Topics

31

Community Events / Sunday Community Skirmish #69 (Signups for Sunday September 20th)

« on: September 17, 2015, 07:11:23 am »

This is the sign up for the Sunday Community Skirmish #69, happening on September 20th at 7pm UTC

Sunday Community Skirmish is a weekly event created and organized by members of the community in a way to provide every team a weekly opportunity for guaranteed matches against other teams.

ATTENTION, we will be testing Blind Picks on this day.
If you don't know how blind picks work please click Here.

All matches are 2vs2 and time limited.

Click here for any information you need

VODs will be found at CommunityeSports

The stream, brackets and respective map rolls will be posted here once the sign ups are closed.

Sign up requirements:

• Team name
• Contact point (IGN and/or steam)
• Logo (optional)

Points of contact

32

Community Events / Sunday Community Skirmish: Are official pauses needed?

« on: September 15, 2015, 12:48:03 pm »

Skrimskraw brought it up a few times now, so let's gather some opinions:

Please argue: Are official pauses (granted by referee) needed and why or why not? What are the benefits of having official pauses and what are the benefits of not having official pauses?

33

Community Events / Sunday Community Skirmish: New optional blind pick mode

« on: August 31, 2015, 05:29:03 pm »

Hi guys, the idea is not new and was always around, still no event tried it out so far: blind picks

The current metagame evolves around a few good ship and gun combinations, there are counters to specific loadouts and also some fairly good anti-counter solutions. The current competitive scene with its regular event the Sunday Community Skirmish allows teams to practice new tactics but is also a test ground for new GOIO rule sets to give ideas for major tournament rules. Even if counter picking is much less of an issue than it was in the course of the event, it is still present and we want to provide teams a way to work around that an allow new tactical drafting.

updated rules: version 3 (08.10.2015)

What is coming?
The next SCS #67 and all following skirmishes until further notice will introduce a new mandatory blind pick rule (short version):

• lobby transition into blind pick mode
• ship loadout changes after the first lobby minute will increase an individual counter for each team
• if the counter reaches a threshold (5) for both teams, the lobby transitions into blind pick mode
• no ship loadout changes allowed in the last 30sec lobby time
• captains have to mention in chat loadout changes
• blind pick mode
• 2 min time to privately message the referee the first pick (one ship), then picks get revealed
• 2 min time to privately message the referee the second pick (remaining ship), then picks get revealed
• 1 min time to change classes and equipment

More details please!
Here is the full ruleset:

• ship loadout changes after the first lobby minute will increase an individual counter for each team
• if the counter reaches a threshold (5) for both teams, the lobby transitions into blind pick mode
• blind picks can be avoided if both teams agree on it/li]
  
• no ship loadout changes allowed in the last 30sec lobby time
• a gun or ship change counts as ship loadout change
• a team forfeits the match if they change ship loadouts during that time
• captains have to mention in chat about ship loadout changes
• it is up to the referee to penalize teams for not informing about ship loadout changes in a reasonable time (a few seconds) after change

• all captains have two minutes time after confirmed blind pick mode to pick one ship loadout and pming it to the referee (ship and gun placement)
• if a captain doesn't message the referee in time about the chosen loadout, the currently selected loadout is locked down
• after both teams have picked one ship, the teams are informed and all captains have to change their ship selections to their blind pick
• captains have to select the picks in a reasonable time manner (not more than one minute) or it results in a forfeit
• the (partial) picks are revealed to the team and the previous two pick steps are repeated until all ships have been picked
• after all ships are locked down, the teams are informed and have an additional one minute time to adjust equipment, classes and slots
• if a team doesn't ready up in time after equipment selection, they forfeit the game
• changed ship loadouts result in a forfeit

These rules are not included in the official SCS document yet, because we still want to experiment how it works out and if it is a good option.

34

The Signal Tower / Exclusive competitive POV footage

« on: July 31, 2015, 05:32:51 pm »

Private POVs of one of our competitive matches combined together. View GeoRmr and me shooting and piloting at the same time. This VOD features our first match round 1 in the R&D Invitational European bracket on Duel at Dawn against Mad Hatters:
Lueosi and GeoRmr Competitive POV split view

Blenderfish and Metagalleon vs. Hades Pyra and Blenderfish. The first engagement was close, but the gunners turned it around.

Enjoy a real competitive game from the point of players and take a look at how communication in this game can work. It might be confusing if you don't know the voices and you hear everyone talking over each other. If you enjoy it, there are plenty of private POVs waiting to be published (any feedback welcome).

35

Community Events / Leaderboard - New Implementation, Easily Accessible, Diminishing Returns

« on: July 26, 2015, 05:20:36 pm »

New Leaderboard Implementation
Some may have wondered what the empty leaderboard is about. Those of you who are around for longer already have seen it used during first weeks of Hephaestus Challenge a year ago. But now with the involvement of Ayetach I am proud to announce a new leaderboard season! It will only last 3 months to see the concept in a live environment while getting feedback to improve the implementation.

Basically what you need to know is simple:

Accessibility
It is incredible easy to join the leaderboard season. All you have to do is, sign-up at the SCS (weekly skirmish event) or other favoured tournaments. But what if your clan or team is too small? Not a problem! Just group together with another clan or some of your best friends in this game. All you need to take care of is getting a team of at least three clan mates per clan sign-up and voila, your results and participation will be valued. That way two clans can get the points at once. Multiple clans with equal points awarded. Mixed signups are great fun, so lets reward you for it!

Favours Participation
So what if you are new, or the team hasn't practiced much together. You will never be able to rank up on the board? No worries! Participation matters! Winning benefits you, but you gain a base point value just by participating and if you sign-up regularly you will rank up over time! Also top-ranked teams get a whole new adjustment system...

Diminishing Returns
So here we come to the most interesting point about the implementation: No longer will one or two top tier clans dominate the leaderboards with their wins - this is due to the adjusted value of points they get based on where they rank on the leaderboard this gives up and coming teams a chance to take on the top spots as well. Diminishing returns ftw!


Implementation rules
Let's look at the concept (2vs2 only so far), scores are calculated weekly:

• 2 points for participation if you don't score a win any of the matches.
• 1 point each win for 1st ranked team (based on the leaderboard).
• 2 points each win for 2nd ranked team.
• 3 points each win for 3rd ranked team.
• 4 points each win for all other ranking teams.
• Only clans are rewarded for points in the ranking (no special team ranking)
• A team can register a maximum of two clans for the ranking, both clans gain the full amount of points each
• A team has to have at least 3 clan members participating in the roster (to get points for the clan ranking)
• If your clan signs up with multiple teams, the best resulting team will be counted for the points.
• For the record: This is a ranking system and designed to gauge your skills and participation in the SCS, therefore no prizes are awarded.

The leaderboard season will start next week Sunday August 2, SCS #62.

36

Community Events / Sunday Community Skirmish Tiebreaker Rules change

« on: July 07, 2015, 11:51:38 am »

Hi competitive folks! Currently we have a the coin toss rule to decide a tied match. Obviously nobody likes matches decided by a coin toss so I'd like to propose a tiebreaker match.

Duel at Dawn 10min time limit, first kill, first part destruction on tie.


Another thing i thought about were matches without progression. If the match is tied by score and all captains agree, the match ends and a tiebreaker match gets played. I'm just thinking about the last SCS Firnfeld match when both teams hesitated to engage to not lose their positioning advantage. In that case the team captains could have called for a tie and played a more interesting match for viewers and players.

What do you think about those two ideas?

37

The Signal Tower / Fun with Flaks

« on: March 17, 2015, 01:44:40 pm »

After our weekly scrimmage against each other we Ryders group up together for a final all Flak Spire 4vs4 match on Red Sepulcher. Watch the overpowered combination of a minimum of 8 and up to 12 Light Flaks and 4 Heavy Flaks hitting the same target, melting through armor and instantly killing any ship from a pilot's POV. We follow the Ryder paradigm: Forward and Focus!

The Light Flaks create a smoke screen for the hit ship, making aiming while shooting back almost impossible. All Flaks also have a high chance to ignite guns, balloon and armor that leads to fire being a serious problem - especially guns will overheat really fast if not maintained properly. It is very important that every gun focuses the same target, if a Spire goes down, stripping the armor and creating a smoke barrier becomes much harder. Usually at least three Spires are required to have good armor piercing.

Our closest result so far was 7 deaths. This time Dementio was not piloting - usually he goes down first - and we got away with 2 deaths.
Fun with Flaks - Ryders' closing match after scrimmage - My own point of view, Ryder Mumble with team communication recorded. Bonus: Ayetach goes crazy at the end and almost dies - literally.

Watch more content at our Youtube Channel.


Disclaimer: This is a pubstomp after very intense matches before, this is the only time we intentionally do this - even though we'd like to fight against good opponents here (what already happened). Comments about this particular issue please as PM to me.