Challenges

Overview
Challenges are quests that can be repeated many times over to gain collectible type objects, these objects are then used to purchase and upgrade items from Challenge Traders. They are also unique in that you are always given a "score" which has no easy to hit fixed limit. Turbine has hinted at possibly adding leader boards to compete for the highest score in challenges.

Update 12 contains 4 new dungeons. These 4 dungeons are separated into 12 challenges with different rewards available. 10 of these challenges have a separate "Epic"* variation available, for a total of 22 separate variations across 4 dungeons.

* "Epic" in name only, they do not actually set the dungeons to Epic Difficulty. E.g.: You will not encounter monsters with Epic Ward, increased trap damage, increased monster damage, or really anything resembling other epic quests. The main differences are the main objective has a increased requirement to win, and the enemies have significantly more hit points and deathblock.

Challenge Packs

 * Vaults of the Artificers

Unique loot from the challenges

 * Update 12 named items

Comparison to the Treasure of Crystal Cove
Challenges are the next step in the technology the Treasure of Crystal Cove introduced to the game, which ended up being a very popular special quest with very nice rewards for those willing to spend time during the event.

Challenges are different in many ways from the Crystal Cove:
 * They all have 5 unique objectives, while Crystal Cove only had one
 * They reward favor based on how many of those objectives you complete. Crystal Cove did not reward any favor
 * The enemies contained within can reward guild renown. Crystal Cove had no renown.
 * There are no special server wide restriction on unlocking challenges, they may be played at any time like a regular quest.
 * Crystal Cove was free to play, the challenges offer an adventure pack for unlimited access, are free to VIP, and can be run by F2P player by talking to a special NPC which will reward players with a seemingly random challenge token, in stacks of 5.
 * The tokens can be both used to unlock challenges without the pack, and within the challenge itself to unlock special bonuses unique to that challenge.
 * Each item requires you to complete a variety of 2-3 challenges to get enough ingredients to create it. Crystal Cove was completely self contained.
 * Crystal Cove ingredients were bound to account. All challenge ingredients are bound to character.

Similarities to Crystal Cove:
 * Collect ingredients, later use those ingredients in a barter UI to create items. The amount of ingredients you get is very variable. Crystal Cove had a limit of 300. Challenges seem to have no fixed limits, other then how well the players can do.
 * No difficulty settings. Various level options are available, but they are all essentially normal difficulty in terms of unique difficulty effects such as dungeon scale is concerned. However unlike the Cove, most challenges are also offered in separate Epic-Only, variations.
 * XP penalties for being over level are similar. However, Crystal Cove had a fixed limit of +/- 5 levels to be awarded ingredients/xp, while the challenges have no hard limits.
 * You can get special bound to character loot you can take outside of the quest and use in other challenges. Crystal Cove had requisition forms which could help you on further runs. Kobold Island drops universal crests, which may help you on further runs of Dr. Rushmore's Mansion.

External link

 * Official developer diary