This is going to be a slightly long winded post, slightly idealistic. Essentially what this post is going to consist of is strategies to make PvP more prominent, both as a playable mode, and a spectator sport. Splitting up the message because it’s too long. So read all parts!
Minimap clarity
So here are the points:
- Pathways clearly drawn – the minimaps now look great, but take skyhammer for example, you aren’t able to see where players can walk, or even where the jumping pads are due to how cluttered it is. Drawing clear pathways will help alleviate this. Foefire’s map does this better than Skyhammer. All maps need to be at Foefire’s level of pathway clarity or higher.
- Objectives are more descriptive – the control points need to display more information. Instead of swords for a contended point, why isn’t there more detail on how far along the node is? It could be an outer ring drawn on the node that displays how many seconds remaining. There should be more clear indication on other objectives like the bosses in Nifhel – such as health remaining (to indicate to other team whether a steal is still possible or not). Spirit Watch – the player holding the orb will have their health displayed as a ring around the orb on the map.
Different Game Mode Queues
This is a point of contention, and I understand why – splitting the queues from deathmatch and conquest would break the community. Hear me out on why this is a GOOD thing.
First, you are scaring players away by bundling them together. There are players who just want pure conquest (as seen in other games in which they profess they only play conquest and none of the other modes), as there are players who only want pure deathmatch. Splitting them up may cause harm at first, but in the long term, you will keep more players as you manage to maintain these two groups who only want purity in their queue.
Additionally, splitting deathmatch and conquest will reel more people (most notably casuals) into SPvP. Deathmatch is something many players know of. Conquest on the other hand is more complicated, even if just incremental. Splitting them will allow for new players to join a deathmatch queue, get into killing people, and get back out of the game. There’s no learning strategies or rotations, they simply kill and enjoy themselves. This will lead to these players becoming comfortable with PvP, and eventually trying to learn how to play conquest.
Debate whether there should be ranked deathmatch or not is up to AN & other players.
Getting rid of Practice
Unranked should be where players learn to play. Hotjoin/practice is simply useless in really learning to play because the matches are really different and most often you’ll get really troll teammates or opponents. Getting rid of practice will mean players now have to find something else to do during queues. That’s where mini games come in.