8v8 Discussion Thread
They have changed turf takeover to 8v8 to see what it’s like (for lag I bet) what do you lot think.
Forum Discussion
I didn't realize it changed to 8v8 until I read the notes - I thought less people were playing Turf Takeover.
What was noticed was the imbalance of the teams caused by one or two better players on the other team, abundance of sniping, afk's, etc. Larger teams mitigated a lot of the balance issues. I played about 8 matches last night and every single one felt one-sided regardless of which side I was on. The change kind of ruined the fun of the game. Having in imbalance of teams more prevalent makes matches either boring or frustrating and not much chance for in-between.
And for reducing chaos in the game, I, for one, liked the chaos. It was a unique experience and rewarding when you came out on top.
This was one of those "if it isn't broken, don't fix it issues" that for somehow was decided to change. I don't get it.
I spent the whole evening playing Turf Takeover (my favorite mode) last night. I played multiple matches on both East and West servers for over three hours. My verdict? I don't like it at all anymore, and I won't be playing it until they bring it back to 12v12 and fix the lag. Here are some of the many issues I have with the update:
Teams imbalanced - This change did not fix the issue, but actually made it worse. The very first match I was in was 6 zombies including 3 Grand Masters, and 4 plants (my team). After running all the way across the map from the spawn point, I was greeted by three Super Brains Hyper Jump Thumping me. When I respawned, we had lost one team member, and the zombies we all over our spawn point. With no allies in sight, and no opportunity to get back in the match, I left as well. As I continued to play through the evening, we had a full match only once. It was typically 5-6 on one side and 3-4 on the other.
No one around - There were significant portions of the map where I didn't see anybody, friend or foe. It takes so long to travel across these gigantic maps, especially Loggy Acres. This was the first time I had experienced anything like that in a Garden Warfare game. Because there are fewer people in a match, scores are now much lower and coin payout is less, I usually place somewhere in the middle of the pack in a full 12v12 match. With the new update, I have been at the top of the match with 12-15 vanquishes, but my score is worse.
Last objective gridlock - Not once did the attacking team take Loggy Acres, Goopy Gully, or Peachy District. Peach District was by far the worst! That last objective is tricky enough, but with so few people playing, it's unlikely zombies will be winning often. The one exception was Turning Point. Not only did plants win every time, but they won easily. At one point, I was doing character dances in the battery room while my teammates flew in and out with little contact with the enemy.
In summary, it just wasn't fun. I have two more levels until I Master every character (and earning every trophy), and then I am taking a break from PvP. And I am definitely done with Turf Takeover. That might mean I miss out on the prize map costumes, but so be it. They're locking costumes behind a pay wall anyway, but that's an argument for another thread...
I believe that the TTK update and the Turf Takeover change were each so significant, that they should have been released separately from each other. I want to appreciate how quickly the devs respond with updates, but some of these changes are just counterproductive.
I had the same experience playing TT last night. Teams would mow us down to the last objective and then fail. Most of the time the mowing in the early stages would only take 1-3 minutes. I think only 1 final objective went to overtime but they still failed. The only time this didn’t happen was once the mowing began my teammates would drop out assuming a loss was inevitable. When it’s 2-3 against 6-8 it’s not very fun and the last of us would drop out as well. I’m going to try again tonight but if it’s not any better I’ll probably head over to ops or something. TT was my favorite so it’s kind of a bummer right now.
I believe that the TTK update and the Turf Takeover change were each so significant, that they should have been released separately from each other.
This right here is huge! Both were major changes and rolling them out at the same time really makes it hard to say which is having the larger impact on TT as it currently is. The 12 vs 12 might have been fine with the TTK changes, but we will never know unless they revert it back for a bit.
Sadly I think they did this to fill dead lobbies. I love this community but its slowly declining in its player count and the devs had to adjust to the small player count. I play TT and sometimes those lobbies aren't full or even dead. I love this game but every good step popcap takes they go bad 2 steps back. I dont even play the other modes anymore because most the time they're dead.
I didn't PvP last night but ran a bunch of Ops instead, I'll get some TT in tonight.
When I did play the night of the patch the lobby was always full (at 8v8) on NA east. At 12v12 it usually was unless I tried to get a match early in the day or late at night where it can be less active than we would like to see.
I'm wondering if maybe they turned it down to 8 to give some people less lag to make other adjustments to help with the lag issues and also to see how it works. I do wish they'd just add bots to the matches so that when you get one of those overflow lobbies and it's 5 people in them, you could get a decent match going at the very least.
The general gist I'm getting is that 8v8 isn't as popular as 12v12 between here on the forums and the tweets I've seen.
