Let's be honest here, I don't like Greenlight. Hopefully, a significant amount of other people dislike it too. Greenlight is like those sites like Miniclip or Kongregate, you name it. You come in there, they've got a lot of games, but all these games are complete garbage.

Hopefully you're the only one thinking this way...

Greenlight is a "tool" to promote the independent scene of game developping, independent means out of the industry. Means that's pretty much the only place you can find creative and "fresh" games, not subject to the will of producers and deadlines for fast $$.

If what you said is true, why are these games so bad? Why would we need such a place full of bad games. Good indie games like Braid, Minecraft, Mount & Blade and some others seem to have gotten into the industy by themselves. Mostly, because they are actually good.

You probably didn't check the good ones ! They're a bunch of really good games in developpement in Greenlight (Project Zomboid for exemple).

Ofc some indie games became famous before greenlight came up, thanks god ! But that doesn't mean Greenlight is useless, I can assure you indie dev teams are pretty happy when they're being promoted on it. It's always a good little help and more visibility to a large public for indie games with potential.
There are a lot of good games you and I probably never heard of yet, maybe things like Greenlight will work for them and one day we'll be glad they've been promoted this way.
The success of a game ain't based only on its quality, marketing and advertising are a huge part of commercial success : greenlight help little studios advertising their games.

/me puts on hipster glasses

Greenlight sucks because it turns underground indie masterpieces into mainstream piles of turd.

In all actuality Greenlight would be a positive experience for Toribash, shame it would never get on there because of the small niche group that plays it, not enough people would like it to get voted onto Greenlight

Well yeah, I came to realize toribash is no fun for most of people... They either don't have enough patience or find it to hard to play.

People are nubs.

So I want to revive this thread and talk about this a bit more. What I mostly want to look at/discuss is what's holding Toribash back and how to kick it off.

So firstly, things that Toribash has going for it when considering it as an esport.

1. Balance. Toribash has no random elements and there is no way to pay to win or anything similar. It is skill based
2. Ability to be spectated. Toribash is fine in this regard, spectators can see both sides/players of the game and things like live ghosts add to that.
3. Support. Toribash is still in development. Though nothing major gameplay wise has happened in a while bugs are still being mixed and issues are dealt with.
4. Depth of gameplay. The gameplay of Toribash is not simple or trivial. There is also room for a meta and an evolution of that meta. One move sees a lot of use, other rise to counter its etc...
5. Fan base. So Toribash has a solid base, not massive compared to others out there though. The main thing about this is that there is a casual following who will actually watch and follow esports developments. Toribash is easy to watch and appreciate but may be difficult to fully understand.

Ok, looks good. What's Toribash lacking?

1. Somewhat in regard to point one above, while Toribash is not random it can be luck based. Blue belts beating Master belts etc... As well as that the game and some mechanics may need tweaking to optimise Toribash for a legit competitive scene.
2. While Toribash has development support there is little to no financial support for a competitive scene. When the most you can get from game events is imaginary money to buy cool cosmetics within that game then it's hardly a strong incentive for competitive players. The upside here is that they can be sold for $ but the counter argument is that it is in no way a large enough amount and may as well be considered negligible.

Other points:

1. In regard to points two and three up the top I think that a lot would also depend on casters/commentators. How the esports is pitched would matter lots. It would need to be done in a way that can hold the attention of and benefit new and old players alike.
2. Toribash's learning curve. I'm not too sure how this would affect stuff.
3. It's now been released on Steam. Has anything changed?

What I think needs to be done?

Well ticking off the things that Toribash is lacking pretty much. Decent $ events would be a great start. Maybe some 3rd party sponsored things with incentives?


Discuss.

You hit the nail on the head with "while Toribash is not random it can be luck based. Blue belts beating Master belts..."

Stop right there. That's it. That's the thing holding it back more than any lack of financial support, than anything gameplay feature related, than a terribly confusing UI, than any lack of decent streamlining in-game tutorial, this is it.


If you could get better and better at this game, increasing your chances higher and higher to win a game, always commanding victories over opponents worse than you (or near always), you'd have it. And it's not like a game can't have an element of luck or multiple layers of luck and not be an e-sport where the better player wins. Let me expand on that:

Pokemon. Pokemon is a 6 on 6 fighting system built around essentially a weighted version of rock paper scissors (NOT TOO UNLIKE TORIBASH). There are over 700 pokemon, so right there we have an element of luck: which 6 of the 700 will he use. Hundreds are useable by the way in a very viable way. These pokemon can run more than one viable move set, another element of luck. These pokemon also can run a variety of different viable items, another element of luck. These pokemon can also run typically at least 2 different EV spreads for stats, another element of luck. So many moves have an accuracy percentage of less than 100%, another element of luck. If a pokemon is paralyzed there's a chance it won't use it's move, that's an element of luck. If a pokemon is confused it might hit itself instead, that's an element of luck. When your pokemon is facing another pokemon with the same speed as yours, it's up to a dice roll to decide who strikes first- another element of luck. I don't even need to dive into the actual strategy of a fight where you can decide to stay in with a slower pokemon who could one hit ko the enemy that could OHKO you because you predict he will decide to switch or anticipate a switch poorly and all the other things you have of elements of luck that are comprised of it's actual strategy.

The game has SO much luck, and yet great players can easily rise to the top. It's not even usually close... a good player crushes another player that's only reasonable good 999 times out of a 1000. Now within amazing players vs amazing, yes games can and are won sometime before the fight even starts just because of team comps, but commanding players stay on top because their decision making and strategy lets them rise above ALL of the non-exaggerated luck I just pointed out in my last paragraph/stanza/whatthefuckever and decimate.

Toribash, by design, is flawed if it wants to rise above and be an e-sport. We need to develop a way that a great player will beat a bad player everytime, a good player 15-18 times out of 20, and a player of equal skill around 50% of the time. Is that the flaw of the mods we use, the engine, or the actual gameplay mechanics that need changing that's a whole nother discussion.


Nobody will sponsor a player that can get beaten in 2 turns by a guy who installed the game that day. I swear multiple times a week, I lose to a white belt who installed the game that hour in judofrac on the 2nd turn because his nonsensical jibberyjoo just so happened to counter my opener that worked swimmingly against players of my level, slightly or moderately under, and even people better than me. Make the game like I'm talking about and people will throw a lot more money at it and the rest just sort of comes. Toribash is unwatchable and uninteresting because we have no element of "Gee I wonder if so and so can do it and win!" because we know they can. We've seen the best players in Toribash lose to white belts, of course they could lose to these other good players. There's no feeling of "Wow, I don't think they could ever lose. They do the most inexplicable amazing things that just are unbeatable!" because you've seen a dude shovel that wise-ass 10 million game aikido player right the hell out of the dojo or just the tiniest hit and run in a striking mod where you got 20k points on a whim and got the hell away. Fix this and I promise everything you could ever want from finance to new development to spectating and even making real live events with good prizes would ALL follow.

Toribash for 1-5$. Extra stuff? Ads? Initiative?

Imagine if toribash have a price: a guy that download the "demo" for toribash and everything that he could do with 6~7 hours of tireless matches is a simple kick +noobclap.

Do you really think that he would buy the "full version" of toribash after his "uncommon" progress ?


Maybe ads and "extra stuff" could be effective but I don't know.

Also: Maybe if was selected a few "main mods" to be used in the "official matches" and they were worked more in some aspects like gravity, friction, mass in different parts of tori, a different grab mechanics or some stuff like that, the E-sport could be a real thing in toribash.