First weekend's over and what a bunch of
19/32 predictions correct, hey look at that, despite how shitty I felt things were going, I'm over 50%! 59% to be accurate! I was expecting 100% to be honest. But I was 100% where it counted, Rote won, and I got to fly a Bhaalgorn in the fight.
I don't even know where to get started on recapping. So I will just start from the top down and hit up some highlights, okay mostly lowlights.
First, an important note, it seemed like the vast majority of teams failed to do much homework on 6v6 or warp in ranges, setups, or a whole host of other things, leading to a literal TON of total hell deaths and very very few points scored by losing teams. That doesn't mean that those teams who received 0 points are completely out of it, as the low end of the winning teams is only at 37.5 points, meaning if they get killed off the field without killing anything, then there is still a chance for a week one losing team to advance.
Shit, even teams that ended up with perfect wins are still at risk, because they will be fighting against other teams that won soundly as well, leading to other possible total hell deaths, freezing their pointat at 57.5 or 62.5, and then it all comes down to ranking.
This year, the first round is more decisive than ever before. Shorter matches, faster kills, worse setups, all played into far more 0 points scored losses. Putting a lot of people in a really dangerous situation for the second weekend...
Some of the things I noticed per match;
Exiled ones lost to Agony - Exiled Ones should have stayed in Exile, they were using LSB Tengu's with injectors. Looks like they missed the Ancillary shield booster memo.
Kadeshi - Explain the damp Griffin You know, the t1 ship with. *Checks notes* Oh that's right, bonus' to ECM. Then the damps on the Tengu's. Probably faced a strong "scissor" type setup to your paper, but still.
HUN - Nice job with the Vargurs! They worked out well, tanks like beasts with the XL ASB's.
Noir. - Reportedly your AT captain didn't show up. That's bad. Rough against two Rooks like that as well.
R.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. - Crazy props for the Shield/armor tanking Mach's. Very inventive and quite effective, good match to watch just for the WTF everyone gives when they see that happen.
LAWN - Goes with a setup from AT9, also misses the memo on how CRAZY GOOD Sleipnirs are with the XL ASB. Pays for it, giving up one of the fastest losses of the day. Good job RvB.
AAA proves me wrong again, or was it Why So Serious just not having a very smart setup for their merlins, fit with multispec's? Bad staring config to have the Mach's in at such a close range, letting the Sleipnirs brawl in close.
Dark Taboo - What the hell were you thinking, okay you obviously weren't. Your fit was utterly garbage. SML and rocket Rooks? That sounds like a great idea. It wasn't. Kinda like warp speed rigs on your daredevils.
Things really started going downhill fast from there.
Manifest Destiny brought Tornadoes with 1400mm arty, bad fits to match, and get wiped by Verge of Collapse, who were probably on the verge of collapse from laughing so hard.
Shadow Cartel had a Disconnect at the beginning of the match, losing a Proteus, and sending a shiver of oh-god I hope that doesn't happen to me down the collective backs of every team in eve.
Dystopia Alliance goes against PL in what was supposed to be the best match of the day. Die horribly, Widow is untanked, well except for a suitcase, and is also fitting multi-specs. I start wondering about the meta game in this match. Did Dystopia take a dive?
Then we go directly into bad warp in decisions in back to back matches, deciding matches almost before they have even begun.
First, Romanian Legion warp in at 0, allowing hostile Brutix's to start at 0 right next to them. Doesn't end well.
Second, pair of Maelstroms for Wormhole Holders and a loki land at 0, Loki should have come in at range, so it could have provided webs for a little while. Loki primaried, dies quickly, then the Maelstroms can't hit anything.
Following that we get some better matches.
DNS brought in some tanky Rattlers, but end up dying with just a few seconds left to spare, worth watching if just for the race to kill at the end of that match.
Suddenly Spaceships shows up with a Vindi, it shows off why it was the "original" OMG dps boat, before the Talos.
Mildly Intoxicated uses a great strategy, assigning all their drones to the fast tackle and then swarming the tackle onto the hostile Basilisk, killing it in a swarm of drone and Drake based missile fire.
No Holes Barred shows up with armor Sleips? Negating one of the major bonus' of the Sleipnir, that useful active tanked bonus, you know! Team Liquid shows up with three Tengu's, easy win, but seriously. Armor Sleipnirs.
Chokepoint - A giant gaff by their FC, using armor Machs and trying to keep range, and then not firing on the blackbird until the very end, even though the blackbird is busy jamming out their Griffins. Simple primary order here, Blackbird, ECM on the cane and the Oneiros. Towards the end the Mach's show just how easy it would have been to put down that blackbird. Fluffeh wins (And will likely face Rote in the second weekend).
That about wraps it up for the first weekend.
With the exception of the commentators. Wow CCP, you choose these guys? Okay I will cut them a break for the most part since it was just the first weekend, but Bolton is complete garbage, he adds nothing to the match commentary. He obviously hasn't read the ruleset very well, full of painful comments that make no sense.
Directed at Raivi, you're a smart fucker, now stop trying to convince everyone that not bringing 6 ships to every match is somehow bad. It's not, you just make yourself look stupid but repeating it every single match. Instead comment on how the ship choices effect the match, how Sabre's aren't good choices. Just something that isn't "Well ah, they could have done better if they brought 6 ships." Often times when the winning setup of five ships score a total hell death with no losses. Look, you can't get better than that.
Pairings for the second weekend should be out soon. I am guessing it will be 1st vs 2nd, 3rd vs 4th, etc etc. So using the handy site of AT.eve-IC.net/10/ It looks like 31. Rote will be facing up against 32. Fluffeh Bunny Murder Squad. We look forward to it.
I completely disagree on the ship counts. The only proper time to use less than 6 ships is if you have a specific gimmick that requires it (such as the 100mn Tengus that Team Liquid brought). Looking through the matches, Team Liquid was the the only team to properly use a sub-6 man team. When teams of uneven sizes met, the larger team won 75% of the time. The fights where smaller teams beat larger teams were exclusively (with the exception of the aforementioned Team Liquid performance) bad teams beating worse teams.
ReplyDeleteWith the excellent set of two point ships available this year there are very few good excuses for bringing less than 6 people.
Raivi, Thanks for the comment. I think we might have to disagree here. And I'm not sure it's much of a disagreement, just a change in how I would commentate vs focusing on "bring 6 ships."
DeleteI agree with your baseline point, more ships are generally better, especially if you look at the win/loss based off of solely number of ships brought. However, fights are, by factors of ten, too complicated to limit down to, they brought 5 and they brought 6, and that is the sole reason why the large team won. Fwiw, my research showed 6 teams "beat the odds," Space P0lice 5 v 4, bringing less than 6 ships, but still brining more than their opponents. Same with Nulli, bringing 5 v 3. If we throw those out then we get 75% otherwise it would be much less. Well worded by you to push your stats even if not really support your position that 6 ships is the best.
I find the number of ships brought in just a macro level analysis of the fight. The choices of ships fielded are 100 percent more impactful than the number of ships brought.
That's what I would like to hear about, and would make for more compelling commentary. So, instead of, something that you said during one of the matches, which was along the lines of, ~"well x team could have done a better job had they fielded a setup with 6 people in it."~
I would instead suggest the much better and more informative commentary of "team X should have considered dropping out their next to useless sabre's(or whatever) for three t1 frigates loaded up with utility. They provide more overall EHP/DPS and utility at the same cost in points."
Additionally, bringing 6 ships didn't instantly improve your chances either, in matches of 6 ships vs any ship total, including vs other 6 man setups was just 24 wins of the 43 times a 6 man was fielded. That's just 55%. Lending more weight to setup being > ships fielded.
If you can, and if I still have your attention, also talk more about ship positioning, on the field as the match develops. the lower right tac overlay doesn't do a great job of answering the question, "Why are they firing at x and not at Y" when the answer is "because X is at 300m and Y is outside their lock range at 67km."
Yeah all of the commentators are discussing how we can improve the commentary as a whole. Some of the problems we won't be able to deal with until the studio weekends, but things like describing the field we are planning to improve upon next weekend. That problem came from a fairly simple misunderstanding within the tournament team, as a decision was made to focus more on the closeups of ships to make the stream more visually interesting and us commentators didn't really catch the implications of that change in time. In the past we had to hold back on over-describing on what viewers were seeing right in front of their faces, but this year those details aren't as obvious visually.
DeleteAnd I chose my statistics as I did because my main point is that more ships is virtually always better than fewer ships. If you could use 7 ships in this format that would be the best number, but since 6 is the cap 6 is the ideal number of ships.
One of the reasons I harped on it is that I believe that bringing fewer than the max ships is one of the most avoidable mistakes teams are making. Sabres are excellent tourney ships when used for the right purpose (antifrig dps instead of tackle, see my minmatar setup that you guys used to win the syndicate tournament for examples of proper use) but bringing 4 ships is on par with bringing omens on my scale of terribleness.
I think I did mention how sabres for main tackle is a bad idea on the stream, but it was probably just once and it's possible that I'm confusing a conversation I had off air. Either way I'll make a point to mention it on Sunday.
BTW great job with your tournament coverage in this blog, this is the best 3rd party tourney content I've seen this year.
Good to hear from you that there is conversation about improving the commentary as a whole. Overall I would say that each announcers commentary improved as time went along.
DeleteI c what you did there re: Syndicate tourney :)
I think the majority of your tone for the bring 6 commentary, which I still mostly agree with, was just that people we're bringing 6 ships, but I think we've gone round on that enough, and we both know where the other is coming from, so I will just say that "Good, looking forward to improvements in week 2."
Sabre are a bad example, but the only one I could think of off the top of my head. Just wanted more information from you on why bringing 4 was usually a bad idea, and how bringing 6 ships even if individually not as powerful still greatly improve the setup, by distributing EWAR over 6 targets instead of less, or whatever rationale you wanted to use. I mean I understand that, and some of the other AT vets might get that as well, but for the general viewer who are having a hard time following ship types.... well it might make more sense if you dove into that comment a bit more.
re: tourney coverage; thank you. I spent a lot of time on it and wanted to do more posts running up to the beginning of ATX but work got nice and in the way.
Wait, are you saying we shouldnt bring our 4 man omen fleet next week?
ReplyDeleteYou guys have one of those too? we tested em extensively, look pretty solid. Who are you fighting this weekend? I'll make sure to be appropriately!
DeleteYeah, we have hull tanked blaster omens. The extra grid you get from not using plates lets you fit neutrons!
DeleteWe totally should have thought of that!!!
DeleteHull tanked blaster Omen's. Nobody will expect them.