Ok so I have been away a while, frankly I haven't played the game because you get to the point where you're a couple thousand hours in and decide nah I'm doing other stuff.
But something that was being argued about before I left and is still being argued about now is single pick. I get what people say about single pick being a needed thing because two of one character, especially when some interact with a clone in fairly disgusting 100-0 ways, can make the game feel unfun. On the other hand there are reasons that just as strongly go against this argument, primarily because someone might just want to play their main, someone might be trying to level one character in particular/everyone is playing the new character and would have to race to pick it, or people might just want to mess around with a group of their mates.
If there were ways to deal with these concerns then single pick is something that might be far more palatable, so...eh, here goes, maybe a dev will see this.
Just want to play my main/want to mess around with mates
The main thing that comes to mind here is why is it that regular dominion is a free for all while the event modes are all single pick? The event modes are supposed to be your fun mess around area. So simple thing here, other than when you have testing grounds have event modes on a constant refreshing cycle, through the carousels, dances, whatever else, so that there is something to go back to that is different. Take single pick off in events, put it on in dominion (and breach? Or maybe leave that too, dominion is what is considered competitive), add in a few event specific rewards that change every season and see where it takes you.
I want to level up my character/the newest character to rep 8 for pretty gear and perks/70 (I think?) for the emote/colour swatches
A couple options here.
It could be argued that duel should be the best place for levelling up heroes, you learn the hero, how they feel, their basic flow. So one option here is make duel more rewarding in terms of xp at the very least. It doesn't even have to be by much but consider this, while dynamic rewards ensure equal reward per time in a mode you are going to be in matchmaking more often. Assuming a rough average of two minutes matchmaking time (some people spend far longer in matchmaking) say I play only breach for an hour, I might be in matchmaking roughly every twenty minutes so one to two minutes matchmaking I get roughly 56 minutes play time and reward for that hour. Dominion you might enter matchmaking every ten minutes or so, you'll get roughly five matches in that time, around eight to ten minutes matchmaking between all that so you get around 50 minutes for your hour. Duels last around four minutes if you go all five rounds, can be two minutes but let's assume a best case scenario. Unless you find someone who wants to play over and over again four minutes to around two matchmaking, you might get around twelve matches so around 48 minutes for your hour. Now this all fluctuates, if you're on a run of longer matchmaking and shorter matches then those gaps will widen.
Another option would be to make arcade more rewarding. That thing I paid for a while back? Until you get into gold gear, so around five reps in, arcade is not worth anywhere near a dominion even when you complete it, nowhere near. And even when you do get to gold or even purple all it takes is something like a berserker that has heal on hit level 3 and every single zone attack gets him to full health (gods help you if it's two berserkers with that which a friend and I spent a long time before we quit). Arcade should have the same reward per time as the main game with a bonus for completion depending on the difficulty of the arcade run, but time spent should be the same reward as time spent anywhere else.
My mates and I want to troll poor newbs with fourstacked centurions or shinobis
Screw you guys. (I kid, mostly).
Add in something like this and single pick in dominion would be a lot fairer than it would be currently, the people who scream about fighting two of anything would be happier, win/win.
An alternative would be hey maybe follow through on that ranked 4v4 and give it say a boosted steel gain so people can be rewarded with any cosmetics in the store they feel like as an incentive, but honestly that likely dilutes the pool too much at this point unless you manage to get crossplay in and working fairly to avoid having 140fps (hell I make 150fps in dominion, average around 120) against 60fps and all the salt you'd get there.
Anyhow, thank you for reading my ted talk etc etc imagine I said something cool/pompous/whatever you want to think of me here I don't give a monkey's ;)
I feel the best way to address single-pick is to change the way hero selection and matchmaking is handled. For example, you select your hero first then go into matchmaking: select game mode -> select filter -> select hero -> matchmaking starts
The issues with this suggestion would be minimal as only those with premade teams or only play with their friends would have to deal with restrictions on hero selection.
To be honest, I don't like the idea of forcing single-pick on the player base the way it is commonly suggested and currently implemented because:
- Heroes are monetised. The last thing players want is a restriction on the hero they just purchased. It's very frustrating.
- If a player used steel to acquire the hero, it would have taken time to grind it and they would have endured the early access period for the new hero, which is now two weeks. The frustration would be very high if the wait and grind was followed by a restriction.
- Yes, the game is supposed to be fun. No one should dictate who a player can or cannot use, especially when they paid for the game.
- Yes, the implementation of current single-pick would force players to play gamemodes they may prefer not to play if they want to focus on a particular hero and it would be less fun for them.
- Current single-pick can lead to players quiting at the start of the match.
- Restrictions on hero selection can make learning the game harder for new players. They should be free to select the hero they are most comfortable with without the worry of someone else snatching it away from them.
- Ganks will always be an issue for some, even with single-pick. Single-pick will only speed up gank innovation and the respite you hoped for will only be for the short term. With range of heroes that can wall-splat, pin, bash, hug, grab, knockdown, ledge, stun, etc. and combine that with the use of feats, ganks will retain their effectiveness. Single-pick will change very little in that respect.
- Single-pick is supposed to encourage proper play? Don't expect proper play from randoms during casual play, especially with today's matchmaking.
- If proper play is the main issue, you should be more concerned with matchmaking. That sorely needs addressing and is a lot more urgent.
- Single-pick should be reserved for ranked modes, which should be revamped and well incentivised if the devs want more ways to make the game more competitive. Ranked Dominion would complement the Dominion Series.
I definitely like the idea of duels/arcade being the place to level your hero. Unfortunately duels aren't a good place to level and arcade is paid content still (I think.)
I think to satisfy both worlds the devs would have to take another proper look at ranked dominion (or competitive dominion) as players should have a space for people who want to get into that sort of thing without relying on customs. And then simply create the "mix tape" style searching that way you can que for multiple modes at once.