What do you think about... pvp in real time.

Bad

Are you going to pick up the bus or something like that? Why that hurry?
If you are fighting another player and it's a crucial move then you wouldn't be moving like a robot like you were playing alone.
You must think about denying, trying a cascade, fire a power, look at the powers the opponent has, knowing what he is trying(the opponent won't autofire his powers like the AI) etc... impossible in just a few seconds.
Still thinking playing this mode with the current rules...
The truth I was against it in my other game, but right now I'm still playing a match although I already won all the rewards in progression, and so the players playing right now (it can be seen their progression too).
The battle becomes pretty similar to a battle chess and each move is important. [redacted]

If the rules conversion to pvp in real time is well done, it's really funny. 
As long as nobody is forced to play it, the game already has its modes and this could be an extra for people willing. 

**Mod note: Removed inappropriate statement for violating rule 7. -fight4thedream

HoundofShadow

A lot of players will deliberately make their moves in the last couple seconds for eacch move to frustrate the other players. I can't imagine waiting 30 seconds between each move. A penalty to reduce the timer of those players would be good. It would require tracking the time taken for each individual player though.

Bad

It could be that some players are acting like that but also it could be that the opponent is nervous and doesn't find any move, or he is checking your powers or the damage they can do, or thinking about his options...
It's not the same the first move as the 10th move.
It should be a time limit but not too narrow.

HoundofShadow

We aren't playing for $50k usd as the prize.  Why get nervous? Anything more than 8 seconds is too long a wait for a match-3.

bbigler

HoundofShadow said:

We aren't playing for $50k usd as the prize.  Why get nervous? Anything more than 8 seconds is too long a wait for a match-3.

I disagree. I consider all my options and then pick the best move. I bugs me a lot when I miss the better move because I wasn’t looking or paying attention to something. I don’t mindlessly play, that would be boring. It takes time to look over the board, decide when to fire powers, consider passive effects, check enemy AP and remaining health to determine the best move. Shang’s red power alone takes time to use. I play optimally, even if that means 10 more seconds to think. So, I think the turn timer shouldn’t be less than 30 seconds. Having a timer at all will be stressful. 

Of course, this is all hypothetical since this currently doesn’t exist 

HoundofShadow

I like playing with Shang Chi and characters who specialise in board manipulations. I guess it comes down to prioritising what you want.  

Is there any f2p match-3 game out there with live pvp? That would be interesting.

Bad

I think candy crush in any of his variations(or I thought I saw something like that on my wife's mobile).
Googling it a bit, Match Masters specifically.

Of course, this is all hypothetical since this currently doesn’t exist 

If any effort, big or tiny, accomplish to light dev's creativity flame, it will be worthwhile.

hothie

entrailbucket said:

hothie said:

I have thought about live, in-person tournaments, and they seem to have been a thing in the past. I've thought about how they implemented such things, but haven't delved deeply into it. I think all of those posts are still available for us to read on these forums, but until in-person tournament play starts to become a real thing again, I'm not going to go digging for those posts.

Trying to implement something like this over the 'net, ehhhh, no thanks, for the reasons listed above by others.

I don't ever remember live, in person tournaments, and I remember everything about this game! 

Oh, maybe they did it as a demo at their comic-con booths?  I think I remember them giving out in-game items or having competitions at some of those.

There is a whole sub-forum entitled "Events, Tournaments, and Missions." Going there and searching for tournaments leads to over 2000 results, although looking at it more now maybe I'm misinterpreting what they mean by tournaments. It seems they called early pvp events as tournaments, rather than being an in-person style tournament. So maybe that is my bad for assuming they meant what I think they meant when they actually didn't.

 Still, I have seen local shops do video game tournaments before. Is it feasible to do it for this game? I dunno, maybe so, maybe not. Would be kinda cool if it could happen, though, if for no other reason than to meet other players of this game.

 In regards to the hypothetical timing of each move, should we compromise and say 15 seconds? I generally will move in less than 5 seconds, but there are occasionally times where if I'm doing a board shake (Karnak red or 2* Bullseye green, for example), I have to plan out where will be the best move to get the most favorable cascades, so I'm trying to plan out 3-4 drops ahead and what the board will look like when the cascade stops. Planning like that simply takes time. It's not unheard of to take longer than that if I'm planning out a move like this, especially if my first inclination isn't the most optimal one.

But if we're going down this hypothetical rabbit hole, how do you police that? Say I didn't make my move in time. What penalty would there be? Forfeiture of turn?

entrailbucket

It's crazy how different everyone's experiences are!  An 8-second timer for the enemy move would drive me insane.  30 seconds?  I'd be flinging my phone across the room!

You *can* play very fast in a way that's not mindless, but it takes a ton of practice.  You can't make your moves in 1-2 seconds while considering every single factor, or making the most optimal move on the board...what you have to do is make the most optimal move you can find within the small window of time that you've given yourself.  It takes practice to find and decide on the most "good enough" move in a window that short.

It's difficult, and to be clear, there's absolutely no reason to practice this and improve your timing unless you're trying to compete.  I still play that way because it's what I'm used to, even though I'm not really trying anymore.

Bad

hothie said:

But if we're going down this hypothetical rabbit hole, how do you police that? Say I didn't make my move in time. What penalty would there be? Forfeiture of turn?

Supposedly AI will move for you: Total Fatality.
However, to those fast slingers in here: Didn't happen to you that you see a move, but you don't like it at all, and you search other one, but there is no one, and you look at your powers, and no one helps, and you look your TUs, and they look at you too, and finally you make the initial move?
That took you more than 8 and 15 seconds, however no one was clocking your turn.
Fighting a player would double the thinking process without a doubt. 
Or the player moving fast like he was playing alone possibly will lose.

KGB

An 8 second timer doesn't mean players are taking 8 seconds. I suspect most would move in 2-3 seconds. When they will pause and use more time is when players have banked AP and they are considering what powers they or the opponent might fire etc. That's when you need more time because humans won't make AI mistakes so mindlessly moving like we all do now will likely result in a lot of losses.

To encourage players to move faster, you could offer bonus for moving faster. Say 15% damage (match/power) for moving within 2 seconds, 10 for 3-4, 5 for 5-6 and normal for 7-8.

KGB

entrailbucket

Or maybe you just divide it out.  They could offer a casual queue with no clock or a very long one, and a competitive queue with a very short clock. 

If you were holding, like, the MPQ world's championship or something, the timer would be very short, because competitive players play very fast.  But there's no need to subject everyone to that!

Bad

Imo this game already has plenty of modes to be fast, and doesn't really needs another one.

dianetics

Unless the game provides clear balancing for “true” PvP it won’t work.
 I don’t know if this game has the community engagement required for it like arenas in WoW or the total numbers like LoL or DotA

HoundofShadow

They could treat it as an event with no rewards, but just for players to test their skill. 

I wonder how they are going to treat characters like 5* Thor. All full health at the start of battle? Can players switch or rotate opponent's team? Imagine players can do that and some players decide to rotate your team as long as they could to frustrate you.

Bad

Imo to rotate and target an enemy character should be considered and implemented as a conversion.
Because tactics, synergies or teams would change dramatically if it couldn't be changed, it could be changed within a limit, or it could be changed under x circunstances. 
Also the current game system should be considered, if the characters don't lose health playing this mode or if the winner gains health packs and the loser gains less health packs. Or if there are special health packs that only work on this mode.And same happens when equipping boosters.
Nothing really hard to convert but obviously it must be done. 

Akoni

Intriguing and possible, but a live PvP (LPvP) may not be ideal for this game. Three things jump out at me when I read the OP. The first is how matches are selected, the second is the use of timers, and the third is gaming the system via quitting.

Choosing opponents currently focuses on teams 
Currently, each team is pre-selected and matches are made using those teams. In a LPvP, devs would be forced to make a decision between:

1. Keep it team-based in which a player's team would be pre-selected and they wouldn't be able to change teams, or
2. Permitting players to select their teams after the match is made, but before the match starts.

A pro to keeping it team-based is speed. Matches can start immediately once matchups are made. A con to keeping it team-based is no matchups at all. If I select a team that uses AoE and I see a team that is strong against AoE, I will simply avoid that team as is done now in PvP. One solution to this is to allow players to opt in to a match, but have no control over who they play against. This does create another con in that the enemy team could be composed of 5* characters at levels 550/550/550/ versus your mixed team of 5* 450/4* 300/5* 270. The MMR would need adjusting to improve the appearance of fairness by closely matching players of similar levels. Doing this limits player frustration. This does, unfortunately, lead to another issue of limited available players. If there are 100 players in a pool, but only 10 of those players are around your level, and of those 10 only 1 is online, then you will not be experiencing any diversity in play (i.e. you'll get bored really fast).
A pro to permitting players to select their teams after matchups is the increased sense of control the player feels over their own destiny. Also, since you might know who you're playing, but not the team they're using, players will be less picky. A con to this would be the amount of time it takes for players to select their teams. Most players will select one of their saved teams. Others, however, enjoy mixing it up and experimenting a bit. With the current roster filters it takes time to put together a non-saved team. One solution could be to place a timer on team selection, thus forcing the player to use a saved team. If that player wants to experiment, they would need to save that team in advance. Failing to choose a team before time runs out results in the system choosing a team for you based on your roster.

Timer
Having a timer is smart as it solves a host of issues. An 8 second timer has been mentioned several times, so I will use that in this example. Four things come to mind:

1. Some character powers are more intricate than others or require a bit of thought and calculation. Shang-Chi, for example, often leads the player to study the board and weigh various options before making a single move. 8 seconds isn't nearly enough time for a player using SC. On the opposite side, Juggern4ut is simple and fast since you just match tiles with his icon to deal AoE as often as possible. A player using Juggern4ut will hardly ever see the timer hit  zero.
2. Firing multiple powers takes time. A player using a winfinite team will activate one or more powers innumerably. An 8 second timer will not permit this type of team to be used in LPvP. One solution to this is to add 2-4 seconds to the clock each time a power is fired.
3. Passive powers, cascades and animations eat up time. One solution to the passive power and cascade issues is to have the timer pause until the passive power has resolved or the cascade is complete. Countdown and Repeater tiles would be treated as passive powers. A simple solution for animations is to deactivate them for all players in LPvP.
4. Match-5s create extended play. After a match-5 or greater, the player receives another turn. The assumption here is that since it is an entirely new turn that the player would have another 8 seconds to make a play.

Gaming the system
It is conceivable that some players will coordinate their efforts to boost the score of a single player by joining a match, playing 1 turn, then quitting the match. A player can do this solo with a secondary account as well. This can be combatted by requiring a player to down all members of the enemy team in order to claim victory. This raises another issue. In current PvPs, players will quit after a character is downed in order to save on health packs. This normally results in a win for the opponent, but a "downed" requirement strips the remaining player of the win. One solution is to penalize the quitting player with a point loss greater than what they would receive in a loss, while awarding the remaining player with 30% of the points that they would have gotten by downing the enemy team for the win. This wouldn't de-cenitvize gaming the system via quitting, but will make it much more of a hassle by requiring 1 or more players to initiate the process 4 times in order to get the points that would have been received by playing and winning a single game. Another solution is to implement a cool-down period for the characters involved when a player quits. 

Bad

Akoni said:

Choosing opponents currently focuses on teams 

You have been thinking about it seriously! Nice!
My answers:
On the other game and on another which I played years ago that was focused just on pvp, the player just chooses his team and waits for "connecting". So the player chooses his best characters and/or devises a counter with a character who counters the previsible meta. In mpq there are only 3 characters per team. Would it be possible to fight good battles in a blind way? Until trying it, it's uncertain. Imo I think meta characters in a rock-paper could be even in a true battle with the 3 slots free. It could be the possibility to make teams of 4vs4 in a wave mode.

MMR: it must be adjusted. If there is not enough players to play, perhaps make it running at some days or some hours.( I have a feeling that if this mode was implemented some players would start playing until getting all the rewards in progression and a bit more after that. At least me!)

Timer: imo each move should have 30 seconds at the very least. Competitive players could find that too much however they are used to play a dumb AI. If the opponent matches the move you were expecting(AI rarely does, players possibly always will do)), you will need time to rethink about it. Also this mode should be for all type of players and casual players could find 30 seconds per move not viable.

Gaming: there would be a direct relationship between rewards and cheating. My suggestion is just some rewards in progression per month to entice players to play it. No points progression lost per lose.
If players understand that cheating really doesn't worth it, they will try it seriously.
Points per downed character would be needed, special health packs for this mode or restoring characters health could be needed too.

Bad

Also, enabling exhibition battles with a password could make happen official tournaments in the future.

Venomous

My thoughts on the matter. I feel it should be added but a few things should be changed. First. Friending system. Second. 100% needs to be optional. Instead of PvP seasons or rewards, you shouldn't get any rewards for it and it should be completely for fun. Also include the ability to do "Balance of Powers" as an optional setting for PvP so players have balanced characters and don't have to worry about 1 team being strong than another. Because these are friend matches that require you to send a game request to join, it wouldn't require a timing system or atleast a long time for it and you don't need to worry about balancing or even the constant 5 match where you win turn 1 because there is no penalties for losing. Instead, you can just start another game against the same person to get a rematch. 

This is actually a feature I have asked for since the beginning and I would really like to see it added. I know I play this game alongside my brother and I would love to do live PvP with em to see whose team is better. 


Final Note: Fire Emblem Heroes. I can tell the game since I play it too.