PT: Challenger Mode


#41

The problem with taking races from PoE and putting them in RotMG is that RotMG has no distinction between hardcore and standard: the base game is permadeath 100% of the time.

This is why I doubt they’ll make exclusive items as prizes for challenge mode as any item this limited in availability will never be actually used in gameplay, therefore it’s either going to be cosmetics or a bunch of Quest Chests.


#42

Idk, but I do know that i dont play the current rotmg as much as i did before, all i do is login to get rewards, i will be trying this though


#43

it doesn’t load for me and it’s half 6 in utc rn


#44

Did you create a new account for testing separate from your production account?


#45

Just wondering but how come UTs don’t have feed power?


#46

They’re not feed power items!


#47

How come puppet isn’t allowed?


#48

image
These are simple questions.


#49

1 char 1 chest :c
gonna make new account


#50


Is Oryx supposed to be saying that?


#51

Give the people what they want. Pivot to a permanent old school server. No pets.


#52

Cave of a thousand treasures drops normal pots.


#53

For some reason my account loads normally, but it doesn’t let me in and just instead creats level 0 characters


#54

Also for the campaign is it gold or something that drops?


#55

:thinking:


#56

Yeah Kidd said there were a few things he forgot to remove, including MT, parasite setpiece, janus and other things i forgot. But they should be gone when this hits prod


#57

Every time I try to upgrade my pet yard to uncommon it says I don’t have enough fame. Anyone else having this issue?


#58

I just had to make sure.


#59

Lol


#60

Alright, I am home and have played a good hour or so of challenger (I’d like to play as much as I can over this weekend). I’m having a lot of fun with it, as well, it has a very magical feel to it with so many people online!

Feedback time! Or rather, time for a lengthy post.

  • This first thing is something I wanted to bring up previously if it wasn’t the case. I think character skins that you’ve unlocked in the regular gamemode should be selectable in challenger.

Seeing as they’re aiming for a season that’s a throwback to older days of Realm, I think that default skins only is perfectly fine, and even preferred honestly. But for later seasons, where I assume things will get shaken up, IMO skins from legacy mode should transfer over to challenger. Doesn’t really change gameplay at all, so it should be fine to have in.
Importantly, this means that the skins people pay money for in legacy can be used in challenger too! As much as we’d like everything for free, Deca has to make money at the end of the day, if challenger mode otherwise is free to play (and completely based on your skill), then this is at least a nice little way to support the developers for players who plan to main challenger mode as much as possible.
I’m more iffy about the pet skins, not only because a 16x16 skin will take up more screen real-estate (and you wouldn’t be getting those in challenger outside of actually getting a divine which, um, good luck to you, or a drop like bookwyrm), but because pet skins do feel more “common” (in that there are more enemies that drop a pet skin than enemies that drop a character skin).
In that case, I think it would work to have pet skins drop in challenger, for 0 fp, because holy shit if you got the sphinx pet skin or something during challenger you’re going to slap that baby onto your current pet and show it off in the land of muddy tidechasers and leprechauns. It’d be a great feeling!

  • Please don’t have items purchasable in the Nexus for gold.

Speaking of supporting the developers, please please please do not put anything up for sale in challenger for gold. I’m just saying this in case, since I assume the stuff in the challenger Nexus is just there because assets are being re-used. But literal P2W is bad.
EDIT: ok so keys, eggs, dyes/cloths, backpacks, and loot boosters are going to be for sale in the Nexus.
Dyes are fine in my opinion (though I think if you’re going to allow dyes, might as well go for allowing skins as well to transfer over as per my above suggestion, even if you’d have to buy the dyes).
Everything else, other than maybe the loot boosters, is really not fine. I’ll do a rundown of the effect the three items (keys, eggs, backpacks) have as purchasable items.
Eggs allow you to skip the hassle of finding eggs in the godlands (a suitably demanding task for a petless character), and if you spend enough you can even hatch until you get a good combo. Meanwhile, for the non-paying player, they would have to grind this out themselves, which will take a while. A LOT of time is being saved on the P2W players’ end by not having to do this, and it is so much safer than having to farm in more dangerous areas for eggs.
Also, the effect pets have had on the game are obvious, even a common/uncommon heal pet makes a big difference, there’s a reason one of the big tips to a new player is “find a heal/mheal pet”, a lot of potential challenge is removed if people can buy their way through this.
Keys I’m not sure I even have to mention why. I think I can just make pointing hand motions at USSouth every weekend and you’ll get the gist of it. But yeah there’s nothing more fun than going from playing the game as you used to back when you were a little light blue star, eyes full of wonder, back to sitting in Nexus/your guild hall if you have a fellow whale waiting for Tomb pops or whatever dungeon is meta to grind that season.
Backpacks are much less harmful than eggs or keys, but still, you’re literally awarding a backpack for 8 kills of what is currently the endgame content (other than maybe tombs) of this season. None of the other quests really compare in this regard. So this is the equivalent of putting one of the end rewards of a character in a season up for purchase. Once again, it’s not as bad as the effects on overall gameplay are not too big, but if you’re going to create a mode where you compete against other players, you should make it as fair as possible for everyone to compete, not inherently give whales such advantages.
Like, this is the idea that can bring back so many players that have drifted away from the game, or left because the current state of the game does not appeal to them. People who haven’t played for a long time are already coming back just to play on testing today. But a lot of people have left because they don’t like the current state of the game where you can do absolutely nothing while leeching off whales for key pops (or be the whale yourself) and absolutely zoom past other players just doing the original core game loop in terms of loot and progression. These people are going to hit the road once more if it’s just the same situation in a new coat of paint.
Profit has to be made, but legacy hopefully can make up for it, especially given once players lose all their characters in challenger, they’ll have to play on legacy anyways (and people spending more time in challenger/returning because of it, could mean they come visit legacy every so often and spend money). (also my skins idea should help I want to bring my cute skins into challenger ok). If challenger is not sustainable to maintain without having to sell these in the Nexus, then I feel that this is somewhat heartbreaking, because at least I had my hopes set for something completely skill-based, with no potential paying shortcuts, and it does feel like that what I have hoped is what was implied by the announcements of it.
The community is already somewhat wary about challenger mode, because while this testing is cheater-free and absolutely a blast, when it hits prod a lot of people are convinced that cheaters will dominate. A lot of people still aren’t too convinced that the absolute utmost possible is being done against cheaters. And a lot of people have left because of the current state of the game, people that could be drawn back to play the game again. I really don’t want to see a situation where people come back, but then leave, because that makes me sad as a player who wants to see the active game community grow and create wonderful things.

  • There’s a noticeable delay loading into challenger

I’m not sure if the devs are already aware of this, and if a fix is planned, but it’s rather jarring and would be a fix for QoL. Some sort of animation would help mask the loading time if it’s unavoidable. As it is, it seems like your click didn’t register for a second.

  • I assume the bugged/weird Oryx quotes is a known issue

  • Egg Omelette surprisingly hasn’t been mentioned yet, the item is bugged (shows 0 fp, when feeding it to your pet apparently it does show visual progress, but in actuality none of that progress happens)

  • I assume that purely greater potions dropping are because of the short 4 day length of the season, and that longer seasons will do something different instead.

Only greater potions dropping work pretty nicely with the current length of the season, but if the season goes on for a month or longer, with whatever wacky changes are made per season, then it might speed progression too quickly. But I’m sure that it’s all part of the plan to adjust these to fit the season.

  • The Christmas presents in godlands dungeons, while unintentional, actually works really nicely, and could perhaps be kept (after reskinning them, maybe) as an idea for future seasons.

I like that you can get a little bonus pot or even consumables (which are a lot more helpful in challenger!). I’m not sure if they should stick around for this season as it’s intended to be more of a throwback, though personally I wouldn’t mind them sticking around.

  • (suggested by Tyii from the RotMG Discord) It would be nice to put dyes on sale in the Nexus for Fame, to make ones’ characters look fancier.

I’m really having a great time with challenger, this is going solid so far (outside of the server troubles earlier, thankfully those are fixed), and I can’t remember if there was anything else I was going to bring up. I’ll try to mirror any feedback I hear elsewhere to here if it’s not already posted, plus play more so I can get an even better feel of the new gamemode.

edit: I put in a big writeup about how I feel about the current items planned to be sold in the nexus