Race Event Season One announced!

Do the uniques have unique in-game art (not just in the inventory screen)?

This will make or break the value of the prizes.

My Two Cents :

I'm probably the exception ,but I find this whole race system rather unnapealing.

Never was one for rushing anyway, so a mode that glorifies skipping content, imho, hurts the game in the long run. You're basically training your fanbase to be uber-efficient at skipping everything the game has to offer, which drills into the collective mindset that what's important is not the enjoyment of questing and discovery, but rushing to endgame content/to as fast as you can for prises. Why even build a decent game if all you ever do in it is rush it the to point of no return ?

People will end up rushing your content anyway eventually, but making it part of the game, let alone making it the norm less than a month after Open Beta and before the full release seems counter-productive.

I personally don't know anyone anymore who quests in Diablo 2 ... Everyone gets rushed to Endgame, then do Baal Runs... ? People don't take the time to get to know their characters, to participate in three level's worth of increasingly difficult content with said characters, they just get rushed to endgame, level up using something bordering on an XP exploit , then gear up their toon from what an alt already has or from a Paid Website... I'd say it's understandable, as the game has been out for so long and honestly, the people still playing already did the full content like 100 times anyway... But this game is still pretty much a newborn, so I wish it was spared the rushing mentality for a little while longer.

Likewise, I don't like how disposable characters are... You're just making them as short term rushing tools to try and score prises, characters who will probably get abandonned once the race is over.

As for the schelduce and prise incentive, I dunno, that's alot or commitment for such prises. I have no problems playing one or two races a month maybe, but I don't want to do 50 of them a month to have the points to even get one reward ... And considering how many totally insane no-lifers this game has, seems impossible to me to score highly in any race unless you start going into "Kripparian" mode and playing 16 Hours a day... And I though I was already pretty messed up for playing 8 or so hours a day, now I'll have to double it, Jay Wilson Style !!!

I also think it might cause a POE burn-out in the long run. People constantly playing in short bursts with disposable characters doesn't exactly entice a greater commitment to said characters or an incentive to come back to said characters after the races are done. I'd rather have two or three high level characters than a sea of rushed level 30s I simply rushed as fast as I could for the carrot dangling from a stick called "unique prizes".

The only thing I liked about new Ladders in D2 was the fact it reseted the economy and everyone was noobs once again... Yes, not everyone had Enigmas and whatnot anymore. Never cared about the whole "competitive" aspect of it, cause I knew there was always someone who has more spare time than me and willing to play the game to a pathlogical extent... Possibly dying of exhaustion in real life in the process of being the number one player...

That's another thing that bothers me, the addictive nature of said type of games. I understand there's a niche for games that turn you into perfectly efficient farming zombies, but I'm not really into that mindset, and I think it's bad for your health, mental well being and overall social life to play any game to the point people like Kripparian do...

And judging by the scoreboards and ladders, seems there's quite a few who take POE very seriously, which , coming from someone who did some clinical reaserch on cyber-addiction, is quite scary. Like any drug, video game is best used in moderation , so having races almost every day of the week is imho a pretty big commitment.

I'm probably gonna get crucified for this post and be called scrub and whatever, but it's my honest opinion on the whole ordeal... Still waiting for Cutthroat league and other modes that bring a fresh new twist to the game, not looking forward to repeating the same content as fast as I can 20 times a month... Over and out.

Some great additions, hopefully this will now give me the incentive to play again, and I am very pleased to see the whole "trading disabled" finally implemented. These race seasons are very similar to what I suggested awhile back, So it's cool to know that the developers are on the same wave length of racers :P

I will probably race for the sake of racing from time to time, but it is really disappointing, different artwork of mostly bad uniques as reward?

I'm sorry to say,but I was also super excited when I logged in and saw the announcement on the races starting up until I got to the prizes. Please bring orbs back as rewards for the races.


I'm mean seriously your concerned about inflation in the economy?????? Folks already have amassed hundreds of GCPs in orbs,there is already to many 6 link items in game and there is a metric ton of max quality skill gems and your worrying about a random number of orbs given out at certain thresholds in races breaking the economy LOL.


For the many of folks that have the "normal" crap luck in drops the orb rewards for races was something that was at least guaranteed and was actually fun working towards those rewards.

Love the sound of the new races, you guys always put so much thought into everything. Wish I could play but my computer just burned down with my apartment (possibly caused the fire, the overheating bastard) so will have to wait. Hope season 2 is twice as badass

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Mugiwara wrote:

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gildash wrote:

Not sure how well your incentive system is going to work...

At first glance it seems entirely not worth the effort for those prizes. Thats just me though, I'll be watching.

Good luck.

+1, liked random orbs as reward (even if you nerfed it as hell).

I have no use of Redbeak @lvl 80+

Yeah i agree on this as well :/ For me it now seems as if i would have to do at least 5+ races to even get one single reward, which does not really motivate me (especially if the reward might be an item which i would sell at best and given the amount of those items in the enconomy after a season it won't really have a high value even with the unique art)...

I would really prefare the old price system over this one, because if i wanted only one race in a moth or so, i did only one and still got some rewards for it. Now, if i don't think i can make it to multiple events i won't participate in one because it might end with me spending hours, which i could have put into an existing character, without getting any reward.

EDIT:
The only reason i ever tried races durign closed beta was becaus i knew i would get at least some reward out of it, which actually had a value for me...

Was really excited about races... but I don't want to do at least 10 1/2/3/4 hour races to get wanderlust boots and nothing else... Maybe 20+ races to get a ring I'll need to spend 50 chaos orbs I don't have until I get a usable one for my build.

Very little incentive for someone who has yet to reach endgame (only playing hardcore). I don't like the fact you need to reach a certain level, You should get a consolidation prize for competing at least eg % of total xp becomes your "collected points towards prizes" + placing in ladder & achievement points.

Also I think we should have a range of items to choose from as a prize at set prizes for points. This would make me want to play more, even if it was basic stuff eg orbs/4L/5L items all at a set price that prevents inflation (how many would enter game through typical farming without races during race times) You could work out a price based on that concept, although badly worded I must admit.

I really like this game though, might do one or two races just to see how I go but no doubt I will only get 1-3 points if I am lucky.

I feel that during race times the normal/HC leagues will be very boring as there will be few public parties & very little in global & trade chat. So overall without a desire to race (due to bad rewards compared to playing the game currently) I feel like these races will negatively affect my next month of playing this game...

Races should be designed to benefit the casual gamers (not myself I play a lot just new to the game), people who are new like myself and not just the uber elite who have the most efficient farm methods and build plans... They already have such an advantage in the game and stuff like this will create a group of people owning a monopoly of the wealth.

Rewards based on content cleared vs time taken
or based on content cleared vs xp gained.

+ rewards for ladder rankings, the only real reward here is placing first in your class. And the coral ring/wanderlust boots. I don't think 1 white ring is worth ~ 30-50 hours of my time personally... I'd rather finish game and farm for maps.

Meh, as with others the prizes are useless, and have little to no value, I'll stick to HC League.

I believe most players are going to chose stats over unique artwork...

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BurnOutBrighter wrote:

Do the uniques have unique in-game art (not just in the inventory screen)?

This will make or break the value of the prizes.

this. Ingame 3d unique models, YEAH! Otherwise, NAY!