Cold death of the competitive scene
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Update: after several discussions with several prominent scenario and custom map players, I've came up with some palpable demands. Since some people constantly say they don't get the point of this post, let me state it clearly for them. More points will be added in the future.
Without those, CW scene will still be practically and technically locked on EU+ 10k as it is right now.
The extra point of the post is for competitive community to stop being self-centered. I've presented my insight on why the community is dying and offered several options to prevent the cold death. It's the competitive community's choice whether they ignore it, or face the issue instead. Seeing the responses and upvotes to this post, I see many familiar faces from the competitive scene supporting it. For the rest of the community I have a clear message, to stop being delusional.
I am still wondering how much time it has to take to make people realize some apparent things.
First of all, the number of competitive players is constantly shrinking. Since almost all currently active ones registered before 2016 and you can see more and more players going inactive every day, the trend is obvious. Currently active coalitions have at most 100 competitive players, for which I doubt more than half are active. Back in 2016 in the peak period of overall activity, Epic Clan had almost 60 members itself, out of which almost all played CW. Let's not even mention other coalitions like ENIGMA, SM and Mystics all had 20-30 players each. MK and several other smaller coalitions had up to 20 aswell. Unlike in this moment, at that time 90% of the mentioned players were active. The bar to join is very high aswell. All the skills of new players are overshadowed by experience of the old players who are playing the same map for years and years.
Second, the most basic competitive setting, EU+ 10k, has been played out. Since the vast majority of games are played with 6 picks and each team can pick one of the two picks in three parts of the map, there are 8 combinations total to play. Even with a few extra combinations, there is not much change. Adding that the most games are decided in first 8 turns, you can conclude the initial picks as well as the initial picks are the deciding factor in the victory. Now tell me what is the last time you've seen something new happening in CW? All moves have already been seen, they all have been played out. There have been at least 6000 CWs so far (90% of them on EU+) and at least 10 times that many duels on EU+.
The solution to that is obvious, and it's that the competitive scene stops being elitist, exclusive and egocentric. Playing diverse maps, even the other parts of world map, as well as scenarios, would increase the number of people participating in CWs 10 times. There are far more scenario, RP and world map players than competitive players, as it could be seen from several polls conducted in past. The exclusion of them from one of the most interesting features this game offers has to stop, or the game will ultimately suffer. Choose wisely.
Below is the competitive scene, colorized
- Make scenario CWs work. Currently, it's technically impossible to play such game.
- Have a scenario / custom map mod. Currently, there are zero custom map mods, let alone scenario mods.
- Stop mods from disallowing ghosting in scenarios. So far there have been numerous warnings regarding this, I'm not sure have there been more severe actions. Forcing the ghosting rule in scenarios would severely hurt the game.
- Make a functioning map editor. Already discussed in other threads. I've been told it's very bugged and needs a lot more work.
Without those, CW scene will still be practically and technically locked on EU+ 10k as it is right now.
The extra point of the post is for competitive community to stop being self-centered. I've presented my insight on why the community is dying and offered several options to prevent the cold death. It's the competitive community's choice whether they ignore it, or face the issue instead. Seeing the responses and upvotes to this post, I see many familiar faces from the competitive scene supporting it. For the rest of the community I have a clear message, to stop being delusional.
I am still wondering how much time it has to take to make people realize some apparent things.
First of all, the number of competitive players is constantly shrinking. Since almost all currently active ones registered before 2016 and you can see more and more players going inactive every day, the trend is obvious. Currently active coalitions have at most 100 competitive players, for which I doubt more than half are active. Back in 2016 in the peak period of overall activity, Epic Clan had almost 60 members itself, out of which almost all played CW. Let's not even mention other coalitions like ENIGMA, SM and Mystics all had 20-30 players each. MK and several other smaller coalitions had up to 20 aswell. Unlike in this moment, at that time 90% of the mentioned players were active. The bar to join is very high aswell. All the skills of new players are overshadowed by experience of the old players who are playing the same map for years and years.
Second, the most basic competitive setting, EU+ 10k, has been played out. Since the vast majority of games are played with 6 picks and each team can pick one of the two picks in three parts of the map, there are 8 combinations total to play. Even with a few extra combinations, there is not much change. Adding that the most games are decided in first 8 turns, you can conclude the initial picks as well as the initial picks are the deciding factor in the victory. Now tell me what is the last time you've seen something new happening in CW? All moves have already been seen, they all have been played out. There have been at least 6000 CWs so far (90% of them on EU+) and at least 10 times that many duels on EU+.
The solution to that is obvious, and it's that the competitive scene stops being elitist, exclusive and egocentric. Playing diverse maps, even the other parts of world map, as well as scenarios, would increase the number of people participating in CWs 10 times. There are far more scenario, RP and world map players than competitive players, as it could be seen from several polls conducted in past. The exclusion of them from one of the most interesting features this game offers has to stop, or the game will ultimately suffer. Choose wisely.
Below is the competitive scene, colorized
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This is basically just a "lets bash competitive players" thread. It contains little substance. It doesn't even acknowledge why people have stuck with eu+ as the primary competitive setting for 8 or so years. And no njab it is not because competitive players are elitist, exclusive and egocentric. What does that even mean? How? I could fire those exact same accusations at the scenario players when you're booting low ranks, non prems and notriously bad players from your ww1s, lotr's and various other scens. EU+ is the most played setting because it is the best. This is not even a matter of opinion. It pretty much happened accidentally as the admins made the world map and the players playing it attempted to balance it out back in 2011. I'm just going to throw out a few facts. 1. Games are quick and on average wrap up within an hour. You listed this as a negative point, most players will see it as a positive. Not everyone has the interest or patience to commit to a 3+ hour game everytime they sit down to play aw. 2. It contains the full range of income zones, city densities and enough water to make almost every strategy competitively viable - all on a small map. No other map has achieved this. This leads to my next 2 points. 3. It contains the most interesting teamgame dynamic and the best 1v1 setup on atwar(ukraine vs turkey). 4. It will provide the most thorough atwar education of any map. All you need to do if you master eu+ is go learn an economic setting like africa, master a bigmap setting like the worldmap and play a quality scenario like ww1, lotr etc. Voila you are an atwar pro. Here is your imaginary badge. 5. It is real world and half the playerbase lives there. This is why people are playing eu+. Only 1 map in the past 8 years has been of the quality to drag competitive players from just eu+ and that was WW2. I personally helped balance it. We have had nothing of that level since. Something that offers a diverse teamgame dynamic and makes all strategies viable so everyone can play what they enjoy. We need high level collaborations between skilled players and mapmakers to make this happen. I'm also going to throw out a few counterpoints to some of the other complaints in the op. 1. Those bullet points are great and all but how do they affect the issues facing the current competitive scene? 2. How freaking hard is it to learn 6 small picks on 1 map? Thats all youve to do to master eu+. An intelligent and competent player will catchup to people like me in a matter weeks if they work on it. 3. Competitive players have been dueling and cwing on other settings for years and it is still dying. What are you talking about? Even that mini ancient world competitive upstart that appeared a few years ago quickly died out. Their map wasnt interesting enough to sustain. Most of those players moved to eu+ or quit. For example Zone, ferlucci, dizabo etc. None of the other maps ARE interesting enough except for the occasional game. 4. Correct me if I'm wrong but most scens involve impspam and massing huge stacks and then smashing them into your opponent sometime after t15. This is not for everyone. They also tend to remove the expansion aspect of the game. TL:DR?
Ps: I love how someone like njab is taking the position that competitive players who keep playing eu are basically zombified memorisers. This is from a player who has something like 300 duels played on mid-east 3k. This is a setting with maybe 3 viable picks and only imp gw and blitz as viable strats. I would die of boredom if you tried to make me even play 20 of these.
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It always takes time for someone to get good in a specific aspect. What matters is how you intend to get good. There is an important thing you don't seem to understand yet so let me help you with that - you have to stop relying on people to show you expansions and teach you how to use them. Nobody in this game is capable of teaching you how to take the absolute best decisions every turn- you got to be creative and figure most of these things out by yourself, including ingame expansions and their pluses/minuses. This is one of the main reasons why the mentor program is completely useless. You will never become truly good if you don't love the game F.e, 1 year ago, I was a noob rp player that played only NWE (New World Empires RP). Back then anybody that played 3v3s was better than me by a mile. Later, when I started playing 3v3s and duels, I never asked the question ''can you pls come and teach me how to play X country''. I was just curious and decided to figure out how to use all those expansions/mechanics by myself. And look at me now, positioned at 1500-1550s.
Nope dude, it isn't enthusiasm if your goal isn't victory. There is no fun in playing a game when you are absolutely okay with losing all the time. It's alright to lose a game when you put enough effort and already tried your best to win. However, playing without motivation for victory can never be truly enjoyable. It's just absurd
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I dont understand the issue and why you are saying that njab is making a 'lets bash comp players thread'' . i think, all he wants is to alter the game to let it grow. He wants, just as i think you and all others should, to make atwar great and to have fun playing with many people. Alltho i agree with things you point out, but nothing you point out is giving solutions. You're just stating what u think are facts. In my opinion, EU+ is the most played map, not because it is the best but because it is the best ' nurtered' and the common map. When u play atwar for the first time u play default world map. The map is the same as EU+. You point out that it is a quick map, hence it is affecting its overall play. If a map is played fast it gets more plays. If the map is nurtered well, it is widely seen as 'best' because of no mistakes in the map. I played EU+, all i saw was defensive play. It was like watching a playing style of defensive football, almost parking the bus and waiting for opponent to make mistake then take advantage. It usually ends between t5- t10. The difference between EU+ and scenario maps is that in EU+ u have a certain few options which are the best. It is like chess where you have only few option that is best, in scenario there is more that can have an effect on your decision. (albeit the map in EU is smaller/ fewer units/ countries, while in scen u need to understand country/ units). You said half the player base lives there, sorry but i have to disagree with u. i play this game almost everyday (sadly), and i can tell u what kind of maps are being played the most. You have to account the hours played into it too. A scenario map takes a damn long time played. I always see scenarios being played by 10 to simetimes 30 players at a time. And often i see some rp maps being played, they usually get full to 15-20 players at a time. Most of these also play world maps which usually get played by 10~~. U can compare this just by asking yourself can i fill this map at this time and for how many hours. EU+ is just not that big, and even if it is, some of the players i see are swing players too. And i agree with your point that we need something just as u said that gives the same experience as playing EU+. Can u see the problem that if u say that EU+ is being played for 8 years. It needs change. When i want change, i always look at the perspective of newcomers. And believe me they are not intelligent and they cannot learn 6 small picks on a map in a matter of weeks. I see lots of r3-r6 players, damn more than r10s. And we have to make the game interesting to them. imp spam and smashing it into opponent after 15 turns is not common. When you play imp, it is common sense to just spam units and keep them because of low upkeep. When you are LB/ IF this is just foolish because of upkeep. There is nothing wrong on how comp is played and how scen is played. Both are totally different. In scen you higly depend on others, and in comp your decision in a turn hugely affects the outcome of the game. But its just the way the maps are made. EU is just small and quick as u said. As Njab points out, I would have liked scen incorporated into cws/ comp too. Just look at the turnup when there was a scenario tournament being promoted by a new player. (the ww1 tournament) It slowly died out and never got a start. And i think the problem is what Njab is pointing out too. It's simply hard to make such a thing a success with the tools we have. (sorry the long read)
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njab 4cc0unt d3l3t3d |
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Everything has already been said by others. Only thing I want to point out is how only scenario players support this, 5 or 7 "competitive" players and some random people. You claim you have support and dave should look at this. No you don't have any support and dave should be looking at more serious problems. What you are talking about here is no problem. Scenario mod? Ha. Scenario CWs? Who can tell which map is balanced? Allow ghosting in scenarios? That's a great idea actually, lets allow hacks and bugs abuses on scenarios so they can be played in other ways as well. Also, 60 people in EC actively playing CWs? Ugh what? You didn't even have 60 members to support your claim. Leave us alone njab, came after 3 years and think you are the messiah of AtWar.
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Ahh cmon, when 71 active members upvote this, it clearly means shit. These players are among the most active players and almost all if not all of them have/ had premium. You cannot disregard them as just only scen players and some 5-7 comp players and the rest some random players. Have you even looked at the player list who upvoted this?
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And for your information, i just looked up most upvotes in the General discussion After Mauzeri Panteris topic of First Atwar strike this topic has the most upvotes throughtout the years.......
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Most upvotes mean nothing to me when its from people who have 0 relation to forum and show up by accident just to upvote this thread. Oh guess what, they are from the scenario community as well!!! Now that's a coincidence, don't you think?
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XDDDD Scenario players = stupid+clueless EPIK WINZZZZ!!! Edit:Just because they are scenario players doesnt mean that they dont have a clue about what the game is about most of them played the game for years and are disatisfied with the state of how the mods treat the scenario community
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I've been misunderstood. Can you please enlighten me as to how mods mistreat the scenario community and why?
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CG, can u provide me link to rule where it says ghosting is not allowed in scenario? I had previously a issue with another mod and he wasnt so sure anymore and said that he would make a thread about it in the mod forum. I previously read the rules about it and it doesnt say ghosting is not allowed in scenario, i am not sure anymore because of what u said. And its funny you compare ghosting to bug abuses, as if playing a scenario for 5 hours sometimes even longer and lettting someone else play for u after a while to not fail the game is the same as bug abuses. Also, i only pointed out fact about the upvotes, u can have your own opinion and say what u want, but fact is he has second most upvotes in forum discussion and almost all of the upvotes are from highly active members who have premium. Not all of them are from 1 community, if u dont believe we can just look the players ourselves. And if u regard them as playes who just show up by accident, then how so there isnt a majority of lower ranks who are indeed not active players for last few years.
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Do you seriously need to be explicitly told you are not allowed to ghost in scenarios? What don't you understand from the sentence, "Do not ghost (share accounts)" ? Of course there are exceptions of ghosting in which we allow it. For example, in case the other players have been informed about the change and have accepted it. Then sure by all means go ahead, I myself have been and have ghosted multiple times in CWs. The mod that wasn't sure about it, simply is confused by your complexed and multiple questions. I'm not comparing, I'm just putting them all in the same category, the category of what's allowed and what's not.
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The rule clearly says : you are not allowed to ghost in duels nor cw it dont say scenario so stop with your bs towards me unless i am wrong and scenario is the same as duel/ cw https://prnt.sc/md09xk https://nl.atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=1843
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I could make a similar thread and accuse you guys of not playing enough duels/cws and the maps I want you to play. Besides what exactly is njab's problem. The solutions he posted are largely unrelated to the problem he's criticising.
Sorry atwar isnt football so that analogy is totally inappropriate. Offensive gameplay on atwar is who tb's whos offensive stack first. Defensive requires thoughtful maneuvers and attrition. I know which style i prefer. Incidentally if the meta of eu was truly defensive as you say then games wouldnt be ending t5 on average. We all know you love scenarios. Your gamelist is viewable to all here but can we stick to facts? You don't have more options on scenarios. The expansion variable is usually removed. That alone reduces the options you speak of. You've fixed picks, fixed funds and a fixed meta.
I've nothing else to say here except who the hell are you? You've bastardised so many atwar player names that it is impossible to identify you.
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Here I must interfere, the rules clearly state that: ''4.4 When playing any Duel or Coalition War, accounts must not be shared or made available to any other players to be used (also known as Ghosting), and must only be used by the account holder. Any players caught Ghosting may have their ELO (personal, or coalition) reset, with punishment to follow with moderator discretion. More severe punishment will be served for persistent offenders. Alt accounts are welcome, however only the player that registered the account may use them.'' Scenario players ''ghost'' merely for sake of not failing games. Leaving a game usually means a game fails, but having someone takeover for the person who has to go prevents that from happening. This will continue until there is a mechanic in place that allows for official transfers to happen. This is not malicious in any way, and I hope you or whoever else punishes players for doing this corrects himself. Furthermore I'd like to say that rules are not there to interpret as you wish, not personally attacking you or anything, relax. But 4.4 clearly states this is for duels and clan wars.
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You can't be serious right now. I can't believe you seriously think this allows ghosting in scenarios. With that logic, ghosting should be also allowed in regular games like world games, FFA, pc drops etc etc. In addition to that, I adore the way you use the competitive community and separate it from the scenario community in this case just because it happens to benefit you.
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As I explained it above, you are allowed to ghost only in when all players are ok with it. I am aware of how easily a scenario game can fail and I know how annoying it is. I can assure you no mod is twisting the rules to their favour. We follow the rules like all players do and should, the only difference is that we also enforce them to those who choose not to follow them. This is a loophole and possible misunderstanding to some. I am sure many have seen this as a loophole, and some others as a clear misunderstanding, thinking it's alright to ghost anywhere else. I can agree, the rule needs adjustment for cases like this one. However, answer me this: In what way do duels and CWs differ from all other types of games in AtWar to exclude them from the rule 4.4?
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The scenario community is punished harsher then the competitive one because they have connections within the mod circles and the scenario community has no mods to back them up aswell as being antagonised by the competitive community as noobs and such
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Look, I can assure you, all players are being treated the same. Now if you don't want to believe this it's your problem :/ . However, I do not want to analyse as to why we do not have a scenario mod. It's been discussed a million times in both public forum and mod forum. Don't take it personally, I'm just really tired of this subject. If you have any suggestion, we are all ears.
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First of all, i am not attacking you so why is there so much negativity in your post. If you want to know his problem you should read the thread again or ask him. Funny how u cherrypick the analogy to football but not to chess in the same paragraph. I gave the example of football just to make it clear, sorry that u dont feel the same way but your point of view is not what is fact. So stop belittling me it doesnt suit anyone to behave in such a manner. You dont know me, i dont know you. So stop saying what i love. What i have said about the game, was what i have experienced, those things i never made them as if they are facts and if u want to stick to facts pls do. U played 50 games the last 156 days, i played that amount the last 26 days. If we look to the types of games we can surely agree that we both play different kind of maps so wtf u talking about who the hell i am, its obvious we dont know each other because of the obvious.
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Okay tell me why 
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No seriously if it is favoritism and nepotism just say it dont post cryptic msgs i ask again tell me why there are no scenario mods edit:You chould also tell me when it was discussed that the scenario community isnt worthy of a moderator despite the community being a good part of the game i mean from around 200 people atleast 5 whould be qualified to be mods and isnt it funny that all of the mods are from a tiny tiny community
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It's no favoritism nor nepotism. Believe me. There is a thread in which mods and community had a discussion about this. If anyone can find this I would be gratefull. If that doesn't happen, if I ever log in on pc again I'll screenshot some of the discussions in mod forum if I get the permission by the rest mod team.
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As it stands, this is only way to continue a game if a player has to go. To answer your question shortly, these are not competitive games with elo at stake, so there is nothing malicious with this. This includes scenarios and every other gamemode. I highly doubt this was a coincidence. I truthfully hope you can see why people do it, outside of games where elo is at stake, and understand why it's actually a good thing. Understanding is key here before we can move to solve the problem. Next I will now outline a solution I think will make everyone happy. Namely more mechanics in place so people don't have to give their pass away every time. For example allowing someone to pick a scenario side in latejoining after a player left the game. OR allowing an official-player-switch ingame mechanically. Either can be ''options'' that wil be voted upon at start of the turn. This would make ghosting a practice that is outdated and less useful than either of these mechanics. Regardless, the rule is what it is, and any changes to the rule until either a fix of what I suggested or something of the sort is implemented would merely work counterproductive to a pleasant AtWar experience with many games failing as a result of a out of nowhere rulechange.
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So you are saying that the largest community in aw has no qualified people to be mods while the competitive community is the most qualified?
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In one post you say u seriously cant believe what i said or think that ghosting is allowed in scenario's, 1 minute later you say, this is a loophole and could possibly be misunderstanding and say that u agree that the rule needs adjustment. U surely can understand my annoyance. In addition to this, i never used it to seperate the two communities. The rule isnt for comp when u just 3v3 since it is not duel nor cw. And as empirezz mentioned it isnt up for interpretation. It sounds to me, that this rule is made up by interpretation by the mod team through the years which is totally fine. Just adapt it so it is clear.
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It has been suggested/discussed before: https://atwar-game.com/forum/topic.php?topic_id=39641 I even made a suggestion about it, which works a bit like urs. Anyways about the rule: I'd say make a thread and discuss about the ghosting part on scenarios. Most of the people (including the mods) are decent and I am sure both sides could meet eachother halfway. 
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Doesn't have to do with elo. It has to do with credibility, fairness and fun. I told you, I understand the whole point behind your ghosting. That doesn't change anything though. I agree and have agreed with similar suggetions to help scenario games before. Those are some good ideas indeed. I don't agree. I think you have me misunderstood. Have the agreement of all players, and do whatever you want. (Well not but you get what I mean haha)
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