SEASON 9, what happened?

I believe there are many who need a post to vent about all the frustrations with season 9, so I decided to start this thread to put my comments, and hopefully everyone will add and GGG can hear what we think of Season 9.

First, a brief preamble; I am sure that everyone, including myself, who posts here are huge fans of GGG and POE in general, so this is not a hater thread. That being said, this is my lengthiest negative post for POE.

Ok, Season 9 is under way, and there are almost too many disappointments to count, I'm gonna countdown my top 10 disappointments based on what I have read so far and, of course, how i feel. Please feel free to agree/disagree or add any things you may dislike, or even like about season 9.

#10------------
Where's the variety?

Past seasons have had much variation in all the events in the season, with great inventiveness. Having events that could be done in 12minutes, to having events like BLAMT. This season seems to have a focus on events that are too long or too BLAH.

#9-------------
2 hour signature

Many of us try to carve out time in our schedules to do the races, but a 2 hour hardcore? For the amateurs among us, this is just painful, not only is it difficult to find the time for the event, but it's also a famine (not a crowd favourite for starters) and when you die before the 2 hours are up, you just wasted all your time for a likely 0 point race.

#8-------------
Length of events

This is kind of an amalgamation of 10 and 9. But c'mon, we are all thinking it, not only is the signature 2hours, but there is a 4hour kill Piety. I don't know what people these events are pandering to, because as far as I know, nobody has as much free time as these events assume.

#7-------------
De-sync

Now I know this isn't just a season 9 issue, but it still deserves to be noted. It's bad enough that you can spend an hour in an event to get little to no points, but it's even worse when you die because of classic de-sync. Everyone who has been playing POE for a while knows that this is the BIGGEST general issue that everyone would like to see resolved, but for reasons that are not worth the time it takes explaining, this seems to be an issue that will haunt us forevermore.

#6-------------
No PvP

Still no PvP events. This is something that should have been implemented almost from the get go. Find me an mmo game, and I'll find you some sort of PvP that has a reward system. Why is there no PvP tournament implemented into the season. There are definitely many ways to do this (ie. everyone starts at lvl 5 with equivalent equip, winners move on, losers start over, this goes on till the timer expires, or something to this sort, this is off the top of my head).

#5-------------
RNGesus

RNG is a part of the game, we get it, but for races? It should at least be neutralized to a certain extent. It's great if you got RNGesus on your side, but when you're 40minutes through endless ledge, and you still have small flasks, well, c'mon. These are supposed to be races based on skill, but there is a huge disparity for success when you can't get a good roll.

#4-------------
The Rich get Richer

Every Event rewards the more experienced players at least threefold. They get the chance at the #1 spot, they get bonuses for completing quests first, they get bonuses for killing bosses first/clearing zones. Now, I'm not saying the best players don't deserve rewards, but where is the motivation for the rookies and veterans? We can hope to get a random artwork item, which is usually a junk item anyhow. The trickle down system doesn't work in real life, or here.

#3-------------
What Point Distribution?

Time=Money. Plain and simple. We have to invest multiple hours for 3-5 points? Hell, even if you are one of the better players you can look forward to investing all your time for a shot at the #1 spot, with 4hour, 2hour and 2hour events in one day, plan on spending at least 8 hours a day to have a shot at the top rankings overall. Furthermore, the point ranking isn't even balanced; i have to reach lvl 38 for a 2hour fixed seed famine in order to get 10 points, but i have to get to lvl 40 in a 3hour party to get that same 10points. Not sure of the logic there.

#2-------------
I had a hard time deciding which issue should be number one, it was a close call but ultimately i decided that number 2 had to be:

Where did 1h Descent and 40m Descent Champions go?

Easily the favourite races of most POE Players, and they just up and vanish??? This is by far the most baffling decision made by GGG. Was GGG worried that people would realize how much more awful 2hour Fixed Seed Famine was if 40m Descent Champions was still around? I'm not gonna invest much time in explaining how great descent was, because those who know already know. Suffice to say that those who missed season 8, "tis' better to never loved at all, than to love and lost".

#1-------------
Prizes? We don't need no stinking prizes.

I don't think i need to say too much about why this is the number one disappointment, so let me be brief. Ultimately, the point of the season is to win prizes. I'm not gonna spend my time and money playing a carnival game to win a ColecoVision, if I already own one and I've been saving up for a PS4/XBOX ONE.

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Well, that's my list of what's wrong with this season; please agree/disagree, like/dislike, and add your thoughts in general.

9th race season rewards are joke
its literally for fun not rewards

Yeah the rewards are pretty half assed

rewards were always that way - poor. por traders these were few extra chaos or maybe even exalts, for long-timers - these were just another copy and for new players.. new players rarely got to 100+ points range as it was easier to get that particular item by doing what this game is all about - trading

so the rewards are an issue only for the greedy ones

but what stinks is the point efficiency of the races. sorry but 4h races + points only count if you not die + low points values == no lifers dream. casuals or even semi-casuals have nothing to look here

i wanted to race this season, had a COMPLETELY different vision of 'timed events' than what ended up being implemented but i honestly see no reason

2 years of racing and we still start in a1n? is there anyone who finds it fun?

I thought the point was to have fun. While I do admit this season lacks variety, especially the BLAMT kind. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the point system take length into account. It should, but races are about fun, not prizes.

"

SL4Y3R wrote:

I thought the point was to have fun. While I do admit this season lacks variety, especially the BLAMT kind. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see the point system take length into account. It should, but races are about fun, not prizes.

Problem is that racing is not fun its boring

"

sidtherat wrote:

2 years of racing and we still start in a1n? is there anyone who finds it fun?

Season 9 it's socio-behavioural experiment (someone at GGG must be studying in this field and doing a diploma research or something)

First starve & beat out the population with the horrid season 9 and then save the day with a "re-balanced, we listened to your feedback" season 10 (which wont even need to be as good as seasons 8, 7, 6... for people to like it)

GGG youo so nice, listening to people feedback and correcting mistakes, thank you, I'm not worthy... *eats from hand*


First invent a problem, then fix it :P

Agree on all points. +Would add time of race for EU players.

A bit less sarcastic response:

I've mostly joined Desc:Champs, Ledge & short 1hr or less vanilla races (I did well in 'turbo' ones).

Why?

1.) because firstly D:C & Ledge are much more fun that vanilla
2.) because of point distribution, the shorter the race, the more efficient is your time investment
3.) and because with races that last about 1hr you (mostly) don't need to build your daily life around PoE

This season goes completely against casual players (and semi-casual, like me), catering solely to no-lifers.

The big question is, how can GGG afford to develop content for 20 people? Maybe they feel FM was too "casual friendly" and they need to introduce some content for extreme nolifers?? But even then, they did not need to completely exclude casuals from the picture.

I don't see _ANY_ Exiles Everywhere. Makes me sad as hell