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Sorry, but monoliths are still not fun.
In the LE development timeline they have other endgame systems in mind, so maybe this is not such a big deal. For all I know, monoliths aren't even the main attraction they have planned.
LE is early access, yes. But this patch was focused on monoliths being awesome, so I think constructive criticism is reasonable at this point.
LE remains super fun early and mid game.
On to monos-
"Run to the end and kill the thing" is still the mantra. It is definitely better to have this web of maps than 2 choices each time, but it hardly changes the reality of running these same maps over and over. Within an hour of playing this new system I was running to find the same target twice in one sitting, on the same old necro map, following the same path we have all memorized by now.
The greatest difference the new map system offers is the alternative trials like the pseudo-arena, or Orobyss. The main reason why is that they give you a break from the mind-numbing map running. That in itself is best reward. Orobyss particularly pays off because you get to actually have a fun fight and he gives you so much stability that it saves you from running about 3 more boring maps!
They encourage leaving Orobyss fights until you are significantly far from the origin of the web, but you find yourself wondering if some measly few points of corruption (when your empowered base is already 100), is actually worth running so many extra maps, or whether you should just take the first Orobyss you can find so you can skip as many maps as possible to finally get the stability you need for the chapter 3 fight -> Blessing.
The 1350 stability required to reach chapter 3 is far too much. Seriously. Who wants to run ~50 maps in the condition they are in today? For one roll at one blessing? I'm actually surprised they put the tradeoff with Orobyss in there (subtracts vs adds corruption based on origin distance), because it forces the players to think about how much they hate running the maps in their decision about whether or not they want to add corruption. Corruption which, as far as anyone can tell, does ????? for your drop rate.
It's like the developers are saying, yeah we know you hate this, but how much do you hate it? If you push through and don't skip it, maybe you can have a little extra shiny drops... maybe.
If LE wants to incentivize us to run extra maps at this point they need to offer a really really big carrot. Not 3 corruption points that do who knows what. Otherwise all anyone wants is to get to the final boss fight for drops and blessings. And the repetitive mapping en route is just a god awful chore which we will take any route to minimize.
The changes to minions are excellent.
Compliment sandwich!
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