123 replies to this topic

[pwnface]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 12:48 PM, said:

Still waiting to see people making boatloads of money on MWO.

Pro-Gaming, I got no bone with. pretending we have a for real, serious Pro scene for MWO that makes me laugh a bit. Quality is there, with some units, but nowhere near the quantity, or scratch, to get one's epeen too swollen over.

Well Bishop, I wasn't responding to you with that post. I was directly replying to Samial's post about E-Sports being a fad.

Obviously MWO doesn't have the player base or popularity to have people make boatloads of money from playing it competitively. Lack of popularity doesn't make it any less of a competitive PvP game with a "metagame" like any other PVP game including MOBAs like Dota or LoL.

[pwnface]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 12:56 PM, said:

You want to be hi strung and such playing them, cool. Respect that not everyone does. Also learn to respect that one doesn't have to play comp to understand balance in a game, or that having great reflexes and dropping in a copypasta unit doesn't automatically grant great insight into game balance. Sometimes it really just is good reflexes and being on a disciplined and coordinated team.

Forgive me if I'd rather listen to Stephen Curry on how to shoot 3-pointers than the average high school varsity basketball player that has watched Stephen Curry play. The best players are the best partially because they understand the game better than others. Sure natural talent goes a long way too but there are intricacies in things that many people can't and don't understand if they aren't exposed to high level play. I mean we have a pretty new thread in GD about why LRMs are good FFS, majority of people that aren't exposed to high level play have no business talking about balance at all.

Edited by pwnface, 02 March 2016 - 01:25 PM.

[Bishop Steiner]

pwnface, on 02 March 2016 - 01:24 PM, said:

Forgive me if I'd rather listen to Stephen Curry on how to shoot 3-pointers than the average high school varsity basketball player that has watched Stephen Curry play. The best players are the best partially because they understand the game better than others. Sure natural talent goes a long way too but there are intricacies in things that many people can't and don't understand if they aren't exposed to high level play. I mean we have a pretty new thread in GD about why LRMs are good FFS, majority of people that aren't exposed to high level play have no business talking about balance at all.

Yet most of the best coaches were mediocre or worse players. And they are the ones who understand the rules, sry the game plan, while the currys larger execute. When it comes to playing the game I'll listen to Belichick over Calvin Johnson, because BB seed the WHOLE game.

But whatever.

[Adiuvo]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 01:30 PM, said:

Yet most of the best coaches were mediocre or worse players. And they are the ones who understand the rules, sry the game plan, while the currys larger execute. When it comes to playing the game I'll listen to Belichick over Calvin Johnson, because BB seed the WHOLE game.

But whatever.

Nobody in MWO pays enough attention to vods, playbooks, tracking, etc., to be on the level of a professional coach. It's a terrible comparison.

We're all players, and the better players are better for a reason. Given how slow this game is, it's definitely not 'reflexes' as the excuse makers like to claim.

[Aresye]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 12:56 PM, said:

You want to be hi strung and such playing them, cool. Respect that not everyone does. Also learn to respect that one doesn't have to play comp to understand balance in a game, or that having great reflexes and dropping in a copypasta unit doesn't automatically grant great insight into game balance. Sometimes it really just is good reflexes and being on a disciplined and coordinated team.

Once again, aside from a few selective players, the majority of us aren't very serious and/or high-strung at all. It's actually quite relaxing knowing you can trust your team. Competitive matches sure, we'll get pretty tense and uptight if the match is close, but that's not every day.

Now compare that to the 4 years I spent prior playing in lore-based units, where every single day there's drama, sub-units are splitting off, people are trying to subvert the leadership, monthly (sometimes weekly) meetings, codex/records management, PR, recruitment, etc. It was like having a second job, whereas playing on a competitive team all I have to do is practice (aka: just simply play the game).

I mean just look at all these uptight tryhards, playing all super serious and stuffs:

[habu86]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 01:30 PM, said:

Yet most of the best coaches were mediocre or worse players. And they are the ones who understand the rules, sry the game plan, while the currys larger execute.

Mediocre pro players. They still practiced their sports at a level far beyond what 99.9% of the population has ever experienced. That entailed formal study of the sport, many long practice sessions and proficiency-building drills, as well as a lifestyle designed around generating performance on game day.

What makes them great coaches is their insight into their respective sports' dynamics and metas (yes, there is, in fact, a meta for just about any kind of human endeavor), which is not something that every athlete has (you listen to some of them describe their understanding of their sports and can't help but be thankful no one's leaving them in charge), just like not all athletes have the ability to maintain consistency under extreme pressure, execute certain elements, seamlessly gel with teammates, or display leadership and tenacity under adversity.

However, the fact remains that they gained their relevant experience and expertise at the highest levels of their fields, not playing sandlot ball. Not that there's anything wrong with sandlot ball; it's a lot of fun and oftentimes the only way that regular joes get to actually enjoy the sport.

Same deal with MWO. You wanna bring lerms? Do it and screw the haters. They ARE suboptimal, but if you're playing to have fun what do you care? Lerm away.

Understand a few of things though:
1.) The group you're in might not share your definition of fun, in which case you may have to take your lrm/mg+flamer/vindicator boat and drop solo.
2.) Fun != Effective (well, not always at least) and when you're playing to win at any cost, you ARE in a position of disadvantage
3.) If there is an advantage to be had outside of player-related factors (i.e. if an imbalance of any kind exists in the tools available to you), those anti-fun, seal-clubbing, tryhards will find and confirm it first.

If you're purporting to aim for a gaming environment where all the in-game options available to players are balanced, I recommend looking at what the comp crowd is using and figuring out how to make everything else equally appealing so that you can force them into a rock-paper-scissor situation where they have to bring a little bit of everything, lest they find the other team has something they've no way to counter.

Edited by habu86, 02 March 2016 - 02:09 PM.

[Mystere]

pwnface, on 02 March 2016 - 11:41 AM, said:

The Dota International tournament prizepool is currently at $18,429,613 according to https://www.dota2.co...nal/compendium/ . I think E-Sports has become more than just a "fad" and is here to stay for a really long time.

Pet rocks were also popular and made millions for a while but eventually died down.

Edited by Mystere, 02 March 2016 - 04:40 PM.

[Revis Volek]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 01:30 PM, said:

Yet most of the best coaches were mediocre or worse players. And they are the ones who understand the rules, sry the game plan, while the currys larger execute. When it comes to playing the game I'll listen to Belichick over Calvin Johnson, because BB seed the WHOLE game.

But whatever.

BB is also an open cheater....

But ya know He knows the RULES better.

[Y E O N N E]

Mystere, on 02 March 2016 - 02:11 PM, said:

Pet rocks were also popular and made millions for a while but eventually died down.

The question isn't about if it will die down, it's how long it will take to do so.

Rugby and American "football" started small, still going strong today, many, many, many decades later.

[Ultimax]

Aresye, on 02 March 2016 - 01:55 PM, said:

Once again, aside from a few selective players, the majority of us aren't very serious and/or high-strung at all. It's actually quite relaxing knowing you can trust your team. Competitive matches sure, we'll get pretty tense and uptight if the match is close, but that's not every day.

Now compare that to the 4 years I spent prior playing in lore-based units, where every single day there's drama, sub-units are splitting off, people are trying to subvert the leadership, monthly (sometimes weekly) meetings, codex/records management, PR, recruitment, etc. It was like having a second job, whereas playing on a competitive team all I have to do is practice (aka: just simply play the game).

I mean just look at all these uptight tryhards, playing all super serious and stuffs:

But Aresye, its so much easier to attack imaginary strawmen or paint everyone with the same brush, to inflate forum-peen.

Edited by Ultimax, 02 March 2016 - 07:51 PM.

[Deathlike]

In a game where "the coaches" are the ones playing as well, they are not comparable to football.

The drop caller/coach is one that has to be physically there viewing the field and directing traffic.

It's closer to a QB than a coach.

Edited by Deathlike, 02 March 2016 - 08:27 PM.

[Rhavin]

I played competitive online RPGs, like EQ back in the gap, where the competition was raids and bosses and the goal was to be first to kill them and first to put them on "farm". My former guild leader is pretty famous for finding what the designers would call "exploits", we didn't though, we felt that if hiding behind a wall avoided a game mechanic we should hide behind the wall or the wall shouldn't have been there. He was also famous for squeezing every .001% dps out of every member on our 40-60 member raid composition he could. We where the best for a long time. And now he is pretty famous for making MMORPG content. As the players who made it to the end game first and trying the new gear ,spells, and encounters first we found the bugs first, as the people who invented DPS parsing we noticed gains and losses first. And we bug reported anything that was obviously broken. We got temp banned so many times because what we thought was working as intended was not the vision the devs had for the encounter. But they always let us come back, sometimes personally calling us and begging, because they needed our input in the long run.

Comp teams are just like that, they are more likely to find bugs (like the current clan targeting comp bug) than some scrub like myself who isn't paying attention to the amount of crits he is getting, or notice an unintended small heat change when firing an AC 10 and then a med laser. Sure a big bug anyone will catch, but a small one, it may not break a game but what if another change could compound it? I don't have a team member going over my accuracy and dps stats after a night of playing, most of us don't but I would bet hard money that several of the better comp teams are paying attention to things like that and therefor are more likely to be debugging the game by filing bug reports than I am.

[Bishop Steiner]

Deathlike, on 02 March 2016 - 08:26 PM, said:

In a game where "the coaches" are the ones playing as well, they are not comparable to football.

The drop caller/coach is one that has to be physically there viewing the field and directing traffic.

It's closer to a QB than a coach.

And last I checked, there was still only one of them, shaking the whole plan, and the other 10 guys only attitudes about their assignment.

What comps like to claim is that they are ALL Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Reality is you got a lot of TOs and OchoCincos, too.

[Deathlike]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 10:27 PM, said:

And last I checked, there was still only one of them, shaking the whole plan, and the other 10 guys only attitudes about their assignment.

What comps like to claim is that they are ALL Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Reality is you got a lot of TOs and OchoCincos, too.

I think the irony here is what you're describing is more of a baseball analogy. Everyone thinks they can be manager and hit a 5-run HR, but really, that's not how the game is played.

Edited by Deathlike, 02 March 2016 - 10:39 PM.

[LordNothing]

i think all anyone needs to be competitive is to be sociable. so when somone like me who hasnt left the house in 2 months, with no friends that arent cats and whos only love interest is a 50 something crazy woman who i sometimes run into on the way to the dumpster every other month. you find that you are not t1 material. i just assume they are all skinny asian kids who consume energy drinks by the truckload and do crystal meth with their friends, but they are probibly totally normal people who arent crazy and stuff.

Edited by LordNothing, 02 March 2016 - 10:50 PM.

[XX Sulla XX]

Galenit, on 02 March 2016 - 06:26 AM, said:

Some have their competition online, some in the realworld.

Did you ever hear:
Hey girls, iam a badass onlineplayer, do you want to date me?
And then a girl saying: "Yes"

But e-sports and online games are a great substitute for people that have no success in the real world.
If they would used the time they used to get a badass onlineplayer in the real world,
maybe the would have success in the rl.


Everyone metawhoring, using the same builds, the same tactics and every little exploit and bug and that with crap graphics to gain every little advantage is fad, boring, stale and lifeless.

But in the last 20 years rl was going more harsh and a lot of people were tossed away,
there is no room for a lot of people in the rl anymore, so its also a great way to silent some of those people.

Bread and games and a little chance to get out of it and get their 15 minutes of fame.
Hope is the best chain to make happy slaves. (Dont know to explain it better with my bad english)

Clearly you do not know what some of the comp players do in real life.

[Aresye]

Bishop Steiner, on 02 March 2016 - 10:27 PM, said:

And last I checked, there was still only one of them, shaking the whole plan, and the other 10 guys only attitudes about their assignment.

What comps like to claim is that they are ALL Tom Brady or Peyton Manning. Reality is you got a lot of TOs and OchoCincos, too.

Up to the MRBC Div A level, a solid drop caller is a must, but at the Div A level it gets weird. Some teams still utilize a main DC, others have multiple DCs (ex: 1 DC for lights, 1 DC for main force), and some don't use any main DC at all. The last I would say is the most rare, but some groups like EmP do seem to utilize this method for calling drops. As for the ones utilizing a primary DC, it's mostly for the overall strategy, appointed to the player with the best strategical mindset, but any Div A player should be able to take over and effectively lead a drop should the need arise.

Drop commanding is a funny thing in which there's a very delicate balance in high level play. The biggest error I see in lower division teams is they place too much emphasis on their primary DC, in which they become so focused on what they're saying they actually lose a bit of their situational awareness. That or their DC is micromanaging, which causes the same effect.

Personally I feel DCs are completely under-appreciated in this game. Just simply being able to call targets while still effectively piloting and shooting (the most basic form of drop commanding) is a skill that takes months to learn, but in competitive play you also add strategy into the mix, so not only does a competitive DC have to call targets while under fire, they also have to have a solid read on the game, and on top of that, formulate and/or adjust strategy on the fly to counter the opposing team.

I mentioned something similar in a past thread about competitive play, but it's really a separate game altogether. You might find a solid group of players and practice often, win the majority of your matches in group queue, and maybe even beat a premade of 228, SJR, or EmP. You'll think, "Hey, we might have something good going here," and decide to enter a league. Next thing you know you're getting absolutely smashed by a team you thought was not very good at all, and go, "Wait...what?!"

You'll get paired up with a team like 228 for an invitational and go, "Hey, we've had some close matches against them in the past, we should be able to put up a good fight, maybe even win if we play really well." Come match day, you experience a new definition of futility, as you behold in sheer trembling terror the true strength of 228. You'll think, "There's absolutely no possible way that a team can be THIS good!" as 5 matches in a row your team fails to achieve a single kill. Everything from their scouting, their dropdeck, and strategy, is nothing short of perfection.

Then you watch as that same team (that you thought was a terrifying example of perfection) gets rolled 5-0 by another team like EmP, and you'll quickly come to realize just how little about the game you truly understand. You'll start utilizing scout mechs for actual scouting, fire support mechs for fire support, etc. All these examples of role warfare that you previously thought were non-existent in the game, you realize are absolutely necessities in competitive play. You don't just need a good ACH player, you need a dedicated light pilot with years of experience perfecting their craft. You don't need a good DWF pilot, you need that ONE player who knows the exact maneuver to instantaneously counter a light on their tail.

Above all else, you need a good drop commander, but you'll quickly find none are available. Fear not however, as this is where competitive play gets fun. Now you or somebody else on your team gets the opportunity to learn from the others, and become a competitive DC. Slowly, over the course of a couple years, your team will take on its own personality, formed by the unique relationship between your DC and fellow teammates. You'll practice more and more, and eventually you'll find yourself in the Div A bracket, ready to show off your own team's flavor, and becoming the very team that gets to show new teams what competitive play is all about.

Simply put, if MWO ever makes it in the esports scene, you can rest assured it's not going to be the cocky players and good twitch shooters getting all the interviews and praise. It's going to be the team captains/DCs, because the higher up on the competitive ladder you climb, drop calling becomes less of a skill, and more like a work of art.

Edited by Aresye, 03 March 2016 - 02:35 AM.

[Mycrus]

PEEFsmash, on 01 March 2016 - 12:57 PM, said:

Before you think Tarogato and I have had some complex interactions in which I have caused him great pain and suffering, I have no idea who he is and have never spoken (or written or typed) a word to him in my life. TBH, if you don't want to feed my ego, why are you mentioning me to the point that random ppl are linking me posts?

I think it is for some reason sexy to pretend like I'm some embodiment of "old Lords" or something in attitude. Fun fact: I've never said "ggclose" in a game in my life. I thought it was distasteful and I tried to get them to quit it. The only things I say in match are "glhf" at the beginning of every game, and "gg" at the end of every game win or lose. People who actually play in my matches all know this. I'll say hi back to anyone who says hi to me. I focus on trying to promote a better, more high-quality competitive side of MWO.

Which brings me to elitism. Yes, I probably fit some people's definition of an elitist, especially when "elitist" is dilluted down to the rather tame definition of, "someone who thinks a game should be balanced at the top competitive level instead of the low or mid level where highly inconsistent play and egregious mistakes dictate match results." Yes, I said that low and mid level players almost never win or lose due to weapon or mech or gamemode balance, but instead win or lose due to their own mistakes, inconsistencies, or lack of FPS skills. It might not be the nicest-sounding thing to say, but does anyone actually disagree? If you do disagree, let's have a discussion about it. I'm not your comic book villian, and everyone who actually talks to me knows this, even those very close friends of mine from opposing teams in direct competition with me. Lower and mid level players who take the time to reach out to me also know this, as I answer all of their questions, help them through improvement, etc (which, btw, I encourage anyone reading this to ask me questions if you have any). I share many of my discoveries with the community, such as the Targeting Computer crit bug, for the benefit of everyone else. I could have kept that to myself and enjoyed my small advantage.

People like Tarogato, again a person who has never interacted with me and whom I would have never known existed, are just following in a long line of people who parrot what the last Tarogato-style-parrot parroted to them. As much as I wish I could be the epic troll villian that you seek, I have to concede that title to Villz who is quite deserving in this achievement (and whose attitude is so at odds with mine that he was a central reason behind my quitting 2 years ago).

Now to the topic, if anyone has any questions to ask to someone so frequently defined as an elitist, I'm ready to answer (though the answer you get might not be as evil as you expected!)

Wtf... where were you hiding?!

[Kaisha]

There's no way such a tiny game could ever support a real pro-scene. There just isn't enough players. There's more people AFK in LOL at any given time than the entire MWO community. And that's what makes this 'elitist' attitude of these players so funny, there's just not enough people playing to pretend that anyone at the top of the 'MWO pro scene' is actually any good. I'm sure there's probably 1 or 2 that are actually pro material mixed in with the above averages, the rest are just there to stroke their e-peen. If this game actually became popular (it won't happen, and not because its 'too complex' but actually because its too 1 dimensional) and they started playing it seriously in Korea, then you'd see a real meta start to develop. Until then, the 'vets' need to hop off their high horse and realize this game is just for fun/shits'n'giggles, because if it was an actually 'e-sport' level game, none of the vets would be playing pro.

[Galenit]

Aresye, on 02 March 2016 - 10:29 AM, said:

Some have their competition in BOTH. It's called having a winner's mindset, and not settling for anything less.

And yes, you can totally pick up girls as a badass gamer. One of my friends from high school is an avid gamer, and actually works in the esports scene for Riot games, and he's literally a babe magnet. It's almost like maybe it has something more to do with him being confident, funny, and outgoing, than what he does for a living? hmmmmmmm

Each for his own,
but i like to do one thing at its best using all for beeing perfect at it,
gaming is for fun and relaxing for me.

So you say your friend has a good job at a gaming company, if funny, confident and outgoing.
You dont say that he is a magnet because he is a badass gamer.
Would he be also a magnet if he would be a mwo pro player without beeing funny, confident, outgoing and without a job in a gaming company?

pwnface, on 02 March 2016 - 11:41 AM, said:

Actually in South Korea this is pretty common. Starcraft players are celebrities with their own trading cards and TV shows and endorsement deals. I'm pretty sure these 16-18 year old Korean kids are getting laid way more than you ever will.

I think massive success in competitive gaming to the point where you can make a boatload of money doing it qualifies as a "real world" success. You can hate on these guys all you want but they are making millions of dollars playing computer games whereas you are doing it for free and complaining about it on a computer game forum.

Today you may be true, iam old, i pay for the fun i had in the past (in the last 2 years i have seen my doctor more often then in the last 20 years together) and i have a girl, but 25 years ago ...
... where we were free, aids was no problem and drugs were fun.
I was a "bad" boy, with green (sometimes they were blue, today the start to become grey) hair and got sore more often then i liked.
Particulary after i had an accident and needed to wear an eyepatch for some weeks it was extrem ...
You dont know my past ...
BUT
We talk about mwo and not korean starcraft players.
Do you know any mwo player that can pay his bills with playing mwo and getting girls because beeing an comp mwo player?

XX Sulla XX, on 03 March 2016 - 12:14 AM, said:

Clearly you do not know what some of the comp players do in real life.

Did i said all comp players?

Edited by Galenit, 03 March 2016 - 03:17 AM.