Race Season 6 Impressions

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Celandrion wrote:

Well, that was a crazy story. First of all - quite some crazy fun going on. I didn´t participate in the FBLAMT, but all those copies of enemies added a new dimension of danger i enjoyed. Was funny, but needs some improvement! Brackets were broken - most players of Seasons 6 will acknowledge I guess. And Fractures yielding absolutely no rewards is also some kind of design mistake. I really don´t know what would be most fun - a fracture yielding XP or loot or both?

Fractures drop loot. I don't know why people repeatedly say the opposite. The only difference fractures have from the original monster is that they give no experience. They even give you flask charges (allowing perma-quicksilver). You have a prime example at the very first monster - you get 5 copies of the starting skill gem.

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Celandrion wrote:

1-Week-Domination
Well that was a blast!

I was torn on this one. While it was certainly enjoyable overall and a very different experience, ultimately i can't stand softcore, because you can find yourself repeatedly losing progress (unlike hardcore). And that's a really fucking annoying feeling to me.

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Celandrion wrote:

Race Progression vs. Act 3 expanded
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My only idea of solving the problem would be the removal of the bridge ward in Act 3.

I think the "solution" is to have more 4 hour races this season. That way non-masters can practice solo progression in Act3 and Cruel A1, and eventually be able to do it in 3 hours. By having a lot of 3 hour races and one 4 hour race last season, most of us can't even dream of progressing to Cruel Act 2.

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SlixSC wrote:

It always baffles me how the people criticising docks farming in normal races are the same people who "just love" Descent Champions, which ultimately is just Halls Farming + General.

So many people in this community holding that stance and it's just absolutely mind-boggling to me.

I'm pretty sure i hold or held that stance so i can give you my (our?) perspective. The most important thing to realize is that our demographic has yet to kill Gravicius (even with Scion). For the very top racers Gravicius is a given and it's easy to forget that 99.9% of the playerbase has not, does not and can not kill him. D:C is still fresh for me (unlike mindless Docks farming) because i've not mastered it yet. I'm getting very close though.

That said, i don't like D:C that much anymore because i've played it a lot, and there's just a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that i don't like. I think it's that you have to pace yourself so perfectly, and fully farm the ending zones. It demands too much perfection from the mere-human racers. I much preferred the ad-hoc original Descent, where you could just try and get as far as you can, and were never forced to slow down and farm to avoid overshooting an endpoint.

So i think even the people that seem to disagree with you Slix, would agree with you if/when they actually reach the point where they can kill Gravicius consistently. So where you see absurdity, there is total logic, when you have the full picture.

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SlixSC wrote:

As for skill balance, all they have to do is buff cleave to pre-nerf level, to give classes a viable alternative to spectral throw (though it would arguably still be worse than ST) and make templar more popular. Nobody is playing templar these days, it just calls for a cleave buff.

While i agree they should buff Cleave and other things rather than nerf ST, GGG is not a company that is afraid to nerf, and i'm convinced they will follow that much easier route (if anything). :( Modifying less variables surely seems less risky to them, rather than changing many things and risking screwing the whole thing up massively for a 4 month cycle.


Just want to preface the below with: i agree with 99% of what you say, all very true and annoying.

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SlixSC wrote:

why haven't they fixed ST or Cleave for 2 seasons now

I've told you this before - they do skill balance changes at the 4 month cycle. ST has been available for 3 months and 27 days. Wait 3 days.

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SlixSC wrote:

when are they finally taking care of maphackers (and I quote Chris: "massive banwave incoming" - a few MONTHS ago), etc......

AFAIK they don't announce when they actually execute the banwaves. It may have already happened. Though i'm certainly skeptical, regardless.

I don't care about the race formats as long there is a big variety and a filled callendar.

If I can reach certain rewards without "DO or DIE" fine.
But this season was pretty lame imo.
EL, DC, Burst and Sig took over 50% of the shedule.

Add all normal mode races and we are at 75%+

12 hours between races INC :(

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unsane wrote:

Fractures drop loot. I don't know why people repeatedly say the opposite. The only difference fractures have from the original monster is that they give no experience. They even give you flask charges (allowing perma-quicksilver). You have a prime example at the very first monster - you get 5 copies of the starting skill gem.

I've never seen a fracture drop loot except for the first skill gem zombie. Maybe they really do drop loot, but I've never seen it.

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unsane wrote:

I'm pretty sure i hold or held that stance so i can give you my (our?) perspective. The most important thing to realize is that our demographic has yet to kill Gravicius (even with Scion). For the very top racers Gravicius is a given and it's easy to forget that 99.9% of the playerbase has not, does not and can not kill him. D:C is still fresh for me (unlike mindless Docks farming) because i've not mastered it yet. I'm getting very close though.

That said, i don't like D:C that much anymore because i've played it a lot, and there's just a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that i don't like. I think it's that you have to pace yourself so perfectly, and fully farm the ending zones. It demands too much perfection from the mere-human racers. I much preferred the ad-hoc original Descent, where you could just try and get as far as you can, and were never forced to slow down and farm to avoid overshooting an endpoint.

So i think even the people that seem to disagree with you Slix, would agree with you if/when they actually reach the point where they can kill Gravicius consistently. So where you see absurdity, there is total logic, when you have the full picture.

I'm not very good at Descent: Champions myself because I never played it much after I noticed how lame of a race it was. So it's not like I'm talking from the perspective of someone who has perfected that race. But I think any race should always be balanced around the top, that's if you want the race to be as competitive as possible.

I understand that D:C wasn't a "competitive" race until now, but I fear that GGG are so proud of their new baby (which is evidenced by an email someone posted here, might have even been you), that their goal is to make it a competitive or even signature race. But as long as it has all these problems I mentioned (irrespective of who is affected by that, even if it's "just" the top and not your average joe) it should never be more than just a "fun" race.

I also think D:C races give out way too many points, too easily, compared to other races. Basically doing somewhat okay can get you up to 16 points. That's about as many points some people win for winning a signature race.

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While i agree they should buff Cleave and other things rather than nerf ST, GGG is not a company that is afraid to nerf, and i'm convinced they will follow that much easier route (if anything). :( Modifying less variables surely seems less risky to them, rather than changing many things and risking screwing the whole thing up massively for a 4 month cycle.

Maybe, but if skill balance is obviously a problem there really is no point in holding on to any ideals or principles they have.

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I've told you this before - they do skill balance changes at the 4 month cycle. ST has been available for 3 months and 27 days. Wait 3 days.

Again, it doesn't matter to me. Just because they arbitrarily decided that skill balance changes should always be done at the end of a 4 month cycle doesn't make it right in every case. If something doesn't work the way it's supposed to work, again I couldn't care less about any ideals or principles they have, fix it asap - that's the solution.

Or else we run risk of constantly having to play an imbalanced game. Skill balance changes should be reactive to trends and not cyclic.

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AFAIK they don't announce when they actually execute the banwaves. It may have already happened. Though i'm certainly skeptical, regardless.

Yeah, sure. I don't buy that for a second. Blizzard and Valve announce banwaves, if there actually was a banwave I see no reason why GGG wouldn't have announced that to receive some public praising. I don't believe for a second that GGG are just our silent heroes, they want all the good publicity they can get and understandably so.

As a matter of fact, GGG would be outright stupid for not announcing such a mass banwave, reddit would upvote the crap out of that and circlejerk all day.

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SlixSC wrote:

It always baffles me how the people criticising docks farming in normal races are the same people who "just love" Descent Champions, which ultimately is just Halls Farming + General.

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SlixSC wrote:

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unsane wrote:

I'm pretty sure i hold or held that stance so i can give you my (our?) perspective. The most important thing to realize is that our demographic has yet to kill Gravicius (even with Scion). For the very top racers Gravicius is a given and it's easy to forget that 99.9% of the playerbase has not, does not and can not kill him. D:C is still fresh for me (unlike mindless Docks farming) because i've not mastered it yet. I'm getting very close though.

That said, i don't like D:C that much anymore because i've played it a lot, and there's just a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that i don't like. I think it's that you have to pace yourself so perfectly, and fully farm the ending zones. It demands too much perfection from the mere-human racers. I much preferred the ad-hoc original Descent, where you could just try and get as far as you can, and were never forced to slow down and farm to avoid overshooting an endpoint.

So i think even the people that seem to disagree with you Slix, would agree with you if/when they actually reach the point where they can kill Gravicius consistently. So where you see absurdity, there is total logic, when you have the full picture.

I'm not very good at Descent: Champions myself because I never played it much after I noticed how lame of a race it was. So it's not like I'm talking from the perspective of someone who has perfected that race. But I think any race should always be balanced around the top, that's if you want the race to be as competitive as possible.

How does it baffle you when you know that people dont even get up to Gravicius often? In all my races, I have gotten to him once, with 10 seconds to spare so I didnt kill him. To me it seems understandable that people would hold the opinion that D:C is still fun. I wouldnt criticise docks farming though, because the best results have been from people killing Dominus (in 3hr).

i saw him only once :o died instantly

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Metronomy wrote:

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SlixSC wrote:

It always baffles me how the people criticising docks farming in normal races are the same people who "just love" Descent Champions, which ultimately is just Halls Farming + General.

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SlixSC wrote:

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unsane wrote:

I'm pretty sure i hold or held that stance so i can give you my (our?) perspective. The most important thing to realize is that our demographic has yet to kill Gravicius (even with Scion). For the very top racers Gravicius is a given and it's easy to forget that 99.9% of the playerbase has not, does not and can not kill him. D:C is still fresh for me (unlike mindless Docks farming) because i've not mastered it yet. I'm getting very close though.

That said, i don't like D:C that much anymore because i've played it a lot, and there's just a certain je-ne-sais-quoi that i don't like. I think it's that you have to pace yourself so perfectly, and fully farm the ending zones. It demands too much perfection from the mere-human racers. I much preferred the ad-hoc original Descent, where you could just try and get as far as you can, and were never forced to slow down and farm to avoid overshooting an endpoint.

So i think even the people that seem to disagree with you Slix, would agree with you if/when they actually reach the point where they can kill Gravicius consistently. So where you see absurdity, there is total logic, when you have the full picture.

I'm not very good at Descent: Champions myself because I never played it much after I noticed how lame of a race it was. So it's not like I'm talking from the perspective of someone who has perfected that race. But I think any race should always be balanced around the top, that's if you want the race to be as competitive as possible.

How does it baffle you when you know that people dont even get up to Gravicius often? In all my races, I have gotten to him once, with 10 seconds to spare so I didnt kill him. To me it seems understandable that people would hold the opinion that D:C is still fun. I wouldnt criticise docks farming though, because the best results have been from people killing Dominus (in 3hr).

Because races should be balanced around the top to be as competitive as possible, if the limitation for the rest is skill or experience.. then they just need more skill or experience, this is why in SC2 nobody cares that Johny Bronze League can't split his marines and always loses to banelings, it's because the game is balanced for the top level, not lower level players.

If you want racing to ever be as competitive as possible GGG has to take that same approach, if you don't want racing to be as competitive as possible and just want to have "fun" and grind for items then fine, good for you, but please know that your opinion is meaningless to me (if that is the case).

It's really that simple.

Boof always tells me that I'm fighting a lost cause here, that this game will never be truly competitive and yeah, maybe he's right, in fact I'm almost convinced he is right and alot of it is GGG's fault, but I can't help and feel that part of the reason racing isn't getting any better is the fact that most people, even in the racing community, are just loot hoarders who have never even played a competitive game at a high level before.

Perhaps it is silly of me to think that an ARPG game could be played competitively, I see the potential, but then I read posts like yours and can't help but simply shake my head, because nobody truly interested in making this game as competitive as possible would ever make the same arguments as you.

Again, so what about your average racer? Well what about Johny Bronze? Nobody cares. Their limitations are skill-based, if they can't make it they simply have to get better, it's that simple, if they can't get better they are not cut out for competitive gaming and should play something else.

That's how competitive games are designed, they are always designed and balanced top to bottom, if the top players don't have a problem beating a race it doesn't matter that your average joe can't, it's 100% irrelevant.

edit: And if making this game as competitive as possible meant that I would never win a Demi again, then so be it, I would rather lose 200 races to someone who is better than me, than win 1 race because I lucked out. I'm not playing games for personal benefit, I don't trade my stuff, I'm in it because I enjoy competiting and improving my own play. I enjoy the process of learning and improving more than playing the actual game itself, this is what gaming is all about for me (for the most part, there are exceptions obviously), if you disagree with that, then fine, but I can't change your mentality and you can't change mine.

Everything I say is the result of this competitive mindset, I realize that most people don't share that perspective, but so what...

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SlixSC wrote:

Because races should be balanced around the top to be as competitive as possible, if the limitation for the rest is skill or experience.. then they just need more skill or experience, this is why in SC2 nobody cares that Johny Bronze League can't split his marines and always loses to banelings, it's because the game is balanced for the top level, not lower level players.

If you want racing to ever be as competitive as possible GGG has to take that same approach, if you don't want racing to be as competitive as possible and just want to have "fun" and grind for items then fine, good for you, but please know that your opinion is meaningless to me (if that is the case).

It's really that simple.

Boof always tells me that I'm fighting a lost cause here, that this game will never be truly competitive and yeah, maybe he's right, in fact I'm almost convinced he is right and alot of it is GGG's fault, but I can't help and feel that part of the reason racing isn't getting any better is the fact that most people, even in the racing community, are just loot hoarders who have never even played a competitive game at a high level before.

What are you suggesting be done to balance descent though? At the end of the day there will always be a farming zone, and this is going to be the case for as long as the rankings are based on experience. I am not sure what change would boost competitiveness, for example if D:C did change I would expect to see the same people at the top, so how would competition have increased? That has been the case for all race types, the longer the duration of the race type, the more consistent the results seem to be.

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Metronomy wrote:

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SlixSC wrote:

Because races should be balanced around the top to be as competitive as possible, if the limitation for the rest is skill or experience.. then they just need more skill or experience, this is why in SC2 nobody cares that Johny Bronze League can't split his marines and always loses to banelings, it's because the game is balanced for the top level, not lower level players.

If you want racing to ever be as competitive as possible GGG has to take that same approach, if you don't want racing to be as competitive as possible and just want to have "fun" and grind for items then fine, good for you, but please know that your opinion is meaningless to me (if that is the case).

It's really that simple.

Boof always tells me that I'm fighting a lost cause here, that this game will never be truly competitive and yeah, maybe he's right, in fact I'm almost convinced he is right and alot of it is GGG's fault, but I can't help and feel that part of the reason racing isn't getting any better is the fact that most people, even in the racing community, are just loot hoarders who have never even played a competitive game at a high level before.

What are you suggesting be done to balance descent though? At the end of the day there will always be a farming zone, and this is going to be the case for as long as the rankings are based on experience. I am not sure what change would boost competitiveness, for example if D:C did change I would expect to see the same people at the top, so how would competition have increased? That has been the case for all race types, the longer the duration of the race type, the more consistent the results seem to be.

Literally the only reason you always see the same people at the top is because virtually only 2 competent racers per class are actually doing that race (sometimes even none). It's not like signature races where occasionally you have several good players per class participating.

Just look at the last Descent: Champions in season 6 http://poestatistics.com/events/1-hr-descent-champions-s06f174/

There are maybe 3-4 racers on that list that I heard of before and even the top 10 overall results are god awful, the competition in Descent: Champions is generally pretty low because I would argue that most competent racers simply don't give a fuck about that race.

And why would I suggest how to balance that race? GGG just removed the old descent, so I would argue that they should do exactly the same with Descent: Champions. No double standards here.