Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: RomanKar on June 23, 2014, 05:16:57 am
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I think in all Tournament matches a ship list with full gun load out should be messaged to the ref of a match before the lobby is opened, after map is communicated.
I have seen matches where teams just have to give up switching at some point, and "being the better man" shouldn't lead to being hard-countered.
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Or the ability to see a ship/crew load-out of the opposite team removed in private games? Am not sure how easy that would be, but i have had a few people suggest it,
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Maybe there should be a 'locked in' option in private matches, or just when you hit 'ready' you can't change the ship loadout.
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Or the ability to see a ship/crew load-out of the opposite team removed in private games? Am not sure how easy that would be, but i have had a few people suggest it,
Then you roll the dice and pray they don't take something that will hard-counter you. I think that's too heavy-handed.
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When we were coming up for the rules for hc we discussed whether we wanted rules concerning this. In the end we decided the two minute tuner time limit in the lobby was sufficient as not readying is a disqualification
You know what would be super cool? If private lobbies could have someone start a variable count down till force start.
I definitely do not like being blind. For my old junker knowing if the enemy was bringing pyras meant changing my carro banshee for a gat mortar.
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When we were coming up for the rules for hc we discussed whether we wanted rules concerning this. In the end we decided the two minute tuner time limit in the lobby was sufficient as not readying is a disqualification
That rule is fairly overshadowed by the requirement of captains being in lobby 10 minutes prior to start. Then one would have to "hide" their load-outs until the 2 minute timer starts.
That said, locking yourself into a load-out via a rule also carries the potential of getting countered, so its a double edge.
The only thing that annoys me is when teams will change their ships 10 times for no apparent reason, so maybe a limit to how many times a team can change ship load-outs would be a good compromise? Make it a big decision rather than the mini-game it seems to be.
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Should a rule like you're suggesting be put in place, then the advantage would go to the team who gets to change their loadout last.... I do like Grey's idea of just making ship loadouts unviewable for private matches (he's also an inside man, so could probably get us an answer on how easy this could be done). If not, if you're trying to combat this part, it's going to be better to just say ships are locked from change the moment you log into the lobby.
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I'd like to think competitive teams have more than one build to work with when it comes to tournament play. Sure, you give the advantage to the team that doesn't change first, but that makes the choice that much more important. You can't simply keep countering each other until one team gives up. You have to think about your change and consider what the other team may do. I'd say 3 changes. Lets teams totally swap, and have one extra. (I'm also referring to ship/gun changes only. Crew load-outs aren't a big deal)
Being locked will just suck if you happen to bet wrong and you take a galleon to an art-y party.
Not knowing would also suck, cause then you'd have to try assuming builds, only to hope you didn't just get hosed. I think it would take away from the creative builds we've seen.
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Oh is there a problem when people switch from one pyramidion meta to the other?
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I will be making a thread at some point towards the end of HC for discussion on good/bad/thoughts on how HC went to help revise the rules if a second season is in order, or to help the next event if the scene moves a different direction. This is naturally one of the things that would come up.
One potential way of handling it would be that one team locks one ship, the other team locks their ships, then the first team locks their final ship.
I think part of the reason pyramidions and junkers are the most popular ships is simply due to them being pretty good all-arounders. You can take them into any match and have a pretty good shot at not being "hard" countered. Other ships face more counters, making it a greater risk to take them into a lobby where your opponent will see it and potentially switch to counter it. A system for locking loadouts would potentially help more ships flourish in competitive, though recent days have at the very least seen more goldfish put to good use in HC even without hardline rules.
Always interesting to hear new ideas. This is a tough subject because no matter what, either at least one ship will get final choice or teams will be blind (which leads to generic builds). Luckily, so far HC seems to have seen pretty good variety without too much posturing and countering in lobbies.
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Or just don't choose loadouts that are easily countered.
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I'm not saying that ship swapping doesn't happen in HC, I am saying it doesn't result in a lobby going on for 10 minutes. I think changing ships based on what the enemy is not only fine but something to be encouraged and since the changing ships screen is kind of bulky (not conducive to amazingly fast changes I've seen teams get burned before) its a huge risk to pull off stunts.
Let em bring whatever and int he end if a team tried to do a fast swap and fails, you reap what you sow.
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Or just don't choose loadouts that are easily countered.
That's how you end up with all the boring meta ships we see now.
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Or just don't choose loadouts that are easily countered.
That's how you end up with all the boring meta ships we see now.
But meta changes constantly. Whether it's gun balance changes or people figuring out new ways to fly or such, we see meta changes on a regular basis.
And if you do want to bring something not immediately meta, it's up to you to figure out how to make it work. That's how meta changes.
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Or the ability to see a ship/crew load-out of the opposite team removed in private games? Am not sure how easy that would be, but i have had a few people suggest it,
Double blind is how all the fighting games/smash bros tourneys do it. Alternatively there is the MOBA style drafting, but with 2-3 ships per team instead of 5 heroes, that might be pretty shallow.
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I do see the need for regulating ship-swaping in competitive matches, but also dislike the approaches which have been suggested so far, while not being able to provide a better one.
I dislike blind picks, as that would force all teams to play conservative. Ships like squids, spires or lumberfishes would be a even more rare spot than they currently are.
One potential way of handling it would be that one team locks one ship, the other team locks their ships, then the first team locks their final ship.
I also dislike this approach as it grants the first team a major advatage. E.g. it could pick a ship that's an allrounder and can be paired up with almost anything (e.g. hades/flak Pyra), look what the enemy chooses and pick a hardcounter for the enemies build as last choice.
Alternatively there is the MOBA style drafting, but with 2-3 ships per team instead of 5 heroes, that might be pretty shallow.
I think it's a bad idea to restrict the build-options GoIO has got to offer.
For larger tournaments some sort of token system for ship/weapon swaps might be an approach for a solution of this issue. I can't think of a proper implementation though, right now :(. Let the teams pick blindly, and if a team thinks they can't encounter the enemy with their build somehow limited tokens can be used to adjust the ship/loadout. Something like this.
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I made this and am planning to update it throughout the Hephaestus Challenge.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TL2sDT6Xc9UwSu6YgAuQ2gdnTQRCxA-uFRO1KH4fLtE/edit?usp=sharing
*this counts the GwTh ships against the OVW fun team from the forfeit the other week but not the OVW ships
In the 4 weeks we have seen
61 Pyras
13 Junkers
11 Goldies
4 Galleons
3 Mobulas
1 Squid
1 Spire
Of the 14 teams
Four teams have brought only pyramidions. (MH, Rydr, DPA, SIR)
Only two teams have brought a majority of ships other than pyramidions. (Muse, TAW)
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Let the teams decide in beforehand?
Make a small lobby where the captains of the teams (crew optional) are going to chose their ships X hours or days or whatever before the match begins and then have the ref write them down.
The actual match later on would then start in a very short time and both teams had the chance to practise their builds against the enemy builds.
This would of course not work so well with one-day tournaments like SCS and would also negate the surprise effect of a "secret weapon" that might just be a Spire.
Another negative point would be that everybody who has anything to say about the ship decision of their own team has to be available at that specific time, may it be the very captain or just a random crewmember. And tournament times themselves are at times rather hard to keep... And then one of the pilots drop and he can't play this ship so the ship has to be changed...
We live in troublesome times.
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BAN THE PYRAMIDION FROM COMPETITIVE GOI!
Not the most serious solution, but it would be interesting to see what happened
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This is really delving into a problem that doesn't exist. Teams will always make certain adjustments before matches, whether it's through loadouts or player tools. Restricting that is pretty asinine, and having a timer a self-imposed timer for competitive matches seems to be pretty effective in dealing with presumed extended lobby time.
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This is really delving into a problem that doesn't exist. Teams will always make certain adjustments before matches, whether it's through loadouts or player tools. Restricting that is pretty asinine, and having a timer a self-imposed timer for competitive matches seems to be pretty effective in dealing with presumed extended lobby time.
The idea of playing cat and mouse with counters to counters is a problem that doesn't exist? I say it certainly exists, and this is not the first game to have that problem.
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This is really delving into a problem that doesn't exist. Teams will always make certain adjustments before matches, whether it's through loadouts or player tools. Restricting that is pretty asinine, and having a timer a self-imposed timer for competitive matches seems to be pretty effective in dealing with presumed extended lobby time.
The idea of playing cat and mouse with counters to counters is a problem that doesn't exist? I say it certainly exists, and this is not the first game to have that problem.
I don't doubt it exists to some point, but not to a major fault problem.
Plus, if you think metamidions are a problem now, why would anyone ever pick anything else if they're going into a match blind?
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This is really delving into a problem that doesn't exist. Teams will always make certain adjustments before matches, whether it's through loadouts or player tools. Restricting that is pretty asinine, and having a timer a self-imposed timer for competitive matches seems to be pretty effective in dealing with presumed extended lobby time.
The idea of playing cat and mouse with counters to counters is a problem that doesn't exist? I say it certainly exists, and this is not the first game to have that problem.
I don't doubt it exists to some point, but not to a major fault problem.
Plus, if you think metamidions are a problem now, why would anyone ever pick anything else if they're going into a match blind?
Personally, I don't think they are a problem, but if you want to pick a specialized ship with a glaring weakness, the only way you're going to be able to do that is if you pick second or you take a chance in blind pick.
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Anyone who thinks picking counters is a problem in GOIO competitive doesn't really understand competitive GOIO. Good teams have their set ships and load outs that they endeavor to master over a week or over months. Teams that stick with their tried and practiced builds have a track-history of doing better than teams who hard counter. If any hard countering is going on in competitive GOIO, it's hard countering that has been practiced days to weeks before the game, not during the few minutes before the game when picking ships and loadouts. Just look back at matches and you can see how it is often more succesful to work past counters and fly differently than simply reverse hard counter with a build or ship that you and your crew may not have practiced.
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The recent competitive matches showed that having builds you are confident with is better than fully countering build. The Cake-Merry Men match showed it pretty well last week
So build switch is quite dangerous practice
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Anyone who thinks picking counters is a problem in GOIO competitive doesn't really understand competitive GOIO. Good teams have their set ships and load outs that they endeavor to master over a week or over months. Teams that stick with their tried and practiced builds have a track-history of doing better than teams who hard counter. If any hard countering is going on in competitive GOIO, it's hard countering that has been practiced days to weeks before the game, not during the few minutes before the game when picking ships and loadouts. Just look back at matches and you can see how it is often more succesful to work past counters and fly differently than simply reverse hard counter with a build or ship that you and your crew may not have practiced.
People practice counterpicks in any large competitive game. Fielders play batters to hit to a certain side of the field in baseball. Basketball coaches call different defenses to deal with different offenses. Soccer coaches have different formations. Fighting game players practice counterpick characters. DotA players practice counter builds. The more potential a game has, the more players will invest time to yes, practice the counter. So say you're right and the only hard countering done has been practiced beforehand. If both teams have practiced counters, then they are still going to play a cat and mouse game. The fact that this topic was started proves it is already done in this game. There are countless examples in other games where players do the same thing, so there should be a hard ruling that doesn't involve whose ping is better to swap at the last second.
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Have we see this happen in competitive play yet? Teams switching ships to counter the other than switching back if they get countered?
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Counter-picking is a problem. What competitive team can't field at least 2 practiced and reliable teams? And if 2 pilots have 2 ships they are practiced on, well do the math. It becomes easy to swap one ship to hard counter. Then the other team switches. Then you switch back.
And the fact that many people have expressed a dislike of blind picking proves that counter picking is a thing. People won't bring different ships that have a glaring weakness, meaning they will choose a different build when they see their opponent's build.
Maybe one way to go is to choose a ship, but be able to switch weapons? I think this is becoming a thing. I know from experience, one side just gives up the countering. Timers aren't the way to go forward. Then you just count on being about to swap quickly or some other lobby mini game.
@Spud Nick, yes, I have seen it. It's on the VoDs.
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Counter-picking is a problem. What competitive team can't field at least 2 practiced and reliable teams? And if 2 pilots have 2 ships they are practiced on, well do the math. It becomes easy to swap one ship to hard counter. Then the other team switches. Then you switch back.
And the fact that many people have expressed a dislike of blind picking proves that counter picking is a thing. People won't bring different ships that have a glaring weakness, meaning they will choose a different build when they see their opponent's build.
Maybe one way to go is to choose a ship, but be able to switch weapons? I think this is becoming a thing. I know from experience, one side just gives up the countering. Timers aren't the way to go forward. Then you just count on being about to swap quickly or some other lobby mini game.
@Spud Nick, yes, I have seen it. It's on the VoDs.
Cool! Post me a link would you. I want to see witch team won.
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There were some in this past Sunday Rumble. I am not referring to my games, though it made have happened on the other side, I did not pay any attention to switching. We had our "long range" and "short range" setup and stuck to it.
I can almost guarantee, in most matches, someone says, hey look what they're taking, how about we do this instead.
Either we need to decide whether we are going to make picking and counter-picking part of the game, officially, or we should Blind pick, or we should have a couple different ways, and tournaments can choose which they like.
Right now, there are no rules. It needs to be addressed.
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I can see both sides to this, but what builds counter the meta? would they not become the new meta if they could,
Gat mortar pyra-with 1 main engineer 2 buff 2 chem 1 extinguisher is the most used ship/load out imho least it seems the most you see in high level games and competitive,
Then 2nd most would be the artimus hades junker with gat mortar or carronade flamer,
What builds counter them to that is such a problem? Near enough every high level captain has a predetermined loadout which involves chem for fire builds, and a mix of bralwer short and medium range ships.
The only counter i can see is the sniping and long range game is slowly becoming less because most long ranges ships like say lumberjack flak galleon is still susceptible to the art and merc so people do not risk it incase people switch to say double merc pyra art junker ect.
Other than that it is pretty much the same builds witch are fairly well balanced Double Pyra vs double junker or a mix of both, then it comes down to the skill of the team and terrain use to close the distance. So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build :P. as for the junker i believe there is some builds that counter it but it depends heavily on skill.
Thanks and if we can come to some consensus of the problem and solution i will certainly ask the questions and find out if and what can be done.
Perhaps an option in match making could be added in the future for the likes of blind builds or lock builds then it is an option and not restriction to players who do not see it as a problem?
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buff drogue chute and we will not switch our ships if the enemy wants to bring double blenderfish ;)
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Changing ships and loadouts is obviously a sign of a team who's comfortable with a variety of builds and tactics, and removing a team's ability to adapt to its' enemy is just plain silly. Draft wouldn't work so well either, 4 ships are way few to draft as previously mentioned.
Not surprisingly, I think it's the least experienced teams that insist on constant 'hard-countering' and ship changes. The stronger teams will usually be the first ones to give up on the swapping game and just say 'f it' and go in. Interestingly enough, you can often see strong teams going with builds that even seem counter-intuitive or unreliable versus the enemies' ones and still win with ease.
Instead of trying to regulate ship swapping (which I will admit gets extremely annoying at times), I'd suggest instead making your teams comfortable with more builds and practicing them even against so-called 'hard counters'.
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buff drogue chute and we will not switch our ships if the enemy wants to bring double blenderfish ;)
Am not to worryed nothing counters Merc squid haha ;)
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Either we need to decide whether we are going to make picking and counter-picking part of the game, officially, or we should Blind pick, or we should have a couple different ways, and tournaments can choose which they like.
Right now, there are no rules. It needs to be addressed.
Or have a time limit in the lobby and let people change ships as much as they want. changing ships isn't so much of a problem as long lobby time is.
buff drogue chute and we will not switch our ships if the enemy wants to bring double blenderfish ;)
That is actually a fairly good idea that kind of touches on why the pyra is so popular, the pyra is the only ship that has a semi protected balloon. This doesn't make the pyra good, it is simply safer.
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Think about it this way: if both teams want to hide their ships until the last second and change it then, they're already trying to do double blind with the random chance that they will wait too long and the game will start with the wrong ship. If we change it to really be double blind, then we have the same sort of idea without the silly chance that you accidentally take the wrong ship and no stupid lobby minigames.
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The real fix for this would be a sort of competitive drafting process much like Dota or LoL. Say team 1 gets to pick a ship, team 2 gets picks 2 and 3, and the team 1 gets last pick. Now obviously this won't work for every tournament, and may favor one side or the other, but it would be better than going in double blind every time. You could get some interesting types of drafting as well. Maybe teams first get to pick ships in a draft, and then they pick gun loud-outs.
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Again, what do time limits really do? My post is not about the amount of time it takes, how long we sit in lobby. My point is there are no rules covering this area. Putting a time limit on anarchy is not dealing with it.
And I don't buy the, "just get better," or ,"the best team will win anyway" idea either. If that were truly the case, the supposed best wouldn't swap ever, no matter what the other team has, and it is clear that there is at least some swapping, people are insisting that there be a way to swap ships or weapons once you see your opponent.
Or how about this scenerio"
5 minute timer
My team has two Mobies up to see in lobby. The other team has two spires (stick with me on this one, as ridiculous as it may be). No one does any switching for say 2-3 minutes. The other team readies. Me and my teammate switch to double pyri and ready and the 5 second countdown finished before the other team realizes what happened.
I know, I know, the other team should have paid attention, unreadying when they saw the swap.
To put it bluntly, whoever is willing to be the bigger a-holes and take advantage of the lack of rules surrounding this area get a bit of a leg up on the competition. Does it always work? No, of course not. But that doesn't make it acceptable on the competitive level.
It is tantamount to sneaky and dirty play. It gives teams a reason to bitch and call foul.
Again, I don't have the end all, be all of answers to this problem, but to say this problem doesn't exist or to say putting a timer on it is the answer doesn't seem realistic.
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Hiding ships and switching at last second in competitive lobby like this, should be against the rules in itself and be punished in some way (like disqualification or just a forfeit).
However, it is rather rare that this happens in general, may it be competitive or even pub.
The time limit is not to limit anarchy, but limits the time it takes for both teams to feel comfortable with their choices, and it does work.
The thing with the "the best team will win anyway" worked for the Mandarians, as they always went double metajunker no matter what the enemy had.
I do not see how the current system is problematic. In the end both teams are ready and from what I can tell, somebody has yet to say "Not fair! The enemy team took better ships than us!".
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How about this for a method of "drafting" ships, moba style. Each team has 30 seconds+80 seconds bonus time to pick EACH ship.
Red picks their first ship and loadout, they then "lock" it and are unable to change their crew loadout and ship loadout, then Blue has 30 seconds+80 for their first ship, and then 30+80 for the second, Red then have the same for their final ship.
This would be a pain to admin but is the fairest as it allows various advantages to both teams. Red gets the advantage of seeing both the enemy ships and Blue gets to pick both their ships at the same time, after seeing the first of the Red ships. This allows for them to force the enemy to pick something which doesn't synergise with their first ship.
Example of what could happen in a draft, this match will take place on Fjords, for the sake of it being one of the most balanced maps imo (this is another debate though which should not happen here).
Red picks up a hades/flak pyra with kerosene, they intend to go ranged and it can be comboed with almost anything. (This takes 10 seconds, as they have pre-decided this)
Blue sees this and decides they are going to counter it by going hwacha-fish and carronade-midion, hwacha to kill the pyra and carronade to deny the enemy a junker pick up. (Overall the first pick took 50 seconds, leaving then with 60 seconds of bonus time and the second pick took a further 50 leaving them with 40 seconds of bonus time)
Red decide that the best course of action is a second hades/flak pyra. (this takes 60 seconds and they end the draft with 50 seconds)
This would of course be best in a Best of 3 game due to having the fairness of both teams getting to draft on each side, the third game would be decided by whoever is playing from the lower bracket choosing which side (if it was that format), or the loser of the first game decides.
Anyway, That's my idea, adjust/discuss as you wish.
Edit: 30+80 might be overkill, but that's something to discuss
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Except I'm saying it right now. We are counting on a gentleman's agreement not to turn it into complete anarchy. And even the metajunkers will change weapon loadouts for the ships they are opposing.
It works right now, maybe, because either both teams just settle and stop, or one side just decides not to play the ship swap lobby mini game.
Neither of these options is acceptable in my opinion.
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The problem with a draft type system that you propose is that the second team gets to counter pick both times. I would think it would need to be a 1-2-1 type thing. Team 1 takes 1 ship and loadout, team 2 takes both ships, Team 1 takes its last ship.
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The problem with a draft type system that you propose is that the second team gets to counter pick both times. I would think it would need to be a 1-2-1 type thing. Team 1 takes 1 ship and loadout, team 2 takes both ships, Team 1 takes its last ship.
Pretty much what I was saying up above. If you wanted to spice things up a little. Ships draft Blue1, Red2, Blue1, and then guns draft Red1ship, Blue2ships, Red1ship.
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The problem with a draft type system that you propose is that the second team gets to counter pick both times. I would think it would need to be a 1-2-1 type thing. Team 1 takes 1 ship and loadout, team 2 takes both ships, Team 1 takes its last ship.
What do you mean? Mine is 1-2-1 :S
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Swapping ships or weapons to counter your opponent shouldn't be seen as bad sportsman ship. It's a valid strategy that has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
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I agree, Spud Nick, but right now, with no rules, is last second swapping unsportsmanlike? Where is the line between getting a good setup against your opponent and trickery?
And let me be very clear. I am accusing no one of unsportsmanlike behavior. This is a somewhat forward looking theoretical thing, that is already somewhat happening. I don't want good respectable community members accused of unsportsmanlike behavior simply because they went a little too deep into the grey area we are already in.
I just want to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand, which it verges on at times now.
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After having thought about this for a while, I'm not sure why we are able to see the other team's ships before a game at all. I'm hard pressed to think of a pvp system that allows you to see the other team's loadout and make changes without some sort of draft system.
It certainly gives a huge edge to veteran players in pub matches, maybe more than they deserve to have.
Just my opinion, but I really do think lobbies should be blind somehow.
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the amount of pyras would skyrocket in fear of getting countered if you have first pick
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Swapping ships or weapons to counter your opponent shouldn't be seen as bad sportsman ship. It's a valid strategy that has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
I think they mean swapping at the very last moment, to trick the opponent into thinking you are going to use other builds is seen as bad sportsmanship. Not just changing builds in an effort to counter.
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See Vanya, that is the very grey area I'm talking about. How late is too late? How many swaps are too many swaps. And why is a last second swap unsportsmanlike? It's not against the rules, and the best team should win, right?
That's why this area needs to be addressed.
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See Vanya, that is the very grey area I'm talking about. How late is too late? How many swaps are too many swaps. And why is a last second swap unsportsmanlike? It's not against the rules, and the best team should win, right?
That's why this area needs to be addressed.
It really doesn't though. I've never heard anyone even remotely consider this an issue before this thread.
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After having thought about this for a while, I'm not sure why we are able to see the other team's ships before a game at all. I'm hard pressed to think of a pvp system that allows you to see the other team's loadout and make changes without some sort of draft system.
It certainly gives a huge edge to veteran players in pub matches, maybe more than they deserve to have.
Just my opinion, but I really do think lobbies should be blind somehow.
Not being able to see the other teams ships sounds like a cool idea for a match option.
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Well, if someone wants to run a tournament with a draft or blind format, I'd love to see it.
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So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build
Junkers as demonstrated by the Mandarins easily counter pyras.
Though very much out of favor these days, one single well crewed asymmetrical Galleon with a coordinated escort ship like the Paddling used to run will rip to pieces a gat mortar pyra. It's been a long time since I've played competitively but when I did I pretty much always saw pyras as easy Galleon kills and picked on any pyras we faced to win matches.
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So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build
Junkers as demonstrated by the Mandarins easily counter pyras.
Thats only because 1 gat cannot bring down the armor of a Junker in one clip. Seriously Junkers should not be so durable. It is part due to their low profile but there aren't any real armor plates on the junker. Its all hull. At the very least it should be reverse. Easy to strip armor but hard to kill the hull.
If that was changed, Metamidions could easily take down Junkers. Pyra's for how strong they are, are very weak ships given the fact they are all hull but have shit armor and move like flying turds. Muse changed that because all you people cried out that they were OP. They weren't OP, people were just too dumb in figuring out how to counter them.
As it sits, I'd rather not take any meta vs Junkers. Better to blend them down than to sit there waiting for clips to finally strip armor hoping the mortars hit their marks in time.
If ship swapping is a problem then we just need a blind mode for competitive play that can be enabled like Scramble is. Problem solved.
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On a side note. Mastery of a ship and it's build will give you a better chance at victory than trying to counter your opponent.
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Swapping ships or weapons to counter your opponent shouldn't be seen as bad sportsman ship. It's a valid strategy that has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
What is the weakness of selecting the stronger ship combination?
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Swapping ships or weapons to counter your opponent shouldn't be seen as bad sportsman ship. It's a valid strategy that has it's own strengths and weaknesses.
What is the weakness of selecting the stronger ship combination?
Ships run less smoothly if the crew doesn't run it like a well-oiled machine, which is not to be expected if it's not properly trained before. Different ships and loadouts often require a significantly different playstyle and positioning. The less a ship-combination is flown together the more pilot-miscommunications and positioning errors occur.
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I think you lose a lot of damage from your build when you try to counter as well. Most of the counter builds seem to favor disabling in order to get the advantage over the other ships.
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So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build
Junkers as demonstrated by the Mandarins easily counter pyras.
Though very much out of favor these days, one single well crewed asymmetrical Galleon with a coordinated escort ship like the Paddling used to run will rip to pieces a gat mortar pyra. It's been a long time since I've played competitively but when I did I pretty much always saw pyras as easy Galleon kills and picked on any pyras we faced to win matches.
I've always seen pyramidions as easy targets too. Too bad that everyone in the haephestus challenge seems to be scared to use anything but pyras.
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So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build
Junkers as demonstrated by the Mandarins easily counter pyras.
Though very much out of favor these days, one single well crewed asymmetrical Galleon with a coordinated escort ship like the Paddling used to run will rip to pieces a gat mortar pyra. It's been a long time since I've played competitively but when I did I pretty much always saw pyras as easy Galleon kills and picked on any pyras we faced to win matches.
I've always seen pyramidions as easy targets too. Too bad that everyone in the haephestus challenge seems to be scared to use anything but pyras.
Some ships are easier to crew on than others.
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So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build
Junkers as demonstrated by the Mandarins easily counter pyras.
Though very much out of favor these days, one single well crewed asymmetrical Galleon with a coordinated escort ship like the Paddling used to run will rip to pieces a gat mortar pyra. It's been a long time since I've played competitively but when I did I pretty much always saw pyras as easy Galleon kills and picked on any pyras we faced to win matches.
I've always seen pyramidions as easy targets too. Too bad that everyone in the haephestus challenge seems to be scared to use anything but pyras.
Some ships are easier to crew on than others.
True, but it's unfortunate that the meta is about what is easiest rather than most effective. Especially since people claim these competitive matches are "the highest level of play" in this game.
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So if somone could shout out what counters gat mortar pyra i would be all ears ^.^ ill perfect that build
Junkers as demonstrated by the Mandarins easily counter pyras.
Though very much out of favor these days, one single well crewed asymmetrical Galleon with a coordinated escort ship like the Paddling used to run will rip to pieces a gat mortar pyra. It's been a long time since I've played competitively but when I did I pretty much always saw pyras as easy Galleon kills and picked on any pyras we faced to win matches.
I've always seen pyramidions as easy targets too. Too bad that everyone in the haephestus challenge seems to be scared to use anything but pyras.
Some ships are easier to crew on than others.
True, but it's unfortunate that the meta is about what is easiest rather than most effective. Especially since people claim these competitive matches are "the highest level of play" in this game.
Time and time again it's been shown that meta is what's most effective with the least amount of drawbacks.
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Time and time again it's been shown that meta is what's most effective with the least amount of drawbacks.
Fair enough, i guess something being easy does make it consistently effective.
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I think something to consider is the state of many of the clans right now. "Restructuring" or some variant of that word was the most common thing clan leaders told me when I was trying to get people on board for the HC. Most of the teams in there are fairly fresh on the scene or new players with some older guidance. HRA, a combination fo the fairly new Holy team and the quite new SPQR have been unstoppable. Cake and Muse have been pulling off major upsets. OVW and Ducks are both new pilots and crews. SIR and SAC are kicking into high gear. I think as we go along, we will see higher diversity of ships as teams get more and more solid and have to come up with new ways to beat each other. Personally for the Ducks we're seeing the Clamour transition away from their early pyramidion builds and switching over to Junkers and they've been practicing Galleons and Goldies as well.
The solution to the great pyra flood is not some weird double blind system added to lobbies or a draft system. The solution is for teams to continue to solidify and take their game to the next level. Pyras are fine but people just need to trust other ships more.
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Well I think a more formalized draft or blind system for tournaments is something important for long-time life of competitive play. If it means fewer double pyra builds than that is a different discussion. However the informal system that just kind of happens in lobbies before a match is potentially problematic if more teams decide to abuse most tournaments lack of structure in this regard.
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When you say abuse you mean what?
Changing ships quickly?
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Abuse may not be the right term. But if two ships enter a lobby and nobody is counter picking, and then somebody does it with a second left on the timer, it's not exactly sportsmanlike conduct. Now if a tournament has no policy on that sort of behavior and a tournament director doesn't like it, there is not really anything they can do.
All I'm saying is that if tournament directors are okay with this behavior they should be explicit about it's legality. If they aren't okay with it, they need to come up with a better system.
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As it's been said, forcing blind picks will only serve to increase metamidion usage because you'd want the safest option available.
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FYI the Sky Tournament I ran over a year ago had blind picks. The team captain would submit their loadouts via a Google Docs form 5 minutes before their match. It went pretty smoothly, although I ended up not using it in future events.
form: https://i.imgur.com/Ltt4FBF.png
spreadsheet: https://i.imgur.com/T7o9xCB.png
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I've always seen pyramidions as easy targets too. Too bad that everyone in the haephestus challenge seems to be scared to use anything but pyras.
Too bad you didn't sign for haephastus yourself.
OT: I don't see why all the big deal over nothing. I have yet to see a team do this 'last 5 second swap' that you speak of, I'll certainly be more watchfull now that you mention it though. Although I think any half-serious clan doing this in any half-serious competitive setting would be marked and shamed for life. As for people insisting on blind pick, such a system would just terribly undermine build and theory crafting and insert an RNG element to a game that's otherwise solely based on skill and communication. Builds and meta progress due to the need to adapt to your enemy.
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I seem to remember an event a while ago where a team tried that last second switch against us, and had their loadouts promptly fail.
They asked for a restart because they screwed up their tomfoolery. The answer from us was no. They lost. Badly.
Teams trying that will find out quickly that it might work once, but it will likely fail a hundred times over; when it fails, opponents will not be forgiving. We weren't, and I wouldn't expect others to be forgiving to us if we tried it (not that I can ever see us trying it).
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As for people insisting on blind pick, such a system would just terribly undermine build and theory crafting and insert an RNG element to a game that's otherwise solely based on skill and communication. Builds and meta progress due to the need to adapt to your enemy.
It's only RNG if you're rolling dice to pick buids, and I don't think anyone is advocating that.
If you're trying to figure out what your opponent will pick and then figure out how to counter it, that's build and theorycrafting. It's just a little harder than countering what you KNOW your opponent has picked, but it leaves a lot of room for interesting mind-games.
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OT: I don't see why all the big deal over nothing. I have yet to see a team do this 'last 5 second swap' that you speak of, I'll certainly be more watchfull now that you mention it though. Although I think any half-serious clan doing this in any half-serious competitive setting would be marked and shamed for life. As for people insisting on blind pick, such a system would just terribly undermine build and theory crafting and insert an RNG element to a game that's otherwise solely based on skill and communication. Builds and meta progress due to the need to adapt to your enemy.
This is where I have a bit of a problem. You don't think people should be doing last second ship swaps, but you also think ship swapping is an inherent part of the game. So when in a 5 minute timer is it considered too late to be swapping so I may avoid being marked and shamed? Is 2 minutes too long to wait? Or how many ship swaps am I allowed before it's too many?
What I'm starting to hear from a lot of people is that ship swapping can be sneaky and unsportsmanlike, unless you do it in an acceptable way, well, cuz I like to ship swap, or loadout swap depending on the opponent's loadout.
This is a huge grey area. Tournaments in the future need to have some rules governing this area of the game. I think the best option is to have each tournament decide which rules to take. But each tournament should have some rules, not just a timer.
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This is a huge grey area. Tournaments in the future need to have some rules governing this area of the game. I think the best option is to have each tournament decide which rules to take. But each tournament should have some rules, not just a timer.
Exactly. If it's not in the tourney rules, then it's completely up in the air.
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The challenge here is choosing/making rules that people like, that work, and that don't stifle creativity.
Using MOBA's as an example. You don't know what your opponent is going to take. You take a character and build set you feel comfortable with or that you think will work well in certain ways with other members of your team. However, if your opponent counters this, you can alter your build order to buy into abilities that combat your specific opponents to allow a suboptimal character to win out. In this way, MOBAs only feature soft counters instead of so-called hard counters. Taking an interesting character is perfectly fine since you can alter your build order to handle and counter your opponents.
In GoIO, there is no mid-match control. The only thing you can do is alter tactics to try to defeat a counter. Sometimes that just doesn't work.
Using Hephaestus Challenge as an example, I believe administration touched on this subject while ironing out rules. Some of the things in play with HC are experimental to see if the rules are clearly defined enough or if further measures are needed. Without a distinctly better solution, we left just a time limit to see if it would be sufficient, knowing that if/when season 2 happens adjustments can be made to account for problems.
Analyzing the problem, there are 3 possible ways to organize selections: timer/unorganized, simultaneous, or ordered.
Timer/unorganized is primarily what we have seen to this point. It relies on good faith and confidence to work. While it hasn't seen major problems, it is also asking for trouble sooner rather than later.
Simultaneous and ordered are the other 2 options. Ordered allows teams some form of reaction to their opponent. This means someone has to choose first, and someone gets to choose last. Major problems with this is that early ships are likely to be generic, which isn't necessarily bad, but somewhat stifles creativity. More unique ships tend to have more distinct weaknesses that can be taken advantage of.
Simultaneous has the same problem in a different way. Simultaneous selection, or blind, pushes teams to take more generic builds capable of fighting any style of enemy. Again, this isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it still stifles creativity.
Probably the best solution will come from a combination of the 3 options.
The key here is that no, to date it has not been a glaring problem, but it has the potential for abuse. Everything should be thought of in terms of scalability. If a serious event could be run for a much larger, not necessarily as friendly community, it should be able to run just as smooth as events in a smaller community. In that line of thought, this is a problem, and this is a good thread to put forward ideas to solve it.
A potential solution: Captains must submit the specific ships their team will be using say 20 minutes prior to match start. After all ships have been submitted, then captains will be informed of all ship choices and will have until 10 minutes prior to match start to submit their ship loadouts. When loadouts have been submitted, all captains will be informed, and all players will be invited to join the lobby with said ships and loadouts. Players may then adjust their personal loadouts until the timer ends to allow for soft countering of certain aspects.
The limited time for decisions is my least favorite part, and could probably be taken out in favor of a 3 day lead time for ship decision, plus 24 hours to choose ship loadout, allowing each team time to toy with how their ships will play against their opponent's ships.
So for example, Team A submits 2 Pyramidions and Team B submits a Goldfish and a Galleon. Both teams are informed of this. Team A then submits a gat-mortar loadout and a carrot loadout, hoping for quick kills and lots of disable on the heavy weapons, while Team B submits a lumberfish loadout and an asymmetric killing galleon loadout hoping to go for quick ranged kills by keeping the pyramidions locked down with lumberjacks. The teams then have time to practice against these specific builds playing for flaws, giving them time to find ways to avoid a "hard" counter. They join the lobby and are free to engage in a cat-and-mouse game of swapping ammo and tool personal loadouts prior to the match until the timer runs out and the game starts.
This allows teams to take interesting ship combinations knowing that if their ships are not favored the way they wanted to fly, then can pick weapons that help them combat their opponent's ship.
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Hmm. That seems interesting, although the blind ship picks still seems like it will force out more of safer ship picks. If you pick something like a squid or spire, you can't do much situational picking in the weapon loudout.
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Hmm. That seems interesting, although the blind ship picks still seems like it will force out more of safer ship picks. If you pick something like a squid or spire, you can't do much situational picking in the weapon loudout.
Squid is somewhat more limited. You sort of end up going attack squid or disable squid. However a merc squid to support a sniping ship might be a nice surprise if the enemy focuses on countering a close range squid.
Spire can do a sniping build or take a close range build the GwTh have done.
But yeah, certain ships will always be more all-around capable, which is part of why Pyra builds are so popular. It is very good in a lot of different scenarios.
I think this set-up would really benefit most from significant gaps between ship announcement and weapon selection, and between weapon selection and match. This would give teams time to find weird weapon combos that work well, and try to find the perfect way to fight that ship combo, then time again to learn and practice for the weapon combo.
Anyway, that is ~an~ option that allows both teams an opportunity to counter the other without giving one team a last say in the matter. An addendum might be that a team would be allowed say 1 mulligan for the season, and get to request a re-selection of ships from both teams if they backed themselves into a corner and just couldn't find a way out.
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Hypothetical scenario:
Team A wants to fly something they have been practising with and are comfortable with. In the lobby though, it appears that Team B seems to counter them.
Team A decides to change one of their ships loadout to decieve their enemy. The enemy does indeed respond by changing one of their ship's loadout to counter the ship that has just changed on Team A.
When they both ready up Team A then changes their ship back immediately and the game starts, before Team B had time to react.
Team A wanted to fly a combination of ship they have practised hard with and were so sure to take.
Team B was comfortable by countering Team A ships with ships they were comfortable with.
Is countering allowed? If yes, to what extent?
If it is allowed we have endless ship swapping in lobbies or one team just gets the bonus of, well, the "superior" ship choice by countering the enemy ships.
And what right does one team have to simply counter something that the other team has practised long and hard for and nullify all its effort?
If we go off with a blind pick for each team then Team A wouldn't have had the need to swap at last second to fly something it is comfortable with, but Team B would have been forced to make a "safer" choice. This safer choice is hugely map depended too and what Team B expects from Team A. On Dunes it could have ended with very long range ships and on dawn with double metamidion...
To note is that this is rather disadvantageous for a team that always seems to use the same ships.
If it would have been a 1-2-1 kind of choice then Team A could have been semi-comfortable and Team B just as semi-comfortable.
However if Team B gets the first pick then Team A could have been countered just as much, because in the above mentioned scenario only 1 ship was changed per team, which means 1 ship per team could have been a permanent decision, which again means the second ship of Team B was a specific counter to a specific ship which would have been "locked". Only that Team A couldn't do a last second swap.
Personally, I am barely bothered at all to sit in the lobby for a little while longer to have my team as well as the enemy team perfectly comfortable with our choices. Well, "perfectly comfortable" is a bit of a stretch...
And I feel like it should really come down to the captains of each team. Does Team X want the right to counter the enemy ship, but give the enemy team the same right by possesing this right? Or does Team X NOT want to be countered and thus either request a blind pick or something 1-2-1 like, in which case the disagreement of the enemy team could lead to a problem that the tournament rules need to cover.
Why do people have to be so complicated...
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I'd like to see "blind setup" as a toggle for public matches. I have been in a few lobbies where enemy captains will go back and forth counterpicking, and it's very frustrating. Red captain takes galleon, Blue captain takes flamer squid, Red captain switches to gatmortar pyra, Blue switches to galleon, repeat. Ugh, it took five minutes just to get 16 players in the lobby, now you guys are doing this switching thing and PEOPLE ARE LEAVING :(
Blind pick adds a little bit of interest in that just because you can tell what ship class you're facing, you don't necessarily know what all the hardpoints are on it until you get a good look at it - does that Galleon have a carronade, a flamer, or a mine launcher on the back? What does that Pyramidion have as its side guns? Etc.
I'd also like to see an option to change my personal equipment loadout during respawns (swap my firefighting item, for instance). Maybe this option already exists but I haven't noticed it. There's already the option to have three preset loadouts...
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I'd like to see "blind setup" as a toggle for public matches. .
That would be madness! It would change the game so much I don't know how it would be played after that.
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I'd like to see "blind setup" as a toggle for public matches. .
That would be madness! It would change the game so much I don't know how it would be played after that.
Exaggeration. There are plenty of people who don't look that closely at how the opponent is setting up during public games. Just set up your ships the way you want them. The one challenge would be preventing people from hopping over to opposing ships to scout their loadout, but that's not an issue when all of the ships are full (and besides, it would be pretty obvious when someone was doing it).
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I'd like to see "blind setup" as a toggle for public matches. .
That would be madness! It would change the game so much I don't know how it would be played after that.
I bet you'd figure it out.