General holiday stuff, re: Races...

Is there any way we can, I dunno, make races NOT be required for the "I did this holiday completely! " Achievement? I mean, they're fun enough to do, if you can get enough points to get something really cool re: house items or even Appearance items. That being said, I for one am NOT competitive at all when it comes to these things; I was never so glad as when the requirement for at least 3 people to be competing at once (in a Group? I don't recall) in order to race at all was eliminated. I far prefer "racing" against the clock. If that gets me on the Top Whatever boards, groovy; if not, I don't care. I know there are tons of folks out there who do, and that's fine. I don't mind (too much) sharing the race field with someone else; as long as they're working the North part of a field, say, I'll work the South side, and as we move along ('cause, timed), as long as that distance is maintained, we're both doing our own thing, groovy.

What gets me is what I'll call the "professional racers," who don't seem to do anything else with their time in the holidays, have memorized the fields (and even the bouncer sequence in Sinking Sands; at least that one is a lot more chaotic ;->), and will lurk about, waiting, for several minutes/possibly hours for some li'l sucker to come along that they can compete against and increase their personal standing on the boards -- and grind their competition's faces into the mud. I don't mind sharing a field; what I do mind is watching someone deliberately changing their pathing to intentionally cut me or someone else off (I've seen this while I'm waiting for my own mount to take off :-/) from needed stuff, just as we're heading for it. I'd like to think that's not anything more than impatience on their part; I'd really hate to accuse anyone of intentionally griefing (even though there have been times where I have deliberately changed my own pathing to avoid this gone out of my way to do so, and had my "opponent" do the exact same thing. They were following me with the intent of ruining my playing experience). :-/

It's getting to the point where I will go out of my way to make sure it's at O-Dark-Thirty in the morning before I'll even try to get all the races I need to under my belt to qualify for the holiday Achievement for my toons (it wasn't fun with 7 toons, let alone -- more...). If I see the same person sitting there, right by the race start, with my last alt on a server that was there for my first alt, I'll figure something's up, and they won't rest until they've finished humiliating me or anyone else in a race.

All I want is enough points to get stuff I want. That's it. If we can make it so that if you want to compete with others in the same field at the same time, you HAVE to be in a voluntarily formed Group to do so...otherwise, you're prevented from racing until the field's clear; either wait your damn turn for 2.5 minutes until the person out there is done, or be in a group of at least two (i.e., you and one other person), or be polite, why, then I'd be overjoyed. :-/

Uwk

I love the beer stealing goblin race, but I think I only managed to get the number of push overs done once or twice.
I also love the bouncy quest for Bristlebane in Sinking Sands, but I like to make small races and I seem to be always getting the short straw.

I tested out size differences with the bounce race yesterday. There was no difference how many orbs I obtained if I was small or larger than my usual size.

ok, Cusashorn, it must be my problem, I just am a bad jumper.

Probably me too, though I have noticed a difference, sometimes, between my talls and smalls; seems I have better luck with the taller ones, but it's so chaotic it's probably hard to get a good benchmark. ;->

Uwk

The main thing I like about the beer stealing goblin race is that it isn't a requirement for the Achievement... ;->

Uwk

It does rely more on skill. Being able to keep yourself in the air longer results in higher scores because you gain points by hitting the mid-air bouncers. However, luck and RNG does play a small factor. Sometimes you just get bad races.

I'm with you Uwk. That beer one is a devil for me, same as the bounce in SS. At least the SS one is 'participate' not get x number, so no matter how many/few I manage to get it completes it. Now the achievement, 'are you jelly'...shudder my whole arm is numb from repeating it for hours...50, 89(!), 67....OMG!!!

my best score was 103 I hit several of the gold ones, pure luck.

You need to only reach 85 to get the maximum reward possible. Anything more is just showing off.

I ran it again yesterday and noticed that regardless of your size, sometimes an orb may not register when you pass through it. There's a timing issue, I think possibly server lag related. I know I'm one of those people who likes to take up a high score, but I do enjoy playing it, so I am working out the intricacies of the mechanics.

my normal score is 50 to 55

I sometimes have the feeling my path makes a curve when I get close to a golden sparkle, just so I won't hit it.
Do those globs have a forcefield around them?

It does feel like that sometime, I know what you're talking about. Sometimes you just over-correct and miss. Sometimes it is better to miss and just try to aim for the next closest bounce pad so you keep getting points in mid air.

My best score on SS was 105, I about fell out of my chair on that. Yes, Cusahorn, you only need 85 to get the best reward. But you have to score at least 90 to earn the achievement of Are You Jelly.

LOL Schmetterling, I feel you, aim for the glob then huh I seem to have turned for now reason. I decided my characters were afraid of the globes. Then is my favorite...run over the cube to go up and .... nothing .... try to get to the next cube as fast your little feet will carry you, and of course the time runs out.

I'm going to be completely honest, I don't even pay attention to the other people in those races. I know sometimes there are other people, but I'm not looking at them, or where they are. I'm only looking for the whatever it is (hearts, pies, candies, goblins, whatever). It very well may look like I'm intentionally cutting people off, I have no idea. No one has ever SAID anything to me about it. But I also can't imagine that I'm the only person that does these races like this.

If someone has ever raced with me and felt I was rude, I sure wish they'd have said something.

As for locking the race to a group? That's a terrible idea and would be far too easy to grief other people with. I can just see people logging extra accounts on, grouping up, and just parking the other accounts in the starting box while their main character just has the field to themselves. It's just my opinion, but I think that would be far far worse than anything that happens currently.

I absolutely love playing the races and generally spend most of my holiday time playing them. I probably fit close into being a professional racer, but boy do I hate racing when there's someone else there. I like to challenge myself in getting a better score than my last one and you can't really do that when someone else is there and it's suuuuuuuper important to me that others also get to have fun. I definitely agree that something needs to be done about the people who jump into races to assert dominance over everyone else. I know I run away as soon as I see someone even get into the same zone as me, but you can't rely on someone to do that.
Having to be grouped to run races with other people on the field sounds like a great idea to me to reduce the amount of griefing done, though that still leaves a problem for people like me who love to race, sometimes more than doing the holiday quests (which I love too). My problem with racing on live servers is that sometimes I don't actually get a chance to race that day. I don't want to stand in the zone waiting my turn because I don't want people to feel pressured to stop if they're having a lot of fun. I know that when I get in the groove I like to do a good number of races in one sitting and get a little sad if I have to stop early, and I'm sure there's other people like that. If I come back later though there's usually someone new racing, so once again I go out to do some harvesting before checking back. I know this can be solved by just waiting by the quest giver, but I try waaaay to hard to be polite :/
Right now the best solution I can come up with is to make is so that you have to wait your turn, as this solves the problem that most people (including me) would have with the racing. I don't think this is possible, but having separate races running at once (kind of like an instance? I don't know, I'm not good at explaining things) would help.
So, what I'm thinking is that someone would start a race and be able to run it. A new person would run up and also start a race while the first person is still going. This time however, instead of being on the same race track, the second player has their own points to collect that the other person can't see or interact with. So if both people run to the 'same' point, they both pick it up because their track isn't affected by the other person. I don't know, I'm probably not explaining this well. And I don't think it's possible to change the races to act like this.
Just thought of this while writing this post, maybe there could be a race dimension lol. Like, the quest giver could ask you if you wanted to race in a private world and send you to an instance that is just the section of the zone that's the race. That way you could race however you wanted without worrying about others

I don't know, just wanted to add a ramble-y post that may or may not be comprehensible to the mix

Oh, Olisha, you're a gal after my own kitteh heart.

Uwk

There are accidents that happen, true, but I dunno, maybe I'm too shy or not wanting to spend time in drama matches, maybe especially if they're @$$&%^$ -- jerks. Comes with having too many alts (no such thing!), I guess; I worry about getting all their stuff done effectively in the time we have without grief or drama, and like with PvP, where I'm sure there are those who appreciate matching wits with another human, and are probably the quiet majority, there are enough small numbers of jerks that ruin it for everyone else.

Today, I had to share the field in Enchanted Lands, and it was fine. I got enough done to get the amount of points I wanted, no mess, no fuss with either of us, and was even pleasantly surprised when I did pretty well in the Sinking Sands one with a Small toon! I wasn't sharing the field there, but it's so blasted chaotic anyway, that usually doesn't matter (and it's good that there isn't collision detection with anything other than like rocks and other "set decoration"; while it would be hilarious to see folks crashing into each other, it would waste time... ;->)

And nope, I'm not encouraging the Powers to require folks to group again to race at all, or enable any kind of exploit, it's just that I think it's best for everyone to be able to maybe stagger the starting times by a good 30+ seconds, unless -- hmm! Maybe that would be a better idea, if there's not something like that already.

Uwk
/pondering

I got myself an Ogre illusion and my score went up good, I hit 4 of the gold sparks, but it was just not enough.
My score this time was 89, shish.

I give up my technic stinks, often enough I get up high and float by the gold globs on top of them and only get back down once I am past them.

Oh, tell me about it; many's the time when I've missed stuff up there by thaaaaat much...one of the mutters I've had about the Bouncers is that with any other race, just about, you really only need to be like in the same time zone to activate something. :-/

Uwk