105 min TURBO just sucks so hard as Signature Race

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Qarl wrote:

I've had quite mixed feedback on this race format. Some people have appreciated greatly its Turbo.

We have discussed fixed seed for Signature Races, unfortunately over a 6 week period, the seed used is likely to result in changed maps over the time period depending on what gets deployed in patches.

105 minutes was chosen to promote choices, such that it is not entirely clear what the best strategy is over this time period.

We rely heavily on GGG_Neon's knowledge of racing for determining a good Signature race.

I appreciate that its turbo since it tends to weed out racers using cookie builds with a mindless rush nonstop mentality. Otoh, i dont appreciate that turbo is the #1 amplifier od desync. The answer is of course to keep turbo and fix the netcode. Yup :| Moving right along...

The seed can be different every race as someone metnioned above, it just needs to be revealed and the same for all players. The white:blue ratios of monsters should be equal too, even if the monsters arent all in exactly the same areas.

105 minutes is fine. Easy hour~ of act 2 grinding vs a much more dangerous sarn rush that may not pay off is perfect.

Neon was a demi level racer in cb, to be sure, and this seasons signature backs that up, but if he was responsible for the general descent setup then i have to wonder wtf he was thinking.

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MyH4o wrote:

Wasn't the point of Signature races quality>quantity? In the current format you have to play as much races as possible and hope you get lucky alteast a few times with some badass weapons otherwise you can forget about doing good enough Vaal time so that farming Sarn can make any difference...

I think witches can even forget act3 completely??

This is my biggest complaint about the signatures, theres still a ton of harsh rng present so the concept idea of it being mainly about player skill goes out the window and it becomes all about running a ton of races waiting on the handful of runs where you see both good gear and plentiful blue packs (and specific drop only gems in descent).

Witches could hit a3 with about 20 mins left on a perfect run with godly gear. I think every class would have ended up with sarn runs in the top 3 if this had been the format in cb; however, with current race attendance levels, and considering how few active players are capable of pulling off that sort of run even if they get the godly gear, its pretty possible that sins grinding will take the witch demis this time round.

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cwu wrote:

I dont understand why people think that this type of signature race is more rng than the previous ones that we had. Of course you freaking have to roll good gear throughout the whole run, because thats the whole point of the signature system: compare results from multiple races. No wonder top3 in every class is composed of "lucky" runs.

Getting the top3 in a signature race at the end of the season would always require getting great rng and having the skill to capitalize on that rng. For example, in Season 2 as a duelist you had to roll at least 2-3 great 2handers with the last one being smtg like 80%+ ipd. In Season 3 not only you had to roll good gear, you also had to get good packs rng in the specific zones (because you could only run them once). Thats why some of the record runs had insane last 5-10 minutes splits.

Also, whats the point of being mad, that someone who does all the signature races is more likely to place top3? Isnt that obvious that the only way to counter gear rng is to race as much as possible? After two seasons of signature races we can see that the people who get top3 are basically the same people who do great in races.

GGG originally advertised the signature race as one where an experienced/skilled racer could enter once, pull off a single impeccably executed run and potentially keep the top spot for the entire season. Instead its ended up being about grinding many races to get a few with good drops, which shuts out pretty much everyone who cant race nonstop, or at least makes their chances of a top 3 finish negligible since its mostly drop/roll luck thats needed for those top 3 spots and not actually any amazing degree of player skills.

At least in normal competitive races im only competing against everyone elses results from that specific race. In signatures i also have to compete against all their previous and future races as well, which pretty much kills the whole skill based signature thing if they can run 50 signatures throughout the season and i can only run 5.

Id like to see future signatures be mostly or completely fixed (maps, loot, monsters, the works). Those disliking the lack of randomness would still have plenty of it available in every other race mode.

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KoTao wrote:

Id like to see future signatures be mostly or completely fixed (maps, loot, monsters, the works). Those disliking the lack of randomness would still have plenty of it available in every other race mode.

Next seasons signature: You stand in a cube room with white rusty swords and cleave white zombies marching single file at you for 60 minutes.

Im sorry, KoTao, but this

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GGG originally advertised the signature race as one where an experienced/skilled racer could enter once, pull off a single impeccably executed run and potentially keep the top spot for the entire season

is just 100% the opposite of what you are trying to say/prove. The quote above perfectly describes a lucky rng run. Being skilled in racing means that you can post good results even with shitty rng and get great results with good rng. Anyone can get one lucky run, but only after placing in top time and time again one can prove that he's not a fluke.

Its not closed beta anymore when only 1-2 people per class (with exception to mara?) knew what they were doing. Of course you could beat anyone even with magic/white items under these conditions. The level of competition has risen so high since then that the item and currency drops started to play a significant role in races and there's nothing to be done about it.

But in the end of the day there are still the same people on the leaderboards, which just proves that skill prevails over item rng. And its not because they do all the races. Its because after doing all those races they actually know how to play.

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cwu wrote:

The quote above perfectly describes a lucky rng run. Being skilled in racing means that you can post good results even with shitty rng and get great results with good rng. Anyone can get one lucky run, but only after placing in top time and time again one can prove that he's not a fluke.

Its not closed beta anymore when only 1-2 people per class (with exception to mara?) knew what they were doing. Of course you could beat anyone even with magic/white items under these conditions. The level of competition has risen so high since then that the item and currency drops started to play a significant role in races and there's nothing to be done about it.

But in the end of the day there are still the same people on the leaderboards, which just proves that skill prevails over item rng. And its not because they do all the races. Its because after doing all those races they actually know how to play.

You could beat people with blue/white items in early~mid cb due to the races being drastically different. 3 hours was the usual solo, the maps were way smaller and much more linear, leapslam was far too slow to be used as a combo main attack/movement skill and cleave was only really viable for templar, and then only for the second half or so of the race. Plus we had 3 classes that could go caster, which requires little to no gear, and 2 that could go pa/trap which required a single common roll on 1 gear piece, so the distinguishing factor in results was player skill as opposed to map and/or item luck.

Now we have short races, huge random maps (or gamble modes like descent) and 5/6 classes using the exact same skills for most or all of act 1, skills that are massively affected by item rng. Ob racing is so much more random than cb racing that theyre almost not even comparable.

And of course the same people top the ladders consistently, theyre also the people who play tons of races. Like you said above, its all about getting that run with amazing rng now, and the best way to do that is just to spam races. Look at last seasons signature top 3- is there anyone there who didnt play at least half the descents available? I have no doubt that if PoE had a massive player base and there were 100+ strong racers for each class, the results of each event would look completely random under the race current system.

Anyway, bruteforcing top finishes is not at all what i envisioned when they announced the signature events, hence my disappointment.

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boof wrote:

Next seasons signature: You stand in a cube room with white rusty swords and cleave white zombies marching single file at you for 60 minutes.

You may be taking that just a bit out of context.

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Qarl wrote:

the seed used is likely to result in changed maps over the time period depending on what gets deployed in patches.

This is my biggest problem with racing right now. I've been racing for a very long time, 500+ races at this point, and sometimes I encounter a map\layout I've never, ever, seen before and I get lost... and yet there are people who can navigate these changes, every race without fail.

Some very specific people have two types of races, they're in the top five or first overall in progression, or theyre dead at level 9-13. They never, ever, have a mediocre race, and in general have amazing runs every race.

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Morsexier wrote:

Some very specific people have two types of races, they're in the top five or first overall in progression, or theyre dead at level 9-13. They never, ever, have a mediocre race, and in general have amazing runs every race.

I'm curious how many demigod's will Condemned win, I suppose he won't get witch or duelist, but the rest are open cuz he's so awesome at this game :)

Also, on a sidenote - don't you ppl think that the lvl 27 requirement for getting 7pts is way way off - these are probably the hardest obtainable 7pts in any type of race. Further prove GGG have no clue of what turbo means.

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Morsexier wrote:

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Qarl wrote:

the seed used is likely to result in changed maps over the time period depending on what gets deployed in patches.

This is my biggest problem with racing right now. I've been racing for a very long time, 500+ races at this point, and sometimes I encounter a map\layout I've never, ever, seen before and I get lost... and yet there are people who can navigate these changes, every race without fail.

Some very specific people have two types of races, they're in the top five or first overall in progression, or theyre dead at level 9-13. They never, ever, have a mediocre race, and in general have amazing runs every race.

I don't really understand this. I know there are some rarer layouts that are awkward as hell (most notably in the submerged passage), but there are nuances on every map that indicate which map it is, including direction the entrance door faces, layout/shape of the initial room and impassible terrain and also the outer border. I don't believe there are any layouts that are similar enough that the landmark objectives can't be identified before you have to take a wrong turn, even the aforementioned submerged.

Now, that said, I would love to watch some of the other top witches running, because I know I have some serious deficiencies with my racing that I should clean up and would love to know how Throzz never seems to get held up anywhere while I occasionally just fail miserably at merv.. ( I just learned to cntrl - click passives last week...) Maybe my non-standard build isn't very good.

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KoTao wrote:

Id like to see future signatures be mostly or completely fixed (maps, loot, monsters, the works). Those disliking the lack of randomness would still have plenty of it available in every other race mode.

I could definitely live with that but do the maps also have to be revealed? Is finding your way through the dungeon/labyrinth/wilderness not a part of the game?

For signature races, I vote for "completely" fixed but unrevealed maps (new seed every race of course), fixed white/blue ratios, densities etc. Loot is abit more difficult.

But I would very much appreciate it if, e.g., Sapphire rings were always available in races. Getting past Merveil in a turbo race in which Nessa did not have a single sapphire ring at lvl 11, 12, 13 and 14 was pretty difficult. At level 15 she had three sapphire rings. Great! Only lost 10 minutes.. (and I had seen no blue gems except that one quest reward which I did not take. Perhaps I should start doing that again. Don't know if one sapphire ring is enough in turbo though.)

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Hassefar60 wrote:

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KoTao wrote:

Id like to see future signatures be mostly or completely fixed (maps, loot, monsters, the works). Those disliking the lack of randomness would still have plenty of it available in every other race mode.

I could definitely live with that but do the maps also have to be revealed? Is finding your way through the dungeon/labyrinth/wilderness not a part of the game?

For signature races, I vote for "completely" fixed but unrevealed maps (new seed every race of course), fixed white/blue ratios, densities etc. Loot is abit more difficult.

But I would very much appreciate it if, e.g., Sapphire rings were always available in races. Getting past Merveil in a turbo race in which Nessa did not have a single sapphire ring at lvl 11, 12, 13 and 14 was pretty difficult. At level 15 she had three sapphire rings. Great! Only lost 10 minutes.. (and I had seen no blue gems except that one quest reward which I did not take. Perhaps I should start doing that again. Don't know if one sapphire ring is enough in turbo though.)

You should be able to tank even with crappy cold resist with decent life and large flasks (lvl 14). While a sapphire makes it easier, its not necessary. Last race had good life (for a witch), 4 small flasks, but no cold resist and it was tolerable.

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indczn wrote:

[
but there are nuances on every map that indicate which map it is, including direction the entrance door faces, layout/shape of the initial room and impassible terrain and also the outer border. I don't believe there are any layouts that are similar enough that the landmark objectives can't be identified before you have to take a wrong turn, even the aforementioned submerged.

Please share these nuances for the prison levels. After all the races I've done I still don't know what is going on in there most of the time. If could reliably navigate them it'd be an immediate 2-4 minutes shaved off all my races.
I also have a knack for always picking the route in tidal island that takes me about 300 degrees around before getting to Hailrake.