Legendary difficulty

[FlyingV]

LotB is (or after fixing the bugs 'will be') world-specific for target-farming. If you want red shards or runes, you will ideally be farming AK or BF. If you want purple things, you go to UW. Here is (or "will be") the problem however: if I have nothing but gunner/assassin needs, I am sitting pretty scoring high gains in gold, etc farming Underworld, but if I need some strength talismans and red XP runes, I am screwed by having to "Waste" all my SoT on the meagre offerings of AK just to get a few necessary target items. This is a very unbalanced method of farming, however many DO like the dev descision to make items world-specific for farming purposes. While Devs could monkey with the difficulties in madness to balance the equation, early and mid-level players would suffer needlessly contending with the increased difficulty.

Enter LEGENDARY DIFFICULTY feature. The farming function of this feature is that top-level dungeons of each world are equally-balanced in terms of difficulty and rewards with each other, so you aren't getting screwed all day defeating the wicker man for peanuts while others are making a mint auto farming Game of Death all day. You may also find that Wicker Man is now just as much as a PITA in legendary for players as The Beast is in hard or madness. This challenge may reinvigorate players' enjoyment of these old haunts while farming the same dungeons, giving the devs the same worlds and toons to work with so they aren't having to reinvent the wheel for new (or future) content. In short, WIN-WIN.

Legendary also has some "suck it up" connotations as well, presenting a true challenge/reward for 'real' fans of the game. For starters, it is ONLY accessible to those who have won the game (Defeated the Beast in Legendary), no AK Legendary for those who have aced the first 3 Difficulties of AK yet struggle with Madness BF and Hard UW. The point of this is that there will be no balancing or hand-holding to make this a usable experience for beginner and end-gamer alike. This is a reward for the grinder... and a punishment. Notice I said 'for starters'. Just because one beat the Beast on Madness doesn't mean the requirements must end there. Hey endgamers, remember the glorious frustration of acquiring three skulls per dungeon? What if you don't advance to the next dungeon unless/until you complete this requirement at the present dungeon?

This is where creative genius comes in. People have been speculating 6* enemies to continue the challenge. Seems rather uninspiring to me. What if instead, you were to face L100 Wicker Man with his Level 100 Ox and Owl cultists... alone, as in ONE Eddie, no toons no backup eddies? Sounds like a doable challenge. Then again, what if you could only do it as ONE Toon, no Eddies or teammates in AK,? How about if the "A-class" toons (Angels, Generals, Sons, Trolls, & Children) can only equip 3* talismans, B-class (Demons, Dogs, Bombers, etc) get a 4* max and C-class like the mighty imp, possessed rifle, etc are the few who can go, full 5*? Don't worry about the other worlds' difficulty scaling. Perhaps you get 2 toons in KoS, One Eddie and 2 toons in BF, and full team in UW, making the challenge roughly-equal across all worlds without artificially-inflating 6* lvl 128 characters to do so. Creativity can be limitless with restrictive challenges (so long as they are doable, albeit frustratingly so).

This also grants the chance for the carrot to inspire players to endure the stick. Imagine 4-6 super powerful talismans, like the "Socket talisman" one that allows the player ONE chance to permanently fuse 2 existent talismans into the socket talisman, giving the character two talisman abilities operating within the space of one slot (slot color and 3 overall enhancement restrictions still apply). Thus, one can creatively run a three (possibly even a 4) talisman set within the character's two restricted color slots, or run three different 3 talisman sets with the 6 overall available slots. There are also the powerful single-slot talismans: those that confer an ability via a single talisman instead of a Multi-talisman set... great for those oddball toons with that ill-fitting single green or yellow slot, available in world-specific locations. Then there are the legend talismans... those imbued with insane stat/ability enhancers... BUT their evo talisman is available in the next most difficult world. Thus, this super powerful set is awarded at 1* in AK Legendary, evolves to 2* in KoS Legendary, to 3* in BF Legendary, to 4* in UW Legendary to 5* in Night City Legendary (don't worry, Night City will probably be out long before you conquer LotB legendary!).

Talismans need not be the only Legendary prize. Imagine the new challenges one can add like King Imp: a legendary little beastie awarded when a player defeats all levels of Legendary AK with Imp (And only the imp- no other toons or eddies. Of course, in fairness to ALL players, legendary difficulty talismans and awarded toons/eddies could be restricted from PVP, or restricted to "Legendary PVP" only.

Ironite is offered far more generously too, but it may take 30 ironite to continue. And there could also be an opportunity to score 100 trooper badges per use in Legendary mode- which really puts the greedy on the hook for ironite if they bite off more than they can chew trying to use a bunch of troopers in legendary... after all, ONE trooper attempt per dungeon per day -no camping on one low-level dungeon in AK 50 times.

Clearly one can see how much players can get from this difficulty expansion while making quality content easier for devs, who don't have to make different worlds.

[Vertax616]

This is a really detailed and great write up. Dear devs please consider these suggestions... Thank you FlyingV.

[slauki]

really like most of the suggestions. the farming is really imbalanced and this would be a perfect solution. Farming AK madness for some talismans is really a waste of SOT.
If your suggestion is too much work for the devs, we could even think of only one single legendary level per world. so one legendary level for AK, KOTS, BF and UW with equal
valuable drops would bring the balance back to grinding everywhere.

One example: Right now KOTS is the higest level you can farm for blue runes, and the drops there are really a pain in the ass ;-). With one legendary level you'd get
the 3* runes you need and you would get similar loot as playing game of death.

So basicly the devs would only have to create 4 level and this would be enough to make all worlds equal good/bad for farming.

[scott-5496]

I like all of the ideas presented here. If only some of them would come off!

[Witkacy]

Well... Great idea! I would like that to happen... Sure it would be some enrichment for a slowly becoming boring game...

Cheers,

W

[CanyptianFit]

Excellent suggestion. Well thought out. Can take it as far (complex) or as simple as possible and still add a ton of variety to the game for the end players. I notice that more than 50% of my troopers are Lvl 100. With each passing week more and more are becoming end players and simple dungeons alone wont cut it.

Love the game, glad the developers are trying to listen and make it better.