[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)
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On challenges etc.
Spoiler
" 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. |
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@chimurestaurat
I pretty much agree with everything you said. Although I'm not sure how much PvP improvements would have an impact on the game. Also, for those who are interested, there's an awesome guy running a free boss-killer service for basically everything. He did Shaper for me earlier after I died on my fourth set and got pissed off. You can find him here if you need some things done. Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
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@chimurestaurant: Ditto... Clearly GGG knows their playerbase leaves and comes back... that's why they've made the changes they have, and that's why they front-load their leagues with new MTX and QoL tabs
I've spent ~$200 now on this game over the past 4 years... first for regular/premium tabs... then for Currency Tabs when Perandus dropped, now for the new tabs when Breach dropped... |
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Wow, super fast and easy uber lab layout today. Got 33 offerings in 3100 map tiers so far; definitely picking that as one of my grinds.
" Well, it wouldn't be a big impact on the game. GGG knows this and that's why PvP isn't being thrown a bone. Still, there's a significant minority of players who aren't yet PvPing but would love doing it often if it wasn't such a huge blow to their character progress. It should give some powerful gear, even if it's PvP-only. Or at least they could add exp to it. Not comparable to efficient mapping, but not crap either. As for Shaper, I did just complete my first set and was considering asking that guy, but I've never done it before and it felt kind of shit when I had a guy complete HoGM for me, so I think I'll just do it myself in a bunch of attempts. I was looking for youtube videos to prepare for it, and the stupid youtube search auto completed "mathili" for me with this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSHAB_AZHDk Needless to say I didn't win my first attempt! |
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" Yeah, I made four attempts on it myself before I got frustrated and asked him. I'm still going to work towards doing it myself, but for now my goal is to push 40/40 first. =) Also, Happy Merrymas to everyone =D Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
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Merry Christmas everyone!
Hope you're having fun IRL and in game. |
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A Last Thought on Challenges
Spoiler
I think that GGG would be better served if challenges were skill-based rather than time-based. Why? Well, if it's skill-based, challenge achievement is a real accomplishment. But if it's time-based - well, than anyone with a bunch of time can get the achievement. To be sure, you'd want some time commitment to achieve all challenges otherwise development couldn't keep pace with the best players. ---------- To pull this off, GGG would need to release challenging content much more often. I think that 40/40 should be achievable by the best streamers within 1-1/2 to 2 weeks. Does this hurt the game - no! In fact, top streamers can let others know how good the league is by simply streaming. If it's fun, others will continue to play. 3-month leagues are maybe a bit too long - perhaps shorten that timeframe. But, there does need to be compelling content in between 40/40 and league end - racing seems to be GGG's answer to that gap - and I like racing. So make racing more rewarding with uniques that are race specific - and maybe make uniques available early on in new leagues (1 week delay) but not tradable until 3 or 4 weeks pass. ----------- Upon consideration, this league isn't hugely more challenging than past leagues - but it is maybe 20% more in terms of time commitment and requires that you grind maps which I don't particularly like. GGG's solution to player retention seems to be "make the grind longer." - As stated above, I think they're better served by making the grind more technically challenging - and by introducting incentives outside the leagues to retain the player base. In other words, make people play because it's fun. |
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Just a couple comments
" The issue with this is paid / free services for kills. I think that's partly why the challenges have gone grind-mode, disregarding the notion of player retention for the moment. If you make certain content prohibitive based on skill, a) meta power deletion builds won't care and b) you can just pay for the kill from those who have the skill / build / gear. I think more than from an aspect of player retention, they're trying to encourage players to achieve things themselves a bit more. Further, as long as Vaal Pact and CI remain in its current state, there will always be builds that can just outleech whatever GGG comes up with, because I highly doubt they're going to introduce a boss that can one-shot a 25,000 eHP build to brute force skill kills. Who knows, though. In a way, I'd like to see that. Then again, I grew up with Battletoads, where you had three lives to get through some of the most egregiously horseshit gaming ever made. And I fucking loved it. " This is strictly an issue of actual development cycle workflow. They likely wouldn't be able to put out quality leagues in a shorter time frame. Evidenced by all the bugs you typically see in the first week, things that should be caught in QA but aren't. " What did you have in mind for this? Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.
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" Last edited by hankinsohl#1231 on Dec 24, 2016, 9:40:33 PM
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Happy Yuletide and all that!
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