Future progression titles and the requirements to earn em

Chompy

First, let me say I am more than fine with the nerfing of act 6. Act 7 and likely act 8, based on the 8.1 beta are both significantly easier than act 6. Game progression is dependent on story mode, and therefore I can understand content being tuned down to allow many more to continue their journey.

Only problem I see, is that we no longer have permanent difficult content similar to what story mode used to give, along with the rewards that would automatically ascend you to that next title, as act 6 did for thronebreaker.

In other words, I am ok with tuning down story mode and even tuning down the rewards alongside, but content, similar to that of act 6 difficulty and length, should exist to fill that gap alongside the act.

For example, act 7 is the only content needed to become Paragon, but an "act 7 expansion" that is much more rigorous, in line with what act 6 was, would reward players with the material needed for Paragon, like previous acts.

I dont consider Abyss, and the likes, to fill this hole. They are an entirely different content. Difficult, but also more of a money/unit and energy draining (not ingame energy lol) pit, that are obviously not similar to act 6.

What do you all think?

DNA3000

No.

Progression is not about top tier achievement. It is entirely circumstantial and temporary that achieving top tier progression *first* is a top tier achievement. But progression in general is supposed to be something most or all players accomplish. Paragon is not for players who can somehow reach it. It is intended, in the long run, to be something everyone reaches on the way to higher things. One day, Paragon will just be another step on the ladder, like Uncollected and Cavalier are now.

Progression shouldn't be gated behind content deliberately designed to be high challenge. It should be something that players can reach through more moderate means eventually. It just will take them longer to do it.

Simultaneously, there must be things for the highest tier players to chase, and that's across the highest grinders, the highest competitors, and also the highest spenders. Those players must get advantages for their time, competitive skill, and their cash. The primary advantage in this game is speed: they get things quicker.

I get the idea that there should be this one shot content path to every top tier progression tier. But that's not going to happen, because it breaks things in both directions. If such a thing exists, then there's no advantage to be had for those competing in top tier alliances or whales spending to keep the game alive. Unless it is made so difficult that only the whales and top competitors can even do it, and then that becomes something permanently out of reach of the average player.

Sure, in theory you can just do everything: make a content path, a grind path, a competitive path, a whale path, all balanced separately and deployed on their own independent schedules for resource balance. This would require about ten times more developers than we have now, so in practice, this won't happen.

There's a reason the top progression titles have evolved to where they are now with content requirements and roster requirements. Content requirements start off hard but then get easier with roster development, to a point. We can aim content requirements for a moderately high point that can evolve downward to be achievable by average players eventually. But that moderately high level is not high enough to challenge top tier players: it doesn't distinguish them apart, which means if that was the only requirement a large slice of players would instantly reach that next progress tier on release, which is not what progress tiers are intended for. Roster checks independently challenge higher tier players in a way that differentiates them and gives an avenue for top tier grinders, competitors, and spenders to gain a temporary advantage that quickly evaporates and doesn't create permanent barriers that show-stop lower tier players.

The combination of those constraints and development resource limits is why you're not going to get the kind of content you want, where it is just loaded with the materials necessary to pass the next roster check and offer a direct path to getting whatever they are going to be in the future. If that was possible, the roster check itself would be unnecessary.