Race Ideas, Improvments, and Suggestions

In the past there have been several small changes to balancing and improving the racing experience such as adding vendor recipes, reworking gem rewards, and re-balancing skills. I thought if we focus on small, specific examples like these then perhaps there will be a better chance things are added and improved. While blanket complaints such as "Desync" "RNG" "Bad Schedule" are all valid issues, leave these out unless you can offer a reasonable and thoughtful solution that has a chance to be implemented.

GENERAL
Friend Notifications. Move these or add an on/off option. This is very annoying at times when racing and trying to check the stats of an item on the ground or even vendoring when 5+ people are relogging to mule.

/ClassLadder or some sort of command to show the ladder rankings of only your class.

RACE SCHEDULE
There doesn't seem to be any good answer here. Either "no races EU" or "no races US" or "too many race, cant complete with no-lifers." Somebody will always hate it. The best solution I can think of is a super-packed schedule. Different people prefer different race types (EL/Burst/DC/Vanilla) at different times. Jam packing a schedule is the best overall way I can think of to deal with it. I remember some season where races overlapped. I'd even be OK with this. Again, yes I agree there are downsides, but I can't think of a better solution.

REGULAR RACES
Progression Rewards. "X" Points and "Y" Experience for killing certain bosses the first time in a race. Any player killing Dominus gets 5 points and 3 million exp. Numbers to be tweaked of course. Just an example.

Vendor RNG. Completely unsure on this and looking for ideas. Most issues like not being able to buy a belt or resist rings are probably OK. However, no amulets for sale around level 8-10 can be a problem. Perhaps a white amulet of each type should always be available at level 9?

ENDLESS LEDGE
Guaranteed Core Items. Right now EL can be very frustrating if certain simple items like a coral/iron/topaz ring, medium flask, jade/amber/lapis amulet, or base weapon doesn't drop. Either add some (not all) in the starting chest or add certain guaranteed drops to the bosses. Say the first boss drops an iron and coral. The next boss drops medium flasks. The next one drops resist rings. I realize this isn't suppose to be endless decent but just a little something to help out would be huge.

Limited Monster Types. Certain Act 3x mobs (and others) in the early zones are a pain. Make it so they cant spawn until later.

Starting Grace Period. Not sure about this one, but 10 seconds to picks up everything needed at the start before being allowed to proceed might be nice.

DESCENT
I haven't played Descent or DC enough to comment on these types.


I'm sure I forgot to add a few things. Looking for any improvements/criticism on my ideas and any new ideas as well.

For regular races, I agree it can be a huge setback when they do not have the right amulet. That and resistance rings, a bit of consistency having one of each for the level range would be nice. Corrupts and shrines also need to be dealt with. Either only have them on fixed so everyone gets the same or have some kind of indication that lets you know the path is to a corrupt spawn.

For DC, getting weapons possibly from boxes as you progress through the race is nice. Not having the next tier weapon to craft is another huge setback. Unless this is one thing they want to be completely different than normal Descent. More orbs as opposed to bases to craft with. DC also needs it's time increased, this will solve a lot of balance. If not the time increase than single target ability balance + progression balance. The uniques need to be brought up to standard with blood of summers or they need major adjustment.

EL you got a lot of the essentials, I agree with that. No sceptre monsters and a lot of act 3 combinations til 11+ would be great, til you can have somewhat of a chance.

I would like to have chests on the beggining of each zone with flasks/rings in EL, because sometimes i run with medium flasks on lvl 20 and i would say it isnt very optimal. Also if players would get points for killing certain act bosses, especially act 2 and act 3 in vanilla races - i think that there will be finally some point difference between skilled racers who actually progress and crypt / chambers farmers (I am talking about 90mins+ races of course).

"

Shade444 wrote:

I would like to have chests on the beggining of each zone with flasks/rings in EL, because sometimes i run with medium flasks on lvl 20 and i would say it isnt very optimal.

This would really make it a lot smoother and less frustrating at times. My last run I was level 27 at 75% using medium life flasks.. Maybe every X levels have some kind of supply chest with the res rings / flasks and whatever else they deem necessary.

Regular race:
no reset/ctrl click allowed, maybe in a fixed seed setup to start experimenting
no corrupted areas
no shrines
we could still do below 3 hours format, but without 1- 2 hours of docks then

otherwise I agree with op

Long term race:
4days duration
I really enjoyed anarchy, especially combined with + rogues in maps, it really added something and I'd be sad to come back to the occasionnal exile once per act

"

terrex wrote:

For regular races, I agree it can be a huge setback when they do not have the right amulet. That and resistance rings, a bit of consistency having one of each for the level range would be nice. Corrupts and shrines also need to be dealt with. Either only have them on fixed so everyone gets the same or have some kind of indication that lets you know the path is to a corrupt spawn.

Good point about corrupted zones. I always sort of thought a good racer can learn to identify map layouts/tendencies to navigate away most of the time. However that's just a bad excuse for accepting the fact. At best you can avoid zones most of the time. Not all the time.

Make every race fixed seed so maphack wouldn't be a problem since ggg cant do anything.
Change every zone so it has guaranteed 3 blue packs, same as in docks.
Increase mob density by 10-15 times. Right now all locations is empty.
Remove shrines. One acceleration shrine can help you win the race - I got one in docks and won only because of that in one race.
This 4 changes would greatly improve racing. Right now its mostly layout rng early on and pack density rng later on.

Rebalance this fun races the way they would become fair for everyone, not the way they are now - for me they are just annoying shit that makes me want to stop racing. Loosing to a random guy who did his first race/suck in vanilla BUT had insane rng in this crap race - yeah, this is definitely a fun and fair thing.
Add vendors into fun races - every 2-3 zones. Start zone should contain vendor at the end of location.
Remove this ... act 3 mobs from every zone which area lvl lower than 26. Normalize density.
Or, if you can not rebalance them, move them into separate fun season that gives no points. This races is FUN, why do you need points for them? Competing in rng is the dumbest thing in the world. Which current season actually made of.

Vendor rng - remove it completely. This is one of the most dumb things in poe and especially in racing. I shouldn't suffer only because of this crap. If vendor randomly decided not to generate coral rings - I'm screwed even on easy modes, imagine what happens on turbo/lethal/whatever. Buying something on vendor - forget it, its just a waste of fucken time. I dont really remember the last time I got something there at the time I really need it.
Add every item that vendor can generate duplicated 3-5 times. Remove the implicit rng on hard mode races - 2 x 20 corals +25 leather = death on turbo.

Vendor recipes - add more of them.
Ms recipe - remove the damn qs requirement.
Add life recipe, resist recipe with available components, not damn sapphire/whatever flasks that you will never ever find. Something like white armor + life flask + augment = Blue armor with life roll. Life roll scales off flask lvl.

Strongboxes - good thing. It adds more mobs and more currency.

And for the fuck sake, widen this damn passages, remove the doors and slow down this stupid mobs that run 50 times faster than you. GGG always talks they working on desync, but this is just a lie. This will greatly reduce desynch without changing anything significant. The dumb game design in one of the main things that cause desynch. It feels like all that GGG wanted to show with this current location and enemy state is - 'We want players to experience more desynch and we are happy about that'. I dont believe that people in ggg are so dumb that they cant notice such obvious things that cause desynch a lot. If they are - I guess its time to move on for us.

Points ladder - needs to be changed. Participation as the main factor is a joke.

And the last thing - right now there is like 100 people who get lvl 10 in any vanilla race and 200-300 in 'fun' races. This is a joke. Players needs motivation to play races, and with this seasons dumpster worthless rewards I dont surprised almost no one plays them. Just wait and see next season's reward with another 1k reward with no 3d model possible, and ring as a demigod.
PoE Racing Season 13

Sorry for invading your thread, but i'll chime in and add some feedback from a more casual racers point of view (can i even call myself casual with 600pts?).

Endless Ledge
This race type is my personal nightmare. If you've seen Terrex' video about what he considered a "Brutal Endless Ledge", you will know what 90% of all EL i ever ran looked like.
While i understand that it's meant to be tough, getting certain monster combinations before you had a chance to find proper gear or got any resistances usually means an unavoidable death. Gating Act2/3 mobs behind certain area levels would definitely be a huge improvement.
I also like the idea of chests, but i think they should only spawn every 2-3 zones or have a 50% chance of spawning, and they should be limited to flasks and maybe jewelry.

Descent:Champions
I liked the change to 40 minutes, it made you think twice if you wanna stop down for crafting, or burst through trying to reach Inner Halls with enough time left for farming.
But now the inevitable three words: Blood of Summer.
We all know it was a huge buff for already one of the stronger racing skills. But what i don't see being mentioned really often, if used with Flameblast it just completely disregards upgrading your weapon slot. You don't have to stop down, trying to find or craft a good weapon like others have to. Just equip both in the beginning and you're set.
I found a Searing Touch in a D:C this season. +2 Fire Gems, Cast Speed and massive Damage bonus, it should be a Flameblasters wet dream. But nope, dual Blood of Summer still outclassed it, and that is just sad.
Two simple words added to the weapon could change everything: 33% Chance to gain a Frenzy Charge on Kill with Attacks. And reduce it to only one from chests.

2 hr+ Races (Solo/Party)
I'm sure some will disagree with me here, but i think rewards for those longer duration races should be increased. Lots of the racers in my friendlist skipped them, simply because especially in this season, you could easily get more points in shorter races. There needs to be more motivation to do these 2-3 hr races.

Cheating in Races
I'll be honest, i have no clue how game engines work, how hacks interact with them or how GGG could trace them, so i won't mention a half-assed solution here.
But i worked for a different game company for three years and had to deal with such issues daily, so i can give some insight from a different view. Game companies choose to remain silent about these kind of things. Any little comment can be a warning for the hacker scene and give them time to prepare. Not wanting to accuse anyone here, but it should be clear that not just legit players read the forums and reddit.
If not already the case, i recommend to GGG to hire a team dedicated to tracking down hacks on the respective scene forums, or wherever those are shared, and another team to find solutions against those hacks. This issue clearly needs more attention, so that it's ideally fixed until next season.

That's it, can't really think of anything else to say now. Hope someone at GGG even reads this thread.

there should definitely be incentive to progress past dicks in vanilla races. 1h races have become such a long farm fest aswell, need to improve later a2 zones density/exp wise. also vendor and ms rng.

Arc damage needs to be toned across all zones. In EL and D:C this is particularly problematic as the density and conditions under which Arcers spawn can either make or break your run.

Likewise, Rukuku's multi-arc has very adverse effects on melee-oriented classes (marauder) and runs can come to a complete halt based on whether you get the right roll on a flask or not. The disparity between how fast ranged and melee classes, as well as the risk involved is quite out of proportion.