Cybersportiness of games or "Why JKA has no future in this state"

[Tray]

First of all - there are really lots of letters here, so if someone doesn't like read huge articles or you don't care about cybersport and ESL  - you can just pass by this, but topic is pretty serious and I'm really bored here (I'm typing straight from russian army lol) so I've decided to write a topic as best as I could (am not so cool in English, but I have tried my best ;P). Also I ofc were able to do this article more beauty and add some video and imgs but I have written this article firstly for facebook topic where you can't do some cool stuff, so sorry. Anyway, I'm sure this article can give you food for thought.

 

Introduction

Alright, so closing of JKA section on ESL (I hope there are some guys who knows that and cares about that) has maden me think another time about this good old game and try my old ambitions about this game for new realities, think, what can be the future of JKA. Certainly, closing of ESL section is not the end of the game, it could be even "just the begining", a slap in the face to all of us, impulse for all players to wake up and unite to improve this game to make it be something huge and cool.

 

But when you dream about something, and cybersport future for JKA at this moment is definitely not anything more then "dream", there are 2 ways - you keep on dreaming about "how it would be beautiful and cool if smth would be different..." or you begin to go from dreams and fantasies to harsh reality, where you have to think carefully - pragmatically and utilitarianly about any steps you want to do to implement your wishes into reality. Now then, in this case, if our dream is implementing huge (maybe even LAN) tournaments with streams and casters, players and auditory, making nowadays cool players into legend and "people who have begun all that", as it happened with another games, which are cybersport disciplines now, then we need to decide on, what is necessary for that, what are the conditions for formation of new cybersport discipline, is lackness of resources is the only problem we have now or we have some other much more deep problems?

 

Is the game have to be the same thing as now, and if not, then what must be changed, what is the difference between cybersportive JKA and the present JKA. And also you should be careful - if this difference would be too huge or there would be some critical changes, there is risk, that old players will not accept this game and will keep on play in their sandboxes in evenings, will not support you, so cool and awesome, who decided to "improve the game". So you have to balance between interests of newcomers and oldfags, that's really important point to have success. Well, let's try to think about that, what is actually wrong with our JKA, what things are stopping it from repeating the success of map for WarCraft III? What should be changed in this game? Here is my opinion.

 

Aim of victory

One of the most important factors is absence of the aim of victory. I mean, just think about it, Counter Strike, Dota 2, League of Legends. The most popular cybersportive disciplines, which have huge tournaments with huge moneyprizes, broadcasting with significant number of viewers, and none of this game (as none of other cybersportive games) have the aim for victory - "kill your enemies as much as you can and die as less as you can", how it happens in JKA. CS:GO - planting\stopping from planting (or defusing) the bomb, Dota 2, LoL or any other moba - destruction of enemy buildings or domination over the enemy the way, he admitting his defeat, Battlefield\Call of Duty - capturing and holding the points as long as you can. In cybersportive games killing enemies is not the maingoal, it's just something that can help you to win, while in JKA there is accent on killing enemies and saving your life.

 

What are the consequences? Well, you have to clearly realise that cybersport is inextricably linked with the fact, that there are viewers, audience that watch this game so the game can be cool for playing but not for watching. And if the game can't provide you diverse, various gameplay with possibility to come up with something new, cool and unpredictable, than it can't live longer then couple of tournaments. Game should be interesting to watch to be interesting not only for hard players but also for just some random viewer. So in JKA it's really hard to show anything really new, and with every tournament, even with every match it is harder and harder, right as it harder to be surprised and excited while watching it.

 

In cybersportive matches there is everything possibility to outwit an opponent, come up with smth, that he hadn't thought about while training. In CS:GO it is flashbangs, smokes, boosts and other stuff, if it is about moba - changing of picks, playstyle, finding and learning some features, interesting mechanics, cunning wards, etc. Furthermore, even if during the match you have some problems, there is almost always hope and possibility (ofc if there are adequate picks) to comeback into the game. This variation in mechanic and possibility to plan some strategies is excatly the thing that allow viewers to feel that awesome emotions, when you thought that there is everything clear, but next second you are like "WOW" and everything you have thought about what would be the next has been broken.

 

In details about gamemodes. TFFA

In Jedi Academy, and especially int TFFA mode results of the MAJORITY of matches is foregun. Comebacks are really rare, but more important is even if that comebacks happen, the process of that comebacks itself does not represent any interest for new viewers that do not play this game as oldfags. Well, somebody become careful, begun to hold positions\run\avoid contact, another side become to make mistakes and ask for trouble, so what? Where is the beauty of that process, genius of thought, elegance stroke?

 

In easy words, the problem is that victory in this mode so often depends on huge amount of small mistakes and under-performance moments, that even if you understand the game clearly it seems to be impossible to show all of that to viewers or at least involve them emotionally. It's incredibly difficult to follow everything that happens on the map and we so rarely can feel the opposition between the teams, when every frag is important, and there are so few really nice play moments and even they are just regular example of 4 things:
- teamkill
- airkill (and it's even doesn't really affect on result)
- death from floor/fire/elevator
- falling into pit
The result just sluggishly come closer and closer and then you just understand that team doesn't have enough time to even equalize a score. Or some of the players perform rage quit.

 

This mode so lacks diversity, the opportunities for players to show their ability to cunning moves, it needs the aim, that will encourage players to come up with some extraordinary and interesting moves. I have seen something like that on some cups, like on RUJKA TDM Spring Cup 2015 when teams take lead and move somewhere where they thought opponent wouldn't be prepare to take a fight, but that teams have won only once and I'm not sure if they have won because of this move or because they were just better at all. Here is that round:

 

"Russo Turristo" team have used irregular place for fight and have won. Idk was it because of that or because they just better fight.

https://youtu.be/uff8-RRqNac?t=44m35s

 

 

 

DUEL

Well, another situation happens in Duel mode. Here, usually the match is much more interesting to watch, at least from the beginning and if the players are really trying and the gap in the personal skill is not too high. This is due to the fact that there are much fewer action, events on the map, only 2 opponents are stressed, so here you can feel the significance of each movement, you feel that any action can cost the game and this, even without any commentator's help, is obvious to any third-party viewer, and the commentator's work here is more to overtake the hype, the atmosphere of the match and comment on some of the nuances associated with the style of the game of rivals and how they change during the match.The oils are poured into the fire by interesting maps, on which you can also fall into the pits, burn out by fire or break down on the floor (remember the stunning five-maps final of "Who is the Best 1х1" and how epic it ended).

 

Here are some examples. First is exactly that final of the tournament named "Who is the Best 1х1" where the end was really epic (score have been reduced to even eactly 2 seconds before time is up and in the result, you better watch it by yourself  :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOMmpk6A34A

 

And this is one of the hottest moments of the same cup with GoldenFrag situation and really long and active opposition even with low hp:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOZm9wJqqrs

 

By this, if we talk about duels, then the mode is completely self-sufficient and it doesn't really need any purpose here, it is easy to follow the actions that are happening, to comment on them, or newcomer viewers everything is also quite obvious and understandable.The only thing that confuses me is still a small diversity, it's difficult to argue, but I see that tournaments for this mode for viewing will be very short-lived, it's too hard to do something really extraordinary, I'm not even talking about fact that in Duel we can so rarely see maps with the pits (usually it's just duel1), and without them a duel sometimes becomes too linear and uninteresting. So I think Duel has much more potential at this moment, but in the distance, if it won't change, it also will pall very quickly.

 

CTF and Siege

And a few words about really unpopular now mode CTF and dead Siege. I have played in all versions of capture the flag mode: saber only/saber and force/saber and weapon/saber, force and weapon. The most balanced and variative type in my opinion is weapon + force + saber, but then game will depart from its features - amazing and unique mechanic of saber combat (none of sword fighting can show anything like that) and awesome freedom of movement, and it reminds of the good old Unreal Tournament and Quake, which, incidentally, with a request for a similar gameplay will cope bette than elderling JA. And what about Siege - situation is almost the same, but analogue is Battlefront, but only with worse quality. Playing this was fun, killing enemy is not the main goal and maps allows you to win with variety of tactics, but it was so sadly and gloomly to play with Jump lvl 0 and only with weapons... If I would like to shoot I will go for Call of Duty, Counter Strike, Battlefield or other FPS. JKA is not FPS.

 

Solutions

So what's up next? Playing only Duel mode. Of course not, but let TFFA be the same it is now would be the fatal, cruicial mistake in development of the game. It is just uninterested neither to watch, nor to commentate, so it means it has nothing to do with cybersport, like there is no connection between cybersport and custom modes in Dota 2. I want to lead to the fact that all of us, guys, need to think very hard about what the future of JA should be, so that it can grow into something new and cool, or all the flutter around the tournaments will continue to look like masturbation - unnecessary for anyone except the players themselves self-gratification. Everyone chooses himself. Creating the cups, making server protection from dos attacks and client protection from any side injections, beauty graphics - this is just couple of secondary problems that must be solved later. The problem of the game lies in the gameplay itself, no matter how unobvious it seemed to some, and its change is a priority for the embodiment of the beautiful child dream "JA = cybersport".

 

I'll try to offer you my modest solutions to this problem.

1. Capture and hold points

2. Adding "heroes" and "skills" like in Overwatch.

3. RMM system

 

1. TFFA mode, in my opinion, can perfectly work with the format of capture points with mechanic of capturing like in Battlefield, and there are even 2 formats for that.

First - classic capture of one point. The bigger amount of players of team X, the faster is capturing proccess for it, if there are even number of players, capturing stopped. 
It will give lots of opportunities for players to show their performance (especially if it will be played with carefully delibirated group of forces with changed cooldowns and changed forcecosts) and increase activity of players, exclude reasons to run away and avoid contact and also for dueling in some different places of the map instead of moving to the point. Actually, as for me it is, I would say, the classic version, I do not know why LucasArts did not think of such a thing, it fits quite seamlessly into the game with its free movements and Forces in order to change the position of opponents in space.

Second type would be easier understandable for those who knows custom mode in Dota 2 named "Haunted Colosseum". Here is the essence. There are 5 objectives: 2 for red team, 2 for blue team and one neutral objective from the begining. As soon as neutral objective change its status to "captured", the team that have done that will start to get the points. Then it has choice - try to push forward and capture next objectives or just hold position. Nuance is that every "team objective" (one of that 2 objectives on part of team X) provide its team some buffs, like regeneration of hp, low-costed forces, cutted cooldowns or spawning some strong mobs that will attack only players from team that tries to capture objective. But if attackers will succeed, gaining of points will increase rapidly. The winner is team that will get certain amount of points or that will get more points after time is out.

 

2. Well, there's just a lot of room for fantasy and it certainly will greatly change the gameplay, but it has a right to exist. Heroes also with sabers, but at the same time with different abilities (including those divisible by active/passive/interruptible, etc.), which should somehow be logical for every character. The models for heroes are already done - Kyle Katarn, Jan Ors, Desann, Rosh Penin, Tavion, etc. Also, actually, with a wide variety of characters, it is possible to implement it without any goal,I think it could be cool by itself, in extreme cases it can be crossed with the first point.

 

3. RMM = Ranked MatchMaking. The system of rating and selection of opponents to each other, which is based on the results of past games. The more you beat the stronger opponents, the greater your MMR (matchmaking rating), the more you lose, the lower it is, everything is exactly the same as the systems in Moba games and CS:GO, a typical step for integrating games into e-sports. By the way, this is the most understandable and simple in terms of implementation point.

 

Conclusion

In general, this is my vision and my options, if you have read up to here (and not scrolled down), then you are already well done, now if this whole situation is interesting to you and not indifferent, then you can express your opinion and options in the comments, I would I wanted this post to give rise to some discussion about the future of JA, so I'm waiting for everyone below.

[Tray]

And no answers, lul

[Circa]

Sounds like a lot of work, with not many capable people around these days to do it.

 

All of what you said sounds cool, for sure, but that amount of work requires a large team of developers to accomplish properly.

[afi]

As I already told you, I totally agree with your point that TDM is not really the bost of all gamemodes when it comes to spectating and entertainment so something else (maybe similar to cs) would be better

[LoU]

This is what I wanted for MB2 (https://community.moviebattles.org/threads/why-and-bye.3902).

I hope they will opensource this project. IIRC there were legal aspects behind this "not possible atm", but I'm not an expert if it comes to legal disputes about GPL/2 JKA EULA/SKD license and all of this stuff.

 

Back in the days (again: https://community.moviebattles.org/threads/why-and-bye.3902 ) we had tournaments, we had ideas of two new game modes including CTF.

[Jango40]

MB2 is great for tournaments. Alternatively, siege can be modified. Or, you can mod the game to add new stuff - instagib is really fun, for example, especially in the JK games thanks to Force Jump and other stuff. 

[Jango40]

 

3. RMM = Ranked MatchMaking. The system of rating and selection of opponents to each other, which is based on the results of past games. The more you beat the stronger opponents, the greater your MMR (matchmaking rating), the more you lose, the lower it is, everything is exactly the same as the systems in Moba games and CS:GO, a typical step for integrating games into e-sports. By the way, this is the most understandable and simple in terms of implementation point.

 

 

I especially agree with this. It's basically the only thing that made me play CS for soon to be 800 hours - I love seeing my skills and rank progress. It really pushes you to get better and better. If I remember right, there actually was some kind of leaderboard on the net for JKA duels back in the 2000's?

[LoU]

I especially agree with this. It's basically the only thing that made me play CS for soon to be 800 hours - I love seeing my skills and rank progress. It really pushes you to get better and better. If I remember right, there actually was some kind of leaderboard on the net for JKA duels back in the 2000's?

 

It's doable with account system (for example linked to forums or any other database) and in-game tracking / serverside tracking (offical servers like I wanted for MBII).

 

The idea was simple - > run Official Servers hidden from list and joinable only if you meet requirements. (account system needed to be impleneted).

[Smoo]

I especially agree with this. It's basically the only thing that made me play CS for soon to be 800 hours - I love seeing my skills and rank progress. It really pushes you to get better and better. If I remember right, there actually was some kind of leaderboard on the net for JKA duels back in the 2000's?

Yeah blademod, i was thinking of making a replica of it but haven't started yet

[ent]

 

Cybersportiness of games or "Why JKA has no future in this state"

Erm. Isn't it obvious? The title and thus the article would have sense if you were trying to say it has a future.

[LoU]

@@ent I think the keyword here is "in this state" and I agree on this one. But imho, with MBII being opensurced maybe it would be possible

[ent]

@@ent I think the keyword here is "in this state" and I agree on this one. But imho, with MBII being opensurced maybe it would be possible

I do not see how being open source relates in being in a better state for sybersports.

Unrelated at all IMO.

[LoU]

I do not see how being open source relates in being in a better state for sybersports.

Unrelated at all IMO.

 

Not directly, no. But MBII have potential to be transformed into mod for more competitive games.

[Boothand]

I think JK2 1.02 CTF would be excellent cyber sports material. It's truly unique, as there's no other game with this pace where you use only melee (and mines) to kill each other instead of ranged weapons. Watching these captain's matches could be really entertaining with the right presentation. The gameplay has everything - incredibly high speed and fast reaction chases, cool saber combat, set roles within each team with plenty of interesting tactics, you have stuff like team boosts (you can slash your teammate to make them go really fast and soar through the air), "DBS dooms" (making someone die from fall damage due to the impact of the special move) and community banter.

 

Example of a cpts match, though not the best presentation/commentary/stream/stuff:

 

https://youtu.be/r0C-HTX3kas?t=675

[SuperJoule]

What this would need would be publicity.

Preferrably from a popular twitch streamer, either through hosting/shoutouts/advertising.

 

The games resolution would also need to updates to 4k.

And the balance of the game in terms of damage from red/yellow/blue would need to be balanced.

In the old days, there were some servers who had the perfect numbers.

 

Now they don't.

[MeZz]

I was thinking about trying to resurrect the BWN style of servers. We all know they weren't perfect, but it was always very popular never the less. 

This is a great post for somebody that truly cares.

 

I dont have much time at the moment to write more but.

 

As one of the previous posters mentioned, the game needs more exposure and some form of competitive ladder system. a BWN type server with some form of /amlogin would be a good start. I think logor mod done something similar, you could without downloading anything, login on  server and check your stats, create character etc, theres probably a way to use this type of system merge it with BWN type of server.

 

of course this would be more like a casual ladder system?, but it would encourage more the competitive jk scene.

 

Idk just my thoughts.

 

and Hello to everybody. first post yey

[ensiform]

I can't really take the OP seriously when your metric is based around sabers being the only feature of the game.

 

>CTF&Siege

"but then game will depart from its features - amazing and unique mechanic of saber combat (none of sword fighting can show anything like that) "

 

Simply put, it's average at best, and even then, it's not the only component of the game. CTF arguably is the most wide variety since it offers powers, weapons and saber as opposed to just saber plus capturing the flag is the main goal.

[Grab]

I also can't take some people seriously. Some balance changes would be nice but CTF and Siege is very playable.

"There is less sabering in CTF/Siege so it is not cool gametype" kek

Dude probably never player good CTF/Siege pug.

There is Smod(and Newmod soon tm) mod for client that makes CTF/Siege better, there is base_enhanced/base_entranced server side mod that supports CTF/Siege better.

CTF has everything that game needs to be competetive.

 

 

The games resolution would also need to updates to 4k.

And the balance of the game in terms of damage from red/yellow/blue would need to be balanced.

lol

[afi]

Why lol? Fast style on single is mostly useless compared to medium and strong. And dual sabers are too weak as well.

[Grab]

Why lol? Fast style on single is mostly useless compared to medium and strong. And dual sabers are too weak as well.

So? Fast style is still used to finish low targets. Also it is just part of single lightsaber. Having weak fast style is big problem in JA. Aren't duals op but they have high skill cap? *summoning JA saberists*

[afi]

No, there were literally 3 good dual saberists in the history of this game and even they had major problems when playing against staff.

[MeZz]

Game was alive for years and still is because of the Saber only mode, there is no point to deny it.

 

The CTF saber only mode 5 vs 5 battles are extremely fun and exciting. I see this somehow catering to mobaish style of play, but much much more skill based of course.

 

And no the game can not compete on esport scene with shooters. Its saber combat what its about.

[SuperJoule]

I come from the Golden era of JKA, I've been playing the Jedi Knight series since release, when I was a toddler I played dark forces.

Trust me when I say the servers today, do not have the balance the servers did 10-14 years ago.

 

In the old days, there was enough people in the game to balance the game (really) so that yellow didn't have OP, which it was for a while. Today playing pure red is almost unpunished.

 

Downplaying this is just, it's honestly just being obnoxious, and it's honestly not helpful so. Please, we're a small community, and we dont need the cancer. Honestly, let's have a civil, nice and friendly conversation where we are all, in a state of altruistic reciprocity.

[Petzi]

Could ModWooty be played competitively?