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I would like to discuss a subject that has been on my mind for quite some time now: "Mechwarrior: Online" and e-sports. In the following sections I am going to explain why e-sports is good for the community, the game and at the end of the day the developers and their publisher. Some of this has been inspired by the two YouTube personalities "Daskro" and "Jackfrags", so i would like to thank them beforehand for sharing their insights. Their channel links will be included at the end of this post.
1.) Why should "Mechwarrior: Online" be a competitive e-sports title in the first place?
Currently the e-sports scene is dominated by MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) type games like "League of Legends", and "DotA 2". "Smite" is on a good way with weekly tournaments for 1000$ prize money and the "Starcraft" and "Counterstrike" series have been pretty much the pioneers in terms of competitive gameplay.
If you go to www.twitch.tv on any given day and check out the homepage, you will most likely see around 50.000 people watching "League of Legends", 10.000-20.000 people watching "DotA 2" and 10.000 people on "Starcraft 2". Keeping these numbers in mind, I think it should be possible for "Mechwarrior: Online" to earn a spot too.
E-sports create exposure and publicity which draws more players to the game, which in the end results in more profit for the company...and to be honest: watching competitive matches in a tournament environment is pretty entertaining!
2.) Which tools are needed to create a good e-sports experience?
Two words: spectator mode! Taking a deeper look at games like "League of Legends", "DotA 2" and "Smite" they all have one thing in common. These games allow their players to spectate at high ELO games directly through their respective game clients. The main reason why e.g. "Battlefield 3" never took off as an e-sports title was the lack of a good spectator mode. In addition, how should shoutcasters be able to comment on the action when they don't have the tools to get the audience excited?
Secondly an in game recording function is the right way to go. The main reason why games like "Starcraft" and "Counterstrike" got so popular within the scene was because the playerbase would upload their replays and share their experience, tactics and mindset with others. This way the average player could recreate a pro player's steps, learn, evaluate and implement them in his/her own plays. In conclusion this resulted in a fun and engaging experience for everyone! Now with platforms like "YouTube" in mind, I can only imagine all the awesome gameplay and "Oh snap!" moments we are missing right now because a player hasn't been recording his/her game. "YouTube" is basically free exposure and advertisement for the game. And the best thing about it: it is on the way to get more popular than TV! Viral marketing is huge and a recording feature would only play into the company's hands.
Finally a spectator mode would encourage sponsors and companies to include "Mechwarrior: Onlne" in their tournament lists, because it can be easily spectated, recorded and commented on. The amount of advertisement that goes into those tournaments would encourage more players to pick up the game, spend their money on it and maybe even participate in the tournaments. Big tournaments with big prize money and big names behind it create buzz and entice people to get involved. Everyone is a winner: the players have the opportunity to play the game they love in front of an audience for money and the companies get their exposure and earn a few bucks in the process.
Now that we know that e-sports can be an exciting part of the game and that certain requirements are needed to create a good experience for the audience, let's move on to "Mechwarrior: Online" itself!
3.) Custom games!
Any competitive team that wants to train certain tactics or test out new Mech builds have only one option: Public games (or PuGs). Now there is nothing wrong with playing a PuG, but it would be nice to test stuff in a more private environment. I know PGI already announced such a feature for the future, but I don't agree with the price tag it comes with. Games like "League of Legends", "DotA 2" and "Smite" allow the creation of custom games for free. Just select your map, set up a password and invite your friends. It is that easy. Putting a price tag on said feature would split your community and make competitive games harder to achieve. Currently premade 8v8 matches can only be started by snyc-dropping, which is a gamble and it can take hours to get matched against the appropriate opponent. A free custom match option is the easiest way to enable everybody to get into competitive games. In order to give something back to the developers, players who participate in custom games would gain reduced (maybe even zero) CBills an XP.
But more on that in the next chapter!
4.) A Mech testing facility
As said above by switching off or reducing any kind of progress players can make in custom matches, give people the option to try out all the features your game has to offer. For free. Seriously. What I am talking about is the custom game mechanic as an advertisement platform. Allow players to jump in on any Mech they want and let them have a test drive. They will get a basic feeling for the product you (PGI) want to sell. In real life you wouldn't even buy a new car before test driving it and waiting for a specific Mech to become available in trial weeks can take a long time. People work hard for their CBills and they want to spend them the best way possible.
5.) Achieving map balance
So this one is really important. The game looks beautiful and the maps are nicely detailed, but some of them fall short in terms of balance. This one is not even about e-sports. It is about creating a good experience for everyone out there. Let's take a match where both teams are equally matched in terms of individual skill and tonnage. To my mind some matches come down to this: the team which spawns on high ground (or has the shortest route to high ground) already gets a massive advantage. Take "River City" for example. The "high ground team" can basically see and shot the other team from minute one.
And on "Alpine Peaks" the team spawning in the mountain caldera area (with the big base) has the high ground all around them and can spot the other team's movement very early. Also there is this annoying radio tower where people hide behind, leaving them visible but untargetable.
Nearly all the maps enable one team to reach high ground much faster than the other one . This is bad and it needs to be addressed to create a better experience for the whole community.
6.) General game balance
Good e-sports games do well, because they put their focus on a balanced gameplay in vanilla game modes. Make a well-balanced game and then build e-sports and tournaments around it.
The game is in a constant revaluation process and it will take months, maybe years to achieve a nice balance between Mechs and their weapons systems. But the game is slowly getting there. Sometimes it just takes less rage and maybe a deep breath before you vent steam in the forums. Shouting at the developers won't be crowned with success.
Some people need to seriously calm their beards and learn how give constructive feedback. I know this is the internet and people like to troll, but yeah I am just sick of all the doomsday prophets out there.
On balancing: anything that takes away control from the players is bad in a competitive setup. That includes random crits to exposed structure, random screen shakes and random weapon offset during jumping.
Exaggerated example: Imagine a tournament. Big prize pool. Big audience. Everybody is excited, but during the final match one team gets very lucky with their jump snipes and critical hits, making them win the tournament. Congratulations! Your tournament has just been won by a random team! Which is bad...of course.
During any tournament you want the best team with the best players to achieve victory. If you really want to implement randomness in your game, do it in a way that benefits smart players of any experience level and happiness is ensured
There will be no TL;DR so thank you all for reading and staying with me to the end. I hope my thought process wasn't too confusing and I was able to get my point across. Also english is not my native language so excuse all the spelling or grammar mistakes I made. I am excited to read your feedback!
Links:
Daskro
Jackfrags
Edited by Black Templar, 13 June 2013 - 11:09 AM.
