Can Competitive and Casual Coexist?
PAX East 2023
Fortnite rolled out changes to make the game more competitive, and then promptly had to roll them back. Overwatch struggles to balance how characters are used competitively versus casually. With Root we even see balance patches in TABLETOP games. Game balance in a vacuum is one thing, but how do you balance a game across all possible levels of player skill? Across normal and professional/esport play? And most to the point, across a varied player base where people often have diametrically-opposed reasons for playing?
This is a very GeekNights story.
People are “ratting”. Basically trying to avoid fighting altogether. Also, even though there is matchmaking, high skill players are ending up in matches with lower skill players because waiting for enough high skill players takes too long.
They’re going to try to fix this, but apparently that fix includes just making good players wait longer. I wonder if they’ll see the opposite problem. High skill matches not filling after a very long wait because there simply aren’t enough players that good waiting to play at all times. And maybe having to fill those matches with lower skill players, or start them with empty slots.
Also, very curious exactly what kind of ideas they have to punish ratting. I think you have to take pretty drastic measures to do that without fundamentally changing the game.
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players trying to avoid fighting each other to survive longer and earn more points
The points system is the problem.
Yep. I wonder how a battle royale would be if the winner was whoever got the most kills and not whoever survived to the end. Someone could win even if they died early, but killed 10 scrubs in the process.
PUBG esports has a mix. One point per kill, then placement points for the top eight in the match (10 points for first, 6 points for second down to 1 point for eighth).
It’s very possible for a team to get 16 kills and die half way through and the winning team to only get a few kills plus their 10 points for victory. They get the chicken dinner but the more aggressive team comes out ahead in the match overall.
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