Jackfrags on how to make Battlefield competitive

[beavernator]

This guy used to be a competitive Battlefield player (I'm not sure if he still is). The video itself is 34 minutes long, so I'll make an index on the bottom.

0:00 Intro
0:30 The competitive gaming scene doesn't have any FPSes booming on it ATM.
3:18 Battlefield 3's lack of a spectator mode built into the game hampered the game's competitive scene greatly.
6:07 With a spectator mode this game would have been a lot easier to play on LAN events, meaning more competitive circuits will pick up this game and more sponsors will feed into this.
7:01 A built-in gameplay recorder would also increase Battlefield's presence on the internet and therefore drive sales, just like many other FPSes such as CoD and Halo 3 did.
10:13 A 'free camera' feature would also increase the quality of that content being uploaded to the internet, and its in great demand.
12:19 A built-in gameplay recorder would be extremely useful in the competitive scene of any FPS simply because you can observe your enemies' tactics.
13:20 It would just make sense if we separated social and competitive playlists.

What was implemented into BF3 that took away from the competitive aspect:
13:56 There's no way to allow vehicles in BF3 and keep it competitive at the same time.
15:00 Footsteps need improvement, characters shouldn't say anything, and perks that affect the noises your character makes should not be in a competitive setting.
17:07 Using mind bullets is not a very good game dynamic. It benefits defensive setups too much.
18:58 In its current state suppression doesn't work in a competitive environment; you're being rewarded for missing!
21:42 A lot of the maps in Battlefield 3 were great for conquest for their many flank routes. Metro and Damavand peak made for terrible conquest maps because there weren't a lot of flanking routes to use. Lol, 2142.
22:36 Fog and lens flare should be disabled. Having obscured vision for just looking the wrong way is unfair.

23:38 It would be a great idea to have a competitive version of each map, or giving out the tools for server admins to change stuff like this. Letting the competitive scene establish an official set of rules to be seen by all would be a huge step forward.
25:05 While the developers/publishers have the final say on what goes into their game, everyone would benefit more if the professional community was listened to.

Back to more in-game technical stuff:
26:14 Hit registration is a huge deal in competitive game. Dying around corners is just annoying; a solid network infrastructure makes for a great competitive game. Also players seem invulnerable while vaulting over cover. That needs to go.
27:02 The revive mechanic could use some tinkering with.
28:08 3D spotting makes smoke grenades useless.

29:03 More game modes would be nice; Dice shouldn't be afraid to experiment more.
30:36 A lot of this is just opinion/ Conclusion

So, what do you guys think?

[SheWolf]

nice ideas and such, but:

1: strong competitive fandom would prolong the life time of a game.
2: game companies DON'T want their game to be long living, that might have been a thing a few years ago, but not anymore. now they want the game to be played a bit, the DLC to come, and then everyone to migrate to the sequel one year later
3: consoles

for this reasons, it probably won't happen. which is a shame.

[didjeridu]

Not going to watch the video, so thanks for the summary. I agree with all of his points, but I doubt they'll be implemented. BF3 is done the moment Endgame is released, and like Wolf said, this is EA/DICE here; money is all that matters. BF4 is more likely to be a BF3 expansion than a real sequel.

Personally, all I want is for them to scrap the caliber=damage system, remove increased spread from suppression, and fix the netcode. If they did all of that, I'd be happy with BF4. Well, I want mod tools as well, but we all know that will never happen.

[beavernator]

Point taken. If it's money they're after, a perfectly competitive FPS has to be in demand before EA/Activision would even start to consider this idea.
As Jack said, there's no telling if Valve will even step in and help Counter-Strike:Global Offensive go viral on the competitive scene. If they are, it's probably because they're waiting on the other popular competitive games out there to cool down a bit. After all, StarCraft 2: Heart of the Swarm is being released next month.

[tiesieman]

Valve is most likely all on DOTA2 when it comes to competitive

[tiesieman]

no they cool now

[didjeridu]

I never understood MOBAs, and I don't really want to.

[beavernator]

The way I see it, the MOBA was a successful attempt to make the PvP arena aspect of MMO RPGs with more depth and improved dynamics behind them. You buy stuff, level up, kill A.I.s, kill players if you can, use your abilities right, pick your engagements VERY carefully. If you feel like you're more powerful than the enemy you push up, and hope you can take down their defensive towers; maybe even their nexus too.
However, the downside is that a normal round of LoL takes anywhere between 30-40 minutes to play through. An average round of SC2 lasts 10-15 minutes, 30+ if neither player messed up, and there'll be an epic final clash somewhere. Some games end at 5 minutes if one player 'cheeses', it's a lucky Zerg vs Zerg, or someone's building a too many bases early on and got hit in the early game. Fortunately FPSes are a lot more elastic when it comes to time limits. Just throw everyone in a pen and have them fight until the timer goes 'ding'.
The other downside to MOBAs is how there's a larger threshold of knowledge to even begin appreciating the game as either a spectator or a player. There's something like 80 characters with their own unique abilities, builds and counters. Until you memorize them all, you're going to have a hard time figuring out what's going on. In an FPS a caveman can figure out what's going on. Guns! Glorious guns everywhere! Bang bang, dead, guys with more score wins, game over. RTSes are a little trickier to follow, but usually it's the guy with the bigger army, more bases, and/or the better unit composition that wins.

[tiesieman]

I'd say the last one in a competitive point of view is a very bad thing. Usually steep learning curves means skill gaps means deeper metagame means more compelling to watch

[beavernator]

Feb 24, 2013 17:26:59 GMT -5 tiesieman said:

I'd say the last one in a competitive point of view is a very bad thing. Usually steep learning curves means skill gaps means deeper metagame means more compelling to watch

My bad, that last part was completely subjective. I'm not trying to argue that one game has a better meta-game than the other, rather that MOBAs have more freedom in their design since they're situated in a fantasy land. Since the characters can be very diverse and unpredictable, it'll be hard to comprehend at first glance. After all, how many video games out there involve a jester and a gargoyle fighting a brass steampunk robot and a giant ice bird? That being said, that might actually be why LoL is so popular; there is no other game I can think of that lets you do that. Of course, their F2P business model deserves some credit there too.

[tiesieman]

Never played LoL, suck at mobas so take what I say here with a big grain of salt. But so far DOTA seems to be a better LoL in alot of aspects

Apparently heros are somewhat less role-bound in LoL, meaning everyone is on more even footing in different situations. DOTA balanced their stuff mostly on weaknesses (good at one thing, weak to another, and you buy items to suppliment that)

Plus LoL asks money for heros and afaik has stat boosters, Valve's cosmetics approach is much better for consumers imo


Also another reason to add why MOBAs are popular to watch is that with those games you can learn more by watching. With shooters you can learn some placement stuff of course, but you can't learn aiming though vids ofc

[timeitself]

Thanks for the summary beavernator.

I haven't followed what modest competitive action there has been in BF3. But from watching a bit of this video I gather that much of it is 5v5 infantry only. No wonder they don't like vehicles. I've been saying they need to add more options to scale the vehicles to the number of players. That is unless they make vehicles much less powerful.

BF3 also made getting anything more than a super casual game a major pain in the ass. They need lobbies between matches to sort out teams. I want to play with my friends darn it. I won't go as far as to say that squads need to go. But the squad specializations certainly do. And the fact that they play 5v5 makes the whole 4 man squad thing seem really weird.

All the other stuff like spectator mode would help. But it won't matter if the game doesn't actually play well in the types of games competitive players want.

[beavernator]

I guess most team-based competitive games find the chatlines too crowded if there's 8 or more players calling out people at the same time. Usually squads of 4 or 5 people manage better.

[Usagi]

Someone actually posted in the BF thread? Wow.

[Deleted]

Since we're more or less talking about how to improve BF, I say that in the next game they add these two seats to the apache:

[didjeridu]

Seems legit.

[beavernator]

Throw this in too.

[Deleted]

The balancing between classes in BF3 is way worse than it is in BFBC2. I don't know what happened, but it's pretty much like the game designers tampered with an already decent formula.

I find the medic to be a lot more balanced in Bad Company 2. They had med kits offset by mediocre full-auto weaponry. The only explosive they had was one frag grenade, and their defibs had cool-down times on them so that they couldn't revive half their platoon in 10 seconds.
The recon was a lot more useful in BC2. I'll take a sensor ball over a MAV any day of the week. It spotted enemies, it kept the pacing of the game fast, and I'm not sitting out of the action controlling a silly droid. I liked that... minus the fact that I had to either stick with a sniper rifle or a shotgun.
Support (Assault) was much more useful. Squad ammo and 5 magazines to boot for every soldier in BF3 to boot makes the support class borderline obsolete. Granted he has C4, but does he really have to just drop it in front of himself like it weighed 100 pounds? If he could just toss his C4 around he'd be a lot more useful in dealing with vehicles in closer quarters.
Engineer hasn't really changed, but it's nice to see every engi using something besides the Gustav. My only complaint would be the Stinger; it takes less skill to use, and it just doesn't fit in Battlefield. If anything I'd rather use one of those manually guided missile turrets from BC2.

With or without ceramic armor I hate how the medic can just lay a med kit at his feet and take more bullets because he's a medic. I find the med kit in itself to be annoying; I want to see a less passive means of gaining health back. What if players had to take a few seconds to use a syringe that gave them all their health back? Then there'd be a cool-down on how often players could use a new syringe, and they'd have a limited number of syringes. If future iterations of Battlefield were to take up this system the medic's med pack could resupply syringes instead of passively healing players. That could make things a little more competitive.

About 64-player Metro and Damavand Peak, the issue isn't that they're bad maps, rather that the maps are overpopulated. Limiting the player count to 16 players would prevent the game from turning the game into a World War 1 simulator all over again.

[Deleted]

In case anyone's curious and have 45 minutes to kill, a competitive 32v32 game of BF4 (Obliteration Mode) will look something like this:



In most cases spectating 64 players would be pointless because you;d be missing half of the action. Conquest in particular would be less than ideal because there's 5 or 7 flags to fight over and multiple flags can burn simultaneously. It's likely that Obliteration was added into the game with spectators in mind. That single bomb serves as a solid focal point for all the action no matter how many people are playing. It's not the most cerebral gametype, but it's certainly entertaining.
The unlimited timer seems less than ideal; I think Team Fortress 2 had the right idea with their 5cap mode. If 10/15/20 minutes have gone by and not a single bombsite has been taken the game ends as the team with the most bomb detonations win the match. If the timer runs out and both sides have lost the same number of bombsites the game goes into sudden death. If another 10/15/20 minutes go by in sudden death mode it would probably be best to just stop people from spawning in and have the fate of the match be decided on a single coin toss. Just an idea, really; there's many solutions to this.

[didjeridu]

Actually watched the whole thing. Pretty decent as a spectator mode. I watched a few competitve matches in BF3, but they weren't as entertaining as this. But yeah, it desperately needs a timer of some sort. Were the casters console players or something? They spent half the game gushing over the fact that there were 64 players.

Spoiler

Too bad the server crashed. The US went into total derp mode the last several minutes, and China had a great chance. Just goes to show that even if the whole team is working together, one or two bad teammates can screw you royally.

[Deleted]

I don't blame them for mentioning it so often; 32-player teams is both impractical and unheard of in the eSports scene. At best potentially having some sort of league play system later on down the line, but it was always the combined arms and wide-scale that Battlefield was designed for in the first place. I find it unlikely that Battlefield could prosper as an eSport in 5v5 matchups. Maybe 8v8 to 12v12 could work, but aside from that it's an uphill battle when compared to other shooters.

I find that the simplest, most effective way to fix most of the negative aspects of Obliteration is to simply have 2 bombs. Matches will be a lot shorter, trolls and incompetent players will be less of an issue, there will be less hamburger hill, and the high-octane action this gametype offers is still preserved. This may not be necessary on small maps or low player counts, but for everything else it would be mighty helpful.

Spoiler

Also 66 and 5 in a game of 64-player Obliteration is a clear sign of not PTFO.

[jaedrik]

Jaedrik on how to make Battlefield competitive: Remove spread and make recoil predictable.

[trax]

Oct 20, 2013 13:22:35 GMT -5 jaedrik said:

Jaedrik on how to make Battlefield competitive: Remove spread and make recoil predictable.

This somewhat true - I don't understand why weapon have to have that much base spread.
Recoil shouldn't be predicatable though. Competive playing isn't all about handing the weapon

[Deleted]

In an update from Jackfrags, he had this to say about the state of the game when it comes to Competitive play.

00:28 - Domination is going to be the most-played game type in BF4.
01:35 - The game doesn't allows server admins to tweak server settings
02:07 - The netcode/hit registration has way too much latency. Trade kill scenarios and dying around corner happen way too often in competitive matches.
03:26 - Players get a black screen upon spawning in. The devs say this was done so that the game streams the game world in, but it's detrimental to the game in a competitive setting. It's hard to fix.
05:27 - The game crashes way too much. There's no way to stop it, but having something like a pause function could at least help with this.
06:50 - I know I'm ragging on this game, but I'm actually grateful that DICE listens to their fans.
08:28 - Defuse has too many balance issues to be considered
09:17 - Battlefield 4 only scooped up 3000 concurrent viewers over Counter-Strike GO's 100 000.
10:05 - Quake was fun to watch because of the fast-paced action. Tension, tactics, and weapon composition was the driving force behind CS:GO, but Battlefield 4 is stuck between a rock and a hard place when it comes to spectator attraction. Medic/ACE 23 is the only way to go, and tactics/tension just aren't there. In Domination tactics are very limited, and there's just not a lot to commentate over to begin with.
13:26 - Part of the issue is also reliant on just pushing out the brand. Not everyone is aware that competitive BF4 is a thing.
13:52 - At least the spectator mode is great. The HUD's a little cluttered but that's about it.
14:31 - DICE is looking for feedback on this matter.

So what do I think? Well, my opinions haven't really changed much, but...
-Everyone seems to agree: the one-year cycle is very detrimental for the game's competitive scene. I understand EA/DICE needs to make money, but that's exactly why they'll prioritize that over a competitive scene. This feels like this is all being done to appease the masses; that there are no actual efforts.
-Battlefield is a game best played for massive skirmishes. In a 4v4/5v5 match it's comparable to CoD.
-Having only one viable weapon is bad; or at least it's not good. I say that because it's a modern military shooter. It's near impossible to put enough incomparables in the weapon pool to actually yield 3+ viable weapons at a time. Even Counter-Strike's weapon pool revolves mostly around the AK and the M4A4, and that's mostly because of the asymmetrical weapon shops of both factions. Plus there's equipment and a bunch of other goodies, but that's besides the point.
-I still strongly recommend the needle system in BFBC1 over medic bags/packs. These help medics dominate in infantry-infantry combat because they could gain enough health mid-combat to sustain an extra shot. Giving all the players a needle or two to patch themselves between gun fights would help each class rely less on medics, and medics would just resupply those needles instead. A player without any needles just won't replenish health at all or will do so sluggishly like in BFBC2.
-Starting ammo pool is too large; reducing this ~3 mags on spawn instead of 5 would give more viability to support players. Two might be too little ammo, 4 won't do much, so 3 just might be the right amount.
-I have no idea how to push recon's viability up since players will already be giving out spots and call-outs.

-SQUAD DEATH MATCH IS A BETTER IDEA THAN DOMINATION.
-For one there will be 16/20 or more players on the map, keeping to the concept of Battlefield being suited for having a lot of players, and there will only be 4/5 players per squad. Any more than 5 players in a squad and tournament winnings will be too spread out and sponsorship would be too pricey.
-It's unique. Two sides has always been guaranteed to be fair, but if done right I think multi-team game types can work out to be an interesting game type for competitive play. It's not fair, but considering how 4 teams are going in at a time extended matches or best of 3s can even that out enough. If the map is big enough... why not 6 teams? Or 8? It's instances like this where it pays to have tighter corridors so that players are less likely to get shot in the back.
-Adding a light tank or some other vehicle would give viability to engineers in this match-up, and provide a focal point for spectators to look at. It's an optional objective, and even if a player could get in and use it for a very short time before getting blown up it's probably well worth it. After all, there's no longer a vehicle to fight over for the time being.
-The biggest gaping problem is that the game type rewards kills per minute to win instead of taking on engagements efficiently. One team can potentially net 150 deaths before netting 100 kills. Emphasis on kill spread could work out instead (similar to SSB's scoring system), and if someone drops out it doesn't affect the team that much.

[Deleted]

All in all it's not the end of the world if Battlefield 4 never becomes a popular eSport. DICE can make BF4 a watchable AND playable competitive sport. However it'll have to change so many elements of its gameplay to the point where it could turn away people who want to play Battlefield for what it is now. Considering the state of eSports there's very little incentive to beg EA for a change of pace for an endeavor that hardly pays off. In that regard DICE is doing the right thing in not giving a flying f*** about the competitive scene. That's okay by me. Most people will claim to love playing more straining games, but in the end an unforgiving game can be a huge turnoff.

We're going to see 'pseudo-competitive' games try something else. If Jackfrags says that the only purpose of a competitive scene is to advertise a game, and making a competitive game is too much to ask for- we're going to see these 'pseudo-competitive' games ignore the eSports scene altogether. We'll see more things like the Planetside 2 Ultimate Empire Showdown. There's no way eSports will ever be able to support or spectate a 2000-player game, and there's no way PS2 can ever become a formal eSport. We'll see more events like the Battlefield 4 USA vs Europe showdown; and that's probably as good of a compromise as we can get. Recently the Polaris gaming network on YouTube hosted the "Chivalry: Deadliest Warrior Tournament". It's short term, it sells games, and somewhere in the back of my head there's a thought that this could render eSports obsolete.

If Battlefield wants to become a competitive game here's what it'll have to go through:
-Networking. The more crap that flies all over the map the more bandwidth it sucks up; having amazing graphics can weigh down this aspect.
-We need to give players the ability to set their own arena.
-Incentives for variety. If we put a rule out that every squad needs at least one of every kit on their squad we solve the medic-only issue just like that. Oh wait, everyone's still using the ACE-23? Ban that gun, or ban carbines in general. Throw in randomness and force symmetrical randomized loadouts. Is every Recon using a Scout sniper? Well now both Recon players have to use an L96 this match because the RNG gods say so- have fun!
-Game types. We need a game-type that encourages strategy, is unique, tense, and where the losing side can get back in if they really hunker down. I stick by my multi-team idea with Squad Deathmatch or even multi-team conquest. Defuse crosses swords with Counter-Strike and adds nothing to the game-type, Domination crosses streams with Call of Duty. I don't want to see single-objective gametypes like Obliteration; there's no depth to be had in a match of beehive soccer/hamburger hill. Team Deathmatch will only work if there are incentives to move out.
-Tension. Can we strive away from game types that have a fixed goal to reach before the enemy? If one team's winning a match of conquest 200-500 out of 800 points a lot of the tension is gone because the team with 500 tickets left is more than likely going to win. For instance a no-respawn game-mode when each team has to pick off a certain player from the other side could work really well in this regard. At least it'll play out better than Defuse.
So yeah... stick with the USvEU showmatch... things.