[IDEAS] Ingame Tournaments, Visible MMR, Tiers, Obs interface and more
Disclaimer: English is not my native language so excuse the grammar errors in this post and if there will be anything confusing, just let me know in the comments. Also I would not include screenshots since all of the ideas are from the different games and different company. Thank you.
Before I start, I know these aren’t really things that are in beta yet, however I feel like they have to be addressed in time so there can be a decent model for competitive and casual scene. Before oldschoollers start jumping on my throat let me write down my background which should add some relevancy to this. So for the past four years, I have been main caster and tournament organizer for World of Warcraft and StarCraft II for Czech Republic and Slovakia, I have been covering major events like IEM, WCS and even Road to Blizzcon, where I directly collaborate with blizzard. Before all that I’ve been playing Quake 3,4 and bit of Quake Live. Now let me talk about all the points in depth.
Tiers
Well it is 2017 now and almost every single game with some online match making has some sort of tier system. For example: SC2 cam with Bronze – Grandmaster system, CS has Bronze – Global Elite?(sorry I don’t play CS:GO) but I would love to see some sort of system in QC aswell. It would feel amazing to be in TOP 100 on EU ladder with rank: GrandChampion? With badass icon in your portrait/name field.
Visible MMR (or ELO)
For those would don’t know MMR means Match Making Rating which is a number based of your performance and it’s affecting which opponent you will play. In the past it has been asked in many games many times, but only recently a lot of game companies started with it. TL:DR: MMR is a system which prevents that Rapha or k1llsen will be playing with guys who just fire up a game.
Now you think that it’s just a number, but hell you can have so much fun with it! It has been public in StarCraft for quite some time now and one day I had an idea: “What if I use the number to motivate players and use it as a SEED system in tournaments”. So with a little help from Blizz and Keiras! we tried few tournaments with this system. It was AMAZING! Why? Because your seed position depends on your performance and passion. Let me give you an example.
I will be hosting a tournament and publish the registration week ahead. You as a player sing up, system register your current mmr and will put you somewhere in a bracket. After few days you check the bracket and realize you have the lowest mmr which mean you will have a worst seed position and then you can tell yourself “heck I want a better seed“ so you fire up QC and start grinding the 1v1 mode for example! System will be constantly scanning MMR of all players and like 1 minute before a tournament fine MMR calculation and seeding will be done. What this all do? It creates motivation and competition in competition! Which I think is a great system and it really should be considered as a feature!
P.S: I can also publish the source code for my current system which works with Blizzard and Challonge API’s
Ingame Tournaments
Before I start on this one I KNOW there are 3rd party sites which works great (e.g challonge etc.) However, there are things you cannot do since API is limited in a lot of ways and if you want to use anything extra, you need to create a singup page etc. I know it sounds extremely easy but there is a lot of coding and work behind it.
With ingame tournaments you could safe time for players and viewers on stream aswell. It can be also connected with players MMR in duels, or Team MMR in team games. What that means is to create another menu column which would let you play, sing up or HOST your own tournament which could be promoted via chat Windows, Launcher, Reddit, Twitter etc.
Observer/Caster Interface
One of the major problems I have noticed is how confused and frustrated can casual viewers, lurkers and newcomers can get when they fire up the stream and see bunch of numbers around the screen. However, in both games you can only see stats for one player and you need to switch POV to the other guy. With that your position on the map change and you are losing track of what the other guy is doing. This can be addressed with an overlay designed with stats of both players in mind (e.g armor, health, and weapons which are both carrying).
Second Idea is to have a keybind which would activate a popup window with POV of 2nd player which can be then switched or even do a split screen so viewers can see both players at the same time.
Third Idea is to have a free floating mode for observer. Really, if you can explain the map before the game starts it’s great. To just fly around and show important areas (MH, RA room etc. etc.) or just about a bunch of strategies which players can use.
Fourth idea is to have a bind options to show basic character info (his ability, cooldown of it, pros and cons of it etc.)
Conclusion (TLDR) make observer interface as informative as possible while keeping it clean aswell.
So these are bunch of ideas I have and suggest as a caster/player guy. If you have anything else or want me to elaborate on certain topic in more depth please let me now!
Cya in game
Pharaphobia
Before I start, I know these aren’t really things that are in beta yet, however I feel like they have to be addressed in time so there can be a decent model for competitive and casual scene. Before oldschoollers start jumping on my throat let me write down my background which should add some relevancy to this. So for the past four years, I have been main caster and tournament organizer for World of Warcraft and StarCraft II for Czech Republic and Slovakia, I have been covering major events like IEM, WCS and even Road to Blizzcon, where I directly collaborate with blizzard. Before all that I’ve been playing Quake 3,4 and bit of Quake Live. Now let me talk about all the points in depth.
Tiers
Well it is 2017 now and almost every single game with some online match making has some sort of tier system. For example: SC2 cam with Bronze – Grandmaster system, CS has Bronze – Global Elite?(sorry I don’t play CS:GO) but I would love to see some sort of system in QC aswell. It would feel amazing to be in TOP 100 on EU ladder with rank: GrandChampion? With badass icon in your portrait/name field.
Visible MMR (or ELO)
For those would don’t know MMR means Match Making Rating which is a number based of your performance and it’s affecting which opponent you will play. In the past it has been asked in many games many times, but only recently a lot of game companies started with it. TL:DR: MMR is a system which prevents that Rapha or k1llsen will be playing with guys who just fire up a game.
Now you think that it’s just a number, but hell you can have so much fun with it! It has been public in StarCraft for quite some time now and one day I had an idea: “What if I use the number to motivate players and use it as a SEED system in tournaments”. So with a little help from Blizz and Keiras! we tried few tournaments with this system. It was AMAZING! Why? Because your seed position depends on your performance and passion. Let me give you an example.
I will be hosting a tournament and publish the registration week ahead. You as a player sing up, system register your current mmr and will put you somewhere in a bracket. After few days you check the bracket and realize you have the lowest mmr which mean you will have a worst seed position and then you can tell yourself “heck I want a better seed“ so you fire up QC and start grinding the 1v1 mode for example! System will be constantly scanning MMR of all players and like 1 minute before a tournament fine MMR calculation and seeding will be done. What this all do? It creates motivation and competition in competition! Which I think is a great system and it really should be considered as a feature!
P.S: I can also publish the source code for my current system which works with Blizzard and Challonge API’s
Ingame Tournaments
Before I start on this one I KNOW there are 3rd party sites which works great (e.g challonge etc.) However, there are things you cannot do since API is limited in a lot of ways and if you want to use anything extra, you need to create a singup page etc. I know it sounds extremely easy but there is a lot of coding and work behind it.
With ingame tournaments you could safe time for players and viewers on stream aswell. It can be also connected with players MMR in duels, or Team MMR in team games. What that means is to create another menu column which would let you play, sing up or HOST your own tournament which could be promoted via chat Windows, Launcher, Reddit, Twitter etc.
Observer/Caster Interface
One of the major problems I have noticed is how confused and frustrated can casual viewers, lurkers and newcomers can get when they fire up the stream and see bunch of numbers around the screen. However, in both games you can only see stats for one player and you need to switch POV to the other guy. With that your position on the map change and you are losing track of what the other guy is doing. This can be addressed with an overlay designed with stats of both players in mind (e.g armor, health, and weapons which are both carrying).
Second Idea is to have a keybind which would activate a popup window with POV of 2nd player which can be then switched or even do a split screen so viewers can see both players at the same time.
Third Idea is to have a free floating mode for observer. Really, if you can explain the map before the game starts it’s great. To just fly around and show important areas (MH, RA room etc. etc.) or just about a bunch of strategies which players can use.
Fourth idea is to have a bind options to show basic character info (his ability, cooldown of it, pros and cons of it etc.)
Conclusion (TLDR) make observer interface as informative as possible while keeping it clean aswell.
So these are bunch of ideas I have and suggest as a caster/player guy. If you have anything else or want me to elaborate on certain topic in more depth please let me now!
Cya in game
Pharaphobia
Hopefully they add a system for in-game tournaments and a good ranking system as well.