[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

I think we both agree that, for whatever reason, GGG has decided that it's necessary to make 40/40 completion more challenging this league than in recent past leagues.

What have they done to achieve this... well, they increased time commitment this league, by maybe 20-30 percent. For example, 100 Atziri kills is now 10 Uber Atziri kills.

Meanwhile they've somewhat nerfed existing top tier skills (Ancestral Warchief, at least for Facebreaker, dual-totem, for example is about 10% less effective as it was last league).

So challenges are roughly 20% or so more difficult... and DPS is roughly 10% or more reduced than in previous leagues. You're not going to complete 40/40 this league nearly as easily as in past leagues.

What does this mean...

If I played as much as I wanted to without becoming bored or feeling that I was doing a job - i.e., if I played so long as I was having fun - in past leagues I'd be 40/40 about 1/3rd through the league. At that point I'd somewhat reduce participation but would roll some experimental toons. Later on I'd participate in races.

This league... grinds are just no fun. Yeah, I could just do red map, red map, after red map, after red map, and do all the breaches, taking deaths as they'll inevitably result, and by spending 6 to 8 hours a day at this, I'd eventually hit 10,000 map levels... but then what?

Kill 100 Breach Lords - doubtful that I can do this solo sans buying splinters.

10 uber kills? - another grind to begin.

And so forth.
============
Bottom line:

GGG sees dwindling participation in the user base as leagues wane.

Their solution - make league 40/40 much more time consuming.

As I've previously postulated - this is a lazy, "solution" - which, ultimately will backfire.

Why? Because the purpose of a game is to make it fun to play.

It's not to make it tedious/time consuming/turn it into a job.

If GGG wants to maintain/increase its player base as leagues age, well... it's not a viable solution to force players to repeat stale content, over and over and over again until the new league is released.

And, IMO, that's the approach that GGG has taken this league.

IMO, it will backfire. My metric... at this league's end, how many players will be at 40/40.

Metric 2 - and in fact much more important - how many players will still be playing the game (Steam player participation is an insight into this). IMO, no better than previous leagues, and, IMO, likely somewhat less.

Metric 3 - the most important - and which we will not have insight into - how much money/month is GGG earning this league as opposed to last leagues.

IMO... earnings/month will decline.

Why? Because they've forgotten the ultimate purpose of gaming - make gaming fun/enticing/an escape from the real world.

"

hankinsohl wrote:

If GGG wants to maintain/increase its player base as leagues age, well... it's not a viable solution to force players to repeat stale content, over and over and over again until the new league is released.

And, IMO, that's the approach that GGG has taken this league.

IMO, it will backfire. My metric... at this league's end, how many players will be at 40/40.

Metric 2 - and in fact much more important - how many players will still be playing the game (Steam player participation is an insight into this). IMO, no better than previous leagues, and, IMO, likely somewhat less.

Metric 3 - the most important - and which we will not have insight into - how much money/month is GGG earning this league as opposed to last leagues.

IMO... earnings/month will decline.

I disagree on one fundamental thing here. And that's the significance of the impact which you're insinuating.

The general premise of what you've said (which I've trimmed for conciseness in quoting), I agree with. Having a semi-mindless grind to 40/40 is probably going to turn some people off.

And while I don't dispute it will have some measure of impact in retention and financial consequence as well, I direct you to Essence stats, which clearly show spikes in people completing 24 or 36 challenges and stopping.

Only 2.29% of players who completed a challenge got 36 for the Essence portal.

Assuming that first bar line is precisely 2.33% (weird?) the 40/40 mark has about 1/5th the amount, which is 0.466% of players who get 40/40.

Granted, these stats were with a month remaining in the league, so the numbers are slightly higher at the end of the league, but I'm sure you can see the trend here.

They've made 36/40 slightly more challenging with all the Breach challenges, but you can achieve it with only missing out on grinds, map tiers, shaper kill, and your choice of ANY of:

* Encounters III (Coffers)
* Sextants
* Div Cards
* Upgrade Breach uniques
* Kill Breachlords
* Identify Breach uniques
* Corrupted Jewels

Not bad.

It's really the 37+ push that's a lot more time intensive, and when you're only going to be impacting 1% or less of your playerbase who actually goes for it...

Well, you can afford to experiment a bit. Which is precisely what Carl said, they're using this league as a bit of an opportunity to see if more grindy / challengy stuff is what the veteran players who push for 40/40 want.

And they'll adjust from there.

This isn't necessarily a long-term challenge design plan.

"

hankinsohl wrote:

RE 40/40 Breach Discussion
My prediction is that 1/5th or so players will make 40/40 this league as compared to previous leagues.

I wonder. Mine is that the % will go up significantly. Many people are praising the Breach mechanic and nothing was added to turn people off. If it is a bit more of a time sink, that won't have any impact because the people going for 40 in the past have not been just barely finishing 40 in the last minutes of day 90.

For me, breaching has improved the game so much I've switched instantly from not caring too much about the challenges or endgame in general - to wanting to actually go for all 40 clears and finally try to push for a 100, in the same league. I now enjoy grinding for its own sake.

Some players just like to chill while farming and leveling and did grinds one way or another in standard regardless of challenge lists and temp events.

It's a matter of taste. For some, no kind of grind will ever be appealing.

Many would like them if they had an ultimate practical purpose, like PvP gear or a truly hard fight so all the grinding no longer feels empty because it is preparation for the really hard stuff.

The way things are, a competent player going for 40/40 can eventually kill Uber, Chayula and Shaper with practice without any of the money, enchants and levels they would get from the grinds. They can also buy the kills fairly cheap long before they actually get into the grind and the kills are cheap precisely because the hardest content isn't hard at all for the best players with the best gear. It's insultingly easy for them.

Aside from very hard fights not existing, for many naturally competitive people the real problem is that the PvP is broken and unrewarding so even if they dislike the grind they reluctantly use these formal challenges as their competitive outlet.

Granted, retention of top players during the mid-late league is not financially significant to the company since this isn't a monthly subscription system. Of course most of this is payed by people who do maybe 12-24 challenges, log on to level and chat occasionally, or just do a drunken struggle through act 1 normal 4 times a year.

But, if they were to boost retention for top tier players, major PvP improvements and 1-2 bosses that simply cannot be killed by flasks and gear while standing still and holding right click would go a loong way.