What Should Prismatic Trials Rewards Be?

[Femboy Thighs]

So on Prismatic Trials it says "Top 10% of players get literally nothing for now". So there's obviously a plan to reward the top 10% of players with SOMETHING eventually. Presumably a reward you can get every seed if you land in the top 10%.

What should this be? What permanent reward can you give players in a Rogue-lite game where one of the core elements is that you start with nothing every time?

Here's some options I was able to just think up off the bat:

1. Lunar Coins - An obvious, yet not really appropriate reward. Lunar is the only currency we have right now that is permanent. So it could be a reward. This might be nice for a few players who don't have the Lunar to get Artificer... but let's be honest. If you haven't played long enough to find 10 Lunar, you're probably not going to make the top 10%. So probably a 'No' on Lunar.

2. Survivors - Maybe they'll add special Survivors that you can only get by making the top 10% in PT. While this might frustrate some players, it is technically possible for everyone to eventually get a Survivor this way. The top 10% who get the survivor one seed probably won't play the next seed if the reward is the same Survivor, giving other players a chance. Eventually, almost everyone should be able to get the new Survivor(s) given they practice enough.

3. Item Unlocks - Another thing they could reward us with is unique item unlocks. This is as simple as it sounds. Just some cool new items that are powerful, but not overly busted, that you can play with. This decision likely wouldn't get much flak either, since in Multiplayer, everyone's unlocked items are shared, meaning you could still get to use these PT-limited items so long as you find a game with someone who's unlocked them already.

4. Skins??? - Not sure if this would even be a good idea or not. But it is a possibility, so it's worth mentioning. Maybe we'll get skins/cosmetics at some point. And if we do, making some of them PT-limited would give players a great, but relatively harmless way of bragging about their PT scores. I'm thinking just gold variants of the Survivors. Commano in gold armor, Engineer with gold sentries, gold MUL-T, you get the idea.

5. IRL Merch! - A neat reward could be real-life merchandise. Plushies, pins, plastic figurines, a certificate saying you beat a PT trial... I dunno. Of course they'd have to actually pay to make the stuff, so... Probably not a super viable option. Although I would love it if they made a merchandise store where you could just pay the normal way to get a plushie Mercenary...

6. Just... Nothing, Really - They might just stick to no real tangible reward. And some people would be okay with just having their name permanently written down on a list somewhere. Just make a sort-of "Hall of Fame" for people who got in the top 10% in PT trials, and when. I think a lot of people want something more, but maybe more just isn't a viable option.

[Plaguelight]

Rewards should not be gated by position, but should be for simply playing it, a la Isaac did for daily runs. That way, cheaters and such aren't the only ones getting the rewards for holding the top 10%, as you suggested.

But I do like the idea of a survivor being unlocked through playing PTs, Lunar Coins is a big one, Item Unlocks is good, Skins too. IRL Merch would be amazing, but something to think about once the game is OUT of EA, when bugs are fixed and anti-cheat can be put in (if such a thing exists).

[gachi is manly]

An item unlock is what I was thinking. Preferably some weird unessential rare or lunar item unlock that requires you to place in the top 10%.

Getting something cool for doing it would be nice, but I don't think the reward should be anything that feels as essential as say, a new survivor.

They could have several different rewards that rotate on a regular basis. Or just have rewards for doing it consecutive times (so a reward for doing it once/twice/three times etc).

[Plaguelight]

Originally posted by Lyle Ugleman:

An item unlock is what I was thinking. Preferably some weird unessential rare or lunar item unlock that requires you to place in the top 10%.

Getting something cool for doing it would be nice, but I don't think the reward should be anything that feels as essential as say, a new survivor.

They could have several different rewards that rotate on a regular basis. Or just have rewards for doing it consecutive times (so a reward for doing it once/twice/three times etc).

Yeah, the consecutive thing was what I was thinking of. Play several PTs with every character or something like that for a survivor, or some item that makes you all prismatic and such.

[Razaah !!!!]

The 10% placement would be really unlikely since there are people who complete PT with negative time or in under 2 seconds. :D

Why would you want to reward exploiters or cheaters ?

[Zeddy]

A VAC ban.

[Femboy Thighs]

Originally posted by Razaah !!!!:

The 10% placement would be really unlikely since there are people who complete PT with negative time or in under 2 seconds. :D

Why would you want to reward exploiters or cheaters ?

Obviously I don't want to reward cheaters. This is purely hypothetical discussion, as in, after they fix the whole cheater/exploiter issue. That's exactly why there aren't rewards right now.

[Lunacy]

I was thinking just recolors for the current characters. One for the character you used in the trial. Like Commando's main color is yellow, engineer's is purple, huntress is red.
10% doesn't feel that hard even with the number of cheaters, usually only have to get around 3-4minutes
They could even reward 2 lunar coins for completing it the first time, or something.

[Malibloo]

I've read the devs said no on the recolors initially due to the reasoning of every character having their own unique distinguishable colors and designs.

Personally I think all of these options are too much inside-the-box thinking.
Lunar coins is a pretty obvious possible reward, and could go with whatever else might be given. Maybe you'll even get a single lunar coin for participating, and more if you're in the top 10%.
The other ideas are unlockables, and putting unlockables behind a competitive gate is a horrible idea for a co-op game.
The "Eventually everyone should be able to get it" is a fairly baseless argument, because I personally couldn't even get through the very first prismatic trial when the game just came out. This doesn't mean I sucked at the game, I simply didn't know it well enough yet. But what it does mean is that it has a high enough difficulty for some lesser-abled people who would never get through it.


There's a ton of fun things you could give the really top 10%, because that's who you're rewarding, the more experienced players.
They could be given a harder mode or a specific artifact that would make the game harder. Maybe it's even a 1-time thing, who knows.
They could be set up with starting items, to push the game even further, perhaps debuff items.
Maybe they could put in a whole new mechanic where you have a loadout. Perhaps purchasable with lunar coins, or a third new currency.
They could simply make an entire new thing that would primarily work off of the Prismatic Trials. It's really open right now.

[Magelan]

I think a couple of lunar coins on completion once a day is reasonable. Pointless for hackers and not overpowered for regular people. Regardless if you make it on the top 10%

[Femboy Thighs]

Originally posted by Malibloo:

I've read the devs said no on the recolors initially due to the reasoning of every character having their own unique distinguishable colors and designs.

Personally I think all of these options are too much inside-the-box thinking.
Lunar coins is a pretty obvious possible reward, and could go with whatever else might be given. Maybe you'll even get a single lunar coin for participating, and more if you're in the top 10%.
The other ideas are unlockables, and putting unlockables behind a competitive gate is a horrible idea for a co-op game.
The "Eventually everyone should be able to get it" is a fairly baseless argument, because I personally couldn't even get through the very first prismatic trial when the game just came out. This doesn't mean I sucked at the game, I simply didn't know it well enough yet. But what it does mean is that it has a high enough difficulty for some lesser-abled people who would never get through it.


There's a ton of fun things you could give the really top 10%, because that's who you're rewarding, the more experienced players.
They could be given a harder mode or a specific artifact that would make the game harder. Maybe it's even a 1-time thing, who knows.
They could be set up with starting items, to push the game even further, perhaps debuff items.
Maybe they could put in a whole new mechanic where you have a loadout. Perhaps purchasable with lunar coins, or a third new currency.
They could simply make an entire new thing that would primarily work off of the Prismatic Trials. It's really open right now.

I think that's a neat idea, but that still sort of falls under "putting unlockables behind a competitive gate". What if I wasn't good at PT but wanted to try the harder difficulty just for the heck of it? Or those other challenge ideas, like the loadout one.

I know it sounds like I'm going back on my arguments from before - Because I am. I do realize now that putting special unlockables as PT rewards would gate that content from a lot of players. But also... if that's the case, then what the heck can we put there?

[Teh_Bucket]

no reward needed. don't change the game, even cosmetics or player icons would be a blemish

[Anxarcule]

Not crazy about rewards for top 10% as I don't see how they can enforce cheating. Maybe unlocks for completing x amount of trials, or complete a trial in under 5 minutes

[UselessOkuu]

Imo, it all depends if the rewards can only be obtained in Prismatic Trials or is just an alternate unlock method.
If is only in prismatic trials, then i would prefer to be a bundle of lunar coins and skins that don't really affect the gameplay much
If is an alternate unlock method for stuff you can unlock in some other way, then go will.

[Malibloo]

Originally posted by Mission Control Guy:

I think that's a neat idea, but that still sort of falls under "putting unlockables behind a competitive gate". What if I wasn't good at PT but wanted to try the harder difficulty just for the heck of it? Or those other challenge ideas, like the loadout one.

While I don't disagree with you. I feel like this is insignificant seeing you're putting an even harder challenge behind an already hard challenge. Ergo, someone who wouldn't be able to finish the prismatic trials, they would also not care for an even harder difficulty.
But it's just one of many things that one could think of.
Personally I'd prefer it if they'd change it to several classes of how well someone did. Like a top 3%, top 10%, top 25%, etc, all with different rewards, most easily added would be different amounts of lunar coins. But they would need more uses as well at that point.
I'd personally just love it if they'd simply add more ideas to the game that could possibly even evolve into greater concepts in a possible RoR3.

As for cheating; It can be fairly easy to put in a simple detection system that would at the very least remove impossible times (1 minute and below, especially negative times), and permaban those steam id's silently from the list.
Other than that, maybe there's ways to figure out if they cheated, by counting gold and comparing it to the amount of chests opened, how much damage they've gotten in a short amount of time. There's quite a few ways to do it.
Sadly, as long as it isn't all done server sided, it can always be hacked.

[Varenvel The Festive Dinosaur]

considering top 5% will be cheaters and moders at very least and no way devs can actualy filter them out

as the "mod matchmaking" is optional when you mod the game

completing it should give you reward

Maybe random artefact

Maybe bag of coins

Maybe 1-2 items you can only unlock that way

Maybe 1 character

Monster skins? character skins?

lots possibilities but should be only for people who complete run