Mark of a good game: how much there is to talk about

[Snowreap]

well, you wouldn't typically see that much discussion for PlanetSide 2.

you might see that kind of strategizing in PotBS, but the difference there is that in PotBS your opponents were pretty much the same map to map (unless a big society decided to change sides between rounds) so the discussion would be more about improving our strategies against the same opponents, rather than how to modify our strategies to handle different opponents (and a different *combination* of opponents) which is what happens in GW2.

for those who can't access the ehmry.com forums, here's the post I'm referring to:

Honestly, this one is going to take some strategy.

Frankly, when Maguuma fought DB and Yak's bend they played the correct strategy perfectly and came out in first because of it.

What's nice about this match up is that we are going to wake up to a DB colored map and not a Yak colored map which means that Yak's bend will primarily only be a threat during the day unlike right now where they essentially own all of eternals all night giving them a huge point advantage.

DB will have this advantage this time, but from what I last saw and I've heard their NA coverage isn't that great.

To win this match up there are some very important things we need to do.

During the day we need to amass as many points as possible ("Daycapping" Dragonbrand will help a lot with this), Keep Yak's Bend's borderlands as degraded as possible, and work at keeping our Borderland's fully upgraded and fully decked out in siege. We may end up losing everything at night, but those upgrades could very well be the difference between DB striking us or Yak's Bend first and being able to hold on until the calvery shows up.

At night, we need to Bunker...hard. We want to present our area as the hardest spot on the field so that DB is incentive to attack Yak's Bend first. When we played DB last I seem to remember that they hate ANY form of resistance. They would rather retreat and look for a softer spot and quickly take something with their sheer numbers then try to engage in a prolonged battle. We can NOT get offensive happy at night, try to attack something, wipe to their zerg, then lose half the map as we are all running back to defend the 5 towers they just took.

From what I remember they also love Omega golems and shooting walls.

Another important thing I noticed while playing them last time is that they generally prioritize Eternal's first, wipe the map, then move on to other borderlands. The longer you hold them in eternals the longer you can keep them out of the borderlands

For opening, I expect Yak to open similar to how they did last week, just with Maguuma not nipping at our heels and ganking all of our dolyaks at the same time. I expect the bay to be perfectly holdable against DB if they send anyone at all. We very well have the opportunity to clear our borderlands quickly if we hold the CL invasion at our Hills while the force that is holding bay works their way towards their spawn tower and works at cutting off their supply.

We probably only need a relatively small group to go and "daycap" Dragonbrand. It might be worth considering a garrison rush right off the bat to decentivize DB then treb down Yak's Bay if they capture it.

Our team in Yak's Bend is going to have their work cut out for them as they have potentially the most important job. They need to keep Yak's BL as un-upgraded as possible while at the same doing so from the Bay spawn. Harass Garrison's supply as much as possible. it shouldn't be that unrealistic to do what Maguuma did last week and kill every dolyak that was heading for Garrison. It might also be worth considering to try and take Hills right off the bat and use that as a base of operations if Dragonbrand decided not to show up. While it is farther from our spawn point it's also going to be the same distance from Yak's spawn point until they get a waypoint in Garrison (which they obviously won't because of all the Dolyak ganking...right?) though if you keep Garrison with little to no supply they will have issues trebbing DB in the first place if you do some effective renovating of Garrison.

In eternals, we need Stonemist and we need Yak shoved off the map as much as possible. I don't think this is unrealistic in the slightest. We won't have Maguuma trying to backdoor every attack opportunity we make and it'll just be a straight up 1v1 vs Yak in eternals. We can win 1v1 vs Yak can't we? From the beginning of the map try to focus on grabbing SM quickly first, then while holding SM against Yak, "daycamp" all of DBs real estate, this should help get supply into SM (this is key to holding SM. Yak won't be able to take SM with 2/3rds the map supply flowing into SM). From there you should only be assaulted from one front (as long as you have a few people stay back and keep Dragonbrand in check). There's no need to rush Yak's portion of eternals down if you hold SM and Dragonbrand's area. Just take it slow and gradually force them off the map. Do not overextend and get wiped. You will probably lose SM if you do so.

In the end this match up is probably going to boil down to how effectively can we shut out Yak during the day and how effectively we can hold off against Dragonbrand during the night.

If you look at the income distribution of their previous matches Dragonbrand logs on and off generally always around the same time. They will start their assault at around 5 AM EST ~ 2 AM PST and then end around 10 AM EST ~ 7 AM PST. We are going to need our property fully fortified and fully sieged to greet them.

Of course most of this assumes that Dragonbrand is as weak during NA primetime as I remember and from what I've heard. If they've gotten stronger in NA primetime and can hold off against us well...gg.

compare that to the amount of discussion a PvE raiding game generates -- similar volume, but there the discussion is about figuring out how to beat scripted boss encounters.

so it's not just a question of "is there something to talk about", but also a question of "are the things to talk about things that your players *want* to talk about?" there's plenty to talk about in RIFT and GW2 but it seems like they're not things that any of us are particularly interested in talking about.

-ken