Seasons Change?

I'm currently designing a new idea for Seasons that will effectively turn it into a true team based competition. The details need to be worked out, however, this would add a lot more depth to the top bracket as team composition would now be an important meta game choice and it would help newly promoted gladiators as they won't be alone and naked vs the big bad wolfs atop the mountain. It would also take on a Blood Games feel (or old school feel for those of you who have played for long enough and remember) where fight tokens will no longer be used and the game will instead run the fights at a preset time. You'll know what team you are fighting in advance so you can plan ahead. Whether or not gladiators from the same stable have to be on the same team or players are able to create a team and populate it with their own and invite others is up in the air. There is the possibility a team will need a replacement gladiator or doesn't have enough to meet the number of gladiators needed and in this case I'm thinking to have the Arena provide the team with "champions" to make up the difference. Those champions could be NPCs or maybe inactive gladiators or retired, etc.

For starters it would be 5v5 teams and after working out the kinks we may introduce 2v2 and 3v3 which would all run simultaneously during the season. Whether or not gladiators can be on more than one team (i.e. a 5v5 and a 3v3) hasn't been decided. For players who really enjoy the 1v1 battles, the Blood Games will still be around and I have plans to overhaul that into a much larger spectacle of tournaments for all sizes, shapes and levels.

Some of my main reasons for this is I think a team dynamic will be much more interesting with a lot more depth for the end game. It would also lessen the difficulty for newly promoted gladiators as they would have teammates to help them out. The devil is in the details so figuring out how it would work regarding season length, promotions, creating teams, etc will take some thought. I was hoping to have it in place in time for the next season, but that may not be possible. If not, i may cut the next season short instead of waiting two months to bring this online assuming it is a go.

I'd love to hear your input and ideas.

-Nate-

First idea that comes to mind is that you should fix the knockdowns. ;)

Making the next season short will eat some BGP and make the necessary rating accumulation a problem for most gladiators who are not the usual top dogs so I'm not really a fan of the idea. No problem for me to wait 2 more months.

The team fights have always been around as a concept as far as I remember but the issue is with the balance. If there will be a way to balance the teams, then I'm all for it. It it will be a semi-random grouping where one team can clearly dominate the other like it is now, then I'd rather skip it. Balance = competition = fun, at least for me.

The removal of the tokens for the end game and returning to the "scheduled fights" would be a really, I mean REALLY great thing... if done right. Personally, I would prefer the old fight each 12 hours but I suppose most people here would find that too slow, so 6 or 8 hours between the fights sounds OK (there will probably be at least one fight for which you can't prepare in this configuration but then again, at the moment you can't prepare at all).

The Blood Games part sounds intriguing. Details coming soon I guess?

In general, I think this is the right direction. And let me finish by reminding you to fix the knockdowns. :)

I'm down with you experimenting since you have a good track record of fixing things when they're unbalanced.

That said, personally, I don't really enjoy the 5v5 type fights we see in conquests and gauntlets much (or even the everyone-for-themselves TOP 10 fights). Waaay too random for me. I've always been most drawn to the PvP strategic aspect of the game myself. I'd prefer to just tweak seasons to optimize the PvP experience and add team play for a side-tournament format or something.

How to optimize 1v1 PvP in blood gods?
1) No more arena tokens
2) Everyone fights everyone else in blood gods exactly once per week (no more missed fights because someone is dead)
* - You can say a perk of moving up to blood gods is that your glads are now immortal. OR you can just have Jimmy the Squid revive dead glads before each fight at the stable-master's cost.
** - The weekly revision of the fight queue also allows a window for glads to retire out of blood gods once each week and new glads to come up from Primus.

This will result in an arena where glads are ordered in their "true rank" compared to the other glads in blood gods.

From this base PvP arena game, lots of special team tournaments can be added for fun and variety. But to me, the meat and potatoes of games like "Pit of War" is the 1v1 PvP strategy play.

Teams would be interesting if we could set team-play strats. Without team-play strats each glad kinda just does their own thing and fights are a mess (see Battle Royales)

I love the idea of going back to the old school system!

5v5 worries me, especially because I only have 2 top tier gladiators, but depending on the mechanics/balance, I could have a lot of fun and not feel like I'm being whipped around by complete stables like SOTC's and Oedi's. If it takes 4 months to dial in (like when seasons first became a thing) I'm ok with that. You've always delivered with an awesome product and the wait has always been worth it :)

The idea of old school 1v1 really excites me, and I look forward to seeing what transpires on that front.


As for knockdowns, this thread isnt meant to be about them.... but Kreegan, play around with your knockdown triggers/strats. You'll be surprised how fast you can get back up, even with a non-HoL in full plate.

When putting on your game designers hat for these kinds of games, something you have to keep in mind when coming up with ideas is you have to think of two things: Fun and monetization. All fun and no monetization means a game goes out of business because it doesn't keep the lights on and feed its creators. No fun and all monetization means the game goes out of business because nobody plays it. Keep these two things in mind when adding and removing features.

All negative comments should be accompanied with a solution and solutions should be accompanied with details. This is a pretty good tenant to follow for game design. For example, if you are not happy with 5v5 fights, why not? What would make you happy? You want team-play strats? What do you mean? What kinds? How would they work?

I'm actually quite surprised at the somewhat low interest in this sort of idea thus far. Personally, I think it would leaps and bounds more interesting then the same 1v1 fights over and over again. If it turns out everyone is mostly happy with the status quo though, that's cool. Perhaps I'll leave things be and focus on something else. I'll give everyone time to chime in before making any final decision.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

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First idea that comes to mind is that you should fix the knockdowns. ;)

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I don't see any issue with knockdowns and don't have plans to make any changes to how it works.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

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5v5 worries me, especially because I only have 2 top tier gladiators, but depending on the mechanics/balance, I could have a lot of fun and not feel like I'm being whipped around by complete stables like SOTC's and Oedi's. If it takes 4 months to dial in (like when seasons first became a thing) I'm ok with that. You've always delivered with an awesome product and the wait has always been worth it :)

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There are two possibilities for team construction:

1) Force teams to only be from one stable. This is fine and makes sense but what to do when a stable doesn't have 5 gladiators in Blood Gods?

2) Allow players to create teams and fill them with anyone's gladiators based on communication with other players. So, you could create a team, put your two BG gladiators on it and then maybe talk with other players with less than five gladiators, or maybe another player doesn't mind breaking his or her stable up into a couple of teams.

In both cases a mechanism needs to be in place to fill in empty slots. My idea here is to have the Arena supply gladiators in this case and these gladiators would be top shelf and equipped to match. This would also allow a new player with just one gladiator to make his own team and be able to compete with the best of the best.

This is just one idea of many I'm sure.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

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The team fights have always been around as a concept as far as I remember but the issue is with the balance. If there will be a way to balance the teams, then I'm all for it. It it will be a semi-random grouping where one team can clearly dominate the other like it is now, then I'd rather skip it. Balance = competition = fun, at least for me.

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See previous post.

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The removal of the tokens for the end game and returning to the "scheduled fights" would be a really, I mean REALLY great thing... if done right. Personally, I would prefer the old fight each 12 hours but I suppose most people here would find that too slow, so 6 or 8 hours between the fights sounds OK (there will probably be at least one fight for which you can't prepare in this configuration but then again, at the moment you can't prepare at all).

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I'm actually thinking one fight per day (maybe two). Players who want more fights and things to do have access to other areas of the game, can start more stables (as many did in the early days) or if gladiators are allowed to be on any team they would get more fights if they split their gladiators across multiple teams. In addition if 2v2 and 3v3 are introduced that would up the fight count. The game is what it is right now for various reasons that are beyond the scope of this thread, however, a few important fights each day where a player must stew and wait for redemption or bask in glory for awhile may be a very good thing.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

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Originally Posted by Nate

I'm actually quite surprised at the somewhat low interest in this sort of idea thus far. Personally, I think it would leaps and bounds more interesting then the same 1v1 fights over and over again. -Nate-

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I'll think about some more viable suggestions later. But I just wanted to say, Nate, if you really think it would be more fun, I think we're all willing to give it a go - especially if you've already put in much of the work for it. We trust you with your baby - sure it will be beyond what any of us expect...

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I'll think about some more viable suggestions later. But I just wanted to say, Nate, if you really think it would be more fun, I think we're all willing to give it a go - especially if you've already put in much of the work for it. We trust you with your baby - sure it will be beyond what any of us expect...

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Thanks for the taking the time to think on it. To be fair, I could be totally wrong. I wouldn't be the first designer/artist/lead to get out of touch with the core or base. Sometimes creators get bored with something but the players do not or think moving in a particular direction is good but the players do not, etc. I'm actually starting to think that in my attempt to make PoW fun and attractive for as many people as possible has instead watered it down and the true solution would have been (or is) to break PoW into three similar but different games. One for each segment of the player base that I think I've identified. Another idea I'm tossing around.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

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As for knockdowns, this thread isnt meant to be about them.... but Kreegan, play around with your knockdown triggers/strats. You'll be surprised how fast you can get back up, even with a non-HoL in full plate.

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I do have a trigger for such situations actually, offensive, with 10 activity. It doesn't help one bit against anyone but the slowest gladiators.

Anyway, not meaning to hijack the thread. I believe most people are not against the idea for team fights in Blood Gods but are worried about the issues that might result from changing the format. Let's admit it, the late game has so many variables in it that it is very difficult to balance. 1:1 fights allows you to construct a strategy around 1 gladiator in an attempt to make it successful against the majority of the other gladiators in duels. This can take some time, even if you assume an already fully equipped gladiator, which takes a lot of time on its own. Adding additional fighters to the combat increases the complexity of the task further. The rock-scissor-paper mechanics that the combat system is largely based on mean that, depending on the combinations, you can have teams which completely dominate other teams, even if the gladiators who compose them can fare relatively well in duels and in other scenarios might be more successful or unsuccessful. Increasing the number of participants in each fight also lowers the value of each individual fighter and his tactical contribution. In the end you might have situations where all of your work to develop a good fighter is wasted because the matchups - teammates and opponents - are just not in your favour objectively. And people are used to their favourite pets and hate seeing them lose without being able to do anything about it.

This is hardly a must though. I generally like the idea about the segregation between the duels and the team fights (Blood Gods and Blood Games) and think that it can work out quite well. When I have the time, I can give some suggestions how to compose the team format, if you are interested. I suppose the other players can contribute as well. At the very least, we can give it a go for one season, see how it goes and if the flaws are too many and appear to be too hard to fix, I suppose you can always restore the old format.

As promised, here are some suggestions for possible Team-play Dynamics

I agree with SOTC that team strategies would help make the team game more interesting. Honestly, just starting to work this out makes it clear how massive of a game-dynamics change this team strategy stuff would be…

Anyhoo, here are some I thought might be interesting. Each glad gets 5 new team triggers in addition to their 5 individual triggers.

Team Strategy Triggers:
4 teammates remain
3 teammates remain
2 teammates remain
1 teammate remains
0 teammates remain
5 opponents remain
4 opponents remain
3 opponents remain
2 opponents remain
1 opponent remains
Your best offensive glad went down
Your best defensive glad went down
Opponent’s best offensive glad went down
Opponent’s best defensive glad went down
Opponent’s Rages are down
Opponent’s Theatrics are down
Opponent’s Wars are down

Team Strategy Actions:
Protect your strongest link (own team highest HP glad)
Protect your weakest link (own team lowest HP glad)
Engage opponent’s strongest link (highest HP glad)
Engage opponent’s weakest link (lowest HP glad)
Engage the strongest offensive opponent (highest Attack Power)
Engage the weakest offensive opponent (lowest Attack Power)
Engage the strongest defensive opponent (highest Defense)
Engage the weakest defensive opponent (lowest Defense)
Engage the Rages
Engage the Theatrics
Engage the Wars
Hide behind the crowd (reduce chance of being targeted)
Step into the spotlight (increase chance of being targeted)

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Originally Posted by Nate

I'm actually starting to think that in my attempt to make PoW fun and attractive for as many people as possible has instead watered it down and the true solution would have been (or is) to break PoW into three similar but different games. One for each segment of the player base that I think I've identified. Another idea I'm tossing around.
-Nate-

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I imagine the three distinct gamer bases Nate refers to as being:

1) Hardcore 1v1 PvP players

2) People who want to be able to do something in the game constantly (Gauntlet/Conquests)

3) People who like the team play dynamics (Gauntlet/Conquest/Battle Royale)

I like all three aspects of the game, but honestly, the one that drew me in and keeps me in is the 1v1 PvP aspect. I occasionally play the conquests mainly to try to keep up with the Joneses in the PvP game. And I think a team-play game could be interesting if new team triggers were added. But the 1v1 PvP game is what I am committed to.

So, if I was Nate, what would I do?

I would put the greatest focus on improving the quality of the 1v1 PvP environment to make it the best in the world – bar none. That might mean improving the sense of competitive balance; improving the fight-dialogues to make them more realistic and exciting; speeding the release of Shadows & Myst; speeding the release of the new tier 6 skills; adding customization options for glads appearance…

I would put development of other areas to explore in conquests on hold because the Underbelly is enough to help people gear/token up for the main PvP game.

And I would eventually implement a new team-play game and team strategies as a side tournament running concurrently with the main PvP arena game.

But maybe that’s just me ;)

I like the idea Nate but also have reservations. I do agree a return to the old school way or blood games way would be exciting and make each fight more meaningful. I think the problem with team fights currently is as a player I have limited control over what happens and the fights are chaotic. I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest others aren't disinterested but are directly and indirectly saying they want control like you have given us for the one on one fights if you are going to make teams a central part now in the end game.

Having teams composed of just one stable and fillers when needed would be easiest. Letting us make teams or holding a draft would be more interesting and complex. If one and only one player controls a team it makes setting team strategies easy. If a team is mixed players will need some way to set strategies collaboratively.

For team play perhaps there is a separate screen for team strategy. This could be simple or as complex as you want. Starting with simple and going to complex I have these suggestions.

Team Formations
Players choose some kind of formation that they want their glads to assume and assign glads to each position in the formation. Each position has advantages and disadvantages and inherent mechanics built in. For example maybe one formation looks like an X or how basketball teams set up. two in front, one in the middle and two in the back. In this formation, the only gladiators that can attack or be attacked are the two in front. If the center has a 2H or pole arm weapon they may also attack. The two in the back hang out and wait, they are like support or replacements. When a gladiator in the front falls, one of the gladiators in the back takes his place. Using this formation I can already see possible strategies. Put two tanks in the front and tire the other team out as they try and break through. Or place some high damage glads in front and tanks in the back so once they come forward they can exhaust their opponents easier. I'm sure there are a lot more possibilities. Other formations could have their own set of built in rules. Maybe the position in the formation has X % chance to be targeted and things of that nature. These percentages would be fixed. Or maybe each team has a set of options that must total 100 and the player sets the values for each position.

Team Strategy Triggers
This might be the most micromanaging and complex conceptually but all the pieces are already in the game I think so maybe it is easy for you to do. Each gladiator is given a team fight matrix with 5 rows just like we have now for an individual gladiator. The team strategy has triggers that make sense in a team fight and when a team trigger is true it sets the glad to use individual fight strategy A or B or C and so on. In this scenario a glad would essentially have five separate fight strategy matrices that are used for team play and switches between them based on what is going on in the team fight which is controlled by the higher level team strategy matrix. This would give a high degree of control to the player.

Hybrid
Have triggers at the team level that are set that allow the team to change formation or shuffle positions during the battle. This could offer some interesting play. At the start of round two swap the front left glad with the back left. If team is losing change formation to free for all allowing all glads to attack and be attacked. This is prefaced on the assumption that formations offer different strategic options.

That's all I've got for now, maybe others can read this and jam on it.

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Originally Posted by Nate

There are two possibilities for team construction:

1) Force teams to only be from one stable. This is fine and makes sense but what to do when a stable doesn't have 5 gladiators in Blood Gods?

2) Allow players to create teams and fill them with anyone's gladiators based on communication with other players. So, you could create a team, put your two BG gladiators on it and then maybe talk with other players with less than five gladiators, or maybe another player doesn't mind breaking his or her stable up into a couple of teams.

In both cases a mechanism needs to be in place to fill in empty slots. My idea here is to have the Arena supply gladiators in this case and these gladiators would be top shelf and equipped to match. This would also allow a new player with just one gladiator to make his own team and be able to compete with the best of the best.

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I didnt have my thinking cap on when I originally commented. Both these solutions seem great, but I think the 2nd option would be the more "new player" friendly. If we get to choose the gladiators from a pool so that we can find something complimentary to our current gladiators, taht would be extra cool. My biggest concern is the lack of control. the more gladiators involved, the more complexity you have going on in the fight. the daily top 10 fights show that quite well, and they were also chaotic when stables fought as teams in those. Add to that the lack of control over the strategies of allied gladiators, and things get more uncertain.

Speaking of strategies, I think a separate page for "team fight strategies" would be great. these could be used for gauntlet and conquest fights, which is a nice perk

One thing that I think could be a cool alternative for team fights is a 5v5 shootout, where gladiators fight 1v1, and the winner continues on with their current hp/endurance (or some amount reinstated)

As for oldschool 1v1, that has a huge nostalgia pull for me, so I'd love to see it brought back in some capacity outside of the blood games. I dont see it as a priority though, as most of the player base wasnt around at that time so that 'hook' isnt there for them.


Lastly, while I think a team format has merit, I'm not sure I want it to be the end game for arena fights. Having team fights and oldschool 1v1 be put in as a separate competition (like the blood games) is the most appealing "place" to me as opens up new facets of gameplay, but also leaves the current ones in place. I believe that gives people a choice on where to focus their energies, and play towards what they find is the most appealing aspect of Pit of War.

To me this game is a 1 vs 1 duel game, all the rest is just add ons to kill time while you wait for the main event. I was so excited when I read that you wanted to bring back the fixed schedule all the way down to the part about team fights. I wont say that I hate it, atm I just ignore it because its current format is dead boring. I cant remember last time I took the time to read a top 10 fight, and the conquest Ive pushed through to grind equipment.(thank god I dont need to do that anymore)
I think maybe it would be wise to start with 2vs2 and build up, instead of start with a crowd and go down. Right now when I try envision 5vs5 it just becomes a mess, but 2vs2 looks kinda cool.
But what I most want is to see the single most powerful gladiator on top of a ranking of the best of the best in the realm, I think blood gods atm serves as a good messure for this.
Another possibility might be that all the blood god teams gets invited to pick 1 of their glads to be their champion to participate in a round robin fixed schedule tournament, or maybe even close it further to each blood god manager pick 1 champion to fight for them. This tournamet will then be run alongside the regular season, just like the blood games.

Dain's Team Formations and Team Strategy Triggers are spot-on. I've played a few other games with good teamplay and the positioning of your squad and the team dynamic (who to defend, who to put offensive pressure on, when to push through resistance, when to pull back to regroup) were very key and contributed a lot to the fun of those games.

Thanks for the feedback. As I suspected there are multiple groups represented in the game each with their own list of likes and dislikes that differs by varying degrees from the others. Perhaps the inactivity, ambivalence and negativity that sometimes surfaces from various managers in the end game is a natural phenomenon at that point in a game's life. In any case, carry on as usual, I think there is enough differing opinions that warrant nothing changing for now until I can figure something else out. I have plenty of other irons in the fire.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

If things are going to stay the same for next season, I'd suggest one small change.

Having glads reset their fight queue each week is resulting in some glads getting extra fights every week because they are near the front of the queue and thus get more challenges during the week. This is a disadvantage for glads that are at the end of the queue since they'll get less challenges - which turns out to be a significant ratings points factor as the season progresses.

I suggest the simple change that instead of resetting the fight queue every week, just have glads continue their fight queue from where they finished the previous week. The newly promoted glads from Primus will just join the queue somewhere and get incorporated into the cycle. This way, when the week resets, people at the front of the queue aren't getting an unfair advantage.

I know from experience that my glads typically go through 1 full turn in the queue and perhaps about 5-10 glads into the next queue before the week is done. When the reset happens on Tuesday, I re-fight those 5-10 glads again...which accounts for why some glads have so many more total fights than others.

This simple change paired with Nate's new "no extra fights using trophies" rule will result in the most balanced "Seasons" to date.

+1

If its not already the case, I think it'd be neat to have the fight que simply rollover from the past week instead of go from the beginning again

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I suggest the simple change that instead of resetting the fight queue every week, just have glads continue their fight queue from where they finished the previous week.

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Thumbs up for this :)

+1 on having fight queue rollover. Rollover makes even more sense if you consider that seasons is already big enough that 56 fights/week isn't enough to give you a go at every glad in the bracket before you get reset.

I actually like the idea of team fights, as long as it's done right.
I'm all for more involved strategy and fun, and less grind(I'm fine with everyone who likes to grind, and for many players that's their way of getting stuff, but I simply don't have that much free time to sit here all day)
Right now the top 10 fights is a free for all, the team-up fights right now can be strategic if you are using your own gladiators or if you have a good idea whether your partners are on an offensive or defensive strat.

Right now I don't have any ideas on how to improve team fights without a lot of more work to make the cooperation more cohesive.
The older managers in BG can probably guess pretty well whether someone from each other's stable is offensive or defensive, so that is a sort of start, and at least it's going to be easy picking a rage in the mix.

Maybe setting aside a set of team fights strategies is the easiest way to do it? just keep the team-fight strats separate from the 1v1 duel strats.
Then as long as the team matchups are fixed and known 1 day in advance, so we know both who our teammates and opponents are in advance, then that *should* be enough to set up all the strategizing we need in a team fight, without having to build a lot of new team triggers etc.

ADDED:
If we want to do test runs, we can always start with 2v2, or 3v3 first then move on to 5v5.
Or we can test it as a weekly event thing and see if people want it to happen daily and if the setting up triggers for the team match would be too much trouble or no big problem for managers to handle on a daily basis.

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I suggest the simple change that instead of resetting the fight queue every week, just have glads continue their fight queue from where they finished the previous week.

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I'll take a look and see what is involved in doing this. I don't think it should be a problem.

Good luck in the Pit!

-Nate-

That'd be awesome Nate :)

Just wanted to say, thanks for the rollover fight queue Nate - it works perfectly.