Feedback for Season 4

- Add the various commands and features (myclass, myladder, onscreen countdown etc, some of which have been requested since closed beta) listed in the season 3 feedback thread wherever possible.

- Change the season points system from a quantity based model to a quality based model (elo or the like). This would allow a much larger selection of daily and total races without the current sentiment of feeling forced to participate in as many events as possible, as it would no longer be required to constantly grind races in order to acquire the top prizes or remain in the top 20.

- Bringing back orb rewards would provide solid reason for continued participation beyond achieving a top 20 rating, as well as good incentive for those with no interest in the season points system to race.

- A more even spread of race durations would be good, ie equal amounts of 60, 90, 120, 135, 150 and 180 minute races, with anything under 60 or over 180 minutes being the random outliers. Solo 1-2 week events (also much requested since closed beta) and more fixed-seed (some also with fixed-spawns) events would be welcomed as well.

- Include rogue exiles in more events. They do an excellent job of making the zones more dynamic and preventing grinding from being too easy or getting stale, and theyre also great for allowing the player to mitigate poor gear/rolls/drops at the cost of some time and risk.

- Consider leaving the signature league permanently open with no participation limits. In addition to allowing players to mitigate the potential (overwhelming) randomness of the mode (descent was terrible for this), a permanent event league would provide a great alternative to grinding in the main leagues between other races.

- Recommendation for the season 4 signature event: 135 minute fixed-seed ancestral rogue solo.

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- Add the various commands and features (myclass, myladder, onscreen countdown etc, some of which have been requested since closed beta) listed in the season 3 feedback thread wherever possible.

You forgot the long requested solo ladder and party ladder.

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- Change the season points system from a quantity based model to a quality based model (elo or the like). This would allow a much larger selection of daily and total races without the current sentiment of feeling forced to participate in as many events as possible, as it would no longer be required to constantly grind races in order to acquire the top prizes or remain in the top 20.

Imo it would be better to fill the shedule via shift plan with 42 races a week and only score the best 10-14 races.

An Elo based ranking might really mess up the ladder if a good player likes to play Blamt and he happens to die several times in Lower/Upper Prison for example.

A shedule like Season 3 is a No Go especially since it has no deeper idea, so it happens that all but 2 CT events were EU unfriends but US friendly.
Or there was the same race mode twice a week in the same slot like 2x 3h party in the 5th Eu slot during a week.

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- Bringing back orb rewards would provide solid reason for continued participation beyond achieving a top 20 rating, as well as good incentive for those with no interest in the season points system to race.

This will only happen if the player base has shrunk back to 150 players, so Season 5 or 6 in case A3x isn't released by then.

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- A more even spread of race durations would be good, ie equal amounts of 60, 90, 120, 135, 150 and 180 minute races, with anything under 60 or over 180 minutes being the random outliers. Solo 1-2 week events (also much requested since closed beta) and more fixed-seed (some also with fixed-spawns) events would be welcomed as well.

I would prefer 120 or 150 min over 135 min because a race ending at XX:15 is quiet weird.
In one Signature race I attempted to clean the catacombs instead of progressing to docks because I thaught I had enough time. In the end I failed finding one mob.

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- Include rogue exiles in more events. They do an excellent job of making the zones more dynamic and preventing grinding from being too easy or getting stale, and theyre also great for allowing the player to mitigate poor gear/rolls/drops at the cost of some time and risk.

While I agree with that I would prefer something like: Party Rogue Race-->6 exiles with 1 player HP exiles vs a party of six.

It's too easy to skip the exiles even in Turbo.

Another issue I see is the randomness of the exiles.
Early on the Melee or Hybrid exiles are quiet easy, but rangeds and casters are a pain in the ass.
During the lethal rogue I had ignis right at the start and had to kill her(5min)

On the worst races I had numerous ranged exiles at the beginning.
During the best races I had the shieldcharger, glacial hammer, summoner or multistrike puncture exile many times.


I would prefer it if the exiles had their skills limited at the beginning such as no GMP or LMP at under level 11 taking those head on is over 70% damage and a one shot on crit.
On higher levels the weaker exiles like casters should gain abilities like Frostbite, elem weakness etc.

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- Consider leaving the signature league permanently open with no participation limits. In addition to allowing players to mitigate the potential (overwhelming) randomness of the mode (descent was terrible for this), a permanent event league would provide a great alternative to grinding in the main leagues between other races.

Not a good idea unless you want the usual players invest weeks into getting Top3 results on each class.
Unless you had to pay RP to participate more than x times a week this will be dead really fast.

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- Recommendation for the season 4 signature event: 135 minute fixed-seed ancestral rogue solo.

Like I said I don't really like those 15 minutes because they give you a wrong feeling for remaining time.

But I would like to see something different instead of rushing A1-A3 all the time.
The signature event even might be 30 min CT solo, with a 2 player each instance limit.
I also like the idea of wipe races.

I didn't really like descent because of a heavy unbalance which was nothing but hoping for certain drops.
Did I have a 2h weapon--->Take Rings else take weapon chest.
Did resist rings drop or alching rings gave resist-->take the other chest.

This removed the options really fast and taking the currency chest was the right decision in most casts.


An interesting wipe race would be something like each player gets 80 Transmutes, 80 Alts, 30 Alchs, 20 chances, 20 scours, 80 jewelers, 40 fusings, 40 Chaos, 10 Regals, 20 exalted and 10 divines(remove only tab for certain character) into the chest and starts with a level 50 character in A2 merciless or somewhere in cruel.
This might sound like a luck based decision but rolling items costs much times and it might even happen, that a player ends up rolling 1h and has only 1h left to play.

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KoTao wrote:

- Add the various commands and features (myclass, myladder, onscreen countdown etc, some of which have been requested since closed beta) listed in the season 3 feedback thread wherever possible.

Definitely want a countdown timer + more commands like /classladder!!!!!!!!11111111

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KoTao wrote:

- Include rogue exiles in more events. They do an excellent job of making the zones more dynamic and preventing grinding from being too easy or getting stale, and theyre also great for allowing the player to mitigate poor gear/rolls/drops at the cost of some time and risk.

Rogue is pretty random for witch so I do not think it should be in competitive races much if at all.

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KoTao wrote:

Solo 1-2 week events (also much requested since closed beta) and more fixed-seed (some also with fixed-spawns) events would be welcomed as well.

Yes!!!!!!!!! (to solo week) About the fixed-seed though.. I feel like without the mob packs completely fixed also then I have an even lower chance of beating players. I know maps pretty well so non fixed seed gives me chance at winning even without good rng. If they can fix the map + packs then that would be perfect.

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KoTao wrote:

- Recommendation for the season 4 signature event: 135 minute fixed-seed ancestral rogue solo.

Take off rogue from that then I would be okay with it :/ Pretty much agree with everything except the rogue stuff. When I do shadow cleave rogue is okay but as witch its retarded.

135 is the perfect time for races in my opinion. 150 is too long and 120 is not long enough unless it is a normal race type.

Oh yeah.. More 135 minute solo races (just completely normal). It was the season 2 sig race and a lot of racers were wanting it back as the season 3 sig race. Descent was announced which was unexpected but still there should've been LOADS of 135 normal solo races in season 3.

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Powster wrote:

Oh yeah.. More 135 minute solo races (just completely normal). It was the season 2 sig race and a lot of racers were wanting it back as the season 3 sig race. Descent was announced which was unexpected but still there should've been LOADS of 135 normal solo races in season 3.

Just as Descent Races are welcome in Season 4.

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Hassefar60 wrote:

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Powster wrote:

Oh yeah.. More 135 minute solo races (just completely normal). It was the season 2 sig race and a lot of racers were wanting it back as the season 3 sig race. Descent was announced which was unexpected but still there should've been LOADS of 135 normal solo races in season 3.

Just as Descent Races are welcome in Season 4.

Only if heavily altered.

I like the rogues because they provide a huge counter to bad rng- kill 1-2 and youre mostly geared up, or have the trans/alts to craft/buy what you need. They also keep easy zones from being mindless facerolls. Not really concerned with their randomization since they can always be skipped.

135 mins makes a nice solo time because theres tension between grinding a2/sarn/docks depending on class and how well you play. Above 135 skews everything towards more and more docks grinding, while below 135 often allows easy a2 grind spots to compete with an a3 run.

I certainly dont want another 1 hour signature, especially something as random as descent.

I agree the party/solo ladders need to be split. This has also been requested since closed beta.

The elo idea was for competitive events only. I dont think blamt/12min/ct etc races should be worth points, btw; they should be restricted to immediate rewards like orbs and random alt art prizes.

The thing with fixed-spawns is that the devs would have to populate such races manually, or create an alternate monster spawning algorithm to prevent them from being broken. Last season i won 3 fixed seed 90 mins in a row by grinding the sins 2 boss, since he spawned 1 door from the waypoint and always came with a large pack of whites. Now imagine finding a 10+ strong blue pack there instead and its easy to see why fixed-spawn events would probably require quite a bit of effort to setup properly. That said, id love to see fixed-everything events with drops disabled at some point in the future.

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KoTao wrote:

- Recommendation for the season 4 signature event: 135 minute fixed-seed ancestral rogue solo.

I liked the rogue races as well, although some of the rogue spawn locations could ruin a race: unskippable or boss room.

I personally have no interest in "normal" races. The aren't interesting. There isn't much left to figure out on them.

Descent could be decent, but it needs some serious adjustments. IMO, remove the skill gem rng. Just make it so at the start you pick 2+ skills and 2+ supports from a full gem list. I went a full season without a single ice nova, and only 1 fire trap as a solid AOE drop as witch, which pretty much left me running 16-18 every time, without a chance at season overall. A decent racer can cope with shoddy rng, but relying on getting a certain skill to drop is bad mechanics. If you aren't going to properly balance a signature event prior to releasing it, for the love of god, please make it so adjustments can be made mid-season.

The races really should be designed to open up more creativity, opposed to forcibly restricting certain build. I like the reasonable, "fun" mods that change the game play mechanics without being silly (BM or lethal) Id like to have full skill options, but, I'm not really sure what the best way to accomplish this is, as the addition of streaming really makes the best strategies propagate far too quickly.

I despise the current reward structure, as I get nothing useful out of it, for various reasons:

- The rewards are mostly useless, they go to a "dead" league to rot until the long term ladders end.
- They are terribly biased towards certain classes, notably descent. A few points each race for level points adds up over a season. Find some way to neutralize this, as less competition in a class doesn't count for much, as every class has several "top" racers for it. (only reason I stuck with the witch is because there wasn't even a realistic chance to play enough races to get any addition awards anyway)
- The rewards are geared towards the few who have the ability to run most race. Being "good" doesn't anywhere near make up for sheer quantity. Find some way to use ELO or something, preferably within a given race format. Or have a fixed number of formats per season, and break down the ladders accordingly. Take the "competitive" "signature" and "fun" breakdown further, and proper. Have say 2 or 3 of each, and then solo/party of each of those, and distribute over the season accordingly. Adjust the number as you see fit to get a proper spread of events. Then take the top X finishes for a player, and rank that way, or even further, by class. Yes this will fragment the ladders, but it will help with the distribution of rewards. While there will still be a bias towards those who can play most/all events, as they will have more chances to do better. Instead of locking out those of us (kotao, hilbert, etc.) who are good racers from actually receiving the top awards strictly because they didn't run every freaking race.
- Make the shiny unique art a trade-able cosmetic skin, ala transactions. Playing only hardcore, the cool unique art is a one and done thing, forever rotting in hardcore stash, unwilling to lose it, or forever rotting in default. While I like the appeal of a trophy, what good is a trophy that rots in a closet (stash) because it can't actually be shown off.
- Make the rewards have a currency component (duh). This is tangible/functional, and appeals to players.

While I understand that theres something to be said for committing to playing as much as required to reach the top tier and doing well enough in enough events, there really really needs to be more emphasis on doing well over fewer events. There should be a sweet spot found for overall participation vs overall ability (?). Really, averaging 10 points a race requires 100 events to reach 1000 points (as a witch in descent...). However, the adjustment shouldn't be done on points per race, as that doesn't change the current dynamic away from more races = more season points.

Other random things.
- More longer weekish events.
- Pay attention to timing of events. 8 hours on a monday afternoon is stupid. A week event running saturday evening to saturday evening is stupid. Wastes 2 weekends.
- While descent signature event placing for the season attempts to place more emphasis on awarding a single event effort, the mechanics where so rng based the goal was lost. Nice addition, needs improvement.
- Not starting at level 1/normal would be a nice change of pace for some events. Variation adds to the replay value, imo. Again, descent was a nice improvement, but horribly flawed.

Make sure reave is in one of the first chests in descent for shadows.

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KoTao wrote:

Solo 1-2 week events

Also this, with trade disabled as well.

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FrAgGy wrote:

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Hassefar60 wrote:

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Powster wrote:

Oh yeah.. More 135 minute solo races (just completely normal). It was the season 2 sig race and a lot of racers were wanting it back as the season 3 sig race. Descent was announced which was unexpected but still there should've been LOADS of 135 normal solo races in season 3.

Just as Descent Races are welcome in Season 4.

Only if heavily altered.

I would not be surprised if the signature race of season 4 was an altered version of the Descent race. That said, I would play them with a smile even if they were exactly the same (though I agree that there is room for improvement).