GWJ Conference Call Episode 508

Video Games, When Games Go Competitive, Your Emails and More!

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This week Sean Sands, Cory and Julian talk competitive games live from the rabbitcon garage!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind.

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Comments

00:01:31 NEO Scavenger
00:04:58 Hearts of Iron IV
00:13:46 Pathfinder Adventures
00:22:24 When Games Go Competitive
00:49:00 Your Emails

I really enjoyed the latest podcast and the um... "spirited debate" that competitive Overwatch has engendered. I want to like it, I really do, but it's too nerve-wracking and punishing of any type of failure for me to want to play without them making some changes. In my placement matches alone I had people leave mid-match three times which inevitably led to a loss (I didn't leave, I gave it my best.) I'm not saying we would have won those matches, but certainly lost when they left. The reward for winning is a handful of levels and a sprinkling of magic currency to buy a golden weapon. The penalty for losing can drop you dozens of levels in a very short amount of time. I have enough fun just playing with the nice goodjers I have met here. Until they change it, I think I'll let other have their fun in Competitive.

Hey folks, looks like there is some music that's been mixed into the episode that probably isn't meant to be there. It's there at 24min until 28mins. It's pretty distracting and at a guess its the music from the break before. I've tweeted this to Jonathan Downin too.

On topic, I never really got angry in Overwatch until playing competitive, it's something I'm trying to curb myself, but it does seem to stem from the fact that the wins are so much more rewarding and the losses much more frustrating. I haven't yet figured out how I really feel about it but I enjoyed the discussion on the CC.

Punishment for problematic behaviour needs to be there in Multiplayer games not to make other players feel better but to curb activities that get out of hand. In The Division there was wasn't a strong enough punishment for cheating and the Dark Zone got pretty unplayable because so many people were doing it, at least on PC.

Because Battlefield has long matches there will often be games in the server lists where one team is lower on number and, more than likely, getting routed. You can choose to join those games. I've seen two or three new players arrive in matches like that and suddenly turn the game around. It's great when it happens ( it's a bit disconcerting when you are on the winning side and a push over enemy suddenly starts to fight back with gusto) but it's incredibly disheartening to land in a match where the good players are all on one team (by accident or design) and there is no way back for the losing side.

I'm glad Overwatch has dispensed with the kill death ratio (I'm not actually playing Overwatch. It isn't my type of game. I like to run or drive a long way, and see a bit of countryside, before I get shot.) In Battlefield you definitely get K/D players who wouldn't dream of actually going for an objective because they might die. In fact their ideal game is hanging out on rooftops shooting everyone else. I don't care about my K/D ratio and will often fail to take an objective but, occasionally, against all the odds, I'll deliver the bomb or return the flag and score for my team when I wouldn't have done, if I always had one eye on K/D.

I wish DICE would stop recording everyone's K/D ratio but I doubt they can at this point.

As @troubleshoot says that music was really distracting, hope it was just a technical hiccup and not a new feature. I once subscribed to a podcast that had music continually playing in the background Podcast content was good but it was so difficult to focus on due to background music I unsubscribed and can't even remember who perpetrated that horror.

Does anyone know what this episode's outro music was?

Great show, as usual.

I laughed hard when rabbit said that in Rocket League people don't quit, when it's my number one problem with the game.

When you are 2-0, you have to play softer, because a 3-0 is the signal that half of the other team quits (or your own if it's 0-3), I've seen people quit wven when they win, 5 seconds before game is over they quit, so they don't get any point, and they get rematched in the lower skill games.

And I'm not even playing competitive, I did that two or three times, and didn't enjoy it at all

Julian threw the episode together on his laptop from the lake, so it's probably just that. No, it's not a new feature.

Punishing people for leaving a competitive game simply won't work.

The only thing forcing people to remain in the game will do is make the loss slightly longer than if they had left. After all, if someone is willing to up and quit a match, then they don't care if they lose. Given that's the case, if you punish them with much more than the loss for leaving, they'll just stay but ensure that the loss happens as quickly as possible so they can get on with the next game.

Do you REALLY want to have 2 people playing extremely poorly/nearly idling instead of having them leave? At least with the latter you can quit without a penalty. Since the game simply cannot tell if someone is "throwing" a game, you can't really resolve this.

It was interesting hearing Julian's opinions on Pathfinder Adventure Card Game. It certainly warrants purchasing an auto-shuffler, but the setup never seemed more burdensome to me than so many other board games. It has been a big hit in our game group. We usually play with 4 or 5 people.

It's definitely not an RPG stand-in, but I have found it to be an enjoyable co-op experience.

I didn't even know there was an iPad version out. I can definitely see how it would make a great video game port (mostly due to the copious amounts of shuffling at the beginning of every scenario).

PaladinTom wrote:

Does anyone know what this episode's outro music was?

Great show, as usual.

"Podunk Stomp" by Ian Dorsch - Willow Tree Audioworks

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iandorsch

...or Podunk on the site (although I haven't seen him post in a while).

Mousetrap wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

Does anyone know what this episode's outro music was?

Great show, as usual.

"Podunk Stomp" by Ian Dorsch - Willow Tree Audioworks

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iandorsch

...or Podunk on the site (although I haven't seen him post in a while).

Mousetrap wrote:
PaladinTom wrote:

Does anyone know what this episode's outro music was?

Great show, as usual.

"Podunk Stomp" by Ian Dorsch - Willow Tree Audioworks

https://www.linkedin.com/in/iandorsch

...or Podunk on the site (although I haven't seen him post in a while).

Many thanks!

Found Ian's stuff here as well: https://soundcloud.com/ian-dorsch

troubleshot wrote:

Hey folks, looks like there is some music that's been mixed into the episode that probably isn't meant to be there. It's there at 24min until 28mins. It's pretty distracting and at a guess its the music from the break before. I've tweeted this to Jonathan Downin too.

I'm glad I'm not the only one to hear that.

I agree with Higgledy, back (a long time ago) when I played shooters I always hated playing with the people who stroke their K/D as if that was all that's important. I even saw that a few times in Altitude, if you can believe it.

kabutor wrote:

I laughed hard when rabbit said that in Rocket League people don't quit, when it's my number one problem with the game.

When you are 2-0, you have to play softer, because a 3-0 is the signal that half of the other team quits (or your own if it's 0-3), I've seen people quit wven when they win, 5 seconds before game is over they quit, so they don't get any point, and they get rematched in the lower skill games.

Yeah, that was a bit funny. And everyone that says the RL fills quitter spots with bots in unranked but not in ranked was correct.

I've never voted in favor of a forfeit in RL. The game's only 5 minutes for FSM's sake. I usually thank the players that stick around and finish out a hopeless game, though.

kabutor wrote:

I laughed hard when rabbit said that in Rocket League people don't quit, when it's my number one problem with the game.

When you are 2-0, you have to play softer, because a 3-0 is the signal that half of the other team quits (or your own if it's 0-3), I've seen people quit wven when they win, 5 seconds before game is over they quit, so they don't get any point, and they get rematched in the lower skill games.

And I'm not even playing competitive, I did that two or three times, and didn't enjoy it at all

I haven't listened to the podcast yet so I'm going to assume blindly and ignorantly that he was talking about the general behaviour of our supersonic acrobatic rocket powered cinnamon rolls, too perfect for this world gwj rocket league community.

DancesWithSheep wrote:

As @troubleshoot says that music was really distracting, hope it was just a technical hiccup and not a new feature. I once subscribed to a podcast that had music continually playing in the background Podcast content was good but it was so difficult to focus on due to background music I unsubscribed and can't even remember who perpetrated that horror.

This, all of this.

ALL MY FAULT ... sorry. I have uploaded a new version to Certis who will hopefully swap it in. I just flubbed an automation envelope.

Amoebic wrote:

I haven't listened to the podcast yet so I'm going to assume blindly and ignorantly that he was talking about the general behaviour of our supersonic acrobatic rocket powered cinnamon rolls, too perfect for this world gwj rocket league community.

I guess so, I have issues even when I'm playing with some friends on my team, still it's annoying when the other team is swapping players each 40 seconds.
You are 0-4 the other two players on your team drops. The server replaces them, someone came in 1:45 left, 0-4, instant-quit, 20 seconds later another replacement, another quit.

I was playing yesterday and we (a pub team, no friends in my team) managed to overcome a 0-3 and ended winning 4-3. It was something I haven't seen before, at that point rage quit is the norm.

Should the quitters be punished? I don't know, I just want that people don't drop constantly, maybe instead of punishing the quitters, is give a reward to the players that stay for the whole game (something else than a few rank points, once you are veteran, I don't think anyone care about those, not me at least)

Looking forward to the day when Overwatch stops sucking all the air out of the room.