You are killing racing

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Here's the thing I don't understand: You don't even see your competition. You are (afaik) one of the top racer and constantly Top 10. So why does it even matter to you if there are 200 or 2000 people behind you? You don't feel any impact on the game whatsoever, do you?

Well, obviously the more players the higher is the competition as new people will learn and get better after a couple of races. Without them the level will stagnate at the top because no competition means no effort to stay in the top 10.

Keep the amount of races and limit each account to a certain number of races each day/week. If players want to stay at the top, they'll have to play the one race and competition automatically gets harder but also opens opportunities as someone like kripp can't win each race.

I agree!
As much as the game is grinding (and that is good) - Races in a meta-sense should not be grinding!
You want the highest possible competetiveness und uniqueness in races, in each race.

I would make a season only 50-100 races, with about 1 race average per day. (so not everyone can do a race every f... day because of time zones - but so what? keep it unique!)
But at the same time, raising rewards is equally important. For the highest tier players, but also the normal players. More guaranteed rewards and more random rewards. And generally next to the point rewards also more direct item rewards in the race itself.

Races in PoE are a unique experience with nothing similar to it, it's a strength of the game you should use - please don't ruin it by boring everyone with the two factors above. We want Races to be EVENTS, big events, which everyone can and wants to enjoy.

Number of participants at the moment show that I'm probably very right with my points.
Also: Where are the Cutthroat-Races? Seriously.
I could not disagree more with GGG's current Race policy. Hope you think about it. : /

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Hilbert wrote:

a SEPERATE SINGLE/PARTY Ladder[/b]

This should have been implimented before season 2 went live. The level of participation is low enough that its not a major issue atm, but if participation were at the level of cb races, even the very top pure solo racers would be unable to remain in the top 20; good but not great solo racers with a strong team to carry them to easy demi finishes in group races would crowd them out within the first month.

The skillsets and playstyles for solo and group races are fairly different too. Theres no good reason for having the two share the same overall ladder.

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Shaileen wrote:

a bit off-topic - am I the only one who has tremendous problems to understand what Hilbert is saying?

Hes saying the quest gem reward pool would be vastly increased, but that youd only be able to use each unique combination of gems once on each character per season.

Novel approach to fighting the cookie cutter but id rather wage that battle via proper balancing. The reason we see mostly the same builds in every event is because a few skills are overpowered in races while most are underpowered or useless. Get all the skills on a rough par with eachother and the resulting healthy tension between gem choices, build types and differing playstyles will bring the equivalent of Hilberts suggestion to fruition without any code-based forcing required on GGGs part.

I would hate to have number of races reduced..as it stands I can only make about 10 race slots per week which translates to about 4-5 races a week. I think participation is low because of poor reward incentive compared to (continuous) time commitment. But more importantly, there just needs to be more interesting race types so that each race seems fresh. Notice that whenever a new race type pops up, the participation in that race is greatly increased compared to average. Thus, expanding the types of races is a must.

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You are killing racing

...with all that strange suggestions to "impove" attractivity, competition, difficulty and/or balance (between skills, builds, classes or whatever)...

*less races would need a new mechanic to deal with timezones - most of the (more adult) players dont have the ability to schedule their RL along with POE competitions...

*"weighting" the events could end up in a situation where you have to decide between some shorter races and the one and only monthlong event... not practicable to balance this rewardwise.

*item rewards as in OB have the issue, that they are random: not really controllable influx on the economy. I like the idea to 'work' towards one fixed goal (the item rewards), and the idea to spread white blanks among them is simply brilliant. And for the 1000 karui wards: who cares about them? How many Tabula Rasa or Andvarius do you expect to be handed out? ^^

I like the chance to participate in up to 2 events per weekday (if they are short enough to fit my RL needs) and probably some more between friday and sunday afternoon (if the events fit my playstyle). This sums up for a maximum of ~16 events per week, if all circumstances are perfect - what I assume to be more or less unrealistic ^^, and include no overlaps at all between the timeslots. I cant effort more/different time, so I have to deal with whats possible for me, and also with the fact that others can do double or three times the amount of my races... so what?!

I never raced until a few weeks ago and do poorly each time. Mostly don't survive :) However with alot of events of all types I get to practice and improve.(which is my goal atm to become more competitive and wealthy)

I'm sure it would go for a large Percentage of the racers. I can't even beat some of the top dogs times when I practice with every low level unique possible. I need time and more experience to be competitive. I only started racing because if I did manage some big points some of those rewards are quite expensive to fund my HC mains.

lots of races is good and the varied time lengths/mods make it interesting enough. You dont need to play 200 races to be top of the ladder out performing every one else is still going to be far more profitable then old mate grinding ledge to 14 for 3points then calling it quits.
.
there will still be primetime events depending on time zones in in Australia so if I play at 6 -10pm most of America will be in bed. However I like attending ealry morning ones too when more players are online.

anyway in short racing is a different skill then playing the game normal and takes time to develop so I would say 5 months in I would be expecting huge amounts of pro racers just yet.


tldr: but probably more to the point then the other shit I just dribbled

3hrs is very hard to get at the computer and especially unbroken. So sometimes I would rather grind a few maps or progress another char Then race a char I will never play again and hope I do well in the race for points.

doesn't mean I think they shouldn't have three hour races or races when I'm asleep just means they aren't for me. ( maybe the tens of thousands of other players all around the world)

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epedizzle wrote:

lots of races is good and the varied time lengths/mods make it interesting enough.

People tend to forget that they can simulate a race environment by simply taking a stopwatch and the use of statistic-websites and improve that way. There is no need for this redonkulous amount of races.

No good practicing for different mods that way.

If there are two races a day , and you happen to work or have RL commitments. Then you may be able to catch up on some on the weekend. But the amount at the moment is pretty generous but I feel its flexibility is needed.

This is more of a hardcore game and GGG definitely tries to keep it that way, I dig it that's what I like because at heart I'm a hardcore gamer ( I don't want dumb it down for the masses the 8year olds cant finish it)

However with work and work,kids,school and all sorts other things a game has to be able to cater for all and I think Poe balances it all quite well. Without a player base there is no game and catering to the minority isn't the best business model.

You would be lucky if even 5% of the player base is no lifers streaming/playing all/every day (which I enjoy to watch, not having a dig) if that. They will be the only ones going for ladder spots.

Then there is the (probably 60%) casual players who some are just having a bit a bit of a go at POE in general, not to interested in anything but enjoying the game for themselves.


then the other guys (maybe around 20%) that are hardcore, dedicated and informed/educated on the game mechanics...but just don't have time unfortunately to be in the same situation as streamers and people with more free time.
But still have a serious go at getting top10 in races that are viable for their schedules.

Then some mixture of fresh starters and others ~15% that post the whole time, What is this? where do my items go, How do i get points, When did this start? my WASD keys don't work.

so keep them races coming and times all over the place. The severs are up 24/7 doesn't mean you have to play the whole time either does it?

I'm only OK at racing but I agree with everything asdfman said.

I like the suggested solution of limiting how many races you can enter into in a given week - or possibly, instead, just only counting your points from your "best" x weight worth of finishes in a given week.

Racing is fun, but the current system has too much focus on grinding and too little on improving your skills.