Practice races

Please let us load up and play practice runs of the different race formats.

I don't see why I can't make a character, practice a decent/turbo/blamt/etc and when I die or the time limit runs out the character is just automatically wipe.

It would help us compete with the 24/7 gamers out there by being able to train for races.

I don't know of any other competitive event where participants are barred from training/practicing.

The only format you can practice with is the normal non modified race.

Nah, it'd ruin the excitement if everyone could just practice Descent over and over.

And it'd create a much bigger divide between the top and bottom players.

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bluescrn wrote:

Nah, it'd ruin the excitement if everyone could just practice Descent over and over.

And it'd create a much bigger divide between the top and bottom players.

I don't think he was referring to Descent, I think he was talking about all the turbo/ancestral/blamt format races.

I agree with the OP, minus descent I would love to practice different formatted races. I only enjoy racing in this game and being able to practice different formats sounds a lot more fun to me than doing maps.

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bluescrn wrote:

Nah, it'd ruin the excitement if everyone could just practice Descent over and over.

This.

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Trefanos wrote:

It would help us compete with the 24/7 gamers out there by being able to train for races.

But then the "24/7 gamers" would just train 24/7, thus further increasing the gap between yourself and the "24/7 gamer".

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Trefanos wrote:

I don't know of any other competitive event where participants are barred from training/practicing.

The only format you can practice with is the normal non modified race.

Your second statement disqualifies the first. You can train, just like everyone else.

Honestly, if they allowed people to select all those different game types, it would kill the novelty of racing. I think this would be a bad idea.

I was referring to all races but I especially think it would be fun as hell to be able to load up a blamt session whenever I like.

I have to disagree with the notion that it would widen the gap between the top and the bottom. There will always be a gap between the top tier racers and your average player, however; there is much more room for improvement on the bottom end than there is up top so the gap, in my view, would shrink.

In the last decent race, the average player level was 7.93 and the top player made it to a level of 23. I'm guessing that if it were possible to practice then the top player might improve a couple of levels but your regular average player would be able to double their level.

I also don't think it would lessen the excitement at all. The excitement comes from knowing if you screw up you don't get a second chance to get those points and the messages saying such and such hit zone x and realizing you are either that far behind or are closer than you thought. There could even be an argument made that it would increase the excitement for people who practice because they have that much more invested into the race.

I'm guessing your average racer can't be at the computer 24/7 to hit a lot of the races. Being able to practice would give these players more screen time to improve their game. Again, I'm going by the idea that the room for improvement is far greater on the bottom of the spectrum.

Finally, I have to disagree that it would kill the novelty of racing. If anything, I think it would heighten it by giving more people the belief that they might be in the race.

I realize this is all pretty subjective on both ends of the argument and appreciate the constructive discussion.

Practice races are an excellent idea. The level of competition in live races would rise considerably and we would have a fun diversion from main league grinding during event downtime.

I'm sure they're holding out for when you can buy your own leagues. You can buy a blamt or whatever practice league then.

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boof wrote:

I'm sure they're holding out for when you can buy your own leagues. You can buy a blamt or whatever practice league then.

But.. wouldn't that be pay-to-win? :-)

I suppose it would be, but having a system where you can create your own leagues for money but putting restrictions on race modifiers would be pretty nonsensical. We'll see what they do.

A good compromise would be to release a practice Descent that ends after the Statue zone (i.e. end of normal). Top players already get there in <20 minutes, but it would be very good practice for newer players, and in real races they would get the excitement of actually going to Cruel.