End of season feedback
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My thoughts on season 10. Context: mid-tier racer (reached 500pts), job, married
Overall: Good, possibly my favorite season yet Sig race: 90 minutes was fine, but that should be the max length for a sig, imo, with something around 80 being ideal - long enough for skill to win out, short enough to get better participation. When I saw the alt art Bringer in season 9, I was crushed when I then saw the 2-hr length of the sig. For many of us with a full-time job and a wife and/or family, two hours is simply too big of a chunk, in an already-short weekday evening, to reasonably set aside multiple times per week. Fixed seed - I think it's the right choice for a sig, although with the new cheat detection it may no longer be necessary. I think Brutal was a good mod - more difficult, but not so difficult as to frighten off new racers. Schedule: GGG seemed to identify the two "prime-time" playing timeframes, as evidenced by their PVP Event schedules - evening NA and evening EU. The race season, however, had a huge density of races while NA was asleep and EU was at work. Why not that number during "prime time" instead? Number of "fun" races vs Descent Champs: I prefer to have more of a 2nd, non-sig race type (Descent Champs this season), while still having a few of the other types mixed in. My reason for this is purely from the standpoint of improving as a racer. As someone who isn't the most naturally talented racer yet slowly improves, having a large number of two different types of races is the best way to get better, since you have more chances to compare previous performance to current, and to identify those areas in which you can or need to improve. I do understand that more of a variety of "fun" races probably keeps the season a bit more fresh/interesting for casual racers and those already at the top, but I think for those like me in the middle, whose main goal is to improve, the current way is preferable. I think Descent Champs and maybe Descent are fine choices for this, rather than Endless Ledge. Boss kill races: Great addition. I think it is a lot of fun to be able to go full yolo for the best possible time, yet still salvage a few pts by rerolling and killing the boss if you die. The extended length of time also allows the more casual racer to get some consistent points by killing the boss and reaching max level at their own pace. Length/rewards: I preferred the longer season, but am OK with this length. I do think that at the current season length there should be another reward in the lower point area. 500/1000 pt rewards: GGG's choice to put the desirable alt-art item at 500 pts rather than 1000 is understandable. Given the cost, it seems to make sense that they'd rather see 100 people be able to use the item than 10. Although, if I were in the top 10, I might see that differently :) Next season suggestions: More of the same, but with better race times. | |
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Keep the variety, bring back the old Descent (improved) and design a race specifically for competitive racing and I might just start playing again.
GGG put so much effort into PvP (justified or not, doesn't matter), now it's time to put some extra effort into racing. #1 Victim of Murphy's Law.
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I know i wasn't really racing extensively this season, but i think i can still give some feedback.
tl;dr
Storyline Races:
Brutal was kinda eh? Felt like a heavily watered-down Lethal Turbo. Nothing too exciting, but i think that was intended. Turbo/Fixed/Rogue are fine, can't really give much feedback about those because i find docks races boring to begin with and thus didn't really play many of those. I personally missed Immolation, it's one of the actually interesting modifiers instead of just "monsters deal more damage" and "monsters are more likely to desync". I heard Exiles Everywhere is fun, maybe if my potato laptop wouldn't freeze when more than two exiles are loaded i could join the fun and give some feedback. Non-Storyline Races: Those were always my favorites, and even though i won't keep my hopes up high, i'd like to see more race types that don't follow the coregame act progression. Descent:Champions is my favorite race type (yeah, call me casual, idc) and i was happy to see it's back, but it's sadly still Descent:Swords. Maybe if you could buff the bow for melee and the wand for archers it would be more balanced, or even better, please just restrict Blood of Summers Frenzy bonus to attacks. Aside from that, not much to say. 40min duration is perfect for this particular race type. I really missed vanilla Descent, and to a lesser extent even Endless Ledge. Bosskill Races: I'm with Terrex on those, until Merveil is fine, a Vaal one would be a good addition but everything beyond that is just kinda not motivating. And Brutus kill is just a demi burst. But this race format has potential, you could mix it with fun stuff like Immolation or a Brutus BLAMT to spice things a bit up. Burst Races: It was cool to see more variation with bursts, but the 4x 24min ones were simply too long. Descent bursts were fun, the regular 12min bursts still very ledge-rng heavy. Avians & Gulls are extremely annoying to begin with, and it's not getting any better if you have to deal with them within a very limited timeframe. Goats tend to desync a lot, it's ok in climb because there's more room to evade them, but on a tight ledge it can get very risky and either slow you down too much, or kill you. Cheating in Races: It felt like this season had the highest amount of fishy players so far. Maybe because Alpha's Howl was tempting, maybe because the chosen race types were more cheat-friendly than EL last season. It's good to see GGG finally taking action since the racing community publicly brought attention to the issue (and with that, unfortunately also awareness about the magic skill tool and more cheaters to begin with), but there's more that has to be done than just punishment at the end of season. In atleast one very obvious case, someone simply hudded his way to 2x 500pt rewards on alt accounts to do who knows what with them. And with the decision of non-3d 1k rewards this kind of behaviour will most likely carry on to future seasons. twitch.tv/enki91 Last edited by Enki91 on Jan 23, 2015, 9:33:29 AM
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Thank you all for the detailed feedback!
" Do you mean the 24 minutes was too long a duration, or the fact that there were 4 over 2 hours was too much? Gameplay & Level Design
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Overall S10 definitely was an improved feeling over S9. Hoping for that Descent. :D
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" The ladder. 24min burst duration seemed to work well, but i feel like two instead four of them in a row would fit better. twitch.tv/enki91
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" Agreed. This seemed self-evident and that feedback was already given at the start of the season. SC: 95 97 93 96 100 93 94 93 94 95 96 97 94 93 94
HC RIP: 94 96 Character archive: view-thread/963707 | |
" does this mean, the majority of the items will be jewelry/flask based? or can there still be boots but they just will not receive the 3d art? im assuming 4 of the 6 items are strictly going to be jewelry/flasks because precedent for all other item types (weapons, armors etc) having 3d effects has been established. -HeaT youtube.com/heatfury
twitch.tv/heatzgaming | |
" well previously they COULD get 3d reward because there was more of them and at lower point levels. now not so much, so i dont see how "this is what they want" in its current state. i mean in season 8 you could get 3 3d art items within 80 points, now you can get 0. and youre saying this is what casuals want? i was just want to make sure i understood that correctly. -HeaT youtube.com/heatfury twitch.tv/heatzgaming Last edited by HeaT1 on Jan 22, 2015, 3:39:51 PM
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" I was strictly referring to the top two rewards in a season. Given the choice of a 3d item being at 1k or 500/600 pts, the casual racer will want the latter. Last edited by boof on Jan 22, 2015, 5:40:49 PM
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