Forced Draws

Preface: No whining about US-TR NC match result, though it's indeed the inspiration for this topic.

Shemaforash said (and he is right because it hasn't been regulated otherwise) in that thread that forced draws are a tactic. The question is, do we want it to be? Can it be changed?

My main complaint is that it's a significantly less fun way of the playing the game when done systematically (when a round is played from the start with one team having the intent to draw). Also, it's too easy when sane time limits have been set up.

A pretty far fetched solution (requiring modding or worse, hardcoded changes): The end of timer condition could be modified to "victory given to the team with most kills this round, or otherwise the first team to make a (valid) kill after the timer expiry".

But I'd rather hear more realistic ideas.

Edit: I didn't post this in NC sub forum because it's applicable to Warband matches in general.

As long as the game rules are as they are of course they are a tactic. However Nubijuki's modified flag rules (MoF spawns at 2:00 irrelevant of any other factor) means draws are far more rare. Basically you have to have a situation where teams either don't get to the flags at all or both teams get to the flags at the same time and can't manage to kill each other for two minutes.

I don't think forced draws should be a tactic. In my opinion, the winner of a match should be the team that is better at playing Mount & Blade. It's hard (maybe impossible?) to come up with a tournament ruleset that creates winners who are clearly better at Warband, but eliminating forced draws is certainly a step in the right direction. If forced draws become a tactic, then all of the sudden a round can become a contest of who is better at avoiding playing Warband. Now one might argue that you're still technically playing Warband as you run away and strategically kill yourself, but I think that the essence of playing Warband is in engagement, whether it's firing arrows or melee, and I think people play matches for the engagement. Having forced draws as a tactic produces match winners that are not necessarily more skilled at playing Warband, and matches that are frankly just less fun (because you're playing less!). Relating to the TR v. US match I think that Turkey definitely deserved the win without a doubt, because within the rules of NC, what they did was completely legitimate. Whether or not the match result showed the better team is a different matter entirely.

As M said when I complained about the 3rd place match in NASTe,

This is wrong. "3rd place" in this context means "3rd best team at naste rules." They most definitely are that if they got 3rd while playing within the naste rules. That's what that means. Whether those rules are any good at determining the better team is irrelevant to that.

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Oh oops, I forgot to write what I think a solution is. I don't like BIT's current rule about replaying round ties, because if you have 8 men left and the other team has 1, it seems a little unfair that the other team gets a whole 'nother chance at the round because it the time ran out,  but I think replaying is better than nothing. Also maybe have a rule like in NASTe where there's no intentional delaying.

MrNomNom said:

I don't like BIT's current rule about replaying round ties, because if you have 8 men left and the other team has 1, it seems a little unfair that the other team gets a whole 'nother chance at the round because it the time ran out,  but I think replaying is better than nothing.

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7 guys surviving get +500 gold and money from the kills while the team that survived with one player have 7 players who lost all their equipment and didn't gain 500 gold.

500 + gold doesn't necessarily assure the win in the same way that a 7 v 1 does, but that is a good point.

Forced draw is a great tactic option, please don't talk about changing the rules 3 years after relase.

How would you force a draw? You could always run in and attack.

Scully said:

How would you force a draw? You could always run in and attack.

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Step 1: Take superior defensive position (for example a crossfire)
Step 2: Camp while sending in a troop that doesn't affect the crossfire and have them stay close to the enemy
Step 3: That person will most likely die so keep sending troops.
Step 4: GG

This tactic works against teams who have no idea how to counter it.

Personally I'm in favor of shorter round times and forced MOTF spawn at 2:00

Shemaforash said:

forced MOTF spawn at 2:00

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Dis.

Haaaaa ! I'm so happy to see that people didn't forget my proposition of making a shorter roundtime with a forced flag

Btw, don't you think that might be a good idea to do it for next WNL season ?

Newbiejunky said:

Btw, don't you think that might be a good idea to do it for next WNL season ?

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Sorry

Of Course it's a good idea, give the battle a goal O:

Rallix said:

Shemaforash said:

forced MOTF spawn at 2:00

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Dis.

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Seems like the best and most simple way against draws.

Blead said:

Rallix said:

Shemaforash said:

forced MOTF spawn at 2:00

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Dis.

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Seems like the best and most simple way against draws.

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This, but I've always thought 2 was kinda early. Would like 1:30 personally.

I think they meant 2:00 left on the timer, not 2 minutes in game.

Blead said:

I think they meant 2:00 left on the timer, not 2 minutes in game.

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I think I meant that as well.

It keeps close to the what we have now and right now we do get fights going down to 0:00 sometimes. If teams have camped for flags then the remaining time is all you have left to win and teams may be completely undamaged at that point.

Glad it only took 3 years (and yet another draw loss) to get this thread going 

and it really shouln't be considered a tactic, it is merely refusing to try at disadvantaged ping because you feel the risk is not worth it...Which is not fair to NA teams that put in a lot of time to get competitive at high ping.

Anyway, thanks for looking to change the rule. It will definitely help in future events.

T said:

and it really shouln't be considered a tactic, it is merely refusing to try at disadvantaged ping because you feel the risk is not worth it...Which is not fair to NA teams that put in a lot of time to get competitive at high ping.

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I don't really see why them forcing draws means you wasted that time getting competitive. The fact that you failed to win a high ping round however means your time probably would have been better spent practicing draw forcing.

Anyway this is something I'm interested in. Personally I think Battle is horribly flawed as a competitive game mode whatever you do to it but I definitely think it can be tweaked for the better.

One thing I'd say is that forcing the flag on a specific time is probably a bad idea. I like the way it delays for engagement and I think it adds to strategy. If you know exactly when it's going to spawn, teams ccould potentially get too settled around the idea and base all strategy around the flag. Without an option to disrupt that I feel like it would be harder to test those teams' ability to adapt and probably lower the overall skill level. What you could do is reduce how much it delays and have it try to start spawning at a much earlier point in the round - as well as reduce the overall round length.

Captain Lust said:

T said:

and it really shouln't be considered a tactic, it is merely refusing to try at disadvantaged ping because you feel the risk is not worth it...Which is not fair to NA teams that put in a lot of time to get competitive at high ping.

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I don't really see why them forcing draws means you wasted that time getting competitive. The fact that you failed to win a high ping round however means your time probably would have been better spent practicing draw forcing.

Anyway this is something I'm interested in. Personally I think Battle is horribly flawed as a competitive game mode whatever you do to it but I definitely think it can be tweaked for the better.

One thing I'd say is that forcing the flag on a specific time is probably a bad idea. I like the way it delays for engagement and I think it adds to strategy. If you know exactly when it's going to spawn, teams ccould potentially get too settled around the idea and base all strategy around the flag. Without an option to disrupt that I feel like it would be harder to test those teams' ability to adapt and probably lower the overall skill level. What you could do is reduce how much it delays and have it try to start spawning at a much earlier point in the round - as well as reduce the overall round length.

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There isn't exactly much adaptation needed to be done right now, teams just back off and stop fighting when it gets near to flag time. So all the current mechanics tend to do is create a lull in the fighting and generally increase round length. We tested the new rule set with 3:30 rounds and a flag spawn at 2:00. It works really well, you can be aggressive much earlier without having to fear drawing the round because of the way the flag spawning mechanic works. I think the only thing that was the consensus was that 3:30 was a little low for open maps. So 4:00 is probably a better time. Overall though rounds were much more rapid and smoother, we probably reduced the overall match length by 20 mins or so.

The mechanics for spawning the flag as it is are frankly bizarre and seem orientated around trying to ensure that flags don't spawn until absolutely necessary, which I guess is a holdover from their original design intentions which was to stop one guy from hiding in public play and making every single round a draw back in beta. They're so odd that people start attributing all sorts of false rules to them and believing they can control the flag spawn location.