Feedback on the memory Nexus and some suggestions

So I'm really enjoying this league and at first I was in love with the Memory Nexus mechanic. However it has some serious design issues that start to become increasingly hard to ignore as you run into them again and again. Here is my feedback so far.

What in my opinion Synthesis does well :

-The decay. Visually it's brillant! The way it moves, chase you.. I never get tired of watching it progressively take over each elements of the level, even creeping under it ( I especially love watching it progress underwater in the moon temple tileset ) Amazing work here!

-I love how synthesis monsters use new skills as they rise in level; Overall they have some great design.

-Excellent general atmosphere and music in the memory nexus as well. It's a place I like to hang in and that I'd like to enjoy more.

-The basis for Synthesis is very neat and has a LOT of potential. When it does work and that your expedition grant a valuable reward at the end it does feel good. You feel your hard work paid of.


However it's no secret that Synthesis has some serious problems, pointed many times by many people. I think the main one for me is there is little sense of progression.

For instance In Breach you run breaches, gather splinters then you defeat the boss. It's clear
-In incursion you see your temple building up and you go raid it once it's finished.
-In delve there are no clear goal but the sense of progression is prevalent because you encounter new biomes as you get deeper and there is always that tantalizing new node ahead.
-In Betrayal, the system was complex but still worked really well because as you gather intelligence you have a clear goal ahead : the mastermind. Kudos for how audacious, unique and yet well executed that mechanic was by the way!

In the Memory Nexus however... You connect to distant memories blocks to get rewards but the overall goal is not clear at all. It also quickly becomes maintenance work half of the time rather than making meaningful progress.

Things that could give a sense of progression imho:

-You could maybe show to the player at the start a far away memory that becomes a sort of secondary hub when you get there. Perhaps making it walled by others memories that you must visit first to progressively unlock it and make it reachable ? To give that "haha it was hard but I'm finally there !" moment.

-Give the player new stuff to work with! For example at the start I was getting memory blocks with 2-3 uses and I was thinking "ok it's few but of course later on I will be getting blocks with 5 uses or more and special blocks" Well... I was surprised that no, there isn't new stuff here as you progress ( it could still be as I'm only level 86 but I don't think so from what I saw )
So how about giving the player progressively stabler memory blocks with 5-6 uses? And how about special ones every now and then?

-For example a rare memory block with four ways that are both connected and disconnected at the same time and can fit anywhere. The drawback is it's a fickle memory that is typically not very stable

-Soothing memory block: repair by 1 use others blocks in a given radius when you activate it.

-Corrupting memory block: Those memories blocs have very good unique mods to them but the drawback is they have very negative mods as well and once the player activate them, they propagate all their negative mods to connected memories (stopping at the nexus). A sort of risk versus reward thing. Use with caution !

-A flash memory block that lit the way when activated to reveal a new distant memory in its general direction.

There are so many possibilities!

-And more importantly: rare, indestructible memories. They never decay once placed and can only be removed manually by the player. In return they can't get any memory mods in order to avoid abuse and you can only get a limited number of them (that could maybe later be increased by some ways) They would be essentially like infrastructure blocks.

It would give the player a sense of control, a feeling they are getting somewhere and are progressively stabilizing their nexus and Cavas'memories. The thing that I personally find the most frustrating in Synthesis is when you create a new path, run it just one time and once you're done, half of it is already about to decay. It's especially true when you see all those good mods you worked hard to apply there just go to waste so quickly.
The player starts to feel like it's a Sisyphus work of endlessly rebuilding paths ( you better have the right pieces ) and it can get quickly disheartening. Acquiring some stable zones would go a long way to make things more enjoyable imho.

-Give a visual sense of progression with the nexus evolving more and more visually as you reach different stages and Cavas start to remember ( but those stages have to be clearly defined )

-Maybe have a certain number of distant memories you have to run and show a progression meter on a boss node appearing? Again to give players a sense of progression with a goal in sight.


Despite all that criticism I want to say I think the Memory Nexus has an enormous potential and I really like the visual and audio design around it. The rest of the league with the news and revamped skills is also very good. I just think the nexus part needs some rethinking.