PS2,MLG and general thoughts...

Scorpion Six · 2013-04-03, 12:30 PM

(I originally posted this as a reply to the MLG broadcast thread but after some thought it doesn't fit there and needs its own thread. Thanks!)

First off let me say, "Thank you Planetside Universe for having a more thoughtful, mature (for the most part) forum population than the official PS2 forums!".

Reading the official forums when it comes to talk of MLG and PS2 is just painful. The general consensus is that PS2 is a casual, noncompetitive, pubbies game and doesnt focus on player skill enough to be good as an esport.

Now I don't know alot about MLG and esports, I'll admit that. But I think some of the comments over there are far from realistic.

First off PS2 is VERY competitive in my opinion. With my outfit, and we are not a large outfit at all, it has gotten to the point where we actively look for other organized outfits to go against. We really go looking for a good fight. If we don't we usually end up fighting a hodge podge of lone wolves and pubbies and roll over them, even when out numbered 2+ to 1. It gets boring and as the Infantry NCOIC it's my job to keep my guys entertained. They WANT a good fight. So, to us, PS2 is VERY competitive. That being said, I would call us "competitively casual" because we don't make it mandatory to log on every night for 6 hours. Some of us are older and have families. We do training on Tues nights and main Ops are on Fridays. Show up those two days and you are considered an active member. But when we are on and doing Ops we really go looking for a good fight.

Second, the comment was made on the official forums that PS2 is doesnt focus on individual skill enough, that the more organized outfits with the better strategies and better "war machine" wins battles and that's not what belongs in esports.

I agree and disagree with that opinion. It doesn't matter how good your strategy is or how awesome your logistical "war machine" is, if you can't win in a fire fight you are NOT going to take an objective. If your guys are not skilled enough to execute your strategy it won't matter how good that strategy is, you won't be able to pull it off and take that objective. So individually you HAVE to have some skill. Now the part I DO agree with is that teamwork trumps individual skill...EVERYTIME. Esports is based off of competition, whether it's 1v1 or team vs team.

I for one am looking forward to pitting my guys against the best of the best. Whether it's looking for that organized TR/VS outfit and having at them on what ever continent they are on or facing off in a MLG bracket, doesn't matter to me.

Thanks for your time and consideration.

Scorpion Six
(Covenant)

Sledgecrushr · 2013-04-03, 12:52 PM

Im looking forward to seeing you guys compete. Good luck in the coming games.

Scorpion Six · 2013-04-03, 01:03 PM

Thanks Sledge!

Oh and just for completeness and transparency.
My Outfit info:

Sunder Military Gaming
Mattherson
www.sunderhq.com

I play as Covenant in game.

Rahabib · 2013-04-03, 01:32 PM

so do you guys have at least 48 reliable active members who can compete?

Anyway, I have to agree with what the other forum said, although without so much gloom and doom.

Heres the problem with MLG:
1) only large teams can compete, 48v48 and even then if you have 60 members but only can get on 30 at any one time, its not good enough. So that limits its appeal to maybe 4-5 teams.
2) Its a side show. We haven't heard much about money or prizes but with a team of 48 its hard to split winnings unless you split it only with the top 5 players in which case the remaining 43 are just well wishers.
3) Using online competitors will encourage some cheating. You cant watch 86 online players like a hawk. You can detect blatant cheats but wall hacks are very difficult unless you can view the person's screen.
4) Apart from MLG instanced battles, the game doesnt lend itself well to tactics. You can slow down a zerg, maybe even cap a point, but its meaningless and the base will flip the minute you leave. They are working on it, but apart from rock paper scizzors style balancing (which isnt working out too well right now) theres no strategy to resources, management, or base capture choices. the lattice will help the flow and defensibility, but not much else.

I will say this:
1) individual skill is more than people give it credit. The use of vehicles complicates the whole skill argument however.
2) MLG could work out if they reworked it. say 12v12 and smaller maps would encourage far more teams to compete and probably even get more pros who dont want to be an online well wisher for competition.
3) There are tactics to taking a base, but not much in which base or why.
4) Its publicity. More people.
5) I dont see it as a harm, but also, dont see how this can work without a major retooling.

ShockFC · 2013-04-04, 09:07 AM

Good Luck.

Also, welcome to the forums that are much less of a shit show (but still a shit show) than the official forums.

My outfit is going to be ready for MLG, but there's no telling how the SOE/MLG team is going to make this competitive. Way too many factors as of now.

Assist · 2013-04-04, 09:47 AM

Originally Posted by Rahabib

so do you guys have at least 48 reliable active members who can compete?

Anyway, I have to agree with what the other forum said, although without so much gloom and doom.

Heres the problem with MLG:
1) only large teams can compete, 48v48 and even then if you have 60 members but only can get on 30 at any one time, its not good enough. So that limits its appeal to maybe 4-5 teams.
2) Its a side show. We haven't heard much about money or prizes but with a team of 48 its hard to split winnings unless you split it only with the top 5 players in which case the remaining 43 are just well wishers.
3) Using online competitors will encourage some cheating. You cant watch 86 online players like a hawk. You can detect blatant cheats but wall hacks are very difficult unless you can view the person's screen.
4) Apart from MLG instanced battles, the game doesnt lend itself well to tactics. You can slow down a zerg, maybe even cap a point, but its meaningless and the base will flip the minute you leave. They are working on it, but apart from rock paper scizzors style balancing (which isnt working out too well right now) theres no strategy to resources, management, or base capture choices. the lattice will help the flow and defensibility, but not much else.

You keep hammering on these points ignoring what people and SoE have told you about how it could and in some cases would work.

1) There's a lot more than 4 or 5 teams interested in this. There's 10+ outfits on each server above 400 members. Probably 20+ above 150 members. Some are casual, but they'll still be interested in forming an MLG platoon, just like every other MLG game there's outfits who give it a shot and compete even though they probably won't make it anywhere. There's a lot more teams involved in MLG than the ones you see at the finals shows. These are also scheduled tournaments, not some spur of the moment situation. If you tell people weeks ahead of time, most people will make these events. This is no different from the MMORPG's out there that support huge raids, and most of them are still successful today. There's plenty of people out there who, given notice, will make time to play in a competitive environment.

2) You're right we don't know the prize amounts, but we have been told how the tournaments will work with attendance. Just like every other team MLG game out there, the prize distribution is up to the team and sometimes the sponsor. This is not an issue at all for MLG. 99% of the guys in MLG do not make their living from just MLG. Most of the teams interested in MLG are not doing it for money, they're doing it for recognition of success amongst their peers. Competing against the best players out there for a chance to prove how good you are is enough for most players. It's a similar attitude to the people who capture continents, they're not doing it just for character gain, they're doing it to have that extra measure of success.

3) Cheating is not going to be some new thing to MLG. Cheaters were caught way back in the days of Quake2 and original CS. Most competitive teams are intelligent enough to realize that someone they play with is cheating, and most people interested in MLG understand it's not going to last in any sort of tournament situation. Can it happen? Sure, just like it does in every PC game out there now. Cheaters are caught, ousted, things move on. This is not some new problem for competitive gaming.

4) As you said, since MLG is happening in the instanced battlefields it will require tactics.

---

Welcome to the forums Covenant. You'll find there's a very vocal minority here who hate MLG because it's called MLG. It's better than the official forums by a long shot, but there's still naysayers here who will swear to you the world is flat.

Rahabib · 2013-04-04, 10:21 AM

Originally Posted by Assist

...1) There's a lot more than 4 or 5 teams interested in this. There's 10+ outfits on each server above 400 members. Probably 20+ above 150 members. Some are casual, but they'll still be interested in forming an MLG platoon, just like every other MLG game there's outfits who give it a shot and compete even though they probably won't make it anywhere. There's a lot more teams involved in MLG than the ones you see at the finals shows. These are also scheduled tournaments, not some spur of the moment situation. If you tell people weeks ahead of time, most people will make these events. This is no different from the MMORPG's out there that support huge raids, and most of them are still successful today. There's plenty of people out there who, given notice, will make time to play in a competitive environment
...

You factor in only the clans that have ACTIVE players interested in competing on a regular basis, and your number will drop dramatically. If there are more than 6 eligible teams, that make it through an entire season, Ill gladly let you tell me you told me so.

Rumblepit · 2013-04-04, 03:38 PM

http://www.nationalesl.com/us/wire/wac_faq/
granted this is a older system but you can be sure MLG has a much better one in place.

wire anti cheat is what ELS uses...... if you plan to compete know that you will never EVER get away with cheating/hacking....your computer will be monitored , all matches will be reviewed ,along with all the data collected during said match..... then if your legit, you win.

as for hackers in MLG ? it will never happen.

this is what the hackers are currently saying about planetside 2 and their hack prevention,,,, i was happy to read this.

Planetside 2 DOES Have An Anti-Cheat System In Place.

"The engine is capable of detecting changes to the game variables as well as detecting whether one's running in a virtual environment, to bypass HWID bans or to setup another client for gaining massive amounts of XP through automated processes.

I was first banned for running the game in VMWare (which I managed to get myself unbanned from by spending two weeks of contacting customer support), and have now been banned for debugging the game - yes, DEBUGGING.
I was looking for offsets for health and such, and the next time I logged in I was banned - and the customer support confirms this is permanent and won't ever be lifted.
Even games like World of Warcraft or Battlefield 3, which make huge amounts of money on their players, doesn't have such a well designed system in place.

I thought I may add this to warn anyone, since a post from this forum suggested to run the game on VMWare ("it's safe.. you don't get banned").

Hamma · 2013-04-04, 10:15 PM

Originally Posted by ShockFC

Also, welcome to the forums that are much less of a shit show (but still a shit show) than the official forums.

Indeed all Internet Forums are a shit show

It's the shit show scale.