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

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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 tentatively agree, but only tentatively because I don't see that as a bad thing.

Grinding to get my gear in the context of racing is possibly the most fun thing about POE. It's simultaneously the least-and-most RNG dependent way to get your gear. It's a paradox that works wonderfully, but only when you want to cross the finish line.

Point #2, racing should be a different game mode. I do not want to simply play the vanilla campaign as quickly as possible. Descent: champions (and it's little brother) are wildly fun, different, and kept my attention. I would love to hear the thinking behind why it was axed.

Regarding the cheating: I honestly could not give less of a shit what other people do. My feeling is that most racers feel this way, when they aren't barking on the forum. This should not be a consideration when choosing a race type. I feel like it was. Fuck that.

I'm beating a dead horse here. We all get it; this season was objectively awful by just about every conceivable measure. That being said, I'm hopeful for next season. This wasn't just a trickle of bad feedback, it was a full blown flood. I have to believe that GGG is paying attention, and will do an about-face for season 10.

I just have to believe that.

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Throzz wrote:

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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.

If playing the same map with different objectives over and over again is fun for you then have at it. But you will eventually find yourself in a position where not many people will be left to race against. (I just looked at the last sig and who am I kidding this is already the case. 400 characters created, roughly 80 reached lvl 20 in 2 hours)

Racing is in a pathetic state and the lack of diversity is to blame for this. I have no sympathy for people's self interest. Yes we all understand you are really, really good at normal races, only problem is that almost everyone else is tired of them.

I mean, my dust2 analogy was perfect, sure change the layout of 1 spot on the map ever so slightly, or instead of 10mins make the deathmatch last 15 mins.

If that's not boring and a lack of variety then literally nothing is. I could right now put you in a wheel and say "Go hamster! Go!" and you would happily keep running until the end of time.

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Antnee wrote:

Regarding the cheating: I honestly could not give less of a shit what other people do. My feeling is that most racers feel this way, when they aren't barking on the forum. This should not be a consideration when choosing a race type. I feel like it was. Fuck that.

You could not. But then again, have you ever lost a signature demigod to a cheater?


Yes. Its not a nice feeling.

The new boss rush events take the scrub-empowering effects of maphack to the next level.

Like ill go down a single 1-2 screen dead end in a single zone and be like, welp, ive lost, might as well just finish the race in a leisurely fashion for points. Because its virtually guaranteed that there are at least a handful of derpy randoms also participating who just recently came out of the woodwork with next to no previous results, who magically always miss dead ends but never miss blue packs or shrines.

Any time now, GGG. Better 10 seasons / 2 years late than never.

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KoTao wrote:

The new boss rush events take the scrub-empowering effects of maphack to the next level.

Like ill go down a single 1-2 screen dead end in a single zone and be like, welp, ive lost, might as well just finish the race in a leisurely fashion for points. Because its virtually guaranteed that there are at least a handful of derpy randoms also participating who just recently came out of the woodwork with next to no previous results, who magically always miss dead ends but never miss blue packs or shrines.

Any time now, GGG. Better 10 seasons / 2 years late than never.

If only there were some sort of modifiers GGG could add to the races to make it so that players actually had to use skill to navigate the zones rather than killing all the basically-harmless mobs while maphack tells them the way to go. Imagine if racing wasn't just a matter of the direction you walk!

I guess the technology just isn't there yet.

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Lyralei wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Regarding the cheating: I honestly could not give less of a shit what other people do. My feeling is that most racers feel this way, when they aren't barking on the forum. This should not be a consideration when choosing a race type. I feel like it was. Fuck that.

You could not. But then again, have you ever lost a signature demigod to a cheater?

Yes. Its not a nice feeling.

I'm sure it isn't. But, how many people are affected by that? Now, how many people have been affected by the decision to balance around maphacking?

Race attendance has been utterly abysmal. But, you know, at least it's a (slightly) cleaner season. When you balance a game around cheaters, you're doing it on the backs of everyone else. I get that you've been personally hurt by cheating. I ask you: has the solution been worth it?

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Antnee wrote:

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Lyralei wrote:

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Antnee wrote:

Regarding the cheating: I honestly could not give less of a shit what other people do. My feeling is that most racers feel this way, when they aren't barking on the forum. This should not be a consideration when choosing a race type. I feel like it was. Fuck that.

You could not. But then again, have you ever lost a signature demigod to a cheater?

Yes. Its not a nice feeling.

I'm sure it isn't. But, how many people are affected by that? Now, how many people have been affected by the decision to balance around maphacking?

Race attendance has been utterly abysmal. But, you know, at least it's a (slightly) cleaner season. When you balance a game around cheaters, you're doing it on the backs of everyone else. I get that you've been personally hurt by cheating. I ask you: has the solution been worth it?

Fixed seed has absolutely no relevancy to this debate at all. Replace 2h fixed seed solo with 2h solo. What changes? Nothing.

Still no variety. No Descent, no Descent:Champions, no race specifically designed for competitive racing (fixed seed or not, makes no difference there either in terms of balance/variety or whatever other non-sequitur you could possibly dream up.)

And I'm sorry when your game is plagued by cheaters who collectively undermine the competitive integrity of your game you very much need to have some mechanism in place to, if not outright detect their cheats, at least make cheating less profitable for them.

And while I have all the sympathy in the world for the people advocating for more fun races and more variety in general (well obviously.. I'm one of them), let's not jump to the opposite extreme and make every single race a casual ****fest.... please?

Let signatures be purely competitive races that are emphasizing individual records and appealing to the very top players primarily (again in my ideal world this would be a well-tested, alternate race, specifically designed to challenge the top players). The other 70% of the season can then be filled up with whatever races are popular and add variety. Descent, Descent Champions, Endless Ledge, Boss Kill race, normal races, etc... no reason to not have all of them in rotation.

And just some food for thought to address the old "but you couldn't practise such an alternate signature race regularly".

To me that's a good thing. Fast learning, quick decision making and adapting seems more analogous to natural skill, than the often repeated and trained behaviour that we currently see in many race formats. And even if that's not good enough, GGG could always hold pre-season practise events.

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SlixSC wrote:

Let signatures be purely competitive races that are emphasizing individual records and appealing to the very top players primarily (again in my ideal world this would be a well-tested, alternate race, specifically designed to challenge the top players).

To keep things simple and their effort minimal (at least on the first try), how about an EL with no loot RNG nor mob RNG?

1) No loot drops (same as Untainted Paradise).
2) Chest with static drops at the start of every 1 or 2 zones.
3) Fixed mob seed (everyone in the race gets the same monster type seed).
4) Fixed pack size seed (").
5) Fixed blue and yellow seed (").

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unsane wrote:

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SlixSC wrote:

Let signatures be purely competitive races that are emphasizing individual records and appealing to the very top players primarily (again in my ideal world this would be a well-tested, alternate race, specifically designed to challenge the top players).

To keep things simple and their effort minimal (at least on the first try), how about an EL with no loot RNG nor mob RNG?

1) No loot drops (same as Untainted Paradise).
2) Chest with static drops at the start of every 1 or 2 zones.
3) Fixed mob seed (everyone in the race gets the same monster type seed).
4) Fixed pack size seed (").
5) Fixed blue and yellow seed (").

I definitely think points 3 to 5 are absolutely necessary if people want an actual competitive race. As for loot drops and such, I really don't know, on the one hand we want the race to emphasize skill over RNG, on the other hand, inventory management, equipping new gear while running, identifying new gear, etc... are all skill sets that help seperate really good players from just good players.

Perhaps you could remove some possible item mods for the race (such as high ipd rolls and +1 for wands, etc..) and replace them with other less overpowered mods (some hybrid ele rolls such as 1-10 ele and 3-5 fire or 5% spell damage and 10% fire damage instead of +1 fire).

I would also look into disabling some of the more overpowered unique drops for that specific signature race.

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SlixSC wrote:

Fixed seed has absolutely no relevancy to this debate at all. Replace 2h fixed seed solo with 2h solo. What changes? Nothing.

It has more relevancy than you think. Many people complained that the high variance of DC races was benefitting cheaters far more than in any other race. Solution? The blandest possible race, with fixed seed.

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SlixSC wrote:

And I'm sorry when your game is plagued by cheaters who collectively undermine the competitive integrity of your game you very much need to have some mechanism in place to, if not outright detect their cheats, at least make cheating less profitable for them.

[citation needed]
Unless by plagued by, you mean there are a handful of. In which case, I agree. There is no evidence that even a single-digit percentage of racers are cheating. In fact, many of the best racers stream, and did not use cheats at all.

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SlixSC wrote:

And while I have all the sympathy in the world for the people advocating for more fun races and more variety in general (well obviously.. I'm one of them), let's not jump to the opposite extreme and make every single race a casual ****fest.... please?

I'm not sure how you made that jump yourself. The races that were removed were somehow more casual? I'm not seeing the logic here.

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SlixSC wrote:

Let signatures be purely competitive races that are emphasizing individual records and appealing to the very top players primarily (again in my ideal world this would be a well-tested, alternate race, specifically designed to challenge the top players).

I'm struggling to understand which races are purely competitive and which aren't. It seems like you're making a very arbitrary distinction. All of the races I played seemed pretty friggin competitive.

I feel like you're scared that the pendulum might swing too far in the other direction, but don't know exactly what the other direction looks like, or what the ramifications would be.