#Hardmode Orna Discussion

268 messages · Page 1 of 1 (latest)

vestal void
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Hardmode Orna

This is not a joke/meme thread

In fact, the intention is that this could possibly be turned into an official game mode, like how many games, even MMOs, have "hardmode" or "ironman" rulesets.

Why?

Orna in the endgame is a limitless power fantasy game where the only way to make things difficult is to turn up the difficulty yourself with Anguish, with maluses that turn from difficult to arguably just unfun at later levels depending on your class. Anguish is also optional and you can go back to power fantasy mode to grind out items or materials whenever you want.

The rules of Hardmode Orna should bring down that power fantasy, create more varied gameplay, and maybe even feed a bit of nostalgia for the way Orna felt back in the day.

The Rules (v1.0)

  • Materials cannot be bought from guilds
  • All full AoE is splitting AoE
    • For the sake of playing this unofficially, non-splitting full AoE would just be banned
  • Multiple Unfelled Concords don't stack
    • For unofficial purposes, just equip only one Concord at a time in the world load out
  • You are unable to use other players' buildings
  • Hardmode players cannot gain XP from party members and do not share their XP when in parties
    • For unofficial play, this must be self enforced the best you can
  • Can only buy cosmetics from the Runeshop (sorry Odie! But it makes sense for a hardmode)

Added rules (from suggestions)

  • Can never join parties (would resolve a lot of edge cases)
  • Celestial weapons can only have 1 or 2 of any specific augment (2 seems a bit more fair?)

What do people think? What actually realistic rules could a hardmode Orna have?
-# And please don't just meme about Realmshifter already being hardmode

vestal void
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I didn't want to make the original post too lengthy, but here are the reasons for each rule:

Materials cannot be bought
Right now in Orna the primary method for gaining almost any mildly difficult to obtain material is just farming easy to get guild proofs and then buying them from guilds. Guilds have made ascension extremely easy compared to how it was in the past, and even extremely high AL players don't have that much trouble gaining even more ALs thanks to how easy materials from guilds are.

Reduced AoE Effectiveness
Odie himself has lamented how much he doesn't like full AoE, so this rule seeks to introduce more variety into the equipment and skills needed to farm content. Not having powerful full AoE also brings a significant difficult spike on it's own.

Multiple Unfelled Concords don't stack
If you want to sit down and play Orna there's a solid chance you can keep endlessly looping dungeons forever as long as you have access to the right wayvessels. Or you can do a run of your dungeons and come back in an hour or two and run them all again. What if you couldn't, like in earlier levels or the old days? You'd have to vary up your gameplay, or go out into the world and GPS yourself some more dungeons to do.

As for not using other players' buildings, not sharing XP, and not being able to buy non-cosmetics, those are just to block skipping ahead

atomic burrow
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If it's an "Ironman" mode, then Kingdoms should be banned

There could also be an alternative "Group Ironman" mode where all Ironmen can party up and make Kingdoms with each other (and only with each other, for a maximum of 4 or 5 players)

Joining Amity hunting parties should also be banned (the same as above would apply to Group Ironmen)

Maybe limiting the usage of skills from classes other than the one being used or the ability of swapping classes could also be cool

vestal void
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There's an argument for banning parties in general

atomic burrow
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If you don't block players out of Kingdoms, that's a very easy way to get boosted (or boost yourself) through KRaids tho
Maybe a solo Kingdom would be okay, or a Kingdom with other Ironmen as I said

vestal void
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I don't think kingdom raids really count as boosting since you do have to deal all your damage yourself

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Doing normal raids and getting boosted would obviously be a big no

atomic burrow
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From my experience, as a low tier player who needs little xp to level up, you still get a lot even by dealing like 10% of the damage and you also get quite some resources in the meanwhile
But even if you do all the damage yourself, being able to join a Kingdom with infinite KOrns where you can just spam KRaids all day is an insane advantage that might not be accessible to everyone

exotic quest
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If its official, then i also propose:

  • Ward stacking is now additive and not multiplicative
  • You cannot participate in raids with players of higher tier (no carries)
  • Cannot see arcanists/NPCs and cannot fish when using someone's WV
  • Cannot join parties
  • Kingdom raids exp is moderately decreased
  • You start the game with anguish 1 enabled in all paths and cannot deactivate it (increase of stats to all enemies, but you might get cool anguish traits on items as you lvl up)
atomic burrow
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I really don't agree with the Arcanists rule
Not being able to fish in other people's WV makes sense but I think it could be cool to buff Fishing for Ironmen only since they wouldn't be able to buy mats from the Guild shop anyway (or remove the fishes and have Ironmen fish items, mats and encounters only)

exotic quest
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Fishing is not a hard activity, so i see no reason to participate in it on "hard mode" challenge run

exotic quest
vestal void
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I'm just adding "cannot join parties".

There are too many niche/edge-cases to plan around, so it's really just easiest to ban them outright.

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There are certain tricks in game to gain access to more dungeons without joining parties, players will need to use them if they want more dungeons/other buildings or actitives without moving

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(I just mean putting your OT not where you actually live)

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I'm not sure if there's a reasonable way to suggest "Ban summoner"

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Summoner is easy mode for T7, T8, and T9. Then it's easy mode again for some anguish content in endgame.

whole basalt
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Damn didn't know I have been doing hard mode until lvl 225.

vestal void
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Honestly this 'hardmode' suggestion is intended mostly to be relevant in the lategame

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It just also blocks out the methods to be boosted to get there

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It's a mix of higher difficulty and nostalgia, akin to Orna Classic but in a game that would still get updates.

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"No Celestial Weapons" could also be a good rule, in lieu of some more complicated way to limit augment power

atomic burrow
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No event Followers?
Some of them are pretty op, it could also be unfair for people who start far away from a certain event and I'd say Beo with some event pets is easy mode too from T8 onwards

vestal void
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I think the entire game should be accessible

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This isn't punishment for the sake of punishment, the idea would be that hardmode players still get to play the game

atomic burrow
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I mean the entire game already isn't accessible as per your rules and Summoner definitely shouldn't be banned then :p

vestal void
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The entire game is accessible in my original rules except for runeshop purchases

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The celestial weapons rule is a hard one, since celestial weapons are part of the game, but allowing them might as well be not allowing a large chunk of weapons in the game to be used 😅

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(Y'know, like how the game is now and has been since Celestials were added)

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Dangy had a good suggestion once of limiting the amount of any specific augment you could put in a celestial weapon

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You can have one Prometheus Hand, but you can't have 5

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That's probably the better rule to go with, especially since it encourages grinding titans for high quality augments if you do want to use them

mystic needle
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What is the original goal for hardmode? If its just difficulty, limiting or getting rid of asc already hits a good amount of that without weird rules and drastic changes to gameplay

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Without asc theres no need to: buy materials, limit kingdom play, make huge changes to ward or any stat multiplier

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Can also keep anguish but scale it appropriately and possibly linear given no asc

tame flume
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These probably just make things more of a slog rather than add difficulty, but:

  • Skills/Spells used outside of the class(line) that learns them are less effective (damage, proc rates, duration, etc) and/or more costly (increased Mana cost, aggravated HP loss/self-damage, Ward consumption, etc.)
  • Alternatively, you can only slot X number of skills/spells from classlines that aren't yours.
  • Reduced Skill/Spell slots across the board, particularly for Mages and Old Gods.
  • Potion prices are exorbitant and they no longer drop from random monsters (but Small potions are now craftable)
  • Status effects, HP, Mana, & Ward all carry over between combat and content ("permanent" effects now fade away but it could take a whole Tower for Curse, Toxic, etc to fade on their own)
  • Paired with above: Red-/Blue-line bonuses don't kick in until turn 2
vestal void
mystic needle
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The easiest way to slowdown asc is just to set material cost multiplier without having to tweak too many aspects to obtain said materials. Even if you decide to restrict purchasing, memory hunts, etc its essentially the same thing.

Some of the suggestions should be implemented to the base game such as AoE split, party WRB damage not being split evenly, no stacking celestial augments, etc.

Exp gain is already very easy without party leach. You would have to tone down exp gain from various aspects like memory hunting.

Celestial weapon concepts aren't the problem its the multipliers from the augments. Toning down multipliers or changing their scaling linearly also fixes that problem without needing to restrict their use.

Many of these ideas have already been proposed for base game but werent considered. Imo they would drastically increase gear and build variety.

vestal void
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Many of these ideas have already been proposed for base game but werent considered. Imo they would drastically increase gear and build variety.

Yeah, I know 🙁

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And a reason they aren't going into the base game is because Orna is always split between the people that want an infinite power fantasy and the people who don't. Proposing an entirely different game mode is a possible solution to that

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People who want the infinite power play the normal game, people that want an experience where the difficulty never really fades can play hardmode

mystic needle
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Not sure how orna went from primarily GPS pvp to infinite power grinding. If hard mode is an attempt to fix the problems of base game, gotta fix the core balance issues. That would cause a more a significant change than adding new rules to all aspects of the game to regular the core issue.

vestal void
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I've given up any hope on trying to suggest fixes to PvP

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If this mode were to exist, and this was possible to do in a reasonable way, I would think all PvP by and against hardmode players would be without ALs

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I'd love if Orna's core balance issues were fixed, but they're not going to be. We've gone too far off the deep end for that and there's no way to fix the things that were introduced without tanking the playerbase that enjoys them. We've seen that plenty from any thread that dares to discuss balance.

The suggestion of an entirely new gamemode is a way to sidestep those balance issues. Fine, let the base game be broken and overpowered, there are obviously many people that like playing that way. Introducing some of these rules into the base game would kill the game for plenty of people and they can't be ignored either.

velvet delta
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This kind of challenge is so awesome in games.
Sometimes in other games this stuff starts as self imposed, and streamed, then eventually makes it into the game

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Are you proposing a selection upon character creation, a separate game client, or something else?

vestal void
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A selection upon character creation, similar to how it's handled in other games

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If this was done in an official capacity

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I'm not just straight up saying "Hey Northern Forge, add this", to be clear 😅

I thought it'd be a fun thought experiment to try and figure out what a reasonable hardmode means, in a way that bridges some of the nostalgia of classic Orna with the updates of modern Orna. In a lot of ways that's what Ironman Mode in Old School Runescape did, as an example.

mild quarry
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If done in an official capacity:
Even without the ability to party with other players, the rate in which players can level is crazy fast as is.
I would personally love if hardmode was harder to level up in general, either by changing the EXP curve or by changing the EXP rates of activities.
Monster EXP would be unchanged, Bosses probably unchanged? Maybe Event Bosses need to be toned down a bit.
Raids would be 1/5 or 1/10 of what they are now. Monuments and Memory Hunts would be 1/2 or 1/4 of their current?

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and completely contradictory to my above statement, there is a part of me that would also want to see the Negative EXP modifiers removed (or heavily reduced) such that RoRing (and its equivalents via Broken Tomes et al.) cannot be used for the sake of staying in a tier or slowing progression even more?
Why I want this for Orna Hardmode, I can't really put into words at the moment. Something in my brain doesn't think the two should mix?

vestal void
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For some 'official capacity' meta things:

  • Selected on character creation
    • Possibly only an option on your second+ character?
  • Able to revert to a normal account, but not able to turn a normal account into hardmode
velvet delta
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I'd put no wayvessel use in as a rule for this sort of challenge

mild quarry
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No partying covers that quite well

velvet delta
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Ah silly me, of course

vestal void
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Unless you also want to rule out being able to utilize your WV to return to OT

velvet delta
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I think it'd be hard to implement, given so much shared stuff.
Kingdoms exist, leaderboards exist, arisen waygates exist etc

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I love this sort of thing though, wonder if Odie does too

mild quarry
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I do kinda want the Return to OT feature to stay, but I totally understand not wanting it to be available for Hardmode.

vestal void
velvet delta
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For consideration for your fun thought experiment: I love deaths mattering in hardcore play throughs of games.

Losing stuff should exist, above just losing time.

That could be XP/levels, could be some kind of halved stats until you can properly revive your character through some contribution, or any other ideas

velvet delta
mild quarry
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I would be on board for losing EXP/Levels for dying (outside of Endless, and maybe Raids prior to Lv250?)

velvet delta
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XP/ORN/gold multipliers shouldn't be a thing either

mild quarry
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Oh... oh Dangy you just want to straight up go at the curve with no help.
I respect that. I'm in

vestal void
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Oh boy you're going much harder than me but maybe you're right

velvet delta
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Yeah, hardcore should be proper hardcore.
Those challenges are where the players have to work things out properly.

It's really awesome

vestal void
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Y'know, I'd forgotten that originally in Orna quality didn't scale boosters aside from XP 🤔

velvet delta
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I've done full Hardcore playthroughs on Tarkov and that was BRUTAL, but infinitely more rewarding to get through than the base game

Hardcore Minecraft players lose their entire world on death haha

mild quarry
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I'd be perfectly okay with not touching standard EXP rates or the curve if boosters were entirely gone (or maybe just didn't scale with quality?)

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but I do like the idea of removing boosters as a whole.

velvet delta
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Yeah, no shrines, no pots, no gear multipliers

Silver lining being you don't have to make booster sets, which means you can play properly always too

vestal void
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I like the punishing deaths of hardcore mode, but I'd also be afraid that it discourages exploring and experimentation

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Perhaps, again taking inspiration from Runescape, you have one version of the gamemode with permadeath (outside of raids and endless) and another version of the gamemode without it.

When you die on the permadeath mode, you become a normal hardmode character and get a downgraded badge

atomic burrow
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I like permadeath a lot and had already talked about it in the past.

Some other ideas:

No "!" marker on top of quest mobs

No flee

No Codex in combat

velvet delta
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Couldn't help talking to Odie about this during our 1on1 😂

placid radish
mystic needle
mystic needle
mild quarry
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Equipping items isnt tier restricted by item tier, currently. If you have the gear, you can equip it, but yeah, I get what you mean.

I would probably have tiers remain once you reach them. No removing of equipment. Skills/Spells are fair game to lose though.

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Not including Offhand/DW unlocking at Lv 25 and Amities at Lv 50

tame flume
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  • Death degrades the quality of the gear you were wearing at the time by 1-5% (or just breaks and becomes unusable until repaired for a ton of gold)
  • Followers have HP (or a shared pool with the player) and can die. You'll need to heal them by some large expense or trial or else buy them all over again.
mystic needle
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Repair isnt a bad game mechanic either. People get real mad about permanent breaks though. Might need to be something along the lines of cheaper to repair when durability low but even extra expensive when broken

mild quarry
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Whetstone no longer levels item.
Whetstones are used for repairing durability when >0

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or a new item works fine, i guess

mystic needle
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Good concept. Even makes more sense lmao

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Normal and fine whetstone increases durability by set amount

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Weapons may have varying durability

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With this concept, might have to limit gear swapping to an extent

tame flume
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We're gonna go Dark Cloud/Chronicle style?

Gonna need to eat food and drink water or die from lack of sustenance in dungeons mimic

-# (Still a little traumatized from accidentally breaking weapons in that game)

vestal void
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Unofficial Hardmode (v1.1)

  • Cannot party with other players
  • Cannot purchase non-cosmetics from the runeshop
  • Cannot join a kingdom
  • May not equip gear that boosts orns, gold, or experience.
    • Consumables are allowed. Gear that only boosts luck is allowed.
  • Full non-splitting AoE skills are banned
  • May only wear one Unfelled Concord
  • Materials cannot be bought from guilds
  • Celestial weapons are banned until satisfactory rules can be determined. Or might stay banned.
mystic needle
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On the topic of unfelled. Could even limit use to most items to one copy

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Which essentially prevents stacking multipliers anyhow

atomic bison
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I'd also consider a innate 50% stats boost to all enemies

1 life? If you die your character is gone?

mystic needle
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Thats typical hardcore style

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But with orna connectivity and such. Could always be like... 100 lives then dead dead

atomic bison
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I'd also maybe increase rng odds?

Ornate be set at a 1/600 chance

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Give enemies random and dangerous modifiers

Like T1 enemies with a chance to have 5% avidity ect XD

vestal void
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I'm trying to make the game more fun, not less fun

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There's a reason the post starts with "This is not a joke/meme thread"

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I explicitely didn't want the thread to turn into a contest to see who can suggest the most unfun/insane restrictions

placid radish
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In their defense, each person's individual definition of what makes a hard mode fun is different

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The simple existence of mods like kaizo ironmon proves some people are incredibly sadistic - so it's a bit hard to draw the line of where one could be joking or serious about a suggestion

atomic burrow
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@vestal void the stream was fun and informative too, I think Orna needs more of this kind of content. Looking forward to the next!

velvet delta
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Nooo I was asleep!

glass kelp
devout drift
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Instead of "May not equip gear that boosts orns, gold, or experience.", I guess simply making all effects additive instead of multiplicative could work, too? This would not only result in substantially lower orn/xp bonus (and slightly lower luck bonus), but also less ward/apex/crit/pact damage, which all can go crazy high (which also includes the best full AoE skills).
In an example calculation with full GF orn gear (and with shrine etc but w/o anguish), the multiplier would be 6 instead of 90.

vestal void
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Those rules are titled "unofficial" because they're what I'm going to be following on my hardmode character for a playthrough on the current live game

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I agree that for an official mode, making boosters additive would be better.

devout drift
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Ah, of course - makes sense 😄

worthy pond
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The only rule id implement is no deaths. Everything else should be fair game.

Picture things like endless - instead of pushing further you have to decide to stop.

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Or something like you unlock extra lives and have limitied deaths to give

vestal void
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I think permadeath has a place, but I only like it in some situations. Permadeath discourages experimentation and exploration

vestal void
worthy pond
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I dont like the idea of gear restrictions in any fashion. You already cant trade in orna. The only real way to make it harder imo is to up the level of difficulty on mobs or punish deaths

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Either way i think those game modes are pretty much solved meta-wise (GS/Beo is easy mode, Ward SS3 is safe mode)

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#1450297897764655318 message
On paper what makes the game harder with these rules? If anything it just makes the same exact grind longer, no?

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What if on every death you lost resources / items?

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No consumables is definitely harder without necessarily longer grind too.

Id just be against anything that makes the grind longer without actually changing difficulty

vestal void
# worthy pond https://discord.com/channels/448527960056791051/1450297897764655318/145061096649...
  • Not having full AoE highly increases danger of risky content
  • Not having infinite AL access (removing infinite easy ascension was a direct goal of this for me)
    • This makes Anguish much harder to push when you get there, and keeps content like towers pretty much permanently difficult
  • God amities/high power amities will be nearly inaccessible. Finding base version of most bonuses will be possible but I won't be able to collect the really amazing ones that bump power.
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I do specifically want to increase the grind in some ways, personally, without going over the top

worthy pond
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  • No party
  • Kingdom @ 225
  • No Consumables (must sleep at inns & manage hp/mana, no torches, coin boosters, dowsing rod)
  • No Buying Materials, or anything with gold.
  • Death loses 5-10% current orns
vestal void
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I'm thinking I may modify my own rules to allow joining a kingdom at level 225. One reason is to enable access to kingdom-only raids, another is because if I start playing this instead of main I still have a kingdom to maintain 😅

worthy pond
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I like that. Edited the consumables category too

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How about no follower / summons. Thats real hard mode.

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Otherwise this mode is just going to be Beo/Summoner track. Noticeably easier.

vestal void
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Genuinely though, I'm not sure of a 'fair' way to make that rule for others

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I have no intention of playing summoner or beo

worthy pond
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Just hypothetical ways to make the game harder. End of the day gotta play the way you enjoy

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Playing summoner or beo classline thru to t10 is definitely orders of magnitude easier though

cunning arrow
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Sorry if I missed this but what are the thoughts on GS classline being allowed at all? It's a big crutch for new players without gear or game knowledge, and it's very op in 0 al pvp

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Ooop just read the above 😂

atomic bison
# placid radish The simple existence of mods like kaizo ironmon proves some people are incredibl...

I play on the hardest difficulty of calamity/Fargos souls mods on terraria as summoner XD

I can say 1 Hp and every debuff possible makes me think outside the box more and challenge my gameplay in a fun way but not in an impossible one grand_summoner mighty_mimic

Lose my character on death makes the journey a challenge and helps me learn my mistakes in hardcore challenges tbh

I think locking your character to 1 life would make the challenge and the journey a lot more fun and interesting cause you'd have to take more precautions and spend more time planning ahead

Making ornates more "rare" adds flair to hard mode, alongside adding small modifiers to enemies, like steadfeast, avidity, some enemies may spawn with temp buffs or temp immunities

mild quarry
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Which also brings up the idea that there are different desires in just how difficult Hard Mode should/could actually be.
A potential approach would be to make the difficulty a scale: Ornate, Master, Demon difficulties?

subtle walrus
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Another attempt from Knight to get classic orna, just calling it differently mimic

vestal void
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I think I've said before that classic Orna is something I'd try but wouldn't make me stop playing the main game.

worthy pond
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That would be Strahd mightiest_mimic

vestal void
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Hardmode Orna Discussion

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Unofficial Hardmode (v1.2)

  • Cannot party with other players
  • Cannot purchase non-cosmetics from the runeshop
  • Cannot join a kingdom until level 225
  • May not equip gear that boosts orns, gold, or experience.
    • Consumables are allowed. Gear that only boosts luck is allowed.
  • Full non-splitting AoE skills are banned
  • May only wear one Unfelled Concord
  • Materials cannot be bought from guilds
  • Celestial weapons may only have two of any specific augment
  • Summoner and Valhallan classlines are banned to play as until level 250
    • Because this is unofficial and these classlines bypass many gearing requirements, this is the only way to balance them for hardmode. In an ideal official gamemode they may just be nerfed in some way.
  • Use of Stasis is banned
vestal void
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I'm going to transition this thread away from brainstorming ideas (although that's still very welcome) into more of a dedicated discussion and progress thread for hardmode characters.

I've made one, and my ign is Knight411 [Hardmode] . Hopefully some other people might like to join me on the unofficial hardmode journey 🙂

worthy pond
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Sent AR

vestal void
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My one week progress update:

Screenshot_2025-12-23-12-10-51-48_fba058fbcaeda824c55dd11029f3cefb.jpg Screenshot_2025-12-23-12-11-36-19.jpg
worthy pond
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@vestal void are you allowed to use the astral tree?

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Trying to rush oracle temple so I can lean on those sweet DMs for orns

cunning arrow
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Using DM's does not seem very classic/hardmode lol

vestal void
vestal void
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If someone else wants to make an account that can only use content released before 2021 or something, go for it lol

worthy pond
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The mnemosyne towers are insane for early leveling jfc

worthy pond
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@vestal void full non splitting aoe spells banned -

So cleave/ slice are OK but mages dance is not, for example?

Is arrowstorm ok? That splits

vestal void
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Yep!

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Arrowstorm II is fine, and if you ever try to use Arrowstorm in difficult content you'll understand why

worthy pond
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Also are amities that boost memory rewards considered 'booster gear'?

vestal void
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I was thinking they would allowed, but what do you think?

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I haven't managed to find one yet anyway

worthy pond
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I found 2x 90% so i vote allowedmimic

vestal void
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I think they are fine, because memory hunting is fun, takes effort, and couchable hours aren't 'free' to locate. You have to find them yourself

worthy pond
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Esp since no party play yeah

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Sounds good

dusky hazel
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What about if you couldn't put multiple of the same adornment in a piece of gear. Make you have to mix and match a bit more

vestal void
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Orna isn't really designed in a way for that to function

vestal void
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Leveling in modern Orna is too easy 😆

Screenshot_2025-12-27-18-24-36-44_fba058fbcaeda824c55dd11029f3cefb.jpg
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I feel like I basically hit 200 by accident while working toward getting my T8 gear in order

worthy pond
vestal void
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Hengreon is a monster

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I remembered it as my favorite pet from when I was originally T8, and it still holds up today

worthy pond
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Its a strat. Gets around the no pet class line while still getting all the benefits

vestal void
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Definitely not "all" the benefits, but in playing around with specs due to my current gear options I was able to get the biggest benefit from making Hengreon more active on Beastmaster

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I'm not one-shotting most things, so I tend to end up with statuses that having it use Cleanse on.

And also despite me using an Ornate Vulcan's longsword I got really lucky on, the horse out-damages me

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It's not consistant enough to rely on as a primary source of damage, but sometimes I'm just chunking away and Hengreon decides he feels like hitting the enemy for 10k

dusky hazel
atomic bison
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only random gen adorns are allowed

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THAT would be a challenge

tame flume
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Waiting and hoping for Ko, Qib, Da, & Oyoh adorns to pop up at the Jewelry shop sounds like torture now that they aren't EoD rewards haha

vestal void
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I'm considering that maybe the rule against using boosting gear shouldn't be there.

It definitely makes things slower, but boosting gear (almost) universally is worse than non-boosting gear, so it's risk vs reward. Without infinite dungeons both from lacking party wayvessels and not being able to use two Concords, boosting gear seems fairly balanced if I wanted to attempt to use it. If I use boosting gear and die early, I've wasted that dungeon for at least 6 hours

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Thoughts?

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I haven't used any yet and I also don't have any ornate or legendary boosting items right now to be clear lol

worthy pond
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I mean im just cooking memories and t4 towers

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My playtime is low but im at like infinite orns

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Boosting gear orn wise wont matter but exp boosting goes a very long way if youre not running towers or raiding

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And full cursed tomes is ezzzz with tamer

worthy pond
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I guess thats where i ask of hard mode - is it meant to be more difficult or just a longer grind?

vestal void
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Not being allowed to use Rings of Restraint should stay as part of hardmode regardless

worthy pond
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My point is the booster gear doesnt make the game easier, it just shortens the grind. So seems fine to me

slender laurel
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I'd love to see a perma death mode added (that includes raids and endless deaths). Would be a radical change from the current landscape

worthy pond
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@vestal void so are you allowing booster gear per your rules?

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Ive been taking a break on mine while some gear cooks up

vestal void
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I still don't have any (non-luck) booster gear so I'm not entirely committed either way yet

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I'm also taking things slow right now to get a bunch of gear to L10

worthy pond
worthy pond
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@vestal void are you allowing yourself to unlock beo classline just for the skills? Or is it a full ban

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Like wyvern speed and wyrm song would be nice

vestal void
runic gazelle
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I also have questions alot of them. Namely are you purposing this as an entirely seperate game mode? Or something similar to its predecessor iron man where the "hindered" accs are still able to see and interact with other players or mostly just self imposed restrictions?

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Because if its either can we call it "Unfelled"

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Dying while fishing/in exploration dungeon ends the instance.

If starting at anguish 1 was approved and hear me out on this.

Can starting with ascension avaliable ALSO be approved however ascension level permanently removes 4x the next level of xp from the account.

I.e hitting lv 1 ascension removes/rolls back 4x the player XP needed for lv 2-3 ect. (Also bringing their stats in line with those values). should an account be in negatives xp wise they drop to and are capped at the lowest level comparative to deficate point until their XP is regained.

Also and my favorite idea, SHACKLING affects player level AND ascension.

rare plume
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I just found this thread, read a bit, anyway...

As far as those restriction goes, Orna is in my eyes too generous with quality drops. Everyone who hunt ornate, will eventually get it in very short time (with rare exceptions). Usually one gear is way better than the rest of 100 pieces that exist and the aim is easy. Honestly if the quality drops would be more restricted, the game would open much bigger variety. Ie, big numbers example, you could probably have single Ornate Arisen Ithra sword, cuz you met a lot of them, but Famed Fey Neman Havoc, cuz you killed only 500 AMorris :-), in that case you would use that Ithra Sword over any other gear. Lower quality would get a space. Making quality drops 5x harder (Ornate 1/1000, Legendary 1/250, etc.) would make huge disparty of used gear. That is my opinion for "hardmode orna" (I actually always wanted it for normal orna for years ...but 🤷‍♂️ ).

runic gazelle
worthy pond
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Knights first pass at these rules probably isnt perfect but its a fun start

vestal void
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I just got Ornate Brilliant Feathers (T9) from the Astraltree

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I've found out how I'm going to run towers on the hardmode account

worthy pond
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Damn jealous

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Ive been searching for nagamaki

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But beheaded cleave will do

runic gazelle
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!!!!!!!! I just figured it out after talking with pleas.

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Ok so how about this.
Starting from the jump in hard mode makes you start at 1 anguish. Ascension is also unlocked from the start aswell (for each 1 ascension you also recieve a random malus to your anguish that persists regardless of path.)

Pets/summons are avalible HOWEVER you must have fully codexd the pet/summon before its added to besitary & arcanist/monument guild.

Players cannot outlevel their anguish level, T1 anguish 1 until anguish 2 is unlocked in order to be allowed to enter the Teir 2 threshhold etc.

For added difficulty OT are similar to territories you can place oversouls in them (t1 since thats when it unlocks) and yourself however if the conquest NPC's destroy your emperor spot you loose your OT. All buildings are destroyed, and "return to OT" is disabled.

Lastly you can choose Hard mode, or Hard-core mode same rules, but perma death enabled OR you loose your inventory in non safe deaths. Arena, memory hunts battle dungeons, deep dungeons are safe deaths. (Deep dungeons will end if you die.)

fervent belfry
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So it begins

image0.jpg
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First ever kill 😂

image0.jpg
fervent belfry
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First ever amity !!! 🎉

fervent belfry
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One day of lazy progression

Screenshot_2026-02-16-19-14-16-835_playorna.com.orna.jpg Screenshot_2026-02-16-19-14-07-683_playorna.com.orna.jpg
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I decided that I'll use rings of restrains to enjoy the low tiers more since the game is constantly pushing me levels like crazy

vestal void
fervent belfry
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I know I know

vestal void
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Being forcibly overleveled by the game is part of the challenge lol

fervent belfry
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I have no desire to be high tier
Expless has so much fun I want some of that

fervent belfry
vestal void
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You're free to play your account however you want

fervent belfry
fervent belfry
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Second amity!

Screenshot_2026-02-20-10-19-21-310_playorna.com.orna.jpg
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I think it's good

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What a shame I'm earth faction 💀

zealous hornet
fervent belfry
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Mostly cuz the game feels the same for every class up until t8 or 9 probably

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Expect summoner

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That's just a different game

tame flume
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Lower tier mage is more diverse thanks to flasks, and Spellweaver being fun but shortlived makes me upset that Weaved Elements was removed from the whole line.

-# And I apologize for my input here long ago because I thought the thread was for a theoretical hard mode, not a self-imposed hard mode playthrough 😅

fervent belfry
tame flume
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I didn't try my own Hard Mode, I was just commenting on the alt thing since my most recent alt was for checking out how mage feels at lower tier.

I may start another for the sake of this thread but idk what my parameters would be. I was thinking of no "sharing" gear as a rule, as in my loadouts can't use the same gear unless it's a separate copy of that piece.

fervent belfry
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Not sharing gear is a bit confusing

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So let's say 2 beastfell garb for raiding and dungeons?

tame flume
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If I use Fey Surtr's Cuirass in my world loadout, I can't use it for PvP unless it's a second FSC. I would have to name things with specificity in mind

fervent belfry
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Huh

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That's kinda insane

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Chasing Ornates like crazy

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But I do have multiple ornates already so it probably won't be as much of a pain

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Adornments on the other hand....

tame flume
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Yeah, that's the actual hard part of my idea haha

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And I've always felt that farming 1 perfect piece of gear with the perfect adornments and being free to use it across different content was...well, not OP but made things easier overall since you no longer need to focus on or worry about whatever that gear does for you, if that makes sense?

fervent belfry
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Hundreds and hundreds of bristles

fervent belfry
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That's a challenge for Deity only

tame flume
fervent belfry
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Doing endless feels like a second job

zealous hornet
zealous hornet
vestal void
faint wave
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i'd play this way

runic gazelle
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Like at level 50 tower guild you have to pay shards to unlock each function of the tower guild

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Ect.

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Like followers and summons are cool

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But imagine having to unlock the permit to buy Tx followers. Or unlocking summons in the same manner.

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Essentially everything but time gating.

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Where unlocking even your subclasses require a feat.