Challenge League Post-mortems

"

Ocylix wrote:

I like that you gave us an overview of the design process. I am now looking forward to 1 challenge league with variations, instead of 2.

"

Summoner wrote:

"

Chris wrote:

Players don't switch between the two concurrent challenge leagues as much as we had hoped. Most players just pick one and stick to it, missing out on the experience of the other. Combined with the intense development cycles of these leagues and the fact that we want to continue to push the amount of content they contain, we have decided to change the structure of the next leagues.

If you want to encourage more people to try the HC leagues, why not change it so you rip from the HC challenge league into the standard challenge league instead of default. Previously the completely different leagues made doing so problematic; but if we're going to be able to do all the challenges in one league anyway it's not going to be as potentially imbalancing.

the problem with this is the ladder ranking. a rank 2 Tempest ripping into Warbands will pretty much assure that he is at least rank 2 in Warbands, without actually playing Warbands initially.

yea i dont think hc->sc on rip is a good solution either.
i chose to play the hc league only a little bit, mostly when there was corrupting tempest, because the few friends i have play on sc. thats whats stopping me from going full-time hc i guess, im really interested in the streamers that race on hc and it looks sort of more fun and challenging to do hc than sc. both leagues were ok but tempest was more fun since it had more special randomness in it. im hoping to play more hc the next league i just have to
convice some of my friends to try to join me for it
anyways, for people that wonder why challenges are RNG gated its because a lot of them can be done in a group, i.e. you find something you can share in your guild for example a warbands-boss. this 1 month league seems to stop some of that tho, which is good, im mostly talking about the shrine "touching the shrine", which can be done by only one player.
by restricting these challenges this way, you can lower the grade of RNG involved in it
to a meium level. just an idea as usual and i think i already mentioned it over in suggestions corner

Thx for the info Chris! It was a good and interesting read. I'd like to add one more feedback to this topic: while I really liked the warbands league the special blue item drop was not a really good design choice. I think these kind of rewards should be obvious when you kill the specific enemy. Just standing still and identifying every blue item of a given type just kills the fun of playing the game. It's even more noticeable after the introduction of loot filters which made mapping experience much-much better!

"

RNG-gating is a useful tool

This is why I don't play your game anymore.

I dunno how you do it, but EVERY time you post news like this you make me happy af. I'm so sad I'm currently not able to buy another supporter pack, because holy shit you guys deserve it SO MUCH. GG GGG.

Mindblowing. This is exactly the kind of developer communication with the players that keeps me going.

chris: thank you very much for this amazing summary.

most important question for me (and probably others) is: what's your definition of a "damaged economy"?

"

Odoakar wrote:

"

RNG-gating is a useful tool

This is why I don't play your game anymore.

It's good you don't, better community that doesn't whine as if no other game does this.

awesome stuff, I appreciate the transparency and I had no idea it took millions of dollars of resources to make these leagues. As a player you just don't realize that or understand it. It's amazing what you guys have accomplished and I've been playing this game for 3 years now and can see myself still playing it 3 years from now!

I love it, keep up the great work. I can't wait for the next league

Really exciting stuff! I appreciate and respect your honest reflection on your work and that you are able to use both positive and negative feedback to improve the game for everyone. I have a feeling that this game will continue to improve as the years go by and I'm grateful for all of the work you sink into creating the best ARPG since D2. Thanks GGG! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

"

AntonChigur wrote:

I had no idea it took millions of dollars of resources to make these leagues

slight nitpick, it's rather:

"

Chris wrote:

Awakening, a large expansion that we spent millions of dollars developing.