AGN: Consolidated Community Clash Feedback Thread

[Herby]

Originally Posted by Locke

Feedback:
I also think it might be worth looking at aircraft number caps depending on how the next few events work out. The last two CC have been so totally dominated by one side owning the air that it's been pretty boring to watch the base battles because there is no really effective g2a counter for liberators against players at this skill level on this sort of terrain. It also removes interesting things like Galaxy drops as effective air teams just totally shut them down before they even leave the warp gate.

It is the job of both sides to make sure they are not neglecting any one particular phase of the game. The last two events have featured outfits known for having great air squadrons. The teams they have faced were ill prepared and paid the price for it. Can't expect to win the ground game when you completely leave the air uncontested.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Herby

It is the job of both sides to make sure they are not neglecting any one particular phase of the game. The last two events have featured outfits known for having great air squadrons. The teams they have faced were ill prepared and paid the price for it. Can't expect to win the ground game when you completely leave the air uncontested.

From a purely competitive point of view I agree that this is how it should be but lets face it no-one wants every CC match half to be 5 minutes of almost impossible to follow air battles followed by 40 minutes of Dalton liberators flying around totally dominating all the ground action which has pretty much been the case in the last 2 matches. It's just not entertaining for the viewers or I imagine the participants.

The only metagame reaction I can possibly imagine that might counter good Liberator pilots would be mass HA A2A missiles but even that has serious flaws in a map like Nexus with such incredible terrain for air to escape into.

[NewSith]

Originally Posted by Locke

Feedback:

I honestly think it would be worth having a set lane or lanes the outfits have to follow depending on how many people are active on Nexus. At present the action is to spread out that the viewing experience is not consistent enough and a lot of times you have the entire ground forces of each team just sat at different bases ghost capping rather than fighting each other. They need to be forced into fighting each other sooner and more often over the match to make it entertaining. This would also help with the commentating by making it easier for them to be at the right place at the right time.

This is actually because the rules give you points for caps as opposed to how it was before where you had "clash points" (which is in my opinion - a better system. Also, the rules don't imply that continent domination is an instant victory). In my honest opinion - having only one point when it all matters (round ending, 50%+ hexes controled = round won) would be waaaay better... but we have MLG for that.

I also think it might be worth looking at aircraft number caps depending on how the next few events work out. The last two CC have been so totally dominated by one side owning the air that it's been pretty boring to watch the base battles because there is no really effective g2a counter for liberators against players at this skill level on this sort of terrain. It also removes interesting things like Galaxy drops as effective air teams just totally shut them down before they even leave the warp gate.

Long term it would be good to see a real time map of whats going on but thats down to SOE.

My favorite thing to say in regards to this is:
That's what happens when you mix a bomber, a helicopter, a gunship and a VTOL Aircraft.
Aye and also when turrets can be shot down with minimal amount of effort, while repairing them takes forever.
And when AA missiles exist solely as a form of entertainment, rather than a part of an actual AA vs Air game (look at any BF series with AA missiles and tell me they are OP, while it takes only 2 missiles to take down almost every air unit, please).

These community clashes can give a better look as to what's really imbalanced in the game. And this is why I am still awaiting a CC of some semi-pro or casual-pro teams, to see to what extent certain game mechanics can be abused...

[Phrygen]

Originally Posted by Herby

It is the job of both sides to make sure they are not neglecting any one particular phase of the game. The last two events have featured outfits known for having great air squadrons. The teams they have faced were ill prepared and paid the price for it. Can't expect to win the ground game when you completely leave the air uncontested.

This is oddly reminiscent of the hex vs lattice argument.

Putting that aside however, this isn't just about the outfits, its about the spectators.

It is bad enough watching incredibly uneven teams fight in the nexus without also having to watch outfits capture empty points.

[Krunk]

This is just something I have been forgetting to post.

In the future when Deaths are discussed and what is killing please reference the kill-feed or simply the weapon type and not the specific weapon.

NNG+TGWW match not a single Zephyr was used yet that was stated the entire match as well as a few miss-called kills.

i.e. Liberator dieing to terrain collision was called as a "C4-Kill"

This is trivial things but seeing as how all the public stories of the match reference this idea of "zephyr" use stated by the commentators we can see how quickly this misinformation spreads.

Also are is character data stored and saved in the same fashion as the live servers? I think some cool usage breakdowns from the match's to see what items are used the most and performed the best may be interesting.

[Sledgecrushr]

Hey Krunk there was a liberator c4 kill.

[Krunk]

Originally Posted by Sledgecrushr

Hey Krunk there was a liberator c4 kill.

I was that lib, It was not a C4 Kill.

It was very very very close though ;D

[Rolfski]

You might want to consider inviting Poonanners to guest-host an edition. Should be hilarious to watch.

[Froufrou]

You guys really need to focus on immersion, current format isn't working because being that far away from a player's perspective is boring. I know it's going to be hard as long as you don't have a first person observer cam (you should definitely try to lobby for it hamma), but there are several things you can change already:
A lot less commentating and a lot more VOIP broadcasting, this really is the first thing if you want to get the players immersed. Of course starcraft broadcasters need to talk constantly in order to fill the blanks, but you really shouldn't have to on PS2. This would give your casters time to think, to specifically listen to the SLs/PL and to spend more time studying the grand scheme of things when it is necessary, they would also miss a lot less action. All this talking is completely counter-productive: commentators currently spend a lot more time describing what's going on on the screen (we have eyes goddamnit) than providing new information (I'm not blaming them really, they currently need to fill these blanks, the format is the issue).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5t1E...utu.be&t=1h56m 38:00 to 39:40 could have been freaking epic if the actual gameplay wasn't treated as backgroubd.

I think the lack of immersion is also one of the source of the general air-frustration: third person air is even more boring to watch than third person infantry. Air battles are actually one of the most thrilling thing about PS2 but you don't do them justice: Hearing dalton shots whistling around you, getting tailed and being saved by your teammates. "-Watch your back Luke, watch your back! Enemy fighter coming in. -Red six can you see red five? Red five where are you? -I can't shake him! ...Bastard. Biggs where are you?!" PS2 air VOIP is awesome, it almost sounds like Star Wars sometimes, but watching aircrafts pewpewing at each other from 100m away completely sucks.

For now, you really need to try and stick to actual gameplay as much as possible (coms+as many streams as the outfits can provide). Only switch to observer cam/commentators when needed and when there's something interesting to say from a tactical point of view (not that often really), a "tactical map" feature would be great for this by the way.
Don't get me wrong, I think your dedication and your work are amazing, you couldn't possibly do better with your current format. The only thing wrong is the overall approach.