Boss Rush and Ascended realm progression

Related posts:

https://playnightingale.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RRFEEDBACK-I-1311

https://playnightingale.ideas.aha.io/ideas/RRFEEDBACK-I-1283

Because of the addition of Boss Rush, Ascended realms serve no purpose except as sources for T4 essence; the T4 materials are not competitive with Boss Rush rewards, especially given the extreme lack of attribute diversity, and they don't improve between Ascended Antiquarian and Ascended Hunt. The difficulty of Nightmare Ascended is significantly higher than that of Nightingale City on Nightmare, yet the resource tier is the same. Ascended realms need to be changed so that they fit into the progression in some reasonable way.

Example:

• Introduce T4 essence and materials in Hollowed Moor/Gloom so that the resources don't become obsolete right away.

• Lock Ascended realms until after Nightingale City's current quest progression has been completed, and require unlocking each successive Ascended realm through questing in the preceding realms (starting in Nightingale City); unlock via quest in the realm rather than simply buying off the merchants will allow all of the Ascended realms to see traffic (and purpose) rather than everyone jumping to whichever one they see as the most useful (I only go for essence farming. Material farming is pointless, as you get exactly the same resources in pre-Watch realms, even with the same distribution).

• Introduce T4 progression options in the Progression window upon reaching either The Watch or Nightingale City, even if it is only new minor realm cards and infusions.

• introduce T5 essence, materials and progression at Ascended Provisioner, and T6 at Ascended Gloom.

  • Since T5/6 is introduced in Boss Rush, which is lower-level than Ascended Nightmare until later waves, this would keep in line with progression while not forcing people to do Boss Rush endlessly for specific resources so that they can progress further into Boss Rush waves.

  • Going through Ascended realms after beating the story to this point could also introduce quests to help rebuild and supply the city as you find (non-recruitable) survivors from the various factions, paving the way for the next stage of the story (whatever it may be).

• With these changes, vaults could then be removed from The Watch and replace Ascended realm vaults, since they no longer serve a purpose in The Watch because of Boss Rush making them obsolete.

  • Adding the old Watch vaults to Ascended realms, maybe with the bosses from Boss Rush appropriate to the realm (Jabberwock and some new bosses for Antiquarian's 3 biomes, Azazel and others for Astrolabe, etc). That would make progression through the realms post-city worth considering, especially if combined with quests as described above.

• Once players reach the end of the Ascended progression (Hunt and its quests), the story could bring it back to Nightingale city and The Watch for what comes next.

Adding changes like this would also necessitate re-balancing materials and gear/tools, for which suggestions are found in the links above.