While we were talking about serious matters (like nudie runs) and whether such game + modes should be official content featuring official rewards or achievements, it got me thinking about other sorts of non-pvp content that could be easily added to the campaign. I realize there are medals for doing all the maps in crazy handicap mode, but I for one have no idea how to beat Blitzenripper with a 1 hp party for example. Therefore in the interest of finding cheevos that normal humans might *enjoy* the journey of obtaining, I thought why not start a thread for what might be low hanging fruit for the devs. Option to replay the entire campaign with Gary, Melvin and Karen. Option to replay the entire campaign in nuddie iron man mode (fail once and it's ovah!) What about a cheevo for doing other things like leveling a full set of all playable combinations of characters (3x3x3=27) to 20 or 21? That's got to be worth a couple purple chests, am I right? What about cheevos for collecting 1 of everything? That would certainly fit the game's mantra. Could also be fun to have hidden cheevos that pop up, for example, when you do something like beat a map without taking a single point of damage. To sum up, there seems to be a lot of campaign-related hooks that could be viewed as special accomplishments, which could be rewarded with either chests or renown or icons by your name etc. and thereby add significantly to the longevity of the game's appeal. Note that I'm not saying all the challenge modes are bunk. I've done many of them and gotten medals and gold chests, but there's also a significant number of them that are just darn hard and frustrating. Sometimes you want cheevos simply for putting in the extra work (think attendance) rather than for being willing to bang your head against the wall until, miraculously, the wall falls down.
I'm pretty sure there is currently no automated way to check most of these, but I like the ideas. Some seem more likely to be Steam achievments than to recieve in-game rewards, but you can never tell. If I get a reward (other than a dunce cap) for running 3 elf wizards to level 20, I won't refuse it. (I know they're not really viable, but I was making a full set of 27.) More is better, but I think Jon has been too busy with the expansion to worry about anything else. Maybe when the bugs are worked out and it's running smoothly he'll have time to address some requests and suggestions.
The great thing about the nudie-run mode is that it is different each time. With all the current challenges (and most suggested modes and challenges), the game is essentially the same every time and so there isn't a lot of replay value. After tweaking ones build and refining ones strategy, replaying becomes repetitive and formulaic. Currently, whenever I play single player - unless I'm deliberately trying to challenge myself - I just load up one of my saved builds and play the same strategy I've used for the last year. I do this because it's the most reliable and efficient build / strategy I've come up with; and doing anything else would mean less rewards... Nudie-runs are different in that it's not so easy to just use the same build and the same strategy - because the items are going to be different every time. It takes more thought, and there are more possible variations. I'm sure that this mode would be popular and long-lasting if it was officially implemented, with a little bit of bonus loot so that it wasn't vastly inferior to fire-storm farming.
