I wanted to propose a slight shift in the way expeditions are handled holistically not related to orbs or anything but in terms of available difficulty modes and trying to have a consistent logical and progressive difficulty mode that allows players the opportunity to experience content and also progress beyond the gear score progression starting at the level cap.
There are many examples out there but WoW is the one I am most familiar with. I haven’t played it in a year or two so some of this might have changed.
In WoW dungeons had a specific level they were designed for in each expansion and you were able to go to that dungeon and experience it as the quest evolved. Short of joining that dungeon on a higher difficulty you could go back and play that dungeon at the difficulty of mobs of the quest appropriate level. They later adopted the term “Story Mode” and that is most appropriate for this.
Right now every dungeon that is lower than level 60 could be considered “Story Mode” and the current expeditions with regular dungeons that are level 60 probably should not be considered “Story Mode”. Rather tuned down versions that represent a 61+ recommended POI level with similar expertise caps.
These top level dungeons can serve as a means to grind out the lower expertise segments with an easier time than the current dungeons while providing insight and learning opportunity to practice mechanics.
Above “Story Mode” you have introduce a “Veteran Mode”. Veteran Mode is harder than Story Mode and would lock in at a difficulty consistent with the current end around the power difficulty of what we see from regular lazarus and genesis. It’s very important that this level is created for every dungeon that is introduced as a mutator so that players have a challenging way to learn the expedition before reaching mutators. Dynasty right now is a great example. Regular is too easy because it is 55 and mutator is a shell shock.
The loot in Story Mode should be similar to normals now.
Then you have “Heroic Mode” what we call M1. I would segment M1 to it’s own tier and make it runnable once a day similar to how normals have orbs you can buy once a day. This lets players play around with strategy and practice the mutations more frequently for minimal umbral shard reward.
Then you have the “Mutated Mode” where you have the M2-M10 and that has it’s own gating mechanic.