We tested the rules and I got the needed feedback to make an analyzis of some sort. The way I did it was by putting all feedback into a simple display based on positive and negative feedback on both rules. There were a few comments on the organizational spectrum.
Display: to the left you see either names or clan feedback, and above you see what they are commenting on.
http://s21.postimg.org/ty3ua5pgn/display.jpg
The pick order rule:To start with the positive feedback it is perceived that the pick order system is superior to the former endless time of counterpicking until the referee asked to ready up. We made a run with the new 5 minutes in lobby yesterday in SCS, which in itself worked much easier for the organizational team. I personally think that if we were to gain feedback compard to SCS 22 the feedback would be somewhat more negative towards this.
From the organizational team we have a big skepticism towards the pick order system, it was proposed as a possible solution to the long lobby times. In the eyes of us the organizers of SCS we are not interested in becoming the high competitive playground, we have no intentions of joining MLG rulesets or anything that would show a huge difference with professionalism in the competitive scene than what you have been used to before. We like that teams sign up on weekly basis, being able to change their rosters last minute etc. We are currently trying to get more teams to sign up, and a pick order system is in both the feedback and my own opinion not a valid solution in this event which basicly serves as weekly practice for all teams signing up.
However the system proves to be a valid solution for more competitive events, but needs a lot of work and further testing. The time to pick was too short for some teams, and I’d like to bring out a quote from JubJub:
“An example of how this went yesterday from our perspective: Red 1 rushes to pick a ship build based on the map and what he/she thinks/assumes/hopes the enemy is going to bring due to only having 1 minute to decide. Blue 1 and Blue 2 see Red 1's ship, and in a 2 minute long conversation pick two ships to counter it, and whatever would work well with it. Red 2 is then forced, again with 1 minute remaining, to either pick a ship that works well with his ally, or a different ship that doesn't work well with his ally, but will try to counter the enemy's ships.”
If anyone is willing to work further on this system, or if we at some point test it further, this is where you should start. With the feedback given it is concluded that the system is not perfect, but is better than not having any time limits on picking both from a streaming, organizational and team perspective. However this is not the future of SCS.
The time limit rule:While testing the time limit rule a question came up regarding to the surrender option. In the eyes of the organizational team it is completely valid to surrender at any time during the game, however we feel that surrender based on saving time is a valid tactic but if it can be avoided would be better. A lot of teams felt stressed about the 10 minutes, which gave only room for a swift and aggressive playstyle. Further concerns were given about ships and builds being locked out due to time constraints. Being a practice event we want to promote teams to use us as a playground if possible, to test various builds competitive. The short time means that keeping an eye on the clock becomes a valid meta, concerns such as clock abuse and avoiding combat seems to be the biggest factor. I don’t think it is a good idea for SCS to push teams into thinking of anything other than having fun and playing versus each other is a good way to do things. We will keep running with the current system from SCS22 which provides teams with up to 25 minutes in a match to do long range egagements, however we are not interested in giving teams more time than this. Both from a streaming and organizational perspective sniping games with more than these 25 minutes proves to be boring and not fun, teams can keep that in their own scrimmages.
Remaining comments:It would be interesting to test the proposed blind pick system that was given with feedback. It is possible that I will run an event testing this in the near future.
The reason we as referees do not use ingame voice chat in lobbies is that we cannot be sure that it is heard by everyone. However using the chat is a lot easier for us as referees. You can send us private messages, or write us on steam we are ok with that, but we won’t be using ingame voice chat for information due to confusion, unless it is necessary.
