Newsflash GGG: There is MORE not less RNG in Descent Races.

Only problem I see is that Descent Races are Signature Events.

On the other hand one does still see same people making their high ranks and even further manifesting their positions with even higher levels. This somewhat implies that it is not always that random but player skill still plays the more important role.

I agree that your race peformance depends on the items you get more than in the competetive races. On the other hand I can imagine that the people on the top places win because they improvise depending on the situation, their equipment and even the skills they get as drops.

I would monitor the top three Signature placings
throughout this season before jumping to conclusions.

I've only done 1 Descent race so far, but I liked it.

However, I wouldn't be against getting more skill gems, or having a vendor every so many regions. More skill gems just give more options- I don't see why we should be hamstrung so much since the characters don't persist anyway.

I also don't get the point of hiding what's inside the two chest options. Hiding public information does not promote competition, it excludes new blood. Am I supposed to memorize exactly what's in each chest at each level? Why am I supposed to memorize that?

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

I still think 'skip the first three areas' as not only a viable option but a preferable one is not only bad design but *wasted* opportunity to really reward people who want to be more thorough instead of just racing ahead.

It should be like Pandora; your skips shall be limited.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

More skills gems for the chests is a given to me. I've tried Witch and Shadow now, and both were one-skill affairs for the most part. The repetition of Descent is already kicking in regarding knowledge of chest contents, bosses to avoid, areas to run...at least give us some variety with the skills offered. I love my Melee Shadow but the prospect of another hour using naught but Double Strike and occasionally Fire Trap was just too much to bear.

I think the first chest should remain the same, but the chests for the first and second areas should be switched (meaning skill gem payout at end of area 1, similar to Hillock), more skill gems with a minimum level of 4 should be bumped down to a minimum level of 2, and that each class should be designed with 3 separate configurations in mind. (For example, shadow still starts with melee focus, can go caster or bow with first chests.)

Actually now that I think about it, I have no problem with locking the chest so long as it does not lock the exit. Fail to kill the boss, fail to reap the non-random rewards.

I agree with the OP.
A few things that could also be easily improved:

Increase the monster level of every zone by 2, so that you start killing stuff right away*, and you get a few more passives and wear resist rings before the dreaded statue/frozen abyss levels.

Increase the item rarity and quality (for bosses at least) by a lot. The fact that you get barely one rare per unique boss is disheartening, considering most drops are unusable.

I don't think it's too late to improve the race. The current records aren't gonna hold anyway, so it doesn't mean the race has to have glaring issues the whole season.

*Rangers would get screwed in the process, but that issue (lack of AoE) has to be fixed either way.

I also like the idea of keeping the chests locked if you don't kill the boss.

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ScrotieMcB wrote:

I think it's kind of ironic, given the thread title, that the current conversation is on how the totally non-random, utterly deterministic chest drops need more variety.

The current contents of the chests adds a large amount of rng to the final standings of some classes. Both shadow and templar will show much stronger results if they use cleave instead of most other options available to them, but as cleave isnt part of the chest rewards for those classes, the only players with top-3 results come season end are going to be those who got a lucky gem drop early on.

There are enough orbs offered from the chests and bosses to kill to assure everyone of at least passable gear, but theres nothing anyone can do to reliably acquire gems that would double their killspeed. Thats a pretty big problem for a competitive event.

And ranger could use to start with access to a proper aoe attack. Trying to kill 20+ strong packs with split arrow for the first 3 zones cant be fun.

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Nightmare90 wrote:

Only problem I see is that Descent Races are Signature Events.

On the other hand one does still see same people making their high ranks and even further manifesting their positions with even higher levels. This somewhat implies that it is not always that random but player skill still plays the more important role.

I agree that your race peformance depends on the items you get more than in the competetive races. On the other hand I can imagine that the people on the top places win because they improvise depending on the situation, their equipment and even the skills they get as drops.

I would monitor the top three Signature placings
throughout this season before jumping to conclusions.

Without a doubt, and the race when I get to a tribal\jade chopper in decent time\gear and roll a good one is the one I'll have a very good shot to be on that leaderboard. I did it last season for a very specific reason... I rolled a good or great weapon for Docks after having a good race.

I had about 8 Signature races where I arrived in City of Sarn in a good time and good order, and then needed to roll a high level weapon (the "RNG" part as it were of last seasons Signature races for Marauder).

I had the best race any Marauder had last season in a signature race up to Ancient Pyramid (when puncture was broken still), and even after i had to log out from some puncture, one of the best Vaal kills... but I Didn't roll a weapon so not only did I not set a record, I lost to a marauder with a Limbsplit.

That level of RNG I am fine with, because much of it can be mitigated with smart play.

Shadow representation by class in todays descent race: 1%

Looking forward to more chest gem variety any time now!~

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

[...]
When's the last time GGG changed anything about a race mid season?

Season 2 when they readjusted low-level RP-rewards to be more reachable?
Was pretty early but didn't really follow Season 2 anyway.

I understand it if they hold back in changing major aspects of the races in mid-season.
It would be pretty destructive to their statistics and may lead to more work in the long run.

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Charanjaydemyr wrote:

ultimately you are competing within your own class.

This is the typical sort of cop out I expect from other Developers tbh.

100% arbitrary gem selection for classes based off Voodoo or something is not particularly impressive to me, among the myriad other items of confusion too long to re-list again from earlier in the thread.

I noticed today Shadows don't even get Claws in their chests. Whats particularly fascinating about this to me is the random and arbitrariness of the items\gems selections doesn't even 100% follow the 2010 Beta logic applied to reach those decisions.




When was the last time someone who balances the game did a short term race, let alone did comparatively well in it?