Season Three, Event 1: Descent

"

Mathil wrote:

"

KoTao wrote:

A chance to start without a weapon in a race: Best rng ever.

I have to wonder again: Did this actually get tested? Because unless these people claiming to have started weaponless are trolling, it sure doesnt look like it.

Just real quick, no I was not trolling. I legit popped that start chest and got burning arrow, split arrow and 2 wisdom scrolls I think it was. I punched to death like 10 cobras and got a dagger out of one of em. Then stabbed my way through the first zone with default attack.

Damn. I seriously hope this is a bug.

"

KoTao wrote:

What was i expecting? Enough gcps to 20% 1-2 gems by the end of the event, enough chances, alchs and chaos to be dressed in full rares halfway through, greatly increased unique, divine, exalt, eternal and mirror drop rates, a much larger and guaranteed selection of starting and set chest gems and whites, and for the lower orbs to rain down like candy. Instead it feels just like the standard leagues, with their must-stretch-the-fun-out-over-ten-years itemization and drop rates. Why exactly do our characters need to be deleted at the end of the events again?

Didn't play the event but watched several streams VOD and I agree with the sentiment of drops; but RNG didn't seem so determinant to me as the loot was pretty normalized for each class. However increasing currency drop rate has it's own problems.

If you increase drop chance or loot from chests but you get shit from using your currency and at the same time you increase content difficulty to not make the race trivial (stupid hard mobs with several affixes) the RNG will be even more determinant than it is now.

You also need the proper white base items to craft, although you could increase the IIQ considerably to be sure that happens.


The problem is that content difficulty is finely determined by your gear, so to achieve a given race difficulty loot has to be fine tuned with mob difficulty. I would give GGG more credit than a lot of people initially has given and give some more races a chance to see how 'balanced' and RNG-dependant it is when we, the players, have a better understanding of the drops involved etc. We need more information even if a priori we have a given perception.

"

Stokes wrote:

"

Nightmare90 wrote:

Number #1 living Ranger. There was actually one that happened to be dead
but had in the end still more EXP than you. Sorry to burst your bubble. ;)

I'd still qualify him as #1 overall since he didn't fail in his purpose. Dead characters are participation trophies that do not deserve any reward whatsoever.

Why are dead characters listed in the Signature Races tab then?
Dead characters still qualify for their respective prices.
This is how I understood the new ruleset.

Edit:
Check out the Signature Race tab and compare
the RP of the listed dead characters with the living ones.

"

Nightmare90 wrote:

Why are dead characters listed in the Signature Races tab then?
Dead characters still qualify for their respective prices.
This is how I understood the new ruleset.

Edit:
Check out the Signature Race tab and compare
the RP of the listed dead characters with the living ones.

I know dead characters are listed in the Signature Races tab. I think this change to the ruleset is monumentally dumb and makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. There are zero reasons that I should have to compete with a dead character for a ladder spot.

When both characters are deleted at the end of the event, it doesn't matter if you were alive or dead. In the spirit of rogue-like games, dying is part of the game, and it allows people to really push those last few minutes. Simply more fun.

Did anyone else notice someone hit level 2 right at the start of the race? Like literally within seconds. What was that?

"

knac84 wrote:

"

KoTao wrote:

What was i expecting? Enough gcps to 20% 1-2 gems by the end of the event, enough chances, alchs and chaos to be dressed in full rares halfway through, greatly increased unique, divine, exalt, eternal and mirror drop rates, a much larger and guaranteed selection of starting and set chest gems and whites, and for the lower orbs to rain down like candy. Instead it feels just like the standard leagues, with their must-stretch-the-fun-out-over-ten-years itemization and drop rates. Why exactly do our characters need to be deleted at the end of the events again?

Didn't play the event but watched several streams VOD and I agree with the sentiment of drops; but RNG didn't seem so determinant to me as the loot was pretty normalized for each class. However increasing currency drop rate has it's own problems.

If you increase drop chance or loot from chests but you get shit from using your currency and at the same time you increase content difficulty to not make the race trivial (stupid hard mobs with several affixes) the RNG will be even more determinant than it is now.

You also need the proper white base items to craft, although you could increase the IIQ considerably to be sure that happens.


The problem is that content difficulty is finely determined by your gear, so to achieve a given race difficulty loot has to be fine tuned with mob difficulty. I would give GGG more credit than a lot of people initially has given and give some more races a chance to see how 'balanced' and RNG-dependant it is when we, the players, have a better understanding of the drops involved etc. We need more information even if a priori we have a given perception.

No idea why you are so concerned about crafting materials in a league that lasts an hour. if anything they should just up the drops of alcs/chaos, all you really need. No reason to get a skill to 20%, no reason to mirror anything either.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

"

knac84 wrote:

"

KoTao wrote:

What was i expecting? Enough gcps to 20% 1-2 gems by the end of the event, enough chances, alchs and chaos to be dressed in full rares halfway through, greatly increased unique, divine, exalt, eternal and mirror drop rates, a much larger and guaranteed selection of starting and set chest gems and whites, and for the lower orbs to rain down like candy. Instead it feels just like the standard leagues, with their must-stretch-the-fun-out-over-ten-years itemization and drop rates. Why exactly do our characters need to be deleted at the end of the events again?

Didn't play the event but watched several streams VOD and I agree with the sentiment of drops; but RNG didn't seem so determinant to me as the loot was pretty normalized for each class. However increasing currency drop rate has it's own problems.

If you increase drop chance or loot from chests but you get shit from using your currency and at the same time you increase content difficulty to not make the race trivial (stupid hard mobs with several affixes) the RNG will be even more determinant than it is now.

You also need the proper white base items to craft, although you could increase the IIQ considerably to be sure that happens.


The problem is that content difficulty is finely determined by your gear, so to achieve a given race difficulty loot has to be fine tuned with mob difficulty. I would give GGG more credit than a lot of people initially has given and give some more races a chance to see how 'balanced' and RNG-dependant it is when we, the players, have a better understanding of the drops involved etc. We need more information even if a priori we have a given perception.

No idea why you are so concerned about crafting materials in a league that lasts an hour. if anything they should just up the drops of alcs/chaos, all you really need. No reason to get a skill to 20%, no reason to mirror anything either.

Didn't you read the post? I don't care about the economy, is about 'challenge' of the races. Crafting being basically a slot-machine does not make races less 'rng-dependent'. You cna get a million chaos orbs and still have shitty gear.

If you want to run around with full decked out characters then the content will have to be made substantially harder, and if it's made so, then RNG matters even more.

It's not as easy as some make it to be, the balancing between getting good gear and content difficulty is hard to achieve, it's objectively easier to balance difficulty around white items than around rare loot, as paradoxical as that may seem.


On other part, I could ask the same: why the hell does people care how good their gear is if it's enough to beat the content in temporary RACES. You can have shitty gear and shitty enemies or "possibly decked out gear" and very hard enemies, the first is easier to balance than the second because in the first there is no randomness involved while in the second there is.

"

Wittgenstein wrote:

No idea why you are so concerned about crafting materials in a league that lasts an hour. if anything they should just up the drops of alcs/chaos, all you really need. No reason to get a skill to 20%, no reason to mirror anything either.

"

knac84 wrote:

On other part, I could ask the same: why the hell does people care how good their gear is if it's enough to beat the content in temporary RACES. You can have shitty gear and shitty enemies or "possibly decked out gear" and very hard enemies, the first is easier to balance than the second because in the first there is no randomness involved while in the second there is.

Because its fun. Most players will never find or even acquire some of the higher orbs, and even fewer will get to use them, as those orbs are far more valuable as currency. There was an opportunity to give everyone a chance to use these orbs as actual crafting ingredients, with no risk to the main economy or longevity of the game, and its disappointing that it wasnt taken up. I think this was also the general expectation of alot of players going into descent mode, so i wont be surprised if attendance drops off sharply after the first few events.

About the difficulty curve thing: Copious amounts of crafting materials smooths out results based on luck, not the opposite. The most desired rolls on many gear slots are also the most common, so with enough alchs, chaos etc, everyone will have at least a few races where theyre above or well above the difficulty curve. Under the current drop rates, its possible to go an entire season with only 1-2 good gearset races, and some players never see one. More ability to roll gear means most players end up closer to the average over the course of a season, and freak perfect gear runs wouldnt be all but unbeatable since theres a much higher chance of multiple other players enjoying similar runs at some point, thanks to the reduced overall variance in gear power.

GCPs and mirrors dont matter much overall, since mirrors would probably still be fairly rare and they dont do a whole lot for most builds, while gcps (and armorers, whetstones) effects are pretty minor compared to other modifiers from gear. They wouldnt need to be taken into consideration for balance purposes at all. Same with divines and exalteds, as their ability to seriously improve gear isnt huge at low levels (divines on a very few uniques withstanding). More uniques would have been good for the same reason as more alchs/chaos/etc would be good: to prevent the one solid racer who gets 2-3 synergystic uniques early on from just taking season 1st by default.

Compare this to Descent in the current year.

Who's here in 2016?