8v8 Discussion Thread

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.

Hmm 8v8 or 12v12, feeling little empty, like to see them try 10v10.

Turf Takeover is my favorite mode since I tend to like the potentially longer play time afforded by the bigger multi-stage map.

I had noticed the smaller teams this morning when I switched off from the Weekly Challenge but dismissed it initially as an underpopulated lobby. I will state that I was never really effected by lag issues in Turf Takeover- at worst all I observed is some minor stuttering or the Cart on certain maps and the audio breaking when things got really chaotic.

I don't think I've played enough just yet to form an opinion but based on the handful of games I have played so far I have some first impressions.

The map does appear under-populated as other people in this thread have mentioned and even when you are in the specific region where the action is occurring there doesn't seem to be a lot happening because a certain percentage of your team gets vanquished, then has to respawn and then sprint to try to rejoin.

The dynamic for Pushing the Cart or capturing an objective has definitely changed with the smaller team size. Previously you'd have certain players on your team working the objective- Pushing the Cart opposed by those trying to stop it from being pushed or players in the actual Objective Zone trying to capture it or prevent it from being captured. Beyond these players actively working the objective itself you had the other portion of the team supporting that activity by flanking their opponents or trying to support those working the objective with mid-to-long range fire.

With the smaller teams this dynamic doesn't work as well since not actively working the objective stalls the progress, so the attacking team can't really afford to spare any players to invest time in flanking the defenders to thin out the opposition while the defending players don't have to modify their tactics much at all on maps where Pushing the Cart is the initial assaulting team goal. 

It seems that the first side to gel as a team gets an advantage and that any rapid vanquish streak removing members of either team quickly enough forces a shift in the tide of battle as those vanquished players race to try to rejoin the action. A team which gets a decent number of players vanquished is more likely to see more get vanquished which results in that team being strung out between their spawn and wherever the heat of battle is occurring which makes it less likely for them to be able to function as a team again.

My impression is also that the attacking team will be disadvantaged on certain maps where Bombs or Batteries need to be carried. Because players carrying an item to an objective point have their special abilities disabled, they can't sprint and their position is singled out to the enemy team they usually need to be escorted and there are now fer team members who can do so-  especially since there can be three simultaneous carriers. With 12v12 this means that battles which reach the final objective point become desperate crazy affairs full of chaos- which is arguably the best part- but with the smaller team sizes I haven't observed the same level of action and I'm having a hard time recalling if the assaulting team has been successful in any of the more recent Turf takeover games I've been in.

Since I completed the Weekly Challenge I'll be more active in Turf Takeover so I should be able to flesh out what I think overall but I do agree with one of the other opinions that a choice between a 12v12 and 8v8 might be a good option- with the caveat being that players will probably ultimately wind up in whichever one is being picked more often on that particular day.

Does anyone else think they should bring back old maps? I appreciate new maps but I miss places like the lunar base and the time park.

Terrible change imo. I've stuck by this game despite all the flaws and justified complaints people have. Every TT game feels empty now. Especially when people play team based classes like acorn and space cadet. The game doesn't feel as lively, I feel like I'm playing a dying game. After the change to 8v8 I've actually completely stopped playing the game. If they're doing this to fix lag issues then this seems completely roundabout. I am incredibly disappointed.