blessings also have character power right now, which my proposed system will not have.
I think my main idea would be, that when you started out you have a very limited amount of “options”. Maybe not even enough to “customize” it yet. And you would slowly buidl up and unlock more options.
This could be used as a tutorialization for new players slowly learning the system over time.
For example, when you complete your first 10 echoes or defeat the first timelien boss you will unlock a new boon/card
This is what Torchlight Infinite does, every ‘round’ you get 5 cards placed onto random maps on a board, the idea is to stack modifiers like ‘more monsters’ ‘currency is upgraded’
You are trying to get a nice map on the 4th/5th for loot/xp/cards you are farming by building a chain, its really fun
Its stolen from Synthesis from PoE but isnt cancer
From my understanding, the boon system is essentially a wildcard drop, that takes the form of the drop you selected when you built your deck.
However, you need several triggers to get a drop.
The issue I had is, how do you communicate to the players what the boons do?
I feel like most explanation will have to first explain to the player the notion of a boon “trigger”, and then say: when a boon “triggers” gain a charge, drop something when you get X charges.
When I noted about the complexity of the system, I was referring to this aspect of it, it is difficult to properly explain what the system does.
Of course you could leave it vague, but then it would feel like a needlessly obscure mechanic.
I feel that a proper UI could really pull its weight to make the player understand what is going on, but a very obvious UI is going to get annoying on the long run.
When I suggested streamlining, I was suggesting a heavy simplification of the system in its mechanics.
One possible option would be to take a page from the POE incubators, and have something like this:
every 1000 slain enemies drop an exalted helmet every rare slain enemies drops a unique item every timeline boss drops an additional glyph of despair completing an arena echo drops 10 additional idols every Covenant of Dominion slain drops a cindersong and so on...
The advantage of this approach is that it allows you to tune the trigger frequency of the boons and the difficulty of the required encounters to match the rarity of the offered item, and also allow a mild specialization in the kind of content that is being done by the player.
It also allows for fun “hunting” minigames where you could tie specific drops to specific unique enemies like the covenant of dominion.
Yes, but the system you are describing does not produce a drop every time a boon triggers, so it will be a lot of animations for very little loot, it can easily get annoying.
That was a much stronger reaction than I was expecting.
To be honest I don’t think it is warranted.
The only difference with what you are proposing is that your version has an additional layer of lottery to which kills contribute to a boon, whereas in the simplified version all kills count.
You still will now know what will be droppint (except for the example where I picked a specific low-tier unique, which I imagine would be used for farming LP items).
Agree to disagree I suppose.
Personally I feel that unpredictability is not an intrinsically good feature of a loot system.
Monolith rewards are already highly predictable, boss drops are also highly predictable.
I think that the random unpredictable loot is easily the worst part about the loot in general.
Usually the answer is that unpredictable loot is more exiting, and, well, I disagree.
From my personal experience, when I randomly dropped Ravanous Void in a random monolith it was WAY less exiting than if I dropped after properly farming for it.
I was like, “oh, cool, I guess I don’t have to do this now”.
Since I was not expecting the drop, I did not properly get exited over it
Farming for wings of argentus, I was way happier when it finally dropped.
However, these positions tend to be highly personal, if you view things differently, that is hardly surprising.
I think it really depends on how good or specific the rewards are.
But I would like the whole system to have a lot of power.
This way in conjunction with being able to choose what kind of rewards you want would (hopefully) create a feeling that every time such a boon triggers, even if you don’t get immediate rewards, it would still feel like you are actively working towards something desired.
Some of the examples I gave in my OP were really generic and would still involve a lot of randomness.
But I could imagine some very powerful and specific reward als like: “Sentinel Adorned Idol with Keen Prefix” (that is the chance to cast smite on throwing attack affix)
Regarding predictability of loot.
I guess we are both on the extreme opposites of a spectrum here.
I absolute hate systems that have this “Do this X times do guarantee getting the thing Y”
Monolith rewards and boss drops are not this kind of predictable.
I am purely talking about the “Fill up a bar and get a certain rewards guaranteed”
