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Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

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51–60 of 215 posts

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#53

The current marketing pitch (a personal gaming -coach-) has nothing to do with the current functionality of e.g. voicing timers or providing notifications. That's more akin to a personal assistant. I would also say that what it's doing with Valorant is cheating. It's providing additional cues and advantages automatically, that other players have to keep tabs on manually. The other players have to risk glancing at the…

I agree this feels like cheating. I read the Valorant page and they've basically re-implemented information that is available to you in game generally, but takes skill/timing/awareness to track and made it more obvious and automatically tracked. How is this not just a low-grade cheating program? If the game developers wanted you to have that information in the format Senpai.gg is giving it to you in, they would provi…

In-game coaching _is_ considered cheating in FGC tournaments

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#54

The current marketing pitch (a personal gaming -coach-) has nothing to do with the current functionality of e.g. voicing timers or providing notifications. That's more akin to a personal assistant. I would also say that what it's doing with Valorant is cheating. It's providing additional cues and advantages automatically, that other players have to keep tabs on manually. The other players have to risk glancing at the…

This sounds like "Deadly Boss Mods for games other than WoW" which probably is just cheating.

I'd be really interested in a product that does more of what a human coach would do.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree this feels like cheating. I read the Valorant page and they've basically re-implemented information that is available to you in game generally, but takes skill/timing/awareness to track and made it more obvious and automatically tracked. How is this not just a low-grade cheating program? If the game developers wanted you to have that information in the format Senpai.gg is giving it to you in, they would provi…

In-game coaching _is_ considered cheating in FGC tournaments

Yep, for any sort of eSport you can’t have outside help/information outside of designated times if the format allows it, but also this isn’t targeted at eSports.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#56

The current marketing pitch (a personal gaming -coach-) has nothing to do with the current functionality of e.g. voicing timers or providing notifications. That's more akin to a personal assistant. I would also say that what it's doing with Valorant is cheating. It's providing additional cues and advantages automatically, that other players have to keep tabs on manually. The other players have to risk glancing at the…

Providing situational feedback during gameplay by way of an overlay or audio queues is clearly cheating.

If I were an investor in this company, I'd be asking the founders what their plan is when they get banned by the major anti-cheat engines.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#57
post #9

This is interesting. Jumping into Warzone after everybody has memorized every corner of the map and knows where to look is a pain and something like this could help. As a former CS player (1.6, CZ, Source, Go) I had these maps committed to memory. Now that I am far removed from school (and the maps got way bigger) this isn't super possible so I find I just get obliterated quickly then just peace out. Not sure if this…

I've always hated the map memorization thing. To me it destroys the uncertainty and exploratory aspect of a game like CS. I didn't mind it as much in Team Fortress (which is built on cartoonish excess and thus fosters a sillier and less aggressive style of play. Thinking back to when I was a regular CS player, my favorite ever map was a Katamari Damacy style giant room where the players were effectively reduced to th…

Having consistent, memorizable maps allows someone to make progress and improve at the game by learning the map and developing, testing, and iterating on strategic positioning and movement.

Having random maps doesn't encourage that, but does encourage other things like adaptability and just pure mechanics, since you can't rely on having good positioning and map knowledge of course.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#58

As far as I know there are three types of player versus player (PVP) games: slow paced strategy games (Pokemon), fast paced strategy (Starcraft, League of Legends), action games (Call of Duty, Halo, Fortnite). For the first type of game, having a tool to teach the best strategies makes sense. For the latter two, not so much. From personal experience, fast paced strategy and action games just require a ton of practice…

I disagree, at least for fast paced strategy. For instance in Age of Empires 2, the best way to improve is to look at a replay of your games, and analyse what went wrong. Stuff like "my economy was idle because I was focusing on the fighting" is much more flagrant then, during the game you often think it was just a few seconds, when in reality it could be a whole minute. I could see a lot of value in having an assist…

His point is it doesn't matter much if you hear that advice you still need to spend hundreds of hours improving your mechanics to actually execute that advice.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#59
post #9

This is interesting. Jumping into Warzone after everybody has memorized every corner of the map and knows where to look is a pain and something like this could help. As a former CS player (1.6, CZ, Source, Go) I had these maps committed to memory. Now that I am far removed from school (and the maps got way bigger) this isn't super possible so I find I just get obliterated quickly then just peace out. Not sure if this…

I've always hated the map memorization thing. To me it destroys the uncertainty and exploratory aspect of a game like CS. I didn't mind it as much in Team Fortress (which is built on cartoonish excess and thus fosters a sillier and less aggressive style of play. Thinking back to when I was a regular CS player, my favorite ever map was a Katamari Damacy style giant room where the players were effectively reduced to th…

Additional uncertainty arising from randomness in MP settings reduces the impact of skill (ie memorizing the map) so pvp designs tend to shy away from them, especially in the more esports focused side like CS. There are definitely some skills more fun than others though, otherwise everyone would still be playing Quake3.

Re: Launch HN: Senpai.gg (YC S21) – Personal gaming coach for PC gamers

#60

As far as I know there are three types of player versus player (PVP) games: slow paced strategy games (Pokemon), fast paced strategy (Starcraft, League of Legends), action games (Call of Duty, Halo, Fortnite). For the first type of game, having a tool to teach the best strategies makes sense. For the latter two, not so much. From personal experience, fast paced strategy and action games just require a ton of practice…

I disagree, at least for fast paced strategy. For instance in Age of Empires 2, the best way to improve is to look at a replay of your games, and analyse what went wrong. Stuff like "my economy was idle because I was focusing on the fighting" is much more flagrant then, during the game you often think it was just a few seconds, when in reality it could be a whole minute. I could see a lot of value in having an assist…

Agreed. A product that tells me to build a pylon 10 seconds before I get supply-blocked would be amazing. Or if I have too much money and my production buildings are idle.

I've stood over friends' shoulders and done similar live-coaching. It definitely helps.

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