Editorial: A Viewpoint on Mixes

[DISCLAIMER: All opinions expressed in this article are solely the author’s opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Sauerworld.]


[13:10:42] <ySoSrs_> .mix sauer.woop.us

[13:10:56] <bottie> ySoSrs_ is looking for mixed games on sauer.woop.us. Join #sauercom to respond.

I’m usually in #sauercom quite a bit throughout the day. My Hexchat logs extend back to February 19th, 2015. A ctrl+f search through my logs showed me 200 matches for “.mix,” the command we use with bottie to spam channels with messages of mixed games. A ctrl+f search gave 80 results for “.cw.”

Mixes get people involved in casual games. Mixes let us have a pretty evenly matched up game and don’t get put into stressful situations where we HAVE to score the flag or we’ve let down our whole clan. Mixes don’t give us competition, something you humans innately love. They let us grow complacent, casually grabbing flags and rocket jumping like an Impressive R̶e̶t̶a̶r̶d̶ Shithead back to our base, running around and gunning without much thinking. They’ve killed serious team games. They’ve killed competition.

We generally coordinate more during a clanwar. Last time [tBMC] did a clanwar, ztk, wickedjoe, and I were all in mumble together coordinating where we’d attack from, when to attack, where the enemies were coming from, how neon is completely raping us. But when we play a mix, I don’t generally have my headset on. I understand some people still mumble during a mix, but when I’ve done that, we usually talk more about our cocks and fucking bitches than the game. A clanwar is actually a team game. There’s coordination, communication, teamwork… a mix is simply running around alone without coordination. Any “teamwork” that happens is by coincidence. In that way, it’s very much eTeam with a five second respawn time and flags (but the flags don’t really matter).

A clanwar has the spirit of competition. When I’m wearing the [tBMC] tag and I have two others with me, I really do want to perform better than the people wearing the vaQ’ tag. There’s an air of competition, a feeling that everyone is playing to their best. That the game really matters. I don’t get that feeling with mixes. Hell, I don’t even go for the flag. I just try to deal as much damage as possible. Win, lose, I don’t give any fucks. Neither will achieve anything memorable. It’s either flagrunning practice for our dearest friend s̶u̶p̶e̶r̶m̶a̶n̶ RAMBOSPAIN or a shooting gallery for me. But winning a mix won’t get me any glory. It doesn’t let me say “Jajaja, HD, I fucked you right in your puC last time we clanwarred!”

Why would we play mixes over clanwars then? Clearly, clanwars are much more intense and competitive, aspects we love in arena fps’s.

There aren’t that many active clans. !s] and .cS| are the most active ones, and both are very large compared to everyone else. It must get pretty fucking boring for them to constantly face each other. vaQ’ and w00p| sometimes come on with sizeable numbers, but these are really the four clans that can do clanwars on a regular basis. They actually used to do this to some extent, but I’m sure they’re all burnt out from fighting the same people over and over and seeing the same ragefests.

Let’s look at the past 20 logged clanwars from the Impressive R̶e̶t̶a̶r̶d̶s̶ Shitheads. Thirteen (13) of the clanwar matches logged were three games or fewer – 30 minutes of playtime, not including the time spent picking maps and bickering. The rest of them still should’ve taken at most an hour to get through.

While I’m writing this, I’m speccing a game on SWU. There aren’t any people of the same clan playing in the mix going on. There are two clanless people, an applicant to Results of Incest, a vaQ’, an !s], and an |RB|. eCTF reissen was just played. With a mix, everyone gets to play, not just the players that have a couple teammates on.

Mixes let us balance teams so we can prevent the team of Jumper, Boomerang, and Star from crushing a team of Frosty, Acuerta, and Star. If we put together Acuertas shitty overall skill with Jumpers tactical mind, Frostysinability to flagrun with Boomerangs high fragging level, and pit Stars flagrunning capabilities against his gift for being a retard, we can get a 10 minute 3-3 game instead of a 2 minute 10-0 game.

So we can sacrifice competitive levels for higher participation rates…. Right?

Fuck no. “But swatty, we get more clans involved and we can play longer blublubblub” Shut the fuck up. You’re wrong.

Mixes are killing competition. I’ve seen two clans with three people of each clan converge on a server – and then instead of doing a clanwar, they opt for a fucking 4v4 mix. Out goes the teamwork and coordination that goes into a clanwar, replaced by mindless jumping and shooting, with each person essentially trying to do everything by themselves. The whole competitive atmosphere in Sauer is completely destroyed, with SSL and DKSC trying to spark some, but it’s still only existing in the tournament matches. On the occasion people practice for the tournaments, it’s almost always competitiveless mixes.

Mixes are driving people away. I don’t have precise statistics and if any of you want them, go hump a stump. More competition = more people will stick around. With less competition, there’s not as much left for the many people who want to play competitively.

I’m still speccing that same mix as I’ve been writing this. There are two !s members, a clanless player, a Crowd applicant, a w00p, and an |RB| member playing. I doubt these mixes are building team skills, team coordination – they’re just solo fragging and solo flag running.

Every time we play a mix in favor of a clanwar, we’re destroying competition. And from that, our playerbase.


Want to make YOUR opinion heard? Message one of the ops in #sauercom on irc.gamesurge.net and write your very own editorial! (Professional guidance possible; 100$/hour)

35 Comments

  1. Acuerta

    As you might have already guessed after looking at the last paragraph, we’re interested in hearing/reading your opinion piece.

    Controversial opinions are the foundation of progress. This is our spirit.

    Reply
  2. Boomerang!

    Great post! :-) I’ve been clanless for quite a while and I’m only just getting back in the whole clan war scene ^^ I personally find that mixes are the perfect way to get players into a competitive mindset. I’m not talking about the veterans players for whom mixes can be some kind of a joke. I think a lot of players in public games would like and benefit from smaller well balanced games such as mixes. We should promote this type of game to newer players!
    For my part I would love to learn to play with better teamwork and more competitively. I’m looking forward to the SSL World Cup to see if I even remotely have the necessary skills…

    Reply
  3. Harsh

    thanks for mentioning me swat ;)….lol… Your point of view does make a lot of sense though, I can see why you’d think this way

    Reply
  4. neon

    I can admit…mixes are mostly a “competition” of who gets most frags/dmg/flags, it’s not really teamwork improving if you care more about being better then your teammates then actually winning the game

    Reply
  5. Gangler

    I dont ask for clanwars because my time is limited, my ambition is over, mix games are easier to organize, its easier to quit a game if I lag in a mix game, to find a cw is too exhausting, other teams rage/cry/quit, mix games are fun for me, I take it how it is and try to enjoy.
    BUT I take mix games mostly very serious and
    If you ask me for a cw I would ask my mates. you didnt ask me yet.

    Reply
  6. Jawer

    I expected many more comments disagreeing on the post because I see that totally different all together.
    Some things that are completely wrong:
    – Nobody in their mind actually does a mix with 3 people each out of 2 clans (on your screen Star fakes cS and somehow wears the tag)
    – I see mixes as a kind of serious game that you obviously can’t just leave whenever you want (at least not without pausing) that prepares you for clanwars and actually supports teamwork. Not everybody goes for blind frags and I don’t think there are people who actually get in a situation where they could score/save a flag but see an opponent on a whole other direction and rather go for the kill.
    – mixes are unlike you said the main skill progressing source for almost every player who doesn’t play as many duels as me and not a competitionless waste of time at all. People improve and compare their results, watch their kills/flags/(accuracies) and do feel a strong urge, also as a team, to win the game when the time is close and the score is draw.

    Mixes keep us active and support a permanent teamwork that doesn’t get lost from clanwar to clanwar because you can’t find 3 opponents from one clan nowadays. The overly exeggerated uncaring attitude from an individual in a mix game is completely false and might at max fit to yourself and few others to that extent that you ignore any chance to make points for your team to instead get a frag more. It’s a competition you can compare with clanwars but not in its extent but more in the way of playing. I of course agree that clanwars demand more of your attention and concentration, more communication is needed and the result is more important in the long run because it might be saved on the clanpage (of the winning team ^^)

    Reply
  7. Acuerta

    I think I can’t entirely agree here.

    In order to provide a different approach, let’s take a look at one of the most positive aspects of mix games.

    You can mix teams to make the games more interesting and thus create more competitivity.
    Why more competitivity you ask? As a player of relatively high skill, I usually get teamed up with less experienced players. If I were to play with my clanmates I wouldn’t even have to bother about doing my best in order to win in 90% of the cases, buuut now I have to carry my team as good as I can or else we wouldn’t stand a chance.

    That point is also a positive aspect for players on the other end of the scale. Sure, as a newbie you can join a clan but who are you gonna play against? The only clans left will pretty much obliterate any other clan that has a newbie on the pitch. Ain’t much fun in that.

    So yea, I don’t quite see the point of how mix games can’t be fun for good players. Quite the contrary actually. In clanwars I’d probably have a win quota of 80%+, whereas in mix games people will try to get everyone’s win quota down to ~50% by mixing the teams. The challenge is to still win more games than you lose. ;)

    Reply
  8. Terminator

    Well, I agree with you in some parts.
    How on Earth can a sauer player prefer mixes more than clan wars? If I had a clan I would like to face the other clans so I could get better and more competitive (and also my clan).
    On the other hand, mixes are easier to organise and everybody can play.
    As a clanless player and as a non very active player I really enjoy playing mixes games. Anyway, sauer is kind of losing that competitive feeling as you said but keepping on playing mixes won’t kill it I think (as far as you prefer a mix more than a cw).

    Reply
    1. Terminator

      But the point of a game is to have fun. Some players may feel stressed due to a clan war. In my case, when I play sauer is to chill out and have fun, not just to demomstrate that I’m the best, etc.

      Reply
  9. vzzec

    Hmmm ive said all this about a year ago, or two..dont remember the exact date because i was probably drunk, go play some cs on faceit, esea if you want a competitive game that requires some teamplay – sauer is and probably always was the total opposite of a competitive game

    Reply
    1. swatllama

      It was a lot less than a year ago.

      We play Sauerbraten because we like the gameplay. Counterstrike isn’t a comparable game – it’s an entirely different genre of FPS. Since most of us like arena games, we wouldn’t like CS’s style. We can bring competition to Sauer. People just have to be willing to bring it.

      Reply
  10. Zoocata

    I agree there should be more clanwars than mixes, but I don’t think mixed games are the reason competitive sauer’s dying.

    It has more to do with the fact that half of sauer’s clans are dying, so they start accepting people based off of their aim. They’re not taking into account their timezone, gamesense, availability, or anything besides just their AIM. How retarded is that?

    So now you have 5 members (more than enough for a team in a tournament or a cw) who join the clan and then are either never on, only pub, or who only joined the clan to have a cool tag.
    Mixes aren’t the problem- it’s the lack of loyalty that’s the issue. [FD] got this right: they had weekly meetings which although could be weird and annoying at times, it made the clan grow closer together. I don’t think without those we could of taken on higher-level teams like vaQ or sp4nk, but we did and often won. Even though FD is kind of dead today, you can still find a lot of their members talking to each other in mumble because now they’re all friends. Not just some dudes shooting ogros in a video game.

    There’s my two cents.

    Reply
  11. suicizer

    So this is a complaint about having mixed teams?
    If so, then perhaps it could be shorter and more to the point (like not using insulting words could help).
    It’s pretty obvious that a mixed team is less efficient than a team which represents a clan. The only exception on that would be that the mixed team would have played longer together than the team of the clan.
    Do we really need an article for this?

    Reply
      1. suicizer

        An editorial which isn’t reflecting the opinion of Sauerworld, but rather that of an individual shouldn’t be on the newsfeed, right?
        Else people could go start topics about random thoughts.
        Not that that would be an issue; it just makes it rather messy.

  12. suicizer

    You also forgot the phrase “you kill stuff, the end”. That’s where sauerbraten is based upon as a game. It doesn’t care about clans, neither wars. Just frag and have a good time.

    Reply

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