This is pasted from the Steam discussions board. If you've read it there, you're up to date. Viewable here:
http://steamcommunity.com/app/209080/discussions/0/343787283743979581/TL;DR at the bottom. Bums.
We played a 50 minute Skyball match earlier today. I finished almost two Guster albums as we played. It was universally despised. I took screenshots of the text chat to prove it. But it has so much potential. How do we fix it? Easily. Here are my suggestions, and hopefully you, my fellow players, will weigh in and Muse will listen to us. VIP is now amazing, but those changes took 6 months to implement. Let's make this happen faster. So, what do we do?
Skyball's problem is there is too much DEFENSE. Why is there too much defense? Because when you die, you spawn near your OWN GOAL. This causes you to kill the enemy, grab the ball, then head to THEIR goal... where they have now conveniently spawned since you killed them. They then kill you, grab the ball, head to your goal, you spawn, kill them, take the ball, go to there goal... ad infinitum.
How do we fix this? The 35 second slightly-longer spawn time is GOOD... you SHOULD be penalized when you die. After all, VIP had the same type of problem: constant suiciding escorts ruined it. The real problem is the LOCATION of the spawns. All teams need to spawn in the middle of the north-south Y axis. I don't care if they spawn in the exact center or the west or the east. It doesn't matter. But the spawns need to be equidistant from each goal and the same for each team. That way, when you die, you're not near EITHER goal... which is better for gameplay, but also allows you to make a viable DECISION of which direction to head (further, you should spawn pointing east or west). At this point, dying is a REWARD because it allows your team to defend way more effectively.
On Battle for the Ball, a map with a ton of potential (including for 3 vs. 3 Deathmatch called "Graveyard"
), the sandstorm needs to be removed entirely (or should spawn on the left AND right of the map but travel north to south on one side and south to north on the other to "funnel" players into the middle; this is a way more complicated suggestion so I'd call it a pipe dream). I hated the sand to begin with, but with spawns in the center of the Y-axis, spawning in a dust storm will be very not fun (Scrap has the same problem, but it's avoidable, so it's okay).
Now that there's less defense, games will go quickly if only 2 points are required to win. Up the winning threshold to 3 points. Voila.
To prevent long matches, add a new mechanic to the game that is a game timer (and a clock, honestly, but that's a different topic). Matches should cap out at 20 minutes and whoever has more points should win. Tied scores should have an overtime of 5 minutes but result in a draw if nobody scores... or just give the win to whichever team destroys the other team in sudden death
. This timer/clock would ALSO help tournaments and competitive plaly, so it should doubly be implemented (shocked it isn't in after almost 4 years, honestly).
Blocking the point is good. It's like a tiny game of King of the Hill and encourages people to actually defend the point. Without blocking, the game would turn into the Squid race we all dread.
Also, just as 2 vs. 2 VIP sucks, 2 vs. 2 Skyball sucks. Remove it.
TL;DR:
1. Move spawns to the middle of the Y-axis of the map, AWAY from goals.
2. Remove the sandstorm on Battle for the Ball
3. Change the score threshold from 2 to 3.
4. Add a 20 minute match time limit.
5. Keep the KOTH blocking mechanic at goals.
6. Remove 2 vs. 2.
Thoughts?