Community Challenge Feedback

[slayernz]

It's the 2nd week in the month, so you've got a week to do your magic I've given my squad standing orders to prep for any eventuality - they'll be dead before one of those Xeno's makes it through to Templar space! ... I'll do the following challenge (which will be ST).

[johndramey]

So here's what I was thinking of doing, and I'd love some feedback from people who think they might be interested in playing (I'll tag Lt. Hathaway so he knows I'm talking about him too!)

We could run a squad through a set of campaigns, the ones I've selected are; Stardock Raid followed by Tour of Duty and then Infernus System Rescue. I chose those campaigns because Stardock raid starts us on a relatively easy campaign, ToD is the continuation of that campaign, and the ISR seems to be a logical next point for a boarding-ships kind of squad.

We could play through with a couple different goals. I was thinking of just having players see who could get the farthest (or complete everything) and then we could have awards for the players that take part. For instance, most kills (overall), most kills (single mission), Ironman (no restarting), no Templars lost, most templars lost, etc. The person to collect the most awards and get the farthest wins.

Obviously need some help making awards. I think that if we could make a good 15 or 20 it would add a lot of fun to the challenge, getting us to play in unusual ways that we normally wouldn't.

list of possible awards
Most kills (individual templar, campaign)
Most kills (individual templar, mission)
Ironman = No restarting, play through each mission back to back.
The Tricycle = completing a mission with only 3 templars
The bicycle = completing a mission with only 2 templars, worth 2 points
The unicycle = completeing a mission solo, worth 4 points
Brutal = difficulty, 4 points
Crazy = difficulty, 3 points
Hard = difficulty, 2 points
Normal = difficulty, 1 point
Ranger award = no templars lost
In Russia.... = most templars lost
Pugilist = finish a mission using only melee attacks
Community Outreach Program = finish a mission using only ranged attacks.

So what do people think? I kind of like the award-point idea because it would let us not worry about honor and maybe take some risks we normally wouldn't. I know I would never even consider going into a mission with 3, 2, or 1 templar in normal circumstances.

[xdesperado]

johndramey would this be for completely green squads only?
Also would there be any limitation on squad selection?

[johndramey]

I was thinking we take all take the same squad, my thinking was that we could all take the tutorial squad and run it through the tutorial in order to get some XP and small honor built up. How does that sound?

[johndramey]

Since no one raised any concerns about the challenge I went ahead and posted up the threads. Head on over to the challenge thread and read up on it when you get a chance!

The Whites of Their Eyes challenge thread

[slayernz]

I have to exalt you for the effort you put in to create the challenge. AMAZING!

[johndramey]

So, sorry about the late and incomplete TA challenge, but I think it went relatively well. We had some people playing, and the system that I created seemed to be pretty fun. We can always engineer it a little more for next time.

What's our next challenge? Anyone got ideas?

[slayernz]

The challenge was awesome! I really enjoyed it although found that the campaign order could have been swapped around a little in order to make it more of an easier progression. That first campaign after you come out of the tutorial was actually pretty tough for a green squad.

I was going to kick off a ST challenge based on trading, but given the noise emanating from AoP, I'm almost tempted to push the next challenge to be either in September (skip August), OR actually get someone to create a challenge with AoP. What better way to try out new things in a new game than create a challenge around it!

[johndramey]

slayernz - My thoughts, exactly. I'd be more than willing to create the post for an AoP challenge if someone or some people will help me design it.

[rsgong]

Since the merchant tutorial is up and their have already been much advice on it, I think having a merchant challenge makes the most sense. Their would have to be two categories, free and elite since free has a much smaller area to work in. I'm thinking that a requirement of utilizing all sectors that you can reach is mandatory. This will accomplish two things: 1) motivate elite players to leave the established original 9 sectors trade routes and 2) discover any game problems in the outer areas. What'cha think?

[johndramey]

rsgong - I like it, maybe have a point system like TA's challenge had? Awarding points for each sector visited or the like? That will pretty much guarantee that everyone will go to every sector at least once, haha.

[rsgong]

I don't see any reason to overcomplicate it. It is all honor system anyway. The goal is to make the most money in a certain time frame. I haven't played much since AoP was released 'cause I'm working on ST crazy unlocks. So we will need to determine the amount of game time for the challenge.

The incentive for actually exploring all of the sectors is finding a sweetheart trade route. And if you find one between a couple of sectors, maybe there is a better one the next sector up/over. 

[johndramey]

Soooooo.... Next week is challenge week! Any thoughts? The merchant AoP challenge would be nice, but it needs a little more meat to it. So, any ideas on how to flesh it out a bit? In-game time limits? Anything like that?

[slayernz]

I thought we were holding off on a challenge for a month as AoP is still very active/noisy ... activity would drown out any other game <grin> ... and AoP is still too young - things are changing on a constant basis, so any challenge created may be nullified by an update half-way through

Other than that, I'm keen to do a ST trader challenge ... here are two challenges that I threw together earlier (but tweaked a little)

Independent Contractor.
You have to complete 100 perfect contracts within 100 years. You are not allowed to fail a single contract, nor are you allowed to reject any. You must manage reputation loss in whatever way you choose.

You can do this challenge on Demanding difficulty or higher.
Score is calculated as follows:
(5200 - Turns) x 10 + (Cash at end of 100 missions / 1000)

So if you manage to do it in 80 years and 23 weeks (4183 turns), and make $640,000 in total, you get the following:
(5200 - 4183) x 10 + (640000 / 1000 )
10170 + 640
10810

For this challenge - speed is much more important than dollars earned - the faster you do your 100 perfect contracts, the better.

Rookie = Demanding
Professional = Crazy


The Collector
Objective - collect at least one flag ship from each faction in the quickest time possible ... maybe on Demanding and Crazy difficulties like the above.

On the face of it, this seems a very straight forward challenge, but there are a number of aspects that need to be considered.
1) What is the fastest way to get to rank 17 (needed before Flagship becomes visible)
2) How do I manage RP - because getting to Rank 17 quickly means you're going to be standing on someone's toes
3) How do I fund my challenge? You're going to need lots of cash. This is because the flagships aren't cheap, and buying your way to rank 17 is also not pocket change.

Challenge ends as soon as you have purchased your last flagship (timestamp is from your ship log entry), or when you've hit turn 5,200 (100 years).

Score is:
(5,200 - turns played)
+ number of flagships x 1000
+ sum of all military ranks at time of completion x 10

So obviously faster you do it, the more you get. There is a bonus for having high military ranks at the end of the challenge too. You're going to have at least have rank 17 with one faction, but will you have it for other factions too? For those who hit the 5,200 turn limit, you'll still be able to score the number of flagships you acquire - I'd expect you to get at least one

Example:
Achieved in turn 4,200, 6 flagships, total ranks added together = 38
5,200 - 4,200 = 1,000
6 x 1000 = 6,000
38 x 10 = 380
Total score 7,380

[grävling]

We're still arguing that the pay for certain things in AoP is way off, and the rep gains for selling things. This could produce situations where people who start the AoP challenge later in the week have a big advantage vs those who start earlier.

I think that we need to wait until people are comfortable with doing more than a merchant challenge, because being a merchant for days and days and days is boring.