[PvP Tournament] - DCUO US 4v4 Champions

http://challonge.com/DCUSChampions
How to sign-up (Team Captain):

1. Go to http://challonge.com/DCUSChampions
2. Go to Registration
3. Sign-up
4. Where it says "Team Name" type in the name of your team.
5. In the box where it says "Description" type in the 4 in-game names of your team members.

Since Clutch's thread got pinned today, I don't suppose tournament threads could be temporarily pinned as well, could they?

Yes, that will be a great way of Supporting Tournaments!

Or a tournament sub forum. That works too.

Hey, is there an outlined set of rules/guidelines for this? Also, is it confirmed 4's forever or is it still possibly going to be 5's (I've been hearing a bunch of different things)?

Good Idea, maybe Merged the sub-forum to the FNL forum, but taking it to consideration by Mepps to allow "Selected Trusty Players" to run it as FNL on Fridays on their own channels using the FNL Title. It might help bring more viewers to their channels, but being not many players can stream as for PC, might not be something they can do in their PC power, but Recording of the matches by few players on the rounds and all, likely not every rounds, but QF, SF, F, and 3rdPlace matches, this really does take a team to do. Since OBS really doesn't take that much CPU and Graphics power. People say OBS is a lot better than Xsplit, but Xsplit is a program that can use a lot of windows and borders and screen regions at once and can change to another. OBS is more complicated for that.

But also a Exclusive Sub-Forum here for Tournaments is still a great idea, but it be might slow in getting known and getting many players in the community into it. Players of the community seems to ignore player run tournaments when streamed and views FNL a lot more.

I just read the rules, and while I can agree with pretty much all the rules, my main issue is the "pick any group composition" setup you have going. I think if you are going to continue with 4's, you should consider enforcing a 1 Troll, 1 DPS, 1 Healer, 1 Tank setup. For instance, if this were football, I wouldn't be able to comprise my squad of 10 lineman, with 1 quarterback, and simply push my way downfield. In soccer, I can't stack my team with 11 goalies, and block my goal completely. Allowing for cheeseball setups diminishes any distinction in skill and coordination, especially when that primary focus of skill is who's got the best coordination/counters. I'd like to urge you to reconsider this rule.

What's a Tank in PvP? they exist?

Even I know forcing people to play that kind of set up is pretty constricting, and the current rules are constricting enough with all the current bans.

The main reason I'd like for teams to use any composition is because for a long time now, PC and PS teams have had different ideas for different compositions. I'd like to see what composition actually comes out on top. Forcing everyone to use the same composition is something I am against. I want them to pair whatever they feel is necessary to win the tournament.

While I do respect your point of view, I can't help but feel that it's a little bit ironic that you're willing to restrict powers/weapons yet, you're not willing to restrict group composition. Competitive restrictions in sports/e-sports are typically put in place to put more emphasis on skill as opposed to overpowered/broken mechanics in game, and I feel allowing for setups that can easily trump the other team based strictly on composition, as opposed to being on leveled ground where the team that performs better wins, is silly. It'd be like seeing who would win in a fight between a quadriplegic, and an MMA fighter.

I would say you should either make tight enough restrictions to better emphasize skill, or make no restrictions (bugged or not) and really see what the best cheese is.

Regardless, I'll likely sit this out as I'm not a fan of these rules, but I wish you the best of luck.

Spoilers: Double Nature setup will likely win.

Yes, you can't stack goalies, but you can have all kinds of different formations in football (yes, i'm from Europe).
You can go 4-4-2, 4-3-3. 4-5-1. 5-3-2. 3-4-3 and so on. You can go with all kinds of offensive or defensive setups and each setup has a unique matchup against others. Goalie is the only position you can't stack. Everything else can be changed depending on the tactic.
Same in basketball. No one is going to say that you can't play your center on the point guard position. It's probably not going to work, but its allowed. That's why basketball has become much more faster nowadays. Instead of a big lineups teams often have 1 of their forwards playing on the center position and have a fast and small team on the field. No one forces you to play 1 center 2 forwards and 2 guards and run behind you with a ruler. Positions are set but you can play who ever you want on each position.

Even in E-Sports positions are not locked. Lets take Dota 2. No one forces you to play classical 1,2,3,4,5. You can have the farm split in any way you wish. 1 hard carry and 2 hard carry setups both work well. You can even have a support that becomes secondary carry like a Visage or a Lina. You can literally just pick 5 carry oriented characters from the start, no one stops you from it. You will lose but no one denies you from that option.

Basketball differs from soccer (football) in that the field of play (court) is MUCH smaller, and there's a shot clock forcing you to make a play, as opposed to soccer (football), where you can in theory continue to dribble and pass the ball between two people for the entire 90 minute duration. The only exception to where the referee tells the players to speed it up is when he feels that a player is stalling continued play (ie flopping), which often results in yellow cards if the referee feels it's necessary. Furthermore, formations in soccer (football) does not support your argument in that each player in said formation has the same exact abilities/restrictions. There's a reason the goalies are forced to where clearly visible colors that differ from their teammates. Furthermore, basketball is not much faster simply because of composition, but rather the shot clock (which I mentioned). Finally, you're talking about playing at certain positions on the field for formations as opposed to actual dictated roles. Looking at baseball, you can't have two pitchers/catchers, whom are dictated and specified roles with special guidelines. You can't have the entire coaching staff, come out and talk to the umpire, nor can you interchange who out of the coaching staff is allowed out on the diamond without extreme circumstances.

These "special" players in these sports translate similarly with healing and trolling. Healing classes are the only classes that can heal other teammates, and trolls are the only classes that can debuff and utilize PoT.

I'm not familiar with DOTA 2 or how it plays, so I can't really discuss that. However, in esports, restrictions/guidelines are still in place so as to further differentiate between skilled play and abusing broken systems. At EVO (large fighting game tournament), many character bans were put in place in order to create this distinction. I applaud Kody for taking the step and really considering the idea of banning broken power sets, but in order to better facilitate skilled play, it's important to have a consistent setup to create a leveled playing field. Let's NOT have 3 pitchers at the plate, and NOT have 11 goalies in the goal.

Moot. This isnt football nor basketball. Big e-sports like dota/LOL you can pick 5 carries if you want to. Comparable games like GW/ (probably WOW) you can pick whatever comp you like. Its a tactical decision influencing your gameplan. If a comp is overly successful its likely to become "meta". People then start trying to "counter" the meta or to be better at it. Since this will be the first bigger tournament it will be interresting to see whats strong and how gameplay evolves from there. If its getting to stale in the future further adjustments can be made and the cycle starts again.

Moot but, valid.


edit: Counter metas with power tokens, got it.

This is my observation from a player on the outside looking in. Pc come up with a setup it's ok, but if ps come up with a different setup, it's banned. If i'm wrong point out specific things where i'm wrong at.
I see it on both sides, but mostly coming from ps. I see pc proving how good nature is when ps thought it was weak, but i see pc fighting for a particular setup or way of fighting as the only way to fight. This is coming from a player who don't pvp for fun

I was not talking about basketball being faster than football.
I was talking about basketball now being faster than it used to be as a lot of teams are playing small ball nowadays. Coaches are allowed to experiment with their lineups so game of basketball keeps changing. It has gotten to a point where even at the all star voting for NBA they do not do it by strict positions anymore. Players are simply split into front court and back court so its completely possible to have results with 0 centers getting voted in the same way you can play the game with not even having a center in your team.

If you play 4-5-1 you do have 4 dedicated defenders, 5 midfielders and 2 forwards. Those are their roles.
All i said was that sport analogies like that do not make much sense if its so different in every other sport. Also making analogy from handegg did not make much sense to me when there is a giant like football right next to it doing it completely differently (NB! I'm actually one of those weird guys from Europe who does not watch football at all but does turn into American Football once in a while).

Going to fighting game analogies from sport analogies is taking it even further away. This a a 4v4 tournament, not 1v1. If you want to restrict roles, making analogies from 1v1 fighting games don't really work.
Even then i don't think its good idea to compare character ban with a role ban. Character in fighting game is more like a powerset in an MMO, not role. That's what Kody is already doing - banning out broken powers.

When you watch any team based e-sport giants team setups are usually really open. In Dota and LoL you can run what ever you want. Can't think of a single e-sport giant where there would be a restriction similar to what you want (1-1-1-1).
Fies already probably mentioned the best game for a comparison - GW2 (being one of the most popular PvP MMOs). Not sure how the new patch will finally change the meta, but the whole last patch most of the best PvP teams literally run 2 bunker mesmers, 2 condi revenants + ranger, engi or ele. There have been rules in GW2 to restrict mirror builds or over usage of bunkers (similar to Kody and not allowing usage of 2 HL), but other than there is a lot of freedom to run all kinds of wanky setups.

So what has been banned out so far?

• No more than one Hardlight DPS on a team.

We run a lot with it on test and OPT run with it on live until it was banned out. It is really strong but its not banned because pc wanted it to be banned.

• No shield weapon.

In the same basket with HL with just being stronger by default than any alternatives. Makes no sense to ban double HL but allow stacking shield. Literally the same situation where 1 single option just does more damage than any alternatives. Personally i had no issues with shield abuse as it's already fixed on test.

• Earth and Atomic tank mitigation power use will get that team disqualified.

Something that is strait forward bugged with mitigating 47% instead of described 25%. Again something that we were ok fighting against and its not removed because of pc. It's a strait forward bug but at least it is not completely based on RNG so there are ways to work around of it.

• Mental's terrorize and menace are banned due to an excessive stun lock issue.

Only thing on the list that was overly abused by PS teams and ignored by PC teams. We personally did not touch it as it is obviously buggedand it is literally a game breaking bug that completely relies on RNG. If healing powers sets had a breakout power it would not be as bad as it is right now, but they do not.

And that's about it.

Their roles are not limited on their abilities like a goalie is. The goalie has the special ability to use their hands in the goal area, and is strictly limited to one per side. Baseball is relevant in that all positions on the field have the same abilities with the exception of a pitcher, a catcher, and a batter. You can't have more than one person pitching at once, the same way you can't have five people catching (or batting for that matter). Roles/positions on the field are strictly limited in that regard. What you're citing in terms of midfielders/defenders is based solely off strategies as opposed to what I'm saying. The fact is, midfielders and dedicated defenders have the SAME restrictions put in place, and while they are important, that doesn't change the fact that they can never use their hands, which is strictly reserved for goalies in the goal box. Again, I understand what you're saying, but whatever position they're playing, whether midfielder/forward/defender, are limited in what you could do (in regards to using hands), and the same should apply to DC in terms of how many people should be allowed to either throw PoT/Debuff and how many people should be allowed to group heal in a competitive scenario.

I was merely citing fighting games and how restrictions work to further push the point that restrictions need to be consistent in order to maintain a competitive and balanced playing field so that skilled play outshines broken/abused mechanics.

Regardless, I'm not going to go back and forth about this, and I'm going to stop posting in this thread to avoid further derailment. Have a good day/night!