how to make the endgame map system better
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Hello.
I thought about the endgame map system with its waystones and tablet, so here are my ideas how to make that better: 1) Map affixes should feel exciting and create a gameplay difference: -instead: "monsters deal X% damage as extra lightning damage", do: "this map spawns additional monsters with lightning projectile attacks and slams, these attacks deal x% more damage" -> creates a map were the players needs to be specifically aware of these monsters and their attacks while also having visual clarity that attacks that look like lightning are the ones to watch out for -instead: "adds 4 more magic chests" -> "adds multiple treasures with significantly increased item rarity to the map which are hidden in hand-designed "points of interest" like behind a waterfall, a door that can be opened with a key dropped by nearby monsters or behind a small puzzle -> creates a map focused on rewarding exploration -instead "adds a (generic) shrine to the map" (something like that should be simply part of the default random map generation) -> "adds a special shrine to the map that changes up gameplay in an interesting way" -instead: "adds 30 groups of bramble monsters" -> add memorable combat encounters like minibosses (you can start by taking campaign bosses with simple mechanics as mini-bosses) and interesting to fight rares. An example for such "rares" would be the archetypes described in the spoiler below. Waystones could directly add "X monsters of a specific archetype to the map"
Spoiler
These are my main ideas how to make each individual combat encounter, consisting typically of 1-4 rares and the mobs sourrounding them, feel more meaningful and engaging:
a) give rare monsters a specific ability The idea here is that when you see a rare monster, you'll know what it does, because each of the rare monsters would have a specific ability particular to that monster. So there could be rare skeleton mage monster type that always call down a meteor at the player, there could be a rare tanky berserker that always gets increased attack damage when attacking a player uninterrupted and so on. This improves visual clarity, feels thematic and makes them feel less generic (the actual monster type matters, not just the random rare modifiers). The following ideas also build up onto this. b) rework monster modifiers to work more like support gems There can still be generic monster modifiers like we have right now, having a role like increasing the monsters survivability. My idea is to add another type of monster modifiers that work more like support gems: our meteor calling skeleton mage has a "mage type" ability and this ability can be supported by "mage type" monster modifiers. One modifier would let the meteor leave burning ground behind, another modifier would let it echo a 2nd time. Our tanky berserker would get monster modifiers from a different set: e.g. they could give him additional lifesteal or attack speed. This way monsters get meaningful sets of modifiers that fit well together and the main monster ability can be modified in interesting ways. c) add a single archetype to some rare monsters An archetype changes a rare monster in a way specific to that archetype and can be recognized by a small icon. Let me give some examples: "the caster" is a monster whos primarly threat lies in using its active ability against the player, to achieve this he gets an additional modifier and 2 of his modifiers are guranteed to support his ability "the warrior" is a monster whos primarly threat lies in its more basic attacks that deal high damage while he has also good survivability "the general" buffs the normal and magic (not rare) monsters around him, this could be by increasing their survivability through large shields or granting them short attack speed and damage buffs "the leader" is buffed while being sourrounded by normal and magic monsters, e.g. he takes less damage while those still live, can sacrifice them to heal himself etc. "the summoner" brings new monsters into play as long as he's alive, he could be a necromancer, swarm host or plant summoning druid "the channeler" has a powerful channel ability (e.g. channeling a hard to dodge meteor shower instead of a single meteor) that can be interrupted, because he needs some time to channel and is vulnerable to any kind of crowd control like stun / freeze during that time "the growing threat" becomes stronger over time, becoming more of a threat, the longer he is ignored by the player, a variant of this could be "evolution": lets the monster evolve into a more powerful form after a while like growing wings and getting an additional powerful attack pattern "the tank" has good survivability and an ability (e.g. parry, magical shield) that lets him benefit from absorbing player damage for a short time A main idea here is to create strong rare monsters that require distinct responses from the player in how to deal with them while also making it recognizeable at a glance what kind of monster archetype one is encountering and therefore what to roughly expect without having to learn 500+ different monsters. d) Make monsters tanky enough to survive for a while, so that players actually need to engage with them. This is especially important for the rare monsters. The "general" archetype is also intended to help with this - creating encounters were those white / magic monsters pose more of a threat than usual. Some of these modifiers could purely add content, other modifiers could be called "challenge modifiers", because they make the map more difficult and change up the gameplay. Those modifiers could make juicing modifiers on the same waystone/tablet more efficient to reward the increased difficuly. 2) more consistent monster density and difficulty level Currently the monster density varies too much: Even if I don't specc into any increased monster density atlas nodes, I can get maps with very high monster density due to map modifiers like +100% more magic mosnters. Similarly the map difficulty also varies to much: a T15 map with increased critical hit chance/damage, more elemental damage, elemental penetration and more monsters can be significantly harder than the average map. proposed change: Remove monster density and monster difficulty related modifiers from waystones and tablets. A map of the same level should offer a consistent difficulty level. The lost affixes would be inbuilt into the basic map difficulty and there could be nodes on the atlas tree to further customize the challenge level. That also makes balancing the game much easier, due to not having players needing to be able to engage monsters in super-high-damage spike environments that can be created by stacking certain affixes. Move monster density to the atlas tree. The player in the new system would be able to make the mutually exclusive choice of speccing into monster density or monster efficiency - leading to either "large amounts of low hp monsters" or "stronger, more challenging, slower to fight fewer monsters with higher rewards per monster defeated", but roughly the same loot per time spend. 3) a short overview how the new system would work: Waystone level -> sets the general difficulty level atlas tree -> gives the player the major choice of significantly changing monster density and has nodes that allow further difficulty customization and added challenge waystone modifiers -> mainly add juicing and side content like "azmeri spirits" and other content that changes how the map feels, as I've descibed under #1 Tablets -> choose which league content do I want to engage with? Tablet modifiers -> adds variance to league content (affixes are primarly focused on changing up league content instead of being generic affixes as many are now) and adds juicing to the map what is gone: random, generic feeling affixes that change monster difficulty and density or have low impact like adding 4 treasures Last edited by Meril#8494 on May 5, 2026, 5:28:16 PM Last bumped on May 5, 2026, 3:01:19 PM
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