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. 9 of these challenges have a separate "Epic"* variation available, for a total of 21 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 Tokens
Challenge Tokens are used to access individual Challenges one time. Challenge Tokens are not required for VIP's or players who purchase the pack to gain access to the Challenges. They have unrestricted access to any challenge at any time.

Free Daily Challenge Token (Free/Premium & VIP)

 * You can get tokens for each of your characters, once a day by talking to the token vendor NPC Kariya in House Cannith.
 * Free to Play players (who have not gone Premium) receive one free token a day.
 * Premium and VIP players receive 5 tokens on the first character on each server to request tokens, then 1 token per character per day from then on.
 * The token vendor is currently not working as intended.
 * These Tokens can also be used in the appropriate challenge to purchase items from Supply Vaults located inside the quest, to gain various benefits.

Universal Access Token (available in the DDO Store for TP)

 * The Universal Tokens can be used for any challenge and are not restricted. They can be traded to other players like a guest pass.
 * These Tokens can also be used in any challenge to purchase items from Supply Vaults.

"Daily menu" mechanic
Free tokens players receive from Kariya are not random, and will change every day according to the server clock. This, kind of, works as "daily menu" mechanic and fills the gap between VIPs/pack owners and others, to some extent. E.g. A player puts LFM up for the "daily menu" challenge, VIPs and pack owners can join and use free token(s) for in-quest benefits. Free to Play players can also join and use a free token to gain access to the challenge.

Stars
You get 1 Favor point for each star, and 1 additional Favor point if you achieve 5 stars, for a total of 6 Favor possible per challenge.
 * With 21 challenges, this is a total possible Favor of 126.

Stars are awarded only if the main objective of challenge is completed successfully, and are not awarded progressively. To get all 5 stars, you must complete all 5 objectives during a SINGLE instance.

Random loot
No chest can be found in challenge instances. Instead, Supply Crates are awarded for each boss kill (What qualifies as a boss varies from challenge to challenge). These go straight into your inventory and can then be double-clicked to generate level appropriate random-gen loot.

Note: There seems to be a serious  that can destroy your existing items such as ingredient bags, when you have too many of these crates on your overflow inventory slot. Link

Level range and penalty
Individual instances scale the number of enemies at an increasing pace with each player added. Hirelings/Summons/Pets do not seem to trigger this type of scaling. Large parties of player will encounter more enemies then solo or small parties. This scaling is in addition to the standard dungeon scaling present in all challenges (even the epic ones).

Challenge Packs

 * Vaults of the Artificers

Unique loot from the challenges
All items are obtained from the new Challenges, using the new Barter UI in House Cannith.


 * Mournlode Weapons (Anti-Undead)
 * Calomel Weapons (Anti-Red Dragon)
 * Frozen Tunic (Outfit)
 * Mournlode Armors (light, medium, heavy, and docent)
 * Ring of Master Artifice
 * Ring of the Stalker
 * Spare Hand (Belt)
 * Blasting Chime (Trinket)
 * Bracers of Wind
 * Cloak of Flames
 * Rock Boots
 * Wand Bracelet (Removed in U12.01)

A complete list is also available.

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.
 * Failure results in accumulating nothing towards a buy-in. This results in a colossal waste of time.

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