We need to talk about the memory decay mechanic on placed pieces in the memory nexus.

There is a fundamental problem with the Synthesis league that is continuing to fly under the radar. In short, memory fragments you place in the nexus should not decay on their final use. I’ll explain to you why. I do not have any issue with the decay functionality in the distant memories, or in memory fragments in maps.

In a stable memory node, you have the ability to full clear the zone fully maximizing your potential rewards. This is the same as the mapping process.

In a decaying memory, you have to race towards your exit point limiting your potential rewards to ensure you can move to the next zone. This is similar to the delving process.

People have expressed some displeasure going back and forth between mapping and delving in the past. Some players want to map all the time, and some want to delve all the time. They each provide different mindsets for playing the game. Once you have built up sulphite capacity, you reach the point where you map for a while, and then you can delve for a while. It is not too difficult to transition from the mapping mindset to the delving mindset as you will be delving for a while.

The glaring design issue with Synthesis league is that it will force you to make this mindset transition every other zone you enter while trying to get some kind of reward. I have played a lot of this league, and in practice this is extremely exhausting. Not to mention that memory decay can completely block off your path for progressing. Seven tiles in to a ten tile chain to a reward node and your run is over because the zone decayed over the exit and you were not fast enough. Why? Is this the players fault for not being fast enough, or a fundamental design issue? In delve, the cart speed scales to the movement speed of your character thus allowing you to approach the content at your own pace. Why did this mindset change for Synthesis?

There is another issue with this as well. Players spend a lot of time stacking up memory modifiers on their pieces. Why must you only reap roughly 25% of the rewards of this node on its final use unless you have a party to help clear the zone? This will prove more frustrating now that we will soon be able to target our memory modifiers on specific pieces. You can target your rewards on the strongest pieces, but you do not get 3 uses of that piece. You get 2 uses and a partial use. I don’t care if in making this change they dropped the number of uses to 1-2 per piece to make up for the increased accessibility of rewards (personally I think it should be 1-4 uses at the rarity of resonators).

I strongly believe that with this league launch many players ran into this issue, and did not dig deep enough to determine what the issue was. Instead they blamed lack of rewards as their displeasure with it, and have quit or ignore it entirely. The rewards are not great don’t get me wrong, but I believe this issue has more to do with it. You go from zone to zone constantly confused at what you are trying to accomplish.

I do not know what I need to do to make this get the attention in needs. On the official forums people have brought this up, and it gets drowned out by people that are excited about the changes and can’t wait to come back and give it another try. As someone who has played this league every day since its launch, this is the largest issue in my eyes by far. At this point I have stopped running high tier zones to maximize my value from it. I instead spam low tier zones so I can rush through all the zones as if they were decaying to farm bosses because I cannot stand the constant switching of playstyle mindset. It is confusing, and unless your brain is apt to deal with that constant shift in play mechanics, you just get lost. You get into an constant loop of not knowing whether to pick things up causing you to waste time backtracking or have the zone decay around you because you were picking things up that dropped on the ground. More than the fact that it is not rewarding in its current state, it is not fun because of this.

What I care about is that the league is approachable and cohesive to play. With half of the zones you enter decaying, forcing you to change your playstyle, it will never be. I want this league to feel fun to play, and they are making changes to the other mechanics and rewards to address what everyone has been complaining about. If we are to fully enjoy our time in the memory nexus I strongly believe this mechanic needs to go.

What do you think? Can a massive increase in rewards make up for the annoyance that is the decay mechanic in the memory nexus? For me I don’t think it will.

yoo fuck decay

you want to start



then this shit blocked all routes



niceeeeeeeee

^^
Have had this happen multiple times when getting (or not) fragments from maps. best summary eva.

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You get 2 uses and a partial use. I don’t care if in making this change they dropped the number of uses to 1-2 per piece to make up

You make no sense. That is exactly what we have right now, with a final decay stage after the 1-2 good runs.

Can't you simply just remove the maps on their final use from the board?

Yes, doing that will cause you to run through your supply of maps faster so you'll have to gather more, but it's one way to avoid the abrupt change in playstyles.

There have been a few times where I've been casually mopping up memory zones, moving down a line one by one, only to unexpectedly reach a degrading one in the middle of the run, and not realize it's not a "permanent" one until the degradation has gone so far the area can't be finished and the rest of the chain can't be reached.

In a similar note, we should be able to delete "decayed" maps too; they serve no purpose in that state except block you from being able to place a map that can be run.

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You get 2 uses and a partial use. I don’t care if in making this change they dropped the number of uses to 1-2 per piece to make up

You make no sense. That is exactly what we have right now, with a final decay stage after the 1-2 good runs.

If GGG's intent is to have the decay mechanic limit our rewards on that piece, I am saying that if they lowered the number of uses of the pieces to limit rewards in lieu of the decay mechanic, I would be fine with this. It would keep the rewards roughly the same as they are now. I am not asking for more rewards here. I am asking for easier accessibility of the content as I believe it is more damaging to the league than the rewards.