Does this game have true competitive (pro) potential?

(Daergar) #21

More people, more backing, more money. The latter being pivotal. Quite simple.

(DarkangelUK) #22

Here’s my controversial take on the subject, and I know I’m a monitory here… but Execution is DB’s sleeper comp mode and I feel that will attract the comp crowd more than stopwatch.

As for the other games, if anyone here likes the DB style of play but not some of the choices made in the game and think Overwatch will fill that role then they are going to be severely disappointed. Watching a few gameplay videos over the past day has shown me that Overwatch plays nothing like DB, especially when it comes to gun play. If you favour Overwatch over DB when its release then I’d argue that you never really liked the DB style as much as you thought, and a few key design changes would never have changed your mind about that.

[quote=“Daergar;94912”]
More people, more backing, more money. The latter being pivotal. Quite simple.[/quote]
You can’t buy enjoyment, and popularity and content won’t make those searching for a high skill ceiling comp scene feel any better about playing the game.

(neverplayseriou) #23

Put the name splash damage behind overwatch and the game would barely even be known, it’s just hyped cause it’s a Blizzard game.

(srswizard) #24

Demo system. Overwatch has it.

(DarkangelUK) #25

Seriously, if you’re moving your clans comp interests over to a game simply because it has a demo system then best of luck to ya

(srswizard) #26

Thanks, gl 2u2 m8

(PurpleNurple) #27

Overwatch has much more potential soley because of their numbers it has nothing to do with gameplay. Their advertising is infront of millions of players everytime they login to Hearthstone, WoW, HotS and Starcraft 2 through the desktop app while DB is down to 1000-2500 players online. I mean ya sure you can host these events and call it competitive, but you aren’t ever going to be sponsored or advertised on twitch because of it. I guess it really depends on what you consider competitive.

Skill wise both games are kinda “meh” when it comes to being a good competitive player. People that do well in this game most likely have the opportunity to do even better in other games. There are definitely some good players that play this, but for this game I just can’t justify sitting here for up to 30 mins of watching other people play this game.

@prophetNP If you’re TheyCallMePro from Nothing Personal… I’m the real Pro ;D.

(riptide) #28

More like SD devs say competitive but have hardly any competitive features, especially by today’s standards.

I would blindly trust unknown devs before I ever trust SD again. I mean they released a patch specifically to fix something that didn’t get fixed. Amateurs.

If it’s not obvious, not believing in the devs is a big deal. If players can’t trust the devs, then no leagues or sponsors will. Thus no competitive scene outside of a circle jerk of hardcore fans.

(DarkangelUK) #29

I don’t get the whole comparing apples to apples thing when it comes to devs, Blizzard is massive and I can bet that they have at least 3x the amount of people working on their game compared to SD, and I can bet they have 3x the budget as well. Blizzard will have a team the same size as SD’s DB staff just to work on a single feature whereas the small team at SD have to work on them all simultaneously, trying to keep the ‘masses’ of pub players going also while catering to the loud niche of comp players.

I’m not making excuses for hastily release hotfixes that didn’t work as intended, and I wish SD would be more open with regards to their development team so people had a greater realisation of how something like this could slip through the net, but they want to keep quiet on that front and we’re not allowed to say anything.

Again at the end of the day, I’m not going to play an arcadey, low skill ceiling game as opposed to one that I much prefer the style of just because of something like demo recording, I’d rather enjoy the game for the gameplay than suffer what I don’t enjoy quite as much due to that missing feature.

I’m also curious: Exactly what comp features besides demo recording (which isnt a comp exclusive feature) have been confirmed for Overwatch?

(immenseWalnut) #30

[quote=“crabbyDimension;94756”][quote=“immenseWalnut;94745”]And even if that wasn’t the case, DB isn’t that great, and it is pretty boring to watch, even when you have top end players involved. There just isn’t enough depth to keep it interesting, every match between pros will look similar to the last one played on the same map.[/quote]Compared to what?
Csgo?
Lol?
Overwatch?!
Star wars Battlefront?!!

Those games might steal players but it’s their loss and comparing DB competitive is to Overwatch or saying DB has “lack of depth” you just need to watch couple of CSgo promatches and think again.

[/quote]

The point I was making, is that Esports potential usually revolves around having a high player base, that not only play and enjoy the game, but would also be willing to tune in and watch competitive matches.

The higher the audience, the more money that can be generated, which in turn attracts more pro players to take part (whether they like the game or not, they will come for the prize pool if it is high enough).

The skill floor of DB is too high for the average casual to be able to feel rewarded from playing, because casual mode doesn’t use matchmaking to keep the solid players and bad players apart. That results in it being a frustrating mode for everyone, and frustrating games are very predictable when it comes to losing players.

So a small playerbase wont be able to generate large enough prize pools to create a truly competitive scene. Instead the only comp scene DB will have will be the top end players that are already playing the game, it will be small, the matches will be boring and predictable, and it simply wont last into the future.

Also, why would watching CS:GO pro matches have anything to do with DB, considering they play very differently, have vastly different player counts and different developers/publishers?

I think Overwatch will have a far more viable competitive scene than DB ever will, even with the low skill mechanics of the game. It will have such a large audience available, that the prize pools will be significant enough to attract pro players that wouldn’t even be willing to download DB.

(Pecka) #31

1st - They have to listen to competitive community, if they want this game to attract competitive crowds. Problem here is that we have very voicy pub players that just don’t see the competitive players suggestion as good ;). But that’s okay, some things work different for 5vs5 stopwatch and 8vs8 public. But then, provide those things as configurable options :slight_smile: I don’t think people would be worried if the game is different between comp and public.

2nd - Be ready to pour a lot of money into tournaments. While in the past this was not a requirement, lately a lot of pro people play games where money are ;( (as Fubar mentioned as well). I personally do not believe it’s a must to have milions of dollars for tournaments, but the competitive sceene has to be promoted and community has to be estabilished.

That leads to point number 3

3rd - First step here is really to allow community to work on content like maps and also allow for server hosting (might it be just rented). Those two things are just crucial!

4th - Don’t compare existing and upcoming games to DB, it’s just like comparing two completely different things. Only similar games are already almost the dead ones (RTCW, ET, ETQW, Brink?). Overwatch really? People would play it for money yes, but not definitely for enjoyment of skill-based shooter (reall skill based, not ability auto-click based like overwatch :D).

In this area DB has a looot of potential, because it’s unique to the market. It’s just the features/ money to support comp, dedicated servers, user content and LISTENING TO COMP players :wink:

(SereneFlight) #32

Probably the biggest difference between the two: Blizzard didn’t fuck up.

Also, I’ve been playing a little bit of Killing Floor 2, an Early Access title by Tripwire Interactive, a 50 employee indie studio and… well, I have to say that KF2 is better in terms of functionality and most importantly KF2’s updates don’t bring down the functionality like DB’s updates do.
(plus 20+ player servers, bzillion zed on the screen, high graphics runs better than 6v6 DB with potato config)

(immenseWalnut) #33

[quote=“Pecka;94985”]That leads to point number 3

3rd - First step here is really to allow community to work on content like maps and also allow for server hosting (might it be just rented). Those two things are just crucial![/quote]

This is a very good point, one I should have thought of.

The lack of maps in DB, and the fact that we are solely dependent on a small development team for new content, is going to have an enormous impact on any competitive scene for DB.

In order for new content to be produced, there needs to be a steady stream of cash coming into the game, otherwise support for the game will be pulled.

This is why I don’t think this game has a future going into 2016, the playerbase is decreasing, new games are coming out which could lead to further decreases, and at a certain point, the game will be making so little money that support will cease. The next few months have all of the ingredients to make that happen, unless SD can turn it around and get players coming back and new players coming in, and I doubt that very much given the slow pace of development we have seen so far.

(terminal) #34

-[quote=“Pecka;94985”]
2nd - Be ready to pour a lot of money into tournaments. While in the past this was not a requirement, lately a lot of pro people play games where money are ;( (as Fubar mentioned as well). I personally do not believe it’s a must to have milions of dollars for tournaments, but the competitive sceene has to be promoted and community has to be estabilished.

[/quote]
looks at tf2

AAAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHA

(Tayski) #35

[quote=“Dawnrazor;94835”]Not likely by any stretch of imagination. Games like Dirty Bomb are a rare thing nowadays, you won’t find this frantic-paced high skill ceiling gameplay with complex movement outside of classic titles like Unreal Tournament. Overwatch gameplay videos show something that plays in a completely different manner from this game, the only common ground is that both are first-person shooters where you pick one character to play as, a concept that is much older than even TF2. My point here is that DB covers a certain niche that no one is really trying to “take away”.

And what I meant in my previous post was that I can’t see how Overwatch is specifically a threat to the competitive scene, why someone who competes in a game with a skill ceiling as high as DB’s would want to go play a “competitive” shooter with autoaim is beyond me.[/quote]

This post nailed it.

Just about a few “threats” mentioned by some of you in this topic:

Overwatch: you can’t seriously compare Overwatch with Dirty Bomb. It’s much slower and has nothing from great team games like RTCW:ET that Dirty Bomb does a great job at integrating. Overwatch looks like the kind of game my 12 years old brother would play, or someone who is more of a WoW fan than a hardcore FPS fan. It looks like a console game and has no appeal to me or my FPS friends.

Star Wars Battlefront: my friends and I highly anticipated that game and will for sure play it from time to time. The game seems awesome and fun. But again, it doesn’t have the competitive potential of Dirty Bomb, it is much slower, and most of all it is a 3rd person view game, which yes allows you to play in 1st person view but then you’re playing with a big disadvantage. Even though a great game that I’ll enjoy playing, it’s not a true FPS in my opinion and I don’t see myself wanting to play competitive in it.

Now let’s be honest, I don’t see Dirty Bomb ever being as popular as CS:GO for instance. But that’s not what we need either. As mentioned by Dawnrazor, Dirty Bomb targets a niche of gamers who before Dirty Bomb didn’t really have a new game to play, it brings back the gameplay of old team FPS that are now dead. The complexity and speed of Dirty Bomb is not for everyone, and a lot of players will never get into it. But that’s fine.

Also, the most competitive games I’ve played in the sense of skill level and where I had the most fun with cool people (MoH:AA, RTCW:ET, and Q3/Q4/QL) all never had massive competitive scenes or much money into them compared to other games like CS:GO, LoL, etc. and they were still games I played for several years for those reasons.
For me Dirty Bomb is another niche game that could become very competitive but without necessarily a massive scene or a lot of money in it.

(DarkangelUK) #36

[quote=“SereneFlight;94986”]
Probably the biggest difference between the two: Blizzard didn’t fuck up.

Also, I’ve been playing a little bit of Killing Floor 2, an Early Access title by Tripwire Interactive, a 50 employee indie studio and… well, I have to say that KF2 is better in terms of functionality and most importantly KF2’s updates don’t bring down the functionality like DB’s updates do.
(plus 20+ player servers, bzillion zed on the screen, high graphics runs better than 6v6 DB with potato config)[/quote]

First of all, how do you know they haven’t fucked up? It’s not even out to play in a grand scale.

I’ll probably get in deep crap for this, but I wish there were 50 people working on DB…

(B_Montiel) #37

People tend to forget how was cs:go’s scene during the first year and a half. The game was barely supported by valve which was concentrating efforts on Dota 2 at this time. Once they’ve done more than necessary improvements and integrated the current economy system, the scene grew at an exponential speed. So you never know what can happen if they’re doing things right.

There’s plenty of space for a fast paced shooter on the competitive world. I’m not talking about a game that will be sustainable to earn a living, but a game that will give enough challenge for passionate players to organize tourneys, online first and if successful on a LAN scale. There’s no true contender in the same spot with Dirty Bomb. Overwatch and TF2 are not fast paced. COD/BF became lame for competitive support. UT4 is the same recipe as UT3, which already was the same recipe as UT2004. And Shootmania, no, let’s not talk about it :D…

As long as there’s enough players to allow good and varied tourneys (regular tourneys, potential ladders, nation’s cup, etc…), this will keep me happy. And this clearly does not require to be professionalized. A 5 to 10k regular playerbase can sustain a good 20 teams in EU or USA, which is plenty enough to have a nice active competitive oriented scene.

Competitive games existed before the eventuality of earning a living from them. And I don’t understand, at least from my point of view of someone playing as a hobby, that it can drive my choices in gaming. And if the competitive gets professionalized, I’m quite reluctant about it, as it generally turn the scene to crap for players who only can play max 3 hours per day. That does not mean that skill and experience is not there. But professional competitive scene generally comes with bad community and dead amateur level competitive scene.

(immenseWalnut) #38

You can’t seriously compare DB to TF2 or CS:GO either, but people still do it.

The comparison is irrelevant unless you focus on the specifics. People are NOT trying to say Overwatch and DB are ‘similar’ games.

They are analysing the differences between the hype/excitement factor, confidence in the development team, resources available, advertising budget, maps, bugs, future player retention, payment model (although I think that is still under wraps with Overwatch) etc etc.

The only thing any game has in common with any other game, is that gamers like to play them. But it doesn’t take a lot of effort these days to spot the trends within PC gaming, and that is, skill based games are out, low skill games are in. And never ever discount the sheeple effect (where masses of dumb people flock with each other towards whichever trend is popular, out of fear of being individuals and left behind), something DB has never produced, and never will. But Blizzard understand that concept all too well, and they use it effectively, which is why they mass advertise/hype their games, and design them to appeal to low skill sheeple.

But that is a reflection of the low skill, low intelligence playerbase, not the games themselves. I remember making a post ages ago, one of my first posts in fact, that lamented on the fact that DB was ideal for more skill based players, so why on Earth did they market it for the F2P bottom feeders of Steam? Obvious answer is obvious, Nexon wanted to open the game up to as many micro-transaction addicts as they could, at no point has this game ever felt to me as though it wanted to be a truly competitive shooter, no matter what is said by the devs, the actions we have seen speak louder than the words that were said.

And even as a skill based shooter, DB is not that great. The classes lack diversity to justify having what, 20 of them? Reminds me of the rubbish classes HAWKEN had, where many of the mechs were similar in appearance and weapon armaments, they just had a single ability to justify their existence (and cost).

At least in DB the mercs all look different and the maps are functional, unlike HAWKEN.

(watsyurdeal) #39

One thing I got to say, this is an open beta, yet we don’t see any radical changes to mercs or drafts of them. We see maps without textures and game modes that are changed, but I don’t get why they don’t experiment more with the mercs and their abilities. Phantom and soon to be Vasilli are great examples.

(DarkangelUK) #40

Its difficult to do any form of high level experiments with mercs that can be paid for, the whole Phantom debacle proved that. On release he was (apparently, not my view) OP and causing havoc, they then nerfed him and SD were accused of releasing an OP merc to gain high sales then nerfing him once everyone bought him.