Dec 24: One-week HC Race

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Drystion wrote:

Ill try not to comment too much, the community never does like it when I do, but....

Why are we back on the map thing? I never thought 69s in a one week race was a good sign at all, but the community liked it, so I don't see that changing, but still complaining that not everyone is going to be able to run them none stop? A end game with value is one of the best touches to this game imo, lets not try to have that taken away. Please.

Im not complaining that we cant run 69s nonstop, or even that we should have constant access to high (65+) maps. My stance is that endgame access being completely random is bad for events (and also for the game in general), and that we should have some sort of alternative.

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Metronomy wrote:

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KoTao wrote:

The big problem is that every other random factor has multiple ways to mitigate the effects of said randomness; the map drop system does not. Once you hit a certain level and require accordingly higher maps, pyramid runs and trading are no longer options- either the rng grants you maps or it doesnt, and you win or lose based entirely on luck. And i definitely see something wrong with events ultimately being decided more by rng than by the players choices and actions.

People say they dont want parties to have an advantage, so they keep the map drop rates the same regardless of if you are in a party or not, and they also say they want more ways to get better maps. Well you cant have both/everything...You may say that it was all luck, but it really wasnt, you still have a lot of choices such as map mods and such, if two equally skilled players use the exact same strategy (which I doubt they did) then what difference does it make who wins? And why shouldnt luck separate them?

I really doubt luck was the deciding factor in this race anyway, the winners did 2 things:
Put in a lot of time (more than anyone else)
Did not die

Assuming all top 10 players put in roughly the same amount of time, and none of them die, the winners are currently going to be determined by map luck- and i think most competitors would prefer that the champion and final standings are based on player builds/skills/decisions as opposed to what amounts to a week long round of cherrymaster. Also, once the game goes live, the hugely increased participation guarantees that every event will surely have at least 10+ players who all put in roughly the same amount of time and didnt die, so itd be nice to get this fixed sooner rather than later.

Also groups still have a large advantage in maps due to roughly 4x the total items and currency dropping, though thats not my concern here and wouldnt really be a major problem if chaining high maps wasnt so integral to winning.

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are based on player builds/skills/decisions as opposed to what amounts to a week long round of cherrymaster.

Sorry but skill and builds will never decide the winner on a 1 week race.

Take maze map for example. How is that skillful if a high ranked player avoids Vaal.
I know several Top 20 players that will avoid him at any costs.
A skillful player wouldn't avoid him.
I remember that I almost got killed 5 min before the 1 month rewards were given because 4 rocks hit me without a granite and was punctured.

On Turbo races several players avoided certain bosses. I remember not doing Loathe in Overgrown ruin till level 66-68(not sure anymore) That's simply decision.

Also in games based on skill/abilitytrees there will always be stronger skills.

Take Groundslam before speed and damage fix. You didn't even need a strong weapon and you killed mobs with 1-2 hits.

Now take Spark+Fork+Totems+Penetration/Profilation.
Or other really common builds like FP + Icespear+LMP+Totem, Elem hit+LMP+Chain or GMP+lightning arrow.
Elem Hit and Lightning Arrow result in reflect deaths.

But still there wasn't a single sweep character in Top20.
There are too many attacks that heavily nerfed before 9.10 while increasing mana costs, so they can't be used constantly.

Other skills simply haven't got much use besides slow down like ice arrow or artic breath.

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Hilbert wrote:

Take maze map for example. How is that skillful if a high ranked player avoids Vaal.
I know several Top 20 players that will avoid him at any costs.
A skillful player wouldn't avoid him.
I remember that I almost got killed 5 min before the 1 month rewards were given because 4 rocks hit me without a granite and was punctured.

That's a really bad way of putting it. Skill is not necessarily a part of the equation in such a decision. Say you are confident that you can kill vaal successfully 9999/10000 attempts, but there's always that 1/10000 chance that you could die to an event such as lagging and getting clipped by his melee attack. The reward for killing him is about 5% of the loot dropped in the map. Is it worth skipping that fraction of the loot to avoid taking that unnecessary risk? Maybe not if the race is close and the additional chance of pulling a high level map would give a necessary edge - but that was not the case in our situation.

We're not talking about a single instance of vaal, we're talking about risk over time. Taking unnecessary risks will eventually end badly - so we decided to remove it from the equation.

Your scenario does not suggest skill, it suggests bad risk management and stupid play.

That's why I say it's not skill and not build.

It's only decision. The only thing that may kill common builds is reflect or a really ugly combination which is ugly.


On my friendlist there is only 1 friend on who avoids Mazevaal.

Everybody else fought him at last once and everybody took heavy hits.
And most of them fought him during a race.
Not to mention it's HC play.


A skillful player knows how to escape of 90% of dangerous situations without quitting.
A skillful player takes risks.

I know several skillful players who don't have got many high chars or got into Top20 in races.
For example 1 player, played melee shadows when the shadows was the worst class.
He used an evasion 1h sword ranger during race and got to maps being between low life and 100% HP all the time.

That's something high ranked players would never do.

A skillful player knows when to avoid and take risks. That's what makes him skilled. What you are arguing has nothing to do with being "skilled" as it doesn't take much skill to out play the AI, it's just a matter of determining whether killing or skipping is more time efficient. That's the whole point of a race; being as efficient as possible.

What you are arguing is the same thing as arguing full clear vs efficient farming.

meh mostly a place holder for myself :D

wrong thread lol :(