DirtyCups.gg Test Cup #2 - Highlander Rules

PixelTwitch · 2015-05-12 09:20:02 UTC

For the most point I agree with some of adetos comments. However not when it comes to the forcing of Mercs.

By removing the one Merc rule you only really give the illusion of choice, as you said Sawbones is simply “better” in many respects, so your choice is really only between the most optimal setup vs less optimal setup… The result, especially in competitive play, is the second medic is forced to play the sawbones. Right now, you are correct, there needs to be a wider pool of Mercs, at least a couple more medics to be sure. Once they are in, sure, Sawbones could still be the most viable and desired pick but then you have a real choice between the other three. Specially when all 3 play so differently from each other. Long range revives vs mid fight healing bursts and self revives vs defensive healing station for a Rhino, Thunder and Fragger to abuse. In this case there is a good chance that a second sawbones would still be preferred, if you say nerf him then a little so that it is no longer the case you run into the problem that then Phoenix may be better then sawbones, so players will simply want to play 2 Phoenix instead.

Part of the problem is that its still a “class” based system and not roles at all, where is the Merc that can revive with defibs and hand out ammo but not heal mid fight, where is the heavy engineer with an EMP charge and a p90 smg and where is the recon with smg and radar station.

Anyway, liked the post.

adeto · 2015-05-12 10:18:26 UTC

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;528175]For the most point I agree with some of adetos comments. However not when it comes to the forcing of Mercs.

By removing the one Merc rule you only really give the illusion of choice, as you said Sawbones is simply “better” in many respects, so your choice is really only between the most optimal setup vs less optimal setup… The result, especially in competitive play, is the second medic is forced to play the sawbones. Right now, you are correct, there needs to be a wider pool of Mercs, at least a couple more medics to be sure. Once they are in, sure, Sawbones could still be the most viable and desired pick but then you have a real choice between the other three. Specially when all 3 play so differently from each other. Long range revives vs mid fight healing bursts and self revives vs defensive healing station for a Rhino, Thunder and Fragger to abuse. In this case there is a good chance that a second sawbones would still be preferred, if you say nerf him then a little so that it is no longer the case you run into the problem that then Phoenix may be better then sawbones, so players will simply want to play 2 Phoenix instead.

Part of the problem is that its still a “class” based system and not roles at all, where is the Merc that can revive with defibs and hand out ammo but not heal mid fight, where is the heavy engineer with an EMP charge and a p90 smg and where is the recon with smg and radar station.

Anyway, liked the post.[/QUOTE]

It doesn’t give an illusion of choice, it gives choice. Right now you are always forced into Aura as the 2nd medic, atleast if its free pick you can still pick between Aura and a 2nd Sawbonez, those who prefer Aura or teams that build around it properly are still able to pick her. In the end long term its fine with 1 merc rule, that’s why I posted the middle ground bit about Highlander+class restricted, that would be best of both imo, but it only works after there are at least 3/4 mercs per class so that there is enough variety for thing to not be forced on you.

Personally don’t think class based is part of the problem, making ‘cross-class’ mercs most likely results mercs that are inferior to mercs specifically built for a purpose. Having mercs differ in attacking vs defending capabilities seems more important to me. F.E right now all engineers(including Fletcher) seem mostly defensive oriented mercs with their abilities. Which means they are great on one end but also a lot weaker on the other. Which is also what happens with Aura vs Sawbonez, Aura can be useful defensively but in offense her station is awkward to use and ineffective to say the least(defending nades flying in etc). Sawbonez’s overal healing rate might be lower, but hes much more ‘allround’ than she is. I like that Heavy Engineer with EMP and smg idea since it offers an Engineer with attacking capabilities(clearing mines/turrets etc before planting f.e). But that has nothing to do with them being ‘cross-class’, that engi would be just as interesting if he had a medium/low HP.

I’d like to see SD throw in mercs that specifically counter meta gameplay(atleast after the re-release mercs). That’s the only way to make those type of mercs intereting, if you throw a merc in that isn’t going to do much whats the point of changing things for teams rite? (I understand your point of ‘making interesting things’ but in competitive play no-one cares about interesting, people care about winning and most optimal > most interesting most of the time)

Anti · 2015-05-12 10:28:36 UTC

[QUOTE=adeto;528179]

I’d like to see SD throw in mercs that specifically counter meta gameplay(atleast after the re-release mercs).[/QUOTE]

Something to bear in mind is that when we started development we had classes, but decided to go away from that to add a more unique experience and provide more opportunities for teamwork (and before anybody says it playing a ‘role’ is not teamwork :)). The result of this is a lot of our early Mercs still fit old classes.

Future Mercs will have this issue less often as they are now designed around filling a gameplay need or adding a gameplay experience. For example it’s possible with the current amount of AoE projectiles in the game that we could add an anti-AoE Merc to fill that need in gameplay, adding the kind of counters that you’re suggesting.

PixelTwitch · 2015-05-12 10:36:23 UTC

Your final point really encapsulates my concern perfectly.

You are 100% right its all about optimal and winning.
If you are a competitive player that does not care about making a living off the game via prize pools and stream/youtube views then you are completely right and I will not argue with your perspective at all. Lot’s of games right now have competitive events weekly that you would not really think about when the word “eSports” comes up. Still small competitive events for Shootmania each week, Evolve, Left 4 Dead, Titanfall, Nosgoth, Black Light, Battlefield, CoD, TF2 and many more. Providing you are happy with competing without financial incentive or thousands of viewers, you really can focus on that kind of design.

However, if your someone (like me) who wants the game to have bigger events, lots of spectators and popular players, you simply NEED to think almost as much about the game from a spectators perspective as you do from a players. Without sounding harsh, SD could **** all over the current competitive player base and make a game designed around spectators and more casual play and still end up with a bigger competitive scene at the end of it. More players + better viewing experience + lose meta = more events, more viewer ship and more money that in turn entices more players and more teams to pick it up. Now, obviously it does not look like that will happen with Dirty Bomb and I personally hope it does not either. Just trying to explain why sometimes accepting that something is not exactly how you would like it to be can result in a better overall game for the majority of plays (because the casual are always going to be the majority until a game “dies”) and in turn can support a bigger/better competitive community as well.

People often feel like I say things because I am stupid or selfish, however, often I say what I say because I think more about a viewers and casual players experience more than most… Let’s be honest that demographic, while much bigger then our competitive community, are still very quiet and rarely inject their preferences

adeto · 2015-05-12 10:37:26 UTC

[QUOTE=Anti;528180]Something to bear in mind is that when we started development we had classes, but decided to go away from that to add a more unique experience and provide more opportunities for teamwork (and before anybody says it playing a ‘role’ is not teamwork :)). The result of this is a lot of our early Mercs still fit old classes.

Future Mercs will have this issue less often as they are now designed around filling a gameplay need or adding a gameplay experience. For example it’s possible with the current amount of AoE projectiles in the game that we could add an anti-AoE Merc to fill that need in gameplay, adding the kind of counters that you’re suggesting.[/QUOTE]

Yea figured, thats kinda what I meant with the ‘re-release’ thing Assuming you can’t predict the future, but does that hint that the more class based mercs right now will get some major changes at a later stage? To make them more fitting to the new ‘gameplan’?

Glottis-3D · 2015-05-12 10:39:20 UTC

[QUOTE=Anti;528180]
Future Mercs will have this issue less often as they are now designed around filling a gameplay need or adding a gameplay experience. For example it’s possible with the current amount of AoE projectiles in the game that we could add an anti-AoE Merc to fill that need in gameplay, adding the kind of counters that you’re suggesting.[/QUOTE]

i called my old friend - the Oppressor guy from ETQW, he said his Force-field bubbles still work, and he can share those…

Anti · 2015-05-12 11:23:09 UTC

Force-field dropped on hog for lyfe :hog:

Anti · 2015-05-12 11:24:47 UTC

Not sure about that, we kind of like that some Mercs are simple to use. They are good ‘gateway’ Mercs for people coming to the game from less complex FPS games. That said, those Mercs should still always be viable, so we need to keep them neatly balanced.

adeto · 2015-05-12 11:58:09 UTC

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;528182]Your final point really encapsulates my concern perfectly.

You are 100% right its all about optimal and winning.
If you are a competitive player that does not care about making a living off the game via prize pools and stream/youtube views then you are completely right and I will not argue with your perspective at all. Lot’s of games right now have competitive events weekly that you would not really think about when the word “eSports” comes up. Still small competitive events for Shootmania each week, Evolve, Left 4 Dead, Titanfall, Nosgoth, Black Light, Battlefield, CoD, TF2 and many more. Providing you are happy with competing without financial incentive or thousands of viewers, you really can focus on that kind of design.

However, if your someone (like me) who wants the game to have bigger events, lots of spectators and popular players, you simply NEED to think almost as much about the game from a spectators perspective as you do from a players. Without sounding harsh, SD could **** all over the current competitive player base and make a game designed around spectators and more casual play and still end up with a bigger competitive scene at the end of it. More players + better viewing experience + lose meta = more events, more viewer ship and more money that in turn entices more players and more teams to pick it up. Now, obviously it does not look like that will happen with Dirty Bomb and I personally hope it does not either. Just trying to explain why sometimes accepting that something is not exactly how you would like it to be can result in a better overall game for the majority of plays (because the casual are always going to be the majority until a game “dies”) and in turn can support a bigger/better competitive community as well.

People often feel like I say things because I am stupid or selfish, however, often I say what I say because I think more about a viewers and casual players experience more than most… Let’s be honest that demographic, while much bigger then our competitive community, are still very quiet and rarely inject their preferences :)[/QUOTE]

‘lose meta’ has little(possible nothing) to do with that whole sum though. you can leave it out and the result is the exact same. In any game, the meta or even the type of game, has very little to do with how interesting it is to viewers. People say ‘well the round of CS are easier to watch for viewers so execution for comp’ but then there is LoL where games last 30 min - 1 hour but but applying the logic of the first said people that means LoL wouldn’t b a good game to watch. Meta /format/gameplay have little to do with making a game work for viewers. Making a interesting for viewers/casuals = accessibility(tutorial, easy to learn mercs, public play) + spectator tools(casters, ingame spec UI etc) + money(events, prizepools, marketing).

If we had the old 2 Sawbonez 3 Fragger meta and attach a 1 million euro prizepot to an event, I guarantee you people will watch and play it

PixelTwitch · 2015-05-12 12:17:57 UTC

[QUOTE=adeto;528195]‘lose meta’ has little(possible nothing) to do with that whole sum though. you can leave it out and the result is the exact same. In any game, the meta or even the type of game, has very little to do with how interesting it is to viewers. People say ‘well the round of CS are easier to watch for viewers so execution for comp’ but then there is LoL where games last 30 min - 1 hour but but applying the logic of the first said people that means LoL wouldn’t b a good game to watch. Meta /format/gameplay have little to do with making a game work for viewers. Making a interesting for viewers/casuals = accessibility(tutorial, easy to learn mercs, public play) + spectator tools(casters, ingame spec UI etc) + money(events, prizepools, marketing).

If we had the old 2 Sawbonez 3 Fragger meta and attach a 1 million euro prizepot to an event, I guarantee you people will watch and play it :P[/QUOTE]

If you put a 1 million prize pool on rock, paper and scissors people will watch it…
Watch all the material and read all the information that SD have put out until now. They intend to build the best game they can and try to support competitive play where possible. When ever asked if they would put money into the game they always say not directly. Sure they could change their mind but I like working with what we have in front of us.

I can tell you for a fact that it did not take a million dollar event to make CS or LoL the size it is now.
I can also tell you that 100,000 dollars for Shootmania, Firefall and Evolve is not or did not make waves in the ocean.

I am not arguing for execution (personally I hate it) and I am not arguing for stopwatch (I think its a flawed mode for viewers).

Battlefield 4 is a prime example of when money does not equal viewership…

//youtu.be/3D1GVK2vH8E

Great match, semi-finals, well known teams, 1 year ago, 1700 views.

Without the hundreds of thousands being pumped into this by EA, this would not be possible

Sure the grand finals got 50,000 viewers but that is simply not enough.

Battlefield is also a prime example of a simple meta that works with little to no variation used and how boring this ends up being to watch.

BioSnark · 2015-05-12 13:01:33 UTC

Do many people actually watch competitive team FPS? Sounds painful.

If it’s just 2 people in a death match, you miss little. Each additional player makes the experience less watchable, in my opinion, as more is left out of a single viewing perspective. If it were up to me, there’d be a Natural Selection 2 match stream that was only viewing the top-down map and the same would somehow be managed in Dirty Bomb. Then, I might be entertained watching more than a small fraction of a team fps comp event.

rookie1 · 2015-05-12 13:10:20 UTC

Add to DB thisand I bet you DB will be exciting to play and Watch and players retention will increase by 70 % if not more

Humbugsen · 2015-05-12 13:17:18 UTC

A good game is a game where you can never say who will win, you can only say who is a good player
Just take poker for example, you can never say who is going to win that tourney, because it depends on the cards and the other players.
But you can for sure tell a good poker player from a bad one. Same is true for Dota

The winner of a match should be decided by more “micro events” within a match instead of pure aimskill
It gets boring fast if the same team always wins, because they’re the best aimers
Tactics, teamplay and experience need to count more.
While more mercs will bring more tactical depth i also still see a lot of room in map design and objectives + side objectives.
I think it’s interesting to watch as long as the matches are close and tactical and there are lots of different ways to win. Like trickplants, trickjumps different routes, flanks, rushes etc.

spookify · 2015-05-12 14:14:09 UTC

Played my first Highlander Rules Scrim yesterday and it was intense!

Teams were actually very evenly matched but I do not think this was because of shooting skill. “IMO” we had them massively out gunned but couldn’t break through some of their strats especially in the small area’s.

Example:
We Rolled WC Attackers and got the EV Parked in 3 Minutes and then were full held at last OBJ…
We Rolled Bridge Attackers Stage 1 but were almost full held at Stage 2 Gate…
Terminal was just a cluster…

This was my first time ringing for this team and if you put that into play we actually didnt do that bad.

I did feel very out of place as I volunteered “NOT” to play Fragger and rather went SAW. I felt like a fish out of water because we also had an aura who was helping the fragger. It would have been great to have another killing class because when all is said and done thats what matters.

The game plays weird: Your engy on an EV map is basically on a island and its your job as the remaining 4 not to let that person die or get back raged. The best offense is a offense in this case. You want to push very fair up to keep the fighting off the EV. The game basically turns into a 3v5 because the attacking engy is just sitting on the EV and the pocket medic is just reviving all the time. Attacking shotguns seem to almost nothing in some area’s on some maps. I think our aura had 2 kills on Bridge haha!

***One of the biggest things I noticed was trying to gib. We would down their fragger and instantly try to gib him. Thee only time we could gib (in time) was if 3 people were shooting at him. The reason for this is because the fragger head would always roll under his body and was not visible! Hard to gib a big fat guy when all you see is a backpack and legs…

As I stated above we needed a little more fire power so I went arty from time to time. I think I got 1 kill with his airstrike because people would just run away. I also tried to lay down suppression fire using IS but the kick was just to uncontrollable. I actually had more luck going sniper then playing arty. Arty needs a little love. (And I truly only mean a little he’s close)

Another thing that stood out was if I would get around the back of then as SAW I might run into a turret and be stumped on what curse of action to take… Take out my knife and stab it 6 times or waste half my bullet and die in the fire fight. There should be a back hit box that only need 3 - 4 hits or one back knife hit. Hope this gets some love too…

Other then that it was very fun but very frustrating at times.
Actually being a medic with medic responsibility is hard. I could play him like I did in ET rambo style but gibbing is far to hard right now. SAW with Bushs gun might be fun. Is there a card for that?

Conclusion:
All in All I wish I would have volunteered to play fragger… Especially when some maps have spots where Defense can set up a turret and Aura station and you have no quick way to kill them… (Buff Saws self heal :D)
*Not really joking I think once more mercs come out you will find that Attacking has very little need for a Medic and Defense will only need one.

ARTiER · 2015-05-12 15:21:52 UTC

yakcyll · 2015-05-12 15:54:57 UTC

[QUOTE=Humbugsen;528211]A good game is a game where you can never say who will win, you can only say who is a good player
Just take poker for example, you can never say who is going to win that tourney, because it depends on the cards and the other players.
But you can for sure tell a good poker player from a bad one. Same is true for Dota[/quote]
You forget an important point that even in poker a player is considered good in the community if he consistently wins much more than he loses. That at least lets you make an educated guess. Consistency is the key here. Dota is a terrible example in this case - there used to be a whole lot of whining about the lack of upsets in tournaments like a year and a half ago. Then, not so long ago, the 6.83 comeback patch came and you had absolutely no idea who would win a match. The first one sucked for casual viewers, the other one for players. The case is not that crystal clear and everyone seems to be exaggerating on the matter a lot.

[QUOTE=Humbugsen;528211]The winner of a match should be decided by more “micro events” within a match instead of pure aimskill
It gets boring fast if the same team always wins, because they’re the best aimers[/quote]
CS called, asking where did their massive viewership numbers came from.

Let the players play their way and they will think of something. You can artificially enforce tactics with continuous balancing, but I doubt that’s healthy for competition.

More mercs will bring more variables, more uncertainty and more problems with balancing. You can argue that the one who adapts better deserves to win, but at some point it will just feel random to the uninitiated and cheap for new casual players. Stagnation is as bad as inconsistency.

[QUOTE=PixelTwitch;528201]I can tell you for a fact that it did not take a million dollar event to make CS or LoL the size it is now.
I can also tell you that 100,000 dollars for Shootmania, Firefall and Evolve is not or did not make waves in the ocean.[/QUOTE]
CS had a decade long reputation and in case of LoL I could argue it’s a case of just making mobas super accessible.
Shootmania, Firefall and Evolve are all just boring to play and without players there can be no comp.

I’d like to hear your arguments as to why stopwatch is a mode unfit for spectating.

I can’t argue much with you, PixelTwitch (but for the record, I bloody despise your point of view), can only admit you’re right - numbers are important for growth and you have to make a living. But the moment you overdo it - put too much focus on accessibility for casual (not to say ignorant) viewers - you will find yourself missing the influx of comp players who actually would enjoy playing your game.

I understand I come off as a negative nancy here, but I’ve seen the ‘more content!’ approach fail in the long run a few times before already. My hopes are literally torn apart here.

Hundopercent · 2015-05-12 16:04:44 UTC

I personally didn’t care for it. It made switching between mercs a pain in the ass mid match. If the issue is fragger than limit him to 1 per team (or give him 1 nade) or allow 1 ban per team and then no limits. I prefer bans so there are no confusing rule sets. In addition people who have played mobas are familiar with that design and it can be easily implemented into the Game for comp mode.

It would be nice to test 1 ban, default cards in the next cup. Is that something we can test?

Edit: An afterthought, bans sound even better because if you know a team has a really good “x” player that uses “x” merc you can ban it as a strategy, similar to how mobas are now.

Hundopercent · 2015-05-12 16:11:38 UTC

[QUOTE=spookify;528217]Played my first Highlander Rules Scrim yesterday and it was intense!