A New System for Wisp Empowered Monsters (Crude Paint Mock-Up Included)

First off, I genuinely enjoy the Affliction league mechanic. I would really like to run more Wildwoods, but I always feel like I could very likely brick or exponentially lengthen the map I'm in just by visiting it. That feeling has been with me since acts, however it's much stronger especially when getting into late reds.

I think one of Affliction's biggest shortcomings is the sheer randomness of which monsters get infected.

The empowering aspect of Affliction is very reminiscent of Sentinel, however where Sentinel shines and Affliction falters is player agency.

In Sentinel, players can fully control where, when, and how monsters are empowered.

In Affliction, players collect wisps and then upon re-entering the map, most league mechanic rares, Rogue Exiles, and the map boss(es) are empowered. And if you dare to collect more than one color, they are often empowered multiple times over even in rare monsters that already have stat-boosted mods like Essences and Beasts.

Personally, the most unintuitive part of this process is that the smallest amount of wisp collected CAN - not always, but CAN - detrimentally affect your map. For instance, let's say I collect 2000 Primal wisps and 200 Vivid wisps. I won't be surprised to see lots of Primal Empowered monsters in the map since I collected so many. However, more often than not, some very powerful monsters will be Primal AND Vivid Empowered even though I only collected a fraction of Vivid compared to Primal.

That's why I propose this change to the mechanic:
The amounts of each wisp collected in the Wildwood determines the highest rarity of monster that can be empowered by each wisp.

The number of wisps needed for each threshold can obviously be adjusted by the fine folks at GGG, but in terms of maps, these are the numbers I came up with:
1-499 wisps will empower up to normal monsters
500-999 wisps will empower up to magic monsters
1000-1499 wisps will empower up to rare monsters
1500 wisps guarantees 1 empowered unique monster and every 200 wisps over 1500 guarantees an additional empowered unique monster (1700 for 2 uniques, 1900 for 3 uniques, etc.)



This new system introduces a layer of player agency which made Sentinel so approachable. There will still be some RNG involved since the amounts of each wisp available differs between Wildwoods. The monsters that are chosen to be empowered in each rarity will also still be randomized. However, players will now be able to choose to pick up or actively avoid certain wisp colors based on the map they are running. Players can also limit the amount they pick up if they do not wish to have any infected rares or uniques of a certain color.

If I'm running a map where monsters have 2 additional projectiles, then I may not want to pick up any Wild wisps for that map.

If I'm running a map where the boss has increased life, more AoE, and is possessed, then I may not want to pick up 1500 wisps of any color to guarantee that the map boss does not get empowered.

If I'm running a map with a bunch of upgraded Essence monsters, then I may not want to pick up 1000 wisps of any color.

If I'm running a map with a guaranteed Expedition and/or Delirium, then I may be more inclined to pick up enough wisps to reach the rare monster threshold, but not necessarily so many that uniques start being empowered.

There's a lot more proactive decision making with this new system and I feel like this will lead to an overall healthier engagement between players and Affliction.

Thanks for reading! Keep up the amazing work!

there could be new items solving such issues

for example bottles of different colors, which you can fill in the jungle with all your collected wisps of that color if you found (or bought) any

once filled you can open it whereever and whenever you like


next step could be magic, rare and unique bottles adding their properties to the whisps when opened

I like the bottle idea.

The first idea I can't see how that would have any effect on player agency...or the mechanic at large. You pretty much can't possibly control or count how many wisps you are absorbing as you run through the wildwoods. Trying to keep a specific wisp count under a cutoff point seems like it would just slow down the whole process and not really amount to anything.

All power to you if you are gonna go 1 wisp by 1 wisp...but I sure won't. I also think there is already a hidden mechanic that means more wisps of a certain color means more higher rarity monsters empowered by it. It would be really really really dumb if this weren't the case...I am SURE a streamer has already tested this somewhere.

I also thought about a fully controllable version of wisps, which I agree would be the best option, but I have a feeling GGG wouldn't be receptive to it because it would act as a Sentinel 2.0 (press button to empower enemies around you).

And they probably don't want to re-hash that side of the mechanic if they feel that wisps are already super rewarding.

Again, it would be cool if that were the case! But it seems that GGG wants some pretty heavy RNG involved with this mechanic, so I'm willing to compromise.

Probably not a popular opinion, but I don't think the spreading or RNG of the wisps are a problem. It is a neat little addition after doing the mechanic in the forest.

I think that the risk vs reward can be tweaked to reduce how much the mobs are 'empowered' by the wisps. Minimally or not even increasing the strength of the mobs, but still have a rng chance to have the boss's rewards be increased.

Another thing they could do is greatly empower normal mobs, significantly empower magic mobs, slightly empower rare mobs and do not empower unique bosses and keep the rewards as they are.

im just waiting here for complaints about wisps empowering boss that waits for Elder to onetap him. While not empowering elder guardian.