Author Topic: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>  (Read 56434 times)

Offline Omniraptor

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #45 on: April 13, 2014, 07:34:08 pm »
@FluffyHetsche Speaking of which, amazing hwacha gunnery yesterday :)

Offline FluffyHetsche

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #46 on: April 13, 2014, 09:49:43 pm »
@FluffyHetsche Speaking of which, amazing hwacha gunnery yesterday :)

I did what I could with the lag. Thank you!

Offline redria

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #47 on: April 14, 2014, 10:21:10 am »
Things is, 'minor mistakes' aren't always the players' faults- sometimes there's a weird lag spike, or someone's computer crashes, and we don't get fair game.
But on the flip side, it is only odds that say that a game won't be turned by computer faults for every game of the match. Is it likely? Of course not. But the only way to eliminate that from effect would be to play an infinite number of games, to determine who is statistically better.

Yes, I'm being disagreeable, but I like the way best of 1 works. A team can practice all week and master a single ambush that will only work once. And they only have to do it once. Taking risks may be scarier, but then again taking risks may give you an edge for one game that you wouldn't be able to hold for 3 games. And that is where best of 1 shines: when the underdog/lesser team wins through a single well played tactic. If we were trying to just determine who the best team was, we could skip a lot of games.

Yes there are unfair situations. You may point to the match I played in on Saturday.


~Please note, this is my personal opinion, and I do not want this to turn into an argument. I will happily discuss the specific situation in private, but I elaborate here as an example, not fodder for arguments~
~I will also remove the specifics here if anyone feels it does not add to the current discussion~

During the Gents-OVW match with Sky League, OVW took Alistair and his goldfish. We have had him fly several times in the past competitively and he is an excellent pilot. I was looking forward to playing with him.
He also has crappy internet, and sometimes it just won't let him play. We played a few games earlier that day and we thought his internet would be able to handle it.
As soon as the countdown ended and the game started loading, he said on TS that his client had just crashed trying to load. We knew before the game had even started that he would not be able to fly effectively.
Rewatching the video, the casters did not realize that within the first 20 seconds of the match starting, both teams had stopped to wait and see if we could get Alistair back in.

I want to put out that I think that Urz handled the situation appropriately.

Given that there were no rules regarding the situation, the choice was to either let the opposing team make the decision on what to do (boiling down to either be an exceedingly good sport, or be seen as exceptionally poor sports), or make up a rule that hurts one of the teams without having been established before hand.
The ruling he made was that we could swap players out to maintain a full crew that wouldn't disconnect, or go as is. We tried swapping out players, but after that failed the first time, we didn't want to drag it out too long and resumed play with Alistair still piloting.

Urz made the correct decision in the match, and it is difficult to predict something like that happening, so I can't fault him for not being prepared.

Which all boils down to 2 notes I want to make having been shown another possible way for things to go wrong.
1. In the first 30 seconds of the match, if no permanent damage has been dealt, a team may request to restart the match to adjust players/loadouts. Doing so will sacrifice the entirety of that teams emergency pause time.
2. During emergency pause time, a team may shuffle players as needed between ships/positions, as long as there are no equipment changes at each respective position (if you replace an engineer with chem, extinguisher, buff, loch, and moonshine, you must take that same loadout).


Using our situation as an example, the match had not yet really started. OVW would have sacrificed the possiblity of any more pauses that match, in exchange for being able to bring a steady set of players to the game. The Gents would be given an appropriate amount of time to adjust ships/crews with no penalty in the match lobby.
I feel like that is a pretty fair balance between maintaining a timed schedule, allowing a team to handle problems, and protecting the other team from excessive radical changes.

Outside of those first 30 seconds, we would have switched to the rule Urz was employing, just slightly more defined. Players can re-arrange to accommodate drop-outs, but the match continues.
This specific ruling gives a time limit to the swapping, which would have given OVW a better indicator of how much time they had to complete their rearrangements, along with protecting the gents from the possibility of OVW changing their loadouts without the gents getting a chance to respond.

~Thank you for humoring me~

Regarding previous questions...
1. Players loading in slowly:
Players may make repairs, buff, load ammo, etc as soon as they load in. However, no pilot may move their ship until the ref begins the match, no guns may be fired, and no spots may be laid down. The ref will begin the match when all 4 captains have announced in match chat "Ready". Pilots are given 30 seconds to announce their readiness after the ref loads into the match. Beyond this a team's emergency pause time will be used for any further delays.

This gives all players a chance to load in. It takes the responsibility off of the ref to monitor all players to make sure no player moves before the game starts. It ~can~ be abused to give a team more time to prepare after loaded in, but the other team gets the same amount of time, and noone can make any game-changing moves until all captains are ready.

2. Player drops mid-engagement
Emergency pause time for a team may only be initiated if there is not currently an engagement. An engagement is currently defined at the discretion of the ref, though I would like to make it a clearer rule.
This means if your pilot drops mid engagement and your ship flies away, too bad. There is no quantifiable way to determine how things would have gone, and as such there is no way to determine how the match should be altered retroactively.
The only solution for this would be an actual pause button available that would freeze ships, players, and projectiles. Since we don't have one and are unlikely to get one, any mid-engagement problem will have to wait until the engagement has ended.


To give an example (again from Saturday), on Canyon Ambush with OVW and the Gents shooting at each other through the beam for about 8 minutes, I would not have defined most of that as an engagement. Shots were being continuously fired, but no real damage was being dealt to any ship, and the situation was not going to change unless someone moved as the Gents did towards the end. If a player had disconnected at that point, I personally would have approved a pause, with both teams awkwardly staring at each other through the beam.

The exception here is with slow-mo. If slow-mo is engaged in the middle of an engagment, the engagement will continue as normal until it ends. However, the match timer will be paused, and the Server time will be started. If Server time runs out, the match will be called according to server time rules. This means that the fight will continue as normal until the teams disengage or slow-mo lasts too long.

Offline FluffyHetsche

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #48 on: April 14, 2014, 01:01:49 pm »
Those are rules I can get behind. That prevents the kind of delay, confusion and frustration we had in that match and everyone would know beforehand what would happen in that kind of situation.

My main issue (personal opinion, don't put that on the clan) was that Urz said we knew the risk because we chose to have a pilot living in Australia rather than considering that the DC problems started in that particular match and usually aren't that big of an issue (both teams also stated that there was an exceptional amount of lag and in that situation the match should really have been restarted). That's just all I have to say about that. It happened, it's in the past, but it could have been prevented.

Offline macmacnick

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #49 on: April 14, 2014, 01:24:44 pm »
Now how would the server time scenario work if slow-mo initiates and the game mode is Crazy king? would you adjust the progression of time by altering it based upon the factor of how much the time slows down? (i.e the sudden death, etc?)

Offline redria

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #50 on: April 14, 2014, 01:45:43 pm »
Now how would the server time scenario work if slow-mo initiates and the game mode is Crazy king? would you adjust the progression of time by altering it based upon the factor of how much the time slows down? (i.e the sudden death, etc?)
*Goes to sarcastically quote self from original post mentioning that the league will be operating on 2v2 deathmatch only*
*Realizes original post never mentioned that the League is 2v2 deathmatch in the original post*
*???*
*profit?*

The league will only be 2v2 deathmatch. There are other events planned/being planned/envisioned that revolve around 3v3+. This is focused on the 2v2 premiere competitive scene.

Longer explanation of the slow-mo:
  • 15 minutes into a game, team A ambushes team B
  • The ambush drags out a little bit, with both teams fighting fiercely in close quarters combat
  • At 15 minutes, 45 seconds, slow mo initiates
  • The ref recognizes the slow mo, and declares the initiation of slow mo at 15 minutes, 50 seconds
  • The game clock is paused at 15 minutes, 50 seconds, and the server time clock begins
  • The 2 teams continue to battle in slow motion, their engagement continuing despite the difficulties
  • Result I
  • Team A wipes team B during slow-mo
  • Team B is allowed to spawn back in
  • The game is officially paused until either slow-mo ends or server time runs out
  • Result II
  • Team A wipes team B in team B's spawn
  • Team A prolongs the engagement by meat-grinding the respawning team B ships
  • The game is not paused to avoid team B being spawned randomly waiting for the game to unpause
  • Result III
  • Server time reaches 5 minutes during the engagement
  • The game ends at 15 minutes, 50 seconds
  • According to the ruleset, the game is restarted with the kill counts reused at a later time/date, with the game clock at 15 minutes, 50 seconds

I suddenly have the feeling that nobody is going to want to be a ref. XD
Refs: the unsung heroes of American football, hated by fans everywhere.
« Last Edit: April 14, 2014, 01:47:30 pm by redria »

Offline macmacnick

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #51 on: April 14, 2014, 01:47:35 pm »
...I feel that most of the rules could be slightly added on to to allow for regulation of 3v3 and maybe 4v4 DM (though probably 3v3 would be more likely to happen)

Offline redria

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #52 on: April 14, 2014, 01:50:56 pm »
...I feel that most of the rules could be slightly added on to to allow for regulation of 3v3 and maybe 4v4 DM (though probably 3v3 would be more likely to happen)
For sure. And I think the scene could really use a 3v3 or 4v4 deathmatch event. It's not something I have ever felt a strong desire for though, so I haven't pursued that at all. If someone wants to copy this ruleset and arrange some sort of 3v3+ DM event, I would be more than happy to let them use the rules and/or help them develop it. The rules should transfer pretty easily with some tweaks and tests to figure out appropriate timings and such.

Offline Squidslinger Gilder

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #53 on: April 21, 2014, 06:57:05 pm »
With the current meta, I think I could only stand to play 3v3 games anymore. Never have I wanted Gat/Flak back more in my life. Just bored with how things are.

Then the elimination tournament model we have currently is just getting old too. Got teams sitting on their butts for weeks. Leads to players moving on and less people spending time in game. Got folks showing up for practice but rarely outside of that. Heck I'd rather play Payday 2 most nights now.

Muse has to get moving but its about time this got moving too. Lets run with it!

Offline Captain Smollett

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #54 on: April 22, 2014, 12:39:54 am »
I agree, this league should happen.

Offline redria

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #55 on: April 22, 2014, 06:54:44 am »
At the moment (and this is of course tentative) I believe that Sammy, Puppy, and myself will probably set up and run this (but that could change!). I plan to set up a meeting between the 3 of us to go line by line through the rules and knock it into shape, then discuss casters, streamers, graphics, names, etc. There is likely to be a few weeks of lag time after Sky League ends, but this will be happening one way or another. If anyone has any questions/comments, post here or message me. Expect to see something in the next 2 weeks.

Offline Wundsalz

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #56 on: April 23, 2014, 04:55:17 am »
Expect to see something in the next 2 weeks.
I'm teased.

Offline Velvet

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #57 on: April 23, 2014, 03:26:44 pm »
At the moment (and this is of course tentative) I believe that Sammy, Puppy, and myself will probably set up and run this (but that could change!). I plan to set up a meeting between the 3 of us to go line by line through the rules and knock it into shape, then discuss casters, streamers, graphics, names, etc. There is likely to be a few weeks of lag time after Sky League ends, but this will be happening one way or another. If anyone has any questions/comments, post here or message me. Expect to see something in the next 2 weeks.
I think an open, community approach to developing rules & planning this event is better than taking things behind closed doors. Your trio won't alone have every good idea or raise every concern. Even the Sky League had issues with people being uncomfortable with the rules and Urz at least went to some lengths to involve representation from clans in the closed planning stage. Nevertheless it's yours to organise how you see fit, ultimately I will decide whether to involve my team based on the final product rather than the process and people who got it there.


Quote
Both teams should be in lobby with readies checked at the assigned time
Teams are allowed 2 minutes of flex time to make emergency adjustments
If a team fails to ready up prior to the end of the 2 minutes flex, they forfeit the match
I don't like this. heavily encourages the style of running "one size fits all" builds and limiting tactical variety to avoid having to do any planning in the lobby. Counter/situational strategies will get yet riskier and therefore less popular because if your opponent runs a build other than what you'd expected you won't have time to rethink your strategy before the time runs out.

Yes, sometimes lobbies drag on a bit and are annoying but I think teams that actually vary the builds they fly, adapt counter strategies and think on their feet add a nice bit of variety to the matches we see and would suffer a lot from this rule. I don't think there should be any rule that discourages a certain approach to the game in favour of another, it's both unfair on teams that have specialised to that style and reduces variety by pushing everyone towards the same approach.
Long lobbies are just another facet of the deep strategic experience of Icarus - it's nice if they don't happen too often but there's some things that shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of speed and convenience.
« Last Edit: April 23, 2014, 03:30:41 pm by Velvet »

Offline redria

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #58 on: April 23, 2014, 03:43:56 pm »
@Velvet
Don't worry. The initial meeting I plan to review the entire ruleset and make sure everything is to ours (the committee's) liking. I'll publish that as a next-to-final draft and detail out the rationale on any talking points we hit when discussing the rules. With how community discussion goes on those points, there may or may not be a last update before the event itself is published. I made a lot of arbitrary numbers up when sketching out the rules, and all of the various time limits were part of that, which makes me uncomfortable. I had no basis for most of them other than gut judgement. They will surely be a point of contention and I hope to find the ideal middle ground during active discussions.

Offline Imagine

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Re: <Development Discussion for Official Competitive League>
« Reply #59 on: April 23, 2014, 04:13:14 pm »
I think an open, community approach to developing rules & planning this event is better than taking things behind closed doors. Your trio won't alone have every good idea or raise every concern. Even the Sky League had issues with people being uncomfortable with the rules and Urz at least went to some lengths to involve representation from clans in the closed planning stage. Nevertheless it's yours to organise how you see fit, ultimately I will decide whether to involve my team based on the final product rather than the process and people who got it there.
Doesn't really work. There's never going to be a complete agreement between everyone, at some point whoever is making rules has to put their foot down and say this is how it's going to be. Otherwise folks will just run circles around each other forever.

Quote
Long lobbies are just another facet of the deep strategic experience of Icarus - it's nice if they don't happen too often but there's some things that shouldn't be sacrificed for the sake of speed and convenience.
Actually, in terms of competitive play, yes, long lobbies happen all the goddamn time. While I'd like to think that's all taken up by strategy sessions, too often I've seen it be just like two people chattering endlessly, or someone going to let their dogs out, or taking a poop, or getting something to drink, etc...

I'd not only say rules for lobby lengths but rules for stuff like how long to wait for someone to re-connect to a dropped match are extremely necessary.