Tournament Ruleset Ideas

[Pusha]

Okay, so first off: We shouldn't be choosing only one gametype. That's silly. So far splat zones and turf war both seem to have competitive viability. Some maps are better for some gametypes, but both are competitively viable.

Then, counting percentage is bad for many reasons. First off it only works for turf wars, which right off the bat should be a deal breaker. Second, It depends on the map. Some maps might be more prone to close games then others. A map like Saltspray Rig could easily lead to wider score margins because the top portion of the map has one route of access and accounts for such a large portion of the map. So if you control that part of the map you basically win, and not by just fractions of a percent. Other maps might be more prone to very close games, like Port Mackerel, 2 evenly matched teams would probably end up being very close due to the linear design of the map, it's more of a joust and whoever gains the most turf in the mid section will win (keep in mind these scenarios are imagining 2 evenly match competitive teams). So what if you win a game by 12% then lose 3 by 0.5%? That means you lost 3 games because you couldn't clutch it out. There's no sense in throwing out an entire gametype just to apply a ruleset that doesn't really work well for the genre.

 

[ShneeOscar]

Okay, so first off: We shouldn't be choosing only one gametype. That's silly. So far splat zones and turf war both seem to have competitive viability. Some maps are better for some gametypes, but both are competitively viable.

Then, counting percentage is bad for many reasons. First off it only works for turf wars, which right off the bat should be a deal breaker. Second, It depends on the map. Some maps might be more prone to close games then others. A map like Saltspray Rig could easily lead to wider score margins because the top portion of the map has one route of access and accounts for such a large portion of the map. So if you control that part of the map you basically win, and not by just fractions of a percent. Other maps might be more prone to very close games, like Port Mackerel, 2 evenly matched teams would probably end up being very close due to the linear design of the map, it's more of a joust and whoever gains the most turf in the mid section will win (keep in mind these scenarios are imagining 2 evenly match competitive teams). So what if you win a game by 12% then lose 3 by 0.5%? That means you lost 3 games because you couldn't clutch it out. There's no sense in throwing out an entire gametype just to apply a ruleset that doesn't really work well for the genre.

Fair point. Best of X us probably better.

 

[Pusha]

Do you seriously need to be explained why fighting games have to use Bo3? Splatoon is not the average "esport" game. And this is not Mario Kart that uses this system, imagine if in a soccer game a team won by 4 goals first round and during the second round they lost by 1, do you think a tie is fair?

You're using an example that doesn't really apply. In soccer, most cups use a 2 game series each round so each team plays one game at home. If both teams win one game each, the tie breaker is goal differential. If they share an even goal differential then the tie breaker is away goals. If they have an even number of away goals then they play extra time and a shootout. That is only in the event of a tie. In a best of ___ series there are no ties.

 

[Wobz]

This.
THIS is the answer.

I agree people are too stuck on smash rulesets to open the box it seems like.

If we do that it will be a bit weird because If you win say 4 matches out of 6 you can still lose
I'm not comparing splatoon to smash, rather I am looking at splatoon as splatoon and I think a team that wins a match deserves a secure victory, and in my opinion I believe a bo5 or bo7 set is the way to go

 

[TheRapture]

Why would you ever do it by percentage?

A series should be a Best of X (3, 5, 7, whatever), utilizing both gametypes and as many maps and weapons that allow the environment to remain competitive.

As I said, y'all overcomplicating this.

 

[Wobz]

we should give this game time before we decide on anything
The only thing I see is best of X
Otherwise, I'm still learning the game and I have an open mind
We 2 months guys, don't stress it

 

[ShneeOscar]

Why would you ever do it by percentage?

A series should be a Best of X (3, 5, 7, whatever), utilizing both gametypes and as many maps and weapons that allow the environment to remain competitive.

As I said, y'all overcomplicating this.

I said you've convinced me that best of x is better.

 

[Chris]

You're using an example that doesn't really apply. In soccer, most cups use a 2 game series each round so each team plays one game at home. If both teams win one game each, the tie breaker is goal differential. If they share an even goal differential then the tie breaker is away goals. If they have an even number of away goals then they play extra time and a shootout. That is only in the event of a tie. In a best of ___ series there are no ties.

Ye, my example kind of sucked. Golf, baseball whatever there are many games that do this

Why would you ever do it by percentage?

A series should be a Best of X (3, 5, 7, whatever), utilizing both gametypes and as many maps and weapons that allow the environment to remain competitive.

As I said, y'all overcomplicating this.

As I said before if we decide to this with different game modes then a BoX is pretty much the only choice, but as someone who really doesn't like Splat Zones (which I do realise is biased) I think a percentage turf war is the best.

Okay, so first off: We shouldn't be choosing only one gametype. That's silly. So far splat zones and turf war both seem to have competitive viability. Some maps are better for some gametypes, but both are competitively viable.

Well, bring Smash back up you don't see people playing Coin or Stamina mode. I'm just saying for right now as I see it, who knows what the other modes will play like

Then, counting percentage is bad for many reasons. First off it only works for turf wars, which right off the bat should be a deal breaker. Second, It depends on the map. Some maps might be more prone to close games then others. A map like Saltspray Rig could easily lead to wider score margins because the top portion of the map has one route of access and accounts for such a large portion of the map. So if you control that part of the map you basically win, and not by just fractions of a percent. Other maps might be more prone to very close games, like Port Mackerel, 2 evenly matched teams would probably end up being very close due to the linear design of the map, it's more of a joust and whoever gains the most turf in the mid section will win (keep in mind these scenarios are imagining 2 evenly match competitive teams). So what if you win a game by 12% then lose 3 by 0.5%? That means you lost 3 games because you couldn't clutch it out. There's no sense in throwing out an entire gametype just to apply a ruleset that doesn't really work well for the genre.

I've seen blow outs and very close games in every map, so you can't really judge this until the 4v4 comes out

 

[TheRapture]

As I said before if we decide to this with different game modes then a BoX is pretty much the only choice, but as someone who really doesn't like Splat Zones (which I do realise is biased) I think a percentage turf war is the best.

I think it's fair to consider that multiple gametypes will be used, not just Turf War. I mean, we even have Tower Control on the way. I don't see why we'd go with only one mode (which also makes the game less diverse to play and watch).

 

[swifT]

So the main debates seem to be:
I personally think that limiting it to of of each weapon per team. would work. You can still have like the .52 gallon and the .52 Gallon Deco on a team, just no two Decos. Maybe limit it to one roller and one charger.

Limiting multiples of weapons should not be an option in my opinion. For every team comp there will be sacrifices especially if people decide to use all of one thing. At a higher level of play, and once party play is released, I feel like there will be a lot diverse compositions that include more weapons and more abilities. Especially when thinking about what things people currently consider strong.

As many people have said already percentage based Turf War mode certainly does not seem like an option. I dont feel like it will add anymore to the game or make it any more interesting. Best of X should be played especially since we would like to use multiple game modes. And frankly even if we didnt use multiple game modes and just turf war percentage imo is still not an option.

 

[Chris]

I think it's fair to consider that multiple gametypes will be used, not just Turf War. I mean, we even have Tower Control on the way. I don't see why we'd go with only one mode (which also makes the game less diverse to play and watch).

I do agree that more gameplay modes will make it better, my little campaign for percentage turf war was only for "turf war only mode" (which I knew was a sinking ship from the start)

Of course this all doesn't even matter, if Nintendo gives us a "Tournament mode" everyone will use those rules anyway.

I'd like to discuss the topics of disconnects though, what happens should a team member dc, the other team just loses the round? Of course it's not an auto lose, but come on doing a 3v4 in this game is not a thing

 

[TheRapture]

I do agree that more gameplay modes will make it better, my little campaign for percentage turf war was only for "turf war only mode" (which I knew was a sinking ship from the start)

Of course this all doesn't even matter, if Nintendo gives us a "Tournament mode" everyone will use those rules anyway.

I'd like to discuss the topics of disconnects though, what happens should a team member dc, the other team just loses the round? Of course it's not an auto lose, but come on doing a 3v4 in this game is not a thing

I'd say a DC should lead to a game rematch, but this is always a hard issue. Can't always help DCs.

 

[Chris]

I'd say a DC should lead to a game rematch, but this is always a hard issue. Can't always help DCs.

For the first at least 15 seconds if a player dcs then it should lead to a restrat, however if someone dcs half way through the match then it's kinda sol.

I've seen many disconnects and have been disconnected a fair amount too so I'm decently worried about this.

 

[Vexen]

Yeah, and Smash was designed to be anti-competitive and played with 4 players & items on. What's your point?

The point is, turf wars isn't meant to be about kills being important, they're nice to get but only when it allows you to gain territory for your team or prevent the enemy from getting a chunk of your teams territory. Adding weight to kills would basically tell nintendo "we like your rules and all but we want kills to matter more than you want them to."
Oh and just so you know, if Nintendo really cared about how smash is played then they wouldn't give people the option to turn off items or give it a time limit and add stocks to it as well ;). And they most certainly would have shut down competitive smash a long time ago if they felt that the community was destroying the core values of what smash was meant to be about. As far as I know, there is not a single way possible to turn off the main functionality of turfwars and add weight to kills.

Nope, because Splat Zones has a comeback mechanic that increases the amount of time the opposing team has to go through before getting a knockout. This makes it to where comebacks require legitimate skill & strategy as opposed to largely luck (Turf War), which makes them actually rewarding -- and they're not super hard to pull off like you're making them out to be; they just require careful planning and, yes, kills. For example, I recently played a game where my team came back from the opponent team only having 1 mark left before a knockout (I say "mark" because the knockout timers don't count down by seconds, but, in fact, faster), and we had something like 63 marks plus whatever was added on from them previously taking control over us. I've also had similar events happen with the other team.

How often do you see a team comeback in splatzone compared to turfwars though? 1 out of 5? 10? How the hell does turf war require luck to come back exactly? Their is no luck in turfwars, you claim territory and every so often kill an enemy or use the special or the sub. That is the exact opposite of luck. If you want to claim that winning or losing a 1v1 is luck and not skill then we're done here as there is no point in arguing with someone that doesn't know how to properly decide when or when not to engage an enemy and know how much damage they can take and how much damage they can deal in return or how to move around without getting hit while killing them. The only way you can say turfwar is luck is getting your inkstrike off at the last second in the enemy territory to win the game. Which btw isn't really luck, he was just able to charge his special up in time to launch it before the time ran out ;)

Do you seriously need to be explained why fighting games have to use Bo3? Splatoon is not the average "esport" game. And this is not Mario Kart that uses this system, imagine if in a soccer game a team won by 4 goals first round and during the second round they lost by 1, do you think a tie is fair?

No I do not need to be told why fighting games use Bo3, I know perfectly damn well why they do. Just because splatoon is not the "average" esport, it doesn't mean we cant use a tried and true method for tournaments. And again, what does mariokart have to do with using % vs best of ___s? Competitive MarioKart is extremely small. Also about the whole soccer thing is, they only use the 1 and 1 set during tournaments like Champions league so again this shouldn't apply at all to what is being discussed because the way Champions works and they way we're talking about going with.

Splatoon in no way shape or form is becoming an esport, end of story.

Again, How can you say it won't happen not even a week after the game is launched that something won't happen when it hasn't had a chance to happen? I bet nobody at Nintendo thought smash was going to become an "esport" or that pokemon video game would become an esport, but guess what? Both became esports, why can't splatoon follow suit?

You add up the points, you know, 15+8=23. I honestly think people don't want this ruleset because they're too lazy or afraid of the horrible thing known as change

Its not about "being lazy" or "change." It's about as I have said before, using a ruleset that has been used for well over a decade. Do you really think games like CS:GO, CoD, Halo, Quake, etc. Would look at the players performance after each game and go "While team A 'won' the map, team B had more points so we're going to give them the match because through 2 games they scored more points in their win than team A did in theirs." No! Of course not, want to know why? It's insanely stupid to do! Players and fans would be furious that they lost on points because they scored less points in a win than their opponents did when they won.

Good thing Splatoon is such a traditional, conservative ol skull shooter amirite? And this is not "overcomplicating" the issue, using a calculator is not hard at all, it makes for a more balanced and less luck based game

Mariokart isn't a traditional racing game yet it follows the same basic ruleset as series like Nascar, Indycar, and Formula 1 where the driver at the end of the season with the most points wins the championship. And again, you clearly like to throw around words like balance and luck, yet I don't think you know what they mean. Balance means that no matter what both teams have a 50% chance of winning no matter how well or badly they do. Which is the complete opposite of what you want in points, because if you lose the first map you're immediately behind the 8 ball and have to score more points in the second map than they did to be able to win.


Anyways onto the point at hand with DC's I think that it should be the first 20 seconds should lead to a remake as it's still early in the game that there is no clear/distinct advantage for either team just yet. yes some players like to push extremely hard early into the middle/enemy side yet their base ends up lacking in territory covered, same as with players staying behind to cover their base as much as possible before pushing out. Anything after 20 seconds though both teams just play on. Which again leads to issues with going points over best of __ because if you have a dc in just in a loss you're going to have a severe point deficit if the Dc happens exactly at 21 seconds or later.

 

[Ultramus]

Alright now that that is out of the way, let's talk about the pros and cons of limiting loadouts. I do also realize that we aren't seeing yet 4v4 premade team compositions, however, once we do see premades, we are quickly going to see, as we see in all games with multiple loadouts, they will settle into certain tiers, my initial solo queue loadout tier list can be found here: http://www.reddit.com/r/splatoon/comments/380085/before_ranked_play_comes_out_my_tier_list_of/

I am all for freedom of compositions, however what we don't want to see, is literally an entire tournament of for instance 32 teams, with every match being a mirror with the same composition, for each map. There will exist a theoretical "Best setup" for each and every map, and having all teams utilizing the same setups will simply be boring for everyone involved, we have been given a unique and dynamic game to work with here, and we shouldn't spoil that by allowing it to fall victim the problems shooters generally fall into. I remember the intricate series of self-policing in allowed weapons the ghost recon scene had, or as I stated previously, ESL banning HotS heroes when they initially come out as they are almost always overpowered in the beginning to encourage people to spend gold on them. I digress, basically I would rather see teams have to work their strategy around the picks that they have available, and the picks that the enemy team selects themselves. This will result in, using our previous hypothetical best of 3, 3 unique matches with ideally different team compositions on either side. This also alleviates some of the issue with our current limited map pool, if we say have a finals that is a best of 9, assume that a team can pick a stage that has been played before earlier in the series(Non-consecutively) this will result in this instance, of getting say 2 Arowana Mall maps with 2 distinct compositions, instead of team A having won Team B's pick of Arowana using X composition, they subsequently repick Arowana and run the same setup. Having a draft system allows a team to attempt counterpicks to their opponents favorite weapon or composition. I repeat, restricting load outs with perhaps not even an outright draft, but even simply having some limitations on what can be stacked or disallowing duplicates will only encourage variety.

Allowing carte blanche compositions will allow more canned strategies and min/maxing the optimal build on a given map, that is what I like to call shallow. We want in a splatoon tournament, in my eyes, the team that can play splatoon, ALL GAMETYPES AND LOAD OUTS, better over a period of X matches, to win out. We do not want one team to turn up with some unorthodox strategy that takes everyone by surprise and wins a tournament without much struggle, if all of a sudden people roll in with a strategy or composition that ends up being overpowered, and they hid it until the tournament, that could happen, it despite something like that being fair game if we had no restrictions, it isn't particularly exciting for spectators and it is especially frustrating for players. For the scene to survive, and for every tournament goer to feel they have a fair shake at things, it is best if we always place restrictions on what's allowed. The death of an E-sports game is when you end up with teams or players that are winning every major tournament. The death knell of the North American Starcraft 2 scene happened when teams began buying up Korean progamers who had little personality and won a disproportionate amount of tournaments. People thought initially that spectators always want the highest level of competition and they will be satisfied with that, but that simply isn't true. Almost all professional team sports implement a salary cap to artificially force teams to be as close to each other in skill as possible. American Football does this to avoid having the teams with the most money buy up all the talent and subsequently dominate everyone else, the NFL quickly realized that was an unsustainable model.

To apply that to Splatoon, take the salary cap of the NFL and apply it to the weapons and load outs, we don't want to allow a bunch of really strong high tier picks and compositions to dominate every tournament. Variety is the spice of life, and it encourages players to be more versatile and less specialized, to me, that makes everything more interesting.

 

[Vexen]

The only limit I really think should be in place is for splatzone with inkstrke, as 2 covers close to 95% of the zone on maps like walleye and saltspray, 3 inkstrikes covers the whole area and 4 just means you can always 2 up and ready if your team loses control or the opposing team takes control

 

[swifT]

I feel as if limitations would not be needed in Splatoon. Though I do agree with Vexens opinion on instrikes in Splatzones though even that I'm not completely sure of. At the moment I feel like nothing like limitations are needed. Not to mention it is too early to even say.

The meta is developing. However this is in a non stable environment in the sense that there is no party system. I feel that we should give the competitive meta time to develop for itself when there is actually an ability to party as 4 and play with one another. I also feel like we should wait for the first tournaments to pan out first allowing for all compositions initially, and then if the community sees the need t implement some kind of stipulation on compositions then and only THEN should it be done.

I also feel like with every composition that uses multiple of one thing, and every composition in general there are still sacrifices that teams make. It also stands to eb said that not everyone is going to be good with every setup, and player skill wills till be a huge factor. (At least I personally am not.)

 

[Ultramus]

Yeah, I'm fine with waiting a bit before we start doing things like this, I just have this idea in my head of treating the setups like heroes in a moba that really appeals to me for some reason, contrary to my experience with everything being allowed in other competitive shooters. We'll need a party system before we can really make decisions, i'm more just spitballing about it.

 

[Chris]

No I do not need to be told why fighting games use Bo3, I know perfectly damn well why they do. Just because splatoon is not the "average" esport, it doesn't mean we cant use a tried and true method for tournaments. And again, what does mariokart have to do with using % vs best of ___s? Competitive MarioKart is extremely small. Also about the whole soccer thing is, they only use the 1 and 1 set during tournaments like Champions league so again this shouldn't apply at all to what is being discussed because the way Champions works and they way we're talking about going with.



Again, How can you say it won't happen not even a week after the game is launched that something won't happen when it hasn't had a chance to happen? I bet nobody at Nintendo thought smash was going to become an "esport" or that pokemon video game would become an esport, but guess what? Both became esports, why can't splatoon follow suit?


Its not about "being lazy" or "change." It's about as I have said before, using a ruleset that has been used for well over a decade. Do you really think games like CS:GO, CoD, Halo, Quake, etc. Would look at the players performance after each game and go "While team A 'won' the map, team B had more points so we're going to give them the match because through 2 games they scored more points in their win than team A did in theirs." No! Of course not, want to know why? It's insanely stupid to do! Players and fans would be furious that they lost on points because they scored less points in a win than their opponents did when they won.

I like how I drop the topic yet you apparently feel obliged to respond to some message others have already responded to. You say I keep bringing up Mario Kart yet you keep bringing up this barrier wall of "well this this and this did this so we should also do this". I can also bring up dozens of examples if I really wanted to, but it is not even remotely worth my time

And again, you clearly like to throw around words like balance and luck, yet I don't think you know what they mean. Balance means that no matter what both teams have a 50% chance of winning no matter how well or badly they do. Which is the complete opposite of what you want in points, because if you lose the first map you're immediately behind the 8 ball and have to score more points in the second map than they did

This is probably my favourite thing you said so far. Excuse you? You're saying it's unbalanced when a team loses the first match is behind the team that wins the match? And saying it's unbalanced that they have to outscore the other team to get ahead? Clearly I'm the one that doesn't know what balance means

 

[Vexen]

I feel as if limitations would not be needed in Splatoon. Though I do agree with Vexens opinion on instrikes in Splatzones though even that I'm not completely sure of. At the moment I feel like nothing like limitations are needed. Not to mention it is too early to even say.

The meta is developing. However this is in a non stable environment in the sense that there is no party system. I feel that we should give the competitive meta time to develop for itself when there is actually an ability to party as 4 and play with one another. I also feel like we should wait for the first tournaments to pan out first allowing for all compositions initially, and then if the community sees the need t implement some kind of stipulation on compositions then and only THEN should it be done.

I also feel like with every composition that uses multiple of one thing, and every composition in general there are still sacrifices that teams make. It also stands to eb said that not everyone is going to be good with every setup, and player skill wills till be a huge factor. (At least I personally am not.)

While I agree we should wait and see, I mean I could be totally wrong about inkstrikes but from what I've seen in the mode while playing and watched people stream, Inkstrike is one of those top 3 specials to have for that mode, the others being bubbler and kraken