One-Week Cut-Throat Event

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hscorpio wrote:

No testing league without some feedback:


Cutthroat was fun for about 90 minutes for me.

Because it was cutthroat, I wanted to cut some throats and therefore was planning a build that would get a very strong start. I went with the above-mentioned Freeze Pulse, Fire Trap, Bear Trap nonsense, which was quite decent.

I started invading people's instances after I killed Brutus and got a few kills.
It's noteworthy that the only useful item drops from these early kills are pretty much scrolls.
That leads to much the gear being left behind on the ground, so the victim to come back and pick up what's left. Well except all the actual good stuff will be gone. And the invader might still be there to kill you again. And he might pick up and sell your stuff anyway for good measure.


So killing someone will not actually get you ahead all that much, you get a few scrolls, maybe a slightly better rare armor piece.
But it comes with the risk of being killed yourself, which will strip you of all your scrolls, other currency you might have been carrying, your best rare items and of course a hefty sum of XP.

But all is well since you get to keep your gems, right?
Wrong.
Keeping gems doesn't actually mean you can use them. Since everything in the game has been itemized, from gear to currency to skills to the actual combination of those skills (links), loosing any part of those items will leave your character crippled or even unplayable.

Losing a 3-link early on can make the difference between having a fun character and having a helpless whimp.
And you can't even buy a new 3-link from a vendor since your scrolls just got donated.


After I lost my first duel, it was getting much harder to win any consequent encounters and it went downhill from there.

So long story short:
- Losing all your items in a game where everything is an item means you might as well make this a hardcore league.
- The reward of killing a player and getting a few useful items versus the risk of losing all your stuff is not worth it.
- The further in the game you advance, the more crippling losing your items becomes, as it's becoming more and more difficult to find replacement for your gear as requirements rise. This is especially true for links on items.


Then there are the obvious flaws which are a bit unrelated to the above:
- Dying to a monster will also mean you drop all your items, which means you might have to run through a BUNCH of areas to get you gear back, without having any gems equipped to use your skills.
IDK if this was intended...
- Allowing more than 2 players per instance is just asking for gank-squads to come in and raid hapless exiles. Or people calling friends for help once they get invaded, which further decreases the incentive to invade someone.
- Spell casters are heavily favored by circumstances, as losing your weapon on a weapon-based character is pretty much the end of it.
- The level gap which you are allowed to invade is way too high. A level 14 fighting a level 16 will already be a massive underdog, but might have a fighting chance. A level 21 invading a level 16 will just faceroll him and leave him with nothing. The advantage in gem level, gear and passives is just to much at that level.