Blind lobby and 'scouting'

[Richard LeMoon]

This is not a suggestion. More of a thought experiment.

Let's say when you go into a lobby, you can only see your own teams loadouts. Aside from names, everything else is hidden. This means you can't see ships, loadouts, or even classes. This also means your own ship is hidden. Everyone could go into the match this way and not know what the other team is doing until first contact.

or

As pilot, you could click on an enemy ship in the lobby to 'scout' it and see what it is. This would reveal your own ship to the entire enemy team, but would allow you and your crew to start gathering details on the other ship. A little eye icon would show up on that ship for your team showing that you had already scouted it.

How would lobbies play out? How many would go into battle blind as opposed to everyone revealing their ships? Would people pick right away, or wait until the very end?

[BlackenedPies]

Blind lobbies could be a selectable option for custom and vet matches. As for scouting would it be a permanent reveal? It would kindve defeat the purpose of a blind lobby.

[Richard LeMoon]

Let's add in a fade feature. When you scout an enemy ship, both of your ships are revealed for a minute. You can only scout so many times?

[HamsterIV]

It is important for crew to see what type of ship they will be flying in lobby when the captain is not communicating. It is also important that crew can swap teams for balance, or to escape a bad captain. One or both of these features would need to be cut to make this blind Lobby thing work.

[BlackenedPies]

You would be able to see your team's loadout but not the opponents. An exploit would be briefly switching sides to see the other team. Any sort of blind lobby should be optional and not part of MM.

[nhbearit]

Blind lobbies would also make it MUCH harder to teach newer players. Whenever I see a novice pilot in ANY captain slot, I try to let them know if there's anything they could be doing better. Also, what they did well, but that's not as important here. Being able to wave people away from builds, like the double flak Pyra, is useful. It gets us both a better match, while also allowing me to see who communicates with me, and if there's anyone who might be worth Ducking. The only way to set up this thought experiment in a way where I don't reveal the other team, and of course my own ship, is if I know the other captains, their crews, and what they'll bring before hand. If that's the case, they probably would have a good idea of what I would be doing as well. In this scenario "Counter-Play" is still very much a thing. There's simply a layer of bluffing added on top of it.

For example, me: " I know you're going to bring a Mobula even though this is Paritan, So I'm going to bring a Blenderfish." other guy: "You'll probably bring a Blender to counter my Mob.. so I'm going to bring a Brawl Galleon (or whatever)."

This is something that I'd really rather avoid in GOIO. I understand that having the other team bring ships/loadouts to try to counter yours can be stressful, but it's a lot better than this alternative.

[BlackenedPies]

That's why it shouldn't be in MM and should be an option rather than default. Muse commented that they like the idea of optional blind lobbies when they release user hosted servers. Alternatively it could be vote based.

[nhbearit]

I'm not convinced that the current population of GOIO is large enough to support that kind of option. How often do we just get thrown into a lobby with the guys we just played against Skies? It seems like with around 200 people online, you'll only really see about 20 of them. I'm concerned that having it as an option would draw people away from lobbies which they could fill up. (essentially making 2 half-full lobbies instead of 1 full lobby.) From there, while it might make implementing blind picks in user hosted servers easier; It is possible to set up a blind pick lobby in GOIO right now. You have to get people to agree to send their loadouts before they join the lobby, but you can do it. There isn't a reason why you couldn't do that with a user hosted lobby/server. And again, while it might help makes things easier, it's also kinda putting the cart before the horse. GOIO needs a lot of love atm. I think that a blind pick option would just turn out to be a distraction.

[Spud Nick]

I would scout the other team and reveal my own ship in most of the lobbies. If I don't see any green names on the other team I would not bother scouting them.

[The Sky Wolf]

I love the idea of blind lobbies + scramble. Makes things interesting.

[The Sky Wolf]

It would be even more awesome to be completely blind to not just your enemy's ship/load-out/crew info, but everybody's load-outs including your own teammate's. As well as the map being randomly selected at the very last second! BLIND SKIRMISH MODE!

[DJ Logicalia]

I feel the sky wolf's ideas have to be correct, as he is the top pilot in GoI

[Richard LeMoon]

Honestly, now that the top player in this game has spoken, I think all games should be completely blind selected.

[MightyKeb]

I blindpicked my marriage partner and im not sure if im happy with the decision

[The Sky Wolf]

I blindpicked my marriage partner and im not sure if im happy with the decision

Well, it worked out for me.