Training Grounds - Training Dummies - Place for testing builds/ skills

For years people asked for some reliable method of testing skills/ builds, including having training dummies and such.

My proposition is Training Grounds.
Based on best training ground I've seen in gameing - from Marvel Heroes by Gazillion, where by just using a stopwatch you could see changes in dps on different types of dummies (hp/ behaviour/ grouping). PoE veterans and devs can do better job than me in determining how it should look and work, but still here is my propostion. Of course if it can't be free, then one time purchase would unlock it for your account.

Training Grounds would be a separate location (like hideout) and would have 8 sections with differenly placed dummies, that give you nothing for killing them, and will respawn after a while.
Sections:
1. Stationary melee dummy mobs standing in wide circle.
2. Stationary melee dummy mobs spread in the area.
3. Stationary mix of melee and ranged dummy mobs.
4. Stationary Dummy Boss.
5. Stationary Dummy Boss with dummy mobs around it.
6. You can summon five waves of mobs, each one larger in numbers than previous one. (Few types to chose from. They act like normal game mobs.) (Maybe you can choose those mobs also for previous sections.)
7. You can summon one of five chosen bosses or dummie bosses (like 5 archetypes).
8. Like placing things in your hideout, you could choose what dummies stand where and if they are moving/ stationary, attacking/ or not, if they are normal / rare/ boss.

In each section you can change:
- Mob level (by default they are your level)
- Mob hp
- If they are attacking or not (attacking only if in range)
- Promote one mob to be rare
- If the section deals you dmg periodically (instead of mob attacks).

I don't have any sources, but long ago I heard from someone from Reddit GGG doesn't like meaningless fights, in other words fights that do not offer progression.

But my thoughts about the current ToTA league mechanic is that its fairly consistent difficulty wise, varying challenges, and could be used as the training grounds you are talking about, but only if we gained ranks only after having a quick and easy victory. In other words the ranking could be used to determine if we improved or bricked our build if it was not increasing with every fight.

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Celd wrote:

But my thoughts about the current ToTA league mechanic is that its fairly consistent ...

We have something completely different in mind.
You talk about gameplay with many and changeing situations. I want to go to the training room, equip skill X, test it for 5-15 minutes. then equip skill Y and test that for 5-15 minutes. See how it worked on many mobs or if it improved my boss dps in rotation etc. Or maybe I want to change one piece of gear and one support gem, and then check the same thing again.

Sometimes I was spending hour in training room, shifting points, and gear to check how it works. No progress, but I was sure what and how it worked. I didn't wonder if I chose wrong skill or gear. While testing this on regular mobs in regular play isn't easy (especially because there are many interactions between many moving variables).

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Bakubylozajete wrote:

We have something completely different in mind.
You talk about gameplay with many and changeing situations. I want to go to the training room, equip skill X, test it for 5-15 minutes. then equip skill Y and test that for 5-15 minutes. See how it worked on many mobs or if it improved my boss dps in rotation etc. Or maybe I want to change one piece of gear and one support gem, and then check the same thing again.

Sometimes I was spending hour in training room, shifting points, and gear to check how it works. No progress, but I was sure what and how it worked. I didn't wonder if I chose wrong skill or gear. While testing this on regular mobs in regular play isn't easy (especially because there are many interactions between many moving variables).

I'm just trying to work with what GGG has told us. Chris has told they'd rather have players experimenting how their build feels while playing the game, like during maps, campaign, delve and other places. If I remember it correctly it had something to do with valuing players time, because players could then use a lot of time testing and feel they have not progressed.

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Celd wrote:

If I remember it correctly it had something to do with valuing players time, because players could then use a lot of time testing and feel they have not progressed.

Ok now I understand.

I agree that the main game should work like that. Here you would have an extra feature that you can choose to use or not. Some would not use it at all, some would jump there once in a while for 2-10 minutes, others would have spend longer time if that is fun for them.

It's like looking/ discussing builds on forums or using path of building. Extra things that don't make you progress, but can be fun or usefull for the player.