The Energon Pub

So, round 3 is over, what did you think?

This was a brand new game style for us, and taking an idea from Turbo, I wanted to try and make the scalphunting game into a points based system.

So, what did you guys think worked about it? What didn't? What could you recommend to make it more fun, harder or a little bit fairer maybe?

I definitely want to use this format again, and loved that it went all the way down to the final hunt so any help you could all give me in refining it would be greatly appreciated!

Much Love,
Psych.
xx

First and foremost, it was fun and highly successful.

I personally found it was really only geared towards the lower levels, as that's where the bulk of players are. There's probably not much that can be done about that though.

Some ideas ... and we can call it a "power round", factions can use only one "power" throughout the tournament for one round.
- "Behind enemy lines" - This power up when played, will force the opposing faction to reveal who they're hunting. There is a downside to this though as the 48 hour window for the target to be active is reduced to 12 hours.
- "Do it yourself!" - When played, the opposing faction members must make the claims themselves, and once declared, cannot be swapped around/substituted to get the full team.

There's probably a few more we could come up with if people were interested in the idea.

Burn wrote:I personally found it was really only geared towards the lower levels, as that's where the bulk of players are. There's probably not much that can be done about that though.

This was raised a few times that I noticed.

Maybe we could set ranges for individual the hunts? (for example: The second bout would limited to commanders that have at least 1 level 11?)

Psychout wrote:

Burn wrote:I personally found it was really only geared towards the lower levels, as that's where the bulk of players are. There's probably not much that can be done about that though.

This was raised a few times that I noticed.

Maybe we could set ranges for individual the hunts? (for example: The second bout would limited to commanders that have at least 1 level 11?)

No, I wouldn't want to see limits applied to it. If a person can't participate, then that's that.

You did this to get activity in the game and the forums, and that worked exactly as you intended as the majority of those playing were able to participate.

this looks like it was a lot of fun. sorry i missed it.

a few thoughts...

loosen the criteria on which teams can be chosen to teams with at least 6 members. If you chose a team with less than 12 you'd have to name the bots you plan to count twice before the competition starts. For example they want to come after me (10 bots) they'd have to name 2, say Ants and Green Machine, to get twice twice.

Lessen the in-activity time required for targets...I'm thinking at least 2 missions in the last 24 hours. With the current setup it'd be smart (but unspirited) for teams to purposefully keep a bot inactive for the 1st 47 hours of a round. They may get the 1st 11 but who cares if you aren't sending #12 in?
I'd say if enough players are signed up on both sides limit to players who are signed up as targets (that way everyone is aware of the activity restrictions). If not you'd need to verify that all target bots are active (say last 5 tournaments are all within 48 hours)...just so you can't chose someone and try to win through the 24 hour inactive capture.

Like this last round Kurn only plays 6 bots (on rare occasion he'll put others in if he logs on twice in close proximity and his primary 6 are in the CR chamber).

Chance the start time for rounds. Noon UK time means that a lot of the targets are potentially claimed before a lot of players have had a chance to jump into the action. I may be wrong, but I think the busiest time for HMW is between 18:00 and 00:00 UK time, so I'd say start each round at 18:00.

Another possibility to help participation for those who can't be on all the time is to maybe have it in 48 hour bouts, where each faction needs to get as many kills as possible on the target. Would need to do some work on rules to stop targets hiding and/or to account for lack of activity though.

Also if it hasn't been mentioned, have both factions announce their final target should it come to round 5.

sprockitz wrote:
Lessen the in-activity time required for targets...I'm thinking at least 2 missions in the last 24 hours. With the current setup it'd be smart (but unspirited) for teams to purposefully keep a bot inactive for the 1st 47 hours of a round. They may get the 1st 11 but who cares if you aren't sending #12 in?
I'd say if enough players are signed up on both sides limit to players who are signed up as targets (that way everyone is aware of the activity restrictions). If not you'd need to verify that all target bots are active (say last 5 tournaments are all within 48 hours)...just so you can't chose someone and try to win through the 24 hour inactive capture.

Like this last round Kurn only plays 6 bots (on rare occasion he'll put others in if he logs on twice in close proximity and his primary 6 are in the CR chamber).

I was gonna say something along these lines. Two days is a long time to wait to see if a player would be inactive or not. 24 hours is probably the maximum I would set the limit at.

I like Burn’s idea of “power ups.” That could help the level imbalance between factions in the future.

Other than that, it was a lot of fun! Great to see everyone come together in the forums like that (and it’s great for my post count too ).

Dragonslayer wrote:

sprockitz wrote:
Lessen the in-activity time required for targets...I'm thinking at least 2 missions in the last 24 hours. With the current setup it'd be smart (but unspirited) for teams to purposefully keep a bot inactive for the 1st 47 hours of a round. They may get the 1st 11 but who cares if you aren't sending #12 in?
I'd say if enough players are signed up on both sides limit to players who are signed up as targets (that way everyone is aware of the activity restrictions). If not you'd need to verify that all target bots are active (say last 5 tournaments are all within 48 hours)...just so you can't chose someone and try to win through the 24 hour inactive capture.

Like this last round Kurn only plays 6 bots (on rare occasion he'll put others in if he logs on twice in close proximity and his primary 6 are in the CR chamber).

I was gonna say something along these lines. Two days is a long time to wait to see if a player would be inactive or not. 24 hours is probably the maximum I would set the limit at.

Given how the shortest one was done in around 6 hours, and I don't think any others went past 12 hours, I'd also back a reduction to at least 24 hours.

was fun

Psychout wrote:

Burn wrote:I personally found it was really only geared towards the lower levels, as that's where the bulk of players are. There's probably not much that can be done about that though.

This was raised a few times that I noticed.

Maybe we could set ranges for individual the hunts? (for example: The second bout would limited to commanders that have at least 1 level 11?)

What about 2 targets per round. One high level commander, one low?

Otherwise:

steve2275 wrote:was fun

It was really fun and suspenseful! The only thing that was a bummer was how some people got captured before we could start our search. I know it is a mix of different log in times and players maybe not keeping track of beatdowns, so it is all fair. Another thing I noticed was that high level players didn’t get much of a chance to participate unless it was in the hell missions. I don’t have any suggestions on how to improve anything I just wanted to share my experience lol. I think this was a cool idea and there is a lot of potential for capture games.

steve2275 wrote:was fun

da

Wrecking Poof wrote:It was really fun and suspenseful! The only thing that was a bummer was how some people got captured before we could start our search. I know it is a mix of different log in times and players maybe not keeping track of beatdowns, so it is all fair. Another thing I noticed was that high level players didn’t get much of a chance to participate unless it was in the hell missions. I don’t have any suggestions on how to improve anything I just wanted to share my experience lol. I think this was a cool idea and there is a lot of potential for capture games.

High levels a problems for both sides. Hard for the bots to target higher level cons with the 4 scalp max and the lack of high level bot players. Hard for the cons too owing to lack of high level targets. Red moaning on like an old fishwife was getting unbearable.

As a way around this I propose an alternative for future games:
Each round have 20 targets, as before decided upon in advance, in secret in the faction forums. The 20 targets can be from any team but must feature 2 from each level from L1 to L11 but no more than 3 from the same team. This way everyone should be able to get a shot at a target each round and with more targets spread over more players, the rounds may last longer too.

For my part running it, narrative posts aside (as they took ages to begin with), this was one of the easiest I have ever done. It was also by far the scariest. Trusting the factions to come together and cooperate was something I really wanted to happen and was it the core of the game but I knew I had to just trust you guys to do it, which could have been a disaster. It wasn't, and this has turned out to be by far the most rewarding game I have ever run here.

I can't see into Iacon but I had chatted with a few of the bots to find out how the communication was going (not about any of the post subjects, just the activity level) and it sounds like Iacon was buzzing just as much as Darkmount was. Getting the factions to work as teams together is something that we will definitely do more often.


And now to the comments...

Levels.

Burn wrote:I personally found it was really only geared towards the lower levels

Yes, the higher levels (but also the very low levels) were very limited in what they could do. Red has also made this point and Sprok would definitely have found that too.

The only real solution to the high level thing is more higher level Autobots, which is going to take time. I am open to any other ideas that people have though.

Involving the level 0's however, is even harder still. Possibly a bonus round just for them? Maybe they could earn extra bonuses for the factions by bringing in other L0 teams? We have a ton of players down there, and drawing them into the game is important so they actually stick with it and make that scary jump to Level 1, as it is scary.



Bonus rounds

Burn wrote:"power round"

Red wrote:have both factions announce their final target should it come to round 5.

These ideas I really like. Give the factions a chance to play a single extra card on a round to gain an advantage, or make it more open for the 5th and final. I'll look out for a few ides as well as the ones listed above and see what we can come up with.



Target team numbers.

sprockitz wrote:loosen the criteria on which teams can be chosen to teams with at least 6 members

I didn't realise you only had 10 members. If the doubles are named beforehand, this would make perfect sense.



Round Start Time

Chance [sic] the start time for rounds

Wrecking Poof wrote:The only thing that was a bummer was how some people got captured before we could start our search

Yeah, that was my bad. For some stupid reason I originally put it at 6am my time. No idea what I was thinking there, and it was hastly chanced to midday which wasn't much better.
6pm does sound like a far better idea and will be used next time.

Red wrote:48 hour [limited time] bouts

Not so sure about this as. The achievement of capturing a whole team was an important part of the game for me.
This was why I set the game at a week OR first to three, whichever took longest. Turns out both happened at almost exactly the same time (props to Jack Hallows for helping me work out a suitable time limit), so I'm not sure that really needs to be changed.


and now the big one...
The 48-hour rule.

sprockitz wrote:Lessen the in-activity time required for targets

Dragonslayer wrote:Two days is a long time to wait

Burn wrote:I'd also back a reduction to at least 24 hours.

The logic behind the 48 hour rule was so that a faction couldn't pick a barely active team and claim it a day later, the excessive time was to avoid gaming the system as such. I see now it wasn't needed.

sprockitz wrote:...if enough players are signed up on both sides limit to players who are signed up as targets

This might be the best solution, these games are designed around the principle that forum participation is required, but allowing non-signed up targets also added to the defenders job of working out who was being captured, which I think made the hunts more fun.

sprockitz wrote:If not you'd need to verify that all target bots are active

I'll take a look at a way to do this, as this would have definitely helped us when we chose Kurn.



lastly:

Burn wrote:First and foremost, it was fun and highly successful.

sprockitz wrote:this looks like it was a lot of fun. sorry i missed it.

Dragonslayer wrote:it was a lot of fun! Great to see everyone come together in the forums

steve2275 wrote:was fun

Overwatch wrote:Otherwise:

steve2275 wrote:was fun

Wrecking Poof wrote:It was really fun and suspenseful!

High Command wrote:da

Thank you. I am immensely proud that so many of you enjoyed it and that both sides got so involved. This sort of thing is what keeps me coming back to this game and running this stuff.

High Command wrote:As a way around this I propose an alternative for future games:
Each round have 20 targets, as before decided upon in advance, in secret in the faction forums. The 20 targets can be from any team but must feature 2 from each level from L1 to L11 but no more than 3 from the same team. This way everyone should be able to get a shot at a target each round and with more targets spread over more players, the rounds may last longer too.

This would probably be better as a separate game, in the style of a tactical targeting exercise. The current version targets commanders and deployment, this is more of a cross between a scalp and scavenger hunt.

This is not in any way a criticism as it sounds like a fantastic idea, but think it would probably differ too much from the style of the version we just played.

News:

The news post disappeared about 2 days before the start of the tournie. If there isn't an option for stickied news on the side bar of the site (then Ryan should seriously think about that), we need to have each round newsified upon it's start. I feel participation will be greatly improved by constant and visible reminders site wide.

Psychout wrote:

High Command wrote:As a way around this I propose an alternative for future games:
Each round have 20 targets, as before decided upon in advance, in secret in the faction forums. The 20 targets can be from any team but must feature 2 from each level from L1 to L11 but no more than 3 from the same team. This way everyone should be able to get a shot at a target each round and with more targets spread over more players, the rounds may last longer too.

This would probably be better as a separate game, in the style of a tactical targeting exercise. The current version targets commanders and deployment, this is more of a cross between a scalp and scavenger hunt.

This is not in any way a criticism as it sounds like a fantastic idea, but think it would probably differ too much from the style of the version we just played.

If you think it has legroom, we'll have to have a chat.

Redimus wrote:News:

The news post disappeared about 2 days before the start of the tournie. If there isn't an option for stickied news on the side bar of the site (then Ryan should seriously think about that), we need to have each round newsified upon it's start. I feel participation will be greatly improved by constant and visible reminders site wide.

Some times it's a slow news day, some times it isn't. This just happened to fall on a day when there was a bit of news to post.

The big problem though is news will be posted in bursts. I've seen the news emails building up and up until finally one person decides to finally come along and news stuff (and some will pick and choose, others will just ignore things because it doesn't relate to his country) and you get a burst of news.

It doesn't help as well that I'm constantly yelling at them to leave the **** forum work to the forum staff, only for me to then turn around and post a HMW news story. I'm waiting for the calls of hypocrisy.

The ideal fix for this would be able to update the bulletins on the HMW front page, but unfortunately that isn't an option.

I would love to do more, but I work with what I've got.

Burn wrote:It doesn't help as well that I'm constantly yelling at them to leave the **** forum work to the forum staff, only for me to then turn around and post a HMW news story. I'm waiting for the calls of hypocrisy.

**** 'em. You're the site admin and responsible of both sets of staff. More importantly though, you are the only staff member that is part part of the HMW community (with exception of 'Sid, but I think Cry is the only one of the RPG crew that can post news).

Unless you want to make a HMW player news staff, you are the only person qualified to post this stuff.

Psychout wrote:**** 'em. You're the site admin and responsible of both sets of staff.

Nope. I'm responsible for the forum staff. News staff fall under Va'al, which is why he gets a lot of complaints from me (I pass on a LOT of Australian news which is basically ignored) about them.

This was actually probably the most fun round yet; not just hunting, but trying to figure out who the hunted is at any given time. It also achieved the goal of intra-faction co-operation since it required all of us to know what our fellows were doing.

I think the biggest problem I noticed, and there's really nothing that can be done for it, was the 'freelance kills', for lack of a better term. I lost track of the number of times where a non-participant got the kill on a targeted character. It did become a little frustrating at points, especially when there were three or less characters to get from a team...

Well, to the victors go the spoils, so I guess we'll just be waiting to see what weapon the Decepticons create from their victory. We Autobots actually had a lot of fun coming up with and tossing around ideas for the new weapons while we played. I think we've still got a pretty good list if anyone wants a copy; everything from rocket punches and Improvised Melee Weapons to Seismic Sledgehammers and Sharkticon-Tooth Chainswords...

Sharkticon-Tooth Chainswords

Psychout wrote:

Sharkticon-Tooth Chainswords

Sharkticon-Tooth Dagger...
To the weapons thread

Yeah, Burn liked the sound of that one too, something about using it for one of his custom figures...

Wrecking Poof wrote:It was really fun and suspenseful! The only thing that was a bummer was how some people got captured before we could start our search. I know it is a mix of different log in times and players maybe not keeping track of beatdowns, so it is all fair.

Yeah, sorry about that, WP. :/ My time zone situation made it very difficult to be a decent target (and also to participate fully in the hunt).

For the eight seconds I was involved in, though, it was good! But unfortunately, it's too hard for me to really get into this sort of stuff with my time zone.