Weekly Challenges

**Weekly challenges** are a game mode featuring rule-bending gameplay designed to create unique challenges and puzzles. Each weekly challenge is played with a predetermined set of Heroes, Traps, Guardians, and Gear. Some example rulesets are "each hero has only one HP" or "no Coin is generated outside the starting Coin."

The weekly challenge changes each week on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. Central Time or 5:00 p.m Central European Summer Time.

The weekly challenge can be accessed via both the play and profile tabs.

## Earning Rewards

The weekly challenge is eligible for regular battleground rewards, including hero victory chests, 3-star Chests, and 5-star chests. Completing each challenge with all three heroes will earn three hero victory Chests. In addition, obtaining 3- or 5-stars for the first time awards a tiered (apprentice, war mage, master, or rift lord) chest corresponding to each player's highest unlocked difficulty.

Each weekly challenge also features a leaderboard. Challenge friends, guildmates, and the entire *OMD!U* community for the top score each week! Don't be discouraged if these challenges require multiple attempts. They're designed to encourage trial and error, problem-solving, and practice.

## List of Weekly Challenges

* All

Detailed View

Alms for the Poor

Do The Trap Shuffle

Dodge City

Doublets!

Freezed to Meet You

Fun with Physics

Gotta Go Fast

Grand Finale

I'm the Boss Now

Inferiority Complex

Keep Your Distance

Library-rinth

Memory Lanes

Off the Chain!

One and Done

Playing With Fire

Purple Maze

Rift Instability

Rolling in it

The Hero's Litter

The Merc's Litter

Vanishing Act

We Can Rebuild It

Your Own Devices

## More Information (Blog from ShadeDev)

With update 1.6, we introduced the concept of Weekly Challenges, a familiar concept from Orcs Must Die 2. In short, weekly challenges are scenarios with specific parameters and dramatic alterations to gameplay that rotate on a weekly basis. In other words, specific tools are provided to solve a very specific puzzle.

We have loved our community’s responses to these challenges and would like to provide more detail on the design principles that guide their creation. In general, when building a weekly challenge, we have several goals:

1. Create a puzzle that takes multiple attempts to solve.
2. Subvert normal gameplay.
3. Introduce and teach different strategies.

#### Puzzles That Require Multiple Attempts

Due to the fact that only one challenge is available each week, we try to make the weekly challenges noticeably difficult. While experienced players may have a general advantage, all trap upgrades and account level bonuses are removed during the challenge to level the playing field and provide a uniform experience.

The overall win rate for most weekly challenges is 50%. Of those victories, 65% are between 1 and 3 stars. Keep in mind however, that the first-attempt win rate is much lower. Losing on the first attempt is a normal experience, and each failure should better equip players for success the next round. In addition, we don’t expect every player to be able to 5-star weekly challenges; many are difficult puzzles that require mastery of advanced game mechanics. The goal of these challenges is to provide a puzzle that isn’t conquered in a single attempt.

#### Dramatically Altering Normal Gameplay

When designing a weekly challenge, we typically start off by brainstorming interesting rule modifications. This can be along multiple vectors, such as player inventory, heroes, or direct rule changes.

For example, the initial design of “Inferiority Complex” was simple; the waves would be comprised of highly damaging minions. However, as the design team began discussing the design further, we began to think of variations on that concept that would challenge players more and alter gameplay more significantly. By cutting player health to one, restricting the challenge to melee heroes, and limiting direct trap damage, the challenge's dynamic changes substantially. Players must find ways to control aggro, damage enemies from afar, or risk instant death. Suddenly, a wave of six light orcs, which is normally easy to handle, becomes a massive threat.

It is these type of gameplay alterations that allow us to drive new experiences every week.

#### Introducing and Teaching Different Strategies

Another goal of our weekly challenges is to encourage the use of different strategies and introduce newer players to intermediate and advanced tactics. This is achieved through rule alterations (like the ones we made with Inferiority Complex) which allow players to use heroes and items that they may not own or have upgraded, or restricting the use of common items in favor of rarer, situational items.

For example, in the weekly challenge “Playing with Fire,” players face many unstable rifts and order mages. However, we provide players with Big Game Hunting arrows to kill Unstable Rifts. The player is not forced to utilize this strategy, but the challenge becomes significantly harder if it is not. This is not a common strategy outside of the weekly challenge, but due to its design, players walk away with increased understanding of Big Game Hunting traps. We hope that these types of challenges will serve as excellent opportunities to learn, try new strategies, and use advanced tactics for future challenges.

The design team thoroughly enjoys coming up with new weekly challenge ideas, and we are glad that the community continues to give us great feedback.

## Scoring

Visit  Weekly Challenges Scoring for all the info about scoring in Weekly Challenges.

1. ↑ https://orcsmustdie.com/#!/en/news/WC-DesignBlog