Broken league challenges are killing player retention
" They're just not fun. Maybe even, the worst thus far. I did some 3000+ maps, several hundred with sacred grove+grove sextants+large pack sizes/rarity, and never got a harvest boss.. and I refuse to engage with the scam/gatekeeping discord to buy challenges (or anything else). Eventually I decided that these time-grinds (they're not "challenges" in a difficulty sense) are stupid and if future leagues introduce more of the same RNG, I won't bother playing. The game director continues to spout lies on different podcasts that things like the harvest boss spawn rates are fine and good. Bugs have been reported, and those spawn rates have not been fixed. This is intentional. The "dark design patterns" that the game director continues to infer that other games make use of, are pretty abundant in this one. Likewise I see people often frustrated they can't complete the Breach rng boss spawn.. where I had it spawn within 4 map attempts to specifically target it. This type of RNG for "challenges" is truly, bullshit and not worth wasting one's time over. Yet another unpaid Path of Exile 2 Alpha Tester. Last edited by TwentyFiveEX#7096 on Jul 17, 2022, 12:42:30 PM
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You think challenges are killing player retention? newsflash, the game is a dumpster fire, that is killing player retention. The game is hands down less fun that it used to be, by a HUGE margin.
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" This is also important, probably moreso than challenges. The highest player retention we had was Ritual and Archnemesis. Both updates were great, but the ones that came before and after them caused downward spirals. Nerfs are important in keeping the game from being trivialized, but GGG took that a step too far and made most things unenjoyable overall. Sentinel didn't have any nerfs directly, but by implementing Archnemesis into monster mods, they've indirectly nerfed everything including builds that shouldn't have been nerfed. And it isn't the first time they did this. Ages past, GGG buffed monster health and damage twice over the years, and both had the same result of making the game feel worse for everyone not running an expensive meta build. Couple this with unnecessarily more difficult challenges, you get an update that just feels like shit through and through for a lot of people. PoE players: Our game has a wide diversity of builds. Also PoE players: The [league mechanic] doesn't need to be nerfed, you just need to play a [current meta] build! And the winds will cry / and many men will die / and all the waves will bow down / to the Loreley Last edited by Pizzarugi#6258 on Jul 17, 2022, 1:19:26 PM
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" the entitlement is real... if you cant do a challenge maybe you simply dont deserve the reward be happy that you can buy carrys... 24 challenges is easy with any build and a plan how and which challenges you wana do 24 challenges gives you the same amount of rewards as 36 is the past leagues there is nothing wrong with not beeing able to complet challenges in a video game it doesnt hurt anyone well with the exception of some ppls ego do you know why triple A games feel so bad for a lot of players? because these games are pure participation award games... eldenring clearly showed that ofc there are ppl that like those typ of games and there is nothing wrong with it,but stop trying to turn every good game into that kind of game not every game is for everyone Last edited by ciel289#7228 on Jul 17, 2022, 3:08:02 PM
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I don't see these challenges to be broken. Personally I did not enjoy Sentinel as a league, got couple chars to red maps, nothing felt good for continuous struggle so I gave up at 12 challenges. Liquidated some of my items and bought another 8 challenges. If I'd have some more motivation and currency, I would probably buy another 10 or so as everything in PoE is just market based.
I never have challenges in mind when planning what to play, it is mostly just consequence of liking the gameplay. But this league felt more shitty than previous ones. Ask yourself, do you not have enough challenges because they are hard, or because you don't enjoy the game to get the challenges? I represent only myself, my own thought and believes. I am individual, not a representative of the community.
I am not speaking on behalf of someone else and I don't get offended by things that have nothing to do with me. 3.13 was the golden age. |
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" A big part of it for me, at least, is that many of the challenges are multipart and arranged such that one of those parts requires very heavy investment (either time or materials) to get. I'm not about pure RNG challenges to begin with, let alone those that demand my investment without any guarantee of return. Then there are those that require a build with DPS much higher than mine can readily achieve. And my current build let me reach my highest level in the game so far. Such is life. |
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" Here's a fun little bit of food for thought. How do you think think those players you are buying services from, manage to do bosses conditionally? The glory of PoE is... you can make multiple builds, and apart from very few DPS check bosses, everything can be grinded down. You could even make a build to fight one thing more effectively than other (I for instance love playing ToxRain, one of the only chars I have on this account that I haven't deleted like most everything else) and it's a lot better at infinite hunger than black star. The RNG part is, understandable, but ultimately, an excuse. You're faced, for once, with the majority of challenges actually deserving to be called CHALLENGES, and whine that you don't get your MTX for free by just playing the game. The majority of the challenges are NOT under massive RNG, and the one's that I found while looking trough the list, are very few, provided you are actually commited to doing the challenge at a time. |
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" The problem is, if 90% of the player base leaves because Chris tries to resurrect the "old days" of brutal difficulty, GGG will cease to exist. You think daddy Tencent will be fine with losing that much incoming money? Maybe they'll just flip it to P2W so the remaining few people can soak up the losses. Not saying I want that, but the tears of gatekeeping "purists" would be so sweet. |
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calling this gatekeeping is wrong imo
its not gatekeeping when you want challenges to be actually challenging and reaching 24 challenges for the full armor set is easy its not harder than 36 challenges in past leagues " you get those 90% from where? the last time i checked the numbers poe was and very likely is still growing sure they have good and bad league but that was always the case if you want everything for no effort poe simply isnt the game for you |
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The only real problem i found with the challenges is having to respec my atlas tree over and over to do them. That part was super annoying. Also i farmed exarch all league because i was doing deli and its on that side so doing the 1k altars for eater is probably not going to happen as i just dont have it in me to farm anymore.
During the league start push the challenges looked very daunting, but the more i got into the league the more i appreciated the extra amount of work it took. I did pay someone to do the uber elder one where you had to drop x amount of pools and the 10 unique bosses in the timeless place. The 10 unique bosses i just bought it because it was cheaper than buying the emblems and doing it myself. The uber elder one i was killing elder in the last phase off screen as i was playing lightning strike and i got sick of trying to stay alive in there while not killing elder. |
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