Transition period between leagues - how to motivate the go further and futher into challenge leagues

Hello,

i have few ideas that might "ease" up the pressure between challenge leagues.

So, first to classify the problem:
As the challenge league does come to end, people have no motivation to play further (as all wealth and characters will go into oblivion). There are very few that would start new league and then continue in Standard or Hardcore. The population basically moves from league to league and standard leagues are left behind for those who want to play continuously with one economy and one wealth.

So where is the problem?

Transition period between leagues.
Clearly, it is something that helps the developers. To test everything, finish some projects that were left a bit behind and catch up with some stuff. Plus it gives time to market new leagues, new content and get some "hype" on various networks.

But this period is killing people that would rather go directly into game, as in the last 2 weeks of previous league they probably did not play (as mentioned in the problem, no point farming and building new chars, they will get offed anyway)

So, how to keep players interest?

1. Legacy system that would keep something cross challenge leagues.
Possible problems:
- sandbox might hurt more than it brings
- economy deflation
- in-game balance

Possible solutions:
- bonus will not be that big
- no orbs, no tradeables - account bound items
- in-game balance might be solved by possibility to update it standard way

My idea is around some "legacy" leveling items that would bring something interesting into the new game. Possibly with scaling per level stats (as items that already exists)

How it will affect the transition period - this is the point. The items could be obtainable by anyone by completing something in-between the challenge leagues.

There might be variable events
- races (with reward for completing some objective rather than to be ranked
- social networking (similar as OnePlus marketing campaign with invites in summer 2014 with points per retweet, like and similar social network acitivites - yes, it is spam, but might bring more players.)
- based on some objective in the previous challenge league (like to deploy small content patch for the last 2 weeks of the challenge league, to complete for advancement into another challenge league.

To give variability, legacy items might be into various slots, with rule that only one might be carried at the same time. Or possibly new item slot (relic or something) or charm (D2 snipe) in the inventory (possibly big item to give negative feature - limiting inventory space.


Challenge leagues do bring fresh start, but it could not be super fresh, and it might fill the void between leagues. I don't think many people will play in upcoming 3 weeks.


Howg, I'll be back!

People don't like playing in the end of the league, because its near equivalent to playing in the parent league, where the results of your labor will soon dump.

(Tthis means that something does need to make the league interesting, if you still want people to play there.)


1. The normal steady release of new uniques, gems and support gems can do a lot to keep the league fresh, and encourage people to play with new builds. However, this felt a little weak recently, perhaps because of Act 4 work.


2. Another great idea is to merge the challenge leagues for the later weeks. This treads on the 1 week race, but essentially if the standard and hardcore challenge leagues had both new systems for the last 4-6 weeks, you'd have something new to play with that actually likely won't be the same if it even ever enters the game.

3. Gathering and releasing some extra new uniques (such as at least 1 league exclusive one) during the second half of the league could also throw in some new excitement.


5. Why not take the second half of a league for a chance to release a new affix to one of the base item pools? Perhaps something new and interesting for rings might show up in one league, and belts in another. These could even be temporary league exclusives. Similarly, exclusive league base items could be done (as has happened in the past.)


Again, the idea is to release some of this stuff mid league to help keep excitement and interest high.


I think the race and pvp leagues will give other diversions, but keeping people excited in the challenge leagues shouldn't be all that hard as well.

i have always noticed at the end of a league players stop playing. in the downtime almost nobody is playing (i'm an active member of a softcore league guild) and at the start of the new league ... 75% starts playing again.

almost nobody of us wants to play in standard or just plays there to test things. to keep them longer maybe give league characters a chance to reroll or something but i don't think you can keep most active for a month in a league they don't want to play

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You are operating with premise, that somebody will play the challenge league to test new stuff, but i don't think it works exactly like that in these days.

I am probably an average Joe, but farming to get some unique and test it in the last week of the season is rubbish idea. I will more likely to watch some stream or video, where the streamer/content creator check the new stuff and sum the cons and pros of the new stuff. In case that i find it interesting, i will wait for the new league and choose it to test (when i will have at least 2 months to play with it as my time i can spend ingame is limited and i won't reach endgame within the first week.

Exclusive league items, that is something that might bring players from Standard to play for week or so, but for majority it will be easier to acquire the items after merging the leagues (as for most players the league specific items will be worthless, and you can't legaly transfer currency from Standard/Hardcore to new league).

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Bahizret wrote:

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yes, that is current state. It's a question to GGG if this state is optimal for them. It might be. As the traffic and server load is lower, it's good time to do changes on infrastructure and BE levels.

From my point of view, every day that player is not playing the game, the higher is the chance that he will discover something new and won't come back.

The engagement between leagues could be better (1 week won't cut it). If i would play 1 week and like the build and wanted to advance further, i would have to level again to reach the endgame. What i find a mirror (unlikely) in 1 week, it would be left on Standard.

Some addition to learning curve for long term playing might be interesting. Not just playing by seasons with time off inbetween.

Any additional insight will be good. Any suggestions?

well my imput would be cut the time between leagues and add in some fun races.

or a special event but not a relative normal 1 week race... make it something special.

i'm currently already wondering what to do and finding myself unwilling to play cous of boredom and not really feeling like playing standard.