Sunday Community Skirmish: New optional blind pick mode

[ZnC]

I think the main problem that picking rules should solve is last second switching. Players don't like it when they're up against something other than what they saw their opponents take.

The counter game, on the other hand, is healthy and part of any good competitive strategic or tactical game. Being able to anticipate what your opponent is going for with a limited amount of information, even baiting your opponent's pick (i.e. mind games), and forming a team composition is part of a good game. I don't think it is something that should be avoided, and Muse game designers should agree here.

Still in favor of the two-stage hidden pick, for it's simplicity and depth.

[Thomas]

I think a blind pick system has it's pros and cons. The big thing I feel it's being put in place for is to go against the counter-picking game played in lobbies. This also comes with the benefit of allowing lobby time to be shortened. Teams will be more likely to pick ships they're better practiced on, potentially leading to more interesting matches.

The downsides of course are the potential for one team to have a counter-build on a particular map, and no way for the other team to switch things up for balance. There's likely to be less experimentation, since you're not directly trying to counter your enemy, and just go what your good with. So we might see less interesting builds, but maybe not.

I think the biggest difficulty with the system, and the reason it hasn't been put in place before is the added responsibility on the refs. Having to check each ship and make sure guns are where they're supposed to be and making sure no one changes gun layouts and ship types is actually a lot of things to watch. Ships are pretty easy to keep an eye on, but having to check their weapon loadouts is something that's not easy to see. How do you handle someone changing? What if you miss a change and the match starts? What if you don't notice until the match is nearly over? Is the ref the only one aware of the blind picks, and what if they're not paying attention as much or forget? What's to stop a ref from telling the other team what team 1 is bringing? Will it be possible to see it on the stream?


A system I might propose for a blind-pick would be: Members of a team must all join at once (or at least the captains/pilots). Whatever ship you enter the lobby with cannot be changed. This takes some stress off the ref from comparing what they said they would bring to what they brought. Or teams coming in with different ships then changing last second to what they chose for the blind pick. However the ref would have to quickly look at the ships and remember their loadouts and still keep an eye out for changes.


I'm not sure why Muse hasn't put in an in-game blind pick system. Maybe we'd just have to pester them some more. Or run with a blind-pick system for a while until they get the idea it's wanted. It's only been talked about forever.

[BlackenedPies]

Half blind picking seems the most balanced option. I never saw last second switches in competitive and always figured hard counters wasn't a good strategy. If you hard counter the enemy they'll just switch to another ship and it'll waste time. But it happened.

Hidden loadouts shouldn't be a feature in MM games. I told Howard that hidden loadouts can be put in as an option in custom matches. It would be a check box option next to password. The feature would hide all enemy loadouts and classes. Lobbies would be quicker and it might encourage more balanced custom matches with friends.

[Lueosi]

We had one event now running with a blind pick rule, what was your experience and what are your thoughts based on that event?

[BlackenedPies]

Which match had blind picks?

[MightyKeb]

I believe that was match A, I piloted in that one for Team Predators.At first we considered a possibility of being counterpicked against and thought of changing our setup, but instead we ended up sticking to the builds we're well practiced on and it seems that the other team had done the same. I think the pros and cons have already been stated;

Pros:

- Encourages teams to stick to a few ship builds and specialize in them, in an attempt to beat the enemy through teamwork rather than counterpicking.

Cons:

- Counterpick blindpicks dont seem to have occurred yet atleast from my POV, but I imagine its going to be very unpleasant, if not unfair, when counter blind picks happen.

- Doesnt allow room for experimentation or risky and unpracticed ships.

I think the first con needs some sort of a rule to stop or cancel out catastrophic matches like that, but it might be difficult due to the slightly subjective nature of counterpicks. The rule itself does encourage build specialization and not counterpicks of icarus, but at the moment, atleast in my experience most teams tend to play with the builds they're good at anyway, and there is a clear reward for specializing rather than counterpicking even without this system. No matter how much people counterpick it'll always be possible to outdo them through teamwork. You could argue that this is the case with counter blindpicks aswell, but why have it if its observable benefits have been around anyway?

[Princess Tutu]

As I see it, the counterpicks were never really an issue. Last seconds ship swaps were. I would much like for people to address that, rather than eliminate Lobbies of Icarus scouting

If we are going the blind pick route, I much preferred the old system. First team' A 1 ship locks build. Then the whole team B locks ships and then the last ship locks. Total blind picking will eventually generate map based meta builds and achieve nothing in the long run.

[ZnC]

As I see it, the counterpicks were never really an issue. Last seconds ship swaps were. I would much like for people to address that, rather than eliminate Lobbies of Icarus scouting

Ironically, I was accused of last second swap halfway through a match this SCS, and it wasn't nice that I had to explain myself. I really do hope some form of fair picking rules would be implemented, either a 2-stage hidden pick or the 1-2-1 draft Tutu proposed.

[MightyKeb]

As I see it, the counterpicks were never really an issue. Last seconds ship swaps were. I would much like for people to address that, rather than eliminate Lobbies of Icarus scouting

Ironically, I was accused of last second swap halfway through a match this SCS, and it wasn't nice that I had to explain myself. I really do hope some form of fair picking rules would be implemented, either a 2-stage hidden pick or the 1-2-1 draft Tutu proposed.

I also have had trouble with referees in the past due to either of the teams swapping out at the last second. I've seen Lueosi attempting to adress this by "locking" ship loadouts a short time before the lobby timer, but technically that would just shorten the time in itself.


I think a solution would be to, instead of mimicking pubs and forcing teams to start after lobby timer, the referees should ask either team if they are happy with their ship setups when the timer ends, and only start when both teams are. Instead of forcing a start after 4 minutes it should be encouraged- we're not little children, if that lobby timer didnt exist last second swap wouldnt be a problem.

[Dementio]

- Doesnt allow room for experimentation or risky and unpracticed ships.

I have one or two Mobulas that counter certain ships and builds and because I was free to counter the enemy I was able to use Mobulas that weren't your average Hades/double Artemis ones.

Not sure if people like to be on the recieving end though.

...if that lobby timer didnt exist last second swap wouldnt be a problem.

I think I remember the times where lobby timers weren't a thing yet and the lobbies could take forever to start, because people keep switching around, which is an issue particularly for competitive.



I wonder if actual last seconds switches could be given a yellow/red card... but then there are the lobbies where people keep switching around for the entire duration of the lobby, leading in both of the teams technically switching at the last second, while only one team gets accused of it.

[Kamoba]

Back when I was with TT team I accidently changed last second while against Ryders, just because I lost track of time when choosing a ship.
PMed a ref and one of the pilots I was against an apology at start of the match, even though the switch was not to a counter or anything.

I've also seen enough last second switches both accidental, and foul play to know it cant be too easy to avoid it, while keeping the lobby time short, which when on live stream is important. Though it is something I think would be good to come in

Although an idea spins in my head about tournament sign ups, maybe not SCS but a tournament where when signing up on forums, you declare the ship and loadout you're taking, perhaps having a choice of two loadouts to sign up with per pilot.....

Could be fun to see/take part in...

[GurasOguras]

I'm gonna forget about the halo effect and that I was biased after seeing this for the first time. I had to sleep one night with it to calm my nerves to give you proper criticism instead of meat. Here's my final word after actually testing and trying to understand the other point of view. And I'm ready to take full responsibility for my words.

First of all:

we didnt adapt it because the referees wouldn't be able to control it proper. aka muse not implementing it

This what Skrim said is just sad, but true fact applying to every tournament about referees power during event. All "special" rules are really difficult to control as they are not game function, but rather a gentleman agreement between players and referees. Therefore rules such as pause or blind picks are very difficult to implement and control. This SCS just has proved that when Allien (Please pardon the expression) totally fucked up our second match against Conglomerate of Ian forcing us to play ships from the previous match which were opposite of what we wanted to bring. Then pause rule which is only on the chat is not always being noticed, especially if other team is pausing immediately after start before your own even log into the game. Signing up for tournament our team is accepting those gentleman agreement rules, but I felt that telling Keb to move his ship back is even more unfair for our team. Who remembers actual place we started from? I'll spare dozens of examples where ships were paused either second before about being to engage from flank or were fully visible to eachother.

Now why I'm mentioning all of that:

If you want to make event more interesting let it be as it is and make teams adapt to the current format of the game. Ryders made competitive more interesting when after winning with their best ships they started to experiment with various other configurations. Don't really invent any stupid rules which are leading only to make teams bring same ships every week, because they're trained in that combination and don't want to take risk of bringing something for fun.

I know that you're searching for cure to constant swapping ships in lobby, but blindpick is not an option when it has too many exploits in the system and full hardcountering just by luck as I mentioned before is one of many (This SCS gave me few more). If you really want to find solution either go for draft 1-2-1 first pick coin toss, not spawn related as certain maps have preferred spawn color or simply let each team to change it's composition only 3 times. And That's all you need to solve this. Blindpicks may fit into games where you can still win no matter what your opponent have. Here in game of rock-scissor-paper we need something where we can adjust to opponents. That is just integral part of the game.

Before Match A:
It took a long while for Urz to add me on steam to friendlist as i haven't noticed immediately. Only after then he wrote to me that opponents have requested blindpicks. I wonder what would ref do if someone wouldn't notice that? Ref should forefit team just because he don't have team POC on his steam friendlist?

Before Match G:
I think it would be nice to be informed that actually ref changed mid-event and Allien is now organizing blindpicks don't you think? I don't have Allien on my friendlist. And now what? We're just getting into the lobby, because we're not interested in requesting blindpicks and we have no idea that someone else is in charge of that now. I know Keb was mentioning something about that other team want blindpicks but no one told that to me - first in order point of contact. So I was waiting nicely till Allien will dare to inform me about this fact, but instead I see Ian joining the lobby. And now we have problem when one of the teams must be aggrieved. Either Ian because we have seen their blindpicks and now can "blindpick" adjusting to what we seen or us because we haven't even had chance to pick ships or Tpr because they have go with whatever they have even it it's five flare mobula.

For the future testing events:

- Don't adjust leaderboard points when testing, because experimental features can lead to unfair situations.

- Make sure referees read rules of their own tournament and who is signed up as point of contact for this week.

TL:DR version:
Tested it. My opinion is still same - highly against blindpicks. There are overall better solutions.

[Thomas]

There's going to be a lot of problems with it, mostly because the system doesn't support it. However, to get the system to support it (to have Muse put it into the game), I think it would be best to keep trying to use it. This shows that the community is interested in it. We've talked about blind picks since around the first tournaments and nothing has come of it, because it's never been seriously utilized. We'd have to show Muse that we really do want it for them to take it seriously.

Basically I'd just keep trying to make it work, despite the difficulties and flaws until Muse actually puts in a blind pick system for competitive play (I think a lot of people have pointed out a check box at match creation would be really nice). Once the system is actually in, there's less stress on the organizers and teams.

Write a letter to your local Muse representative today and vote Yes on proposition B (for blind pick)!

[MightyKeb]

To correct you on a few things Guras:

- Before match G, I was contacted by Allien despite not being POc, but I wasnt aware that I had to send loadouts to him

- The reason I dont always pay attention to paused mostly had to do with our playstyle, I'm focused on the game right off the bat and I want to control the fights which leaves me little room to look at the chat.



@Thomas,  I can understand the drive to make it work and improve on it, but should we really do so in the first place if people are highly agains't it? I can tell you from personal experiencr that most of my negative opinions about it come less from the kind of gameplay it promotes and more from thinking about the billions of exploitable scenarios it introduces. It's essentially a one step forward and another two steps back.

[Thomas]

Let's pretend that Muse has implemented a blind-pick system. Only people on your ship can see your ship loadout. The other team can't, even potentially your ally can't (you'd have to communicate or something). The people in spectate can't see it. You can change as many times as you want, and no one is going to notice. The system even works for CA's and Mods, not allowing them to see other ship loadouts. There's literally no way to know what anyone else is bringing. Lets even go so far as to pretend you can't see other crew loadouts either (because that might give a lot of clues).

Do the potential problems and concerns still exist? Certainly you can be countered without realizing it, and that's an issue. But last second swaps and long lobby times are generally handled. No more counter-picking endlessly either. I think most of the concerns about doing a blind pick right now are due to all the flaws of having it player run. You can sneak a peak through the stream, players might forget, it's a big hassle to try and control, etc etc. However, Muse hasn't done anything yet, despite the blind pick mode idea being around for a long time. Waiting for them to put it in isn't likely to lead anywhere. If people want the system to support blind pick, we'd have to show that the community actually truly wants it.