[Suggestion] Instanced Mount-Racing League

[Tharsul.2654]

Greetings, fellow racing enthusiasts!

I apologize in advance for the incredibly long post, TL;DR is at the bottom

I have had an idea for a competitive mount-racing league, based on the framework and functionality of the pvp interface.

I have tried to keep all these ideas within the scope of existing game features as I understand them, with the understanding that it is often easier to create a Frankenstein's monster of a game mode instead of attempting to create something new, buggy, and untested from scratch.

The idea would be to use the same variety of menu as the pvp menu to allow racers to queue for a competitive race in instances of the existing races, or to teleport to the normal tracks in the open world for time trials and more friendly races.

The use of the pvp menu as a framework should allow for the tracking of the player's stats, such as number of races played, races won, favorite course, best times on each course, etc.

With the ability to track stats, it should be possible to have a ranking list akin to the ranked pvp league, with sub-leagues to keep players matched up with opponents of their own skill level (bronze league, silver league, gold, platinum, etc.) and it would also make it possible to have a staggered starting pack, where the best racers start at the back of the pack as a handicap to give less capable racers a fighting chance at improving their rank, and in turn serving to increase the difficulty of the race for the more experienced players who are more likely to be able to handle the difference in starting position.

Much like the pvp menu, there could be multiple game modes to choose from, with an unranked mode for people who want to race for fun, time trials for people who want to practice, a ranked competitive league with tournaments and prize pools for the hardcore racers out there, and private racing instances for people who want to have guild-only races or who want to practice by themselves.

For unranked and ranked races, the menu would use the same queuing system as the pvp menu, where it prompts the players in the queue with a ready check when enough of them have entered, complete with the choice between a number of different races and the spinner to select from among the selected choices at the end.

If an entry fee is implemented for ranked competitive tournament races, say 5-10g, the fees could all pay into a grand pool which would be divvied up proportionately among the final winners of the sub-leagues at the end of the tournament season, with higher tier leagues getting greater percentages of the total prize pool, with the intent to serve as an incentive for the racers to be more competitive by requiring them to put something of value on the line in order to participate, although I believe all racers should receive a participation prize, racing medallions at the very least, to facilitate the last point I will be making.

One common problem with the big races we have during events is that the high number of players can cause problems with the graphics of the game on older computers, so in an effort to keep the participant's computers from becoming overburdened by too many players with sparkly infusions and shiny mount skins, it would be a good idea to limit the number of racers that may participate in a competitive race to something like 10-15 players, which would in turn decrease queue times between races, as fewer participants would be needed to start the race.

Another measure to facilitate the best possible game performance for the participants would be to perform the races in instanced versions of the existing race courses, to keep other players and unnecessary npcs from cluttering the system memory, allowing for the racers on older systems to perform unburdened by the majority of memory bottlenecks which may prevent them from enjoying the busy races we have right now.

And finally, the most potentially-controversial idea associated with this concept: spectator betting.

To start off with, I would like to point out that gambling is already relatively commonplace in Tyria, with destabilized ecto gambling and sandstorm in many major cities, as well as betting on the outcome of the Dragon-Bash Moa-races.

There is even an in-game precedent for betting on player races, which we know of from the npc chatter in Amnoon before the race starts, where a skritt spectator places a bet of, "all my shinies," on the skritt racer, only to be denied by another npc who says the skritt isn't allowed to bet anymore because they, "never want to part with their shinies."

In an effort to keep players from attempting to rig the races by intentionally losing, racers may not bet on a race they are participating in.

The only thing that's missing from the races to make them feel more real and to increase audience participation would be to add bleachers to the race courses, with an npc in charge of betting standing nearby, and if I'm not mistaken, that should be incredibly simple, as there are already game assets which can be used as bleachers in a number of places throughout Tyria, such as at the various circus rings dotted around the shiverpeaks.

An important feature to encourage audiences to stick around, which feels like it's missing from the current races, especially now that we've seen it in the Dragon-Bash Moa-races, is the ability to spectate a racer of your choice, which should be possible within the existing framework, if not with the tools used for the Moas, then with the seemingly-unused spectator camera which we have controls for in the keybindings menu.

If bleachers were employed with a betting npc, there could be either another npc, or a binoculars/telescope item for players to interact with which would then let them choose which player they would like to spectate.

To keep betting civil and to keep people with poor self control from spending all their gold, it would likely be best to stick with the betting structure of the Moa-races, where players may bet a predetermined amount of a non-gold currency, the racing medallions I mentioned earlier being the obvious choice, on any number of racers of their choosing, with a method of cashing out their winnings for gold, but no method of buying the currency with gold, which would in turn encourage more race participation from players to acquire the currency needed to place bets.

If spectators are given a more official way to enjoy the races and allowed to bet on racers, it would add a level of audience participation to the races which seems sorely lacking from them as they currently are, after all, what's a race without a cheering crowd?

TL;DR: Idea for using the structure of the pvp menu and other existing game features as a framework to create a ranked/unranked racing league, with racer stat tracking, spectator observation of racer's viewpoints, and spectator betting on race outcomes.

Anyhow, thank you for taking the time to read my post, and have a wonderful day!

[Gop.8713]

I'm all for it. I'm not a huge race fan but I think the existing roller beetle map designs show one of anet's untapped strengths . . .

I think you may turn some ppl off with the pvp reference in the title coupled with the long post. Some may not read your suggestion and dismiss this as an effort to introduce mounted combat . . .

[Tharsul.2654]

That's a good point about pvp in the title being potentially confusing, do you know if it's possible for me to change the title?

I've been reading stuff on the forum for quite a while, but this is the first thread I've posted, so I don't actually know the features yet, and I cant find an edit button for the original post.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

You can, once you've earned the right to edit posts. I think it's after a day; I can't really remember.
Here, found it in the Sticky Library:Note: Recruits (new accounts, or accounts with 5 or fewer posts) have a 4-hour window for edits. Accounts at Member rank and above have an infinite window for edits.So, once you have 2 stars next to your name, you can edit posts and titles (of your own threads).

[Zex Anthon.8673]

Instanced competitive roller beetle racing would be amazing. Griffon racing sounds cool too.

[Andur.9275]

Great ideas, count me in. I'd love to see roller beetle racing become more 'serious'. The idea of racing and practicing in an instanced version of the track (without the npcs and monsters) is awesome.Normally I'm not into pvp, but the idea of a whole league and having a working leaderboard sounds interesting. Learning from better racers in spectator mode, too.And I'd love to see all that implemented for griffons too, of course. ?

[Randulf.7614]

Im not against it, but my preference is to keep it open world. I kinda like seeing the beetles charge around when im in a relevant map

Your ideas do make it sound interesring though

[Tharsul.2654]

@Andur.9275 said:

Normally I'm not into pvp, but the idea of a whole league and having a working leaderboard sounds interesting. Learning from better racers in spectator mode, too.

I dont like pvp very much either, that simply felt like the easiest way to try to describe my idea, I'll be changing the title to better reflect that once my account is permitted to do so.

@Randulf.7614 said:Im not against it, but my preference is to keep it open world. I kinda like seeing the beetles charge around when im in a relevant map

I agree completely about seeing people go raging thru the openworld courses, which is why the instances would be for the ranked competitive matches and private groups, with the unranked matches and time trials simply being a teleport to the openworld courses.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Tharsul.2654 said:TL;DR: Idea for using the structure of the pvp menu and other existing game features as a framework to create a ranked/unranked racing league, with racer stat tracking, spectator observation of racer's viewpoints, and spectator betting on race outcomes.

Given the interest level in the current competitive modes and the beetle racing in general you should probably just be happy with what they have done so far.There isnt nearly enough interest in the activity as your idea would take to make viable.

[Tharsul.2654]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

There isnt nearly enough interest in the activity as your idea would take to make viable.

The only reason I had the idea in the first place was after seeing how absurdly busy the current festival race has been at dragon bash; if even half that many people participate in a competitive league, it will be a lively place.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Tharsul.2654 said:

@"mindcircus.1506" said:

There isnt nearly enough interest in the activity as your idea would take to make viable.

The only reason I had the idea in the first place was after seeing how absurdly busy the current festival race has been at dragon bash; if even half that many people participate in a competitive league, it will be a lively place.

I get that... and these festivals are great for bringing people together this way.Here is my point of view:Inspired by the fun I had at the festival the other night I decided to go out and try the other tracks. I absolutely loved it. So I went out and earned the achievement that gets you the racing scarf over a couple days. I had a blast. But it was a solo activity. I would see 2-3 other people doing time trials.I "won" three races.Because I was the only one doing them.

Measuring the success of this content based on a side-activity of a festival that is tied to a pretty lucrative reward system isnt accurate.

Beetle racing is fun but it sure isnt popular enough to warrant the developer investment that you are asking for here.

[Tharsul.2654]

@mindcircus.1506 said:

Measuring the success of this content based on a side-activity of a festival that is tied to a pretty lucrative reward system isnt accurate.

Beetle racing is fun but it sure isnt popular enough to warrant the developer investment that you are asking for here.

The race at dragon bash may be lucrative, but with the number of people I've seen repeatedly doing the time trial alongside me, which doesn't give a reward after the daily, it appears that people are also racing for the sake of racing, so the popularity of the races at festivals feels to me like proof that there IS an audience for this kind of content, but proves they need a more consistent method of organizing.

The way I see it, the glaring problem with the open world races as they currently stand is the fact that there's no convenient in-game way to meet up for a race when one wants to, which prevents the racers who might want to race from being able to unless they've memorized when the races start, or coordinated with other people and waited until the race resets.

The addition of a menu which would allow players to queue up for a race without interrupting regular gameplay would allow people to race whenever they wanted to, rather than being required to wait on a poorly defined schedule to participate in a race.

[mindcircus.1506]

@Tharsul.2654 said:

@"mindcircus.1506" said:

Measuring the success of this content based on a side-activity of a festival that is tied to a pretty lucrative reward system isnt accurate.

Beetle racing is fun but it sure isnt popular enough to warrant the developer investment that you are asking for here.

The race at dragon bash may be lucrative, but with the number of people I've seen repeatedly doing the time trial alongside me, which doesn't give a reward after the daily, it appears that people are also racing for the sake of racing, so the popularity of the races at festivals feels to me like proof that there IS an audience for this kind of content, but proves they need a more consistent method of organizing.

The way I see it, the glaring problem with the open world races as they currently stand is the fact that there's no convenient in-game way to meet up for a race when one wants to, which prevents the racers who might want to race from being able to unless they've memorized when the races start, or coordinated with other people and waited until the race resets.

The addition of a menu which would allow players to queue up for a race without interrupting regular gameplay would allow people to race whenever they wanted to, rather than being required to wait on a poorly defined schedule to participate in a race.

I think the best I would hope for at this point would be something similar to the World Boss Portal device.Giving us one of these for like 100 TT's complete. This should be easy (as far as I know) because we saw one in the Current Events stuff a few months back."A Roller beetle race is about to start in Brisban Wildlands"That would help the situation in a manner keeping with the activity's popularity

[Tharsul.2654]

@"mindcircus.1506" said:

I think the best I would hope for at this point would be something similar to the World Boss Portal device.Giving us one of these for like 100 TT's complete. This should be easy (as far as I know) because we saw one in the Current Events stuff a few months back."A Roller beetle race is about to start in Brisban Wildlands"That would help the situation in a manner keeping with the activity's popularity

Sigh You're probably right about a portal device being the solution they'll choose if they decide to fix the problem.

I just hope they see this thread and become inspired by the idea, cause another alarmclock+teleporter seems like an incredibly boring solution by comparison to a structured racing league.

[Inculpatus cedo.9234]

Don't forget that Time Trials in Dragon Bash count towards the Achievement Points players are trying to acquire. That may account for the seeming popularity. (It's what I used to get "I Can Outrun a Dragon" and "Going the Distance".)

[Tharsul.2654]

@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:Don't forget that Time Trials in Dragon Bash count towards the Achievement Points players are trying to acquire. That may account for the seeming popularity. (It's what I used to get "I Can Outrun a Dragon" and "Going the Distance".)

That's understandable, AP is important to a lot of players, and to promote competitive racing it shouldn't be too difficult to make the rewards similarly enticing, with daily racing achievements for AP, reasonable rewards of race medallions and karma potions for participation, and superior rewards of gold and rare items for winning.

Plus, we should keep in mind that whenever a new game-mode or event-type is released, there tends to be a month of increased rewards for participation in that new mode/event; when they first released the beetle racing, and it had those daily achievements for the first month, all of the tracks were as busy as the festival tracks tend to be, with as many racers as the map could handle in some cases.

Also, to keep in line with the rewards from the other competitive modes, it wouldn't be out of place for race participation to count towards some of the PvP/WvW reward tracks, which would in turn give some of the players who prefer PvE+racing over PvP a chance to get some of the items which are only attainable via the PvP reward tracks, like the legacy armor track and the miniature mist-champion tracks, although it would make perfect sense if things like the Gift of Battle track and the PvP finisher tracks were missing or locked, since they wouldn't really be in line with the racing theme.

My general point being that the existing standards for rewards from similar game modes and events would likely be enough for people to want to participate in competitive races, especially if there are titles for winners and icons next to competitive racer's names; bragging rights can be a strong motivator for some people.

[WinterPhoenix.4392]

This is such a great idea, I'm not in slightest bit sure of how easy/hard it would be to actually implement, but as you say using existing game modes in a sort of Frankenstein hodgepodge manner is possibly easier to implement.

As a huge fan of TT racing modes in basically any racing game - rven awful ones! - this is probably the only way I'd ever be genuinely interested any sort of PVP mode, in general I much prefer the instabced cooperative PVE stuff really. Anything that might convince them to create more races as well would be sweet.

Honestly I think I might just have an unnatural obsession with TT modes tbh ?

[Trise.2865]

Well... we already have Sanctum Sprint, I see no reason this couldn't be another Activity. Although having a "public" activity limited to Path of Fire owners only may be more frustrating than enticing for the Free-To-Play audience, even with a "you don't have that mount tax" of only 10-20s.

The hardest part would be designing additional race track instances... though they could recycle existing "track" designs and a version of the Personal Story instancing systems to get it started.

The real question is, who do we have as a mascot? Petey? Gorrik? "Race"-o-Tron? Evon Gnashblade (because of course he'd be in on this)?

[Xanadrine.4352]

Sounds like fun, im for it.

[Tharsul.2654]

@"Trise.2865" said:Well... we already have Sanctum Sprint, I see no reason this couldn't be another Activity. Although having a "public" activity limited to Path of Fire owners only may be more frustrating than enticing for the Free-To-Play audience, even with a "you don't have that mount tax" of only 10-20s.

The hardest part would be designing additional race track instances... though they could recycle existing "track" designs and a version of the Personal Story instancing systems to get it started.

The real question is, who do we have as a mascot? Petey? Gorrik? "Race"-o-Tron? Evon Gnashblade (because of course he'd be in on this)?

I would imagine free-to-players would be allowed to use mounts for free, just without the masteries, kind of like how we can use our character's elite specs in PvP even if we haven't trained them yet, and allowing the f2pers to use mounts in the races without getting the expansions would basically just be in game advertising for PoF and the living world, showing them how awesome the mounts can be first hand.

As for race courses, I had simply imagined instances made of the existing courses, with no monsters or npcs in them other than the npc racers and race coordinators, that way all Anet needs to do is draw circles on a map, turn them into instances, set monsters not to spawn in them, then teleport racers in when they're ready to race.

I would say Gourdon the racing choya would be a good mascot, but he's one of the racers, so I think Petey would be the de-facto mascot, tho it would be cool if Gorrik were hanging out by the race tracks to give tips to new racers about how to use the beetle properly, kinda like how "Masked Racer F" gives us tips about the content of the courses.

[Alimar.8760]

I wouldn't mind there to be a tournament where once a day you have to race a specific race. And you have either 24 hours or 3-4 tries to get your highest speed. After that it's all up to how well others do. And the tournament continues for a week with a 24 hour window to do each race and get your best time. Each day updates the leaderboard and say the top 20 get something at the end.

[Tharsul.2654]

@"Alimar.8760" said:I wouldn't mind there to be a tournament where once a day you have to race a specific race. And you have either 24 hours or 3-4 tries to get your highest speed. After that it's all up to how well others do. And the tournament continues for a week with a 24 hour window to do each race and get your best time. Each day updates the leaderboard and say the top 20 get something at the end.

That's definitely a good idea; since I don't know anything about how to design a structured mode like that, I'd been putting off thinking about how the ranked tournament would work, but that sounds like a solid basis to build from.

I especially like the idea of the top 20 racers getting something more than the participation reward everyone would receive, like a dye-selection pack of their choice and racing-trophy junk items to be sold for gold or something, kinda like the rewards from sandstorm and ecto-gambling.

In my original post, I mentioned that the racers should pay an entry fee to be collected into a prize pool which should be divvied up among the top racers, and after thinking about it for a while, I feel the top 5 should get that reward, with 1st getting 50% of the total pool, 2nd getting 25%, 3rd getting 13%, 4th getting 7%, and 5th getting 5%, or something to that effect.

On top of the prize pool winnings, the 1st place winner should get a title to lord over everyone with, like "Grand Racing Champion" or something, as well as a bunch of AP , and maybe some gems.

It would be really cool if the grand champ could get a great big racing trophy guild-hall decoration or something, tho a decoration like that would prolly depend on whether or not there's an asset to re-purpose for it, otherwise the folks at Anet would need to make a new model and textures, which might be asking a lot on top of all the other crazy ideas we've put forward.

[Alimar.8760]

I'm not sure how betting would work.

[Tharsul.2654]

@Alimar.8760 said:I'm not sure how betting would work.

I think betting would require some way to spectate the racers, like with the moa-races at Dragon Bash, tho if that would slow down the game for anybody, it would defeat the purpose of the instanced races, so idk if that would really be the best solution.

Another option I can imagine would be speculative betting, where we would have a panel in the racing menu where we can see the names and stats of racers who had signed up for the tournament, where we could choose to place bets on them, bets which would then be held till the racer's next race and paid out or garnered depending on the race's results. With such a system, the person who placed the bet would receive either a payout or announcement of their racer's loss when the racer finishes their next race.

In the end, betting is prolly the least important part of this racing league concept, but it would be a fun bit of flair which would add to the character of the world, and should appeal to all the ecto-gamblers out there.

[VDAC.2137]

I think it would be fun, although not having to pay to compete as this could only discourage new participants.

Is there a guild who regularly does racing? I am very new to this and would enjoy learning the courses with others! :)