Challenge League Post-mortems

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nudle wrote:

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"We plan to stop giving shirts out to the first 50 players to complete all the challenges."

I would like to comment on this. Last tempest/warband league I've decided to dedicate my time towards completing 8/8 and became top50 doing so. The biggest motivation behind this decision was to win/earn an exclusive T-shirt that I would proudly wear in any social ocassion like i'm was doing and I still do with my awakining supporter pack T-shirt.
Getting the T-shirt eventually as top2 racer was by far the most rewarding thing I've achieved in any game ever. Because it connected my skill and knowledge of game plus time spent plus it was going to become memory IRL.

I would like to ask you, my dear developers, to consider keeping top50 exclusive T-shirt reward.

Although I'll never have the availability to go for this type of reward I think this was the only part I didn't think was such a good idea. Assuming there is a component of the challenges that remain focused on completion by a small but very dedicated part of the community its logical that they appreciate the personal touch in such a reward. Maybe there could be a way of reducing costs? With the internet it becomes easier to maybe produce the tshirt in the country it is being sent to, greatly reducing costs ;)

Of course, it could be something different from a t-shirt, but maintaining the personalised touch, something signed etc.

Its a gg news for me, good job !

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Dos_Fafner wrote:

It is surprising that it took this long to realize that (1) league with shared content between the two game formats (hc vs sc) was the ideal route. HC leagues have been generally less rewarding than the SC leagues - really annoying considering advancement in the league is more difficult on HC. Not sure if this was deliberate or just general bad luck for HC. Ideally the theme for the next new league is better than the previous leagues. Tempest was, in my opinion, terrible. Did not play warbands but I also did not hear anything good about it.

Side note: I would love to know what players "fondly" recall invasion. I do not know any and I seem to remember the league was super dead after a matter of weeks. The bosses were nerf'd more times than I can conveniently remember and they were still over-tuned at the end of the league.

Double side note: Learnt is generally considered colloquial. My understanding is it is more common on your side of the English speaking world but an international publication should probably strive to avoid local dialects in an effort to be more cosmopolitan. Basically, it was really annoying to read "learnt" that many times in a single post.

HC is generally less rewarding than SC (ideally it has more variance, ie aspects of great risk and potentially more reward but not usually such an easy decision as SC) as, has actually been explained in the past, if HC were to be as rewarding as SC it would obviously inherently reduce the whole purpose of it being more challenging (although one death is a challenge itself obviously!). Also, often in HC the rewards are less obvious but there: I don't think most people appreciated just how good the +more items bonus was. Think how hard it is to get on decent gear.

As for invasion yes, the bosses were overtuned (incredibly lol) especially in the first week, and I'm sure many people quit because of it. However, for those that stuck it out it became an incredibly satisfying experience for many reasons: 1) death was always around the corner but it was (generally lol) optional 2) you had to learn which foes were beatable, and which were run for your life! - usually dependant on build weakness and strength 3) Linked to this, you had to study each boss, learn them (which gave them kind of a personality) and it was really satisfying to figure out their weak points or how to finally take them down. 4) They gave some great memories (can still remember some near rips, some comebacks, and some hilarious rips at the start when I completely underestimated X aspect).

Just adding in my support of huge manifestos. Loved reading this. Some of the conclusions took awhile and are things my friends and I have discussed for well over a year now, but you know what? I'm really glad to say I'm excited for leagues again. I loved Beyond and Nemesis, hated Invasion and Tempest, and was super mad that Hardcore missed out on the original Ambush. It looks to me like the next league could be the best.

MTX rewards are also MUCH more motivating. I'm guessing the stats from the 1-month leagues have shown a lot of people feel the same as I do.

Thanks for the great read and the great game.

I really hope you guys are saving the Black Seraph set for the next league. :) Or skill effects, that would be amazing.

Nice post o/. And it's good to hear everyone will be able to experience similar stuff either they want to play hardcore or softcore.

For the 2 last leagues i played a little in Warbands and i missed on the Tempest one. Too bad since i'm sure i'd have enjoyed it a lot considering how much fun i had in Inferno race, it was extremely intense too.

Keep it up.

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ggnorekthx wrote:

Just adding in my support of huge manifestos. Loved reading this. Some of the conclusions took awhile and are things my friends and I have discussed for well over a year now, but you know what? I'm really glad to say I'm excited for leagues again. I loved Beyond and Nemesis, hated Invasion and Tempest, and was super mad that Hardcore missed out on the original Ambush. It looks to me like the next league could be the best.

MTX rewards are also MUCH more motivating. I'm guessing the stats from the 1-month leagues have shown a lot of people feel the same as I do.

Thanks for the great read and the great game.

I really hope you guys are saving the Black Seraph set for the next league. :) Or skill effects, that would be amazing.

Yeh, MTX are cool rewards and I think GGG are onto something, although it does have to be handled right. If the rewards are variants of older mtx it will also make good business sense, as I think supporters of the game will support it regardless, and will always prefer new mtx/skill effects/tabs, whilst other players that at X time cannot afford to support the game financially will obviously appreciate the extra free aspect of the game increasing the chances of supporting the game in the future (either actively by financing it, or passively by playing and/or bringing friends etc in).

Huh, no mention of "we wanted Warbands to run more than 3 months, and instead ended it after 10 weeks." I'm sure that was accidental.

i feal you ppl from ggg is missing a vital part.

Risk reward system.

it shud be much more rewarding to play a HC league..
1: you have to slow your progression, avoide stuff.. chicken out of many situations. and generaly spec less offences/clear speed.
to stack defences its harder to use iir gear and if so you run easy content(lower drops)

there for to stay pare in general you need better drops.

2: you die and have to rebuild from scracth.
this obvious requires more ggg uniques dropped. since most ppl i know build 3-5 top lvl toons full geared doing a 3 month. also there is no recycling sell of rip gear..
and hench point 1 ppl are not stacking as much iir or speed as on softcore its harder to get/expencive.

3: hardcore is just abit more cool. and it shud be a banner for all players to be hardcore.. = better players.
there for chosing a softcore league shud also be known as less rewarding leading back to the topic. reward vs risk.. the motivation hammer of all.

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The next challenge leagues will have a set of 40 challenges, which range in difficulty. Completion of specific milestones (every 10 challenges, for example) will reward you with a microtransaction. Regular casual players who don't make it to maps can still receive some prizes for their participation in the challenge leagues.

One thing i don't like about the 1 month leagues going on right now is that all four of the microtransaction rewards are part of the same armor set. I'm going to try and complete all the challenges but if I don't succeed I will be left with 3/4 of a full armor set. I would probably never use any of the skins alone or mix them with other armor sets. I don't like the feeling that i could have an incomplete armor set.

When you design microtransaction rewards for the new challenges I think it would be cool if they weren't all coupled together like an armor set is.

Having league content give you some more lore is definitely a great idea. It can spice up some relaxing solo sessions quite a bit.