What Uber needs to do in order to make PA an viable esport

Hey everyone! I'm new to the community, even though I bought the game a while back. But I guess this is awkward by introducing myself with such a long text, but I've been a huge fan of uber and them releasing this game in the spirit of Total Annihilation, which has a huge place in my childhood makes me sooooo excited for its official launch today. I'm a huge fan or esports, and I'm sure many of you all are as well, so making sure our game has a correct mindset and structure before diving into the competitive space is important. I currently write for Gosugamers.net for Counter-Strike: Global Offensive and I've seen many games do their take on how they think their game should be an esport. I'm not claiming to be god or trying to say I've got the biggest e-peen, this is just my humble opinion on what uber needs to do based on what I personally know on esports. I'd love to know your opinions as well

Since this game is still in development, there is huge potential for this game to take up some of the RTS esport marketshare if uber puts in place a competitive support infrastructure. For example, a big problem right now with SC2 is that there is no way for people to crowdfund tournaments. Stuff like the compendium from Dota 2 or like how CSGO does esport cases/sticker capsules really help fund tournaments, which smoothes out planning and such since you already have that money to inject into the tournaments. So in the instance of PA, unique esport commander/unit skins for sale that go to tournament prize pools or maybe like team logos that are embedded in player start where they first land (Think Dota 2 team flags except in the landing site). The timing is almost perfect if uber steps up since the last expansion of SC2 isn't due till like 2015 (maybe, idk exactly), and not to mention that esports as an industry is still growing.
TLDR: PA has potential to grow as an esports because how SC2 is doing currently, especially if they put in esport infrastructure stuff in the beginning.

Some of the stuff that makes PA shine is the relatively high system requirements (compared to like League, which can run on a toaster). While it does limit playerbase, it does attract more sponsors since people may actually need to upgrade in order to play the game at full settings and all that. Another thing that is so great about PA is that ability to zoom out to that strategic view as well as zoom in for the micro battles. Games like SC2 and MOBAS don't have that, they're reliant on the minimap to view everything, zooming out the whole screen like in PA just looks so much better and natural and adds quite the wow factor to the audience since you can see the overall picture on the big screen. I won't even go into the game mechanics, some of them are just ridiculously cool, and you don't find them in any other game, like planet destruction and such, but the game itself is amazing, and that will definitely draw a crowd.
TLDR: PA is an amazing game

As for a suggested map format, I personally think that all that's needed is a standard amount of planets and systems is necessary, just so then there's a general sense of what the time range each game will take, as for the planet type layouts, I think that a random variety can be good. Even though randomness is generally a no-no in esports, each player does have time to decide which planet they're going to start on anyways, so it's not like just flipping a coin to see who wins, it forces players to think about where they want to start, which is part of strategy. Not to mention it shows off to the audience the art that goes into each planet. As for tournament format it's up to the tournament organizer, but let me just say that the general trend for esports is going towards a tennis like format, where there is seeding of players as well as sets of games to win a match (Best of 5s ftw!!!)
TLDR: Standard rules for map layout and tournament structure should be a thing

What uber will have to work on game side is pretty standard stuff, ranked ladders that feature an ranking system of some sort, ensuring game stability, etc. which are probably in the works already. One of the things that they should implement though, in my opinion, is a constantly evolving balancing system, if they want to introduce new units they'll have to do it anyways, but stuff that prevents like League and CSGO from being a totally stagnant game is that their balance system for weapons, items, and champions is always being tweaked and changed. A shifting meta helps create a history of the game itself which is really cool, and also forces teams and players to adjust to a new game, which prevents one-trick ponies from winning all the time and shifts the rankings a bit more. It also gives the team something to constantly think about so then they don't get bored Spectating high level play is also a cool thing to have, but that's for later, when prominent, upper tier players have been established, of course they will probably have twitch streams, but having in game client support is cool as well.
TLDR: PA needs ladders/a ranking system, and an EVOLVING meta to make it interesting, spectating high tier ladder play is fun to do as well.

Something cool that uber could use for twitch viewers is a talkshow/q&a event for each major patch with devs, community figures, players, etc. Communication and interactivity with the community is huge for player retention and community mentality. Clarity is everything in esports, eliminating confusion and changes without explanation reduces the amount of butthurt and community backlash whenever something happens. Competitive integrity is huge as well, so planning events way ahead of time and being proactive is important. LCS has their faults in these things as well, like the worlds groups drawing fiasco, and their botched event in London where a whole team couldn't participate due to visa issues, just stuff like this can really drag down a scene, and it's important that developers think 5 steps ahead before making a move.
TLDR: Developer communication and clarity are good things, uber has to think ahead if they're going to do esports

As for developing as an esport, that's where uber will face the most challenges, since there's a lot of games already that are driving to get market share. Getting a dedicated audience, forming partnerships with the big tournament/gaming organizations, game sponsors, etc. can be a very delicate process. Of course there should be people that come out of the scene organically, casters, tournament creators, etc. But to develop something on the scale like Riot Game's LCS is so hard to do nowadays. Contracting with tournament organizers such as Turtle Entertainment (IEM/ESL One), MLG, and Dreamhack is probably the best way to do tournaments until you probably have enough resources to do something internal.
TLDR: Uber talking to established esports people is a good thing to do before they try to do their stuff solo (if they want to)

The best way to ensure the longevity of this game as an esport is probably to do a league system like LCS or Smite or a regular tournament system like CSGO, which ends in a world championship. (Of course, once uber has the resources to do so.) This is better to do rather than a huge once a year event such the international for Dota 2, which presents problems such as frontloading prize money and players retiring once they've won one. Not to mention players save strats for it and go into hiding until the big tournament, which is no fun. It's better to make sure that there is a more regular pressure to perform rather than just having a one and done type esport.
TDLR: League system or/and spread out tournaments>One huge tournament

As for the mentality going into this, I believe that uber is a group of well balanced people that are extremely passionate about the games they've made. I don't see them shoving this game down people's throats as an esport for quick cash like how infinite crisis did (no offense to turbine, but that's essentially what happened). All the details, from planet art to the epic soundtrack to the unique mechanics show the care that uber has put into the game brick by brick. That same attention has to be put into an esport development and crowdbase as well, where people ultimately come for the love of the game, and seeing it played at the highest level. Now, Uber can put in stuff to strengthen their grassroots growth as well, dota and league have a system for viewing parties and stuff, where they send out a box of swag to people that watch, etc. But that'll be down the road when a community has already been established. However, the most important part is that we as a community have to be aware of the overall picture and always remember the greatness of this game if we want this game to succeed.
TLDR: Community must think about the overall picture, and always remember how passionate uber is about this game as time goes on.

Obviously I'm missing a lot of stuff that needs to be covered, but I believe this text does an okay job about covering the basics. Going into specifics would make this even bigger Hopefully I haven't bored you all to death, but yeah, this game has so much potential to grow as an esport, and hopefully uber takes some of these points into consideration. I'd love to discuss this type of stuff all the time, so feel free to comment or pm me!

Edit: Any ranking/ladder system would do really, as to which one is up for debate, they just need one.

Metas are bad actually, they just make the games play out the same every time.

Hopefully we can get to a point where there is a very wide variety of strategies, something no one though of. It makes the game play much more interesting and fluid.

Ladders are going to be added

Meant to say an "evolving meta", my bad.

I think PA doesn't currently lock out esports.

PAStats has a ladder and elo and matchmaking with preset rules. We also have sprawling tournaments, like usually 2 a month. It constantly updates with support, and has mod support, for a reason after all. The players basically already have access to what they want to make as far as ladders and a balance patch player mod.

Today's stream was an exciting stream as far as gameplay, I watched a planetsmash not end a game, I watched an enemy team come through a teleporter despite the fact it was a meatgrinder on the other side, a lot of interesting stuff you don't normally see. Real interesting to watch, but as far as esports goes the hooks are mostly there for players to mod in things like external ladder with autoposting from PA, and for automatchmake to start games externally.

First off: No. ELO. Something else. I'd be happier with TrueSkill.

But no system that can be gamed like an ELO can. I mean, come on. ELO is outdated. Let's move on.

Everything else I can live with.

+1 to this, also every game always will have a meta, that's the nature of the thing. You have to have a "known way how to play it". The fun part is that way should slowly change over time, due to players inventing new strategies and tactics.

You do realize the choice of a little bit of math in some rating calculating is like a super tiny piece of the point the OP makes? Nothing else to say

Or that, ELO was just the first system that popped up in my head.

Check out pastats.com and ladder.pastats.tk and exodusesports.com

It's the most important part.

Like the Icing on a cake. You can make or break the cake by the icing.

mmmm cake......

WarCraft III is a good example of proper developer balance: Great multiplayer, great campaign, and an amazing custom game system. StarCraft II is a good example for horrible dev balance: Great multiplayer, sub-par campaign, stillborn custom game system.

Look how long WC3 (or SC:BW, for that matter) was alive ... and how quickly SC2 is losing ground.

If Uber can manage to deliver decent multiplayer balance and a great custom system (or mod support, in PA's case) then I'm all for them delving head first into Esports. However, given their team's size and the amount of work ahead of them (it's not like PA is balanced, for example ...) I'd rather see them turning their attention to the game itself instead of the crazy realm of Esports.

@proeleert

Yeah I've seen pastats before. Them as well as exodus are pretty cool. I'm not too familiar with them, I suck at rts games so I've just been doing sandbox mode or single player whenever I'm on PA . But I think native support is a must for competitive play, like one reason why tf2 isn't where it should be is because while it's a great game imo, people have to jump through all these hoops just to get into a ranking system, which really limits how many people can get into the competitive scene despite the actual competitive nature of the game itself. The reason why games such as csgo have systems outside of its matchmaking is because A. Valve has low-performance servers, B. cheaters and C. no native team ranking support. So third party companies fill that void. However, PA is a lot better, where the game's servers are great, and rts game's cheats are lower impact, like you can't have aimbot on an rts. However, if native support basically trashes the two sites you mentioned. What can happen that's a win win is if pastats/exodus/etc. gets the api for the official games so then they can be a third party statistics site for all games ever played, rather than just those who have installed the mod (so similar to lolking or OPGG for league), as well as host tournaments. If uber gets a lot of income for esports, they can help fund prizepools, maybe host the tournament on their stream, etc. in order to support that.

Most of the time these forums are full of cheerleaders who aren't critical enough of Uber's blunders. Here's a link to a to the release announcement comments in the PA subreddit (where Brad can't lock ****): http://www.reddit.com/r/planetaryan...tion_has_officially_launched/?sort=confidence

When pro streamers criticize lack of ladders, people here laugh them off....

Here's hoping this game lasts longer than SMNC.

Ladder is literally coming a bit after release, it won't be that bad. It's not like a year, or even a half a year after release or anything.

We just need a ranking system, I don't care if it's calculated as Elo or as ranks. That'd be pretty cool.

Numbered player ratings are horrible. I've seen them in Savage 2 & Heroes of Newerth and they just do not work.

I'd rather use StarCraft II's ladder system (even if the ladder just hides your ELO) or Hearthstone's ladder system. Both are functional.

Blizzard seems to be an expert on one thing: ladders.

All ladder have numbers behind them

I would put my 1 behind your 0 if you know what I mean

Because not everyone is interested in the game's competitive multiplayer.