So there was a race and here are my thoughts about it

Dear community,

There was a Method race to level 100 that started March 22nd at 19:00 GMT.
Groups of 4 took part in that ride to max level and competed for 1st Prize of 1800$(2nd Prize is 750$ 3rd Prize is 450$).
I have some thoughts about it I'd like to share as a rando nobody who's been playing the game for some leagues, didn't participate in the race but watched several streamers compete in it.

Those thoughts come from a guy it his thirtiees who has been taking part in some competitive gaming years ago and has a general understanding of what goes into preparing for this type of event. But most importantly they come from a place of love for the game and those who practice it.


Foreword


I thought it was very exciting to see teams practicing, planning, discussing tactical aspects of the game, racing etc. I think POE has some potential in the competitive scene in that regard. I don't think it'll ever garner as much interest as RTS or DOTAs because of the general lengthiness of POE races compared to the general span of a Starcraft game for instance. I do think that it does make for a good and thrilling viewing experience and despite the very uninspiring racing meta in POE (storm brand into winter orb for everybody, or if you look back; sunder...
Near-RIPs experiences make for very compelling viewing, cheering your favorite team and comparing strategies, gaming personalities are all very positive aspects for me.


On viewing the race


I came home from work on Friday, and eventually routinely started playing POE as you do after a week of IRL grind. The race started and I was tuned into one of my pet streamers, anxious to hear all about secret tech, memes about sleeping too much, and more generally high levels of POE knowledge.

I do think racing in POE takes skill, more specifically a very different skillset than usual POE playing. You do have to develop an encyclopedic knowledge of zone layouts, their variations league after league, game mechanics and a very indepth understanding of the atlas system. It's not sufficient to know the general rules of mapping and how to progress your atlas during races; you need to have a deep understanding of how to optimize your atlas, herd the various influences to maximize your XP gain, your gear progression and your currency gains. Furthermore, it is a very strict exercise in knowing exactly what you need to look for, pick up and what you need to filter out in order to go as fast as you can.

While those are all good reasons why I will never be interested in racing myself, i do recognize this skillset as such and value it as a type of competitive thing. I was all the more interested in this race as it took another strength from the contestants. It was not enough to have the brains, you had to be able to go the distance and game of to 100. In this respect, it was very much akin to a marathon where you had to keep alert, thinking and adapt to things like RNG hating your guts, your IP pooping the bed and POE's technical limitations (some contestants experienced lags, memory leaks, crashes and various other fun things requiring a restart to a reroll, depending.)


Reactions, oh my reactions


As what i have to say is for the most part centered around the negative, I will be a very special little guy and start with the positive. I was very pleased with all the good team spirit i have seen throughout. Guys and gals sticking together as a team, going above and beyond to reach the team's goal. I almost always end up turning Global Chat off because toxicity and because as an old fuck i don't necessarily share the same aspirations, concerns and issues as the core audience of this game. Furthermore, on the youtubes, one can often hear about reddit toxicity, chat toxicity and bad behavior. I thought this race on the contrary brought the best behavior out of contestants and it was very refreshing. It brought me back to all that camaraderie, friendship and positivity in gaming I used to have with my friends as a shitling going to lan partiers and webcafes. That was genuinely great.

What wasn't great however was some of the general conditions this race took place in. The advent of private leagues is a positive thing as it enabled events such as this one to take place without too much work from Geegeegee. I think private leagues were a hesitant yet decisive measure from them to introduce a playground for racers and for GermanGooGrill to stand over and watch to see just how popular it would be before making any more commital business decisions.

I was shocked and appalled to see those young contestants go on racing during insanely lengthy sessions. To my knowledge, most of the top contestants played for more than 30 hours straight in one sitting, slept a maximum of 5 hours, then resumed playing for another 24hours. And here is the crux of my beef with this race. I watched worrying for players who already stream long hours every day. I watched as they played for litterally days without eating, sleeping and drinking insufficient amounts of water, forgetting to stretch legs, rest eyes and relax. I watched as they went from easygoing and excited to zombified legumes.

Turns out if you are dangerously sleep deprived, dehydrated and under stress, you are not the most efficient and alert player. Turns out many top contestants RIP, some abandoning the race. Was that worth it? Is it ever worth risking your well being, let alone your life over very meager earnings and interwebs bragging rights?

While those clearly irresponsible behaviors have a decisive impact of the overall racing performance, I think it is worth starting a real conversation about the impact on the health of those racers as well as the example POE wants to set for its young audience.

It is neither cool, nor acceptable to organize an event in which in order to have a chance you have to behave in a way that jeopardizes your health. I won't go into depths in the dangers of sitting down playing for such lengths of time without eating or drinking, but it should be rather obvious to everyone that it is all fun and games until somebody has an organ failure, passes out from exhaustion or suffers some other serious disorder stemming from emotional instability/fatigue.

As a sidenote on this, it is worth mentionning that (serious) studies exist on the subject, and I'm sure your google-fu is strong enough to reach those.


Suggestions


It is very easy to just blame the streamers for their irresponsibility. “Just go to bed, lowl” you could tell 'em. It's always easier to blame the consumer of a drug rather than arrest the dealer. I'ma let you finish reading but before that i'd like to get political for a minute. It is my deepest belief that you don't beat gun violence by blaming mentally unstable gunmen, you beat it by taking preventive and responsible measures to restrict access to guns.

To my knowledge nobody died during this event, thank Christ Wilson. But my point is someone could have and i draw a parallel with the drug traffic or the gun violence issue in order to underline the fact that the responsability to do better lies with every one, but starts from the top down.

Without any framework for defining what is acceptable and safe for every contestant, it turned into a rat-race where young people piss their life away for some pixel points. Who could blame them though? If you want to win such a race, you can't expect to do a 8h beauty sleeparoo while others race for 50 hours with a 5 hour break. If you're competitive, you do whatever it takes to win.

I therefore am convinced it is up to the organizers to act responsively and set rules that aim to protect the good health of the contestants while also keeping the event interesting and challenging.
As the game creators, GhallyGheeGandalf should also step in and give general guidance on what it is ok to associate with in order to further encourage a good example.

As a suggestion, I was thinking that efforts could be made on those private racing leagues to implement a server restart timer and set it so that contestants would only be able to race for lengths of 8 hours, then the server would go down for 5h and restart for another session. Of course those figures are subject to discussion and criticism, the point being you still want to have a challenging event, but I think that it would have a double positive impact.

Firstly, it would turn the race into an event mostly centered about the racing skills i touched on previously and it would be less about beeing able to cope with not sleeping, eating, drinking or shitting for asinine lengths of time.

Secondly, it would make the event more of an exciting watch as the players would look more alive than the zombified streamer we all got to see after 20hours of playing.

Conclusions


Thank you all for taking the time to read, i'd like this to be the start of a confrontation of ideas and reactions about the issues raised here. So feel free to share, discuss and criticize.

And if Exiles i have offended, think but this and all is mended, it's a short, wild and a bumpy ride, it's got ups and downs, twists and turns and I'm only trying to give it meaning and make it more enjoyable for myself and those I care about.


Tldr version coming soon* (tm)

And i still think Synthesis is garbaggio, sorry ;(

I think at least they should set a time-limited access portal to the race that only opens 15 hours out of 24. Streamers can still adjust their sleep schedule to adapt and compete well. This is not a sustainable form of race for sure. All other esports have down time and breaks between games.

To another point about health. I was watching Nugi this morning. I can assure you he is not in good condition. His reactions are so slow I can feel that he is losing his focus. This is not good.

Pretty good post.

I somewhat agree but I still think adults should take care of themselves instead of gaming companies babysitting them.
If they play 24 hours a day, it's on them.

"

colossalaiur wrote:

I think at least they should set a time-limited access portal to the race that only opens 15 hours out of 24. Streamers can still adjust their sleep schedule to adapt and compete well. This is not a sustainable form of race for sure. All other esports have down time and breaks between games.

To another point about health. I was watching Nugi this morning. I can assure you he is not in good condition. His reactions are so slow I can feel that he is losing his focus. This is not good.

I have seen him as well as others, and can confirm it doesnt look good

"

I somewhat agree but I still think adults should take care of themselves instead of gaming companies babysitting them.
If they play 24 hours a day, it's on them.

I think on paper what you say makes sense but I think this is why in real life we have the rule of law, safeguards, checks and balances and other regulations because humans are inherently unable to be all be responsible all of the time. And it's good/necessary to make sure they have a framework to help them be that way.

"

Kaia_PP wrote:

I was shocked and appalled to see those young contestants go on racing during insanely lengthy sessions. To my knowledge, most of the top contestants played for more than 30 hours straight in one sitting, slept a maximum of 5 hours, then resumed playing for another 24hours.

Yeah, but when you're young you can get away with that.

Back when FF8 came out I played it all day, went out to an all-nighter at Rock City, went home and played FF8 all day again, then went back out to Rock City again and didn't get home from the afterparty at my mate's house until 7am the next morning, at which point I played FF8 until I finally couldn't stay up any more. Three days with no sleep and two raging pissups.

"

GloatingSwine wrote:

"

Kaia_PP wrote:

I was shocked and appalled to see those young contestants go on racing during insanely lengthy sessions. To my knowledge, most of the top contestants played for more than 30 hours straight in one sitting, slept a maximum of 5 hours, then resumed playing for another 24hours.

Yeah, but when you're young you can get away with that.

Back when FF8 came out I played it all day, went out to an all-nighter at Rock City, went home and played FF8 all day again, then went back out to Rock City again and didn't get home from the afterparty at my mate's house until 7am the next morning, at which point I played FF8 until I finally couldn't stay up any more. Three days with no sleep and two raging pissups.

I'm glad you got to get away with that. I don't think "you can get away with it cause you're young" has got any validity whatsoever.

If it's a serious hazard and you live through it, does it make it ok?

You can play russian roulette and live, it doesn't mean you should. You can live through playing for three days without getting up and sleeping, it definitely doesnt mean you should.

It sets a terrible example for the viewership that maybe you can emulate those behaviors cause you're young. Maybe forgetting that obesity, lack of exercise and other conditions are a big factor and vary from individual to individual.

also morally, i'm not sure its an ok thing to reply in light of the kids that actually died from such streaks "Just don't die, lol"

It's not the POE that I want, that most players want. We do not care about these useless and alienate competition.
We just want an Arpg where the frustration is not pushing to its paroxism, we want happiness!

"

Kaia_PP wrote:

I'm glad you got to get away with that. I don't think "you can get away with it cause you're young" has got any validity whatsoever.

It does though.

Your body is just way better at dealing with extended durations without sleep when you're younger.

It is also a health hazard owning a kitchen knife. I mean... if you are silly you can play with the knife and hurt youself. People also enter cars and drives around risking their lives as well as others. Some people are silly and decide to drive too fast or... worse.

Point being. People have choises. They make those choises themselves. You can do bad choises affecting your health and that goes for almost every decision you make in life. If a person decides to not eat for 2 days.. that is a bad decision, but it is their decision. I am not saying the racers did this because I know for a fact that most of them prepare food ahead of time or have people bring them food.

Sure, there might be people not doing that, but you can't prevent people from making silly decisions unless you lock them down in a padded cell and feed them with a tube. That's not very healthy either now is it?

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arknath wrote:

It is also a health hazard owning a kitchen knife. I mean... if you are silly you can play with the knife and hurt youself. People also enter cars and drives around risking their lives as well as others. Some people are silly and decide to drive too fast or... worse.

Point being. People have choises. They make those choises themselves. You can do bad choises affecting your health and that goes for almost every decision you make in life. If a person decides to not eat for 2 days.. that is a bad decision, but it is their decision. I am not saying the racers did this because I know for a fact that most of them prepare food ahead of time or have people bring them food.

Sure, there might be people not doing that, but you can't prevent people from making silly decisions unless you lock them down in a padded cell and feed them with a tube. That's not very healthy either now is it?

It's a well known syllogism, you might as well say that people have the choice of not going to work, not earning their livelihood because you assume that any choice is a threat to your life. The car might explode, the water might be poison. Oh please.

The only choice you actually have is to choose the lesser threat or to follow the course of action that has the lesser adverse effect on your life.

Also, I don't think it's as much a matter of choices as it is a matter of setting a set of standards for POE racing. Cause at this rate, why don't you go ahead and tell 'em "just don't race, lol"

Choices are a thing but your logic isn't I'm afraid.