Rate the Ultimate Empire Showdown Event

[Mordelicius]

How would you rate this event?

Idea: Absolutely excellent.

Execution: Absolutely horrific.

Horrific faction balance - Vanu is a breath and win faction.
Horrific stream - slideshow :eek:

Consolation prize: Had good 3-way fight at the Bastion.

Kudos to the Waterson NC for fighting tooth and nail.

[Vanyaeli]

The TR and NC didn't even try to fight us on Amerish so the VS on Cobalt kind of won by default. Perhaps the VS players were just more organised than you were or had greater numbers present during the event. No need to bring up faction balance at all.

[Lorak]

Was a good idea. But SOE shouldn't have lied and told the player base that the contest was game based.

Should have just told the truth and said it was a voting contest. Would have saved people a lot of time. But I guess you can't "showcase" a twitter vote.

Seems everytime I want to give SOE a little credit for listening to, or careing about the fanbase, they always prove me wrong.

[p0intman]

literally the dumbest idea out of SOE since BFRs and the NGE.

[MaxDamage]

literally the dumbest idea out of SOE since BFRs and the NGE.
The same people who complained about BFRs strangely have no complaints about farming with Liberators which are far more OP than BFRs ever were.

Feels good bro.
http://www.planetside2.com/uploads/dcsclient/000/000/007/841.jpg

[KodanBlack]

I had a blast. The battles were intense and a great deal of fun.

I'm simply disappointed that the victor came down to some vote. That's plain stupid. It should have been entirely based upon which faction dominated on the battlefield.

[MaxDamage]

I'm simply disappointed that the victor came down to some vote. That's plain stupid. It should have been entirely based upon which faction dominated on the battlefield.
Bla bla, TR WINS YOU LOSE.

[Reaver]

My opinion does not reflect that of my outfit and I just want to point that out before I post.

What went right: Awesome concept, 3 empires battle it out in an epic showdown across all severs.

What went wrong: Poor stream quality.
Limited to one continent should have used all three.
Poor communication of the event and its victory conditions.
Not localized, eu servers were from what I hear essentially ghost cap'd.
Did not reset the map before each goal resulting in factions having an advantage/disadvantage from the start.

Overall opinion: This event definitely showed soe was a bit unprepared for this, but proved without a doubt that an event like this is certainly possible and tons of fun and they should totally do more. Just make sure you learn from the mistakes from this one soe.

[Chewy]

What the others said. The stream was missing about 2 hours or more from their twitch page and what was there the audio and video was crap.

Main thing I'll say is that the 2nd "challenge" was rigged to shit. That was a tower base. A TOWER! How the fuck is someone suppose to cap a defended tower within 30 minutes? The defenders had a near 100% chance to win that crap mission without working for it! VS had only one goal to do, and that was keep the bar from moving. To do that all you have to do is keep 1 faction from getting 2 points. The TR and NC where doing that FOR THEM by both of them being there. Point A was going to be under VS with it in feet of a hard spawn, so that left B and C for BOTH TR and NC to fight over and they not only had to fight each other. They also had to fend of the fucking VS! A WIN WIN for VS no matter how you put it.

I can't even give thoughts of the first challenge because the stream didn't show it. The third was the only fair fight because they reset the map at the start. But only on THAT server. Every other server wasn't touched to my knowledge yet still counted for the "challenge". (though I LOVED TBs face when he watched his ghost capping in challenge 2 get undone. Smart move, bad game plan.)

Many of us called this the moment the event was announced. A PR stunt and not in any way what Planetside should have been. It was in no way a war with not even half a platoon for the leaders. It was a zerg fest. Without the zerg, the event wouldn't have been more than squad on squad fights. No outfits, no communication, no detailed assaults, not anything we in big outfits seen in our custom events or daily for some. The 2 showdowns on Waterson so far have been FAR better fights and events than this "thing".

[Reaver]

What the others said. The stream was missing about 2 hours or more from their twitch page and what was there the audio and video was crap.

Main thing I'll say is that the 2nd "challenge" was rigged to shit. That was a tower base. A TOWER! How the fuck is someone suppose to cap a defended tower within 30 minutes? The defenders had a near 100% chance to win that crap mission without working for it! VS had only one goal to do, and that was keep the bar from moving. To do that all you have to do is keep 1 faction from getting 2 points. The TR and NC where doing that FOR THEM by both of them being there. Point A was going to be under VS with it in feet of a hard spawn, so that left B and C for BOTH TR and NC to fight over and they not only had to fight each other. They also had to fend of the fucking VS! A WIN WIN for VS no matter how you put it.

I can't even give thoughts of the first challenge because the stream didn't show it. The third was the only fair fight because they reset the map at the start. But only on THAT server. Every other server wasn't touched to my knowledge yet still counted for the "challenge". (though I LOVED TBs face when he watched his ghost capping in challenge 2 get undone. Smart move, bad game plan.)

Many of us called this the moment the event was announced. A PR stunt and not in any way what Planetside should have been. It was in no way a war with not even half a platoon for the leaders. It was a zerg fest. Without the zerg, the event wouldn't have been more than squad on squad fights. No outfits, no communication, no detailed assaults, not anything we in big outfits seen in our custom events or daily for some. The 2 showdowns on Waterson so far have been FAR better fights and events than this "thing".
If your talking about connary being a zergfest I'll disagree a lot of the outfits were working together behind the scenes, but they did run into serious problems, about half got cut off because of ques meaning not eveyone got their outfits intact on to amerish. I personally didn't get to amerish until the beginning of the third round after being in que from 6est, had two disconnects that put me to the back of the line. Angers me that apparently the TR had 100 people sitting in the warpgate for the first two rounds that's two platoons and a half that weren't doing crap for the TR.

[Chewy]

If your talking about connary being a zergfest I'll disagree a lot of the outfits were working together behind the scenes, but they did run into serious problems, about half got cut off because of ques meaning not eveyone got their outfits intact on to amerish. I personally didn't get to amerish until the beginning of the third round after being in que from 6est, had two disconnects that put me to the back of the line. Angers me that apparently the TR had 100 people sitting in the warpgate for the first two rounds that's two platoons and a half that weren't doing crap for the TR.

Sorry, I meant that there was no outfits for the leaders. Half way in on of the stream links one of the leaders looked up his social tab to change platoon leader. I seen that outfit was empty and there was only a squad plus 2-3 others.

I know that Connery has outfits of its own. Just saying that without the leaders having access to their own outfits to plan attacks, defense, and well a WAR that it's not real PS2. It's not a WAR, but a over sized bar fight.

Should have said pub fest and without pub players instead of zerg.

[Riekopo]

Hope to see an event every other week.

[Canaris]

What the others said. The stream was missing about 2 hours or more from their twitch page and what was there the audio and video was crap.

Main thing I'll say is that the 2nd "challenge" was rigged to shit. That was a tower base. A TOWER! How the fuck is someone suppose to cap a defended tower within 30 minutes? The defenders had a near 100% chance to win that crap mission without working for it! VS had only one goal to do, and that was keep the bar from moving. To do that all you have to do is keep 1 faction from getting 2 points. The TR and NC where doing that FOR THEM by both of them being there. Point A was going to be under VS with it in feet of a hard spawn, so that left B and C for BOTH TR and NC to fight over and they not only had to fight each other. They also had to fend of the fucking VS! A WIN WIN for VS no matter how you put it.

I can't even give thoughts of the first challenge because the stream didn't show it. The third was the only fair fight because they reset the map at the start. But only on THAT server. Every other server wasn't touched to my knowledge yet still counted for the "challenge". (though I LOVED TBs face when he watched his ghost capping in challenge 2 get undone. Smart move, bad game plan.)

Many of us called this the moment the event was announced. A PR stunt and not in any way what Planetside should have been. It was in no way a war with not even half a platoon for the leaders. It was a zerg fest. Without the zerg, the event wouldn't have been more than squad on squad fights. No outfits, no communication, no detailed assaults, not anything we in big outfits seen in our custom events or daily for some. The 2 showdowns on Waterson so far have been FAR better fights and events than this "thing".

a king of the hill game should revolve around a single capture point with all three factions needing to spawn at the same distance away.

say an amp station, disable the main spawn building and have only the three satellites as active uncapturable spawn points during the event, also disable AMS ability in the SOI, anything else goes.
That's a fair game imo.

[ChipMHazard]

The TR and NC didn't even try to fight us on Amerish so the VS on Cobalt kind of won by default. Perhaps the VS players were just more organised than you were or had greater numbers present during the event. No need to bring up faction balance at all.

Perhaps there's a reason why the good players play VS or maybe it was just a coincidence?

Can't say I'm surprised about them not resetting the territory after each event. It's not a fair competition if one faction already owns the tower they are fighting over. I guess the event served it's purpose but they have got a looooong way to go before being ready for any MLG competitions. At least this gave them some experience on what is required ingame for anything like this to work.

[Emperor Newt]

On Miller TR owned the whole continent shortly before the event started. Most VS outfits switched continents roughly 30 mins beforehand. VS and NC were pushed back to their warpgates at this time. TR still managed to completely loose.
We really had to fight hard to get the territory back. But once the defense on the fist forward bases was broken and we started to split up and fight them on several frontlines most of the TR forces dissolved into a headless and mindless zerg without any direction. There were some outfits giving us trouble but once they could not bring superior numbers and focus their forces in one single territory they had a pretty hard time.
I just think there wasn't enough communication and tactics going on from their side as VS on Miller is pretty well organized, especially good coodination between the different outfits.

But to rate the event:

Idea: nice
Execution: Nothing "special". Overall a completely forgetable experience. No need to do this again. At least in this format.

[bjorntju1]

So if I understand correctly, The VS should have won because they won 2 out of three challanges. But instead the TR won because most people voted for TotalBiscuit? (who is probably the most populair of the three, I didn't even know the other two)

Really?

0/10

[ringring]

It was not so good.

1. I had no idea there was supposed to be simultaneous events on all servers. Maybe it said so somewhere and I didn't read the last few emails from the team because I though I already knew this wasn't meant for me on Miller.

I normally ready everything so I don't know how I missed that.

2. Horrible horrible technical issues. How was it that weren't you prepared?

3. Jacehall. He should have done a little homework, ignorance by the commentators is not acceptable. Take sports commentators for instance. They have a good grounding in whatever sports they commentate on, but in addition they also have and do in depth preparation on the terams of the team involved and the strategies thay may be on show. - Amateur.

4. Adrienne. Similar tbh criticism as with Jace also because of her role not quite as important. When she was speaking with the teams, she didn't know their names. Standing next to Levelcap and TRay she said 'Here I am with the, erm, VS team...'. Although, if I was Levelcap I'd have forgiven her anything too when she sat on his lap and bounced up and down a few times.

5. Viewers perspective? Confusing. There were no visible strategies that were apparent over and above people zerging, and dying often and too quickly. Maybe they were there but if so it didn't come out.

Perhaps if you had 1 commentator following each empire exclusively they could follow strategies evolving and then summarise them for the audience.

Perhaps also there should be a special overview map where the progress of the war and strategies can be explained. For example, TV sports summarisers have a screen where they explain things, they can draw arrows and with those show how 'plays' develop and if they break down be knowledgable enough to show the points where a wrong turning was taken.

The results.
The voting thing, what! Surely not.
VS dominated, TR and NC quite a way behind and close together with NC trailing in last. I think this reflects current game balance pretty well.

In Summary.
It was not a particularly good viewing experience. I have seen better in PS2, from Maggie and Jimmywhis included who I think are great.
You need a rethink on how to present a war over and above how to present a simple fps bout.
You need your presenters to be knowledgable, I think Addrienne was fine but Jace needed to do some work beforehand.

+1 to TB for humour.

[Rothnang]

It was ruined for me by two things: Deciding the winner by who won a popularity contest instead of who won the war, and how much whining there was about nerfs.

[ChipMHazard]

Well, what did you expect? The VS completely dominated the event, so obviously people were going to be calling for nerfs, whether it's warranted or not. Same would have happened if any of the other factions had been dominating.
Sadly that's just part of the online gaming culture.

[Ghoest9]

Almost no one understood the event before it started and most people didnt even know it going to be on all servers.
I still dont know if there was going to be some sort of reward.

I have no idea how the it went on the main server but on mine it was kind of a joke.

[laoss]

I'm sorry to say, but the event was a bit underwhelming. All that tra-rah and bling-bling up until the showdown, but the show itself felt unprofessional and not well-thought-out.
(... kinda like the game itself).

This game cannot survive on PR stunts.

[Infernalis]

Yes but the fact is we all know there is balance problems between factions and between vehicles and the lack of communication from the dev team about it doesn't help (Higby just acknowledged the Magrider was the best MBT after so much time for ex, without any solutions).

As for the event it was a failure, but I guess they'll learn from it.

[artifice]

Yes but the fact is we all know there is balance problems between factions and between vehicles and the lack of communication from the dev team about it doesn't help (Higby just acknowledged the Magrider was the best MBT after so much time for ex, without any solutions).

As for the event it was a failure, but I guess they'll learn from it.

I hope they learn from it.

[MasterMind]

Really? The TR won because of a popular vote? Everybody knows that TR have the most people on EVERY SINGLE SERVER. Its obvious they will get the most votes... Vanu easily dominated the competition and is the true winner of the showdown.

[CaptainTenneal]

I think everyone was having a blast during the event. The winner selection is what soured the results. Even though I utterly loath the VS, it was down right wrong to not give them the trophy. I'm sure SOE regrets how they handled it and can't change it now, so maybe a sizable cert prize, and/or some item/decal prize to the VS who participated would make everyone feel better. And the NC get a buff, poor guys need it :( And the TR get to keep our "Propoganda Victory", since TR apparently still controls the media in the Auraxis universe.

[mikeyspud]

Take a look at this link, http://www.planetside2.com/news/ues-victory-report

Look at the score card. VS VS VS VS VS with TR coming last. Somewhere in the article it says "The fans have voted and the competition was intense, and in the end Total Biscuit's team took the victory and the spoils. Congratulations to Terran Republic for dominating their foes." Dominating isnt quite the word i would use there. We clearly didnt dominate because we lost nearly every single challenge, TR has the most people so we were obvioulsy going to win, they may aswell of given TB the trophy as soon as the competition started. I really do hope LvlCap and Seananners atleast questoned this decision to the faces of SOE. Since when did getting public vote count as dominating... Surely this is enough evidence against SOE's decision to put it down to vote. I atleast hope they learn from this mistake...

[Rothnang]

I think acting as though the VS did well just because of the Magrider and bullet drop is just idiotic and utterly insulting to the people who play on the faction.

If success is always just going to be viewed as being overpowered we might as well either shut the game down right now or remove all differences between the factions until all they are is a color and a logo.

[capiqu]

Aside the technical problems I really enjoyed the empire showdown. I could see growth and improvement in these types of events. Especially with the PS2 Twitch channel alone having 15,000 viewers for the contest.
As far as the game play the maps should have reset before each event. Especially on the second event which gave the VS a huge advantage and this is apparent by the VS sweeping in all continents.
I agree with Canaris. On a king of the hill contest all sides should be at an equal distance from the capture point. Maybe what's needed is an specially designed base or even continent for these events.

[Eduard Khil]

Absolutely terrible in every aspect.

You know there is something wrong when a notorious videogame newbie wins a cup, I wonder who actually made it happen for him.

[Ghoest9]

I think acting as though the VS did well just because of the Magrider and bullet drop is just idiotic and utterly insulting to the people who play on the faction.

If success is always just going to be viewed as being overpowered we might as well either shut the game down right now or remove all differences between the factions until all they are is a color and a logo.


Ummm its not just the Magrider - and its definetly not bullet drop that makes Vanu the best.


Compared to NC They are better at everything that matters.
-Easier to use guns.
-All round better ESF
-Much better tank.

-The NC have a better close range MAX(whoopdeee do)

[Rothnang]

I don't see the NC being the underdogs on my server. When the population is pretty even they can give you one hell of a fight.

Sure, there are some small differences in equipment, but I absolutely reject the notion that some minor statistical variance in guns and fighters determine the outcome of the whole battle.

That's essentially saying that what people do from a strategic and organizational standpoint makes so little difference that it would only affect the outcome of the battle if absolutely every other possible factor was made equal.

If one faction has a 1% equipment advantage over another and people are adamant that that 1% difference is what makes them win, what they are saying is that tactics, strategy, cohesion, logistics and organization cannot even add up to making a 1% difference in how well your faction does. That's why all this nerf calling pisses me off, because it's just people flat out saying that nobodies efforts matter enough to overcome the minor differences in equipment, and they really are minor differences.

[RSphil]

well when the stream was finally sorted is was fun to watch. far too much VS footage though, saw some TR and hardly any NC and i had it on from the word go.

the bastian fight was epic as i joined in on waterson but Vs already held it and is a good one for defense. NC put up a great fight for last event.

was a good idea but as always with SOE streams badly managed and executed.

all in all was god but friday night ops is far better. more God cam please. when observer mode comes in i can see alot more youtube vids popping up. far better for filming and editing :)

[Katanauk]

Was it even an event? I just thought it was a hacker meet up.

[AThreatToYou]

To be quite honest, to view the scorecard, it was obviously dominated by VS but the NC and TR were pretty much equal. I'm surprised NC didn't win everything on Jaeger, but we probably had low pop right then.

[typhaon]

Some of you guys need to seriously lighten up.

The execution was pretty bad! The situation with Twitch could not have been worse. But, the idea was good and I'm sure round 2... 3... and beyond will be much improved.

It looked like everyone was having a good time and I thought it was cool to see PS2 in that setting. The tasks were cool - obviously there would be a need for them to be balanced if this was a competitive event.

Jace had no idea what was going on and wasn't a great choice -- at this point TB is probably the best combination of personality and knowledge of PS2 (but I understand trying to expand the audience)... Adrianne Curry was surprisingly (I had no idea who she was) entertaining (a bit drunk?).

[CrankyTRex]

I had a lot of fun watching it despite a lot of issues. The idea was great, but the execution...not so much.

When the stream was actually up, the audio problems were significant. Half of what was said never ended up pushed out to the stream. It seemed like the mics were set to activate on voice rather than manually turned on and off.

In addition, sometimes they'd throw the game sound in and sometimes they wouldn't. When they did, it made it incredibly difficult to understand anything a commentator was saying and wasn't really loud enough to understand the squad chatter either.

They also didn't always seem to be on the same page with the people controlling the views.

As for the contest itself, obviously it would be better if there were more clearly defined rules and population balancing done. I didn't even know each server was getting to participate until I was watching it. It's ok to have a popularity winner so long as the actual in-game winner gets a (bigger) prize too.

If they fix the execution issues, I think it would be a great thing to do once a month or once a quarter if that isn't practical. Perhaps a smaller event once a month and a quarterly championship style event.

[Jaged]

All I know about the UES was that the Vanu Sovereignty was victorious. Don't believe fascist TR lies and propaganda.

[Emperor Newt]

All I know about the UES was that the Vanu Sovereignty was victorious. Don't believe fascist TR lies and propaganda.
But only due to op Magrinders which beat prowlers 5 to 1 and easy to use guns which work like aimbot implants. blablabla.

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRrflQfjCnUzrMfmMNTB9aSn_ue9wsUI M6NnnhZpuA0Yx79bKVo

Sadly I do not have enough time right now to put the sentence on purple background :D

[Hamma]

Having the unique experience of being on the floor for this I thought it was a very entertaining event. It was fairly well organized and the production quality was excellent. There was some stream issues that I can't comment on being there but I saw the production quality while on the show floor.

I think this sort of event has some potential to bring in new players to the game and if executed flawlessly I think they will be awesome to have a couple times a year.

[SixShooter]

I had fun even though the Bastion was a total slideshow with enemies rendering 2 feet in front me:eek:. Still can figure out why Adriene Curry was there but i got to shoot seananders in the face a couple times so it's all good. The massive Galaxy suicide runs at the Bastion were fucking hillarious.
:cheers:

[DirtyBird]

A non event for those not on Connery imo.
It had all the coverage and attention whilst everywhere else was a side show.
Thats why so many rolled alts on that server blocking the regulars from getting in.

I also think it would be better if they locked the warpgates and neutralised the territories before hand.
Although I expect they would need a lot more time to run it if they wanted to balance it that way.
But with factions already owning the continent the end result is already decided in most cases.

All in all a nice try, better luck next time.

[SixShooter]

302 Found

I wish I had seen this vid before the event, some pretty funny shit and trash talk :rofl:.

Can't wait to see some footage from Hamma - BTW, no community night (Squad Bacon) since before launch? You're killing me man :(.

[Biscuit]

my honest response to this event:
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/424431_10151191113011432_474605097_n.jpg

[Chewy]

my honest response to this event:
https://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/424431_10151191113011432_474605097_n.jpg

That's not bad to be honest. Though that line in the middle of his face is rather off putting.

[Rolfski]

Idea: Not well thought true. They should have paired inexperienced YouTubers with well known players: Tobuscus/LevelCap, Seananners/IronfistLMS, etc. They also "forgot" to involve the other servers, forcing them to hastily throw together this rather lackluster, last minute 3 challenges contest (No prizes, no winning outfits/players). The idea of a faction winning by just popular vote was bad.

Execution: Mediocre. Communication leading towards the event was sketchy at best. Hiring and then sacking Tobuscus deserves no execution beauty contest. The problem with the Amerish challenges was factions overpopulating the continent hours before. The server event itself went pretty smooth (I was on Connery with Seananners), streaming it not so.