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Centauri is finished filming btw. All matches are done. Just need to edit.)
The first Centauri was a huge success. It went super smooth, much better than I expected it to.
Online play is not just viable, but far superior to AI if done well. And now we have proof! Everyone who participated said it was much more fun than AI tournaments to play in, and I think it's much more fun to watch as well.
I won't NECESSARILY do another centauri right away, but there is a good chance I will. Just wanted to talk to people about what meta and weightclass etc, details and such you want.
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My opinions/reasons:I really think Ironforge is by far the best meta for this. I'm personally not interested in stock (and stock weapon-spam doesn't reward driving skill as much), and DSL-IRL utterly fails as a competitive meta. DSL-S is kinda poor man's ironforge at this point. I want this to be as competitive as possible.
The choice of arena is VERY important for online, as humans can actually use hazards. I will increase the damage of any hazards to lethal levels in whatever arena I end up going with. I think this heavily rewards driving strategy and thats what I want. if you don't care about that just do an AI tournament.
Arena and weightclass heavily depend on each other though. In online even more than AI tournaments, it is imperative to build the bot for the arena, and the weightclass should match this. I really think the octagon is a superb competitive arena, as the hazards in play really punish bad and reward good driving. Bots focusing less on weapons and more on control can force opponents into hazards, and we saw this done very effectively in centauri 1. The octagon does have a major problem though with the top ring around the edge. It's too easy to just camp it and exploit it. If I used the octagon I'd try to get help from a coder to make an invisible wall around the edge to prevent access to it.
I do however think that MW is the heaviest weight class that should be played competitively on the octagon. It's just too dense with hazards for HWs without having them hit a one every 2 seconds. LWs I think would be perfect for the octagon, and additionally I think LWs would be a super good weightclass for online. They are much easier to build (and take less time), and nimbler in the arena. This would help players who don't build in ironforge much.
Other alternatives are the Half Circle and Metal Skull arenas. Both would be excellent for MWs, and I think HWs could be viable for the metal skull. Both have a variety of hazards that could be used effectively, and the skull has a pit. Pits are very useful for online. The Clawtop could also be a great choice for MWs and below, we've tried it in MP and it is super fun. At some point I would be down to actually host an 'offroad' tournament in the mars arena, I think it could be real fun. probably not for this one though, I want to get the basics down before trying something crazy.
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Things set in stone:Ironforge (the best competitive meta by far)
3 min, bo3, double elim.8 entrants max. I know it's small. It is just too hard to coordinate more people than this.
NA entrants only. Sorry, this is required in online to keep lag to an absolute minimum. EU entrants feel free to host your own league (i hope you do), and help people who want to drive but can't build well.
Builders do not have to be the competitors. You can request help to design a bot that you drive. It's not a problem.
The same rules for controls, timezones, etc. Would be chaos without these. They seemed to work well in practice.
Things TBD: Weightclass. Leaning LW or MW. likely LW. easier and quicker to build, less crash-happy, viable in more arenas. smaller IF bots are easier to make for people that don't play IF much, I understand that it's not everyones gig.
Arena. Heavily leaning to the Octagon again, I really do think it rewards good driving to an extreme degree. Alternatives are Metal Skull, Clawtop, Half-Circle. Open to suggestions but I think these are the best from the stock group. Really want to avoid arenas with minimal hazards and huge flat areas. These just reward generic wedge bots and weapon spam, and not good driving.
I may enter this one. idk. My lag might have an advantage, and I want to play to win. seems a bit in poor taste to win your own tourney though especially since I won two of my own AI ones
Multibots. gonna say they are allowed, but you have to drive them both yourself.
its too hard to coordinate 3 people consistently. also, LW (prob) multibots. if you're a madman it's your choice I suppose.
Another thought I had however is a possible small balance patch for online. I'd only change like 1 or 2 things. First is I would lighten the wheels considerably, to encourage the use of more than 2wd. wheels are so heavy for no reason and having a 4wd bot, especially a LW, is kinda nuts at the moment. 4wd would be really nice for online since losing a wheel doesn't mean an instant game over. The other change I would make is buffing the servo in power cause it's real weak in ironforge, but super useful for human-controlled bots. I have other patch ideas for ironforge but those would be the only changes I'd make for this. It wouldn't nerf existing bots, the most you'd have to change is being able to add more parts due to wheels being lighter.
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Please discuss. I want to make this accessible to as many people as possible. Tell me what you think.
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