Mirror Match

@DanielID: I'd be very curious to know what you define as skill and how you then proceed to argue that most of the top level players who master several armies are without skill.

Skill is how effectively players use their units and resources to win the game. I didn't argue that top level players who master several armies are without skill, I suggested that the current skill level of the top vCoH players suffers because of their need to play at least 2 factions.

If I practice for 10 hours, I'll probably be better than if I practiced for 5 hours. If I have to practice 2 different things for 500 hours each, I won't be as good at each specific thing compared to if I was able to practice one thing for 950 hours, and spend 50 hours getting as familiar as necessary with the other thing.

The way you play the various factions in CoH differs quite greatly. Rifles and Volks are pretty damn different, and there's this intuitive way you have to use your units that is harder to accomplish if you are constantly switching between factions.

I don't mind the argument being made that it's a good thing to have skill with both factions be what's needed to win. Personally, however, I like seeing people play as close to perfect as possible, and that becomes more difficult the more skills a player is forced to master.

Why?

why what?

Gosh, I give up on this thread.

Gosh, I give up on this thread.

Give up what?

It's a bonus for organizing events, which currently is a pain in the butt in vCoH.
If you've ever tried to help organize one of the tournaments in that game, or even play in one of them, you know what I'm talking about.

Nobody is ever going to say that bo1 is a better format for competitive play than bo3 or bo5; it isn't. But for earlier rounds in tournaments, you can usually do with one round and save everyone volunteering for a lot of work, especially if you've done a good job seeding the players.

Since its an event organized by volunteers its whatever you decide and noone can or should say otherwise , however the initial discussion which i was talking about was if it is good for the competitive potential of the game which comes at the quar semis and finals not organizing competitions , but i still believe that a bo2 with vp lead deciding the winner in a tie is still a lot better than bo1 and if you spread it over 2 days on different times according to each timezone then perhaps it would take a lot of the strain away , also the choice of opponents needs to be done deliberately based on the skill in order not to have to big names being disqualified because they lost 1 game to another big name . Another thing as i said before is that mirror matches need absolute symmetry in maps to work and they only show ability to play one faction (so imo you need 2 mirror matches (sov-sov , osth-osth)in the same map to get the best result possible) , while that may be enough if you know the skill of the competitors in order to seed them it will work only at the qualification rounds and only after you know the skill of each player individually which will take a long time imo , One question however do you supervise all the matches played in the qualification round like in the rest how is this thing done ?

Skill is how effectively players use their units and resources to win the game. I didn't argue that top level players who master several armies are without skill, I suggested that the current skill level of the top vCoH players suffers because of their need to play at least 2 factions.

Disaggree , in order to play competitive coh in a tournament you need a very good grasp of all the factions frequented , personally the more i play pe the better i play against them because i get better forsight in teching choices , pathing and positioning that the opponent might do having done them myself , having experts of only one faction will only dumb down the term , it would only hurt the competitive aspect of the game .

Another thing to consider , matchups are heavilly influenced by the map so there is no real choice of what you r good at its what the map favors most , and if we play at a symmetrical map then its like forcing you to play the mirror match , creating in turn the one faction or mirror match experts .

Do you really think that ??? oO
If yes, prepare yourself to be disappointed by COH2.

I said "theoretically", not "probably" =p
It's not impossible to get a scene where people get sponsored, but there's no way in hell it'll be anywhere near as big as other games though.

why what?

Why is authenticity important for CoH, but not for AoE? And why can't authenticity in CoH and CoD be compared, even though they are of different genres? Sure, the gameplay is incomparable, but setting, historical accuracy and, indeed, authenticity can be compared between the games.

Since its an event organized by volunteers its whatever you decide and noone can or should say otherwise , however the initial discussion which i was talking about was if it is good for the competitive potential of the game which comes at the quar semis and finals not organizing competitions , but i still believe that a bo2 with vp lead deciding the winner in a tie is still a lot better than bo1

It's been tried. Nobody liked it. VP rushing becomes too huge of a factor, and that's not a good way to make the games fun.

and if you spread it over 2 days on different times according to each timezone then perhaps it would take a lot of the strain away , also the choice of opponents needs to be done deliberately based on the skill in order not to have to big names being disqualified because they lost 1 game to another big name

It IS spread out over several days iirc, but the timezone thing isn't possible. I'm european, and half of my tournament games have been against americans. Trying to do anything about that would mean regional tournaments, or you'd risk ruining the seeding(which usually has been pretty good in GR tournaments, even though there have been some surprises).

Another thing as i said before is that mirror matches need absolute symmetry in maps to work and they only show ability to play one faction (so imo you need 2 mirror matches (sov-sov , osth-osth)in the same map to get the best result possible) ,

Eh, the whole point of mirrors is to enable the option of not having to play more than one faction.
As for symmetrical maps, I'd be for more of those even without mirrors. Take sturzdorf: horribly favored for north starts pre-2.602. The patch fixed it, but resulted in the map being the most US favored map in the rotation by far. Symmetrical maps are way easier to balance.

while that may be enough if you know the skill of the competitors in order to seed them it will work only at the qualification rounds and only after you know the skill of each player individually which will take a long time imo

Usually we just use automatch levels if we don't know a player by their name or reputation. It's not perfect, but it's better than nothing. Previous tourney placements are usually the best indicator.

One question however do you supervise all the matches played in the qualification round like in the rest how is this thing done ?

Everyone has to submit replays from the games, and they needed to have screenshotter installed or have a stream supervised by a referee. It's a fuckload of work and requires hard work from a LOT of people, I can tell you that much.

Disaggree , in order to play competitive coh in a tournament you need a very good grasp of all the factions frequented , personally the more i play pe the better i play against them because i get better forsight in teching choices , pathing and positioning that the opponent might do having done them myself , having experts of only one faction will only dumb down the term , it would only hurt the competitive aspect of the game .

See, the thing is that this could be said about any other RTS(and any other competitive game, for that matter). You NEED good knowledge of how another faction works to win, even though it's not your main faction. However, CoH is one of very few(possibly the only) RTS that forces you to play at least two factions, which hamstrings your ability to truly master one faction. Like Daniel said, spending 500 hours each on two factions won't help your play as much as playing 950 hours of one faction and 50 hours of another.

Another thing to consider , matchups are heavilly influenced by the map so there is no real choice of what you r good at its what the map favors most , and if we play at a symmetrical map then its like forcing you to play the mirror match , creating in turn the one faction or mirror match experts .

You're going to have to explain this better. How will symmetrical maps cause mirrors? x_x

Eh, the whole point of mirrors is to enable the option of not having to play more than one faction.

not necessarily. People who organize tournaments chose their rules.

If I had to organize a tournament in COH2, and Relic enable mirrors, I would organize it that way :
If BO1 : must be on a symetrical map, each player chose the faction they want to play, mirrors allowed.
IF BO3 : game 1 and 2 played on the same map, not necessarily a symetrical map. mirrors forbidden.
game 1 : player A plays ost, start on north, B plays soviet on south
game 2 : B ost north, A soviet south
If game 3 needed, must be on a symetrical map, mirror allowed, each players chose their prefered faction. No VP bullshit.

That way, all players must learn all the races, but no VP bullshit for decider games.
Even if I'm for mirrors, I think the 'must learn 2 races' has become a COH tournament feature I don't want to lose for COH2. But VP to decide race on last game ?.. I don't like it.

I just don't understand why you rush VP if it's BO3 but no rush if it's BO1. I would rush and camp in a BO1 more than a BO3. BO1 offers much more conservative play cause no chance to comeback when you loose.

I just don't understand why you rush VP if it's BO3 but no rush if it's BO1. I would rush and camp in a BO1 more than a BO3. BO1 offers much more conservative play cause no chance to comeback when you loose.

It seems like you never really watched GR.org 1vs1 tournaments, especially the earlier ones. And it also seems like you didn't understand the sense of VP rushing.

In a BO1 VP "rushing" makes absolutely no sense, because in this format you have to win to get forward to the next round.

In a BO3 with VPs being the decisive factor for the faction choise in game 3, you play to win with the overpowered faction, or the faction that suites you better. In the other game you don't even care about winning, but the only goal of that game is to cap VPs and camp them, until you have taken more VPs from your opponent than he did in the previous game. Consequently, you have faction choice in game 3 and play to win, in order to get forward to the next round.
Long story short, the first two games of the BO3 aren't played to win, but the only goal was to hold enough VPs to have faction choice in game 3.

With mirrors, faction choice is no parameter anymore, cause both players can choose their faction. VP rushes aren't necessary anymore, so that in both, BO1 and in BO3 all games are played to win them individually.

Be sure I watched all even the old ones since 2008. I understand the VP drain tactics but how on earth you have all or 2 VP's all game and play to loose? Who does that beside noobs? Your play to win definition doesn't make sense. You win either make the opponent throw the towel ( play to win ), you outcap your opponent and defend well ( play to win), you destroy the opponent's base ( play to win ).

As an organiser I hate the VP rule we currently employ but it's the best we have at the moment. However if mirror matches were enabled I still won't run one game matches.

while they break the immersion I believe mirror matches make the game more accessible to new players as they only have to dedicate time to learning one faction.

While I do agree with NuVion's last post, there's one big opinion missing in this thread. I'd like to know what Magpies thinks about mirrors.

Let's say there's this BO3 round, with player A and player B.
A wins game 1 with 243 VPs left.
A knows, with experiences, that he will most likely loose to B in game 2, with army and map match up. But, A will most likely win to B if he has the tiebreaker choice.
A has 2 choices, a VP rush that has a relatively good chance of getting B's VP count to under 243 but will surely lose the game, or a really hard strategy that can guarantee a sure win IF and only if A can pull it off, but the chance it works is lower than the VP rush and he will surely lose the tiebreak decision
Obviously, VP Rushing seems like the best choice, you'll surely lose one game but win the tiebreaker, rather than you might win the game but lose this game and the tiebreaker if you fail.

This is how I see the VP Tiebreaker, (Sorry if it's not exactly how it goes, can't really Tourney due to schedule and time zone).

Mirror matches on a symmetrical map seems like a really good escape from this, let's check. People will have to master at least 3 of the 4 different match ups possible (As SU vs Ost, As Ost vs SU, As SU vs SU, and As Ost vs Ost), which may or may not make tournaments more fun to watch (may depend on faction design). If this does happen, the tiebreaker would be a bit more fair, and would allow player A to perform the risky (and perhaps more exciting) strategy than just VP Rushing.

Even though I am against Mirror Matches, MMs look like a good way to break tiebreakers so far.

And surely the opponent would then never consider trying to counter said VP rush. heavens no.

I mean the whole VP rush thing sounds a bit contrived to me. I mean i can see it as a strategy, but far from a flawless one. "oh he might lose that one game" yes he might also end up not gaining the VPs he wanted. And ultimately if that became a problem. Flip a coin VP Rush magically gone and suddenly throws in something the player can't control and might force them to play with an army they're not comfortable with and perhaps demonstrate some deeper skills.

@Ipkaifung: I'd rather like to think that better tutorials would achieve that and i don't really see how mirror matches would achieve that.

Regarding the Age of Empires argument brought in, who says authenticity wasn't important ? last i checked no one really plays Age of Empires anymore and AoEO has been shown to not really be profitable. Soo..

And surely the opponent would then never consider trying to counter said VP rush. heavens no.

I mean the whole VP rush thing sounds a bit contrived to me. I mean i can see it as a strategy, but far from a flawless one. "oh he might lose that one game" yes he might also end up not gaining the VPs he wanted.

You can't ignore the fact that said VP rush tactic was successfully used in many GR.org tourneys in the past. I didn't pull this argument out of nowhere, it's been a huge topic among tourney organisers in the past....
We just didn't come up with a better solution, so we sticked with it.

It's real easy, having to learn two factions really well or having to learn one faction really well. I know what most people would chose.

The thing with tutorials is that they are really hard to do well, every game I've played has not been able to teach me the game adequately enough to play the multi player portion of the game.

So I either learned by getting beat and learning what I could do to play better and also using third party resources such as videos guides and forums that are provided by the community.

Anyway I've said my piece if Relic put mirror matches in cool, if not then I just have to deal with it.

i don't know why everybody is so negative towards the VPs... it adds depth to the game... it's just one more thing that you have to account for; another strategy that you got to prepare for.

also:
just because it's a mirror matchup, does not mean that there might not be something else that favors one player or another (like faction choice w/o mirrors)... like for example starting positions... would you rather have the referees flip coins?

i don't know why everybody is so negative towards the VPs... it adds depth to the game... it's just one more thing that you have to account for; another strategy that you got to prepare for.

I'm not negative towards VPs, VPs are great for the game. How they're used in tournaments(deciding the faction choice for the final game) makes for some horribly stale second games, though.

also:
just because it's a mirror matchup, does not mean that there might not be something else that favors one player or another (like faction choice w/o mirrors)... like for example starting positions... would you rather have the referees flip coins?

This is also why I want more symmetrical maps, regardless of whether CoH2 has mirrors matchups or not. You won't get screwed by starting positions(pre-2.602 Sturzdorf and Beaux anyone?) in this case.

By symmetrical maps, do you mean symmetrical or pseudo-symmetrical?