What would a Wicked E-sport look like?

Wicked Feedback
1

I know Thomas in a recent Q&A or interview said that the goal of PVP in Wicked is not to be an E-sport, but I still could not help asking the question … what would a Wicked E-sport look like?

Here’s what I came up with as some minimalistic Rules:

  • New realm + new characters used just for the match
  • Season lasts X (5-7?) days (whether it’s all in a row or spread out, doesn’t matter… a bit like a best of X series in Baseball)
  • Matches can be of teams 1-4 vs 1-4
  • Every day there is a PVP/Coleseum match, best of X team wins (you could end a 7 day season early with a 4-0 sweep!)
  • There would need to be some kind of in-game or in-realm timer, e.g. each day there can only be 4 hours of realm playtime
  • Realm would need to be put in “season” mode - you set in-game timer and it locks out for the 12h or 24h (or other?) window

Btw if Moon Studios has already been doing PVP matches & tournaments internally, I wonder if they have already prototyped or informally tried something like this. The rules above, for example, would be easy to execute without any additional dev work - all it would take is each team together for a few days and a timer (or two streams you can roughly verify in-realm playtime on).

What would happen?

All speculation… but my first thoughts:

  • PVP becomes measuring stick, but each match really would stress how the players engage with all the game systems, including economy, build strategy, farming, sequencing/timing, plague risk vs reward, etc.
  • Different skillsets/specialties might develop that still have significant impact on the PVP outcome over the match, e.g. a very good macro planner and “farmer” player might keep a realm humming and getting the best enchants/gear/upgrades/builds early, while a micro specialist might be able to really kill bosses/etc. punch above their weight

Why not?

  • Don’t know Moon Studios view/vision on E-sports. I personally think if a game organically produces that kind of dynamic, it’s wonderful to let happen, but doesn’t need to be the point or goal of the game in terms of design
  • It may make an already incredibly complex and nuanced game even more stressed because it introduces a significant meta/macro between systems

Regardless, I wanted to share in case the idea piques the interest of the devs or other players!

2

Starting to try this Realm Match concept with other players using these rules:

Wicked Realm Match Rules v0.1

  1. These rules are easiest to apply for a 1v1 match, because we rely on char timers (for now). If doing 2v2+, apply char timer to all players (e.g. all 4 players must reach 04:00 mark to trigger PVP Round).
  2. A new realm hard mode realm (Path of Unspoken) + new character must be used just for the match. You can continue with the character/realm + other realms after the match btw, but to start and during the match you should only use it for the realm.
  3. Each team creates their own character and realm and plays in it independently.
  4. There are 3 PVP matches for the playthrough that occur, all based on character playtime (found on the Realm menu).
  • PVP Round 1 @ 04:00 mark for the character
  • PVP Round 2 @ 08:00 mark for the character
  • PVP Round 3 @ 12:00 mark for the character

For example, at the 04:00 mark (or within a few minutes of it, please), pause your char/realm playtime until all teams are ready for Round 1 match.

  1. Follow PVP Round Rules (below) for conducting each round.
  2. After each round, continue independent realm/char play until the next round marker.
  3. At the end of the match, shake hands and compare notes : )

PVP Round Rules

  1. PVP Rounds are conducted on a neutral new realm (hard), players choose where (default: Beach of Sacrament)
  2. No other restrictions (e.g. buffs, runes, items, etc. allowed
  3. Best of 3 by default, dueling players can decide on different/other terms
3

Hey there! Thanks for taking the time to put these rules together. I really respect the creativity and the effort to organize the community. I agree with you on several points, but I also have a slightly different perspective on what a Wicked E-Sport should actually look like.

Your “Realm Match” concept (the 04:00 / 08:00 / 12:00 progression markers) is actually a fantastic idea, but to me, it feels much closer to a Community Speedrun or a “Gauntlet” Race very similar to what we see at the end of Path of Exile leagues. It’s a brilliant community event, but perhaps not a traditional E-Sport.

Here is my take on the competitive and endgame future of the game:

1. E-Sport Format: Arenas & Standardization For a game to thrive in the strict E-Sports scene, standard realm progression has too many RNG variables. True E-Sports require a level playing field. I think dedicated Duels and Arenas with strict entry requirements (e.g., locked character levels, standardized gear scores, or specific loot brackets) are much better suited for competitive matchmaking.

2. Let the Community Run the Tournaments (Save Dev Resources) As much as I love competitive PvP, I honestly do not want the Dev team spending massive amounts of time and resources building a native E-Sports infrastructure. It could distract from the core game. Instead, the healthiest approach for the game would be for the devs to release Workshop tools, Custom Lobbies, and an API. Let third party organizers and established platforms (like FACEIT, ESL, Red Bull Wololo, etc.) host and manage the E-Sports scene. Give the community the tools, and we will build the tournaments.

3. The Priority: A Deep PvE Endgame Loop Before we push heavily into competitive Esports, I would love to see the devs prioritize expanding the core PvE loop. After a long day of work or studying, players need diverse, repeatable endgame content to grind. Relying on just one core mode will get stale. We need:

  • Co-op Raids: Large scale, multi stage boss fights designed for groups.

  • Official PvE/Extraction Modes: High-stakes runs where you secure loot or lose it all.

  • Community Server Browsers: Where players can set their own custom rules for casual play.

Again, I really like your v0.1 rule set for community matches! It’s a great way to inject some fun into the current build. I just hope that moving forward, the devs give us the sandbox tools to run these events officially so they can focus on delivering massive PvE expansions.

4

100% agree and love the term “Community Matches” (I think this captures the spirit and goal/fun of these types of ideas much more than my original title).

As we do a few more matches and see if the rules work well I’ll potentially repost under such a title!

5

For the PVP part I would hope they pull inspiration from Guild Wars 1 (not GW2).

GW1 had amazing PVP. It had

  • Highly competitive Guild vs Guild, 8v8
  • Semi-competitive Hall of Heroes (a continuous global knockout King of the Hill tournament), 8v8, sometimes with more than 2 teams
  • Casual team arenas (including level gated arenas), 4v4
  • Hero arenas 1v1 but both get to bring 3 henchmen
  • Lore related PvP, where 1 team defends a map point and the other tries to take it over, and there are NPCs on both sides
  • Casual Alliance Battles, 12v12

It was extremely well balanced even though there’s thousands of skills and many weapon types. Mainly because they kept all numbers at small caps (eg max level is 20) and there aren’t many multipliers

6

You can make most PVP games organized and competitive, even without in game support, which your post points out, but that won’t make it survive as an esport. I always took Thomas’s comment to mean that they aren’t going out of their way to support esports. In game systems to support organized pvp matches is certainly part of it, but to me it more so means they aren’t going to obsess about pvp balance. I’ve seen plenty of cases in other games where balancing pvp hurt pve and vice versa. Or even balancing pvp for esports and it alienating everyone who casually plays (thinking For Honor). Also for esports, you need to consider how a crowd of non players are going to experience watching it. It’s no longer just about the players and creating the most fun experience for them.