Challenge League Post-mortems

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NeroNoah wrote:

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Also, some leagues deserve a little more polish or expansions, like Beyond (so the monsters actually look eldritch rather than copypasted, and we can know more about the demons, fight more of them, or even go to their homeworld (?)).

We have at least a couple of designers wanting to return to Beyond, and really explore the story, lore and mechanics some more.

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Chris wrote:

From the Anarchy league, we learnt that RNG-gating is a useful tool but can be frustrating if balanced incorrectly. We also learnt that the league feature must be apparent in early areas, otherwise players don't really feel the theme of the league.

Then you made the exact same mistake on Warband.

Not only the encounter rate of Warbands was very low in early areas, but also the kind of encounter was weak - the interesting fights, against the leaders, were only seen in Merciless.

This led to a very bad league - Warband was most of the time just an weaker version of Anarchy, with a low encounter rate, enemies that weren't that interesting in the great majority of encounters, and no worthwhile reward 99,99% of the time.

wow. this was really really really really really interesting to read. Thanks a lot for this!

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOORE!

Pretty cool read. This is why I like you guys, transparent, ever-evolving. Player-friendly.

Good to know what you are going to try with the next challenge league. Fun will be well-divided. (or boredom, but considering its just one league being worked on instead of two, my bet is the result will be fun)

Still need to get 2 more pieces of MTX in 1 month but already cant wait for next challenge league haha. You guys are great. Just hope there's no decreased in money coming in (even if minimal by giving so much MTX for free.

Good read. As a casual player I was rarely able to play both leagues for enough time.

Have you ever thought about having an everchanging 3 month league? The current one month is really fun and I could imagine player retention being higher with a league that changes every week or so.

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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.

- Very interesting text, I've always appreciated the effort and difficult decisions involved in league creation, and hopefully what is learnt from each league can help future content.

- Focusing on one league (with hc/sc variances) sounds like a good decision for many reasons, I think most people don't really want to (or have the time) do 2 leagues at the same time. Lore will be more consistent too. Easier to balance/tweak etc.

- I was hoping the new challenge leagues would start latest early december, oh well, as long as they're good!
Although I agree they should be impactful early game (at least in the feel of the league), they should pose a real challenge/reward dillemma in maps. If possible the higher the map/level the 'higher' this ratio. I wouldn't mind more cooperation like needed in warbands/tempest especially as they motivated me to do content that was a lower level but was rewarding in other ways, but my favourite leagues so far were invasion and ambush (I liked warbands/tempest but it took me a while to figure out how best to make use of them). Invasion was terrifying at the start, and who doesn't love strongboxes? The very definition of risk vs reward, with the superb detail that we can craft them. Genius.

(another example of poe at its best - although it was beyond uniques which I kinda hated because they had too many hitpoints/hard to get close to - a few hours ago I spawned two beyond uniques very close to each other, I ran for my life and accidentally hit a divine shrine, turned and slaughtered them lol)

Having a large number of individually easier challenges is something I'd much prefer. I personally haven't bothered trying to go for challenges in leagues, and even purposely avoided them sometimes since I'd rather see no indicator than seeing and knowing I can only complete 1-2 of them. Having finer goals that individually feel feasible to achieve gives more reason to actually work toward the challenges. Rewards being individual cosmetics or hideout pieces that one can mix-and-match with other options would also be more appealing to get a partial set of than 3/8 of a proper totem.

The move to a single challenge league "modifier" between Softcore/Hardcore is also something that I am really happy to see. As much as I wanted to play Tempest, I know that Hardcore is not enjoyable for me and I don't have the time or desire to feel forced to make new characters. As a result I never got to experience Tempest, and was pretty disappointed when it was announced to not be merging with the core game with its time-based, zone-focused farming. The more similar the two can be in terms of challenge league content available, the better in my opinion; which to play should be solely based on if you want the Hardcore death penalty/economy or not.

Plus making only one set of challenge league content that all players can experience rather than two sets that only half will experience each means a wiser use of the budget as mentioned.

I hope GGG does decide to work on (and actually add to the core game) more time-based, zone-oriented farming options like present with Warbands/Tempest; being given an incentive to do something different for a bit at end-game is helpful in maintaining interest.

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Qarl wrote:

We have at least a couple of designers wanting to return to Beyond, and really explore the story, lore and mechanics some more.

I'd absolutely love more lore regarding Beyond. <3

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Qarl wrote:

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NeroNoah wrote:

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Also, some leagues deserve a little more polish or expansions, like Beyond (so the monsters actually look eldritch rather than copypasted, and we can know more about the demons, fight more of them, or even go to their homeworld (?)).

We have at least a couple of designers wanting to return to Beyond, and really explore the story, lore and mechanics some more.

Cool, :P

I loved a lot the mod when I played it on maps. Also, I enjoyed a lot the demon list. It was like the Cthulhu Mythos. If the Beast and maps are reminiscent of Dream Lands, Beyond demons and their followers are reminiscent of the Great Old Ones. I'd really like to go to their homeworld someday.

I don't know the rest, but I'll be happy if you return to old leagues and expand them in a meaningful ways. Beyond is probably the easiest league to justify to do that though. Maybe Invasion. The rest can be more or less touched without bringing them again.

A very good read Chris, thank you. Wouldn't mind more of these posts.