Article: Community Clash Season 1

[kidriot]

http://themittani.com/news/planetsid...clash-season-1

You know what to do.

[bites]

Cheers for the write up

Makes for great reading when I'm at work and can't watch it >.<!!!

[Illtempered]

Good write-up, and thank you. I've always had more faith in this than I did with MLG. Community-based shiz FTW!

[HereticusXZ]

I love watching the Community Clash matches but I'm starting to see a flaw in the set-up of Community Clash Seasons.... I'm not exactly sure how you would be able to fix it either... outside of letting this season run it's course to gage who's heavy weight and who's a light-weight or getting a committee going to grade what league a Outfit belongs in by setting up scrims and judging a Outfits performance?


That flaw is that it's setting up un-even matches.... Un-even being that one Outfit is expected to completely dominate 10-0 because of the significant difference in the skill level between a casual outfit and a dedicated competition Outfit. It's the whole difference between a heavy weight and a light weight.

I don't subscribe to the David vs Goliath argument that maybe with a little hope and lot of training the little casual guy can defeat the big dedicated competitive guy! Competition just doesn't work out that way.... If your a competitive outfit, then only a competitive outfit can beat you, If your casual then there's a limit to what you can achieve as a casual in a competitive setting....



Ultimately I feel like there needs to be leagues within the Community Clash beyond just US vs EU or 12, 24, and 48.... There needs to be a Casual league that pairs off casual outfits and a Competitive League. Figure out a way to set that up and you will really see some interesting fights over the steam-rolls we see now.

[ringring]

I sort of agree with herecticus. How did some of these outfits qualify? Was it simply that they volunteered early in the process.

With the benefit of hindsight there should have been some qualification process, perhaps the pre-season should have come into play, e.g. you should have at least participated.

Maybe there should be seeds as in tennis, with the demonstrable better outfits entering the competition later on?

One other question I'd like to ask. Do the outfits that were formed in PS1 have an advantage? On the face of it, looking at the results of the pre-season and the 'Clash' so far it would seem so to me.

e.g. Mercs, Ini Elite, Red October are all Miller outfits that were formed in PS1 on the Werner server *. Now clearly at all their present players were there for PS1, perhaps not even half of them, but the habits and culture has, perhaps, persisted from there to here and especially the in built understanding of multi-squad fps.

Time for the 'new' outfits to show what they're made of!

Further question ..... (sorry) there have been some old ps1 outfits and I mean leetfits that have fallen by the wayside somewhat. On Werner the TR Leetfit was Soul Reapers and Fang on VS, I was chatting to Killfrenzy recently and he said quite a few SR moved to Ini Elite. But on the Emerald Server there was Delta Triad (who I thought were pretty good when I saw them on the merged Gemini Server) and I would have thought Community Class would have been right up their street. Does anyone know what happened with them?

* On the US servers Sturngrenadiers, Das Anfall, Future Crew and Total Recoil (I think)

[NewSith]

Match-ups on in the EU bracket are obviously uneven, since they are composed by american players. As for the US bracket... I don't know.

IMO most match-ups were even, and in all honesty I didn't really see much "competitive" from most outfits, since matches revolved around opportunistic victories. Nobody is using tactical options the game offers and instead play the Zerg vs Zerg game.

But maybe it does relate to observer cam issue as it's very hard to take full notice of what other outfits do, what squad comps, weapons and tools they utilize to later pick up on it. If we take MCY play for instance, there was so much more happening than meets the eye or what casters pointed out. Like those EMP grenades that had been thrown into smoke against a MAX crash. What did they achieve with it? None can tell without first person camera that it blatantly disables friend-foe recognition for MAXes and gives room for enemy team to just grief the heck out of each other.

Overall I would blame teams for lack of imagination, but PS2 just doesn't have enough depth in Tool<->Countertool system to help the situation. The biggest issue yet is a question - how to clear the sky if your team doesn't have enough good pilots?

[HereticusXZ]

Originally Posted by NewSith

But maybe it does relate to observer cam issue as it's very hard to take full notice of what other outfits do

Nah, some of the Outfits post up there perspective videos of what they were thinking and doing, so you can get a decent picture of the skill difference on all levels between two Outfits.

You can also look up Outfit stats on PSU, I think a Outfit that averages a majority of BR's in there 80's is going to trump a Outfit that averages around the low 30's.

[Calista]

Originally Posted by ringring

I sort of agree with herecticus. How did some of these outfits qualify? Was it simply that they volunteered early in the process.

Probably just a matter of CC taking what they could get. As I recall in PS1 there weren't near as many outfits. In PS2 it seems any group that can field a squad of friends has an "outfit".

But anyway, community clash needs more bells and whistles for the viewer experience. It's kind of bland just watching the same old observer cam but I guess we do get a round timer on the screen now It's hard to follow when the cam is zoomed way out and you lose the PS2 experience when the cam is too close. Also, there needs to be some sort of scoreboard overlay and a halftime show with cheerleaders or maybe marching bands And like on TV sporting events, put up a screen with halftime stats etc. It all looks rather bush league at the moment.

[ringring]

Originally Posted by Calista

Probably just a matter of CC taking what they could get. As I recall in PS1 there weren't near as many outfits. In PS2 it seems any group that can field a squad of friends has an "outfit".

But anyway, community clash needs more bells and whistles for the viewer experience. It's kind of bland just watching the same old observer cam but I guess we do get a round timer on the screen now It's hard to follow when the cam is zoomed way out and you lose the PS2 experience when the cam is too close. Also, there needs to be some sort of scoreboard overlay and a halftime show with cheerleaders or maybe marching bands And like on TV sporting events, put up a screen with halftime stats etc. It all looks rather bush league at the moment.

Ideally it should follow the same scheme as sports where there are several cams following play, a director to choose which cam is the 'live' one, a main commentator and an expert analysis with after match replays. lol

Maybe that's ott we at least we could hope for more - maybe two cams with a split screen, one following each team so we get a more rounded view. It would be nice to see an assault from the viewpoint of both.

[HereticusXZ]

CC Should talk to the guys who did the Recursion Stat Tracker and get a overlay that displays the CC Teams and Scores thus far!

Or if anyone in the PS2 Community could build one for them?

[Mastachief]

Please remember that this is the first season. I am sure torkz and co have already spent considerable time thinking about it.

The only way i could see it working is to have each empire on a server have a qualifying tournament and the winning outfit for each empire can enter the commclash season. This however wouldn't work without $$ support from SOE and you would still have one sided matches. Also it would take forever to get the competition under way.

Stats don't really work too well this competition is about teamplay a outfit with an average k/d of 2 and 3 half way decent pilots will win out against a JustaBunchofKillwhores outfit. Add to this that zergfits should always be able to muster 24 decent stat players just because of how mass inviting works.

As for the U.S / EU comment. The organisers managed to put the two stronger EU outfits on opposite sides of their brackets, unlike the U.S where the final will be the semi final (DA vs FCRW) imo. Outfits so far as i know where picked on first come first served (someone dropped out for MCY to be included).

This community run event is providing entertainment and it is great entertainment. Without future strong systems support from SOE it will be hard for torkz to grow it and keep people interested in my opinion. We as the community need to get behind commclash and get SOE to make the effort, right now it's barely a blip on their radar (see the last command centre) Prosieben deserve credit here because they are really keen on the idea and appear to be engaging well on the EU side.

There are also a lot of comments flying around (excuse the pun) about the power of aircraft... This is planetside guys it really is little different from live they just removed the zerg "tactic". Badly designed bases give power to aircraft over and above their advantages over armour and openfield infantry. Panic not though there is always PAL if planetside themed counter strike is your thing.

[ringring]

Yea.

Kudos to torkz, I think he's already said that they're working on the cam to improve it.

I have to say I like watching these matches and the pre-season scrims, I didn't think I would but I do.

[HereticusXZ]

Originally Posted by Mastachief

Please remember that this is the first season. I am sure torkz and co have already spent considerable time thinking about it.

The only way i could see it working is to have each empire on a server have a qualifying tournament and the winning outfit for each empire can enter the commclash season. This however wouldn't work without $$ support from SOE and you would still have one sided matches. Also it would take forever to get the competition under way.

Stats don't really work too well this competition is about teamplay a outfit with an average k/d of 2 and 3 half way decent pilots will win out against a JustaBunchofKillwhores outfit. Add to this that zergfits should always be able to muster 24 decent stat players just because of how mass inviting works.

As for the U.S / EU comment. The organisers managed to put the two stronger EU outfits on opposite sides of their brackets, unlike the U.S where the final will be the semi final (DA vs FCRW) imo. Outfits so far as i know where picked on first come first served (someone dropped out for MCY to be included).

This community run event is providing entertainment and it is great entertainment. Without future strong systems support from SOE it will be hard for torkz to grow it and keep people interested in my opinion. We as the community need to get behind commclash and get SOE to make the effort, right now it's barely a blip on their radar (see the last command centre) Prosieben deserve credit here because they are really keen on the idea and appear to be engaging well on the EU side.

There are also a lot of comments flying around (excuse the pun) about the power of aircraft... This is planetside guys it really is little different from live they just removed the zerg "tactic". Badly designed bases give power to aircraft over and above their advantages over armour and openfield infantry. Panic not though there is always PAL if planetside themed counter strike is your thing.

See, I agree and I disagree with this....

Yes, your right, given what they have to work with Torkz and company are doing a phenomenal job trying to organize this with as little tools as they have, that's not in doubt at all.





I think there's a number of things outside of individual Server tournaments to gage a Outfits skill-level and give us a more entertaining fight in the long run. Right off the top of my head CC can establish a Committee of Judges, Have a judge or two sit on each team during a casual scrim fight and grade a Outfits performance to filter them into either a Heavy Weight Division or a Light Weight Division. Once you've established who's on what level as far as skill goes you can then center a tournament or season around that Division.

Judges can grade a Outfit in a number of categorys such as:

- Platoon Lead Actions (How active is the PL in the leading of there Platoon?)
- Squad Lead Actions (How active is a SL in the micro-management of the Squad and are they communicating well between members and PL?)
- Squad Member Actions (Are the SM following orders and working effectively as a team?)
- Vehicle Actions (How often does the team spawn vehicles and are they being put to good use?)
- Team Action/Reaction (Are they responding accordingly to threats, are they attacking or counter attacking often, do they know when to defend?)
- Logistics (Are squad leaders coordinating with eachother?)
- Overall Score (Each category graded A, B, C, D, or F. Whats the final average?)



I really do appreciate CC and everything Torkz and company are doing but as a fan I think the show can do better, within the limitations of reason that they have. Giving us not just a First Season, but a pre-season of almost purely 1 sided steam-roll matches will not help CC in the long-run.

Overall I get a feeling that the Competitive community for PS2 is so desperate for this kind of challenge that things are being rushed on impulse. Take the time to filter Outfits into reasonable leagues THEN set up a tournament for each League... I guarantee you'll see more on the edge of your seat intense matches then what we have now.


I don't know but I presume they already are attempting to get one... But a stream overlay that displays team tames and scores would go a long way.





Lastly, again I agree and disagree about the significance of stats... Yes I agree stats should mean very little when compared to what kind of strategem a Outfit can display - Your KDR means nothing if you don't have that objective point. But also within reason you can expect a Team with a high average KDR to have better fighters to overpower a team that doesn't have a good KDR.

With that said within reason you can look up a Outfits general stats like Average BR on the PSU search and be able to come to a reasonable conclusion to the outcome of a match. a Outfit with a average BR of 80 can be expected to have veteran players who know what there doing versus a outfit with a average BR of 32. To your own opinion, you can look at DA vs FCRW and expect a on-the-edge-of-your-seat battle because those two outfits are fairly close on stats..... You can look at NNG vs TRG and expect a obvious outcome. TRG has experience in years but there scores don't compete with NNG.

I'm also looking at this from the perspective of my own Outfit who's competing. In the pre-season TXR vs B4ND, there's a clear difference in stats between the two outfits so the outcome is predicted, TXR won 6-0, and now in the first season TXR vs FCRW, I can predict a victory for FCRW because of the large margin difference in stats. TXR average BR of 51 vs FCRW averaging 87.

Do you think that will be a worthwhile match or will it be a steam-roll?

So, yes, stats do matter when matching two competing outfits against eachother.

[Hamma]

Good stuff as always. Thanks for the shoutouts!