Xbox league challenges need looked at

I really want GGG to consider the player base on Xbox vs PC. Such as the length of play sesions and time played by the majority on this console version. I feel challenges need tailored and not just mirrored from the pc version. I’m not asking for POE to become too casual, but some challenges are too lengthy when there’s better things to enjoy, like experimenting with builds during leagues.

Example 1: influenced maps. 300 elder & 300 shaper. It should be more like 200 & 200 to feel about right.
Example 2: open 200 clasped hands. Again, 100 feels right. As much time as I’ve put into this league I’ve yet to even get 100. ( or even a cartographers yet. And while Zana 8 gives access to breach, leveling her to 8 is another grueling process.)

Example 3. End game grinds: 100 Uber lab. I don’t mind running Uber labs, but a total of 50 would’ve been plenty.
Or how about 50 lich kills. Up to this point I’ve only found 5 lich, can’t imagine finding 45 more before end of league. So that leaves running Uber lab 100 times.

I know these are all meant to be challenging, but in the end, unless you sink a ridiculous amount of time into just this one game, there’s no point in attempting challenges. GGG needs to consider there’s a smaller population of players on Xbox, no chat/text system in game to sell or buy parts of challenges, etc.

Completing the challenges on Xbox this league feels tedious and grueling. Congratulations to the small few that had the time and groups to make it possible. At this rate I won’t be playing the next leagues because of the copy/paste challenges carried over from PC. And it’s not because the mtx are so vital, it’s because the mtx add more fun into the game with customizing the look and feel. It also reminds me I was a part of that specific league.

hmm, actualy agree with all of them, specialy zana's 8 lvl needs to be reduced, Its like 1.46mn xp if not mistaken vs. 640k-ish for the others. She's already the last one u get and she got basicly lvl 9 requirement for her lvl 8.

Purely with dailys that say give 20k xp,(cuz we all dont have all freakin' day and/or sub 5minute map clear builds) I need 10 weeks to get her to lvl 8, hell even with 50K dailys, it will take almost a month and thats not a "challenge" but a gruesome and VERY tiresome endeavor.

"

Righteous25 wrote:

Example 2: open 200 clasped hands. Again, 100 feels right. As much time as I’ve put into this league I’ve yet to even get 100. ( or even a cartographers yet. And while Zana 8 gives access to breach, leveling her to 8 is another grueling process.)

its fairly great chanse to get breach from the random zana mode.

40 challanges is for the ultra nerds that know exactly how to create the most powerful characters etc,
36 is duable as nerd enough but not very experienced endgame players.

I think masters need to much xp from 7-8 as well but i want it to be the exact same game as pc so we hopefully can join the pc ladder with an X or something to show its a xbox player.

It will never be the same game as PC for quite awhile, PC has many advantages over Xbox. I don’t find repetition to be “challenging”, just very annoying. GGG needs to revamp what’s considered as challenges. And about breaches, it’s still RNG on what map layout they appear in. I’ve had several that were in very small corridors or that couldn’t spawn much of its circle from map layouts.

It’s stupid to have league mtx locked behind these current “challenge” schemes.

I've always felt like once you reach lvl 90 in a league with a character, the Masters should be maxed out automatically for you at that point. Its brutal having to re-do it every league especially Zana. It is just way too much of a tedious grind. Same with trials. At lvl 90 open them all so i'm not running 200+ maps praying to have the last one i need to unlock finally appear.

Yet people still manage to complete them all on xbox. The challenges are not just designed to be "challenging," they are designed in such a way that the majority of players won't even complete half of them let alone all of them. Hate to break it to you, but youre just not one of those people thats gonna beat em all. If you don't find it enjoyable to grind em out, then don't do it.

Great feedback!

Here's some quick thoughts on a few of the points you've raised;

• "I feel challenges need tailored and not just mirrored from the pc version."

One criticism I'd level at GGG is that I get the impression they're not entirely sure what their goals are for the Xbox port just yet. Whenever an existing game is brought to another platform there's two goals: 1) make it the best [new platform] game it can be, and, 2) do the best job of bringing the original experience of the game to that platform.

At some point the paths to take will diverge and you need to be willing to make a choice. Maybe they wanted to wait and see what feedback they'd get from players before making the call? 2017 was the year it was released, and 2018 should be the year the vision for it is finalized. Sometimes the "wrong" decision is better than no decision. If GGG aren't willing to decide, they're doomed to trying to please players with different preferences and truly satisfying nobody.

• "I know these are all meant to be challenging, but in the end, unless you sink a ridiculous amount of time into just this one game, there’s no point in attempting challenges."

Challenges (and the associated MTX) are there to improve player retention during a challenge league - to encourage people to play for longer. While I do think GGG sometimes overshoot the mark, it's important to understand their grindy nature is very much intentional.

• "GGG needs to consider there’s [...] no chat/text system in game"

They're working on implementing one. I completely agree it'd be nice if they'd maybe shrink a few numbers here and there in the interim to offset the comparative lack of coordination, but the steps they take should probably be limited as befitting a temporary problem.

While I agree that the challenges are annoying and tiresome, I think there are two ways to look at them and one way that would fix it, the other is to leave it as they are inline with the PC. But I will explain.

The challenges give 3 rewards which arent needed in the game but are just NICE to show off and have, especially as they are in away FREE MTX for your char's to use as they wish. But as we xbox users are ONLY in our 2nd league we are still learning, still making the odd friend, or trying to get our own xbox friends and such to play. The reason we want them to play is so that we can do a few challenges with others and such to speed up. This in total would get us much quicker and easier to the 24/36 miles stones.

But as I said we are still new to the game compared to the PC. We dont have the luxury of chat and the player base from my POV is most probably still very small compared to that of the PC.

So here are the problems:

1) No chat = hard to make that 6 player group to share daily missions with so we are slowed in how much XP we get each day. Many have posted on forums not only for daily groups, but for many other kind of groups including abyss boss, map sharing etc etc.

(But the above is because the player base is also smaller and we arent the most trust worthy people, or we are just greedy thinking its our RNG turn and if some random is with me etc etc.... you get my drift).

2) Small player base = Harder to find people unless they are already on your friends list, but also lets say I have seen this same person while I was leveling in the same town as me for the past hour on and off as I have been doing missions I can click on there name or invite them to make a group etc etc ingame. Even if I could click on there name and look at there xbox profile and actually ask if they want to group up to level up etc etc would be another way of starting new friendships etc etc (but chat would be good with a few channels etc etc).

3) Trust - seems like a silly thing to put, but everything we do ingame and real life is usually based on trust and friendship. If I want to go out with my mates and have a good drink etc etc, I trust they will be with me and make sure I get home safely. Ingame I also have to trust the people I play with, hopefully they will not rip me off, will not steal the loot etc etc. So I either have to know the people already and trust that they will not rip me off, or take my chances with a random. But seeing as once a random is in a map they can basically go where they like and only the sounds of ding dong and wallop (ie map, currency and unique) have dropped will alert me of something possibly good has dropped but I am not near to pick it up is something i/we dont want to risk. So we either have to trust people or possibly have some sort of group filter to what others can pick up or if someone picks it up ALL group members can vote to want it or not (but this then adds another rng etc etc).

TBH most would be solved with chat and being able to click peoples name and see there xbox profile etc etc.

But I know there are already small cliques of people who start the league together and will progress quicker, work together to achieve there goals quicker etc etc which intern brings its own enjoyment. But there are a lot more people who like to play solo or with the odd friend once in a time due to the small base. But this can hopefully change with more leagues and more changes to the xbox verson of this game which make it what this game should be, not just a PC port over.

Very well worded DJionics, and just exactly what I meant for GGG to consider. I absolutely love this game, and spent most my time on PC version creating builds instead of focusing on endgame or challenges ever. Heck, I never owned an Xbox until I found out PoE was ported to console and would never get released on PS. I had to wait til Black Friday deals so my wife wouldn’t get upset about me wasting money on video game stuff. So I caught the tail end of Harbringer league to experiment on builds I never played before. But even then, I spent the first month and a half to relearn the PoE I stopped playing over a year ago. My 2nd character was end game viable. So towards the end of January I really focused on atlas completion, bosses I never once fought before, and CHALLENGES.

On this abyss league i’m almost at 30/40, with those next 6 looking very grim. I get GGG makes this game a grind fest for retention purposes. Even the atlas system seems to work against meaningful progression, giving map drops much lower than the current map being run. Most of my tier 9+ were bought in trade. I’m questioning the current map drop equations for solo play now. When I grouped with just one random person last week, it felt like it was raining maps (which means 2-3 of equal or higher tier).

I’m sure the reason challenges were set to high amounts are due to the PC player base finding faster and faster ways to achieve results with greater and greater coordination. We don’t get this accelerated progression as you stated. League retention for me would be challenges that are better aligned for console play. Expecting the same gameplay experience is simply being naive. Is the desire to hold onto the PC league challenge format only a front to keep any mockery at bay ... to not be considered less worthy of a league trophy or mtx by the mainstream PC population? I’m not asking for drastic changes, because I too would like to be playing essentially the same game just on Xbox. But ideally console gaming is geared more towards shorter/more moderate play sessions.

Or perhaps GGG evolves their player retention gimmicks with more meaningful end game options/ more fluid progression after campaign is finished.... I bet there’s lots of tricks up their sleeve that are being discussed in development. Anyways, I do love this game with a passion, just hate some of the current grind fest mechanics. Create something endgame that’s not gated behind crazy RNG and that ramps up in difficulty the farther we push on.... (ie not maps or fragments please).

Until we are on an even playing field with PC, we need the game balanced around our limitations. This is pretty obvious and yet, it's not done.