DB "Draft" Variation 'UnOfficial Playtest' by competitive community members.

(Rémy Cabresin) #1

So after a long time of the same ruleset and alot of casual discussions with some devs, a certain variation on a more ‘moba’ style draft mode came up repeatedly and we felt like setting up a small playtest for it. For all matches teams were evenly balanced(we ‘premade’ teams with Oksii and x3onn as captains as I already explained the basics of the rulesets to them before hand, and myself as ‘host’ to try and help make things abit more fluent, to try and get the most balanced teams instead of drafting players like in a pug)

Explanation of the rules used:
A ban and draft phase where players pick a ‘Main Merc’ that they play the whole game instead of their normal 3 Mercs. Captains pick two extra ‘subsitution’ Mercs with their default loadouts that any player can swap to at any time but ‘1 of each merc still applies’. So if player A swaps to subsitute merc A, player B/C/D/E cannot swap to sub merc A anymore until player A swaps of the sub merc.
Bans are applied to both teams, example: team A bans Aura, both teams cannot use Aura.
‘Mirror Picks’ are allowed, example: team A picks Sawbonez, team B is also allowed to pick Sawbonez.
The core idea is to make what Mercs are brought onto the field more important and/or give it more depth between teams, while also ‘soft’-limiting some things like overall spam etc.

edit: apparently you cannot see the images without a Warchest account, this is imgur link with the drafts for all the games!: https://i.imgur.com/aCgA5FB.png

In the first two games we used this draft format and the mercs are the picks and bans for that game.
GAME 1, Bridge:

GAME 2, Chapel:

These games kind of turned out in what I’d consider "not much variation from normal pugging/competitive rules. Ofcourse this is in part due to this being literally the first games played with these rules, so picks and bans were quite conservative, but with how limited the impact of character specialty is in DB I don’t believe this would change drastically over time.

In game 3, to try and see if it mattered, we added two bans before the subsitution picks to see if this influenced gameplay much:
GAME 3, Dockyard:

Rules are the same as for the game 1 and 2 except an additional ban.
The only ‘notable’ thing in this particular game was that due to how bans turned out both teams had only 1 Fire Support(Stoker) so the EV stages were basically over as Stoker isn’t particularly good at dealing with it, both teams said about the same time overall. Overall it didn’t feel very different than game 1 and 2 outside of having to think slightly more about the overal mercs available and working with what is available.

In game 4 we went a bit more drastic with the rules to try and change it up:
Game 4, Bridge:

Here we removed the bans entirely, but Mirror Picks were not allowed. So for example x3onn’s team picked Sawbonez, Oksii’s team was not allowed to use Sawbonez at all, all game.
This was imo the most ‘interesting’ strategy wise, because after the first few picks you really need to pick what you can still work with. In x3onn’s(the team I was on) team we realized we had the more defense favored team early on and we ‘focused’ into it with Guardian as the last pick to try a defense focused strategy. Didn’t really work out because we struggled to gain control of the map to make it work. This was still a close game too though, but I think in big part due to the weirdness of the mercs on the map causing a bit of a snowball.

That’s the summary of what we played tonight, I’ve asked everyone who participated(but this is open for anyone to share their thoughts on ofcourse), to leave their impression and thoughts. I’m hoping to make these kind of ‘playtests’ more frequent with more variations of rulesets to see what feels best and more importantly what feels ‘right’ for DB. :slight_smile:

Thanks to the players who joined in today :slight_smile:
x3onn ©
Oksii ©
Mordrag
Silentrage
deathslayer
Alek
SB
carniee(game 1+2)
Mot
r0NNiM(game 3+4)
adeto(‘hostbot’ :D)

(Rémy Cabresin) #2

My personal take on this, in general I’m not sure how much it really adds. Strategically the only really interesting one was the last game because there you’re much more restricted in what you can do and what you and your enemy pick actually somewhat matters, however I think the amount of mercs for this gamemode in DB atm is far too little to feel good. The game with 6 bans to me felt the most ‘DB’ because the overall gameplay didn’t change too much but there was enough impact to really try and sway mercs in your players favor or focusing on getting rid of a good merc for a player or two on the other team(rip silentrages arty in game 3 for example).

I think the biggest ‘problem’ for this is that unlike in a proper moba game the ‘strategy’ in team composition in DB is just not important enough. There is no specific single merc you could want to build around unless you REALLY go all in on it to a point where it’s just not worth it anymore, the risk is too much and the usefulness to niche(like f.e going all in on a turtle/guardian/aura build) and becuase(in the first 3 games)Mirror picks are allowed it also just doesn’t really matter at all because the opponent can just pick exactly the same if they feel like it and return the game to just fragging.The picking/banning just doesn’t really feel ‘sufficiently important’ to strategy. In the end it comes down to the same mechanics DB is already about when using a 1 merc limit, there is just less swapping.

We don’t exactly know as there were no spectators for the most part, but all this might hold some value for the ‘viewing’ experience. It might be abit easier to watch because there is less swapping of mercs happening because there are only 7 mercs available to each team instead of 15 with a normal 1 merc rule or ‘free for all ranked rule’.

I am interested in trying more variations though, specifically the GAME 3 and 4 variations were more interesting because of much more restrictive ruling due to more bans/no mirrors.

Largest ‘problem’ with this for testing was the lack of a visual UI :stuck_out_tongue: Pick/Ban Phase took ~10 minutes each time because of confusion/remembering what was picked and what wasn’t for both teams etc :P. In part due to ofcourse being the first time so its a bit new to try out but this is definitely a huge hurdle if this were to be a more standard thing. Some version for DB of something like ‘OWDraft.com’ would be a huge help if anyone is quick on their feet with some coding :3.

(Glottis-3D) #3

very good stuff.

what are the thoughts of other players? anyone wants to share?

PS
slap me in discord if you want a spec/player for next time(s)

(Smooth) #4

This is awesome stuff, thanks!

(Alek__) #5

As adeto wrote down, the strategic impact of these picks and bans is limited since the rulesets we tried were either too open (game 1&2) or too restrictive (game 4). I think game 3 is as close as we got to finding that balance. Although one could argue having both arty and skyhammer ruled out on an ev map is quite restrictive in its own right, it is nowhere as restrictive as forcing the same 4 meds to be played every game thus forcing one player on Sparks, a currently weaker merc usually chosen as a pocket pick by players. Sparks is also reliant on having teammates play around her so she is actually able to output some healing which is hard to implement in a pick-up-game context. Forcing one player on Sparks and having four mercs (Aura, Sawbonez, Pheonix, Sparks) played every single game, implying issues with monetisation, make the game 4 ruleset non-viable in my opinion.

One thing that was interesting to me is the possibility of target banning certain players, for instance mordrag’s Fragger or silentrage’s Arty and Thunder, which actually adds some strategic depth to the pick and ban phase provided you know who you are facing. That depth, however, remains limited as most players are quite flexible with the mercs they play.

Lastly, the framework which having a main merc and two subs provided was actually quite pleasant to play with, I think someone on my team mentioned it was nice to press tab and see everyone having their main merc selected with the two subs on the side. That framework might also be a great alternative to implementing a dry one merc rule, since I don’t believe any ruleset for DB could decently be called ‘competitive’ without some kind of one merc rule.

Still we had some great games and I hope we get to experiment more rulesets that attempt to shake things up like the ones we tried yesterday.

(deathslayer6924) #6

My take on it:

  • The pick&ban phases took way too long (around ~25 minutes the first time), it’s a bit confusing but probably manageable with a proper UI
  • The gameplay didn’t change too much from how pugs/tournaments are(/used to be) played, so that was good. I especially liked the extra bans because it means you can get rid of the mercs that bog down the gameplay or are just plain annoying to play against
  • Locking people to play just one merc (or one of the substitutes) greatly reduces different tactics you could use in-game. Then again, the current ruleset in place enforces a meta already so I guess it’s not much of a biggie

Certainly looking forward to play another game with these rules. My initial impression was 6.5/10

(fubar) #7

I found it rather interesting but as adeto previously pointed out, the drafting process in itself doesn’t add much if any value to DB due to how the mercs are designed. Even with no-mirror picks there isn’t enough specialization within the mercs that promote heavily orienting your composition around a single player. The only exception that comes to mind is Rhino here, but even here it’ll be negligible at most.

Gameplay wise it was hardly any different from the usual 1 merc limit that’s been used for the last years within the pug/comp community. While the reduction of available mercs merely forces a tighter limit onto your team. I’d suspect that any and all subs would be dedicated to a single “multiclass” player to alleviate having to run engineers on defensive holds and with an additional merc to swap to on a “need to” basis. Meta otherwise doesn’t allow for much if any variation here at all in organized play. You’ll still try to upkeep your 2 medics at all times, neither of which players would likely ever switch outside of extreme niche situations. I’m honestly not sure if I like it yet. Teams would likely build their two sub picks around a single player for sake of convenience and otherwise run 4 static mercs at all times.

Drafting process was unnecessary long and outside of a tournament setting far too bothersome, the drafting in itself is rather irrelevant with the exceptions of bans. It may be of interest to viewers for the illusion of “strategy”, but personally I would just put my focus on the ban process rather than anything else. You could possibly have subs picked independently if you’d want to lock your players onto single mercs, but otherwise there’s no real need for drafting in itself.

4 primary bans and 2 sub bans I found to be the most interesting game, at this point bans become far more strategic rather than merely a “just ban whatever you don’t like playing against” thing. It adds depth having to build your composition around the map and the fact that core mercs may very likely will be missed (with 4 bans total there’s always enough alternatives available for it to be negligible).

Ie my ideal format following the proposed system would be:

4 bans to start. Team’s all pick their “main mercs” with no drafting process. 2 more bans, subs are picked by captain.
Will realistically yield the exact same result as any drafting process would but cut down the time severely. 6 bans for the reasons mentioned above.

(x3onn) #8

After these firsts tests, I would still prefer the type of ruleset DBN used for example; 1 merc rule, each team bans 2 mercs (a team can only ban 1 in each class, for example only 1 medic). This kind of ruleset is hard to force in a matchmaking game without any referees though.

These rulesets we tested have their pros for sure, like making it more clear for the players and for the spectators what is going on. But I don’t think there’s enough mercs (like there would be in a MOBA) and those mercs we have have less differences than the champions in a MOBA usually have, so I feel like the whole idea would become very stale quickly. The pick and ban phase takes a long time, which would be shorter of course in an actual MOBA UI where players have time limits to make their choices. Picks and bans are out of question for PUGs (pick up games), too much time and effort required. I can see this potentially working in a tournament environment, maybe even in a matchmaking if there’s a decent UI to speed up the process.

Anyway, I’m up for testing different kind of variations in near future. Perhaps we can find something that works better.

(Mordrag) #9

I only played fragger these games, so because he was never banned it didn’t change at all what I played. But on the last map we had to play without sawbonez and aura, so we had phoenix and sparks, which was annoying because I probably got kill revived more often than healed. So the entire game I had to play a lot more careful, because I couldn’t rely on getting healed. It would have been fine if the other team had the same problem.

I also don’t like the fact that you’re stuck with the same merc on attack and defense.