What would bring you back to Median XL?

[Zennith]

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I'm probably not the only one. I loved Median XL. Sigma brought many amazing QoL features that I absolutely enjoyed, but I noticed a few changes to things I felt were okay at the time; the game is making big changes, give it a chance to iron out some things. So I came back every now and then and kept seeing changes to the game I wasn't expecting over and over again.

Median XL: Sigma can't be Median XL of old. That's okay. It's a different game now. Many people like the changes. While I keep checking up on the game because I miss it, I play it for a few hours and relearn this isn't the same game I wanted. That's okay, if it's not for me anymore, it is what it is.

I'm curious though, and this question isn't for the people who are still playing and enjoying Sigma I'm glad you're enjoying the work the Dev's put into this, but for the ones like me that check up on it every now and then to see if it's time to come back... After all the changes, whats the ONE (1) thing that you think would make you come back and give it another chance if you were in my shoes? If you for some reason left because of many changes, what's the one thing that would make you give it "just another chance"? These don't have to be reverts to previous things, it could be something completely new, but for me personally...

Removing the lock on having multiple skill trees. Would it be balanced? Probably not at this stage, but in the games current state, it would definitely bring me back to see what fun builds I'd be able to come up with.

This is of course just a hypothetical situation. I'm not asking for changes to be made, I'm not trying to start a conversation on "What's wrong with Sigma" or a flamewar. This thread is just for fun and curiosity from the community that felt left behind.

TLDR What's the single thing (New or from a previous version) that would bring you back to Median?

Update: After 4 days of posting this, I've seen a few duplicates of suggestions. All of the suggestions and changes requested are great but there's a couple that really stuck out to me and I agree with.

First: Difficulty. I see a few people here who say the game has become too easy. I somewhat agree with this, but I don't think that's the entire picture. Someone pointed out about Witches and One-Hit KO Mechanics such as traps. There was a lot more "unfair" instakill mechanics. Is unfair okay? Is it being "unfair" subjective? I'm not entirely sure, but regardless of me viewing these things as "unfair" that didn't mean they were always "unfun". I wouldn't mind bringing back some of the "OH SHIT A WITC-" moments. Just zooming around and next thing I know I'm having a heart attack seeing a white cloud aura. I guess it had personality and I enjoyed that.

Second: Surprisingly, Level Challenge 0. For those of you that don't know, back in the day, there was a level challenge you had to complete before Level 5 just outside of the Rogue Encampment. There was very little in-game documentation of this, and so many new players had no idea about it. So they got rid of it even though it was a very important charm that could roll from a very large list of reanimates (including elites with auras) that would help define your start. I (along with others apparently) really REALLY enjoyed farming this gem over and over to get the best reanimate I could for my build. Either the war shaman with his awesome aura, or pit knights to pounce with my pounce-zon cause it was cool and fun and enabled a little additional role-play element. I highly miss this gem.

I'm happy to see this thread has continued to be relatively calm and constructive. Remember, these can be new things as well, it doesn't have to be a revert to a previous change.

[Taem]

Such a loaded question;

For me, it was the survival aspect I enjoyed. I've said this many times, but I guess it's worth repeating: Bring back PUNISHER 1HTKO traps and I'd come back.

Second, I'd like to see some of the OLD UBERS changed back to Laz era. The Butcher reverted to how it was, where you had to let the butcher beat the shit out of you to defeat him, literally super challenging and fun. K3K invincible skelies till you killed the totems super difficult and fun! Fucking DEATH projector actually doing 1HTKO on a SLOW moving arm; very fair, only morons die here, and Horazons Sanctum also while we're at it! All the new changes suck d!ck IMO, enough for me to not play anymore and not donate, though the new content/ubers in Sigma is fun and on point.

Originally, I was also pretty unhappy with the new skill trees for a bit, but I think Relics really filled that void with much needed diversity, so IDK if I agree with you completely on unlocking every skill tree. Also, there is so much more item diversity now, overall the game is really much bigger and better, but until my #1 and #2 up above are addressed, I don't see myself ever playing again.

[Zennith]

Originally, I was also pretty unhappy with the new skill trees for a bit, but I think Relics really filled that void with much needed diversity, so IDK if I agree with you completely on unlocking every skill tree. Also, there is so much more item diversity now, overall the game is really much bigger and better, but until my #1 and #2 up above are addressed, I don't see myself ever playing again.

Thanks for the reply! I haven't had the willpower to get to the point of getting relics. I like the idea of them, they probably don't drop early enough for me to get re-invested into the game. It's interesting. A few of your points coincidentally, however not directly, reflect my views as well. Hopefully more people jump in on this, very interested to see any new ideas regarding what would bring people back as well.

[Istaryu]

The Butcher reverted to how it was, where you had to let the butcher beat the shit out of you to defeat him

That uber was reliant on you being able to drop summons for the boss to hit, that is just not how the game works anymire. Anyways ppl say that the game got a lot easier, which is true to an extent. Most of the content that existed before was made a lot easier, which made the game a lot more newbie friendly. BUT, other content replaced the hard part of the game which 90% of the playerbase doesnt even touch and then they just cry that the game is too easy.

[oztor]

The Butcher reverted to how it was, where you had to let the butcher beat the shit out of you to defeat him

That uber was reliant on you being able to drop summons for the boss to hit, that is just not how the game works anymire. Anyways ppl say that the game got a lot easier, which is true to an extent. Most of the content that existed before was made a lot easier, which made the game a lot more newbie friendly. BUT, other content replaced the hard part of the game which 90% of the playerbase doesnt even touch and then they just cry that the game is too easy.

What was great in median xl before sigma is that all the content was available for you right away. You only had to butcher some cows to hit 121 to be able to use xis runes and that's it. And even this grind was optional.

Now you have to spend am immense amount of time to even attempt the hardest content like samael or deimos. And this is the main reason why "90% of the playerbase doesn't even touch it" imo.

[morphed]

Samael was killed 1-2 days after release this patch , that’s pretty much the opposite of long time … maybe people should learn the game and get better at it instead complaining , game it’s super easy in it’s current state , you’re overpowered when you hit the lvl req for most bosses , before you needed gear preparations and gear changes etc for most ubers, now you just go through bosses without sweat and when you get to the big bosses like samael people complain it’s hard ? They dont put any effort into killing bosses before sam , now it’s too hard ? Funny, samael is a joke if you know what you’re doing , some difficulties should not be accessible to all people just like in any game , why should mxl allow all its player base to powercreep ? Look how faster ladders dies now , drop rates are huge , endgame charms are worthless , anyone can afford buying them , take a look at some builds for example bear druid can do samael with set gear , throw barb can do scosglen with white t1 thr axe, i don’t know how Devs can’t see these changes hurt the ladder longetivity, this boss Nithogur should be impossible to do to avoid having overflowing of his relics, needs a new mechanic that is mostly RNG , idk how people would take heavy nerfs to chars but i think the right choice would be to add harder content from now on and stop adding worthless uber butcher and such , that’s just more powercreep from their charm upgrade bonuses, and lastly umos we’re nerfed a lot but they were the only way to make gearing somewhat progressional and you felt character improving now you get the highest rune (Xod) or whatever get mirage angelic touch and suddenly ur superstrong , umos were nerfed because people didnt like to put that much effort into gathering so many to kill endgame content and complained because of it , this was never about p2w this was an excuse , the new rws with expensive endgame runes is more p2w than “umos” were, mxl needs a new way to improve your character over time and not with a few rws you can do all content .

[usling]

[oztor]

I know this is not the solution for the realm, but you can try to solve this problem for yourself: just don't use tg, don't trade at all, play ssf. This is what I do this ladder and it keeps me interested. The question is why do I even play online then if I play ssf, but this is another topic

[nemmate]

I play always SSF, sometimes SP, sometimes multi. I didn't use really TG's, I had some bad experience.
Also, I don't have always so much time to play. Someone said that 1-2 weeks the season is in the end. For a player like me, the season is lot more longer than I can imagine. It's better and longer if you play SSF, or with a friend every 4-5 days, and you change some items. You can grind/farm with him too, but if you farm alone too, the change item can be a real surprise. And you don't have to put your items in auction...

[RequiemLux]

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I'm probably not the only one. I loved Median XL. Sigma brought many amazing QoL features that I absolutely enjoyed, but I noticed a few changes to things I felt were okay at the time; the game is making big changes, give it a chance to iron out some things. So I came back every now and then and kept seeing changes to the game I wasn't expecting over and over again.

Median XL: Sigma can't be Median XL of old. That's okay. It's a different game now. Many people like the changes. While I keep checking up on the game because I miss it, I play it for a few hours and relearn this isn't the same game I wanted. That's okay, if it's not for me anymore, it is what it is.

I'm curious though, and this question isn't for the people who are still playing and enjoying Sigma I'm glad you're enjoying the work the Dev's put into this, but for the ones like me that check up on it every now and then to see if it's time to come back... After all the changes, whats the ONE (1) thing that you think would make you come back and give it another chance if you were in my shoes? If you for some reason left because of many changes, what's the one thing that would make you give it "just another chance"? These don't have to be reverts to previous things, it could be something completely new, but for me personally...

Removing the lock on having multiple skill trees. Would it be balanced? Probably not at this stage, but in the games current state, it would definitely bring me back to see what fun builds I'd be able to come up with.

This is of course just a hypothetical situation. I'm not asking for changes to be made, I'm not trying to start a conversation on "What's wrong with Sigma" or a flamewar. This thread is just for fun and curiosity from the community that felt left behind.

Thanks to the hard work that has been poured into mxl, it has been liberated by several limitations that afflicted iterations previous to sigma and, altho these advancements usually tend to cluster a bit more on end of cycle patches, it has been nontheless a gradual progression that is still underway. In a sense we as devs have been playing a game of catching up with what we'd like to do and what we actually are able to do based on an array of variable factors amongst availability of workforce and time investments. So, as much as anything else, this factors end up being part of the design by outlining what paths can be taken and irremediably landing on compromises in virtually any aspect. These compromised are ultimately the stage on which external and internal disagreement stems from and, if on their own many of these lean ever slightly towards a certain direction then they become defining of the experience when taken as a whole. Much, if not all, of the issues of mxl are heavily interconnected and complex to address without intervention from many different angles. I feel there isn't a 1 single thing that need changing/fixing but many subtle (and less so) synergies between different ones; but, if I were to reunite these elements under a common banner that can be met in most cases, in my opinion nowadays this would be that of a general lack of player's agency: from excessive rng gating to funneled game content and progression. I'm positive that with great effort and a constructive outlook everything has the potential to be better in the end.

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Such a loaded question;

For me, it was the survival aspect I enjoyed. I've said this many times, but I guess it's worth repeating: Bring back PUNISHER 1HTKO traps and I'd come back.

Second, I'd like to see some of the OLD UBERS changed back to Laz era. The Butcher reverted to how it was, where you had to let the butcher beat the shit out of you to defeat him, literally super challenging and fun. K3K invincible skelies till you killed the totems super difficult and fun! Fucking DEATH projector actually doing 1HTKO on a SLOW moving arm; very fair, only morons die here, and Horazons Sanctum also while we're at it! All the new changes suck d!ck IMO, enough for me to not play anymore and not donate, though the new content/ubers in Sigma is fun and on point.

Originally, I was also pretty unhappy with the new skill trees for a bit, but I think Relics really filled that void with much needed diversity, so IDK if I agree with you completely on unlocking every skill tree. Also, there is so much more item diversity now, overall the game is really much bigger and better, but until my #1 and #2 up above are addressed, I don't see myself ever playing again.

Punisher traps again? The benefits of that feature elude me. A random 1HKO that triggers on interactions with objects would only breed frustration, exactly as it did in the past. Resolution and framerate are low, the cursor is far from being an instrument of precision and missclicks, especially on melee builds, could prove deadly in a number of contexts. The game simply cannot accommodate such feature while making up for all its shortcomings, so it fails to dawn on me how this enriches the gameplay instead of subtracting from the experience... there are so much better ways of keeping the players on their toes than relying on the unreliable. For example, as yourself have pointed out, there is room for much better characterization of uber content which, I agree, currently fails to meet some rightfully expected standards.