How does everyone feel about the new rewards / points required?

What's new? Or rather should I say: What's changed for the better for the past 8 seasons?

S9 feels like a undergrad, on the night before his final assignment was due, realized that he HAD an assignment to begin with.


At this point, the don't have the development staff available nor do they look like they intend to dedicate resources solely for racing. I mean, it really just boils down to the racing demographic, small as it is which I might add, is slowly shrinking day by day. Would you really commit development resources to a segment of the game that a fraction of the population plays?

We might not even go far enough to see a season 14/15/etc given the rate at which we're bleeding racers.


Or maybe I should be optimistic and consider S9 as a "testing-the-waters" thing. I was feeling hopeful when Chris responded positively here but alas, we won't ever know the outcome of that discussion now will we?


Maybe they should really scrap racing altogether instead of stringing us racers along season after season with no good prospects in sight. I really want to race and I know I can do well but its so fucking disheartening to lose to things beyond the game's scope. Coupled with the miserable schedule, point allocation AND prize tiers.


At least the LLD guys have it good. They self-govern and aren't affected by stupid shit they can't control.

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Lyralei wrote:

At this point, the don't have the development staff available nor do they look like they intend to dedicate resources solely for racing. I mean, it really just boils down to the racing demographic, small as it is which I might add, is slowly shrinking day by day. Would you really commit development resources to a segment of the game that a fraction of the population plays?

I don't think developement resources are the problem. After all they have an excess of race formats they could have chosen from to make a race schedule, but decided to skip most of them and went (for whatever reasons) with the most boring one as signature race.
Maybe they ran short of manpower to develop the art for the race rewards. But then what's the point of alternate art for unique jewellery/belts/flasks in the first place? Imo they should add unique maps as race rewards instead of gear. Safes the time for developing alternate art and is probably more of an incentive to race for mediocre one-leggers like me than some gear i already own (I'ld take a Coward's Trial or Actons over a Fencoil or another lvl100 ring i can waste orbs on anytime).
The most probable explanation really seems to be your undergrad comparison. On a friday afternoon someone mentioned "shouldn't there be a race season starting next week?" and after a collective WTF the one how draw the shortest straw was assigned to set up a race schedule over the weekend. At least the whole mess looks like the job of someone overly "enthusiastic".

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Bada_Bing wrote:

"

Lyralei wrote:

At this point, the don't have the development staff available nor do they look like they intend to dedicate resources solely for racing. I mean, it really just boils down to the racing demographic, small as it is which I might add, is slowly shrinking day by day. Would you really commit development resources to a segment of the game that a fraction of the population plays?

I don't think developement resources are the problem. After all they have an excess of race formats they could have chosen from to make a race schedule, but decided to skip most of them and went (for whatever reasons) with the most boring one as signature race.
Maybe they ran short of manpower to develop the art for the race rewards. But then what's the point of alternate art for unique jewellery/belts/flasks in the first place? Imo they should add unique maps as race rewards instead of gear. Safes the time for developing alternate art and is probably more of an incentive to race for mediocre one-leggers like me than some gear i already own (I'ld take a Coward's Trial or Actons over a Fencoil or another lvl100 ring i can waste orbs on anytime).
The most probable explanation really seems to be your undergrad comparison. On a friday afternoon someone mentioned "shouldn't there be a race season starting next week?" and after a collective WTF the one how draw the shortest straw was assigned to set up a race schedule over the weekend. At least the whole mess looks like the job of someone overly "enthusiastic".

I was actually advocating for a specifically designed signature race for the longest time. But apparently most people in this community still think playing through the same 2 acts and farming the same couple zones is fun, so they get what they deserve. Racing as such hasn't evolved at all in over a year. Still doing the same races, same sigs, same progression, same fucking everything.

Instead of improving alternate races such as Descent and Descent: Champions, all ressources are pooled into making the same basic races over and over again.

And make no mistake, all the boss kill races are just as boring as "2h fixed, or 1h solo", because ultimately it's the exact same zones with almost identical progression as in any standard race. The only difference is duration, but the zones are (for the most part) just the same as in any non-boss kill races, great!

A good race season would show alot more variety.

20% standard races (boss kill or time based), for those who (for whatever unexplainable reason) are still not bored of playing through normal content over and over again.

20% Descent, self explanatory

20% Descent:Champions, self-explanatory

10% EL, because I guess there are people who actually enjoy these races!?

30% signature, alternate race specifically designed for competitive racing

GGG needs to put more emphasis on improving alternate race content (Vanilla Descent, Descent Champions) and add more variety to racing in general. There is only so many times you can play through the same content before it gets boring.

edit: Just to draw an analogy here. Take CS:GO and Dust2. In PoE you are basically playing Dust2 over and over again, shortdust with some paths of the map being blocked off (1 hour race), 10 minute Deathmatch (2 hour race), 15 minute Deathmatch (2+ hour race) and demolition (boss kills).

Effectively playing the same map over and over again with slightly different objectives. Of course people are getting bored of racing when this is all the content they ever get to play, there simply is no variety. We once had 4 maps in rotation (normal races, Descent, DC and EL), but for some reason GGG have reduced everything back to 2 maps, though I'm reluctant to analogize EL to an actual map because it's such a.... dumb race.

Hell, even the D3 developers (incompetent as they may be) realized how boring it is to play through the exact same content every time you level you a new character, so they gave players the option to level in an alternate way (this option exists in TL2 aswell, by the way).

In that regard PoE is lagging behind massively, even though out of all the currently popular ARPG developers GGG have the most incentive to open up alternate ways of leveling given that such a mechanic could be implemented into both races and normal long-term leagues.

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Bada_Bing wrote:

I don't think developement resources are the problem.

Ah but you might be surprised there, although I don't think I am at liberty to share what I know about that.

D:C, arguably one of the better (not like we have that many to choose from) well-designed race formats (aside from whoever let the travesty that is Blood of the Summer happen) was designed as a result of very specific resource (staff) allocation towards it, more importantly: it was designed by a staff member who actually did race at a reasonably competitive level (once upon a time).


I would actually argue that they need to do the GreenDude treatment and fly in our boys who have been racing for 9 seasons and have them sit down with the developers over the course of a few days to come up with a few race formats for the long-term outlook. These boys KNOW the nuances of racing - everything about it too. Which is a hell lot better than assigning a random developer to create something from scratch.


Had we done this earlier, we wouldn't have had issues with arbitrary racing rules, exploiting loopholes to accrue rewards faster, completely random reward structures and odd format allocations across seasons.



..also everything SlixSC said. As much flak as Diablo III gets, you should look at the interviews that Wyatt Cheng has been giving because he is on the right track right now. Games should be about having fun (be it from the competition or whatever else) and racing right now..is not really fun.

Examine what a lot of people have been saying about racing. Nobody ever talks about the competition itself or the metagame behind racing. Every single discussion is either about A) hackers or B) the rewards.

Emphasis on B as well because the complaints are about time schedule (unable to race enough to get reward), point allocation (not getting rewarded for time put in), and point tiers (takes too long to get reward).

Racing hasn't been about racing for a long time. Right now in the eyes of the community, its just-another-grind-to-get-my-gear, which is really sad.

I wish there was a de_dust2 layout in PoE

Part of the problem is Turbo + Brutus\Merv.

GL on those horribly tuned fights.

Theyre cinematic and amazing now for sure, but they suck for races. I can't imagine them on turbo.

Merveil might be interesting on turbo.
Pretty sure Brutus would be impossible without overlevelling big time.

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SlixSC wrote:

Racing as such hasn't evolved at all in over a year. Still doing the same races, same sigs, same progression, same fucking everything.

Completely disagree with this. Changes to the passive tree, new skill gems, item/gem changes, different quest rewards, different monster type, and so on alter racing methods each season. Furthermore, specific zone layouts in fixed seed races also determine certain strategies. I don't think I've ever been bored with a 'vanilla' race. Hell I've done most of this season's sig races and I still wont have time to try all the classes and builds I would like to.

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SlixSC wrote:

A good race season would show alot more variety.

I would also like to see more variety, but not in alternate races. The problem with having an emphasis on competitive alternate races is they, in my opinion, have more variance, less strategy, and no good way to practice them. Instead I'm hoping to see different durations (like 30, 45, 75, 150 minutes) and more mods (turbo, immolation, etc.) as fun alternatives to play around with during a season.

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Lyralei wrote:

Examine what a lot of people have been saying about racing. Nobody ever talks about the competition itself or the metagame behind racing. Every single discussion is either about A) hackers or B) the rewards.

Emphasis on B as well because the complaints are about time schedule (unable to race enough to get reward), point allocation (not getting rewarded for time put in), and point tiers (takes too long to get reward).

Racing hasn't been about racing for a long time. Right now in the eyes of the community, its just-another-grind-to-get-my-gear, which is really sad.

I agree. This is sad.

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Throzz wrote:

I would also like to see more variety, but not in alternate races. The problem with having an emphasis on competitive alternate races is they, in my opinion, have more variance, less strategy, and no good way to practice them. Instead I'm hoping to see different durations (like 30, 45, 75, 150 minutes) and more mods (turbo, immolation, etc.) as fun alternatives to play around with during a season.

Yes please, just not yes to 150mins.

lol

2 rumi's from 1 burst race