Please Change The Challenge System Back!

TL;DR:

GGG ... if your goal with the new challenge system was to keep people playing then you hard FAILED your goal! Show us the retention stats, I want to see how much you think this helped. Because my friend and I quit 3 weeks in for the first time in our history of playing.

Background:

I've been playing since beta. I have bought a top supporter pack every league, and all top tier core packs. I love GGG and this game. It's pretty much the only game I play and I set aside my weekend every 3 months for launch.

My friend and I play every league together. We are "average" players and perhaps log 3-4 hours per day for about 5-7 weeks, then stop to recharge before the next league.

We ONLY play the game to do the Challenges! Literally our only goal is to get the totem trophy pieces in our hideouts. Every single league we rip through the campaign, get into upper red maps then look at the challenges and decide how many we think we can get. It's usually 36-37 (old system) but sometimes we have to settle for 31 or 34. We got 40 once, during Arch Nemesis (thanks to skele mages). We never play the same build twice.

When we saw the challenge system change, we were worried. And now, 3 weeks in, with a whopping 9 challenges done ... we are quitting. It's just too out of reach for us. Even to get the FIRST totem chunk at 19 (god knows why it didn't scale down to 8 or something), we would have to grind our eyeballs out. Getting to 31+ for us? Impossible.

So if GGG did this change to get people to play longer, well ... the VERY people that play the game for challenges, just cut their total play time in half for the league. And we'll not have a totem in our hideout for the first time EVER. It's really stupid. And depressing. And he and I were talking, and we don't think we'll even bother with next league if it stays like this. We have no desire to play the same content over and over if we can't have something to show for it.

Why didn't the totem pieces drop down like the MTX did? It should start at 8 and go every 4 per piece or so. Why are there TWO armor sets, when one is enough? Why are the challenges so boring/unimaginative (all uber bosses, conditional fights, huge rng and grind). I don't want them to be "easy" but make them interesting again. I liked all the old ones. They made you interact with the game. These are just ... completely cock blocked by some 10M+ dps 50 ex build. You can't even enjoy the game with an off meta build anymore.

Please change this back. Or think of a better way to make the uber hard stuff go above and beyond the old 40 system. Something, anything, but what you did here. It's utterly ruined the game I've spent thousands of dollars on (out of pure enjoyment). If this is precedent for PoE2, then I'm not looking forward to it.

I hear you. I personally don't even mind the grindy stuff as much but I can't stand the RNG layered on RNG. Some of the RNG things (Double Corrupted Essence) are next to impossible to spawn (might as well have a challenge be "Drop a mirror of kalandra" at this point).

GGG thinks this encourages people to keep playing to search for it. All it does is encourage people to go buy the challenge from someone lucky enough to find it. So their precious challenge points become a farce because when you make something so improbable to find that almost no one finds it, people on the whole take the easy way out.

GGG prefers to beat us with sticks instead of offering us carrots. I don't care for the stick.

i agree with OP. i actually play less now than last league because i know i cant do many more challenges than i have now so i lost interest in playing
last league i played the full 3 months because the challenges were doable even for a casual like me and i got 38 challenges in the end.

im gonna try to grind til 12 challenges and quit

the rest of them I don't have time for and have ridiculous f**ing requirements

a lot of them require me to create a whole new build, have enough currency to fund that build, spend even more time than I do now, just to get a chance at finishing a challenge. also the stupid gated boss fights and their special conditions are just dumb.

not worth the time and effort....and im not expecting it to be handed to be...I tried my hand at all of the challenges so far, and it wont be great for me unless I somehow get lucky and drop a mageblood to fund upgrades to barely come by the challenges

game is straying away from casuals for useless streamers that are such a small percentage of the actual game base

I agree basically. Last leagues challenges were perfect for me. I want to play for a month and be out usually. The challenges this league are absolutely harder.

They probably aren't hard if you are top tier in this game. A person with deep game knowledge that excels either through builds, persistence, or economy will get them done. They aren't mediocre gamer friendly like last leagues with a loose definition of mediocre because this game is already very hard compared to games in general on the market.

Its just kind of off putting and I think it shows that GGG is testing something though because the difficulty discrepancy between this league and lasts is large. Probably insert usual comment here about how we're beta testers for POE2.

If these challenges were out last league, people wouldn't have complained even going for 40/40, because it was a fun league.

I don't think they're that bad, just grindy, and the game isn't worth grinding right now unless you really want to abuse recombinators before they inevitably get removed from the game. Or if you're a bit of a masochist, like most hardcore players.

Some of those challenges are not only grindy, but hard and random as hell. For example 2 unique essences (Horror, Delirium etc). I've spent countless chaos on atlas device, maps with essence implicit, compassess with additional essences and of course 100% all essence nods (except 2 for essence items obviosuly :D) and after 50 or so maps I quit, went on TFT and bought that thing for 1 ex.

The other thing, uber bosses. Without proper build (meta builds) you wont kill them unless you are a pro player. That's not a bad thing at all, but it's impossible to achieve for most of the players.

I think the challenge system should be like previous one, but instead of scattering all rewards all over the bar, it should be like "basic" rewards being given until 34 and at 38 / 40 there should be a full set of upgraded MTX.

For example this league we have Ophidian Set.
Basic set would be achieveable:
8 - gloves
12 - boots
18 - helmet
24 - body armour
32 - wings
Upgraded set - Ophidian Lord:
38 - whole set except wings
40 - wings

As far as i can remember those are the hardest to complete challenges i ever saw. Yes gindy too ofc but actually hard to get through, esp. if u want the 40/40.

So in a way it fits the running theme of Sentinel to alienate as many players as possible which is a shame really cus the league mechanic in itself is an absolute banger

Idk. I just got the impression that this time around the challenges are ever moreso like the crafting system: crowdfunded

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sowus wrote:

Some of those challenges are not only grindy, but hard and random as hell. For example 2 unique essences (Horror, Delirium etc). I've spent countless chaos on atlas device, maps with essence implicit, compassess with additional essences and of course 100% all essence nods (except 2 for essence items obviosuly :D) and after 50 or so maps I quit, went on TFT and bought that thing for 1 ex.

The other thing, uber bosses. Without proper build (meta builds) you wont kill them unless you are a pro player. That's not a bad thing at all, but it's impossible to achieve for most of the players.

I think the challenge system should be like previous one, but instead of scattering all rewards all over the bar, it should be like "basic" rewards being given until 34 and at 38 / 40 there should be a full set of upgraded MTX.

For example this league we have Ophidian Set.
Basic set would be achieveable:
8 - gloves
12 - boots
18 - helmet
24 - body armour
32 - wings
Upgraded set - Ophidian Lord:
38 - whole set except wings
40 - wings

Exactly, I'm okay with challenges that I'm "not good enough" to get because that means if I get better I can do them. I despise challenges like 2 unique essence because that just encourages people to go buy them.