Season One and Race feedback

I like those outside the box reward ideas someone just posted.

Likes:
-Short races (<=2 hours)
-Special rules
-Reasonable balance of luck and skill

Dislikes:
-Boring to always start from Act 1 Normal
-Instance Manager
-Turbo races

Suggestions:
-Have more starting points than just Act 1 Normal
-Disable Instance Manager
-Lower the target level when combining map mods together, but do more combinations with 3+ rules, too
-"Short" races spanning long time periods. For example, a week-long race may have a 48 hour budget when you actually get to race. The 48 hours do not have to be continuous.
-Different race evaluators besides time. For example, furthest zone to reach with under 1000 monster kills.
-Race rules that change the game in different ways than just buffing monsters. For example, "no swords" rule where 1H weapons do not spawn: everyone has to use bow or 2H. Another would be to have different rules on the passive tree like start from different points, blacking out certain skills, or getting more points when you level up.

I would like to see more shorter races, preferably less than two hours long. I don't see why there couldn't be something like 90 or 100 minute races. Three hour races can get pretty straining towards the end.

There should be even more prices on the low end of the point scale. Currency items here and there won't hurt the economy so much, especially with so much multiboxing going on anyway.

And for me at least the latency seems to peak always at the time of races, making them quite annoying to participate in, even from Finland. Otherwise I have pretty decent latency when playing.

Liked:

- Race frequency. In closed beta, we were promised a race a day come open beta, and we got much more than that. Multiple daily races is good stuff!

- Alt art rewards. Nice to have race-exclusive items that arent restricted to winner-only.

- New modes. Granted, most were just various forms of monster damage increase, but they do a good job of breaking the standard race strats and keeping players on their toes.

- Seasonal ladder and reward points system. I dont think they were implimented all that well, but theyre a good start.


Disliked:

- Race type distribution. Far too many 1 hour races, as theyre extremely luck dependant and allow for much less build diversity than longer races. I think their comparative rarity during closed beta was better.

- Removal of orb rewards. I think this is the #1 reason for the vastly reduced turnouts compared to closed beta- theres just so little incentive for a mediocre (or worse) player to participate now. The immediate useful rewards also made doing multiple races feel less like a grind. The side quests (first clear/kill) were much more appealing when they were worth almost as many orbs as the top level threshold as well- the 2 points they give now is about as underwhelming as they could get.

- The hillock reward making it out of closed beta. Only one class can win it (class may change depending on format- shadow is the standard winner, while ranger will always win in lethal etc, but theres still never actual competition betweem the classes) and its completely random which player of the favored class wins. Should have been replaced with something else a long time ago.


Changes id like to see:

- /myclass command: Displays players current rank within their own class ladder.

- /myladder command: Displays players current rank on the overall ladder.

- /ffa command: Sets the players own loot to ffa. This means everyone else in the party has access to the /ffa users loot immediately, with no loot timer. Perfect for a cooperative party who shares everything and doesnt want to be slowed down by loot timers, yet isnt abusable and has no negative effects on anyone who doesnt wish to use it.

- Death notifications made visible with global chat disabled.

- More first kill / first clear quests. Ultimately every quest boss and side area should have a large reward, and all the non-boss uniques (firefury, oozeback bloom etc) should have small rewards.

- Progression based races. Preferably at least half of future seasons short-term events would be based on furthest zone reached as opposed to highest level achieved.

- Seperate season ladders for party and solo events. Different prizes too if possible!

- Solo long term (1 week to 1 month) events with trading disabled.

- More alternate race modes. As mentioned previously in the thread, modes where the character doesnt empty into the main leagues would be great, as they would allow for much more interesting mods and settings without damaging the main leagues economies. Modes with different monster spawns (pre-randomized for the entire event, so some players dont get much better spawns than others) would be fun too. Plenty of possibilities here.

- Vendors guaranteed to stock basic white items appropriate to the players level. Losing because the vendor refused to carry coral rings for the first 4 levels or never spawned flask upgrades etc is almost as bad as going down to desync. I appreciate that theres a large rng component to races, but the vendor randomness, coupled with the inability to craft many basic required items (again, corals and flasks are great examples), takes the rng a bit too far.


Conclusion:

I appreciate all the effort you guys have put into the races and events- theyre by far my favorite aspect of the game. The race scene sure has come a long way from the pair of 2 hour party events each week we had half a year ago in closed beta! So if any of my feedback- in this thread or in previous race reports- seems excessively critical or harsh, i assure you its only given with the best of intentions.

I may EDIT this if i remember / think of anything else worth adding.

1) Taylor race rewards for the type of event.
2) A few more varied race times. (specifically looking for 1-2 a week starting at 8pm EST)
3) More 2 hour races.
- I understand the top 20 players "just farm western, its boring" but there are more people playing these races then them. Most times in a 1-hour, I get anywhere between Brutus and Marveil depending on type, which makes 1-hours really bland. A lot of people not competing for top-20 have a lot of fun in 2-hour races. I am one of them. 3-hours are nice, but a little too much of a time commitment for a guy with a 14 hour a day job, wife and 2 kids.

Also, I'd love to see points for side areas so I am not only competing for points for a certain level.

For instance:
1 point (or a currency award) for clearing Merveil in a 1-hour.
currency award for clearing side areas (can be random, but exclude exalts/GCPs etc.)

Just something to do for the hundreds of people who love races, but will never get first kills or top 20. Rewards can be small, It would just be fun to have other objectives.

Lastly, I like the suggestion that you can trade in extra points at the end of a season for some small rewards. If you make say the 60 point tier, and have 80 points, you can trade in your 20 points for some currency or something.

Same idea, more small rewards that guys who arent Kripp and crew can achieve so we arent reduced to just leveling a character for a few points, and watching the top of the ladder wishing I didnt have a 2 year old jumping on me for just 1 hour......

Please dont implement currency rewards, winners are getting masses of Demigods they can turn into currency anyways.

Also, consider holding multiple race events at the SAME time, so other people might have a chance at winning too.

That is all :)

"

MyH4o wrote:

Here are some things that I look forward in Season 2

- /classladder !!! - come on that's like imperative to have.
- Separated ladders for solo and party races - I'd be curious to see how many exaclty are gettin carried in parties playin the ice nova witch//templar.
- Less party races (3hrs in general) - now really its the same parties - kripp/nugi/inva lets call em - grindin docks till eternity.
- More 2h races - where did they go seriously
- Adjusting lvl requirments for harder races
- No Hillock first reward - really cmon now - reward for the one that crits more?
- New type of races - 1:30h, 50mins? Progression races??
- Turbo week race
- Solo week race

- New reward system - the uniques may remain - don't care bout em, but surely an addition of microtransaction points or currency or something should be there too at the very least.

Add simultaneous solo and party races forcing players to choose what type they want to play, full progression races and so on. More week races with mods or limitations like solo would be a welcome change as well, preferably overlapping party week races to push players to chose which ladder they compete in.

Splitting the focus from one ladder to class, party and solo will also spread the wealth reward wise from these races and as such add some incentive to compete, as it stands now you're lucky to not get desync gibbed and score some points for your efforts, not the best of motivation.

One could even go as far as limiting players from winning more than one demi per race mod and season, in an effort to keep the carrot in reach for a wider spectrum of players while adding a bit on uncertainty as to who will win it. The end rewards for getting top X in the individual ladders should obviously be really sweet to compensate for the change to the individual race rewards.


This is a copy past from another thread just to get the feedback in the right place, hence might seem a bit out of place with the quoted post and what not.

"

Crimson_Bishop wrote:

And for fun, there could be weird consolation prizes, like highest level to die or last person to die before the end

or "first player to die in mud flats", quite like this idea for a random price for some players per race.
could be implemented in a way that the requirements for winning this price are announced after the race ended.

liked the lethal league alot, had a fun party of 6 where only 2 made it to mud flats and one to the ledge. it wasn't me :)