Game purpose / balance

so all in all i guess they can't make a game loved by every Confrontation player but so far im satisfied with their result.

this

I never played the TT. Changes to TT rules will always be needed if the online is based around competitive PvP. People will rort anything they can and it spreads like wild fire in online games. If you play TT it is a social activity usually and people obviously want to win, but the focus is more on fun. Some of the OP/Camping strats that became popular in this would be less likely to happen when you have to look the person in the face while doing it. People would also decline to play you.
Cyanide to their credit did not change Blood Bowl in any significant way to the TT. It works fine in BB because it is more about variety than balance, 23 playable factions I think. That said, high rating games are usually dominated by pure killing teams. Injuries are brutal and common, with no real way of preventing or healing them. Teams that hurt are also hard to hurt unless vs another. For non-bash teams the cycle is build up a team of skilled players -> play high rated games -> watch your star players get killed and crippled -> lose team rating -> drop into low rated games. It means lots of people heavily manage their teams to stay low. Units must take a level when they can, so you are often sacking a player because it gets too expensive.

[Jigoku]

I wholeheartedly agree with your answer, Errol Flynn. Especially on the "social" part of TT, because I can't imagine someone playing cheap in TT like in some of the games that happen online while looking you in the eye.

About BB, there is one thing that I think might weigh heavily in their matches: it's that the ultimate goal is to score touchdowns - and the game offers many ways to do that.

It's one serious concern that we have for the Deathmatch mode in Dogs, actually: the lack of variety in the ways to win, the lack of "gambit".
Runners, turtles, draws... happen way more in deathmatch than in the other modes.
We think it's because of the only (and obvious) objective of killing everyone facing you offers a lot of possible exploits.
When you have to stand your ground on an area, kill some specific unit... or score touchdowns, it's a whole other story.

I can't say much more about it, but there are some issues related to these points that we are considering very seriously here on a daily basis.

It's one serious concern that we have for the Deathmatch mode in Dogs, actually: the lack of variety in the ways to win, the lack of "gambit".

Have you guys worked with the idea of "Victory Conditions"?
I use to play a tabletop tournament minatures game called "Mechwarrior".
Very similar to Dogs at the highest level (pts per unit, lots of unit variety etc..)
Anyways, each match lasted 50min and in order to win the match, you had to win at least 2 victory conditions out of a possible 3.
IIRC these were 1)total kills (pt value of units)
2)control of battle field (pt value of units left on board at end of game)
3)control of oppenents deployment zone
Now DoW represents this concept in the types of matches we play. DM, KOTH and VIP.
The ones mentioned above may not work for DoW (except #1), but I'm sure peeps could come up with some great ideas.
IMO it gives the players another option in a match: Instead of having to work your strategy against a specific army build, you can change your strat to try a win the VCs. (especially if your build doesn't really work against your opponents)

It's one serious concern that we have for the Deathmatch mode in Dogs, actually: the lack of variety in the ways to win, the lack of "gambit".
Runners, turtles, draws... happen way more in deathmatch than in the other modes.
We think it's because of the only (and obvious) objective of killing everyone facing you offers a lot of possible exploits.
When you have to stand your ground on an area, kill some specific unit... or score touchdowns, it's a whole other story.

I can't say much more about it, but there are some issues related to these points that we are considering very seriously here on a daily basis.

But this problem is old as the battle games...

and to be honest there is no perfest way to replace DW with scenarios... unless you totally throw away DM and recreate balance for one specified scenario...

as i knew Infinity (http://www.infinitythegame.com) have scenarios as a first game mode and one Polish post apo system Neuroshima Tactics had something similar. But the problem is that this works mostly for really complicated maps + full Field of Vision gaming and powergaming

In case of fantasy based scenario that would be competitive with DM i personaly try to find that solution from 4 years - from the first relase of my own battle game... and after all that time i managed to create partial solution only slightly better than old and not great "6 turn deatmatch" when you calculates army points + wound modifiers after six turn of deatmatch. But personaly i really dont like the idea of so much limited time (6 turns) - becouse mostly you can win with all enemy units standing one step to annihilate all your forces (in turn 7) Such restriction would only make full turtling more annoying imo.

So for m personaly unrestricted DM is best and most realistic solution - when you can't win thx to some werid rules that give you points even if your soldiers die in most horrible ways

but if you want i can write down my solution (that is imo - closest to DM possible) that may work also in DoW

[Jigoku]

Well, we initially planned to iterate on the DM itself, then we came up with other ideas.
Though we did some improvements on that mode.
We will see where that will lead us.

Have you guys worked with the idea of "Victory Conditions"?
(...)
IIRC these were 1)total kills (pt value of units)
2)control of battle field (pt value of units left on board at end of game)
3)control of oppenents deployment zone
Now DoW represents this concept in the types of matches we play. DM, KOTH and VIP.
The ones mentioned above may not work for DoW (except #1), but I'm sure peeps could come up with some great ideas.

Hey rebelgoat! Welcome to our forums and thanks for your contribution.
Yes, we worked on that a bit. It appears that some peeps in the team already came up with some great ideas
Actually, taking all these victory conditions at once seems to be working pretty well.
It obviously needs some adjustements but it really shows potential early on.

I'm not surprised that Mechwarrior did that. Many great multiplayer games (mostly boardgames or cardgames) usually offer multiple victory conditions at once - be it L5R, Netrunner, apparently Infinity (which I only played as a DM in the early stages of the game I think), etc.
Most Confrontation tournaments I attended to did have that sort of multiple conditions scenarios, too.

The trick is to balance them well for your game (and that's where we get into the difficult stuff).

Please do Dragon Warrior, I'm sure it'd be at least interesting.

I must admit I also find rebelgoat's idea stimulating. Maybe it'd be possible to add "secondary objectives" to each of the modes?

I personally don't see a problem with DM.

Turtling and running happens, but that's strategy. I don't see why people have such a problem with these strategies. If you are going to play a war game, expect there to be many different ways to play it.

Why does everyone want to just rush at each other and have a big scrum in the middle and end it after turn 3? I love the cat and mouse of DM. If you want to run at each other and play quickly, play KoTH or VIP. DM is for the people who want war in all of it's details and mind-games.

I play defensively and meet many people who do the same. I really don't care if not a single unit get's killed unit the 5th round. I have never seen a game yet, where both sides literally do nothing during this fist 5 rounds where nobody gets killed though. Each side is repositioning and doing things trying to draw the other out or get their ranged troops in the right position.

If you don't want this type of stuff to happen. Take away all obstacles and play the game on the pitch where the only option is to run at each other - but then we might as well be playing Blood Bowl. This s a strategy game, I don't know why people whine about the fact that strategies are being used.

Edit: Lots of stuff got typed while I was typing. I personally would really hate it if DM became anything other than killing each other. If you are going to put in different winning scenarios, make different modes. Don't mess with my need to kill every troop the opponent has. That's all I want to do, not prance around it trying to take this or control that, I want to killing everything and have the last man standing declared the winner.

I wholeheartedly agree with your answer, Errol Flynn. Especially on the "social" part of TT, because I can't imagine someone playing cheap in TT like in some of the games that happen online while looking you in the eye.

About BB, there is one thing that I think might weigh heavily in their matches: it's that the ultimate goal is to score touchdowns - and the game offers many ways to do that.

It's one serious concern that we have for the Deathmatch mode in Dogs, actually: the lack of variety in the ways to win, the lack of "gambit".
Runners, turtles, draws... happen way more in deathmatch than in the other modes.
We think it's because of the only (and obvious) objective of killing everyone facing you offers a lot of possible exploits.
When you have to stand your ground on an area, kill some specific unit... or score touchdowns, it's a whole other story.

I can't say much more about it, but there are some issues related to these points that we are considering very seriously here on a daily basis.

Blood Bowl TT did not 'look' like my kind of thing, but there is no finer thing in any game I have played than a TOUCH DOWN! in BB.
I think campers/runners etc don't worry me too much because I am better than the average player. I am not bragging but I think that makes a big difference. I have only played in 2 draws: 1 was me running from a Golem with the last of my desperately inadequate Wolf company. The other was a legit draw, we both went at each other on a small map and one more swing from my Black Paladin would have finished it. I can't believe that was a draw, neither of us camped. It was like some turns disappeared but I probably just lost track of time.
Maybe you could have a reward for playing 10 games in a row without a draw. Maybe even 1 or 2 cyans, or random decent rewards with a chance of a few cyans.

Well, we initially planned to iterate on the DM itself, then we came up with other ideas.
Though we did some improvements on that mode.
We will see where that will lead us.

Hey rebelgoat! Welcome to our forums and thanks for your contribution.
Yes, we worked on that a bit. It appears that some peeps in the team already came up with some great ideas
Actually, taking all these victory conditions at once seems to be working pretty well.
It obviously needs some adjustements but it really shows potential early on.

I'm not surprised that Mechwarrior did that. Many great multiplayer games (mostly boardgames or cardgames) usually offer multiple victory conditions at once - be it L5R, Netrunner, apparently Infinity (which I only played as a DM in the early stages of the game I think), etc.
Most Confrontation tournaments I attended to did have that sort of multiple conditions scenarios, too.

The trick is to balance them well for your game (and that's where we get into the difficult stuff).

I'm quite excited to hear about this! I too am a fan of more complex victory conditions, since I think it helps making the game more nuanced and in some cases even more realistic.
Also Hod, I also do agree with you that DM is fine as it is, and I too would like it conserved, but I don't think these other ideas should impair it or go to substitute it. Ideally I think we could have base DM and then other "multiple objectives modes", maybe depending on the map. Am I reading this correctly Jigoku?

Also Hod, I also do agree with you that DM is fine as it is, and I too would like it conserved, but I don't think these other ideas should impair it or go to substitute it. Ideally I think we could have base DM and then other "multiple objectives modes", maybe depending on the map. Am I reading this correctly Jigoku?

I agree. What Hod said definitely makes sense. For those peeps that want to go"THIS IS SPARTA!" (300 style) they should have that option.
Maybe have a match with a scenario something like this:
Your mercs have been fighting all day. They are tired and hungry. Suddenly they spot a flock of chickens. They would sure taste good fried up or in a soup. Problem is, the other mercs you have been battling all day have the same idea.
We need to try and get those chickens to our campsite for dinner (capture flag style).
Lupis our PoB growls, "GRRRRR, this is gonna be one fowl battle."

Matches like this could possibly be incorporated on a limited basis (ex. last for 7 days), then if players like the match, it could be brought back at different intervals or not at all if it flops.
Either way, I do like this game cause it reminds me of tabletop competitions and allows me to get my fix.(someone had already mentioned that as well.