If you have played overwatch you might have seen guides relating to positioning. These are usually quite generic – stay backline if you are support – stay at the front if you are a tank – stay behind shields – etc. For defence they may be a little more specific – defend from these locations, tanks stand here, supports stand here. But overall the game is no where near as dynamic as duel. In my experience (high diamond/low master) full holds occurred most often in overwatch when attackers were unable to push defenders off their setup “position”. This leads players to believe that this in itself is strong positioning when in reality the defending team never had to adjust their positioning because of deaths or good pushing – the initial setup was good, but beyond that their positioning was never “tested”. On the flip side defence often lost points when they failed to adjust after 1-2 deaths, continuing to play pushed up when they should be “positioned” back more.
In reality positioning is very dynamic and constantly changing and if a team full holds with little to no moving around their positioning might be good, but positioning also takes into accounts adjustments for “other things” happening, which does not occur much at all in the example.
If you were to simply copy their positioning in this situation and then lose two players and stay locked in those same locations – you would lose because you did not change your positions accordingly.
Calling Unreal Prime a “mod” is somewhat of a disservice – perhaps a better word is vision. Unreal Prime is the vision of ut4 that a group of community members have – and they are in general backed by the competitive community as well as players who are dissatisfied with Epics vision of the weapons. The general idea is to recapture our past loves on the new platform. Perhaps like a less hardcore CPMA for Unreal Tournament 4. Wail sums it up :
Unreal Prime is all about (re)capturing the best of every UT game, the fun, the skill, the innovation, and bringing it all together.
Initial setup includes changes and tweaks to the majority of the weapons, however talking to a few of the members other modifications (movement along with other aspects of the game) are not out of the question down the road. Wail has declined to provide damage numbers, which is somewhat irritating as weapon combinations and stack estimation is an important part of weapon selection. One key factor that will keep many players happy is faster weapon switching. All the weapons have tweaked visuals and modified skins, which differentiate them from the standard Unreal Tournament 4 weapons.
Shock Rifle (Sapphire Shock Rifle) – On the surface the shock appears roughly the same, albeit with different weapon effects. The key points to note here are changed damage values, rates of fire as well as a smaller combo radius. The changed damage values allow two shotting fresh spawns. Max ammo has also been bumped up to 50 (currently 32 in the Epic build) and the combo cost has been decreased to three ammo. Overall it feels fairly similar and allows closer, faster combos while also allowing users to shoot multiple cores and pick one to combo at close range, which is not really possible in the epic build. It also offers superior primary hitscanning – the vanila shock rifle is out DPSed by the enforcer.
Mini Gun (Something) – The Unreal Prime Minigun is a step away from the tradition of slow/fast similar firemode weapon. With his changes Wail has managed to include a high/low rate of fire weapon along with a load up/ super high rate of fire projectile weapon. Primary fire works the way one would expect – a wind up, high rate of fire weapon that deals low damage per shot and gives reasonable accuracy to medium range. Secondry fire steps away from the traditional ut alternative mini and instead loads shots into the barrel – which can be held for a period of time and then released at a very high rate of fire. These shots are fast moving projectiles and are messaged by a series of pips below the crosshair. Finally the primary firemode can be put into overdrive, by holding down secondary. This causes the mini to shoot even faster, with more spread. This tertiary fire mode is particularly suitable for close range combat as its spread renders it inaccurate at longer ranges.
Link Gun (Repulsor) – At first glance Wails Link Gun gun appears very similar to the Epic implementation. It sports a shaft with limited range and it a high rate of fire projectile. Both these firemodes have been tweaked, the projectile mode is less effective than its Epic counterpart, putting it firmly back in the shitbucket, similar to most high ROF projectile weapons (past UT titles link/pulse, Quakes plasma/nail guns). Primary feels stronger, possibly due to higher tick on the damage or possibly because the other weapons are generally weaker overall. To many players it will seem about the same. However Wail has added a combo move that can be used for short range shotgun type damage and also for boost movement. Finally the secondary projectile fire mode can be used for wall climbing, similar to the plasma gun in Quake Live. The pull mechanic from base UT4 has been removed.
Rocket Launcher (Trident Rocket Launcher) – The Unreal Prime rocket launcher is a shout out to the Unreal Tournament 2003/4 rockets with a subtle aftertaste of the earlier titles grenades. Three simultaneous rockets are available in both spread and group fire modes. Accessed in the same way as previous titles (alt fire during loading) the different fire patterns are messaged to the user via a triangle around the crosshair. Grenades are also available and loadable to three and they all shoot at the same time.
Flak (Rebel Flak Canon) – Flak has the least changes usage wise and mainly has much toned down stats, damage, shard collision reduced and range on secondary reduced. The secondary range reduction sounds like a nerf but it opens up more up and over type shots that were previously not possible.
Sniper Rifle (Saint Sniper Rifle) – Like the Flak the Unreal Prime sniper is a tweaked version of the base UT4 weapon. It also features an ambient hum similar to the Quake Live rail gun while also having an audible weapon switch noise played for other users nearby.
Overall reception of the weapons has been good and due to community feedback Wail is planning on further tweaking his babies. Nice work!
Mysterial
2) This is the only gametype that is flat out unplayable with too many players. You put 16 people in a small CTF map and it becomes a brainless spamfest, but you still get to jump around and blow people up with a variety of weapons. The good players still somehow manage to win most of the time. And there have been enough full 32 player servers over the years to know there’s a segment of the population that actually prefers it that way. But you put even 8 players in Showdown on most maps and the game is broken; half the players get to play with the Enforcer while everybody else has weapon(s). It’s not even close to fun. I think it’s good that 3v3 is the optimal player count, but it needs to at least be functional with more. If everybody just gets the closest weapon, then at least they’ve all got something to work with.
It’s infinitely more playable than 5v5 tdm unless teams are very balanced and players play “properly”(or more than 5. or even 4v4 on smaller maps with less than a full weapon load out) with weaponstay off. At the very least in TSD most players will get weapons every round and one team will never get locked out heavily. You are also exaggerating “half the players” as even on small maps with one spawn of each gun there are 7 weapons. This is not to say seven players will get all weapons right off the bat, but four players getting all seems a bit of a stretch – and even if two players on each team get all the guns there are enough with dropweapon for everyone barring one player to have something. The belt/jacket/amp should be regarded in a similar way to a “weapon” and when these are added in there are 9-10 “items” to go for – more if one counts boots.
Dropping weapons and playing together in this way is something that should evolve – just because players are not doing it does not mean the gametype is broken. Perhaps from a purely pub standpoint I agree with your statement – cramped spammy messy 16player ctf has more appeal to the general populace than showdown. But having 7 weapons does not necessarily break TSD at a more competitive level. I know quake gets little love around here but quakeworld TDM maps are very weapon light, to the point one map has a single weapon (rocket launcher) and in general players use their spawn shotguns. It takes ~2 minutes for a team to obtain four rocket launchers.
Maybe the enforcer player could be considered the games equivalent of a hard carry without the eventual payoffs. Or an eco round.
One concession that needs to be made is that the enforcer does not have enough ammo to roll with the bigger guns. To alleviate this perhaps players without gun pickups could be bumped to 100ammo (or something) when there are no longer weapons on the map. Or the inverse, everyone starts with more enforcer ammo which is dropped to 20 when they pickup a weapon. OR players pinyata enforcer ammo on death. However even in 4v4 with only seven spawns it could be said that good teamwork overcomes the ammo problem – the enforcer player uses their ammo, communicates with their team mate who drops a weapon and uses their enforcer. Rinse and repeat for 120 bullets.
On top of this the gametype has not had time to mature – one obvious direction is sharing weapons based on ammo pickups. In this way a player can pickup the rocket launcher and one ammo pack, and a team mate can pickup another two ammo packs elsewhere. The first player can use the weapon down to one rocket then pass it off to their team mate who has ammo. This extends firepower significantly. As rawlph highlights voice for teams is really needed for this level of coordination.
It could almost be said that at one end of the spectrum we have 16 player small ctf, that works on pub but will never work competitively and at the other 4v4 TSD on ASDF sized maps – which would generally be unenjoyable for pub players but would “work” with organised teams.
Mirrored ut weapon spawns are not entirely bad. Some examples.
Tuba shock spawns – Previously there were two spawns, one on each side of the shock tower (no longer exists). This could allow one player to take boots and one to take shock. The player taking boots has 2x health packs to use vs the player who gets the shock. The problem here is potentially ammo for the enforcer player if they want to engage, however with boots they can opt to go to the tower for rifle/amp straight away. In 2v2 this trades some of the boots spawn health (assuming the shock player hits them) for positional advantage (boots) they can potentially use to get the sniper and amp.
Having said that the other mirrored spawns on tuba (bio and pulse specifically) are horribly bad for two teams to spawn at.
ASDF rocket spawns – Enemy picks rocket spawn farther from lift. Teammate picks pulse. Enemy team has the mini/belt spawn, your team has a player at bio for jacket. You pick the other rocket spawn closer to the lift. By moving straight onto the lift you can control where the rocket player is likely to go, deny shock via lift as well as bring two players (yourself with enforcer + team mate with link) to bear on the rocket player in short order. The rocket player has few options, none of which give quick access to any important pickups. The bio player can push onto the shock quickly.
Obviously there are ways around this, hammering straight to shock is the obvious example but this slows down the rocket player unless they specifically decided to do it off spawn.
Another point for the mirrored spawns – they allow closer grouping of team spawns. This way two players could spawn in close proximity and then play aggressively together quickly, even though one only has an enforcer. This would be later a later stage spawn picking type thing, if an enemy player is obviously somewhat cut off from the rest of their team stacking your last player near them to assist quickly killing them might be beneficial.
Lag spawn in – Rather than starting the game instantly how about putting players on their spots for the count downs? Might not help.
I’d also agree whole heatedly about impact/rocket jumps. If anything these are even more important early round if one wants to secure early resources. With 200 starting health they are much less risky as you never put yourself near death with piston and early round when you are pushing. One example I would pick is ASDF rocket spawn – hammering to shock (provided the other player did not pick the shock spawn) is faster than taking the traditional lift jump.
Looking at just DPS does not tell the whole story when discussing ut4 weapons. What I have below does not either, but I feel it adds to the discussion. This is a break down of how many shots are required (ignoring RNG headshots) to kill a player at different armor levels with the rifle. Obviously this ignores vials and keg, however for illustration purposes it is sufficient. I put it together expecting uproar over the sniper nerf and wanted to illustrate that it does not change as much as one would think. 67 included because I was interested in the difference to ut99. It was intended to show the difference between builds not between the shock and rifle.
Personally I like the number of hits to change stack more interesting than straight up DPS and kill time.
Interpret it as you like.
Update 19.02.2016 – With less offical Epic streams Zacc has been hosting a community talkback show. It is fun.
In the latest episode there is quite a bit of talk about the sniper changes this build. For the uninitiated the rate of fire was lowered (longer wait between shots) and the damage was lowered from 70 to 60. All three players involved have good points, one of which is the rifle being made more like the rail in quakelive. The point the commentators like about the ql rail is how it can be whipped out quickly to deal some fast damage.
This is interesting in ql as it allows either finishing shots or quick damage where the rail is required at close range (eg enemy falling away off a ledge, switch to rail and ping) without the caveat of having it equipped all the time and the guys think this is good. It extends the use of the rail beyond a long range only weapon, giving it some viable, if niche, close(r) range uses. However the differences end here. There is a main reason the rail is not optimal at close range in ql is because of the long reload/switch off time. For close finishing shots the “risk” is the reload/switch off time. If you do not estimate stack and hit the rail without a kill you are left extremely vulnerable. The ql switch works like this. Putdown/bring up, like ut as well as the full reload of the weapon. This means the rail has a switch off time of around 2000ms (1500 of which is reload time). Two seconds. This is an exceptionally long time and allows heavy punishment for missed shots or incorrectly estimated stack (hit but player does not die) at close range. The alternative is for the rail player to flee, which is quite often the case, giving up position to avoid damage/death. imo this long delay is one of the best ways to balance a long range weapon at close range.
This is why the rail works well the way it does. It offers long range, “free” damage. It offers close range encounter specific damage. While the DPS has been nerfed over the years via damage downgrades this is not really an interesting way to balance compared to other mechanics, it also removes the potential for risky shots on low health estimated players. What is more interesting, a rail/sniper that is nerfed through the floor damage wise so it simply cannot compete with a rocket launcher, or one that has the ability for that damage in some situations at a risk?
The final piece of the close range rail puzzle is the audible hum. This means at close range a player must either give their posistion away to their opponent via the hum or have a silent weapon out, resulting in a small delay and audio queue when switching to the rail from the silent weapon. This is quite subtle and simply adds to the layers – not really relevant to the current discussion but hopefully fills all the gaps for anyone reading this who has not played ql.
The problem with the ut4 sniper rifle is the refire is faster than the rail and when combined with switch time you end up with a weapon that is quite different to the rail. It currently lacks the quick follow up ability with shorter switch times of unfired ql weapons but it also lacks the long switch off after shooting delay, not really punishing a player heavily for using it in an incorrect situation. In its current incarnation if it was given the ability to quick switch for fast damage (as the guys in the video want) it would also need a longer switch off delay added, otherwise it would only receive the advantage of the rail but not the disadvantage.
The disadvantage is important, mainly because at higher level it leads to players giving up position when they miss an important shot. A player standing down on belt on asdf can use rifle at the opponent near the bounce pad as there is plenty of time to swap to something more appropriate should the bounce pad player choose to push in. However with a longer switch off delay this player would likely need to run back and use the jump pad. A similar situation would occur with a player at vials shooting to pulse. Should they miss (or not kill) their opponent they are required to +back while their rifle reloads for a second shot or switching away from. With the current reload/switch time this is not required to nearly the same degree.
Its entirely possible that the amount of delay for switch off is considered acceptable by epic – who knows as that is a fairly one way street.
In order to balance this I would also be in favor of higher base damage, up to 90 – with 100 for a head shot. This gives RNG one shots to fresh spawns, which is essentially what the current weapon does anyway. No armor levels are one shots. The higher base damage may be required in order to balance out the longer switch off time. If the damage is too low and the switch off time is not worth risking ever what is the point to the change? Of course this can always be dialed back should it appear too abusive.
A long, long time ago, I can still remember how the shockwhores used to make scrubs cry..
Previous Unreal Tournament Australia community sites included OzUnreal (of OzForces ISP fame), oceaniaut and gibblets for instagib..
Unreal Tournament New Zealand community sites included Jetstream Games, Skankyflat and Paradise.
UNLOCK NEW ITEMS With the opening of this new season, you’ll earn in-game rewards as you hone your skills in Basic Training, compete online in official Epic hubs, and complete offline challenges. These rewards are only available until the conclusion of the Pre-Alpha season in late October, so you’ll be able to look back and show everyone that you were here when it all started.
Unlock items are available via three methods. Progression, which is multiplayer. Challenges, which are predetermined secnarios vs bots setup by epic (eg 5v1 CTF) and Training. Overall the unlocks are intended
Zaccubus is posting new demo analysis videos. I am not a fan of these super in depth stop/start demo analysis for any game since players do not have time to think such in depth thoughts during play, and hindsight reveals everything. They tend to make the commentators look very clever. A better alternative is demo analysis of good players, outlining why they do specific things.
In general the video says what it needs to and probably teaches many players something, but there are some glaring points that should be addressed. The highlights, for me, are when zacc points out specific times to be aggressive, push for kills and most importantly, the why.
First spawn options
Videos opening is disappointing, calling two spawns similar when one is significantly better. Lucky for the viewers zoh makes the right choice.
Rocket spawn options: Rocket -> Lift to shock (potentially flak) | Rocket -> lift to pulse + vials + sniper. Mini/bio are not choices as they take too long and give up too much.
Bio spawn options: Bio -> Shock | ignore bio -> shock | Ignore both -> bounce pad to rifle -> vials + pulse or flak.
The rocket spawn is better. A player picking the bio spawn specifically to go for shock runs the risk of their opponent spawning at rocket then taking the lift dodge to shock. They are then contesting shock with an enforcer, or best case getting to shock ahead of the rocket player then taking a close range fight vs rockets with shock. Neither is ideal. Not 100% sure if the flak spawn can get to shock in time but that is another consideration. There is a spawn near pulse that would also allow killing of the player coming from bio to shock.
Spawning bio then ignoring shock and taking the bounce pad to rifle is potentially dangerous. Can you hear the flak pickup from the bio spawn area? If you cannot you might end up going lift into a flak shell OR the player at flak hears you, opts to go shock -> rockets, leaving you with rifle, pulse, vials and maybe mini for the first jacket spawn. This could work, depending on your play style. There are also spawns near mini that have fast access to shock. Potentially these spawns suffer from the same problem if you opt to simply bum rush shock. However if one player does this from bio and the other from the mini spawns, someone will likely die. Bit of a dice roll.
The spawn that can generally go safely to shock first is the one on the bridge above rockets.
Bio is a low % spawn choice to get a preferred weapon. You run the risk of not getting items you need or running into a player with your pants down. Looking at potential starting spawns can open up early opportunities. At the very least you can walk away with a decent group of weapons for opening encounters.
First Spawn (Video 1:50 / Game clock 9:45)
There are two possible weapons left on the map after this kill. The pulse and mini. Fjaru was headed towards pulse so assume that is gone. The rocket spawn is around 2 seconds closer* to the mini (using the lift near belt) compared to the flak spawn, so picking this was not entirely wrong. The rocket spawn is probably a better choice of the two, however putting a small delay before selecting the spawn would possibly have avoided death here – there is nothing else at rockets for fjaru to get so he has no reason to drop down. Pausing on the spawn increases the likelyness of him going to flak, or in the very least away from rockets, to look for you.
*A gut feeling rocket was closer while writing but had to test this in game.
The main problem at this point which is not addressed by zacc is that the only weapon still up once fjaru takes pulse after the first kill is mini. There is ample time (15 seconds) for fjaru to go to the mini before jacket instead of attacking down to rockets. This would have left zoh with nothing to contest jacket spawn. Except bio, if he can even get it. This is not to say that this is a mistake on fjarus part but more to point out the potential problem for zoh. Fjaru playing slightly less aggressively would have yielded even worse results for zoh. For example fjaru has a decent idea where zohs initial spawn was due to the shock pickup that would have been heard 100% near sniper/flak.
At this point in the game keeping track of what weapons are up is relatively simple. You know what you have and how much time has elapsed. Nothing has respawned yet.
Ignoring spawn choices the question could be asked if zoh made the correct move off the rocket spawn he picked. If we want to look at “mistakes” this is surely one – rather than going to lift he up to mini he makes a bee line for the belt. Rewinding even further you could say he makes the mistake straight off spawn when fjaru is above him / drops down. Rather than going left he potentially could have gone right, up the lift. There is a good chance he would have died anyway, however because fjaru drops it is the “best” avenue of escape available. Also using hammer alt while trying to escape..
Second Spawn (Video: 2:15 / Game clock 9:38)
Clicking in straight away here is portrayed as a bad thing by zacc. Zoh took the only spawn with a weapon left, assuming fjaru went and got the mini after killing zoh near belt – reasonable assumption. This was the only way to have a weapon for the upcoming jacket spawn.
I think hanging around was a mistake – we know the rl is spawning shortly after the armors as zoh started here, so getting bio, going down to rl for pads + rockets then potentially shock -> flak+helmet is probably the way to go here. This is the fastest known way to get back into weapons. We know fjaru has rifle and flak, however the flak spawn is potentially further away from the flak than the rocket spawn that zoh started on.
What – Gameclock 7:09 to next spawn
Fjaru did not deny the jacket because when he was taking the shock (and potentially checking the jacket spot) it was not up. It spawned at :39. There was a good chance fjaru did not have the pickup time as he was near/using mini jump-pad when zoh picked it up at 7:09. Sure, he should be playing with it in mind, even without a time, but this is all rather razor close for someone who does not know the spawn time. Fjaru picked up the shock, if he checked the jacket visually here it would not be there – going to pads the way he does is a good option. He may have also healed up, as he came from the low passage at rl.
Out of control 3:34 Game clock
zoh is not out of control. He took the last jacket – fjaru was likely at belt so does not have timing on it. In/out of Control get thrown around too freely in ut. Control is when a player has belt and jacket timing (or control) and their opponent has neither. If a player has belt, gives up multiple jacket spawns in a row and the next belt, yet manages to loose no armor their opponent is not really in control. They have no stack advantage.
I disagree with having more shots here. Fjaru has belt, zoh is 86/76. In order to be in a condition for the next jacket pickup (or next belt) he should preserve the limited stack he has. Playing safe like this and avoiding damage is good, especially when the player has a lead. Obviously he did not contest the next jacket pickup.. but he still has stack and missing the jacket was not as crucial as it would be if he had no armor.
The next pause when zoh ambushes fjaru at shock after jacket pickup has similar comments about control – as if landing the combo damage changes control. It removes fjarus stack but but does not automatically give zoh control. Control is achieved on the next set of armor spawns/pickups.
One last point here – this combo damage was quite low, fjaru took a direct rocket at the next belt fight and the belt glow did not disappear.
The last belt kill + fjaru suicide
Even before this point the game is won. Zoh can play defensively, take the next jacket while fjaru is at belt and waste the last minute. Unless this is a competition match I strongly believe that trying moves that are not ideal is not terrible. If zoh died and failed he has three frags to drag out off a fresh spawn, harder to practice than +backing with a decent stack and weapons.
Sir_Brizz: Yeah, for add stacking or in relation to the concept above of having “mini shield belts”, for example.
Lets call this slow stacking.
TLDR; It takes longer/is time consuming to build/maintain stack and makes out of control stacking to reduce stack differential via pickups rather than just damage an option. It restricts the in control players time, movement and opportunity to pressure the out of control player while giving them a way to stack to challenge the in control player.
It depends how the armor system is setup. To simplify pretend we transplant the ql stacking armor (only armor) with the current ut values, everything 30s spawn, max 200, belt becomes 60% (or whatever , no shards, no mega, nothing else. Obtain two pads and have 100 armor. Obtain 2 jackets and have 200 armor. Obtain a jacket and pads and have 150 armor. Obtain 4 pads for 200. Etc.
Slow stacking/non-binary duel is about time management. Control and stack comes at the cost of having time to push the out of control player and out of control costs more time to build a stack that can be used for a direct confrontation.
Player stacks and actions are controlled by time – in order to service a large stack and heavy denial a player should have little opportunity to pressure their opponent. At the same time the out of control player has freedom of movement at the expense of stack. This also ties to their aggression as a failed attack, even without dying costs them the next X period of restacking time.
In my opinion control should not mean one player has all resources and the other has none, which is typically how ut armor/duel works. Control should mean that a player has a resource advantage, at the expense of time and predictability. This resource advantage should not be permanent (provided items are collected) and by giving the out of control player a method of stacking that allows the resource difference (stack differential) to be equalised they have a method of contesting control that does not rely on execution – with ut damage this would always be an option anyway. The in control player must use the advantage in the window it takes out of control to stack to an amount in order to challenge them – the in control player must take the out of control players potential stack into account.
There are other repercussions – +forward is slightly more favorable before critical mass is reached as players take longer to stack. There are more opportunities to control players stack when contesting pickups. This means if three items are run by the in control player, the out of control player can apply some damage at each pickup, negating the pickup the player is currently taking. It has a potential to introduce a “balanced” state where players trade damage and pickups for longer periods than with the current setup, even after one dies.
To highlight the difference using the current ut4 duel – if a player has control (jacket + belt) they can ignore the pads. They are a one time boost to the out of control player that is small compared to belt, they can still be one shot with current damage values. If pads stacked the in control player has to make a choice – spend more time denying the pads or deal with the other player having 100+ armor at some point in the future 30-60 seconds. This is actually why this change alone would not fix duel – in control player would just move pads higher up their priority list and take three items instead. Some claim that this is required currently, some not, however allowing stacking would make it a serious consideration.
The easiest way to balance duel is by looking at it as time management which can be spent on different aspects. This change is more about providing options to out of control.
Watch the first map in the video below. See how Dahang ends up with heavy control yet cannot push onto Cyhper, in large part because doing so would allow items to spawn which he could potentially miss. Notice that while Cypher is under pressure it is not the same as +forward pressure you might expect and he has a decent amount of freedom to move around.
Takes duel and flips it on its head. Where in duel its about controlling various objects in the world as they spawn, here all objects spawn, everything is live in the world. Including powerups and you can only pick things up once.
As a fan of hoonymode and FPS that lack resources this gametype struck a chord. Round based gametypes are probably more palatable for many gamers these days but keeping the game item driven is awesome. It was interesting seeing it on stream and hope it becomes the staple for non-flag/objective type game.
Thoughts after playing some and watching some.
Showdown Pros
Showdown Cons
The defensive aspect could possibly be addressed using smaller maps for 1v1 – something like Rocket Arena 1v1 arenas. However with the current map options it turns into a huge +back fest if anyone takes it seriously.
Please add a team option (or even ffa) as I think showdown would shine even more in this format. 4v4 on the 1v1 maps would probably be ok. Possibly with team spawning on one point rather than all over the map, with the same spawn selection. Allows teams to do things like “2 go belt, X grab flak and go sniper, Y go to pads scout for them…”. Pinata or backpack drops may be required – or not, perhaps swapping off weapons to not give them to the other team is interesting.
Here are some comments from the stream where showdown was introduced. These are not 100% word for word as I was in a rush transposing. I feel most of these apply to current duel or duel could be made to have these features without massive changes.
Ties and Player Interaction.
+back play is/will be a problem. There is little reason to push the opponent after pickups.
Currently the winner is decided by remaining health. This benefits the player who gets pickups more than their opponent and forces the less stacked player to be offensive. Having the weaker player attack is not ideal in a game that is already skewed towards the defensive. Rather than this my suggestion would be to tie break based on damage given. This decouples the outcome from pickups and +backing onto health cannot win a game – that would be somewhat lame. A last second attack to deal a more damage to push over the line would be more showy.
With this in mind a “player is in the lead” indicator (1 or 0, not damage dealt) should be added to the hud for the current round. This way stack estimation is not required and players know exactly what is going on while keeping estimation important when pushing to kill.
This also has other ramifications – one player is essentially assigned offense and one defence, but this will switch during the course of a round. Randomly assign first round, then from round two onwards the “advantage” is given to the player that lost the previous round, the assumption being that the lower skilled player lost. Or it could alternate – but the idea is that someone always has the “advantage”.
Even if a player has less stack they have the option to go offensive, deal some damage and then make the higher stacked opponent come to them. This could create some dynamic situations where the leader swaps and strat change as the round progresses.
Finally change ties to +1 point and kills to +3 points. This also pushes the player who perceives themselves to have an advantage to be aggressive rather than being defensive due to greater rewards.
It would be hard to say if this would fix the overall defensive nature of the game but it would be a step in the right direction.
Overall a good start!
Some quotes from Epic stream
Make bee line to things you can make plays with, things you can make stuff happen.
The mechanic is now rather than players fighting around two places in the map its more about figuring out what your critical path is from where you spawn and how to defend after that.
Its also about conservation of ammo, conservation of health
One of the things I like about it is that it makes the game feel closer with players that are much better. Lowers humiliation factor. Getting destroyed makes me not want to play.
What you often see where one guy gets ahead and its hard or impossible to dethrone him. Learn how your opponent is playing and “counteract” his opening sequence.
Implies duel is over once a player has control of belt and jacket.
Fun when you are playing with someone better than you, awesome playing someone about the same skill.
Not about two armors and how to fight over them. This is more about he spawned X and I need to go Y, how to do this, etc.
Archer6621: I like the sound of this, could have something like a coin-toss on who gets to pick the very first spawn (first round), and then in the second round it will be inverted, third round the other person will pick first, fourth round inverted again, and goes on like that until it’s over.
Round 1: Pick from map (only know your spawn)
Round 2: Invert spawns (both players now have 100% spawn knowledge).
Potential problem is both players selecting the same spawn. Random off to two nearby spawns?
Aggressive play relies on a degree of uncertainty which is in large part facilitated by not knowing your opponent’s location. This is potentially problematic when the gametype has a limited window for smart aggressive play (during item collection) after which the difficulty is increased. Knowing your opponents spawn removes element of surprise almost entirely. In addition some spawn mash ups – lower rocket vs upper rocket (corner near link) on ASDF for example would never occur. At this spawn the rocket players (probably) best move is to rocket -> lift dodge to shock, take shock. The upper spawn has less options, however this is one of few that can beat the rocket player to shock and escape. With the knowledge that the player is spawning above the rocket player can simply change the lift dodge into a hammer jump for faster movement at cost of health, deny shock then also deny flak. Obviously this is possible regardless of where the other player spawns, however it is a much more gambling move (spending health for uncertain out come) rather than almost foregone conclusion.
Perhaps a less confusing option would be to give players the option for the game to “pick for me” rather than pick from the map. So you have the benefit of stealth but you cannot select where you start.
Numb:
The first wave is the “resource rush” wave. In this wave, if players spawn far from each other, they will rush to first get a powerful weapon followed by the best armor in their area, or vice versa depending on what is closer. Any immediate altercation is going to more than likely be defensive. Players are rushing for resources and if they happen to see the enemy while doing so they may only throw a few shots and leave to keep on collecting.
The second wave is the “aggression” wave. Here is the most exciting* spectator part of the match. Both players are stacked with armor/health and their assortment of weapons.[/QUOTE]
Nice overview in general. I disagree with where the aggression phase starts however. Once players have their pickups there is no incentive to push each other, outside of guessing stack. Aggression from a logical stand point occurs as soon as a player has a weapon. The viability of this varies between maps of course, ASDF is pretty small and possible well on but maybe solo not so much due to being more spread out.
With the current spawn setup reading where your opponent starts and attempting fast damage with what you have available is much more exciting (compared to your example, which is also exciting but has less riding on executing it well) than waiting and has potentially bigger pay offs – killing before armor pickups, driving off armor pickups, denying weapons, damaging them then forcing them to spend time going for health rather than weapons early. This last point has further repercussions as your opponent now has no fall back point if you play between him and other health resources as the round progresses.
Think of it like denial in duel when a player has control, except you need to deny things quickly off spawn. And you can contest anything as having an extra weapon is huge.
Players have a limited window for playing aggressively using items as the main way of doing so (he is going for X, I will shoot him)/reason to do so (I’m going to stop him taking it or I want it) is the initial item pick ups. Compared to regular duel there is more urgency to obtain resources since you cannot wait out the respawns for weapons you failed to get initially.
If you play it as you would “normal” duel with armor spawning (collect items, +back to avoid being killed early, stack up for next spawns) you potentially put yourself on the back foot for the defensive phase. Having an extra weapon pickup is a fairly big deal when the game progresses to the +back stage. If your opponent runs out of ammo before you do. And because of 200 health another valid option is to ignore the armors and push for more weapons.
For example, if you spawn at lower rockets on ASDF an option other than rockets -> Armor/Belt would be rockets -> hammer to shock (if they did not spawn directly above you near the shock ammo) then listen for flak or helmet pickup. Depending on their spawn you then have the option to deny flak. At no point have you been near either armors.
The belt is significantly better than the jacket+pads, purely because (ignoring the map) it takes less time to obtain the same benefit, freeing up the belt player to do more. Also belt can deny pads.
Sure, if you are playing for fun or just to play the aggressive phase probably occurs after most pickups. Not to say that you have to play aggressively at the start, of course players can play the way you have described as well, going for pickups, then fighting.
Mysterial: Another option that has been discussed is to change the scoring so that wins by kill are 3 points and wins by timelimit are 2 and 1, so there’s more reward attached to being offensive… but I’m skeptical that would have a substantial impact
Players knowing they have an advantage (stack or weapons) would be key for this to work. It essentially makes one player the “control point” other posters are keen to implement. The current setup of “highest stack wins” is asking players to read damage output exceptionally well. This is probably one of the highest level skills. Please add an indicator – perhaps update it every ~10? Or 5 seconds after last damage dealt. Delay to avoid it swapping back and forth and allowing players to back off as soon as they take the lead.
Perhaps stopping healing over 100 using normal health packs would also help. Unless heavy damage is landed players tend to go to 200, to close to, twice per round. Is much more dangerous backing off to heal with sub 50 health compared to doing it at 150.
luauDesign: Anyway, something else:if rounds ends and noone is dead, why not just respawn [B]everything[/B] at once as the countdown reaches zero (you don’t even have to “time” things)? In that case, up the score-worth of the round cumulatively. Noone got the +1 from the round? Respawn everything, and now the round is worth +2. Noone dies yet? Respawn everything, and now it’s worth +3… +4… (there’s a bit of a similarity with betrayal gametype here, for those who didn’t notice) This whole thing would work better with 1min rounds, this way there’s less down time.
+1 This is a nice idea, it keeps the game item driven while removing the “annoying timing” aspect duel gets hammered for. Could allow interesting setups where players try to get additional items they missed the first time round. However this would need to be combined with no normal health packs over 100. Also maybe no ammo respawns?
Good non-ut game content. It would be awesome to link ut content but it does not exist. So use the below to get your imagination going for ut.
QW TDM playlist. Guides discussing in/out of control, map strong points and other interesting concepts.
QW 4v4 analysis playlist. Breakdown/overviews of official games