Playing on the Survival server is a ton of fun. I love starting from scratch and working together with other people to carve out a living and take down bosses. However, one sentiment that crops up time and time again among both myself and other players is that Survival can be dissatisfying due to the fact that absolutely nothing carries over between resets.
What I’d like to propose is a system that allows players to keep track of how many resets they’ve participated in. I’m not sure how Dark Gaming’s backend works, but I think you might be able to piggyback off of what tracks players’ DP and XP levels to track this as well. What I’m envisioning is a rewards system that gives players special titles for logging into the Survival server every week. These could take the form of simple numbers (example: a Title that reads [Reset #12] or [Reset #45]) or there could be a dedicated ranking system (example: a set of Titles slowly increasing in prestige – Reset #1 could be [Survival Newbie], Resets #2-5 could be [Survival Apprentice], Resets #6-10 could be [Survival Expert], going up to titles like [Survival Master] or even just scrapping the “Survival X” idea entirely and going with entirely unique titles). These would be entirely optional, but would allow players to show off their dedication to the server if they so choose.
I’d also like to posit the idea of temporary titles that reward players for performing well in particular runs. Maybe players who deal a lot of damage to bosses could get unique titles for that run only? Or there could be titles for certain achievements (e.g. “First to 400” for the first player to reach 400 HP, “Ultimate Tank” for the player with the highest defense, maybe “Clumsy” for someone who dies to fall damage a lot). I have no idea how this would be implemented or balanced to prevent players from just grinding Eyes of Cthulhu in the hours before the reset, but it’s still food for thought!
Even if this only results in players logging in for a few seconds every week to grind out better titles, I think it would be a welcome change for everyone, especially the hardcore Survival fans. Let me know if you have any ideas or suggestions for how to improve this! I’d love to hear everybody’s thoughts on the current Survival experience.