Author Topic: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?  (Read 41149 times)

Offline Urz

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Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« on: May 12, 2013, 06:24:09 am »
If you haven't seen the BFS vs Destructoid match from yesterday's Cogs, here is a timestamped link to the event in question:
http://www.twitch.tv/qwerty2jam/b/402287974?t=100m40s

Summary: BFS's squid survives a 1v2 situation on Canyon Ambush with 10% remaining health, books it back to their spawn to meet up with the respawned junker, and then proceeds to kill his own ship with tar. This allows him to respawn with full health, without giving any points to the opposing team.

Most people's immediate response (as was mine) would be something along the lines of: "that's pretty dumb, that should not be allowed". It's a valid response, and banning the tactic might be the correct decision. I would however like to explore the other side of the argument.

Suicide-ing your ship has risks. You're completely vulnerable while attempting, and also leave your teammate stranded while you're respawning. If it remains an allowed tactic, teams will be aware of this option, and will be incentivized to chase down damaged ships, rather than say, camping at their spawn and waiting for them to come back. If you're expecting a ship to attempt suicide, a stealth approach with the goal of "last hitting" may become a valid counter, giving you the "free" kill of the low ship and probably also their teammate. Success rate would vary a lot based on positioning and what map is being played, since you will announce to the server that you are killing components.

Just wondering what everyone else's thoughts are.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2013, 06:30:04 am by Urz »

Offline Moo

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #1 on: May 12, 2013, 07:31:30 am »
I haven't watched the match, but....
Shouldn't deathmatch count deaths, rather than kills?
So if your ship is destroyed for any reason, the opponents get a point. This would mean suicide would be less of a tactic.
As far as I know, if they had purposely smashed into a wall to suicide, rather than using tar, this would have counted as a kill for whichever ship last damaged them (even if some time has passed and any damage has since been repaired). So, accidental death by crashing gives the opponents a point. Why not simplify it even more by saying any death gives the opponents a point. There isn't any games (yet?) with more than two sides, so this shouldn't be a problem. If not, I'd say something needs to change with the friendly fire code or something, so that damage from your own tar doesn't reset the who-hit-you-last thing.

Offline Wazulu

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #2 on: May 12, 2013, 07:38:50 am »
Hmm, in terms of a sense of 'morality' behind it, I'd say it's by nature gamebreaking- First off, I have to say that was pretty ingenious. However, it's a dirty trick, really- it's not the same as some Moba suicides, where you don't feed the enemy champions, it's more cheating your opponents out of a direct game objective. Looking at the same example, death doesn't count as much in Lol or Dota as it does in GoIO, as, of course, we're playing deathmatch. Even in other deathmatch games, such as CoD, death never counts anywhere near as much, as the score is so low and kills so hard-fought. So to use such a tactic should be discouraged, as it's a malicious style of playing that breaks the current agenda of teams. In fact, this tactic could be incredibly exploited:

A game on Canyon Ambush, as in the match, could see several hit-and-run attacks from Squids. During these encounters it is likely, if both teams are Cogs standard, that both teams drop armor and lose some permahull. However, this is where the tactic really messes the game up. Once the friendly Squid takes enough damage it kerosenes to the spawn, spewing enough tar behind it to halt a quick charge from the enemy. It then proceeds to kill itself. It comes back with full permahull. in this current situation, you've got 'something for nothing'- all of the tactics and damage dealt by the enemy counts for naught, while the enemy ships have sustained permanent damage. Furthermore,  If the enemy team aren't running Squids themselves any of their attempts at suicidal tactics are much less viable, as it simply takes too long and other ships aren't nimble or fast enough to leave the combat zone and buy the time to kill themselves. This presents teams not able or not willing to use this tactic at extreme disadvantages. The game works as a battle of attrition- I drop your hull for 6 seconds, and in that time I afflict damage to your permahull. Everything else can be repaired, but at the core of the meta is dropping the hull as fast as you can, and dealing as much damage to the permahull in a short window of time. This tactic removes the 'perma' nature of the hull, and this therefore breaks combat as this tactic is probably limited to only Squid users.

The main issue, besides morality, which will disappear in any Cogs team going all-out to win, is that it puts the entire game on its head. If the tactic is green-lit, I'll be amazed if every team doesn't try it, or at least consider it. A Junker/Squid combination could perform this tactic easily, and the Challenger Teams will put in a lot of work to optimise this tactic to their advantage.

This tactic does add a new dimension to gameplay, giving some validity to retreat tactics. However, the game is, again, a battle of attrition, and so simply wiping the slate clean goes against its nature.
« Last Edit: May 12, 2013, 07:41:29 am by Wazulu »

Offline Mattilald Anguisad

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #3 on: May 12, 2013, 08:18:03 am »
I second Wazulu!

Offline dragonmere

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #4 on: May 12, 2013, 11:14:37 am »
Damn. I didn't know it was as easy as tar-ing yourself to death. I had noticed that if a friendly somehow 'gets the kill', it didn't count towards or against anything on the score. Before the latest big patch, I was working on a strategy involving a team kill ram to get hull health back, but somehow never even considered tar barrel.

Personally, I say exploit the hell out of it til it's patched. Thats how games of this scale should work. If it is included in game mechanics and gives you an edge, do it.

Offline Captain Smollett

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #5 on: May 12, 2013, 11:27:02 am »
To me an exploits is.exactly what this is since goes in the face of  the way the game was intended to function and is the sort of behavior that is often reported and really has no place in a competitive match.

Hopefully Muse will take note and hot fix the game immediately so it is no longer possible.

Offline Squash

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #6 on: May 12, 2013, 11:45:27 am »
In fairness, it's not against the Cogs rules, nothing is. It should really have a section about exploits and cheating.

Offline -Muse- Cullen

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #7 on: May 12, 2013, 11:57:15 pm »
To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with it. Its a tactical repair, after all. The game is revolved around destroying the other team's ships and getting points for it, so, if its in one's power, why not get back to full health? However, if they get tapped with an enemy weapon during the event, doesn't the other team get a point?

Offline JaceBoojah

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #8 on: May 13, 2013, 01:53:36 am »
I think it was a clever trick because there was no rule against it, but I think there should be a rule against it because it's cheap.

I feel that Destrutoid earned that damage on the squid.

Offline dragonmere

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #9 on: May 13, 2013, 11:17:48 am »
I think it was a clever trick because there was no rule against it, but I think there should be a rule against it because it's cheap.

This is what I meant. Not that exploits are good. If there is a developer that says 'hey please don't do that, we're working on the patch' or there is an explicit rule in any tournament or friendly match, then by all means the tactic is off the table. Until then, the times that a suicide move is valid and available, I say do it.

Offline Mattilald Anguisad

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #10 on: May 13, 2013, 11:55:36 am »
To be honest, I don't see anything wrong with it. Its a tactical repair, after all. The game is revolved around destroying the other team's ships and getting points for it, so, if its in one's power, why not get back to full health? However, if they get tapped with an enemy weapon during the event, doesn't the other team get a point?


I'll reffer you to Yiski's post why it's wrong (he wrote it more elloquently that I ever would).
If people are morstly aginst it, Swallow will supposedly add it to the COGS rulles that such tactics are against the rulles.

Offline Wazulu

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #11 on: May 13, 2013, 12:01:17 pm »
Where's Yiski's post? I can't follow more than one thread, I'm terrible at organisation as is.
« Last Edit: May 13, 2013, 12:17:42 pm by Wazulu »

Offline Ofiach

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #12 on: May 13, 2013, 12:58:36 pm »
If someone suicides, fine let them. But put a big blinking red message across the top of the screen "____ just suicided" and make the respawn timer 45 seconds. This would create an interesting scramble mechanic for those double team kills, and if his teammate had to run away then he would be alone at the respawn. Would make it an interesting tactic at least. OR just make a rule against it.

IMO this is something a lawyer would pull, the kind of lawyer that defends murderers and wins, he just gamed the system. If you missed the point I'm saying it's a slimy, sleazy move.

Offline Squidslinger Gilder

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #13 on: May 13, 2013, 06:04:31 pm »
QQ all you want but if you go about banning that then how about banning sniper matches entirely? You seem to like aggressive teams but continue to let camper teams rule the matches. Hows that right? Whats more exciting, an engineer battle with sniper teams or a pilot and crew battle with aggressive teams? Battles with actual tactics and ambushing or sitting in one spot pew pewing?

I've known about the trick for a few weeks and have tested it mostly in practice. I've kept the trick as a reserve trump card not planning to use it until facing range battles. But I haven't kept it secret. I've mentioned to many of you the possibility of using it. Now suddenly angry when I do?

So by your standards I should have offered up my slowmo crippled ship to Destructoid as a free kill? Gimmie a break. I'm not giving enemies free kills just because Muse can't patch or fix the game properly. Or just because of your concept of chivalry maybe? For one it did put us at a disadvantage. Specially cause I had no idea if the other team was rushing into the canyon after us. If you notice in the match, they do come in by the time I respawn. Had they rushed in sooner they would have gotten Brick alone or even me in the process of taring myself.

Had there been no slowmo I wouldn't have used it. That is a fact. I told Brick at the time to retreat and that I would use it because it was too much of a liability with 10% hp under those conditions. If you notice I got down that low again thx to slowmo but I didn't pull back and try it once more. Frankly I didn't think it would work a 2nd time if the enemy was wise to it.

You don't like it, fine...thats your problem. I don't regret using it. Any ship in the Cogs running tar can do it. At the very least I hope this raises awareness to it. Change the flow of some of those long drawn out battles. I've never professed to be a chivalrous pilot. I use a lot of tricks, I fight dirty whenever I can, and I'm known to cause teams to rage mid match or desert the lobby after. Don't like that, fine, stick to your stand up fighting...but I'm not. You better have good spotters...thats all I'm gonna say.

Offline Mattilald Anguisad

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Re: Suicide - risk/reward option or cheap tactic?
« Reply #14 on: May 13, 2013, 06:24:33 pm »
Where's Yiski's post? I can't follow more than one thread, I'm terrible at organisation as is.
Oh fuck, sorry Wazulu. I meant your post, I have no idea how I mixed you two.