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Recently I've been watching the MLG 2v2 koth tourney and while strolling through some comments about balance in team games, it struck me that there is a remote chance for 3v3s to develop as a legit form of esport.
Maybe it's possible to have serious, professional 3v3 games, or even tournaments in which a team is forced to consist of one player from each race, so it's a PTZ vs PTZ(lets call it 3v3AR-All Races for now).
Think about it! The main reason why SC2 is mostly 1v1 is because in team games there are imba race combos(things like double/triple 6pools followed by DT rushes, or a double protoss team, one going ground and one going air thus creating a basically unkillable death ball). 3v3ARs have none of this, in fact they are even more balanced than your standard non-mirror 1v1 match ups!(let's not start a balance discussion here, just know that there are problems)
And we all know how team games can be really exciting to watch. Things normally impossible in 1v1s can be executed nicely by pros. We can see new timings and strategies, as well as unit synergies that we've never considered, the possibilities are endless! Not to mention the endless action and engagements that will surely result from all the variables in a 3v3AR.
Also, it helps the scene grow. League of legends players often say that SC players have no social skills and are poor when it comes to dealing with people. Guess what? 3v3ARs provide more chances of teamwork and coordination between team members than the current team league format. This will shut those LoL players up and give a whole new meaning to a 'team' in starcraft.
Of course there are potential challenges. Adequate game observing could be a problem for both casters and observers but this may somehow be solved through the new observer UIs. If blizzard is right then we've only seen a fraction of what custom UIs are capable of. I believe they will greatly assist the spectators in understanding what's going on in potentially chaotic 3v3ARs
Then there's also the possible map problem. Currently we only have blizzard 3v3 maps which are arguably aren't that good(at least it looks that way I dont play a lot of team games myself), and the lack of 3v3AR metagame makes it a bit hard for mapmakers out there to create maps suitable for seriously professional, competitive team play. But then WoL 1v1 maps also went through quite an evolution haven't they?(steppes of war anyone?) I believe that given time and support the 3v3 map pool will improve dramatically.
So what do you think? Is this idea just a fool's dream, a feat that will cost way too much to organise properly? Or does 3v3ARs actually have a chance to be a legit form of esports that people will watch and enjoy?
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Competitive sc2 is a 1v1 endeavor and I hope it stays that way. 3v3 won't be a viable competitive game without some major changes, and I don't like the idea of trying to force the game to be something it's not.
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On April 17 2013 01:02 Fenneth wrote:
Competitive sc2 is a 1v1 endeavor and I hope it stays that way. 3v3 won't be a viable competitive game without some major changes, and I don't like the idea of trying to force the game to be something it's not.
It's not like I'm proposing that all 1v1 tourneys should be replaced by 3v3ARs, it's just a alternative way to play, adding the elements of teamwork and increasing the game variety while maintaining balance and competitiveness.
And why exactly is 3v3AR not viable?
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On April 17 2013 01:06 uh-oh wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2013 01:02 Fenneth wrote:
Competitive sc2 is a 1v1 endeavor and I hope it stays that way. 3v3 won't be a viable competitive game without some major changes, and I don't like the idea of trying to force the game to be something it's not. It's not like I'm proposing that all 1v1 tourneys should be replaced by 3v3ARs, it's just a alternative way to play, adding the elements of teamwork and increasing the game variety while maintaining balance and competitiveness. And why exactly is 3v3AR not viable?
Added complexity makes balancing an unviable prospect. Units and strategies from different races synergize in extremely powerful ways. Balancing 1v1 is hard enough as it is; even 2v2 is considered impossible to balance while maintaining 1v1 balance, so forget 3v3. It would be cool if it was possible though.
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On April 17 2013 01:45 Demonhunter04 wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2013 01:06 uh-oh wrote:On April 17 2013 01:02 Fenneth wrote:
Competitive sc2 is a 1v1 endeavor and I hope it stays that way. 3v3 won't be a viable competitive game without some major changes, and I don't like the idea of trying to force the game to be something it's not. It's not like I'm proposing that all 1v1 tourneys should be replaced by 3v3ARs, it's just a alternative way to play, adding the elements of teamwork and increasing the game variety while maintaining balance and competitiveness. And why exactly is 3v3AR not viable? Added complexity makes balancing an unviable prospect. Units and strategies from different races synergize in extremely powerful ways. Balancing 1v1 is hard enough as it is; even 2v2 is considered impossible to balance while maintaining 1v1 balance, so forget 3v3. It would be cool if it was possible though.
But what Im proposing is PTZ vs PTZ, it's the same races for both sides, why would there be any imbalances?
Sure there could be some synergies that seem really powerful at first but then there are so many variables in 3v3s that there should be a counter for everything. Also teamwork plays a big part in this too, making 'balance' a less significant factor in the outcome of a game when compared to 1v1.
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On April 17 2013 01:49 uh-oh wrote:Show nested quote +On April 17 2013 01:45 Demonhunter04 wrote:On April 17 2013 01:06 uh-oh wrote:On April 17 2013 01:02 Fenneth wrote:
Competitive sc2 is a 1v1 endeavor and I hope it stays that way. 3v3 won't be a viable competitive game without some major changes, and I don't like the idea of trying to force the game to be something it's not. It's not like I'm proposing that all 1v1 tourneys should be replaced by 3v3ARs, it's just a alternative way to play, adding the elements of teamwork and increasing the game variety while maintaining balance and competitiveness. And why exactly is 3v3AR not viable? Added complexity makes balancing an unviable prospect. Units and strategies from different races synergize in extremely powerful ways. Balancing 1v1 is hard enough as it is; even 2v2 is considered impossible to balance while maintaining 1v1 balance, so forget 3v3. It would be cool if it was possible though. But what Im proposing is PTZ vs PTZ, it's the same races for both sides, why would there be any imbalances? Sure there could be some synergies that seem really powerful at first but then there are so many variables in 3v3s that there should be a counter for everything. Also teamwork plays a big part in this too, making 'balance' a less significant factor in the outcome of a game when compared to 1v1.
I don't know if people would like seeing both sides do the same thing each game, which well might happen. Another thing about team games is that aggression is much more rewarding - quick attacks to cripple one or two players are pretty much standard. Then there are the all-ins. It'd take a while for players to get good enough at team games for the metagame to go beyond that point, and by doing that they're sacrificing 1v1 skill.
The thing completely preventing team games from being used in tournaments is the fact that you can't train for both without compromising.
edit: Even mirror matchups can suffer from imbalances.
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I wish they had 4v4 tournaments. I love 4v4! Basically skip all the passive macroing up to 3 or 4 bases and just start right at 4 bases. Also 4 players on each team leads to more multitasking so there is more going on at any one time.
One advantage of Dota over Starcraft is that 10 players means more is going on than 2. Playing 4s in Starcraft basically solves that problem.
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The main issue I see is the map. If you had one of each race on each team, relative positions of one race versus another on the map could potentially lead to the same issues that plagued tournaments before cross-positions became mandatory, for example.
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The game isn't tweaked to support a tasteful 3v3, or any team games at all. Despite having units from multiple races, you actually have less strategies and less unit compositions to choose from due to the fact that there are no more timings, no clear early/mid/late game, and also that you are pigeon-holed into the most powerful unit composition.
If you need a good example of why team games shouldn't be played, try watching a lot more 2v2 tournaments. After a while they get so painful to watch.
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3v3 is incredible boring on high level. double 10 pool + reactor hellions is all you see since everyone is playing it.
i don't really get the argument with social skills ... it just makes no sense.
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To balance 3v3 maybe we could force each team to play all three races and therefore every MU would sort of be like a mirror so there will be no need to balance. Every MU would be a Terran, Zerg, Protoss vs another Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
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Fool's hope. Added complexity = borderline impossible to balance.
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On April 17 2013 04:02 JamesSaunders wrote:
To balance 3v3 maybe we could force each team to play all three races and therefore every MU would sort of be like a mirror so there will be no need to balance. Every MU would be a Terran, Zerg, Protoss vs another Terran, Zerg, and Protoss.
than it will be 10 pool, reactor hellion/proxy marauder + dt everygame :D
teamgames will never be nearly balanced, because there is a lot more to abuse than in 1v1.
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Well boring as it will be at least it will be balanced 
I agree with most people above, it will very difficult to make 3v3 interesting without ruining 1v1.
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Currently from what Im experience I can say confidently that 2v2 is harder than 1v1, and 3v3 is easy mode.
(This is on KR where starting from 2v2 plat your opponents are mostly 1v1 kr dia +)
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Well, of course any mirror will be balanced. But it may be boring. Possibly not in a single match, but imagine if Dota had only 5 heroes and every game would be ABCDE vs ABCDE. Boring.
What I could imagine though, is a mode, where the races are picked in a certain order in by the opponent. Say A, B and C (Team A) play against X Y and Z (Team X).
First, Team X picks player As race.
Second, Team A picks player Xs race.
Then, Team X picks player Bs race.
And so on.
This way it could be certain to eliminate certain imba strategies. It also would increment the skill cap for SC2, as each player would need to be able to play all three races. This would also make research benefit: A team that knows the other player can pick their respective worst races.
Alternative: To make it a little softer, you could say that races are not picked, bur rather vetoed, just like maps. So in step one, Team X does not pick player As race, but vetoes one. So player A must then pick one of the two races left, before step two begins.
I believe many good ideas started as a fools hope.
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United States9232 Posts
Eh, why not to throw in some variety, honestly?
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For it to be popular, they'd have to be able to choose the three races. The only thing that might fly in a tournament setting is banning random to take out a variable that leads to chaos. Constraining races beyond that would only delegitimize the competition there with stale early game and predictable avenues of play.
Since 2v2 exists, there's an outside chance that a few smaller tournaments will premier a 3v3 round in amongst 1v1 rounds that involve skilled players. Making it always PZT vs. PZT is a very bad idea to try to adjust the format.
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On April 17 2013 03:23 ChapOne wrote:
3v3 is incredible boring on high level. double 10 pool + reactor hellions is all you see since everyone is playing it.
i don't really get the argument with social skills ... it just makes no sense.
It really is boring.
People barely watch 2v2 tourneys as it is. I don't really think 3v3 would be any different. I think the problem is that there needs to be an established tournament with a big prize pool to get pros to actually care about any team games. Remember how bad the 2v2 games were in the EG tournament (for some reason I cannot think of the name)? It's kind of a catch 22 really. The best players won't care until there is enough money, and it's very hard to get enough money unless you consistently have pros playing in your tourney. I think 2v2 has a way better chance than 3v3 to get really popular, but you would have definitely have to ban certain races combinations.
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I do love 3v3 and it can be great at the very top level, but it is fairly repetitive. We have it worked out, maybe a tournament scene would help develop a metagame, though i'm not sure it would.
My favourite thing about teamgames is all the possible race combinations, forcing PZT seems strange if the tournament is supposed to be entertaining. Team game balance seems pretty good for most race combos as it is.
I think the only real variation in PZT would be what the protoss does. I think it would usually be 10 pool from Z reactor hellions from T. Now I base this off ladder experiance which is bo1 (apart from when you keep getting the same opponants or people that know you) where it is mostly blind counters.
So much of the game depends on the openers. Like if Zerg wants to 10p he commits to that before a scout really sees anything. If a terran wants reactor hellions he has to go 11 gas first and toss has to pick gate or forge before scouting too. These decide the shape of the game and this leads to less reactionary play than 1v1. Im not saying it is entirely BO wins but there certainly are more of them.
I don't like how whenever they try to do team game tournaments they (usually) get 1v1 players to play and they don't take it seriously while the casters don't really know what is going on.
And don't say the winner in 3v3 is random, I have seen/been in multiple teams with 50 wins before losing a game.
In fact generally the more players there are the higher the win % can get. Like in 4v4 there are still teams that have achieved 95 wins before a loss, you don't see that in 1v1.
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I don't see the problem that most people are knee-jerking to. The balance in these types of games would come from maps, anyway, not anything else.
I'd watch a tournament if it had big(ish) name players, definitely. And, you know they'd try - bragging rights and all.
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I agree that at least for now and the foreseeable future, team games are too hard to balance and forcing tpz vs tpz doesn't really solve the issue. It's not so much about the unit compositions and things of that nature as it is about pure mechanics. An analogy would be that in the WoL tvp 1/1/1 time period. It wasn't that P couldn't stop the composition, it was that P had a hard time stopping every variation of it at the same time, and it was hard to know which variation was coming. Team games suffer a similar scenario in which the potential early game strategies are so diverse and played on maps that are so big that it's hard to scout properly and develop a stable mid game.
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Fools hope. At least I hope it is lol
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Anything beyond 2v2 degenerates to an absolute cheese fest. Have fun vs 10p double hellion. Even in AR (all race) one of the hellion players will be replaced with a 4 gating of or DT rushing protoss.
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United States9232 Posts
On April 17 2013 09:26 ProteiNSheikH wrote:
Anything beyond 2v2 degenerates to an absolute cheese fest. Have fun vs 10p double hellion. Even in AR (all race) one of the hellion players will be replaced with a 4 gating of or DT rushing protoss.
Would depend on the map.
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This is a good idea.... Maybe if it was 4v4. . . You know, League of Legends is popular because of the team interface. If Starcraft had team leagues, true team leagues, it may boost the popularity of starcraft.
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2v2 is hard enough to balance and adding 2 more players to the mix is even worse. The problem with the team match metagame is that SC2 currently relies too heavily on unit positioning to determine winners of battles and games. I'd say about 95% of the team games I play just end up with one or both teams rushing with, as some posters have already mentioned, 10p x2 and hellions, reaper msc, etc.
SC2 is currently only balanced for 1v1 play, and even then we're still working out the kinks. A dramatic change would have to happen to the maps of team games to even start considering 2v2/3v3 as viable esports.
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On April 17 2013 09:26 ProteiNSheikH wrote:
Anything beyond 2v2 degenerates to an absolute cheese fest. Have fun vs 10p double hellion. Even in AR (all race) one of the hellion players will be replaced with a 4 gating of or DT rushing protoss.
This has been my general experience in team games as well. Although I do like the idea of balance for forced teams (unlike most people here it seems), I think there are certain synergies between units of different races that are impossible to balance even when the opponent has the opportunity to do the same thing. If they do do the same thing, then 3v3 pro games wouldn't be very fun to watch.
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I have watched casts of pro-players play FFA and team-games for shits and giggles in some tourneys - casting it properly was impossible. I mean, even the best casters miss things in 1v1 from time to time. 3v3 would be impossible.
In Dota/LoL, you can fit almost all the action in team fights on the screen. In SC2, even some epic 1v1 engagements span more than 1 screen. Imagine 3v3 engagements.
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Leave the team games to the actual team games, imo. Starcraft 2 is a hell of a lot of fun to play with friends, but the elements that are impressive / entertaining about competitive 1v1 play aren't amplified in 2v2 / 3v3. While it would be neat at first to watch the metagame evolve, it would eventually settle into something comfortable and quite probably boring.
Plogamer brings up a damn fine point as well. It'd be hard to watch 6 people playing up to 200 pieces each on the same board... and the few situations where you'd actually be able to see most of the pieces in play would be the ever-so-thrilling deathball v deathball fights.
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If someone offers some big money for a 3v3 tournament... at least equivalent to an MLG or Dreamhack, we would see the pros play it seriously for sure.
And once the pros start playing it seriously, fans will follow. It could work that way.
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3:3 in SC2 will never even come close to tosswars in BW in terms of entertainment. That stuff had such an incredible depth that you just have to experience yourself to understand. Since tosswars didnt become big I doubt that 3:3 in sc2 can unless something revolutionary happends with the maps.
As a sidenote 3:3 is the only thing I like playing in sc2, 1:1 has to little action and 2:2/4:4 has extremely shitty maps.
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Team games were already in BW Proleague and they got rid of them, and that was when BW was much more popular than SC2 today.
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Teamgame maps need to be made just like 1vs1 maps:
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/ZY9ZmdZ.png)
incomplete, some flaws, but an idea of what it could look like.
Current team game maps either have players in split-up bases across the map (which forces everyone to play super aggressively to keep mapcontrol and prevent gangbangs) or in a shared main with (usually) completely exposed naturals and potential thirds in crazy places. There are some good looking 2vs2 maps on teamliquid, but they suffer from lack of public exposure, no real thirds, or insanely long rush distances.
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"AR" normally means "All Random", that is why "all races" should get another acronym.
I am afraid that even 2v2 games are hard to cast because there are so many units. 3v3 should be even more confusing. For esports, I need to see exactly what happens.
I do like to play team matches, but I don't know if they can develop into esports.
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I remember 2v2 being somewhat common in WC3 (in clanwars if I recall correctly), but nothing with more people was used. Therefore I also doubt that 3v3 will ever become a reality in "serious" tournaments. Personally I quite enjoy watching 2v2 tournaments from time to time, but as has been stated quite often here already, I too believe that anything with more than 4 people would be viable for esports.
On a side note, I really love the FFAs casted in non-serious context (like AHGL), as they are very fun to watch.
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It's possible but Starcraft itself as a game is better as 1v1 than 3v3. I say 'better' mainly because of the abuse of tier 1 units in team games. Trying to expand or tech up is basically useless as a strategy and can be 'exploited' simply by mass tier 1. Intelligent plays will never come about. It would basically be mainly about brute force and micro, which to be honest Starcraft 2 has too much of as it is! I hope that was as clear an argument against it as can possibly be put forth
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There was a time when 2v2 was a game mode used in BW earlier on IIRC. So it wasn't a fool's hope before, but more recently I'd say it is.
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The maps ware way too small and generally unsuited for 2v2, and also 3v3, making it all cheese.
If that was fixed I think 2v2 and 3v3 could be more fun to play and watch. I think some strategies would be pretty imbalanced though, even if it's the same races, but who knows.
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The real reason 2v2 or even 3v3 will not work, regardless of "all-races," is because of feeding. Balanced teams don't exactly come into play when one or more teammates simply feed their resources to their other teammate, causing unnaturally fast tech and production and leading to extremely one-sided (and boring) games. You mention MLG's own 2v2 tournament; well, more than a few of the games featured the power of feeding. Take Grubby and TOD's games, for instance.
For any sort of serious play, at the very least you must disable or ban feeding somehow.
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United States9232 Posts
On April 18 2013 07:21 pretensile wrote:
The real reason 2v2 or even 3v3 will not work, regardless of "all-races," is because of feeding. Balanced teams don't exactly come into play when one or more teammates simply feed their resources to their other teammate, causing unnaturally fast tech and production and leading to extremely one-sided (and boring) games. You mention MLG's own 2v2 tournament; well, more than a few of the games featured the power of feeding. Take Grubby and TOD's games, for instance.
For any sort of serious play, at the very least you must disable or ban feeding somehow.
Why is this bad? If both teams feed, they can do whatever.... remember they can all share control too...
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It's very unlikely that 3v3 games would ever breed interesting games... it's just massive slugfests. It's a purely "fun" type of game, I can't imagine people would take it seriously for competitive play.
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I can't believe how closed minded people are about this. I agree that the potential for abuse is there, but at the very least it deserves a shot. I don't see anything wrong with a gametype that often opens with cheese (with occasional macro) and progresses. I fail to see how that's significantly different from how 1v often opens with macro (and occasional cheese) and progresses.
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the main problem with PTZ vs PTZ or AR as you call it, is that eventually it will be the same thing over and over. Both teams will do the thing that works best over and over and that won't be entertaining, similar to how PvZ in the end of WoL was a turtle to broodlords and praying for a vortex, or a 2 base all in, and no one likes watching the same thing over and over. Not to mention PvZ was only 1 of the 6 possible matchups (PvZ PvT PvP TvT TvZ ZvZ). a 3v3 with all races there would only ever be the one matchup, no variation.
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United States9232 Posts
On April 18 2013 14:27 matt93 wrote:
the main problem with PTZ vs PTZ or AR as you call it, is that eventually it will be the same thing over and over. Both teams will do the thing that works best over and over and that won't be entertaining, similar to how PvZ in the end of WoL was a turtle to broodlords and praying for a vortex, or a 2 base all in, and no one likes watching the same thing over and over. Not to mention PvZ was only 1 of the 6 possible matchups (PvZ PvT PvP TvT TvZ ZvZ). a 3v3 with all races there would only ever be the one matchup, no variation.
How is that an issue at all if it's far, far less prevalent?
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Northern Ireland25625 Posts
1v1 is volatile enough at times, 3v3 just magnifies that.
I actually like the way it was proposed though, interesting ideas I just really fucking hate playing team games in SC2, never mind watching them I'm afraid OP 
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Why not just make it 3v3 1 of each race?
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On April 17 2013 04:21 AKnopf wrote:
What I could imagine though, is a mode, where the races are picked in a certain order in by the opponent. Say A, B and C (Team A) play against X Y and Z (Team X).
First, Team X picks player As race.
Second, Team A picks player Xs race.
Then, Team X picks player Bs race.
And so on.
Cannot be done race-based, but I guess you could do something like that unit-based (monobattles !) or composition based.
Races fixed, team A bans zerglings/banelings, team B bans reapers/dt, player1 chooses marines, etc.
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Really closeminded people in these threads.
Keep in mind how many more viewers team games get than 1v1 games. Current implementation might be a little wonky, but if someone made a good custom map devoted to 3v3 PTZ vs PTZ, it could be really neat.
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The problem with Protoss is that it isn't balanced around Team Games at all (not that the other ones are either but I digress). Its weak early game units that are relatively balanced in 1v1 through forcefields and MSC become effectively even weaker because now you have to potentially defend against 3 all-ins. If you don't want to die you either have to invest in a ton of cannons (in which case enemy team free expands) or all-in yourself through either spamming a ton of gateway units or dt cheese (in which you hope your team can hold off any early pokes without dying). If it stalls to a split map scenario protoss late game becomes disproportionately strong because at best you can usually safely take ~3 bases on most current maps so that having high army value (skytoss, mass colossi, etc.) becomes much more important than remaxability.
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"League of legends players often say that SC players have no social skills and are poor when it comes to dealing with people."
Stoped reading there, I almost fell for it OP. 7/10
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I like the idea. You should start a TZP vs TZP tournament and call it "Fool's hope tournament"
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On April 18 2013 10:47 FabledIntegral wrote:Show nested quote +On April 18 2013 07:21 pretensile wrote:
The real reason 2v2 or even 3v3 will not work, regardless of "all-races," is because of feeding. Balanced teams don't exactly come into play when one or more teammates simply feed their resources to their other teammate, causing unnaturally fast tech and production and leading to extremely one-sided (and boring) games. You mention MLG's own 2v2 tournament; well, more than a few of the games featured the power of feeding. Take Grubby and TOD's games, for instance.
For any sort of serious play, at the very least you must disable or ban feeding somehow. Why is this bad? If both teams feed, they can do whatever.... remember they can all share control too...
Why is this bad? Does this even require an explanation?
Because the very point of team games (presumably) is to see units of all races on display clashing against each other, not to witness the other players on a team reduced to mere worker units while a single "hero" player races ahead to a cheesy tech rush every game. Yes, both teams can feed -- but how much fun is it to see each side randomly throwing rock/paper/scissors to see whose end would pan out?
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not read other posts the reason i think team games are just not in the lime light is it just gets too messy. In more ways then just deathballing, what IF the players decide to do multi prong from both sides . . .woah its like 3 games of soccer going on in the same game . . noone knows what to follow!
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On April 18 2013 11:17 TheUnderking wrote:
I can't believe how closed minded people are about this. I agree that the potential for abuse is there, but at the very least it deserves a shot. I don't see anything wrong with a gametype that often opens with cheese (with occasional macro) and progresses. I fail to see how that's significantly different from how 1v often opens with macro (and occasional cheese) and progresses.
Wat? An internet forum is one of the most closed-minded constructs of humanity. TL has not escaped this.
The idea is fine. Now, go run a big tournament with lots of money and big names and see what happens. Even if that failed it wouldn't mean much. Arguably the first sc2 1v1 tourneys failed due to balance/gameplay. What would matter is the way that it failed. I'd watch it.
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Northern Ireland25625 Posts
What is close-minded is saying that everybody who doesn't think team games have potential for competitive play are close-minded
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On April 19 2013 08:39 Wombat_NI wrote:
What is close-minded is saying that everybody who doesn't think team games have potential for competitive play are close-minded
That's ok to believe that, and I would agree with it, but no one said that?
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EPT
