Making Crucible Better

Wicked Feedback
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Hello there,
Here’s a quick post talking about how the Crucible could be made better in the future based on how it currently plays and what we know the devs want it to be.

Currently, the Crucible has 7rooms + the boss room and loot room. You always have to clear those 7rooms in order to get back to the boss, which is not only annoying at first when you want to learn the fight, but since there is only 7rooms, and you have to clear them all once, it gets old real quick. So here’s what I propose :

Make The Crucible Only 5 rooms before the boss. You would see 5/7 of the rooms, getting to the boss is faster and it won’t always feel the exact same. Once they’ve added 2-3 more rooms to the pool, it will feel randomised enough and most people will be happy.

Furthermore, The lift is currently surrounded buy torches that lights up when you activate the altar, indicating the lift is unlocked… Just make the pressure plate of the lift have a blue/red rune light up on the lift and replace the Torches by Podiums where Cerims can place “Memories”

Memories would be obtained by killing the boss of the Crucible, he would drop one of many upon death and you could place it on one of the Podiums surrounding the lift. How would they work…? Well, as a Rogue Like, adding additional variations and challenges to your Crucible run.

(I went with Memories since it seems to be a big theme about the Echo Knights and the crucible in general)

Memory of the Labyrinth :
Adds 5 extra room to clear before completing the Crucible : +15% Gold Earned +10% XP Earned

Memories of the Berserker :
Enemies gain additional Armour, Health and Attack : + 25% Gold Earned + 15% XP Earned

Memories of the Horde :
More Enemies will be present in every map : +20% Gold Earned + 10% XP Earned

Memories of the Cleanse :
Enemies Drain Focus on hit : + 10% Gold Earned + 10% XP Earned

Memories of the Plague :
You are permanently afflicted by the Plague Status : +30% Gold Earned + 30% XP Earned

…

And so on, there is really just about an unlimited amount of ideas devs could insert here, There could be anywhere from 4 to 6 podiums, allowing you to mix and match different Memories to change the level of challenge to your run, keeping them fresh and making them harder and more rewarding for those who’s builds are quite literally breaking the game.

Heck, they could even make little secrets where let’s say, combining certain Memories together unlock a secret Boss Fight at the end with unique loot or other crazy ideas for the community to discover.

Now, Thomas has been saying that he wants to introduce a Rogue Like element that allows you to chose a perk at the end of each room, making you grow in power and build you up in unique ways. This also sounds cool, but they would need to make each following room much harder than the previous as we are already far too strong for the crucible, getting any stronger doesn’t sound very interesting to me…

What do you guys think? What would make the Crucible more enjoyable and replayable to you? Let me know down below.

-Ctrl

5 Likes
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I’m glad Thomas is doubling down on the Hades goal, and the idea of rewarding players for clearing rooms.

This makes me wonder if there might be a crucible mode that totally strips away everything of yours, all gear etc, and has you build your way back up (with a degree of meta progression as well of course).

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nah I agree with the less rooms even though I’m a vehement defender of the crucible. The fact that you go through most of the room variety regardless of permutation kinda sucks and reducing it to 5 would be great. I also think Crucible modifiers make sense with both lore & wanting to make it infinitely replayable.

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This is sick, I would love it. Maybe have it so every room that you clear gives you something like 10 weapons then 10 gear pieces to choose from, all randomly enchanted/infused, and good luck with it. Could even make it so you only get to keep the gear if you successfully finish the run, so you might see something in there even better than your current equipment but you’d better find a way to make it work with the rest of the random trash if you want to keep it.

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Great Idea. Gives a reward to completing it, and the option to make it harder. It’s also a nice trophy to know which ones you’ve unlocked. (As they allow us to do more of them up the stairs etc.)

However the current lore given is that the Echo Knight Chamber should not be entered and it is advised to leave it alone. With the current understanding of the lore behind that tablet and where the option to place a memory to make it harder would need to be elaborated on. Why would they say to stay away from it, but then give you the option to make it harder?

Maybe instead of a memory, they create a system more based around an Enraged Echo Knight. Where after you defeat him the first time it will turn enraged making the next attempt harder (and if you die it resets back to a non enraged state?) OR it will give the option to add more than 1 ember, maybe making the entry 2 embers and it’s now a harder version?

That might keep the lore in line where they are trying to say to stay away from it, and since you didn’t and killed one, they are now angry and it makes it more dangerous?

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If there is, I hope it’s separate from the main game.

To me, this kills replayability. Why make second (or third) characters if the main endgame content (presumably) just strips away everything you’ve done to build your character?

I want to be able to put together my own build and play with it. I don’t want to have RNG dictate what build I get on a given run.

I was actually super happy to see that NRFTW wasn’t going to be a roguelike, like the a ton of other games being pumped out nowadays. It’s one of the main reasons I purchased NRFTW.

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Ofc it would be diff from main game lol. I’m talking about just a type of altar in the crucible that strips your character of everything for each run. A rogue like mode as a type of game mode to try out within the main game. No need to create a whole separate character.

And then in terms of meta progression idk, maybe there’d be something for that specific mode, or maybe each run is totally fresh

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This feels a little bit insulting roguelikes aren’t just this genre constantly being pumped out like Ubisoft slop nor are they even that common.

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The only insult being slung is yours toward Ubisoft. Being a roguelike has no bearing on the quality of the game.

There are a ton of roguelikes being made, so I’m not even sure what to tell you there. Steamdb has 100 games released or releasing in May alone with the roguelike tag. 682 for 2024 up through the end of May. Even if you assume half of those are tagged incorrectly, that’s still over 300 new roguelikes this year so far, and we’re not even halfway through 2024 yet. To contrast, there are about 600 games with the action tag in the same timespan. That is a pretty generic tag - and there are still fewer of them overall.

And roguelikes are fine. I have nothing against them in general. I also don’t want this game to become a battle royale. I just want NRFTW to be an ARPG where I can create and craft my own build, and take it into the game’s content - like we have today in early access. I agree the crucible needs more work and more variation, but the game has only been out in early access for a few weeks. I’m sure they’ll add more to it.