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Paintball 2 Discussion / Re: League of Legends vs. Paintball 2
« on: December 11, 2012, 04:50:50 PM »
First of all, I want to say a big
THANK YOU
Not for all the work that you have put into this game (we all know that this has been incredible effort from you), but for actually writing such a reflective post on the state of the game.
And now, back on topic: as mentioned by several users before me, it is quite difficult comparing DP to LoL. But on the other hand, some points are valid and should be analyzed further. Let me share my thoughts on some topics:
#1: updates/update frequency
-> can't and doesn't really have to be compared
#2: newbly-friendliness
-> it's good to have a tutorial, although I never felt that it was really important in this game, as the basics of DP are pretty much straight forward. Most things can be learned by simply interacting with other players and practicing. A strength of LoL surely is the PUG and Match Making capabilities - in a PUG, players of similar skill are (usually) brought together, in order to have an interesting game where not one newbie ruins the round. And all of that happens in-game, so no IRC or other chat is required. Although, on a sidenote, nobody used IRC when I started playing, we all found our matches on public servers.
#3: finishing matches
In LoL, you are basically forced to finish a PUG or Match, as you are (or can be) punished if you leave prematurely. In addition, you won't get any of the perks you receive when finished ("Experience Points" and other achievement-relevant stats). In DP, if you leave a PUG (or just a map on a public server), you will not have to fear losing anything. For a non-organized PUG, that might not even be a problem, but it adds to the feeling of not having a "consistant rival".
And it gets a lot worse with matches: as there is no official record of matches or any info about those in general, people (and whole teams) can and do simply drop out of matches when they feel the urge to. That ruins matches here and there (not sure about the frequency of that happening nowadays, or even the frequency of matches happening...), without any consequence.
One problem surely is the issue of freely selected maps for matches (and, following, the decision of the tie map). If a simpler matching format could be found, and perks be introduced for playing and finishing matches in that specified or "official" manner, this behaviour would surely be reduced.
I'm surely and have been for years one of the biggest supporters of an official stats recording system. I think a visible stats system is the first step towards generating more interest in matches. I still hope that this might one day be introduced - and for DP, this seems to be the better way than to introduce some kind of XP/leveling mechanism (my personal opinion). Oh, and separate (and possibly different) stats systems for matching and PUGging would probably be useful, too.
#4: striving to beat the best
Myers wrote: "every single NA team wants to play TSM (who was the best NA team)".
There were times in DP, when eR33t was winning almost every game and other teams tried many things to be able to beat them (such as picking new maps, practicing new tactics for CTF), we even had a tournament for a whole summer. Ever since then, all "improvement" has been to focus on rushing on maps with lots of ice fields on them. I remember discussing strategies for maps with members of my and players from other teams (and we tied eR33t in DPCUP, if I remember correctly). None of that has been done (in my awareness) after 2006/2007.
I believe that if there were official match servers with official settings and a selected map list, this might return. Trying to beat the best by figuring out how to improve the own gameplay and not by choosing maps that other teams have no practice on is what teams should be striving for (my personal opinion).
That's all I can think of right now
THANK YOU
Not for all the work that you have put into this game (we all know that this has been incredible effort from you), but for actually writing such a reflective post on the state of the game.
And now, back on topic: as mentioned by several users before me, it is quite difficult comparing DP to LoL. But on the other hand, some points are valid and should be analyzed further. Let me share my thoughts on some topics:
#1: updates/update frequency
-> can't and doesn't really have to be compared
#2: newbly-friendliness
-> it's good to have a tutorial, although I never felt that it was really important in this game, as the basics of DP are pretty much straight forward. Most things can be learned by simply interacting with other players and practicing. A strength of LoL surely is the PUG and Match Making capabilities - in a PUG, players of similar skill are (usually) brought together, in order to have an interesting game where not one newbie ruins the round. And all of that happens in-game, so no IRC or other chat is required. Although, on a sidenote, nobody used IRC when I started playing, we all found our matches on public servers.
#3: finishing matches
In LoL, you are basically forced to finish a PUG or Match, as you are (or can be) punished if you leave prematurely. In addition, you won't get any of the perks you receive when finished ("Experience Points" and other achievement-relevant stats). In DP, if you leave a PUG (or just a map on a public server), you will not have to fear losing anything. For a non-organized PUG, that might not even be a problem, but it adds to the feeling of not having a "consistant rival".
And it gets a lot worse with matches: as there is no official record of matches or any info about those in general, people (and whole teams) can and do simply drop out of matches when they feel the urge to. That ruins matches here and there (not sure about the frequency of that happening nowadays, or even the frequency of matches happening...), without any consequence.
One problem surely is the issue of freely selected maps for matches (and, following, the decision of the tie map). If a simpler matching format could be found, and perks be introduced for playing and finishing matches in that specified or "official" manner, this behaviour would surely be reduced.
I'm surely and have been for years one of the biggest supporters of an official stats recording system. I think a visible stats system is the first step towards generating more interest in matches. I still hope that this might one day be introduced - and for DP, this seems to be the better way than to introduce some kind of XP/leveling mechanism (my personal opinion). Oh, and separate (and possibly different) stats systems for matching and PUGging would probably be useful, too.
#4: striving to beat the best
Myers wrote: "every single NA team wants to play TSM (who was the best NA team)".
There were times in DP, when eR33t was winning almost every game and other teams tried many things to be able to beat them (such as picking new maps, practicing new tactics for CTF), we even had a tournament for a whole summer. Ever since then, all "improvement" has been to focus on rushing on maps with lots of ice fields on them. I remember discussing strategies for maps with members of my and players from other teams (and we tied eR33t in DPCUP, if I remember correctly). None of that has been done (in my awareness) after 2006/2007.
I believe that if there were official match servers with official settings and a selected map list, this might return. Trying to beat the best by figuring out how to improve the own gameplay and not by choosing maps that other teams have no practice on is what teams should be striving for (my personal opinion).
That's all I can think of right now
