Descent
Descent is an hour-long race league introduced in Season Three. It is also the signature event for Season Three, meaning there is a separate leaderboard for Descent racers.
The main theme of the league resembles a dungeon crawl, in which the player's character starts at the top of a dungeon and gradually progresses down through the levels, fighting increasingly tougher foes on the way to the bottom level where the final boss awaits. RPG players familiar with "Ironman challenge" concept should find no trouble accommodating to the new rule set.[citation needed]
Differences
Descent is a significant departure from the other race leagues. Here is a rundown of the main differences.
Interaction with other leagues and players
- No partying is possible. A Descent race is purely a solo experience.
- Dead characters are permanently transferred into a Void league where they reside until the end of the league. Once Descent ends, its and Void characters become permanently unplayable. Items are not carried across to Standard or any other league.
Area differences
- Descent areas are unique among leagues, although they're based on existing tilesets. They have their own names and themes, and are considerably larger.
- Some ares contain exclusive enemies that don't appear in the rest of the game, like Skeletal Beasts.
- There is no town area.
- Once you enter an area, you can't go back. If you log out during the race, your character will respawn at the beginning of the current area.
- There are no waypoints or any other quick means to travel between areas or skip them aside from running through.
- All areas contain unique bosses similar to their map counterparts, but unlike most maps, bosses may be located near the beginning.
- Areas don't loop.
Difficulty and ladder positioning
- Descent doesn't have the same "Normal—Cruel—Merciless" system where areas loop with increasing difficulty, but instead switches to Cruel and Merciless penalties starting with certain areas.
- Areas from Phrecia Outskirts to Tomb of Statues are considered Normal, Frozen Abyss to Hall of Heroes are Cruel, and Desecrated Shrine onwards are Merciless.
- If a character dies during the race, it can still hold a position on that race's ladder, marked accordingly.
- If a character dies in a Cruel or Merciless area, it is subject to experience loss, which is applied before the final experience value is put on the ladder.
Gear and drops
- Item drops are improved compared to other leagues. The exact differences are unknown.
- There is no stash and no vendors to trade items with. Everything that may be of use must be used or carried in inventory; everything else is just a burden.
- Some gear is provided via special chests located in every area, as well as at the start of the first area. See the next paragraph for more info.
Special chests
There are three special types of chests that appear only in Descent league: Provisions, Curious, and Alluring. These chests contain some of the useful items such as flasks, skills, gear, and crafting currency. The contents of every given chest depends on the character class and the area they're located in.
Provisions
This is a chest that appears at the very start of the game near the character spawn point. It contains two skill gems, starting weapons, and a small number of other items.
Curious and Alluring chests
These two chests spawn at a fixed point near the exit of every area. As a rule of thumb, Curious chests contain mostly survivability items and skills while Alluring ones cater to more aggressive and adventurous play styles.
Players must choose which of the two they will open each time; the other chest will vanish along with its content.
The content of Curious and Alluring chests is fixed or at least semi-fixed for each respective class. Items like skill gems will always drop from their respective chests.
Zones
| Order | Zone | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Phrecia Outskirts | Normal |
| 2 | Heart of Phrecia | Normal |
| 3 | Lost Cathedral | Normal |
| 4 | Capricious Tomb | Normal |
| 5 | Arachnid Tomb | Normal |
| 6 | Tomb of Statues | Normal |
| 7 | Frozen Abyss | Cruel |
| 8 | Simian Cave | Cruel |
| 9 | Skeletal Caverns | Cruel |
| 10 | Forbidden Ruins | Cruel |
| 11 | Vault of the Guardians | Cruel |
| 12 | Hall of Heroes | Cruel |
| 13 | Desecrated Shrine | Merciless |
| 14 | Demonic Shrine | Merciless |
| 15 | ? | Merciless |