Does Melee: Battlegrounds have Esports potential?

[Jarlek]

Your point being? Starcraft is a casual game because it's also played by non-pro players? Does that mean every game is casual?

Nope, but it shows how the game can be fun even when it's not good players playing, aka it's still fun for casuals.

[Tomas_Miles_again]

Interesting. from the battlegrounds website says you guys want to allow levelling up to diversify people's combat styles. However, I think it would be better if persistent levelling only added more cosmetic potential, or at best gear *diversity* (not quality) and gameplay levelling was instance based. I think the melee concept has the whole depth potential (just down to the hard work of you devs ) but I believe there are other meta elements which would make the difference between a good game and a really popular, good game.

[Joseph Porta]

Not at all, or there wouldn't be games like Starcraft high in the list of esports.

Starcraft is a bad example imo as it started with an already "large" player base that of warcraft 1, these players had already optimized the gameplay.. I guess for a game to be e-sport viable it needs to first appeal to everyone from lesser to hardcore gamers. Then look further to in game mechanics, make it so that players can put thought in what they do with their characters and what tactics they use. Furthermore it should be balanced good, class A should be able to counter class B with a certain tactic.

I do not think it will be very e-sport viable tbh, due to the combat actually being bound to weapon sorts, instead of spells and skills.. The e-sport scene would be kind of stale, with most people using the same set up and not alot of variation in gameplay(works for WoT though, those streams are boring AF) it will be very much skill-bound though, he who is the best in blocking/all other game mechanics will reign supreme.

It all depends on the popularity with games like these(mb:warband like) if M:BG actually manages to bring a game in this style with succes to a FUCKING BIG audience then im sure it could turn out viable for e-sports.

[Life]

nah its gonna flop, become a $15 steam game with just a couple thousand players.

[cmp]

Nope, but it shows how the game can be fun even when it's not good players playing, aka it's still fun for casuals.

I think it's just that we have a different definition of casual gaming: I differentiate between pros, gamers and casuals, while you seem to put the last two in the same category.

However, I think it would be better if persistent levelling only added more cosmetic potential, or at best gear *diversity* (not quality) and gameplay levelling was instance based.

I prefer a combination of the two: instance leveling or no leveling for competitive play, persistent leveling for regular play.

[Corsair831]

not a chance, will be poorly balanced

[Tomas_Miles_again]

Ah genius. Delivering both the crack-like addiction of persistent levelling AND the sobriety of an even playing ground.

[Leshma]

It can become major e-sport game, if chadz & co. find a way how to get in touch with Tencent and persuade them to distribute M:BG in China. They managed to turn god awful game like CrossFire into major competitive game. They are also the reason why Dota 2 is being pushed aside in favor of LoL.

Or make it popular in Korea (easier said than done). Americans worship every single popular Korean game. After they embrace it, Europeans will follow. But if you're depending strictly on EU crowd, chances are quite slim. There are examples like Trackmania and Shootmania success in France, but that's about it.

[Tydeus]

not a chance, will be poorly balanced

There isn't actually any correlation between successful e-sports games and well balanced games. I've seen well balanced games fail, and unbalanced games succeed. The thing to remember, is that not every e-sports scene is the same as the next, they're often comprised of players with completely different expectations. You've got games like Super Smash Bros(no offense San), League of Legends and Call of Duty at the same events as Street Fighter, Dota, and Counter-Strike. The depth and balance of these two categories is completely different, yet each game is quite successful. Hell, even WoW, which has some of the worst balance you can find, has(or had) an e-sports scene.

[Corsair831]

There isn't actually any correlation between successful e-sports games and well balanced games. I've seen well balanced games fail, and unbalanced games succeed. The thing to remember, is that not every e-sports scene is the same as the next, they're often comprised of players with completely different expectations. You've got games like Super Smash Bros(no offense San), League of Legends and Call of Duty at the same events as Street Fighter, Dota, and Counter-Strike. The depth and balance of these two categories is completely different, yet each game is quite successful. Hell, even WoW, which has some of the worst balance you can find, has(or had) an e-sports scene.

yeah but

starcraft, counterstrike, dota

[MURDERTRON]

My guess is you won't get a lot of traction, based on the graphics alone.  Yes, even esports players are shallow.

[Falka]

Nope, but it shows how the game can be fun even when it's not good players playing, aka it's still fun for casuals.

Warband/Melee can be fun for casual players as well; as long as they don't have to play against pros. What Grumbs said:

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Starcraft matches you by rank right? It puts bad players against bad players etc

What I should say is that that is the current trend anyway. LoL is super casual but is the world leader atm, and the majority who play it are low ranked. They wouldn't even play if they had to compete against top ranked players, like will happen in Battlegrounds. The best players will make the game hard to play for the average players

But I think that games like Warband and Melee have great potential to expand, they just need better advertisement. And better graphics. Hopefully Banerlord will deiliver what it promises and will be great hit, providing better recognition for the genre.

[Tydeus]

yeah but

starcraft, counterstrike, dota

And League of Legends has a larger e-sports scene than dota, yet suffers from significantly worse balance and shallow gameplay.

As far as "types" of gamers go, I think most people don't really break them up enough. The way I see it, there are two classes which differentiate solely based upon the amount of time they spend in game. Then you have the mindset, that is, what they get the most enjoyment from. So you've got "Casual" players, who only play for short durations and "Hardcore" gamers, who often spend a significant amount of time in game(I really hate this term, but it's used far too often to not use here). Then you also have what I've seen as three different mindsets. "Casual", "Hardcore", and "Competitive".

Casual gamers tend to desires instant gratification. "Hardcore" gamers are something like the pseudo-intellectual, they don't really make the full commitment to become the best and they tend to not care the most about absolute balance, unless they're on the losing side, they seem to make up the bulk of the e-sports scene. Finally, "Competitive" gamers, I see them often referred to as "Elitist", these people take balance extremely serious, demanding all parties begin a match on an even playing field, they pour everything into becoming the "best" often doing their own tests to discover the intricate workings of game mechanics so they can utilize them to their fullest potential, they get the most enjoyment out of challenging/deep gameplay.

The important thing for preparing a game to have a strong e-sports scene, seems to be building your game in such a way that it fully embraces either the "Hardcore" mindset, or the "competitive" mindset, not both. That's assuming you can't bank on having a large playerbase due to previous installments. Also, Just because you build your game around the "competitive" type of player, that doesn't mean you can't/won't have any players from the other groups. CS 1.6 is a pretty good example of high balance, depth and fairness, while still maintaining a large casual/hardcore playerbase. I'm not sure if anyone played in CAL back in the day, but there was a massive difference between cal-o and cal-i/p players, yet both made up the CS e-sports scene.

[Corsair831]

problem is, crpg devs randomly break mechanics and refuse to ever fix them (kick, nudge, stabs, 1h right swing)

 competitive play can't have things this broken this frequently, and it seems unlikely devs will stop breaking things in the future (it's understandable, you put work into something, you dont want to remove it just because it's not very good, but it still kinda sucks for the players)

[Leshma]

My guess is you won't get a lot of traction, based on the graphics alone.  Yes, even esports players are shallow.

M&B graphics are already far better than any other major competitive game out there. Don't forget it is still work in progress, but even in current stage it greatly surpasses eye candy of CS, Dota 2, LoL, StarCraft. Only thing those games got going for them are colors everywhere (except Counter Strike of course) and some overdone special effects. But other than that, those game are turds in graphical sense.

problem is, crpg devs randomly break mechanics and refuse to ever fix them (kick, nudge, stabs, 1h right swing)

 competitive play can't have things this broken this frequently, and it seems unlikely devs will stop breaking things in the future (it's understandable, you put work into something, you dont want to remove it just because it's not very good, but it still kinda sucks for the players)

cRPG is an experiment, M:BG is a game meant to be sold for money and will hold much higher standards (if they want to succeed). You really can't compare cRPG to M:BG, because first is a fun mod where you can't force devs to do anything because they are doing it in their free time while second is commercial product.