I made this post initially on reddit. Had hoped to get some dev response. Will post here with an addendum, as there was a change in the latest patch that unfortunately kills the game in its current state for me.
As I have only played one class, I wont be touching on skills or classes. Just overarching game topics.
First, the below reflects “complaints”. I like this game, and I think it has great potential. But constructive criticism will get us to a better end product, than nothing but applause.
Item Drops - The skew toward higher tier bases seems very low. I believe that Ranseur is the highest polearm at level req 60. It is the highest I have seen anyway. Which if not the highest, probably only further proves my point I am about to make. After 20 monolith timelines, I didnt see a single Ranseur. After 75 Arena waves, I finally had one drop which I crafted (unfortunately it had a bad break down grading two T5 Stats to T4, a T4 stat to T3, and dropping another altogether). I get that our gear is supposed to be crafted. I like that. I even like that we have a chance to make our really good shit go bad, like what happened to me. It is awesome to find a base item you want, with one mod, and nothing else. You know have a great starting point. Sounds weird to say that finding an item with a single T3 Affix is a great find, but I legit like this design. But, I find that having just even the plain white bases I want, is WAY too rare. If I am doing level 70+ monolith, I want to see more top end bases than lower. I shouldnt have to grind 5 hours to get a simple base for the weapon I want to craft. Given that you will likely have to go through MANY crafting attempts and a lot of crafting materials to even get to a decent end result, we need better access to bases.
THE ADDENDUM
The vendor reset after monolith timelines has been killed. She no longer resets. This means even less ability to find bases you are looking for, and even more importantly MUCH MUCH MUCH less access to runes of shattering.
EHG, you want this game to be pretty much entirely SSF/Crafted gear, and you just killed our best method to target the mods we need for our builds.
Sorry, but this unfortunately for me sets the game off in a really bad direction and I dont believe I will be able to enjoy it. This is a big deal. Targeting bases was already hard enough. I literally havent seen a gold ring drop in the last 50+ timelines, and 200+ Waves. All I want is a freaking white base ring… I have the mats I need to craft it, if I can ever get one, but I wouldnt without the vendor resets so that I can buy runes of shattering.
END ADDENDUM
The reward differential between Arena and Monolith is both cool, and frustrating.
My experience is that I grind XP in Arena, and grind crafting mats from the monolith. Yes, I would say that I get about equal amount of drops from a 5 wave cycle in the arena, as I do from a single timeline from monolith. But, the difference is that in Arena, the vendor doesnt reset but maybe every 50 waves or so, so I cannot buy hardly any shattering runes. So I just end up vendoring all the items except for the couple that are highly desirable for shattering later, or a good crafting base.
Arena is just great all around. No one complains about it.
Monolith is kinda sorta “meh”. The problem is two fold: 1) there arent enough mobs. I go three or four screens often times without seeing any. 2) There are too many disproportionately high HP mobs. Seriously. It is ridiculous. With some of these guys, I sit there, wailing with 5 and 6k crits back to back to back to back to see their bar move like 10% after 50K damage. So… I just run away. Not worth it. They offer no reward hardly. Monolith just becomes a game of kiting a trail 5 or 6 fat boys to the boys, kill the boss, and dip out.
There needs to be more jank mobs, and the life of the fat boys dropped significantly. It isnt that they are “too hard” they are “too boring” with that much life.
No Clue what my actual DPS is, or how a stat actually effects my skill. I have a “Base attack DPS” from the “C Menu” of like 1550 or something like that. But what is my DPS with “Cyclone” (Sorry, will always be Cyclone! :P) Do I benefit more from added crit, added melee phys, added melee void, how much does strength benefit me, will 4% inc damage be better than 7% phys? Will Attack Speed be a better mod choice for prefix than crit or flat dam?
I have no way of knowing. I am trying my best to intuit it and just sorta see what “feels” better.