Re-designing weave's endgame

So I just checked how some cool guys defeated 160th weave (the very last one). Looking at it, I approach some discussion, on how “endgame” difficulty is made. To note, 121+ weaves have 1000% damage multiplier on enemy attacks, so you are almost always getting oneshotted, and meta builds enforce you to block for most of the time, which doesn’t appear to be fun experience.

To make it clear, I’m not having any issues with it. 121+ weaves are completely optional, no okri’s challenges for it, and it’s just for that small portion of people who just want do challenge themselves that way. In comparison, Cataclysm difficulty (which I’m most comfortable with) - is perfectly balanced between “very hard” and “straight not fun to play”.

And I’m not having issues with weaves themselves, those first 80 (at least) weaves are apparently pretty fun to play, can’t say much about 81-120 (it’s a long way to go for me). And I generally love that “scripted” design, which makes game challenging you in more unique way, than just RNG fiesta in normal games (which is also not bad). Also, weave modifiers challenge player in much more refreshing way, specially Beasts, Shadow or Light. Good job dev team on that one.

So, there comes the question, what is alternative way of making endgame difficulty, that wouldn’t enforce meta playstyle too much, but it would also be designed for best of the best. Usually people would suggest to increase amount of spawned enemies, but it comes with several problems:

  1. Weaves are already flooded with spawns in several ways.
  2. Making even more spawns would make AOE meta even more essential.
  3. Technical limitations.

And there is my idea:

Amplifying modifiers in weaves as core identity of difficulty.

And also reworking some of them to make them either less cheesy (death) or less straight (metal, fire). More importantly - keep difficulty at cataclysm (or cata 3 without extra modifiers), so normal enemies dont oneshot you, that’s the whole point.

So there is my take how to rework weave modifiers without 1000% damage multiplier on endgame weaves:

1).Life wind is good on its own. On endgame weaves simple damage tweaking can make gameplay much more threatening. For example - in 121+ weaves thorns deal extreme damage (or even oneshot) whenever you step on them. Ticks of damage occur faster, so you’ll have less time of escaping bush, if you accidentally step on it.

Entire design is about making decisions. Do we kill enemies there? Do I just kite them without killing? Do I damage boss, or we burst it fast? Completely avoidable, and you can work around it by killing enemies carefully, and not damaging boss without need.

2).Metal wind reworked. Some selected enemies get very hard skin, only headshot damage can deal proper damage to them. Body damage is reduced by ~90%. It can affect non-armored enemies too. On lesser weaves only few enemies are buffed that way, while more late weaves have more and more of them (even all of them at 121+ weaves, if you feel crazy enough).

This wind promotes more skill-based gameplay, as well as picking weapons that are better at head-shotting, while also countering aoe meta for more interactive gameplay.

3).Wind of Heaven - tweaked to be much more aggressive and faster. In endgame weaves it doesn’t have “wind-up” animation anymore (players should count by themselves), only few seconds before actual strike. Delay before strike is also reduced. Oneshots players, enemies are barely damaged.

Encourages player to have much more strict positioning. One player’s mistake can lead to entire team’s demise. I believe simply tweaking timing will make this wind much more entertaining and threatening.

4).Wind of Light. Drastically increase speed of stacking curse (and curing as well, to not make it too tedious). Cleansing lanterns expire after several minutes of using. Potentially rework positions of cleansing lanterns.

This wind is more of game of running between checkpoints, defending on them. Like holding a breath and diving into the water, as team. This wind will make kiting strategies much harder, and it would enforce more CC-heavy team, that can hold the ground despite the odds.

5).Wind of Death reworked. Whenever you kill an enemy, their soul spawns as static object with its own hp. If the soul isn’t destroyed in few seconds - enemy will resurrect. It can occur once in lesser weaves, and timing is big, while more endgame weaves can have it to occur multiple times with more strict window. Souls are immune to ranged damage (unless it’s archers or specials). It makes big difference to counter AOE meta.

This wind enforces more teamplay, and more focusing on killing stuff together. One lone player can’t reliably deal with spawned souls, but together it’s much more approachable. Killing specific souls might be hard in high populated enemy hordes, so it’s best if players dedicate themselves to either destroying souls with high range weapon (like spear), or focus on killing normal enemies.

6).Wind of Beast is pretty good designed already. It’s most “puzzle-ish” weave out of all. To make high level beast weaves much harder, several solutions can be applied, or even all at once:

Totems are immune to ranged damage.
Totems respawn if any alive player travels too far from it - it’s to discourage backtracking to “safe zones”.
Totems need to be hit by each alive player to be destroyed.

With that players will require to push together. Potentially CC lock entire hordes to get to said totems. Which sounds hard and barely approachable, but it may be in the level of endgame weaves, as something “super duper hard”

7).Shadow wind is great as well. I can’t SEE how to make it more interactive. Endgame weaves may include several extra modifiers in it, to make it even more harder by tricking player:

Disable UI.
Disable ally voices and pings and outlines.
Disable sound of invisible enemies, only if they are close enough.

Self-explanatory. Just confuse player as much as possible. It can be both easiest and hardest weave, but it challenges player in much more unique way that other ones.

8).Fire weaves reworked to be more interactive. Fire geysers spawn periodically near players. They remain as dangerous obstacle for set time. Lesser weaves also damage enemies. Endgame weaves will have geysers spawn much more aggresive, and oneshot player whenever one steps on it.

Similar to Heaven wind - it’s much more position based. But Heaven wind poses more “periodical” threat, while Fire wind is more “constant”, which defines battlefield around the player and affects its movement decisions. by creating “walls”. Survival part can become much harder due to limited space, but that’s the point.

I think these differences would make endgame weaves much more entertaining to play, while avoid cheap damage modifiers. Even more, the said damage modifiers can be applied on top of these changes, to make more 161-200 weaves, if devs will ever want it. But that’s another story.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 7 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.