Competitive play and augments

(Rex) #1

How does competitive play go along with augments?

One focus of competitive play has always been balance in any way. But as the current process of getting augments is pure luck, I can’t see how you can maintain balance in a competitive environment.

Now one can argue that the advantages you get through augments is small which might be true in general or especially regarding public, but for comp it isn’t! For example makes a ‘faster defusing and repairing’ augment a huge difference in comp where every second counts. That’s what I would call an unfair advantage.

The second argument could be that after some time you will get all the augments anyway. So why complain when you just need to spend some time ingame? Well, ‘some time’ could be fast or not. We are still dealing with random drops here and the randomness also defines the time you need to spend to get what you want or actually need. If you need to spend time first to be able to play comp, then we would have the exact situation we had in Brink where you were forced to get to the highest public rank before you could enter any serious tournament. And that’s just a big NO. Comp players mustn’t be forced to play public if they don’t want to.

So what’s the plan with augments regarding comp play? All augments available for all or just none at all?

(tokamak) #2

Trading economy.

(Protekt1) #3

I would imagine all augments available is ideal, assuming there is no set of “best” augments that doesn’t lead to more variety but just each team using the same set up.

One of the problems that tends to occur in some competitive games is that there is not a lot of variance between matches. Maybe augments can help in that respect.

(onYn) #4

Maybe for comp/private games you could only pick/bann the mercs that at least one member of each team owns and at the same time allow them for the length of the game to be picked up by anyone (with standard loadout) who participates in this game.

(INF3RN0) #5

Either augments should be easy to modify per card set, or official competition can just use stock mercs. LoL runes were easily customizable, and the rarity came from skins not stats. Same goes for CSGO.

(spookify) #6

Skins in an LOL type game vs a FPS game is totally different. The LOL skins were pretty sweet and you can play LOL on high and the abilites of each skin look cool… DB is bullet to face…

I like the idea of AUG’s being so how different in comp… They should not make a huge difference…

(Bangtastic) #7

[QUOTE=Anti;510763]Pretty sure I’ve mentioned it before but we are working towards a system where some element of ‘crafting’ will exist, so there will be a quantifiable route towards the cards you want.

When it will make it into the game I’m not sure, but based on the first round of feedback from you folks, and our own thoughts on the system prior to its release, we realize there needs to be some control beyond pure random drops.[/QUOTE]

source:
http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/41389-Augment-Feedback/page3

(Rex) #8

I was talking about augments, not mercs onyn. :wink:

Well, but in DB the ability strength defines the rarity. Wasn’t it supposed to be like this?

For me they do already in competitive setup.

[QUOTE=Tast1c;516003]source:
http://forums.warchest.com/showthread.php/41389-Augment-Feedback/page3[/QUOTE]

Next time just quote the sentence you find related. Makes it easier to reply to.

I found this one worth to mention:

But doesn’t say how they want to control it and doesn’t really answer the augments - comp problematic.

(spookify) #9

I was taking myself out of context on that one… I sort of meant that everyone should have access to all the different set ups plus some AUG’s should be in the base game…

A faster reload I can see helping a great deal in pubs…

I personally do not notice the faster raise time after running BUT do notice the switch time from Main to pistol… Tweaking needs to be down there to make the default a little faster…

Reduce hit while iron sight should be global for hip first also?

Reduced overall Recoil AUG…

Like I said some AUGs should be in the game in general and other need to be tweaked.

Some should flat out be gotten rid of like throwing a nade back…

Conclusion… Make the base game feel amazing then add augments to buff that feel!
(Not Nuff the overall game so Augments can have an impact)

(Glottis-3D) #10

[QUOTE=spookify;516241]I was taking myself out of context on that one… I sort of meant that everyone should have access to all the different set ups plus some AUG’s should be in the base game…
[/QUOTE]
totally agree.
2 different cards for every merc at start to play around.

(Floris) #11

I haven’t played DB competitively yet, so I won’t say anything about that. I did play W:ET competitively, and there you notice the tendency is to limit certain features (like artillery and heavy weapons) to make the game more skill based. I think we should not ban all augments, but there should be a limit on how many players with a certain augment you have running around in a team (in some cases that might mean the augment is not allowed to be used at all). In a similar vain, within teams we might need to limit the amount of players allowed to play a specific merc.

I hope that SD will add plenty of options to configure this, using CVARs for example, so the competitive community can figure it out by themselves. Facilities to verify a server config matches the rules set by a competition would also be beneficiary.

(tokamak) #12

The successful competitive multiplayer games are all based on the same mode and the same setting.

(Floris) #13

I’m not sure if anyone is asking for DB to be as successful as the CS and CoD series in terms of the amount of competition. That only seems to benefit the perhaps 10% of “high skilled” players anyway. I have never been “high skilled” and do not expect to end up being that. I just want the game to be fun and have a healthy competitive scene. Taking W:ET as an example again, at its peak it had thousands of clans (then I include clans which scrim but do not compete in official tournaments). I would say RTCW and W:ET were healthy competitive games, and for me they were successful in that sense.

(Mustang) #14

Think/hope he was referring to crafting in combination with ensuring every component you might want to use can be obtained in a reasonable length of time without too much grinding. The reasons I’d rather go this route than having a separate setting to unlock everything is because it splits the players and means you can only play on unranked. Although I would like to see a firing range where all the different augments and mercs can be tested in a single player environment so players can decided what to crafting without relying on trial and error.

(tokamak) #15

And that will only happen if everyone is playing exactly the same thing. Different settings aren’t an unbridgeable difference themselves, the problem is that making an exception for competitive play is having the developers admit that the main game isn’t the real thing.

In games like Starfcraft, LoL and WoT the games you play might as well be professional league matches, they’re played under the exact same conditions. This keeps people ambitious and climbing the ladder.

(Floris) #16

[QUOTE=tokamak;516272]And that will only happen if everyone is playing exactly the same thing. Different settings aren’t an unbridgeable difference themselves, the problem is that making an exception for competitive play is having the developers admit that the main game isn’t the real thing.

In games like Starfcraft, LoL and WoT the games you play might as well be professional league matches, they’re played under the exact same conditions. This keeps people ambitious and climbing the ladder.[/QUOTE]

You might be right about Starcraft, LoL and WoT, but in popular competitive shooter games like Call of Duty, the competitive game play has actually been restricted ever since CoD4 (limited perks and no rewards for streaks), at least on PC. Examples of shooters which do not add any restrictions for competitive play would be Counter-Strike and Call of Duty 1/2, but those game were quite bare to start with. For CS:GO, perhaps that is exactly because they did not want to add any fancy features. Like I said, for W:ET there were already various restrictions added by leagues for competitive play.

The entire reason these restrictions are in the game is to make a game competitive to begin with. In competition, you want a combination of individual skill and team skill to determine the winner. A lot of the augments introduce luck into the game, which flattens the skill hierarchy and should be something to avoid. For CoD4 and W:ET, I have never heard anyone complain that simplifying the game for competition was a bad thing.

(Protekt1) #17

[QUOTE=tokamak;516272]And that will only happen if everyone is playing exactly the same thing. Different settings aren’t an unbridgeable difference themselves, the problem is that making an exception for competitive play is having the developers admit that the main game isn’t the real thing.

In games like Starfcraft, LoL and WoT the games you play might as well be professional league matches, they’re played under the exact same conditions. This keeps people ambitious and climbing the ladder.[/QUOTE]

This isn’t necessarily true. I’ve never played LoL… dunno what WoT is… world of tanks? That has a pro scene? lol okay…

Anyway… starcraft 1 + 2 have different speed settings and custom matches.

I don’t follow how developers admit the game isn’t the real thing. Sorry but that is just non-sense, completely. In many games, including sports, there are different rules and formats for many many reasons. A professional sports league doesn’t have the same set of rules as a college sports league btw. That doesn’t devalue one league or anything like that. If the difference in rules supports a legitimate goal, then it is probably okay.

There is a benefit in keeping competitive and pub play as close as possible, so you weigh the benefits and the negatives appropriately. Ultimately, decisions to make pub play work out are likely more important than competitive play, but can be adjusted if necessarily. Decisions made now aren’t set in stone, after all; especially with a f2p.

(Glottis-3D) #18

[QUOTE=Protekt1;516297] dunno what WoT is… world of tanks? That has a pro scene? lol okay…
[/QUOTE]
serious stuff over there,man!!

//youtu.be/VAWS0Wk7P4M

(Protekt1) #19

[QUOTE=Glottis-3D;516298]serious stuff over there,man!!

//youtu.be/VAWS0Wk7P4M
[/QUOTE]

All I hear is a Russian speaking calmly