Mirror Match

<some 'I-do-not-understand-why-my-sarcasm-is-answered-by-another' shit>
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Just because I wrote "Starcraft" in my post doesn't mean I want CoH to be a SC clone.
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<some 'I'm-the-only-one-who-understands-the-game' shit>

I'll ignore the shitty parts for now and wait till you grow up.

As for the rest - it's just that starcraft is mentioned very often in this discussion. Maybe too often.
My point boils down to this: if Relic allows mirrors and makes mirror maps, it would be steps towards SC, not just steps towards some e-sports requirements.
Why can't CoH be itself (very asymmetrical game, both factions- and map-wise) and still be good for competitive purposes? The problem with BO1s and maxVP-choices can be solved by putting more effort into map-making and longtime support. FFS, given the appropriate man-hours budget you can make north ango playable for wehr and north langres playable for amis, no need to be genius to do that. If (at least) ranked maps allow both factions to play with even odds of success, the old tourney system will work nice.

What CoH2 needs for the competitive purposes is:
1) balance (and constant support)
2) tools (spectator mode, modern replay system, after-game analysis, modern matching system)
3) uniqueness of gameplay.

And there is no NEED for mirror matches.

I personally want mirrors since it makes organising tournaments much easier so we don't have to use the VP leader rule in the deciding matches and even use BO1 for the early rounds.

Now for those guys who don't want mirrors what fairer solutions can you come up with than what we currently have.

Why can't you just do what's done in chess? Coin toss picks side, players then alternate for best of three.

If one player happens to be not so good at Ostheer and is unlucky and gets them twice... tough! The best players are those who master both factions, not simply one.

As for the rest - it's just that starcraft is mentioned very often in this discussion. Maybe too often.
My point boils down to this: if Relic allows mirrors and makes mirror maps, it would be steps towards SC, not just steps towards some e-sports requirements.

"Steps towards SC" is hardly the same as turning CoH into SC. Dawn of War II had mirror matches, swarms of aliens, and space marines, and yet it didn't turn into SC. So there's no worry of CoH turning into SC just because it has mirror matches.

Why can't CoH be itself (very asymmetrical game, both factions- and map-wise) and still be good for competitive purposes? The problem with BO1s and maxVP-choices can be solved by putting more effort into map-making and longtime support. FFS, given the appropriate man-hours budget you can make north ango playable for wehr and north langres playable for amis, no need to be genius to do that. If (at least) ranked maps allow both factions to play with even odds of success, the old tourney system will work nice.

Relic is never going to be able to do this. Let's just be honest with ourselves. Making maps is hard. Making non-mirrored maps is harder. Relic made Kangaroo Carriers and thought those were a great idea. If your argument against mirror matches is "the game can be perfect and a perfect game doesn't need them" then you're wrong, because the game won't be perfect, and competitive players who have a lot on the line in a tournament aren't going to be happy if they're forced into a side they don't want on a map that doesn't favor that side.

What CoH2 needs for the competitive purposes is:
1) balance (and constant support)
2) tools (spectator mode, modern replay system, after-game analysis, modern matching system)
3) uniqueness of gameplay.

And there is no NEED for mirror matches.

There is no NEED for anything if you mean "this game can't happen without this feature." CoH 2 could be a tic-tac-toe game with ZERO features and it would still exist. We're talking about what CoH 2 could use to make it a better game. Relic has already said we're not getting spectator mode, and I doubt the replay system is going to be anything other than what we had in CoH/DoW 2. And frankly we likely won't get perfect balance either. But even if we did get all this stuff, mirror matches would be nice too.

Why can't you just do what's done in chess? Coin toss picks side, players then alternate for best of three.

If one player happens to be not so good at Ostheer and is unlucky and gets them twice... tough! The best players are those who master both factions, not simply one.

Because chess is played on mirrored maps. If we can have mirrored maps but no mirror matches that would be OK - not as good, but better than nothing. But all the "WHAT ABOUT MY IMMERSION I WANT TO PRETEND IT'S WORLD WAR 2" people probably won't like mirrored maps either.

If your argument against mirror matches is "the game can be perfect and a perfect game doesn't need them" then you're wrong, because the game won't be perfect, and competitive players who have a lot on the line in a tournament aren't going to be happy if they're forced into a side they don't want on a map that doesn't favor that side.

Well, yeah, it may be my wishful thinking. I'd rather have a close-to-the-ideal game or no game at all than a mediocre game.

There is no NEED for anything if you mean "this game can't happen without this feature."

No, I meant exactly what I wrote - these things are needed to make the game interesting for the competitive community. And the spectator mode is not out of the question... yet. Well, I'm still being optimistic here.

P.S. I have to say that our points of view are not that far apart from each other. With that "you know nothing about the game" mode on it's just hard to see.

It sounds like mirror matches are a bandage for a more fundamental injury; that is, the lack of confidence in map balance and game balance.

I prefer solutions to deeper problems rather than superficial bandages, but I must admit that Tycho has a good point when he suggests that Relic is incapable of properly balancing the game in this manner.

Symmetric competitive maps are less damaging to the eye than Tigers shooting other Tigers, though.

thing is, and it has been said so many times already, introducing mirrors introduces 2 new matchups, which will make the game a lot harder, and not easier, to balance.

so if you doubt that relic can balance 1 matchup... what makes you think it's easier to balance not only this 1 matchup that is going to be in the game no matter what, but 2 additional matchups on top of that? what makes you think that relic can create balanced maps, not only for 1 matchup, but maps that are balanced for 3 matchups?

only answer i got to this question in the entire thread was "mirror matchups are balanced by definition", which they obviously aren't.

That's probably the best argument against mirror matches - they add more work to balancing the game and add two more matchups that can be unbalanced. There's really no good ansewr to that - it just comes down to whether you want to place more emphasis on the competitive community/ease of running tournaments/ease of getting competitive players into the game because they only have to learn 1 side perfectly or whether you want to place more emphasis on the game being 100% balanced.

For 100% balance I don't really think CoH is a great game for that - it's too random. If you want 100% balance your only hope is a game like Starcraft. I'd rather focus on what makes CoH great and also keep the competitive community strong, and I think mirror matches are worth it along those lines even if they mess with balance a bit.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, though, we're talking about one kind of balance - the other kind of balance, which is "obviously mirror matches are balanced automatically," is a good enough balance for competitive players not to feel bad about playing mirror matches in tournaments.

i don't think anyone wants "100%" balance... but a reasonable amount of balance, like 2.602 for CoH, should be possible in less than 6 years. Also: for tournaments, mirror matches would STILL BE POSSIBLE (i've also mentioned that before), since mirror matches could be enabled for basic games (which includes tournaments), but disabled for automatch. All it would take away from the players is experience in playing mirror matchups, while it would do wonders for balance.

all the "realism" arguments are BS to be honest.

Actually I don't think map imbalance is a problem. Relic already said there will be symmetric maps; if the maps are imbalanced, the issue is with map imbalance, not mirrors. Tourney organizers should select maps which have good w/l ratios.

if there is no map that is balanced for all matchups, it is NOT a map problem. because it would translate to needing two different map pools for non- and mirror matchups, which is BS

Symmetrical maps are downright gay, so are mirrors and so is sc2.

I think that when you have to play BO1 games in tournaments you need mirror matches, or the game will always be unfair and favour the player who picks faction first. An example of this is how all the BO1 games during SNF quali tourneys went, the high majority of them ended with the players picking faction first being also the winners.

you dont need to rank everyone in the same catagory, we can have a top german players and top russian players, their is no need to have top overall coh2 players, therefore, no need for mirrors. Being top of your faction by beating more , higher ranked opponents from the opposing faction should be enough glory for anyone.

I think that when you have to play BO1 games in tournaments you need mirror matches, or the game will always be unfair and favour the player who picks faction first. An example of this is how all the BO1 games during SNF quali tourneys went, the high majority of them ended with the players picking faction first being also the winners.

And how exactly did it effect the results of this qualification tourneys? Were the results really that unfair? Let me check - Aimstrong, Symbiosis, Fireball and DevM/Seph... hmmm.... It seems pretty fair to me that this guys went through.
Football for example is really an unfair sport. Yet is the most popular one.
The game doesn't have to be 100% fair, but it must be FUN and entertaining. You can have a game that is super duper fair and boring at the same time.

I think that when you have to play BO1 games in tournaments you need mirror matches, or the game will always be unfair and favour the player who picks faction first. An example of this is how all the BO1 games during SNF quali tourneys went, the high majority of them ended with the players picking faction first being also the winners.

*cough* that might have something to do with the higher seeded player being the one that had faction choice in R1 ;-)

also: the other player had map choice.....

I guess I'm just wrong here

*cough* that might have something to do with the higher seeded player being the one that had faction choice in R1 ;-)

also: the other player had map choice.....

I thought it was R1 top player gets allies, R2 top gets axis, R3 back to allies, and so on.

Hey guys, I think we already gave Relic enough materials to think about. Any further discussion will have the same result. Some people are against it, some not. Let it be.

I think that when you have to play BO1 games in tournaments you need mirror matches, or the game will always be unfair and favour the player who picks faction first. An example of this is how all the BO1 games during SNF quali tourneys went, the high majority of them ended with the players picking faction first being also the winners.

Why isn't this a map or core gameplay imbalance? Would mirrors necessarily fix it (e.g. map A favors Allies north, but disadvantages allies south)

I think that when you have to play BO1 games in tournaments you need mirror matches, or the game will always be unfair and favour the player who picks faction first. An example of this is how all the BO1 games during SNF quali tourneys went, the high majority of them ended with the players picking faction first being also the winners.

This is terribly wrong, and a terrible approach. BO1 has no place in competitive play, ever. Doesn't matter if you have mirrors or not, BO1 is absolutely, incredibly terrible for competition.