The current offer we have as endgame is “increase difficulty endlessly for the sake of it” - what feels like a stick all the way, with no carrot at all. Or paying for good job with more job; however humorous and true to the source it may be, it’s not really encouraging, for many players. Especially comparing it to the thrill of initial new player experience, when you constantly get something for your efforts during a mission, new weapons, blessings, talents etc - and then you are left out to dry after that, with nothing except a few abstract numbers increasing to hope for. I don’t think this is good enough to attract more players to modes like Havoc, or even Auric, on itself.
Another problem that needs (imo) to be addressed is a feel of “staleness” you get after initial development is done. You play a mission after a mission, and it feels as you got nothing from it. May be, if you play Havoc, you see clearance level increasing - but that’s it. And if you don’t progress even this metric, it just gives you the Groundhog Day’s feels 
Let’s be honest: most people are not that good, and at some point they’ll just hit their plato in terms of skill - and they may never actually improve past that point. It would be great to still give them some long-term goals which they are guaranteed to reach (like upgrading their equipment to its maximum) - or they’ll just lose interest quickly. It even looks ridiculous now, like, I have 200 hours in the game, and have 1.5m credits and 15k diamantine just sitting there, as there is nothing to spend it on. Players always should have something they just can slowly grind for, even if it gives you very little advantage, like +5% of damage over 6 month of upgrading your main weapons - it’s still something.
Below are some ideas that could increase players’ retention and popularity for those modes with extra difficulty.
I. New gear grades.
The most obvious addition. Starting from Damnation, you should be able to acquire gear with higher stats and better perks and bonuses than Transcendent limited to 80 in its stats. Here is how it could look like:
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For weapons, max stats could go up to 100 - but only for one or may be two of the stats. Curios would have greater base bonus, and one extra perk slot and/or greater per-perk bonusses
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You would start seeing such equipment dropped on Damnation already, but with a much lower chance. Would be way more frequent in Auric, and pretty mundane in Havoc. Max stats for weapons dropped in Damnation and Auric would be limited by 90 still, in Havoc it would go up to 100, with much better weapons and curios dropped at higher difficulties there
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If a character with such endgame equipment decides to play missions below its intended difficulty levels, its bonuses and stats are scaled down/capped to prevent powercreep being imported there
II. Advanced crafting system
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Mainly you just, as before, can Empower the new weapons mentioned above, paying with Diamantine and Credits. But stat increase for such weapons should proceed with much lower increments and cost substantial amount of resources (increasing drastically the closer you get to the max values) - to give players long-term goals for a couple years at least (calculated as “time needed to gather a few sets of primary and secondary fully maxed out weapons per each base class”)
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You can also now Empower higher grade Curios, increasing their base bonus and unlocking perks of tiers higher than current 4th, with better bonuses (even if just slightly better)
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Sacrifice weapon feature now works differently (as you can’t use it for Mastery boost as before, we need a new purpose for it, at that point):
- First of all, you can use it by setting a checkbox during regular Empowerment action to slightly enhance increase to the stats you get (tech priests will disassemble it and will use its parts for enhancing your main weapon). As always, it will increase all current stats at once for the same amount
- By using it separately, you can try your luck and improve stats of some your other weapon disproportionally. It’s a pure RNG, and by sacrificing enough high-grade weapons (the ones you can’t buy, but only can get as reward by playing in Auric or Havoc) you may see substantial increase in two of its stats chosen randomly - but as well as substantial decrease in another one stat. Whether it will be the current values or the max stats values - you choose yourself, before going for it. Some general limitations still should apply to how much you can tweak your weapon this way
- Similar mechanics should be implemented for Curios as well
III. New gear type: auxiliary items
On your character’s Loadout screen you’ll now have one extra slot for a single “powerup” auxiliary item you can take into missions (which you can easily change if needed on the squad overview screen). Those items can be collected as a reward for completing secondary objectives during endgame missions (which hopefully will one day come in much more varieties than “Find the scriptures”, like it could be “Kill all daemon hosts”, “Destroy all idols”, “Collect some samples”, “Collect additional data during planned Data Interrogation” (requires one more teammate to do the same minigame at the same time with the one advancing the main task) etc). If secondary objective is completed fully, every player gets a random drop of one auxiliary item. If it’s completed partially, the base chance of 100% is scaled down proportionally (“the dice” is still rolled for whole squad at once, either all get the items, or nobody does). If an item is used during a mission (even if just one charge of many is used), it’s removed from your inventory, otherwise you keep it and can carry into the next one. Some of the items may be used several times per mission (by different players), while others can only be used once (by any player).
Some examples of the items:
- Airdrop of Portable Medicae Station for all teammates to use; once per all per mission
- Airdrop of special ammo crate that restores both ammo and grenades, for all teammates; once per all per mission
- Airdrop of crate with all 4 types of stims (1 of each), for all teammates; once per all per mission
- Insta-revival stim (1 charge), to instantly get adjacent teammate out the downed state; multiple use, but once per player
- Self-revival implant (1 charge) - if you choose so, can get you out the downed state once per mission; multiple use, but once per player
- Fire extinguisher (1-3 charges, depending on grade, 30s cooldown) - instantly removes both yours and enemy fire surfaces of any kind in a small radius; multiple use, but once per player (until charges are depleted)
- Scout servoskull (1-3 charges, depending on grade, 30s cooldown) - follows you while hovering above your head, lighting up the environment (to help navigating in dark areas), for a minute; additionally, will every 10 seconds tag all normal pickups (ammo, stims, resources) in a certain radius, even those hidden inside crates, for the whole squad; multiple use, but once per player (until charges are depleted), and only one can be active at a time
- Universal chain feed (1-3 charges, depending on grade, 15s cooldown) - if activated, for 15 seconds your range weapon draws ammo directly from your spare ammo, bypassing its clip.
- “Reptilian brain” implant (1-3 charges, depending on grade; 15s cooldown between charges) - upon receiving a melee damage that would otherwise send you into downed state, a charge is spent and your character is considered dodging the blow instead
Chance to get a drop of any particular item in the list depends on how powerful it’s considered to be, the more powerful the lower the chance (additionally adjusted by level of difficulty you play at, the higher you go, the higher the chance of more powerful items). The chances should be set in such way players would not be able to accumulate too much of those, and would have to use them sparingly. Additionally, some maximum caps could be set for amount of those items one can store in their inventory, to prevent farming and stockpiling them for future use.
P.S.
IV. Addressing the powercreep created by everything above
As was pointed out in the discussion below, if implemented, these ideas will decrease amount of challenge one can get in the difficulty levels affected by it. That’s a fair argument, and needs to be addressed separately.
Though simply adding a dozen or two of clearance levels on the top of currently existing 40 is always an option, something more neat can be done here:
- Adjust challenge level of the lowest 10-15 Havoc’s clearance levels to feel about the same as Auric does (so starting easier than Auric at clearance lv1 and ending somewhat harder at clearance lv10). This makes learning curve less steeper and allow people to learn new Havoc-specific mechanics in a calmer environment
- In Damantion and Auric, adjust rewards and drop rates that one will require to acquire and upgrade the equipment of higher grades so that it would take unreasonable amount of time to assemble a selection of fully maxxed out sets
- Significantly increase the rewards and drop rates one can get in Havoc, starting from its lowest clearance levels already
- To compensate for the added powercreep, add 10-15 more clearance levels on top of current 40
This way, after players getting a taste of the new equipment in “vanilla” game, they’ll be naturally lured into Havoc by the urge of getting more of it and upgrading it to the max levels. Lowered entrance bar ensures a smoother transition and gives people opportunity to take a breath and adjust to the new environment. Challenge level in Damnation and Auric will drop somewhat due to more powerful weapons now available, but as people will now have a full new mode to explore, it should compensate for that. Thus it creates a transparent bridge between “vanilla” game and the “endgame” content.
Most of the newcomers will probably forever stay in the lower clearance levels, being satisfied with grind for new shinies and a bit of additional challenge. To prevent too much burden on the more dedicated players of the mode which will have to deal with an influx of (potentially) less prepared players in Havoc, some additional Penances could be added that would serve as “Proof of kill” kind of token (a term from MMORPG world, usually an item or achivemen(s) you can get by clearing (repeatedly) endgame content), showing they are capable of surviving higher difficulty levels. Those Penances then could be made visible on the squad review screen when game is setup for Havoc mode - so that people could make an educated decision on whether or not this player is up to the challenge their squad plans to face.
At the same time, extra clearance levels added on top compensate for the powercreep we add with the new stuff, ensuring that there is still a room to grow for those seeking more challenge.
