Unpopular Opinion: League Challenges Should Require Solo Completion

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felix0808#2550 wrote:

Buying a carry is fun. Seeing other chars in action is a good thing. You start thinking "wow, how this guy has such dmg?".

Sure....but NOT for challenges. And the whole point is that you SHOULDN'T be able to "sell challenges". What kind of sense does that make? You think "selling" personal achievements is a good thing? What if I wanted to be a professional piano player, but decided I am going to pay someone ELSE to play the concert behind a curtain lol.

There are two arguments here that BOTH you and the other guy are confusing:
1) Challenges: solo achievements or non-achievements. THIS is the primary conversation.

2) Challenges: grinds or actual challenges? This is a SEPARATE argument.

BOTH are problems right now, but the point of this thread is to talk about #1. We can only fix #2 if #1 is fixed to actually put meaning back into challenges. Because if they make challenges REAL challenges (#2), but they can still be bought....then there is no point to them. At all. They simply wouldn't serve the purpose they exist to serve.

They DO NOT exist as trade material....hence why they aren't itemized. It's like how RMT exists: people will ALWAYS find the easiest and laziest path if it exists. But that doesn't mean it SHOULD exist, and steps should be taken to minimize it as much as humanly possible.


I can't believe I have to say this again but a "challenge", by definition, is something you HAVE to do yourself. You are not completing a challenge by paying someone else to do it for you. You can do that across ANY OTHER aspect of the game....but not to complete a challenge.

The sentence "sell challenges" should never escape your fingers without you doing a double-take.

I think selling carriess and challenges is a good and healthy part of the game. You could extend your argument to say that you shouldn't be able to trade for gear and be allowed to complete challenges, but that's kind of silly.

You're also just excluding the people that do enjoy playing together. Their challenge shouldn't count because they worked together? This is explicitly a multi player, trade based, player economy driven game. This like carries being sellable honestly fits that perfectly.

If you want to feel superior about completing challenges by yourself, or judge others, they already solved this by making SSF explicitly for that.

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KaosuRyoko#1633 wrote:

I think selling carriess and challenges is a good and healthy part of the game. You could extend your argument to say that you shouldn't be able to trade for gear and be allowed to complete challenges, but that's kind of silly.

You're also just excluding the people that do enjoy playing together. Their challenge shouldn't count because they worked together? This is explicitly a multi player, trade based, player economy driven game. This like carries being sellable honestly fits that perfectly.

If you want to feel superior about completing challenges by yourself, or judge others, they already solved this by making SSF explicitly for that.

QFE.


Stop trying to force-feed SSF unto others.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

Sure....but NOT for challenges. And the whole point is that you SHOULDN'T be able to "sell challenges".

Why? it's a game about farming and selling things. Why i shouldn't be able to sell?

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I can't believe I have to say this again but a "challenge", by definition, is something you HAVE to do yourself. You are not completing a challenge by paying someone else...

Many things in life you can't do "yourself". Can one man invent a jet? No. But if some group of people invent a jet, is it diminishes their achievement?

Another example. If mother ask you to fix light bulb, does it really matter is you do this or you pay someone to fix it. You still need earn money to do it. You are able to fix problems - that what matters for she.

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You think "selling" personal achievements is a good thing? What if I wanted to be a professional piano player, but decided I am going to pay someone ELSE to play the concert behind a curtain lol.

It's not a personal achievment. Completing it not making you professional PoE player, even if you do it solo. I already said this, but if it not so obivous, ok, lets go one by one...

Is making this things a "personal achievment"? Can i call myself professional player after completion?

Maybe this one a "personal achievment"?

Seems another "personal achievment" :D

Ok, big "personal achievment", completing first five acts

another "personal achievment" :D

I can continue this list through all 40 challenges. There are barely few of them can pretend on role "personal achievment", like "complete 30 T17" or "defeat ubers". It is obvious that GGG makes challenges not as "personal achievment" but as things that introduce different aspects of the game to player. And it quite good from this point of view.

If you guys want "real challenges", a kind of medal that you can put on wall and be proud of through entire life, then shouldn't you go to SSF?

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KaosuRyoko#1633 wrote:

I think selling carries and challenges is a good and healthy part of the game. You could extend your argument to say that you shouldn't be able to trade for gear and be allowed to complete challenges, but that's kind of silly.

man......thats such a ridiculous statement (and was already covered).

It's like people don't understand what the word "challenge" means or what the function of a challenge is in a game....

Nor do people understand the difference between the regular game and a "challenge" within said game.


It is honestly mind-boggling how shallow the thinking is, and no longer worth my time arguing. Personally, I have no skin in this game as I don't give a damn about completing challenges. It's just amazingly depressing that people don't understand the simple conceptual idea behind challenges, and instead focus entirely on bonkers comparisons without addressing the main issue.

These straw-man extreme arguments about trade and guides and the like only exist to obfuscate the main point, and do absolutely nothing to address the real problem here. Nor do they disprove, affirm, or address the meaning behind what a "challenge" is.

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felix0808#2550 wrote:

Many things in life you can't do "yourself". Can one man invent a jet? No. But if some group of people invent a jet, is it diminishes their achievement?

Another example. If mother ask you to fix light bulb, does it really matter is you do this or you pay someone to fix it. You still need earn money to do it. You are able to fix problems - that what matters for she.

lol already covered that: there CAN be group challenges.

Also....the mother analogy is just....wrong. Fixing a lightbulb isn't a challenge or achievement being offered to the mother. Now...if someone offered her some sort of "prize" or recognition for changing her own lightbulb, and she instead hires someone else to change it, then YES that is a problem. She never changed her lightbulb and doesn't deserve the prize or recognition.

The jet analogy is much the same: there is a difference between a specific CHALLENGE and a specific ACHIEVEMENT. We already have BOTH of these in PoE.


"many things you can't do yourself": True, but NOT IN POE, and not for challenges. If you are challenged to do something, you either DO IT or you don't. That's why its a goddamn challenge ON TOP OF normal gameplay. You're damn right many players can't do these themselves....that's the whole point. Come on man...



Oy...I am outta here, my head is starting to spin from this nonsense. I kinda wanna yell outside right now

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felix0808#2550 wrote:

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VoidWhisperer42#5989 wrote:

Removing trade bottleneck based completions would also be a good start.

Buying a carry is fun. Seeing other chars in action is a good thing. You start thinking "wow, how this guy has such dmg?". And you also can sell challenges later to other people and earn some currency.

I don’t think you fully grasp what I meant by 'trade-bottlenecked challenges.' I'm referring to challenges that require you to acquire specific items via trading, as it’s nearly impossible to complete them through normal gameplay, think along the lines of 'Use Orbs of Intention x times.' These are the types of challenges that manage to slip under the radar of GGG, yet present a significant RNG grind in SSF, or are downright impossible unless you treat the game like a full-time job.

As for your point, this is neither beneficial for the game’s balance nor for the trade ecosystem. We’ve seen this multiple times, players resorting to the easiest 'cheese' methods and simply buying their way through challenges, which ultimately undermines the game's integrity. It takes away from the satisfaction of skillful progression and encourages shortcuts, rather than fostering actual improvement.

If you're looking for cool builds, YouTube and other platforms are flooded with showcases. Even here, someone posted a random min-maxed build for laughs.
But using carries as an excuse of 'it’s to see others' cool builds' is nothing more than a flimsy justification to overlook the fact that carry cheese should never have been a thing in the first place.

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felix0808#2550 wrote:

But challenges for GGG is for increase amount of time players spending in game.

By this standard, it’s long overdue for challenges to be revamped so that they can only be achieved through genuine effort, without relying on cheese tactics or carries. If anything, requiring players to invest more time into gearing up their characters or enhancing their gameplay knowledge in order to tackle these challenges would ultimately result in increased playtime. Instead of rushing through challenges with minimal effort by purchasing carries, this would encourage players to truly engage with the game, ensuring they don’t simply have others complete the seasonal checklist for them.

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felix0808#2550 wrote:

And for players - way to communicate between each other and to earn cool cosmetic items.

Absolutely not. The typical carry run—whispering a player, paying, and leaving—fails to foster any meaningful interaction between you and the playerbase. It’s simply both parties exploiting an oversight that GGG has yet to address, which is exactly why this topic exists: to highlight the issue with how challenges are structured. If you're seeking 'meaningful' interactions with other players, perhaps it would be better to actually engage with them in party play, rather than paying them to complete a challenge on your behalf. Or, alternatively, you could make use of the global chat to connect with other exiles

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shardklaw#0080 wrote:

Stop trying to force-feed SSF unto others.

It would only be 'forced SSF' if challenge rewards were exclusive to SSF, but that’s not the proposal here. The idea is merely to require players to complete challenges themselves, without relying on a carry. This change would still be entirely feasible in trade league, so to call it 'forced SSF' is not just inaccurate.

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cowmoo275#3095 wrote:

It is honestly mind-boggling how shallow the thinking is, and no longer worth my time arguing. Personally, I have no skin in this game as I don't give a damn about completing challenges. It's just amazingly depressing that people don't understand the simple conceptual idea behind challenges, and instead focus entirely on bonkers comparisons without addressing the main issue.

It isn't a bonkers comparison though, the point is that if its measuring challenge there is already an enormous divide that means its fairly irrelevant to measure already.

Challenge would be complete it with a preset character, PoEs version is so broad you have to isolate the individual to find out if they were actually challenged or not and nobody really cares.

Honestly someone playing a scuffed homebrew off meta build who buys Uber completion is probably experiencing more challenge just earning the currency than somebody playing the most busted shit they can copy pasta off someone else.

I'd love challenges to be solo only, but there really isn't any point it just doesn't fit in the game design in the same way that i'd love the palette swap HC challenges to come back too (give ruthless some as well for those nutters). It aint happening but its nothing to do with challenge, they would do better to just call them objectives but its a bit staid.

This debate is being turned on its head by many people in here.

We do have an SSF variant of the game. There, your challenges are your own achievement and no one can take that away from you. There's no "cheating" in SSF. If you want to be proud of your challenge count, head over there.

In trade league, it doesn't really matter how you design challenges, as you can trade your way to practically invincibility. Is it a challenge to do X if you're practically invincible? Not at all, it's just a matter of time. Why is buying power to do X more of a challenge than paying someone else to do X for you? Both involve you trading for some sort of progression.

So, what do challenges in trade league tell us? Nothing. Some people will always brag about them, while others will downplay them. And it would be the same if they were solo only, because you'd still be able to trade your way to be able to do them. If you want challenges to matter, SSF is the place - or better yet, SSF R.

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Draegnarrr#2823 wrote:

It isn't a bonkers comparison though, the point is that if its measuring challenge there is already an enormous divide that means its fairly irrelevant to measure already.

It absolutely is. Because one is you playing the game and one is you NOT playing the game. It is an absolute binary. Either you did the challenge or you didn't

The GRADE (difficulty) of the challenge doesn't matter when it comes to the meaning behind the completion of the challenge. Not all challenges need to be the hardest possible setting (Ruthless SSF for example). but ALL challenges, in order to BE challenges, need to be physically completed.

There is no comparison to be made between getting carried through a challenge, versus trading for gear, following a meta build, and completing a challenge that way. The former is skipping the game, while the latter is at the very least still PLAYING the game. Challenges are not meant to be, nor should they be, achievable for people refusing to engage in the content being "tested".


It's not PERFECT, but requiring solo completion no matter what is night and day incomparable to what we have now. And if you really want to show off....you can simply get the challenges in SSF or RSSF. And completing them there should offer maybe special borders and/or mtx. But at least removing the carries still means when you see someone with 40/40, they at LEAST interacted with the game and mechanics. Even if it was the bare minimum.