This is a concept for a Co-op "challenge mode". In this mode two players face three randomly generated missions that get progressively more difficult. However, as the difficulty increase, so do rewards in form of bonus experience. Its difficulty depends on present mutators. The first mission should relatively easy, the second one a bit more difficult, and the last one around or below the difficulty of an average weekly mutation.
What are the main goals for this mode?
- Provide a storyline and tie missions together
- Break stale gameplay with randomized challenges
More Comments
You can change difficulty at any time, but it will affect the bonus experience for the current mission.
The final mission grants considerable more bonus experience than previous two missions. This helps to shape the storyline and provides an incentive for players to help each other with completing started challenges. I imagine this would be good for the community. Additional achievements for completing these challenges could be added with a similar effect.
A higher difficulty beyond Brutal could be easily introduced. Generated mutations would be of higher combined difficulty ranking.
The algorithm generating mutations could use the average difficulty of mutators. However, it should also take into consideration mutator–map and mutator–mutator interactions. For example Blizzard mutator is a lot more impactful on maps where it will prevent you from taking an expansion.
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The progression is tied to the party. If two players don't have time to finish their challenge, each of them can still play with other players. When they play together again, they can continue with their game. Alternatively, a party leader can decide to load his last unfinished challenge and try to complete it with the help of other players.
You can see the next mission and its mutators. Without it you couldn't choose the best commander and masteries for the given situation. This strategizing is an important and fun part of doing mutations. Later missions are hidden to add uncertainty and prevent re-rolling.Compared to my Beehive, these challenges can be completed in a reasonable time (~hour). It could also work with automated matchmaking, and unlike Beehive, this is not completely unrealistic.
There are few options how this could work with matchmaking. It could either put you straight into the first mission–which would have to be easy enough to do without preparations. After that you would continue as a party. Another option is that it would match you with another player, and give you time to select commanders and masteries before the mission. This could be done for each mission separately, however, going through the whole challenge as a party is preferable.
