Absurdly Specific and Hilariously Painful Challenge Run Ideas:

Hi all,

I have been looking for more of a challenge in POE2, and I find myself wishing there was a Ruthless mode...so I came up with a few challenge run ideas today.
I threw mine into an LLM and it spit them out with a few more with some extra cheese.

Please reply with any of your own ideas!!!



1. The One-Slot Wonder: You can only equip one piece of gear (besides weapons). Everything else is just dead weight.

2. The Bartertown Blues: Vendors are purely ornamental. You can't buy or sell anything.

3. Survivor’s Guilt: (must roll for which slot this applies to, may exclude weapons) Every death demands a sacrifice. Delete an equipped item, or the gods will be angry.

4. Nomad Mode: Your gear is temporary. Every 10 levels or act change, delete everything but weapons.

5. The Currency Comet: Use every currency item as soon as you find it.

6. The Jack of All Trades: You can’t allocate more than 3 points in a single passive skill cluster. Keystones are for the weak.

7. The Shifting Spectrum: Every act or ten levels, your damage type changes. Hope you like rerolling.

8. It's All I Know: (One-Button Build) You’re only allowed to use one active skill. Repetitive, but effective?

9. The Marathon Man: No stash, no trading. Just you, your inventory, and the cold, cruel world.

10. The Passive Point Pincher: (X Passives Per Act) You can only spend a limited number of passive skill points per act. Choose wisely.

11. The Link-less Loser: You may not support skills (or no more than one per). Your skills are lonely.

12. The Ailment Aficionado: You can only deal damage through ailments. Burn, baby, burn.

13. The Gear Grinder: (Reverse Gear Progression) You must equip any piece of gear you find which is a lower item level. Progress? What's that?

14. The Blues: (No Rares or Uniques) Only magic (blue) or normal (white) items. It's like playing in a museum.

15. The Skill Point Scrooge: (Minimalist) You can’t use more than 10 skill points in total. Good luck.

16. The Chaos Crapshoot: Every time you find a Chaos Orb, you must use it on an item immediately. Gambling addiction, the build.

17. The Blood Pact: No energy shield, no life regeneration, no leech. No dodge. Just pain.

18. The Chaosborn: May only use Chaos damage skills and items with Chaos modifiers. Embrace the void.

19. The Flaskless Fury: No flasks, ever. Hydration is for quitters.

20. The Aura Abstainer: You can’t use any auras, heralds, or buff skills. Self-reliance is key.

21. Set in Stone: You can’t respec or undo any skill tree points. Commit to your mistakes.

22. The Mastery Moron: You cannot allocate any passive mastery points. Just raw, unmastered power.

23. The Glass Cannon: No armor, evasion, or energy shield bonuses allowed. Die fast, kill faster.

24. The Monochromatic Marauder: You must only deal damage of a single element. Pick a color, any color.

25. The Wandering Wallet: You must keep every currency item you find in your inventory and not use it; permanently. Hoarding: the build.

26. The Unrefined Refinement: (Forced Gear Upgrades) Every time you find a higher-level item slot, you must equip it.

27. The Bare Knuckle Brawler: You can only use unarmed attacks. Punch your way through problems.

28. The Melee Martyr: (Close Combat Only) No ranged skills, spells, or projectiles. Get up close and personal.

29. Night Moves: You can’t use armor or energy shield. Just dodge.

30. The Explosive Expert: (Trap and Mine Only) You can only use traps and mines.

31. The Currency Cripple: You may not use any currency on gear. No crafting. What you find is what you get.

32. The Magical Melee Master: You can only use melee-range spell skills. Swing your spells.

33. The Shopaholic Slayer: You cannot equip gear unless you’ve purchased it from a vendor. Supporting local businesses, the build.

34. The Keystone Klutz: Roll to determine a random keystone passive, and you must bee-line and take it as soon as possible. Gamble responsibly.

35. The Skill Gem Scramble: (Skill Lottery) Roll for three skill gems at random and base your entire build around them. Random is fun.

36. The Weapon Wielder's Woe: (Weapon Locked) Only one weapon type is allowed (e.g., only swords, only bows).

37. The Void Vestment: Energy Shield Only. No armour or evasion. Believe harder.

38. The Jewel Jettisoner: No rings, amulets, or belts.

39. The Level Limited Luminary: (Impose a Skill Gem Level Cap) No skill gems can be higher than level "X".

40. The Passive Path Pandemonium: (Random Skill Tree) Use a random number generator to select which node to branch to for every point.

41. The Stationary Sentinel: No dodge roll. You are rooted to the spot, accepting all incoming attacks with stoic resolve (or screaming terror).


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A few of these are less viable right now, and some are basically variants of the same, but I feel this is a good starting point.

What are some good ones you can think of?

GLHF

Yeah I think some of these are pretty interesting. Don't see any reason why they couldn't have this in the challenges. More interesting to me than playing through and clicking all the dialogue. Only thing would be like you have mentioned, some of these would be much easier/harder from league to league. Which might make them a bit more gimicky in some circumstances.

i got no own ideas about possible challenges.

i´m questioning the design of having multiple leagues with various difficulties like we have now.
why? because a game´s reputation is always made from it´s weakest option to play it.

i previously suggested having hardcore and normal leagues being united by "normal leagues having hardcore areas" and all they were daring to release were valdo box maps where you can die permanently.

i think we should learn from chris` and hrishis´ mistake to not put any more effort into ruthless and make it more attractive or make it a part of the general game.

why not having a very rewarding area where you have to get through a not rewarding area to enter it?
it would be ruthless integrated into the main game and it´s optional?

of course that means that players would have to play the game and not having to ripp off some newbies in trade to get the currency to JUICE MAPS AND PROFIT!!!!

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"separate leagues" just fragment your player base and are counter productive.

Your derailing the thread a bit, but i'll respond.

It's true that the game has been spread out over a lot of areas currently. This is less to do with ruthless which has a very small player base and more to do with POE2 and having multiple concurrent leagues on top of each other, from GGG not keeping up developing completed leagues in series. ie. necro/settlers, Phrecia.

Ruthless is a great league. The people playing it absolutely love it. The people who don't like ruthless and for some reason bag it out, are people who don't play the mode. It is a completely optional mode. If the mode you are playing appears to be impacted by people playing another mode, I would suggest there is something wrong with the mode you are playing. There is a very small amount of people playing ruthless, happily. The idea that this has somehow canibalised or taken development time from the other leagues on a scale that is impacting the other leagues is wrong.

If there has been some drop off in the trade volume in the league you are playing, it will not be due to ruthless. It's likely from POE2 or other factors. People are not there to farm currency for you in the mode you are playing. If your DIV/hour has gone down, I would suggest you adapt.

I don't think people playing non-ruthless modes want their modes to be integrated with ruthless. The option is there for both, what you are speaking of would take more development, which seems to be what you don't want.

"

because a game´s reputation is always made from it´s weakest option to play it.

Sounds nonsensical to me. If you are suggesting ruthless is a weak mode and that people judge the game as a whole, just by focusing on Ruthless, people doing that are the problem. You are probably right, there are people who do this, looking at some metric number somewhere and jumping to absurd conclusions. GGG developed their game ignoring this nonsensical feedback thankfully. Ruthless was extremely positive for the cost of basically nothing to develop it. If you play in these leagues you will know that the people playing the mode and loving it are not interested in playing loot pinata auction flipper modes. Most of them probably didn't even come from trade league. They are old school players and new players that aren't foccused on deleting a screen of mobs in one click. Turning off the mode is not going to fix all the other problems that are going on with the game.

"

of course that means that players would have to play the game and not having to ripp off some newbies in trade to get the currency to JUICE MAPS AND PROFIT!!!!

Not sure what this means exactly, but that sounds like problems with trade leagues, not the other leagues. Trade league seems to be full of people buying progress through one way or another, which is why a lot of people prefer to play the other leagues, to not have to interact with it and just play the game. The option is there for both.

Thank you for you thoughtful post, Belegur.

I personally love the core game, but wince at having to sift through and evaluate so many items. I do not trade at all. I also enjoy a higher difficulty level via item constraint in order to force creativity and adaptation.

Personally I feel like what a lot of the people who for some reason fear the idea of a "ruthless" mode, would be happier playing something like Vampire Survivors.