Method Jdotb Q&A #15 - Mythic Dungeon Invitational LAN Finals, Raider.IO Scoring System

No ar Criado 28/6/2018 em 21:00 por Squishei

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World Firsts

Do you feel it’s worth leveling characters in BFA Beta when so many times they all just get nerfed/buffed right after live launch anyway?

Completely depends on what you’re hoping to accomplish by leveling characters on beta. If your goal is to know 100% which class will be strongest, you’re out of luck. Classes will be getting balancing passes through the rest of beta and even after BFA launch -- expect to see a major tuning patch the week before mythic Uldir is released that attempts to bring the outlier classes from heroic week back toward the pack. Beta can give you an impression of a class, but by its very nature it will never be an opportunity to get completely confident in your class selection.

What beta CAN do is give you a chance to test out classes that have gone through significant overhauls between Legion and BFA or see if the pruning that every class has been hit with has negatively affected any of them in a material way. It’s very likely that most classes will have their numbers tweaked between now and when mythic Uldir and the M+ dungeons are released, but it’s a lot less likely that any class will have its rotation or cooldowns heavily altered from here out. You may not be able to pinpoint which class will do the most DPS, but you can get an idea of which class you enjoy playing.

And it’s also worth keeping in mind that beta is a tool for Blizzard to test its content as much as it’s an opportunity for players to try out content ahead of release. The leveling experience is important to Blizzard, and it wants to collect meaningful data and feedback on BFA leveling by making sure a lot of players test it out. I know we’d all like to just get handed level 120 characters with 340 ilvl equipment, but that doesn’t necessarily give Blizzard the information that it wants.

I myself have leveled both a priest and a druid to 120 so far, and I’ll probably level one or two more classes before beta is done. Mostly I just want an opportunity to see how the class “feels” heading into launch, and then I’ll pick a few classes to level at release with the expectation that those classes might get gutted or buffed within the first month. Hopefully I end up with one or two that are viable in M+, but I might just have to suck it up and level another class, too.

With the popularity of Raider IO’s scoring system, do you think that eventually Blizzard will incorporate a scoring/ranking system (similar to what happened in Wrath with Gearscore turning into Item Level). Would this help or hurt the community?

This is kind of a trick question because technically Blizzard has a ranking system -- it just isn’t a very good one at the moment. There are realm leaderboards on battle.net right now that display the highest keys done for each dungeon sorted by time, and Raider.IO scrapes those leaderboards to see what keys have been done each week. Then Raider.IO applies its own methodology for scoring keys and spits out a number for each player.

So the question really is: “Do you think Blizzard will copy Raider.IO’s approach to scoring keys?” And I’m not sure about that. On the one hand, the arena system has a very mature MMR system that gives each player a score, so Blizzard is obviously open to the idea in some capacity. On the other hands, Blizzard has dragged its feet when it comes to introducing any kind of real infrastructure around M+. Players have long been clamoring for more legitimacy in the form of titles, mounts, transmog, etc., but Blizzard hasn’t yet given much indication that it’s interested in providing those things. And if there are no rewards for M+ competition, what’s the point of developing a more robust scoring system? The “race to world first” in the raiding scene has always played out on third party websites, and Blizzard has never seemed to have any desire to bring that responsibility in-house.

Now you have to ask yourself whether M+ is going to get treated more like arena or raiding. The MDI seems very arena-esque, but the actual M+ content is obviously more similar to raiding. Since Blizzard appears to be pushing M+ as an esport, it makes sense that a scoring system would be in the cards, but it’s not a foregone conclusion.

As to whether it would help or hurt the community, it mostly depends (as most things do) on which part of the community you’re looking at. For the groups pushing cutting edge keys, a scoring system would be met with open arms. Conversely, casuals would probably be at best annoyed and at worst completely driven away by yet another metric that might serve to keep them from being accepted to groups. Raider.IO’s addon is already loathed by certain segments of the M+ population, and it’s an optional addon rather than a baked-in ranking system that you can’t escape.

I’d be excited for an official scoring mostly because of what it would signal -- that Blizzard is ready to give in-game rewards for M+.

Should the LFG system be overhauled to better serve players that are at similar experience/rating levels, as opposed to Item Levels? This is how it works in PVP.

It’s a nice-sounding objective, but the LFG’s top priority is convenience not fidelity. It’s not trying to match you up with players of similar skill levels; it’s just trying to get you in a functional group as fast as possible. And I think that’s the way it probably should work.

One of the problems facing MMR systems in any game is that accuracy and speed are conflicting ideals, and for something low-stakes like LFR or heroic dungeons, nobody really wants to be sitting around for 30 minutes to get a group no matter how good the group is. Sure it’s frustrating when you get put in a group with a fresh 110 with one relic in their weapon, but the alternative is even more unpalatable.

If you want to play with people of similar skill level, you always have the option to make your own group and look up the people applying to your group to see what bosses they’ve killed or how well they’ve parsed. It would be incredibly time-consuming to try to develop a system that did all that homework for you, and even if it could be counted on to put together groups of similar skill, it’s all but guaranteed that the group-making process would take ages.

Obviously it will depend on personal preference, but generally “bad group” trumps “no group”. Most people would rather be given the chance to drag a group through a dungeon than be forced to AFK in Dalaran for an eternity while the group is formed.

Thoughts on MDI Global Finals and BlizzCon

My team (Method NA) competed in the Global Finals of the Mythic Dungeon Invitational this past weekend. The top two teams from each of the four regions (America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, China) were invited to Columbus, OH to participate in a live LAN tournament with a double elimination format sponsored by Blizzard. This was the second MDI but the first MDI to have a live LAN finals.

Kjell’s Angels (EU #1 seed) won the tournament, with Method NA (Americas #1 seed), Method PogChamp (EU #2 seed) and Gulch Trotters (APAC #2 seed) rounding out the top four. These four teams also received an invite to the Mythic Dungeon Invitational All-Stars exhibition match taking place at BlizzCon 2018.

Teams from EU, APAC and Americas were flown out to Columbus at the beginning of the week. Unfortunately several members from each Chinese team had trouble securing visas to enter the US, so accomodations were made to allow those teams to play from a LAN location in Shanghai. Teams then spent Wednesday and Thursday practicing or participating in group and individual media sessions. The tournament began Friday and concluded Sunday. Each round was best of three except for the grand finals which were best of five.

First, let me say that the tournament was handled incredibly professionally by the team at Blizzard. From helping reschedule flights on short notice to providing catered meals to coordinating Uber rides to and from the hotel, it was clear that Blizzard took a lot of pride in making sure the players were taken care of. In any production as big as the MDI there are a lot of opportunities for things to go wrong, and Blizzard avoided pretty much every one of those hazards.

The players were as great a group as you could ask for. There were some big personalities and some quiet types, but everyone was courteous and respectful. You might have noticed a lot of hugging up on the stage over the weekend, and I think that really reflected the atmosphere of the tournament. Obviously we all wanted to win, but that didn’t get in the way of having fun and making new friends. I know this all sounds cliche and sappy, but I was really happy with the mix of players we had representing their regions in the finals.

The tournament itself was a terrific success. As I mentioned previously, the Chinese teams were unable to be present in Columbus but I think the way it was handled (playing from a site in Shanghai) was probably the best possible outcome given the time constraints. Most of the series had exciting matches, and viewership routinely hung around the 50k mark on Twitch (and even topped 100k during the grand finals). We were treated to some eagerly anticipated matchups: Gulch Trotters and Free Marsy getting their APAC finals rematch, and an EU finals rematch between Kjell’s Angels and Method PogChamp. And the tournament ended on a nailbiter game 5 in Neltharion’s Lair that gave Kjell’s Angels the 3-2 win over my Method NA team after we sent Kjell’s Angels to the lower bracket in our first match.

I think all parties involved (Blizzard, the players, the audience) got what they wanted out of the MDI Finals, and the next MDI can’t get here soon enough.

In the meantime, though, we’ve got the MDI All-Stars match at BlizzCon to look forward to. The details of the event are still being nailed down, but you’ll definitely be able to catch all four teams live at BlizzCon racing through BFA dungeons. No prize money is on the line (sad face) so I’m going to need some generous readers of this column to buy my drinks for me at BlizzCon (happy face).

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