Cogs reflections...

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Wish I could say I was happy about our entry match into the Cogs on Saturday. Getting on the test server should make one happy as it is getting to see content as it is coming out and help tune it.

But, in the end I just don't feel right about it....

I don't like when people have messaged me later with props about my squid flying because that was the most uncomfortable flying I've ever done on it. I absolutely hated every moment of it. I felt like a bird with clipped wings thanks to the changes that hadn't been corrected yet. Like flying a brick vs flying a quick agile vessel. I got on later that night in the main game and took my original squid out and just felt beyond free. Gotta love what you fly and I do love it. Never been so happy to fly that ship.

I don't like the pats on the back for beating Muse or kicking them out. As far as I'm concerned that match was not on equal ground because of it being on the test server. Yeah their loadouts were not optimal but I think they could have played much better had they not been on the tester. Both of us could and I personally will not be happy till I've faced them on equal footing in a non broken match. There was no glory in that victory. I'd welcome the opportunity to face them again.

I also don't like the constant tear down of their team. Yeah they don't practice or play the game as heavily as we do but Brick and I discussed this before going into that game. We'd respect them by playing them like they were an advanced team. There would be no going easy, we would view them as a legitimate threat. We'd face them with the mindset that they could potentially turn the match around on us if we underestimated them. The changes did impact the ability to do this.

Drama as a whole seems to be pretty high. I won't comment on things which I am not involved in or apart of but that was a overly tense day. I could clearly tell from the commentary on the matches that things were rough. Talking with others from other teams later just expanded that more. I don't know who's doing what or who isn't doing what. I run a rather successful guild in SWTOR since launch so I understand well when tensions happen and people clash. From that I recognize the amount of work that has been put in and I thank the Cogs founders for doing it.

Perhaps the tensions are being raised because things are going unsaid, unaddressed. Or its just plain disagreements. I'm sure there are things we can all do to alleviate the tension and I do encourage it rather than letting things fester and get worse. It does not reflect well for introducing others to the game, specially introducing new content. I don't plan to post the last Cogs vids elsewhere for others to see because I don't want them to have to see that. Maybe it was qwerty's edge of his seat style which helped break up this in past weeks so I didn't notice it then. I don't know.

Guess I'm just posting this because I feel some of it needs to be said.  Talking with others about it last night and then today it just bugged me more. Maybe others are too. I dunno. Just putting this out there with respect to all the players and hosts.

[N-Sunderland]

Wait, how did it being on a test server give you guys an advantage? What "changes" are you referring to?

I watched that match in spectator mode, and one of the main reasons that Muse lost was that Howard (sorry Howard) parked his Galleon where his gunners couldn't hit you guys, and only came in towards the end. That would have happened whether it was on a test server or not.

[Skrimskraw]

yes Muse made some very bad choices with galleon positions.

but I think what gilder is referring to is kicking muse out fo the cogs, because of their inexperience to other players who play the game a lot more than them selves (correct me if im wrong).

I had the same feeling when dover was denied access, since it was a do or die match for us, we felt like we needed to win.
I think sammy and the other guys from dover would agree that their general strategy was a failure, and if they had another chance at a rematch they would try something diffrent.

I guess what I'm saying here is, that the cogs system requires very high leveled and intense play.
Paddling master this high level play right now, where as my own team and a lot of the others realised in week 4 or so, that if we wanted to stay in the cogs, we would need to bring out the same tactics as the guys who win week after week.
So we lost a lot of games in the beginning, but we finally managed to get into the proper meta for winning vs dover.

I also think the ranking in the cogs is in the way of what a scrimmage should be.
When every game you play, is a do or get demoted to a lower rank )or stay same rank), situation, you want to bring your a-game even if it means you'll have to camp for 20 mins before getting a kill. or end up like we did vs MNS, when we were destroyed 5-0, and like mns when they were denied the 1st place by paddling.

We played muse last saturday on the test servers, right after the cogs matches were over.
And boy was I glad we forfeited our match.
We hit a lot of weird bugs:
phoebe couldnt change her ammo
I lost my balloon and hull instantly at some point
etc.

The style that cogs is running is high competitive play, like a tournament. in a game where the teams and clans right now are at the opposite ends of the skill line.

newer teams comes into the cogs, meeting teams that have played together for 2 months, and they just get sent out again.
-instead of letting them play other new teams and occasionally older teams, for a possibly "rank up" (maybe at the end of each month).
I think throwing teams out of the cogs is both humiliating and wrong, when we instead should help these teams get scrimmages every other week (maybe), and then leave the high skilled competitive plays to tournaments like claiming the fjords.

(post only represent my own thoughts)

[Helmic]

High tensions matches are a great thing.  It's just that we may need a new cog down the line, which will be all sorts of fun to schedule.

[Squash]

Just going to step into this firefight to clarify a few things I think people are misunderstanding.

-Muse didn't get kicked out, and even if they had been they could re-register and re-enter the Cogs in week 8. 2 Weeks is less of a wait than a lot of teams have after losing a match.

-The Dover is not like other teams, we started The Dover with a very different purpose than The Paddling, Raft and Brood. The Dover exists to expand the meta and try uncommon or untested builds. For the Dover winning would be a secondary effect, not the primary mission. Every Duck is proud of how ballsy The Dover was on their first outing.

-Am I the only one that actually likes the new build? Warts and all? It's buggy as hell  but it's a beta, hopefully the buildings wont be made of velcro next week. But I love (most) of the balance changes, and can at least understand why they put in the ones I don't like.

-In terms of the Paddling match vs. Gentlemen, I don't think any technical issues befell either team that I'm aware of, that was just about the most exciting match I've played.

-Skrimskraw, you said "newer teams comes into the cogs, meeting teams that have played together for 2 months, and they just get sent out again."

But that's not true, sure Dover got knocked out, but look at Bully Boys and Polaris shredding the older teams. The pattern I'm seeing is that the old guard teams are getting outpaced by the new ones.

[N-Sunderland]

Yeah, Muse get to stay in because of Corvus calling it quits. Much ado about nothing if you ask me.

[Captain Smollett]

Isn't the -high intensity every game matters in the Cogs- the part that makes it so much fun both to play in and watch?

There's so much in this post that I'm not sure what to comment on but I agree with Squash that I think Muse really did an awesome job in this patch.  This was the first Cogs week ever where every single ship was used in a match and all but three guns were taken into combat.  At least to me, this game is looking to be the most balanced I've ever seen it.

That being said I also agree with Gilder regarding the Squid.  Muse made so many changes that small tweaks were bound to be necessary.  I think a revisit to the Squid might be in order and knowing awkm, and his fondness for the squid, I'm expecting it to be sooner than later.

I also agree with Gilder that I personally wouldn't mind a little less drama all around and I suppose it wouldn't hurt for all of us to do a bit more to alleviate tensions.

Finally I'll just have to agree with Gilder one last time and recognize the tremendous work that Swallow, Qwerty and even Papa have put in to make the Cogs happen.  It must require so much for them but hopefully they take some reward in how amazing and successful it has become.

[Squidslinger Gilder]

Yeah I caught that how Muse got to stay in cause Corvus left. But I still had folks later talking out and gloating over Muse. Treating them like trash. None of present company that I know of, mind you. But I think the circumstances of the match made it stand out more to me. I don't want Muse to end up being trashed by the community to the point they never play and just alienate themselves from us.

Where the advantage to us came in is we not only had hundreds of hours in game play time perfecting our styles but also time practicing on dev while Muse was working. Brick adapted better than I did. Think cause his style wasn't as affected. But still we had to nerf our capabilities and plan a lot more to compensate for the beta issues. I didn't see Muse as having that luxury. Sure they make the game but making and experiencing it can often be two different things. Something they might have been able to do better had they played on the normal server.

Overall yeah the patch is good. I'd give it a 60% positive, 70%+ when factoring in the new map. Could be 80%+ if that map was 2v2 DM but we'll see. Most of my complaints revolve around the changes which will hopefully be fixed as well as some minor tidbits.

[Morblitz]

No Dev company is ever as good as the competitive players - that's just the nature of making a game vs playing the game. However, I've never seen a Dev team take such an active part in the community before, to the point where they regularly participate in the competitive league and host 'fight the devs' games, and I think Muse is fantastic for that.

Hell, I was in the Occasionally Effective vs Muse game, as was a bunch of ducks, and a mishmash of competitive/good players, and we still only came out of that with a 2-1 best of 3 victory, and those 2 wins were hard fought. I went away from that with a lot more respect for Muse's fighting ability. Just so you know, Muse, those were some of the most fun games I've ever been involved in, thanks for that.

Their recent cogs match aside, they are actually a fairly capable team. I wouldn't boil their recent performance as them just being bad, because I think it was a bit deeper than that, probably something to do with not having enough time to get hands on experience with the new build and how the ships worked. It really looked like they struggled with that Galleon. Which, trust me, the ducks know what kind of a cumbersome beast it now is (that's what this weekend was for, to test it all out). They might not be as skilled as most competitive teams, which is completely understandable, but they have a lot of heart, and I hope they keep doing what they're doing, because it's awesome. They definitely aren't trash.

[Moriarty]

I backed muse in the tipping comp due to their good performance against the casters. I was confident they could pull out a victory, then when i saw the squid i was sure of it (not a fan).  Needless to say i was very confused with how the match played out. Particularly apparent the lack of basic communication - just baffling.

Still I'll back them again.

[KillstreaKs]

No Dev company is ever as good as the competitive players - that's just the nature of making a game vs playing the game. However, I've never seen a Dev team take such an active part in the community before, to the point where they regularly participate in the competitive league and host 'fight the devs' games, and I think Muse is fantastic for that.

I totally agree with morblitz, i've never seen any developer team be as active in the community as Muse is, and i thank them for that, regardless if they win or lose at the cogs.

[Brick Hardcastle]

I think some clarification is in order. I think what Gilder is saying is not that the test server gave us an advantage over Muse - it definitely didn't - but rather that both us and Muse weren't able to have a match where we could use builds we were comfortable with. The test server created a very tense and stressful environment for in the BFS where we'd have to completely re-consider our strategy every day because of the constant patches. As Gilder says, his squid was just not the same as the one on the main server. My role in the squadron wasn't as badly effected as Gilder's, but my wingman being so clearly uncomfortable added to the strain I was under getting everything organized practically and tactically in time for our participation.

I agree that Muse get run down a bit too much. Many experienced and credible players were predicting a Muse victory in the tipping thread and we respected them as a legitimate threat. Some saw Muse as having no tactical coherency, but they did have a strategy. They tried to focus me down long-range while I was closing the distance and they did actually pop my balloon with the lumberjack once or twice, even at long range when I was moving quite fast. Once we'd gotten in close though, it was very difficult for them to regroup and reconsider their strategy in time. It really is a shame that Gilder wasn't satisfied with the match as in spite of everything, I think we still made a fairly strong and interesting Cogs debut.

I hope my tone came across right in the community chat. I was not happy that Muse had been removed from Cogs rotation (and since then, we've seen they're still in anyway) more just relieved that after all the difficulties of the test server business, we'd won our match and were finally in the Cogs. The whole "Muse team is bad" thing is really just a joke that gets frequently taken too far. They may not have the experience and the training most of the other Cogs teams do, but them actually taking time out to play the game with everyone, and putting up a good fight against some of the best teams in the game is pretty gosh-darn impressive. Howard was also very helpful in making sure we all got on the test server ok. We even got a few gifts in addition to getting access to the beta. Muse are very considerate to the community.

There is a lot to like about the new patch. Muse have mostly done a good job of mixing things up and rebalancing them. There are definitely still problems technical and balance-wise, but I'm sure those will be addressed.

I think it's good that Gilder brought some of this out in the open. It's better to bring these things to the forefront and hash them out before they become too pressing. The Cogs are not exactly easy to organise, either for OE or for the teams themselves and it's worth having a discussion about concerns we've been having, while still respecting the effort everyone has put into the event.

[zitruskiller]

i love you muse, but match with muse is a warm up. Your debut match will be the next

[Squidslinger Gilder]

I vote Muse fix the servers before anymore Cogs take place. The lag is too heavy.

[Brick Hardcastle]

The match with Polaris wasn't the BFS at our best. Between Gilder getting crippling lag, the last-minute substitutions of crucial crew members and me just starting to panic from it all, we weren't able to perform at our usual level.

I'm not saying that we would've won had it not been for these problems, but we would've at least had a much better showing. Swallow said at the start of the match that we were using the squid to its full potential. That was right before Gilder started to experience extreme lag. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone familiar with him that his normally picture perfect flying was suffering after that point.

Polaris are a good team, and I was looking forward to giving everyone watching a good match against them. I hope in future we'll be able to bring our best on game day, win or lose. I think it's a learning experience for me, at least, to keep a cool head and have a back-up plan for those points when everything goes wrong at the worst possible time.