I came to this idea after reading that currently CR times are measured by people making videos and then looking at the timestamps on the video. I think considering the popularity of timed runs the game should have an official ingame timer for each set of waves. If the PC has a performance hiccup the timer should also have the hiccup and the time should not be affected by such factors.
In addition the timer function can then also be added to SR shards, furthermore I think a functionality can be added to SR to have âcompetition shardsâ at certain levels like SR65, SR75. Those shards will not have randomization and mutators but fixed spawns and a fixed set of nemesis in the bossroom each providing different challenges. Players can then exactly time these runs as a fun competition element. Competition shards can also be inserted at some deeper shards for competition between 2 player or 4 player teams.
The community can create unique categories such as overall,pets,no pets,retaliation etc, or a category in which every build needs to be completely double rare green or a blue set. People with different skill sets GD stashers+pilots can team up to set records in different categories.
I think there is a great opportunity missed here. In the past a game like DOOM gained much additional popularity because of the implementation of ingame timer and attracted tons of players primarily interested in the speedrun feature. The implementation of reliable ingame timers can greatly expand the GD scene and improve the experience of the viewers. I donât know if such a feature already exists in another ARPG, but even if that is so I think GD will win as a platform for it. The game can evolve to offering this experience in addition to the amazing singleplayer experience.
My post was about more then just the timer, right now both CR and SR are actually designed around farming. The way I envision this, new NPCs are added to the crucible and witch cult area that regulate the competition runs without bothering the player with an endless grind to unlock them. It is purely about setting a score on non-randomized runs, the player will gain no loot. Other fun stats can be collected during the run such as amount of kills (SR) or highest damage dealt during the run etc.
With the way the Crucible community judges characters, displaying time would be a preferred method for comparing/leaderboarding characters than the current in-game method of raw score that shows up when you go to select Crucible:
Saying that though I do understand that score is used to dictate whether more rewards are given out or not.
The problem therein for adding an in-game timer is how you go about dictating what gets timed.
Is it just going to be a feature for the hardcore section of Crucible players and just times 150-170? (and how many players would benefit from it if so).
Does it time 10 waves from where you start (possibly with the start and end wave recorded in addition to clear time) or time every set of 10 waves played in a list so everyone at all levels of play (e.g. new players up to speedrunners) can benefit from it?
If it were to be recorded in a leaderboard in place of score, should there be indicators on the record of for example whether extra spawns were opened up or what mutators were present?
The community is all about 150-170 so expanding on my previous post I imagine if you could talk to some NPC asking for a timed run without loot, he will give a list of options, the primary option being the equivalent of 150-170 run but with fixed spawns and some fixed monster buffs to make the difficulty comparable with the pre-timer-patch era. Some other options on the list could be lower difficulty practice runs or runs that have a different fixed set of monsters. You donât need to go through all the waves to get the timed run, if your character is too weak he will simply get obliterated. Now normally there is a break at 160 where the player needs to walk back and activate the last set. I think this is better scraped to streamline the gameplay. 20 waves has become the standard intentionally or not so instead there can be a forced cooldown after wave 160 of a few seconds 3âŚ2âŚ1⌠on screen to keep the times and experience roughly comparable with pre-timer-patch runs.
For SR there could be something similar, you ask an NPC for a timed SR75-level shard run without loot. You get a run of 3 chunks and a bossroom with fixed environments and fixed monsters and some fixed monster buffs to keep the difficulty the same but not randomized. After the run you are forced out of the realm with your time and no rewards. There could be a list of multiple such fixed runs for variation, but it is inevitable that some run is going to be considered the standard in the community for comparison.
Iâm not against an official Crucible timer but Iâll try to restate my point again. If they seriously consider implementing an official timer aimed at the speedrunning part of the community, they need to think about/estimate how many people that have or will boot up Grim Dawn for the first time will play the game long enough to reach 150-170 and actively make use of said timer. Then consider if the time and effort they spend on this miniscule portion of the playerbase is worth it.
Granted, they have still thrown us bones multiple times - the constant and still ongoing balance patches aimed at endgame, fixing issues in Crucible or reworking SR, choosing the starting Crucible arena etc⌠so it could happen. But Iâm still trying to approach this as realistically and logically as I can and that does include the possibility that it wonât happen as it will fall low on the priority list. If itâs expanded so that everyone at all levels of play can make use of it, then there is more reason to work on it.
Ok by âcommunityâ I meant âspeedrunning communityâ, but as to the word âminisculeâ I disagree
Classes is the most active forum section here and new builds with crucible scores are frequently being uploaded I have also noted that builds with high scores and fast times consistently generate more likes and clicks. I think there is hidden demand for this because an actual proper way of comparing builds and an environment for fair competition doesnât exist and might attract new people if it does. Afaik such a thing doesnât exist in ARPG games, so what if GD is the first to do it right? you will have to take a leap of fate and see what happens, yes it could be a failure.
As to the amount of work for implementation I donât know, it seems to me most of what you need is already there, you donât even need to change the UI as the timer can simply replace the score for these runs.
When I say miniscule, I mean in the grand scheme of things. The official forums is still kicking years after release which is commendable but how many people are there that actively speedrun Crucible out of the total number of people that play including other communities and those that donât even partake in any community groups. How many people that have played the game even once have reached endgame and would be liable to use a timer specifically for running 150-170 in Crucible.
Let me put it this way using some completely made up numbers. Would you rather develop a feature for 10 000 people or tweak and design it so that 1 million people and future buyers can benefit from it?
Not sure I understand your question, but yes the picture is bleak if you look at it that way, but there is also little incentive. Perhaps SR is actually better for this idea, since it is much better connected to the campaign content and campaign characters can easily walk in and out. Crucible is something players seem to have less awareness of because of the disconnect with the campaign.
EDIT: There are also enormous hurdles such as the long grind to get to the âgrimsheet levelsâ, so it makes you wonder how things would have turned out without these hurdles.
I just came from Dark Souls to GD, and I loved the idea of the Crucible and the character development in GD.
But, right now, I cannot find other playersâ scores in my Leaderboard screen, but only my scores. Do these scores only show up after a certain level of our character, or am I missing something ?
Do you know of any site where we can see other peopleâs scores ? In my opinion, that would be really fun and a huge motivation for many people to play the game.
Here are various builds with ~records (or very good times):
Here you can see youtube channels of various GD players / speedrunners pushing the limits mostly from this forum
(some uploading videos even today for 1.1.9.2 beta patch):
Short answer, no, because the Crucible wasnât designed to be competitive in that way. The leaderboard is only for you to see how one of your characters compars to another one of yours.
I understand (but donât agree with) the gameâs design totally focused on single player, but I think itâs natural for most players to want to compare their builds with other players, itâs a natural motivation to try to improve further.
In any case, my main doubt now is about sites that do Crucible leaderboards independently for us to compare our builds in this great game mode.
As I said, short answer is no. No such site/s exist that Iâm aware of.
And you assume most players play Crucible/SR âcompetitivelyâ. Personally I play neither myself, I find them too boring. Although the majority of builds in the Compendium do use those game modes as part of the compendium inclusion criteria, if you look very few people actually post builds in there. Also the forum itself is a very small group of the player base as a whole.