eSports?

I hope PA will be good in both short games and longer games.

I believe any kind of competitive or e-sports type considerations need to take the back seat, relatively speaking, to a focus on attracting and keeping the casual player base, especially in the meta-game. The more casual players you have online, the more fun people are having while playing the game, the more people you will have that may start venturing into the online competitive world.

RTS games have focused so long on the 1v1 ranked gameplay matches that it would be an amazing breath of fresh air to be able to integrate what a HUGE proportion of people like doing into the online meta-game.

We are talking about the people have jobs, who don't have time to be 'uber' at the game, who want to sit down and relax while playing a fun, stress free game. We're talking about the people playing 4v4 on Seton's, or Hard Chicken in Zero-K, or 4 vs a cheating AI on Isis.

Imagine for a moment, what a simple thing like an "Alien AI Invasion" scenario in the Galactic War multiplayer would do to motivate these people to keep coming back to the game. Want to play skirmish? Cool.. why not log in to the war and play that skirmish online. Having a hard time? Call on some friends to come help you out while you're in the middle of the fight. Finish the battle and get some rewards in the lobby - 'rank up' against the AI, and maybe next time it'll be harder (cheat more, be smarter, whatever)! Earn credits to pimp out your very own star-traveling asteroid, and see your asteroid making an appearance in games vs the AI.


Bottom line is, a vibrant and thriving community of 'casuals' is critical to the longevity of the game. Yes, have the structures required for ranked play, but spend an equal or larger amount of time figuring out how to make the casual player a first-rate citizen of the online PA world.

Yes but a competitive game can still be good for casuals, where as a casual game isn't good for competition.

Example: League of Legends

Disclaimer: I absolutely hate all DOTA style games, but I hear plenty of pubbies play LoL.

I despise RPG, leveling and player progression elements in my games.

There has yet to be proof that they do anything to help the longevity of good games at all.

Rubbish. Why? Because 'casual' vs 'competitive' is much much less a matter of the game itself as it is the meta-game that surrounds it. If you release an amazing game that has great competitive play, but your matchmaking sucks, it's going to tank. I agree we need a good game to play, but the eSports and Casual scene is going to be driven by the services surrounding the game.

League of Legends doesn't release new skins because it improves the competitiveness of the game. It doesn't have a RPG system controlling the Masteries / Runes in order to keep the skilled players playing. They have these features so that casual players who come back to the game and play another coop game against the AI get that little reward that just might get them coming back for more. And maybe, maybe, when that casual player comes back again, he'll have gathered enough confidence to venture into the pvp world.

This isn't about making the game dumber or simpler so that more people can play it competitively. It's about focusing first and foremost on what makes the game fun for people, and then supporting that in the meta game.

In a singleplayer RPG they're allright. Everyone else, do not want. In any competitive multiplayer game, it just adds grind you have to unlock before you get access to the full game.

[EDIT:] Blech. I'm confusing my games together. Disregard me.

The elements that make a game valid for esports tend to revolve around balance, fairness, and lack of randomness, as well as a skill requirement. The first two should be a given in any game, though sadly, some games don't reach that sweet spot because they just aren't supported long enough to be tweaked in that area. (TA didn't reach it until user mods polished things up.)

Lack of randomness really depends on the game, but in an RTS, like PA, it shouldn't be a deciding factor. There's a turn-based strategy game called Battle for Wesnoth (highly recommended btw) in which random elements are featured prominently, most notably in the combat sequences. This has resulted in some debate about the place of randomness in a strategy game, although I have noticed that on a higher, more strategic level, the randomness has less of a major effect on gameplay.

This would probably be the same case for PA, just as it was for Supcom and TA, where there were some random aspects associated with the simulation. Shots might not always hit, like they would in Starcraft, but if you planned things out strategically, it wouldn't matter a huge amount.

The skill requirement is where things start to get a bit complex. More often than not, skill in esports is defined as a physical aspect. In FPSs like Quake, reaction time, muscle memory, and timing instincts are significant. Fighting games like Guilty Gear rely on similar aspects, as do Starcraft and Dota.
There are other skills required to do well in any of these games, such as tactical and strategic considerations, understanding the characters/races/weapons you're playing as/using, etc. But without a strong physical foundation, you aren't able to implement these aspects as effectively as a player that is more physically skilled.

This is where I feel that games like PA/TA/FA differ, or should differ. In these games, the reliance on physical skill is reduced as much as possible by providing a powerful interface, so it instead becomes less of a game of APM/Micro/twitch, and more of a pure implementation of the strategies and tactics used. This is something I feel should be important, especially in true RTSs. An old, arthritic grandpa who can barely keep his hand steady, but with a keen strategic mind that regularly kicks your *** at chess should be the type of player that dominates in games like PA, not young mouse jockeys that have to buy a new mouse every month cause their old one is worn out from their 1337 APMs.

This is why I'm kind of contentious when it comes to making an RTS competitive on an "esports" level. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike that type of game. On the contrary, I'm a regular Warsow player, and that game leans pretty heavily towards the most hardcore of esports. I just don't feel that certain aspects of esports go well with the concept of the RTS, which is a gametype that focuses more on the mind than the body.

You've got a good point about randomness sylves.

The point of e-Sports isn't to have fun or to play a game, at its core it's about who is better, and the more level the playing field the better. Which would suggest to me that the concept of randomly generated maps may throw a wrench in that. I'm not sure a tournament where the finalist loses because he happened to get a slightly worse spot than his opponent would be a good candidate for e-Sports.

Which would indicate to me even more that the 1v1 ladder needs to be considered as a different game type, one where the rules are more firmly in place and randomness is reduced to a minimum.

An good example is the kerfuffle about custom commanders. Lots of people crying about how it would be terrible if the commanders were even slightly different in function - yet, if you had a ranked gameplay mode that restricted your commanders to the common pool, that issue would be moot.

Your assessment of what skill is about is frankly rubbish and untrue.

Then please, enlighten me.

You both state the skill requirement is about elitism, raising barriers and alienating players...that it fosters exclusive behaviour.

The motto to the skill requirement is actually that anyone can come and try their game. This is inclusive behaviour.

In fact, a game with elitism, raised barriers and alienation isn't necessarily one about skill.

You talk of players being impossible to beat because they spend days on end honing their game. This is just a side effect of any competitive scene in the world, and is inescapable to just about any game. It's the nature of games to have winners and losers.

If you want to eliminate the skill requirement completely, you'll have to ban all skilled players.

You clearly did not read what I wrote. I was talking about the difference between physical and non-physical skill in gaming, and how it relates to esports. (And whether the concept of physical skill as it relates to esports is something that has a place in the RTS genre.)

You may want to go back and reread my post.

I'll admit, I realised you didn't mention anything about players dedicating their lives away to becoming unstoppable.

You're still wrong about competitive players wanting physical barriers.

It's not requiring players to be skillful that is exclusive.

It's making the primary focus of your online meta-game be ONLY about skilled players, THAT is what is exclusive. It's tailoring the entire thing around a tiny fraction of the player base, that is what's wrong with it.

e-Sports has its place, and as more people play some will rise to the top and enter the arena. But just like hockey.. some people just want to skate around and have fun in their back pond. Building a community around those people is only smart.

Soooooooooo... have a Major League PA, and a Minor League PA?

I dunno. Starcraft 2 set things up that way, but it really just breaks down the group of skilled players into smaller categories. Helpful for not crushing the person making his first venture into the pvp world, but it still ignores the huge majority of players who play in their back yard.

Don't get me wrong, you still need things like the Major & Minor leagues, and they should be appropriately refereed and have sets of rules that you don't need for a pickup game, but we still need the equivalent of a global pond for people to play on.

Perhaps a Major League, Minor League, and a Calvin & Hobbes League?

It's simple enough to set up a ranking system, much like the ones in Zero K, FA, and even Starcraft 2. If players want to play those of their own skill level, the PA community looks like it will be large enough that this won't be an issue.

That said, if you go back to my original post in this thread, I pointed out that making a game conform to certain esports aspects, such as balance and fairness would not be an issue when it comes to casual play. In fact, the game will be less frustrating to casual players because they won't be affected by issues that come from imbalance.

Of the other two aspects, randomness is something that won't really be a big concern in PA, due to PA's scope of gameplay. (And the major random stuff, like planet/system generation would fall into the balance category anyway.)

And as for skill, I am of the opinion that physical skill should not be the focus of an intellectual game. Do chess players need to have quick reflexes and Schwarzenegger's body? Of course not. But they do need to be able to plan strategies, recognize patterns, and understand the nuances of the game.

The same goes for PA (or any RTS, really). A new player may not need to learn a bunch of physical skills to do well, but they will need to learn good strategy, recognize strategic patterns, etc. This is where mental skill comes in, and that's what PA's area of focus should be. To become a good player still requires dedication, which allows competition, but on the more casual level, the game remains accessible.

How is it possible to cater only to skilled players when all they want is a fair game?