[Whatever]

I can see why it’s been implemented in PVP for those outlier matches but it doesn’t add anything to the game as PVE.

Secondly, outlier matches are exactly that. Outliers, why are we making major changes to the core game for matches that youve said aren’t very often?

[B30]

It's a good thing for MSE, because with this new update, (most likely) every Raider will lose more often in games and that will lengthen the grind. I don't like this new direction (Forcing antag play with the new Adventure mode, now even the raiders lifes are limited and don't forget the aweful Aleph drops), but unfortunately that's how it is! 

Maybe I should take a closer look at Dauntless.

[MSE_Ojuel]

Hi there! Mmmm, that's a really good question!

Truth is even though a few players believe the Sudden Death feature is meant to be a buff for Antagonists, it's actually more "useful" when it comes to PvE matches.

Unless there's some toxic/unusual behaviour going on, PvP matches tend to end quicker than PvE matches, since Antagonists' desire is to win quickly in order to maximize their reward. On the other hand, avoiding Suvive phases in PvE is usually a more trivial thing, so matches may become excessively long. The new Sudden Death phase should tackle the problem of having excessively long matches in which the Raiders agonize during a long amount of time.

So why is it useful for us to keep matches duration within a threshold, then? It mainly lets us balance the game better. That way, what happened until now is outlier matches notably affected the whole system balance in a negative way.

Let me quote MSE_Vela here: "That feature (the descending live pool for the Raiders) is obviously correlated with the new "Last Chance/Sudden Death" phase. To put it simple: it will give us more flexibility to balance matches. However, we wanted to maintain the actual balance of the co-op matches. [...] The main reason is indirectly related to the long matches we mentioned in the patchnotes. When we balanced the game before, we had to have in mind those kind of over-stretches of the system, so we were "tied" to certain limits."

[B30]

If you want to avoid these long games so much, why are games with successfully survived "survival phases" rewarded better, then? This makes no sense, to me???

Should be the other way round:
no survival phase reached = less life consumed = better rewards

… the Sudden Death feature is …  actually more "useful" when it comes to PvE matches.
… avoiding Suvive phases in PvE is usually a more trivial thing, so matches may become excessively long. The new Sudden Death phase should tackle the problem of having excessively long matches …

Okay you shorten the games, but at what cost, now if I ran out of all survival phases/ lives I have to loose, but with unlimited survival phases maybe I could have had a win!
I prefer a longer game with a victory at the end rather than a shorter one with a loss at the end. It breaks my win streak and with a loss at the end you always get less rewards than with a win at the end (wouldn't make sense otherwise). No matter if it was a long or short game.

[Whatever]

Ok, thanks for the info. Can you give an example of what you mean by affecting in a negative way?

Thanks.

[MSE_Ojuel]

If you want to avoid these long games so much, why are games with successfully survived "survival phases" rewarded better, then? This makes no sense, to me???

Should be the other way round:
no survival phase reached = less life consumed = better rewards

… the Sudden Death feature is …  actually more "useful" when it comes to PvE matches.
… avoiding Suvive phases in PvE is usually a more trivial thing, so matches may become excessively long. The new Sudden Death phase should tackle the problem of having excessively long matches …

Okay you shorten the games, but at what cost, now if I ran out of all survival phases/ lives I have to loose, but with unlimited survival phases maybe I could have had a win!
I prefer a longer game with a victory at the end rather than a shorter one with a loss at the end. It breaks my win streak and with a loss at the end you always get less rewards than with a win at the end (wouldn't make sense otherwise). No matter if it was a long or short game.

Well, since the number of times you can hit a Survive Phase is no longer "inifinite", no match should become extremely long because of surviving those anymore.
Getting rewarded for surviving a Survival Phase serves as an individual bonus for carrying the team during one of those phases, while the rest of the guys in the team who didn't make it and died won't get the bonus.

Losing and wining matches is mainly determined but how well a match can be balanced, taking into account variables such as players MMRs + passive bonuses + match difficulty. Limiting the number of times you can hit a Survival Phase doesn't necessarily make you lose/win more, since the combo between those variables remains as the main input values for match balancing.

[Dr.Kuzie]

I spectate some game this morning, "In shock". Was about 25 min, almost 30. They lost to Kuzmann because of Sudden Death... And being honest, they deserved the win. They were trying so hard. It was a long, painful and undeserved lost because they just didn't have the forge or lvls for that MMR.

So, yeah. This didn't really improve the balance, just created an unfair feature in PVE. People will continue manipulating the flawed MMR system. Is the easiest thing to do in Spacelords if you want to win everytime.

P.D.: Not much before, in Twitter, you were the ones congratulating an antagonist for making a 55 min time match against some raiders. Now is toxic behaviour? Why the change of heart?

[MSE_Ojuel]

Ok, thanks for the info. Can you give an example of what you mean by affecting in a negative way?

Thanks.

Hi!

This is a bit of an abstract and complicated matter, but I'll try to explain it with an example:

Let's suppose we want to balance a mission with an arena-like level design, like both Kuzmann or Uras Beherit boss fights. Imagine these maps are too easy and have a really low pace, so we increase the spawn rate of the AI enemies. When we check these missions state again, we confirm that, indeed, winrate has been reduced, but the duration and the amount of survive phases in these missions have suffered a great increment.

Why?

Because in this concrete case, these kind of circular maps don't have a beginning nor an end, so you can - almost - run forever. If we make more iterations, we'll realize that the decompensation between winrate and duration is bigger every time, which would translate in a lack of resolution for us to balance these matches.

With this new "Sudden Death", we've put all the missions under the same roof, which removes these kind of map-dependences and gives us more flexibility to balance the game.

As I said, this is just an example, but I wish it helps to better understand our decision. By the way, thank you for your feedback!

[Level9Drow]

I spectate some game this morning, "In shock". Was about 25 min, almost 30. They lost to Kuzmann because of Sudden Death... And being honest, they deserved the win. They were trying so hard. It was a long, painful and undeserved lost because they just didn't have the forge or lvls for that MMR.

So, yeah. This didn't really improve the balance, just created an unfair feature in PVE. People will continue manipulating the flawed MMR system. Is the easiest thing to do in Spacelords if you want to win everytime.

P.D.: Not much before, in Twitter, you were the ones congratulating an antagonist for making a 55 min time match against some raiders. Now is toxic behaviour? Why the change of heart?

Agreed, it's bad news for Raiders. We'll see if the new balancing they do really is a benefit for Raiders.

As for your last comment, it's because that guy is a streamer. They are bias when it comes to streamers. Even toxic ones.