I mean it took us three years to get a solid answer, so maybe in another three they'll announce it again, and three years later it might happen!
News Icarus Cup: Information and Signup
- Thread starter Zac Antonaci
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Cheating may very well be part of the problem, but there's a ton of other stuff too. It's not just cheat prevention that's missing.
There's no lobby, no way to create a private game. You can't run a tournament with the random match maker. There's also no spectator mode. These two features would be absolutely necessary if you wanted to host a tournament.
For the Icarus Cup to become a reality, CQC would need development time and that's what Frontier doesn't have an excess of.
Will the hacking tools work for this event? ......asking for a friend
Yet somehow every six months the community cobbles together a PvP league that works flawlessly, hosted in PG with referee's who livestream it. The Icarus Cup wasn't ever implied to be a new special game mode or addition to CQC, rather just a dev supported event.
The fundamental problem with holding an official worldwide PvP event is that it would expose the extent of development required to turn post-2.1 ED into something resembling a world-class multiplayer combat game.
Either Frontier would have to impose and enforce a whole series of arbitrary rules, which would be an admission that the game as currently sold is not usable in serious competition, or they would have to undertake the massive task of a wholesale combat rebalance.
If Frontier did neither (just said, 'here’s the game we sell, so play it') then any competition would be a laugh-out-loud festival of broken tactics, not least 4-0-2 long range hitscan reverski, healing beams, aimbot missiles and stacked gimballed kinetic.
Take a look at the regular Patch Notes for any major multiplayer title. Heck, here is just one random set from TWW2 and that isn’t even remotely near being a top-tier PvP game. I’m extracting just one segment of just one patch in the following spoiler:
Have I made my point? That’s what it takes to run a multiplayer combat game – doing the above, every few months or weeks. Over and over again.
And that's in a game which is still primarily single-player.
I'm not saying Frontier would need to go anything like as far as we see in the Spoiler, or as regularly, but they would need to do something more than every couple of years either proposing or implementing a random isolated change and then often just as swiftly withdrawing it.
Serious multiplayer games are not balanced by some kind of protracted negotiation followed by endless silences, going nowhere, between the Developer and various interest groups. The Devs act with utter ruthlessness to ensure the game integrity. But they act holistically.
In ED we have seen the most humble attempts at addressing gimbals arcs and booster stacking withdrawn. Perhaps there was some merit in the withdrawals because these were isolated proposals with no holistic overview. In the entire history of this game reverski has not once been addressed. Healing beams received a small nerf in over three years from introduction. Powerplant size increases and/or modding removed the entire 'hard choices' model of ship build design. I could go on.
In short we continue to see the legacy of the infamous 2.1 patch.
Full long range damage at all ranges at a stroke removed most of the designed game balance of pre-2.1 ED, which was based around weapons being either difficult to hit with at long range (kinetic, plasma) or doing trivial damage at long range (thermal, including rails). Some mods (eg super penetrator) simultaneously removed the need to achieve a position relative to the opponent’s ship, eg to be above him to shoot down into his PP, or behind him to target his drives. Other mods (drives, PD) made it possible for a ship to be near an increased top speed at all times. The combination of the above pushes a meta of moving-quickly-backwards-and-sideways-with-4-pips-to-Sys-whilst-firing-at-5 km-and-facing-the-opponent-at-all-times. That’s war by spreadsheet and mouse-pointer. And by talking about long range I'm just hitting on one example here.
If Frontier are serious about a combat overhaul I would welcome that but they would need to commit hundreds (probably thousands) of man-hours of Dev time to what’s needed, and further need to commit to at least a full year of quarterly reviews following that overhaul.
Alternatively they could just copy the sort of self-limitations used in independent PvP competitions and say, ‘OK guys, Icarus cup time, you can’t use this special, or that special, or more than this number of boosters, we’ll artificially bring in a CQC-type ring-out mechanic etc etc’ – which could have some merit but wouldn’t be a competition that showed people playing ED as it is actually sold to the public.
Of the community PvP Leagues, actually the only one played as 'no rules, bare knuckle' Open ED was Season 1 - and it's no coincidence that that was the only one before Engineering. After that it became impossible, so the PvP community had to try to balance the game for itself because the Devs wouldn't do it.
My guess, with respect to those concerned at Frontier, is that fixing the multiplayer combat game or admitting that it needs fixing would respectively be considered too demanding or too bad for public image. I therefore expect nothing, at all, to happen. Roll on the necro thread ... the never-ending necro ...
Either Frontier would have to impose and enforce a whole series of arbitrary rules, which would be an admission that the game as currently sold is not usable in serious competition, or they would have to undertake the massive task of a wholesale combat rebalance.
If Frontier did neither (just said, 'here’s the game we sell, so play it') then any competition would be a laugh-out-loud festival of broken tactics, not least 4-0-2 long range hitscan reverski, healing beams, aimbot missiles and stacked gimballed kinetic.
Take a look at the regular Patch Notes for any major multiplayer title. Heck, here is just one random set from TWW2 and that isn’t even remotely near being a top-tier PvP game. I’m extracting just one segment of just one patch in the following spoiler:
Spell and Unit Balancing
General
Dark Elves
General
- Rebalanced all vortex, breath, wind and explosion abilities, as a bug that was making them use a reduced radius for area of effect was fixed
- Summoned units are no longer unbreakable. Undead summons now also crumble in addition to unbinding
- Adjusted power cost of some summon spells
- Redesigned unbinding to apply for a set duration, with a first phase of light damage and a short second phase of lethal damage. Now summons will expire after a set and predictable duration
- Tomb Blade of Arkhan: 82 seconds
- Realm of Souls: 92 second
- Transformation of Kadon (Manticore): 96 seconds, 13 power cost
- Transformation of Kadon (Varghulf): 77 seconds, 13 power cost
- Denizens of the Deep: 71 seconds, 12 power cost
- Drowned Dead: 88 seconds
- Captain Roth’s Moondial: 88 seconds
- Drowned Dead Upgraded: 121 seconds
- Ghosts of the Past: 93 seconds
- Savage Dominion: 101 seconds, 15 power cost
- Maternal Instinct: 180 seconds
- Awaken from the Grave: 86 seconds
- Awaken from the Grave Upgraded: 117 seconds
- Staff of Corruption: 91 seconds
- Spirit-Essence of Chaos: 91 seconds
- Feral Cold Ones: 80 seconds
- Raise Dead: 134 seconds. Cooldown increased to 39 seconds. Cost to 4
- Raise Dead Upgraded: 80 seconds. Cooldown increased to 39 seconds. Cost to 6
- Vermintide: 67 seconds
- Menace Below: 67 seconds
- Pestilent Birth: 73 seconds
- Eagle Sanctuary: 78 seconds
- Rats Emerge: 99 seconds
- Lord of Undeath: 139 seconds
- Command the Unliving: 85 seconds
- Command the Unliving Upgraded: 77 seconds
Dark Elves
- Hydra: +10 armour
- Chill of Sontar: +10 armour
- Kharibdyss: +10 armour
- Knights of the Ebon Claw: -2 melee attack, -1 melee defence, -50 cost
- Crone Hellebron (foot, dark steed, manticore): +3 melee defence
- Cold One Knights: -2 melee attack, -1 melee defence
- Cold One Dread Knights: -2 melee attack, -1 melee defence
- Cold One Chariot: -10 charge bonus, -2 melee defence
- Khainite Assassin: added Vanguard deployment, +2 run speed. Projectile now applies poison contact effect.
- Bolt Fiends: -50 mp cost
- Black Ark Corsairs: +1 bonus vs infantry
- Loremaster of Hoeth: -5 charge bonus, -150 cost.
- Noble – Chariot: -10 charge bonus, -2 melee defence
- Princess – Moon Dragon: +10 armour
- Alith Anar: increased projectile accuracy, +25 ap projectile damage, +7 base projectile damage.
- Swordmasters of Hoeth: +5 leadership
- Moon Dragon: +10 armour
- Frostheart Phoenix: -2 charge bonus, +1 melee attack, +30 ap melee damage, +10 base melee damage.
- Sun Dragon: +10 armour
- Ellyrian Reavers: -50 cost
- Loremaster of Hoeth: -150 mp cost
- Volkmar the Grim – foot, warhorse, barded warhorse: +5 melee defence
- Volkmar the Grim – War Altar of Sigmar: +15 bonus vs infantry, -50 mp cost
- Helblaster Volley Gun: increased accuracy.
- Witch Hunters: Accusation is now a hex. No longer deals direct damage. Instead reduces armour by 30, melee defence by 26 and missile resistance by 22 for 35 seconds.
- Steam Tank: +2 melee attack.
- Fixed animation issue that was increasing Wyvern flying melee attack interval by seconds.
- Grimgor: +400 health
- Skarsnik: +400 health
- Giant: +3 run speed
- Doom Divers: +115 ap projectile damage, -105 projectile damage.
- Venom Queen: +14 bonus vs large
- Arachnarok Spider: +14 bonus vs large
- Belegar: +400 health
- Thorgrim Grudgebearer: +2 melee attack, +400 health, +5 ap melee damage, +45 melee damage, +5 armour.
- Ungrim: +400 health, +4 melee defence.
- Grombrindal: -50 cost.
- Runelord: +50 cost
- Hammerers: +1 melee defence
- Peak Gate Guard: +1 melee defence
- Gyrocopters (Brimstone Guns): +11 ap projectile damage, +4 base projectile damage, slight accuracy increase
- Giant Slayers: -50 cost
- Count Noctilus – foot: -10 armour, -500 health.
- Mournguls: -10 armour, -2 melee attack
- Night Terrors: -10 armour, -2 melee attack
- Mourngul Haunter: -10 armour, -2 melee attack
- Zombie Gunnery Mobs (all): -2 health per entity, -1 melee defence
- Zombie Gunnery Mob (Handcannons): -1 ap projectile damage, +1 base projectile damage.
- Lamprey’s Revenge: +100 mp cost
- Vargheists: +4 charge bonus, +10 melee damage
- Devils of Swartzhafen: +4 charge bonus, +10 melee damage
- Cairn Wraiths: +2 melee attack
- The Tithe: -50 cost
- Zombies: -50 cost
- Varghulf: +20 ap melee damage, +10 base melee damage.
- Hierotitan: +4 melee attack
- Skeleton Chariots: +6 charge bonus, -50 mp cost
- Skeleton Archer Chariots: +6 charge bonus
- Khatep – Casket of Souls: -50 mp cost
- Nehekhara Warriors: -50 mp cost
- Carrion: +50 mp cost
- Sepulchral Stalkers: +3 bonus vs large
- Casket of Souls: +4 explosion damage, +8 ap explosion damage.
- Bone Giant: +20 ap projectile damage, +13 base projectile damage.
- Treekin: -2 charge bonus, +5 melee attack, -3 melee defence.
- Glade Riders (basic): -25 cost
- Glade Riders (Hagbane Tips): +3 ap projectile damage, -3 base projectile damage, deals magical damage.
- Glade Guard: -50 cost
- Glade Guard (Hagbane Tips): +3 ap projectile damage, -3 base projectile damage, deals magical damage.
- Wardens of Cythral: +50 cost
- Waywatchers: +1 base reload time.
- Primal Instincts: Activation threshold reduced to 20% health left. Now also buffs charge bonus by +16% and melee attack by +8.
- Horned Ones: -2 melee attack, -1 melee defence
- Cold One Spear Riders: -2 melee attack, -1 melee defence
- Cold One Riders: -2 melee attack, -1 melee defence
- Kroq-gar – foot: +136 health, added charge defense vs large, +8 bonus vs large.
- Kroq-gar – Cold/Horned One: +8 bonus vs large.
- Skink Chief on Terradon: now has a stronger drop rocks projectile. Increased mass for Terradon.
- Skink Priest on Terradon: now has a stronger drop rocks projectile. Increased mass for Terradon.
- Pegasus Knights: +3 charge bonus
- Royal Pegasus Knights: +3 charge bonus
- Men-at-arms (Polearms): -25 mp cost, +1 bonus vs large.
- Beastslayers of Bastogne: +5 bonus vs large
- Companions of Quenelles: -100 mp cost
- Skaven Assassin: added Vanguard Deployment. Now uses Assassin’s Trophy instead of Queek’s unique Trophy Heads ability. -50 cost.
- Summoned Plague Monks: corrected entity health to match Plague Monks.
- Sigvald: +5 melee attack
- Forsaken: +2 charge bonus
- Daemonspew: +2 charge bonus
- Marauder Horsemasters: +2 ammo
- Marauder Horsemen (javelins): -2 ammo
- Chaos Spawn: +2 melee attack
- Wyrdspawn: +2 melee attack
- Swords of Chaos: -100 mp cost
- Giant: +3 run speed
- Marauder Horsemasters: now uses same melee weapon as Chaos Horsemasters. +2 ammo
- Marauder Horsemen (javelins): -2 ammo
- Armoured Skin Wolves: -50 cost
- Maws of Savagery: -50 cost
- Feral Mammoth: +100 cost
- War Mammoth (Warshrine): -100 cost
- Giant: +3 run speed
- Minotaurs (basic version): +2 melee attack
- Chaos Spawn: +2 melee attack
- Giant: +3 run speed
- Primal Instincts: Reduced the hitpoint percentage at which rampage triggers from 50% to 20% When triggered, the affected unit also benefits from +8 melee attacks and +16% charge bonus
- Shem’s Burning Gaze: +20 explosion damage, -5 ap explosion damage, -2 projectile damage, -7 bonus vs large per projectile
- Shem’s Burning Gaze Upgraded: +40 explosion damage, +40 ap explosion damage, -4 base projectile damage, -11 bonus vs large per projectile
- Hand of Gods: +20 explosion damage, -5 ap explosion damage, -2 projectile damage, -7 bonus vs large per projectile
- Vindictive Glare: -95 explosion damage, +25 ap explosion damage, -15 ap projectile damage, 30 base missile damage, -22 bonus vs large per projectile. Power cost to 4
- Vindictive Glare Upgraded: -95 explosion damage, +25 ap explosion damage, -15 ap projectile damage, 30 base missile damage, -22 bonus vs large per projectile. Power cost to 8
- Gaze of Mork: -95 explosion damage, +25 ap explosion damage, -15 ap projectile damage, 30 base missile damage, -22 bonus vs large per projectile.
- Gaze of Mork Upgraded: -95 explosion damage, +25 ap explosion damage, -15 ap projectile damage, 30 base missile damage, -22 bonus vs large per projectile. Increased velocity to help projectiles reach at max range
- Gaze of Nagash: +30 explosion damage, -15 ap explosion damage, -2 ap projectile damage, +6 bonus vs large, -3 base projectile damage per projectile
- Gaze of Nagash Upgraded: +30 explosion damage, -15 ap explosion damage, -2 ap projectile damage, +6 bonus vs large, -3 base projectile damage per projectile. Power cost to 15
- Comet of Casandora: +648 ap projectile damage (the actual comet, not the explosion)
- Comet of Casandora Upgraded: +648 ap projectile damage (the actual comet, not the explosion)
- High King: Removed requirement for targeted units to be above 50% morale
- Beloved Son of Bretonnia: Removed requirement for targeted units to be above 50% morale.
- Warp Shard Armour: added -5 melee defence debuff
- Dwarf Gouger: Added +26 melee attack. Reduced duration to 36 seconds
- Slaughterer’s Call: now buffs melee attack by +9
- Revence Incarnate. Removed max num uses, removed leadership increase. Duration changed to 33 seconds
- Van Horstmann’s Speculum: changed radius from 40 to 30 meters
- Star of Avelorn: -10% less health healed per second
- Dreaded Thirteenth Spell: Improved targeting UI. Changed detonation speed. Added +12 ap explosion damage
- Drop Rocks ability for Characters: Explosion damage 36 -> 54 , AP explosion damage 18 -> 36
Have I made my point? That’s what it takes to run a multiplayer combat game – doing the above, every few months or weeks. Over and over again.
And that's in a game which is still primarily single-player.
I'm not saying Frontier would need to go anything like as far as we see in the Spoiler, or as regularly, but they would need to do something more than every couple of years either proposing or implementing a random isolated change and then often just as swiftly withdrawing it.
Serious multiplayer games are not balanced by some kind of protracted negotiation followed by endless silences, going nowhere, between the Developer and various interest groups. The Devs act with utter ruthlessness to ensure the game integrity. But they act holistically.
In ED we have seen the most humble attempts at addressing gimbals arcs and booster stacking withdrawn. Perhaps there was some merit in the withdrawals because these were isolated proposals with no holistic overview. In the entire history of this game reverski has not once been addressed. Healing beams received a small nerf in over three years from introduction. Powerplant size increases and/or modding removed the entire 'hard choices' model of ship build design. I could go on.
In short we continue to see the legacy of the infamous 2.1 patch.
Full long range damage at all ranges at a stroke removed most of the designed game balance of pre-2.1 ED, which was based around weapons being either difficult to hit with at long range (kinetic, plasma) or doing trivial damage at long range (thermal, including rails). Some mods (eg super penetrator) simultaneously removed the need to achieve a position relative to the opponent’s ship, eg to be above him to shoot down into his PP, or behind him to target his drives. Other mods (drives, PD) made it possible for a ship to be near an increased top speed at all times. The combination of the above pushes a meta of moving-quickly-backwards-and-sideways-with-4-pips-to-Sys-whilst-firing-at-5 km-and-facing-the-opponent-at-all-times. That’s war by spreadsheet and mouse-pointer. And by talking about long range I'm just hitting on one example here.
If Frontier are serious about a combat overhaul I would welcome that but they would need to commit hundreds (probably thousands) of man-hours of Dev time to what’s needed, and further need to commit to at least a full year of quarterly reviews following that overhaul.
Alternatively they could just copy the sort of self-limitations used in independent PvP competitions and say, ‘OK guys, Icarus cup time, you can’t use this special, or that special, or more than this number of boosters, we’ll artificially bring in a CQC-type ring-out mechanic etc etc’ – which could have some merit but wouldn’t be a competition that showed people playing ED as it is actually sold to the public.
Of the community PvP Leagues, actually the only one played as 'no rules, bare knuckle' Open ED was Season 1 - and it's no coincidence that that was the only one before Engineering. After that it became impossible, so the PvP community had to try to balance the game for itself because the Devs wouldn't do it.
My guess, with respect to those concerned at Frontier, is that fixing the multiplayer combat game or admitting that it needs fixing would respectively be considered too demanding or too bad for public image. I therefore expect nothing, at all, to happen. Roll on the necro thread ... the never-ending necro ...
The Icarus Cup was not planned as a CQC tournament, but a main game PvP one. Plenty of those have been held successfully without Frontier support - and could be held more easily with one - without needing extra features. PvP league 4 even allowed most engineering, since the 3.0 rebalances took out a lot of the need for the restrictions.
The design of the older CQC tournament that the Icarus Cup replaced didn't technically rely on any of those features either, though (much as they'd be nice to have!):
- qualification was to be based on success in the randomly match-made matches (in a not well-defined way, but perhaps just highest number of points scored between two dates?) and as deathmatch rather than team-based that wouldn't require any of those features
- the tournament itself would be held in a physical venue on separate server infrastructure, so it would be easy to set up a specific match by ensuring those were the only 8 players on the infrastructure at the time
- lack of spectator mode might have then made the final matches less interesting to watch, but wouldn't have stopped them happening (and very few of the qualifying rounds would have been interesting to watch)
Pardon my ignorance, I completely forgot about the new format and thought this was still a CQC event. Should have taken a look at the OP again, last time I did was three years ago.
I wish I could give you more than one like
The Replicated Man
T
Looking at the PvP community in general right now and seeing the rapid decline in players, if this Icarus cup ever gets implemented, It will be a pretty small event. The question I have is, considering your current standing with the PvP community, I wonder why push this when it's highly unlikely you will ever be in any structured PvP event again.
I understand the whole "Frontier have basically put this on the back burner and buried it", and you want to try and stick it to em for not holding up their end of the deal, but I don't see where this event would benefit you in any way. I am not trying to attack you personally, we all make mistakes.
I started poking this before I distanced myself from the community, and I'm not going to let something go once I get started on it. In my view my standing in the PvP community has little bearing on this. I wanted an answer from Frontier on why they abandoned a feature and didn't address it in three years. I got my answer when Will posted in the thread.
But you're right, I probably won't be in any structured PvP again, though I never really was to begin with, outside of in-house fights I mainly ganked. I can absolutely see going back to Elite after the 2020 update and picking up where I left off. Additionally I don't feel mistakes were made. I chose to do what I did knowing full well what could happen. But that's neither here nor there.
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The Replicated Man
T
Cool. Although I didn't agree with your decision, it was a hard decision to make and I respect that. Sometimes sacrifices have to be made for the greater good, and you were right about one thing. Elite's playerbase both PVP and PVE is extremely toxic. It's sad but true.
Paige Harvey
Community Manager
Hey Commanders, the idea of the Icarus Cup is great and is still something we'd like to see come to fruition in the future. However at this point in time we have no plans to run the Icarus Cup competition in it's current form, or award the cosmetic prizes to those who had previously signed up. We are looking into the possibilities of holding other contests and competitions in the future, so keep an eye out for any details on those!
I has a sad
Being realistic here, it's been 37 months. Are we supposed to keep an eye out for 37 more months? 12 months? 60 months? Just trying to get a ballpark here. Thanks!
Holy Devpost Necro!!!
In real money, I think FDev would get a lot more respect if they#d just put this idea out of its misery, and officially quash it. I mean realistically, its bee over three years this has been "in the pipeline" - that is more than some games complete lifecycles.
As this is not going to happen, maybe it would be best to lock this thread and let it die.
What people would give for a set of matches Karatie Kid style, with rules and livestreams.
But I'm sure there will be a cool screenshot competition to make up for it.
But I'm sure there will be a cool screenshot competition to make up for it.
It will come....maybe...in the future.
It's in the game already, like comets
FD
It's in the game already, like comets
FD- Status