Races: Unrealistic for Average gamers?

Same I have a job and family

This is because GGG is trying to use a single, schizophrenic point system instead of two separate point systems with different roles.

Point System 1: That Which Rewards Participation. This is to encourage the casuals to give racing a try and act as a consolation prize for casuals not placing high. This shouldn't look at your performance at all, just whether you played or not, and if you did give you some points. You play in a few races, you get a reward. You shouldn't have to play in every damn race to max this out; I'd say ten races in one season maxes you out. Done.

Point System 2: That Which Rewards Skill. This is to measure who did best over the course of the entire season in a competitive sense. This should look only at your performance, and not at easy crap like making it to level 7. Anyone can make it to level 7, so that's worth nothing; getting even 1 point here means epicness.

What happens when you try to be schizophrenic about your point system and have it do both jobs at once is people need to do more than just participate, which hurts casuals, and no-lifers grind their way to the top, which hurts the people who are skilled. The winners in the end are those who have no lives.

Same with me, I want to play descent mode, but because of the schedule, i wont be able to even try it for 5 days.

I love PoE, but unless they rework the reward system and schedule of descent I wont find the need to do any races. Having a growing family with kids makes it hard to enjoy PoE's race system.

Maybe instead of using race rewards to choose 1 item out of 10, ggg should organize every unique item in the game into rewards of different cost and different leagues.

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warbalin wrote:

I bought my windscreams for 2 chaos and they were a top roll...
The rewards with high amounts of points are not meant for the average player because if they were, there would be a huge inflation in the items.

I am well aware of that. But I just wished it seemed possible that if I worked hard enough that I would be able to get them. I'm also still figuring out prices, so I'm a tad wary of trading and buying with other people. I just can't figure out how much sockets and links bring up the price of items.

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FuliginCloak wrote:

Race because it is fun, whatever happened to that? I am just an average player, with only a little time to give to the game, but I enjoy races. I don't dream of getting the highest levels of prizes because I know that I'm not putting near as much effort and time into that others are. What's so wrong about that? Why must we have events which are so watered down that mediocrity can attain honour? Why can't we just play for the best we can do ourselves? Sheesh.

If you enjoy doing that, then go for it, no one's stopping you. People play for different reasons, and it is something to be respected. I respect your reasons of skill and honor, while my reasons to play are to theory craft, have fun and feel rewarded for putting in my best effort, and with the race system, I don't feel like I'm getting much back for my best effort. The problem is, the races seem like they were designed so that only the top players get anything out of it, while the rest of the community is left with an empty feeling that they should give up because they won't get anywhere and won't end up earning any prizes. Does that sound fun to you? I applaud you for being able to push past that and continue to play your best, but this isn't my idea of fun. And why would you play a game, that was designed to be fun if it's not fun?

I want to race, and the idea of an event-based competition in an ARPG excites me, but after seeing the minuscule amount of points awarded, it just felt depressing.

Its unrealistic to get the high tier prizes but I just like to play the races because it gives a switch up from the same old day in and day out grind of normal game.

I only average 3 points a race and I'm happy, only shooting for like 30-40 points tops this season.

Why should it be possible for an average gamer to get all prizes? What would be the goal for the hardcore gamers?
I think it's ok the way it is know. Every player can get some of the rewards. I won't race that much, so i'm aiming for the first three prizes and i'm happy with that.
In my opinion the prizes should be something special and not available for everyone.

It's worth noting that the uniques are really not all that amazing. They're nice for sure, but they're certainly not vital.

Even for casuals I feel the 220 rewards point axe would be fairly easy to obtain. Also bare in mind that there's the random chance that you get an alternate art unique just for taking part (Although to be fair it's for the first 3 VERY easy to obtain rewards).

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TehHypocrite wrote:

If you enjoy doing that, then go for it, no one's stopping you. People play for different reasons, and it is something to be respected. I respect your reasons of skill and honor, while my reasons to play are to theory craft, have fun and feel rewarded for putting in my best effort, and with the race system, I don't feel like I'm getting much back for my best effort.

I'm not sure what you are referring to from my message in regards to what I prefer (if anything I'd say my enjoyment of the game is closer to what you self-describe), but my argument is that honour should only be attained by the obsessive and the excellent, not be built on a gradient where even someone like me, a mediocrity (if by focus in life if not by innate skill) could max out the reward system. That cheapens the reward system for everyone. Sure, we all get our stuffed bear at the end of the day, but who is really proud of their stuffed bear if everyone around them also has one? The point of a prize (in this case, the entire sweep of uniques) is to distinguish yourself for it, if you make the prize applicable to "the masses" then it ceases to be a prize and turns into something else... a marketing gimmick with a "we all can be winners!" level of smarm.

I do not agree with you that playing the game as one will has much to do with this topic, however. Or, let me put it this way: I do not think that is one of the problems with PoE. If anything this game goes way out of its way to make itself appealing to a wide variety of gamers. There is much territory to be covered here, and one can spend far too much time trying to cover it. The whole concept of participating in races at all is just one component of its flexibility as a gaming system. A drought of flexibility, or even a wilful attempt to suppress it, is nobody's argument here, so I'm not sure why you are opening with that rebuttal.

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The problem is, the races seem like they were designed so that only the top players get anything out of it...

Precisely the point of having a scale of prizes. The low level stuff is for people who only get a chance to play a few times a week if that, the middle-level stuff are for gamers who put a solid amount of time into the game, and the top flight stuff is for well, top flight gamers what put as much time into PoE as most mortals put into their careers.

Do you really, honestly think that those who put that much of their lives into racing should be getting the same silly blue ribbon that everyone else at the carnival got just for showing up?

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...while the rest of the community is left with an empty feeling that they should give up because they won't get anywhere and won't end up earning any prizes. Does that sound fun to you?

Absolutely. I'll take a challenge that I cannot beat, with a series of attainable goals I can beat, over some tepid contest that anyone with half a brain and twelve hours a month can beat. Give me something to really pit myself against, at the level of cunning, mechanical mastery and stamina—that's what PoE is about.

Full disclosure: I average about two or three points a game, if that. I pretty much come in at the lowest level bracket, sometimes second lowest, and maybe I'll get a top 10 or top 20 if I play an unpopular class in the middle of the night. But for me racing is all about beating my personal best and picking a spot on the season prize pool to shoot for. If I hit that spot, I'm more than happy. If not, well, I can try harder next time.

What I definitely do not want, and appreciate GGG for, is to be patted on the back like a good boy, and handed a dumb lollipop because, gosh darn it, at least I tried. This is an entirely different school of game design that you are referring to. I'd rather not see PoE descend into the Everyone Wins + Achievements realm, do you?

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Knowledged3 wrote:

It's worth noting that the uniques are really not all that amazing. They're nice for sure, but they're certainly not vital.

Yeah, I get the feeling they don't want the race prizes to be game-winners, and rightly so. The idea to use alternate artwork for the pieces is a great idea. It gives the items prestige without making them super valuable for their stats—you'd be more inclined to hang on to your prizes and thus cause them to continue to function as prizes, if the aesthetic qualities of it are superior to the functional qualities: id est, a prize.

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Knowledged3 wrote:

It's worth noting that the uniques are really not all that amazing. They're nice for sure, but they're certainly not vital.

Even for casuals I feel the 220 rewards point axe would be fairly easy to obtain. Also bare in mind that there's the random chance that you get an alternate art unique just for taking part (Although to be fair it's for the first 3 VERY easy to obtain rewards).

Oh, trust me gettin 220 points is anything but an easy task. True - if you play like 120+ out of the 160 races it will be easy but the ppl who gonna play that kind of amount of races are anything but casuals ;D

Improving how many points you get per race is extremely easy. Watch top racer stream vods, read my act 1 general racing guide etc. After a bit of practice a person could easily go from average to a level where they are right behind the top racers. Which would give more points for higher level + more points for higher rank in class.