Had a pretty fun match today on Throne of Anubis. Went on a 15 killstreak as sym, got me thinking about how much potential this mode has and if there is any way to salvage it
The Clash Invariant
The Clash Invariant is a term I’ll use to describe a simple property of the clash gamemode that I just think you should keep in mind as you read this:
- If it is currently point C, then the score is even
I came up with this idea before the three-tick system was introduced to the third point, so now it only holds true in matches where nobody captures a tick of the third point, but that is the majority of matches so it is still useful for understanding the mode’s flaws
Most of the proposed solutions here are centered around how this property makes the current scoring system in clash feels cosmetic in most matches. the first 2 try to make the scoring more meaningful, while the others replace the scoring entirely. But before the solutions, here are what I find to be the 3 biggest problems with the mode
Problem 1 - only the last 3 fights matter
Now it actually is good design for the later fights in a match to be more consequential. If one team hard throws the first few fights in payload, that might equate to a 1.5 minute difference in how long the final point must be defended for. Meanwhile in another disliked mode, Push, it works in the opposite direction where one team can get forward spawn in 2 minutes and then it’s practically gg. But in clash, it’s just this weird world where your team can afk for the first 2 minutes of the game and it likely won’t make a difference in the final outcome of the match
When I say 3 fights I’m being very specific. In a balanced clash game, 3rd point is uncommonly seen and rarely captured at all. This means that the final 3 fights will usually be point C → Point B/D → point C.
So if we look at a typical push game in reverse order means:
- The fight to determine who gets to win the match
- The fight where one team has a bonus chance to win the match early or force out ults
- The fight that determines which team gets that bonus chance
- fight that determines which team has the momentum in the fight that determines which team gets that bonus chance
- fight that determines which team has the momentum in the fight that determines the momentum in the fight that determines which team gets that bonus chance
- …
It just becomes random noise beyond the 3rd bullet point. There’s surely some abstract impact to them, but understanding the impact of the 5th-to-last clash match is like trying to picture a graph’s 5th-order derivative in your head
Now don’t get me wrong, there are matches that are balanced where a team does capture a tick of point A/E or at the very least the match gets to match point at A/E and those do buck the trend and make the mode a bit more interesting, but this is just the typical match
I also think a reason why clash is more well received in stadium is that it only has 3 fights max and therefore dodges this issue
Problem 2 - Questionable teamwork
The fight is dead, you all died or retreated, but one teammate is still in there, they may even pop an ult, hell the first person who died may even respawn and go in too and die in the process, and maybe after that the second person who died will respawn and go in even though the point is already captured just because they want to fish for a kill and die, and wouldn’t you know it you just lost a point and now the enemies get to capture the next point for free too
I do think this is in part instinctual. In no other mode is there less weight to a point being captured than in clash, so where in a mode like Escort you will in most cases want to make some kind of last ditch effort at stalling a checkpoint capture, that is less often the case in clash.
The drawback to losing a checkpoint or a control point in every other mode is big, while the benefit to being alive for the 20 seconds after losing a control point is relatively small, so some plays that are not likely to work out can still be worth the risk.
However, in Clash there are 9 objectives over the course of a match so the drawback to losing a point is less and because as discussed in problem 1 the later fights of the mode are much more consequential, being alive right after a point is capped is actually pretty important. So the instincts that work in every other mode need to be inverted for Clash
Even in the tiny stadium version of the mode we see this problem with teams constantly overinvesting in Capturing point B/D when they could’ve easily just forced out ults and then gone into point A with a massive ult advantage (of course assuming you’re not in the phase of stadium where you build ults instantly
Problem 3 - Comeback mechanics
Comeback mechanics are essential to a good mode (cf Push), but Clash takes it too far where losing can feel advantageous
It’s pretty apparent in the DNA. Team X captures point A, now it is on point B where team Y has the advantage, team Y captures point B. Team X did a hard thing, team Y did and easy thing, but the score is dead even
But even worse, team Y now has the momentum going into the next point, meaning they did worse but have an advantage
You can even use this maliciously. I’ve discovered an evil strat I call the scumbag swap where if I have this momentum going into the last fight and I have low ult charge I can just swap to hardcounter their tank and since it’s the last fight it’s too late for them to do anything about it.
Potential Solution 1 - different scores for offense vs. defense
This idea simply put is that you gain more score for capturing a point on the enemy’s side of the map than your own since it is more difficult to do so. Of course the total number of points needed to win would be adjusted accordingly
This would solve Problems 1 and 3, but it may be an overcorrection. Pessimistically, now the mode would not only have consequential early game fights, but they’d be equally consequential as late game fights. Now the gamemode wouldn’t have too strong of catch-up mechanics, it just wouldn’t have any catch-up outside of natural momentum. What Push is to Escort, Clash would now be to Control
Potential Solution 2 - different scores for points B/D
The first point is worth 1 score, the 3rd point is worth 3 score, so naturally the 2nd point is worth… 1 score. Now I’m not actually saying that it should be worth twice as much as the first point, just that it would be worth some higher value, and again the total scores to win and such would be adjusted accordingly.
This would make every fight feel meaningful since everything other than the center point would give you the ability to gain a score lead that will carry over even when the match is back to the center point, a big advantage, and the center point itself rewards you with the opportunity to chase this big advantage. It would also (hopefully) cause people to play more wisely since they’ll be aware of the growing stakes each point.
The big problem I see with this solution though is that it could make the mode feel too stompy. I do think it would need to be a relatively small advantage to feel fair, It’s a balancing act.
I should also point out that you can combine this solution and the previous one
Potential Solution 3 - full cap format
If you look at other shooters with this mode there are two main difference usually. 1 - there are usually 2 points open at once, splitting up teams like that will never work in overwatch, so we can disregard. 2 - They usually don’t have scoring and require full capping to win
Could this work in OW’s clash. Possibly, but we’d need a few changes to prevent matches from going 20+ minutes. Here is my proposal
- Maps are edited to make 3rd points slightly more feasible to capture (though still not easy)
- Ticks on the 3rd point are saved, similar to 2CP, meaning if you capture 1/3rd of the final point, then return to it later, then the next time you get there you only need to cap 2/3 to win. ( I can also see making ticks get progressively longer - or, this is more out there, the map geometry evolving to favor defenders each tick - as a way to achieve this
- There is a global countdown, every time either side captures a point the countdown goes down 1 point (possibly just use a simple timer instead). When the countdown reaches 0, the mode becomes eligible for sudden death. Sudden death will then activate the next time that the match reaches point C (the point where it’s most even)
- Sudden death means that now you only need to capture one of the middle points to win, and any ticks that were achieved on the final point now carry over to the middle point
For this to work, the maps would need to reach a point where it is more likely than not that at least one team manages to capture at least 1 tick of 3rd point, while not being so easy that matches often end in one 3 minute roll. This way the early game would have some consequences to the late game while the late game fights would still be most consequential
Otherwise it’d still devolve into normal clash except instead of waiting 10 minutes for the final fight on point C you wait 10 minutes for sudden death to activate. Even then I still think an endgame where you fight back and forth over the middle 2 points nabbing partial progress would be more interesting than the cap C to insta-win that we have now. And of course there a
Another potential issue is that sudden death may feel unfair to teams who have already capped one of the middle points earlier in the game meaning they met the win condition just not at the right place and time. Of course them capturing the middle point earlier means they did get the opportunity to capture a tick of point C giving them a concrete advantage in sudden death so that’d make things fair, but this again depends upon capturing points A/E feeling achievable. And of course this same unfair feeling exists in normal clash but more extreme when a team wins despite only winning one non-defensive fight
Potenital Solution 4- Timed format
So this solution would be similar to push
- The mode now remembers the furthest each team progressed (in 1/3 tick increments, though the points are not actually captured in points that are saved)
- there is a timer, once the timer reaches 0, then the next time any team captures an objective, the mode enters overtime
- Overtime ends when when the winning team captures a single point or when the losing team pushes further than the winning team
- if both teams were in a dead tie at the start of overtime, then the mode instead ends either when a team gets to a new furthest point or when point C is captured by either team
The natural slowness of control points and the breaks between would eliminate the needs for barricade progress or checkpoints like in push, which would help reduce the number of matches that feel unwinnable shortly after starting, but could create a new problem where the beginning of the match feels indistinguishable from the end, perhaps even more so than normal clash.
Personally I’m not a huge fan of this solution. Just a lot of the same problems as push. If a team caps 2/3 of point E on their first go, then it’s gg time for a 10 minute waiting room. Another problem is that the overtime system would be difficult to explain to users mid-match
Potential solution 5 - Rally mode
This is the biggest departure from normal clash but takes advantage of the sense of momentum present in this mode. The basic idea is that
- The game is split into rounds called “rallies”. Each team gets 2 rallies
- On a rally, you start at your furthest back spawn (as though you were defending the last point in a normal clash match). And must capture all 5 points in order
- If the enemy captures a single point, your rally ends.
- Whichever team gets the furthest in any rally (measured in 1/3 ticks) wins
- If it is a draw, you get extra rallies
Now there is one glaring issue with this idea, and that is: there is no reason for the maps to be symmetrical anymore. So if this was a thing it’d work better as its own mode with separate maps. I might make a separate thread fleshing out this idea more however
Conclusion
I’m really not fully happy with any of these solutions. I think some could potentially be an improvement (I think 2 and 3 I am most partial to), but they all create new problems.
I honestly don’t believe there is a set of changes that will make this mode competitive viable. Give it a few tries sure, but going forward I think Their best bet is to keep the mode around in quickplay indefinitely as a fun but flawed teamfight simulator that a few people like to vote for. Maybe try another map or 2 to see if you can strike magic somehow, and if that doesn’t work out at least you can use 2/3 of those maps in stadium