8v8 Discussion Thread

Well 2nd week of unplayably boring TT, and will to comeback to BfN at all is fading drastically. Playin only Ops makes me a little hate this mod, spetially Oozervoire map, i don't really like that map, but exactly that map plays the most..... 

Just adding another comment here as I continue to invest time in Turf Takeover.

The main draw in Turf Takeover for me has always been the fact that you could expect a longer game session and that was pretty much true prior to the TTK, 8v8 and rebalancing of capture times but since that update I can only remember one game, one single game, where both teams wound up being balanced-purely by chance- with players of equal skill and that game dragged into overtime over and over again at each objective as everybody gave their top effort.

Every other time has been the opposite experience; randomized team placement stacking one team with vets and another team with noobs and then not rebalancing those rosters between battles so that one team is constantly trampled, AFK players hamstringing one team because everyone’s effort in 8v8 counts, the Defense being shattered early on and objectives being captured in seconds, the Assault team being bottled up over and over at their spawn.

its gone from a game mode where I’d invest hours to a game mode I only use to finish a daily quest and truthfully I started changing over to Team Vanquish for that instead because that mode is ultimately less frustrating due to its lack of objectives to defend or assault.

Let me start by saying I really enjoy this game. In fact with the 12v12 turf take over it was quickly becoming a favorite. I'm only speaking from a 12v12 and a general turf take over perspective. 

Anyways, an unpopular opinion will be that the new ttk makes skill management and team work a lot less worth while. Not only that but the original slow down after getting hit is an issue(especially for classes like super brainz). This just reduces the skill. This is magnified by 8v8 and will lead to way more head aches.

Quick killing and reduced players in a game like turf takeover is just gonna lead to less players and way more changes. If people like the ttk fine. But at least compromise with a 12v12.

I’ve payed enough 8v8 TT now to get a better feel for the changes. I played a lot of 12v12 and my initial opinions of the 8v8 change are the same. It’s no longer fun. Spawn camping is ridiculous now. Extremely short matches as one team is steamrolled. Basically nonexistent overtimes and if they do happen it’s brief and worthless. Lobby size is terrible. You used to have 2-3 consecutive matches of full 12v12. After that you may drop to 10v10 or similar. Now you’re lucky to find a lobby of 8v8. If you do, the play is so unbalanced the match will drop to 5v5 or something lower by the next round. The other day I spawned into the final stage of Goop Gully. The drill level was plummeting quickly so I checked teams and it was 5v3. So this lobby was 5v2 before I joined. Who wants to play that? Isn’t battle arena there for players who want that? Isn’t OPs there for those who want 3-4 players completing an “objective”? Isn’t TV there for those who want to just rack up vanquishes in 8v8 format? 

I admit I’m a part of the lobby problem as I no longer go into TT like I used to. BUT the reason I don’t is because it’s no longer enjoyable with the forced playing style changes 8v8 has brought. I don’t really enjoy OPs or TV but I’ll be in there as it’s less frustrating and I can gain more coins, xp, etc. I’d honestly prefer fewer coins and xp for 12v12 lobbies and the old pace of TT game play. It was much more fun. 

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@openthedoorhal8 wrote:

...It’s no longer fun. Spawn camping is ridiculous now. Extremely short matches as one team is steamrolled...

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I snipped this a bit to focus on this part. I've been playing less PvP in BfN but after getting 2 PvP challenges yesterday and rerolling one, I had to win a PvP match so jumped into TT.

The good news is that I didn't wait long to get a match, pretty much instant pop. The bad news is that exactly that quote above happened. It's a ridiculous spawn camp-fest and every match is completely one -sided. After 2 terrible matches, I was on the team that was steam-rolling and ended up defending the 1st point on Goopy Gully with my turret as an engineer to work on the other challenge simultaneously. I got one vanquish that entire time as the rest of my team spent the entire match spawn camping the attackers. Zack Scott was there and I hope he mentions this as well as a prominent PvZ Youtuber, he couldn't have been happy with how this went.

Even more than bad balance, which every MP shooter has or has had at various amounts of time in their life, being constantly spawn camped and being stomped on will discourage people from playing. The first match I jumped into was at the very last point of Peachy District and as a plant I found that zombies were spawn camping while taking the signal vans. So even the attackers were spawn camping in this current mode.

Ever since my first day of GW1 I've seen some lopsided matches and spawn camping but never to this degree. All 3 of my 3 matches yesterday were like this and it's the least fun I've ever had in the PvZ shooters, even on the winning side feels hollow as the rest of my team made the other side miserable and a single Nightcap sneaked through and I vanquished her as I refused to engage in that aberrant behavior. It needs to be fixed, and the sooner the better.

@Iron_Guard8  Do you think 12v12 will remedy this issue?  

(I’ll go ahead and throw it out there; I don’t.  I believe the recent changes will hinder any team sizes in TT.)

Yes actually. I'm not 100% sure why but I've never seen it is this bad in BfN (and never in GW1 and 2, even though you could have some awful matches at times in those games) until it went to 8v8. Maybe it's the fact that we got 8v8 at the same time as the TTK changes, but almost every match I've played since the TTK patch has been terrible, usually the attacker never gets past the first point as they're constantly spawn camped or if they do, then the defenders melt at every point and end up spawn camped themselves. 

G&G was 8v8 in GW1 mixed mode (12v12 in the dedicated G&G mode) and it never felt this bad but the maps were smaller and more focused.

When you're sitting back to defend the point and all 7 triangles of your team are up front and spawn camping constantly, barring when they occasionally get vanquished and have to run back, and this keeps happening, they gotta fix this.

As I posted much earlier I was more than willing to try 8v8 and at the time didn't expect it to make a big difference but right now it's awful.

Edit: With multiple variables changing, it's difficult to say what part of the last patch made it like this but regardless, it has to be fixed. TT is not fun at all right now and it's my go to mode PvP normally.

@Iron_Guard8  I only ask you because I know your history and typically unbiased opinions/respect your input.

I believe TT will be slightly better in 12v12 but believe all of the recent changes will result in a lackluster TT environment.

I believe it will get better but believe the Turf crowd (as a whole) will still have major issues unless some of the recent changes are reverted.

Why in the world we reduced to 8v8 at the same time as making so many changes just boggles me.  

And that is a key point. When you do an experiment you change 1 variable at a time so you can isolate and observe the changes that altered variable makes before making other changes. This patch was needed overall as it felt like most vanquishes in PvP were via special abilities vs. main weapons but it has a LOT of changes and also changing the player count means there's a lot to sift through.

I just want more balanced and enjoyable matches. I'd rather lose a ton of hard-fought close games than win because my team spawn camped the entire time. I am enjoying helping friends in the free roam zones and playing Ops but I like being able to play the PvP matches too. PopCap have made a great bunch of games and I want them to keep doing so, but this needs to be fixed or people won't want to play and for TT at this time bot matches aren't an option which is discouraging.