Hello everyone. I have ~800h in V2 and would like to share a humble suggestion.
Being short, the main reasons for player retention in this game are:
- Loot Chasing;
- Social Interaction;
- Adversity Overcome.
With stretching V2 lifespan in mind, Modded Realm was never a good option: it completely ignores the loot chasing aspect and divides the community into two separated groups. For me, it also hurts immersion when you realize that you take control over the difficulty.
That said, Heroic Deeds could play a bigger role in the endgame. It contains all three major reasons to keep players engaged, but need a little rework.
Some suggestions:
- Deeds need a higher drop rate OR an alternative way to be acquired
I’ve oppened almost a hundred Legend vaults these days and didn’t find any. Deeds need to drop more, or maybe, turn into an item like ravaged art that you can collect on the map, being another incentive for exploration.
We should be able to at least try some interesting deeds over the week. It’s being months since I played one. No one I play with have anything worth the time.
- Give us some way to upgrade Deeds
It’s already hard to get it, and it can come in bad shape. I have two pages of Recruit-Champion Deeds that I will never do. Some other Legend Deeds that give lower tier Vaults are also not interesting. It would be fun if players were able to upgrade uninteresting deeds, both in difficulty (recruit to cataclysm) and in number of effects and chests rewarded (instead of deleting, and I can’t believe it was a confortable decision for the team to add a “delete content” button, what a shame - in Sienna’s voice).
It can be a simple crafting UI using the bloat of materials we have, or transforming recovered Tomes and Grimoires into new resources to be spent upgrading deeds.
Deeds should be a natural part of the gameplay loop. You play some Legend games, meet cool people that you think you can trust your back and invite them to try that one Deed you farmed for. Maybe they have one or two in the bag, who knows? Progression that encourages social interaction sounds like a good thing.
- Cataclysm Specifics and “Endgame Deed”
If better Cataclysm chests are out of discussion, Legend will stay as the “farming difficulty” and Cataclysm as the “challenge difficulty”. Let us go crazy with the ammount of effects in cataclysm, allowing more effects per deed or even new effects to be added.
We could have a “final” Cataclysm deed with lots of if not all effects as a new challenge. Maybe rewarding a new portrait frame and some Trophy to be added to your Fort.
Why bother with Deeds?
Because that’s an organic way to add variation of progression, gameplay diversity (without additional cost) and more social interactions to the game. Deeds can make less used builds viable, allow new strategies to be created, encourage more engagement inside the community and much more without dividing players between two realms.
That’s it.
