Let's discuss changes that could be made to the base for after TWL

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by Jason
Sufficient, even with only four spiders, you guys always cram.

Only proves that cramming is indeed NOT only a one dimensional strat.

[Jason]

Yes it is. Every spider on your team crams into the entrance to the flag room and fires away. There's absolutely no other way of looking at it. There is no other dimension.

[Randedl]

Originally posted by Zerzera
This is Trench wars.. in world war opposing forces used to lie in a trench full of mud for weeks fighting over one yard.. sounds alot like cramming to me

this happened in world war 1, i'll grant you that, and it hasn't happened since. it was an obsolete and harmful form of warfare and most civilizations have advanded far beyond it, time for trench wars to do the same.

oh, and yeah, the armies didn't have a half hour time limit. world war 1 was called the battle of attrition because you waited your opponents out. i don't see a squad sitting in lower and waiting the cramming team out. . .

[Verthanthi]

Suff, team a fires down, team b fires up. Thats the cram. There are subtleties like bullet placement ship placement, etc. Any jav bombs your sharks will take care of repping for you, same goes for spider bullets. On a line, there are any number of directions a bomb might be coming from, your sharks have many other things to do besides be your personal gaurdian. All these things make it more complex and more fun for a spider. They also are part of why the cram is simply a better strategy.

[Adman]

Shade is right on this one.

I learned how to base lining, i hated cramming when it came out, but you have to adapt.

[Troll King]

Originally posted by Randedl
this happened in world war 1, i'll grant you that, and it hasn't happened since. it was an obsolete and harmful form of warfare and most civilizations have advanded far beyond it, time for trench wars to do the same.

oh, and yeah, the armies didn't have a half hour time limit. world war 1 was called the battle of attrition because you waited your opponents out. i don't see a squad sitting in lower and waiting the cramming team out. . .

You seem to have overlooked the point he was making with the word "trench". If by "most harmful" you mean lots of people getting killed, then isn't that a good thing in this context? More deaths = more points being doled.

Of course, Trench Wars was misnamed from the start. It's really more of a siege than trench warfare. The only difference is that sieges last longer with less turnover.

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by Jason
Yes it is. Every spider on your team crams into the entrance to the flag room and fires away. There's absolutely no other way of looking at it. There is no other dimension.

You can apply the same argument with lining. Spiders just line on blocks and shoot when nme comes up.

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by Verthanthi
Suff, team a fires down, team b fires up. Thats the cram. There are subtleties like bullet placement ship placement, etc. Any jav bombs your sharks will take care of repping for you, same goes for spider bullets. On a line, there are any number of directions a bomb might be coming from, your sharks have many other things to do besides be your personal gaurdian. All these things make it more complex and more fun for a spider. They also are part of why the cram is simply a better strategy.

Lining is the same. Spider line up on predetermined positions on blocks, sharks make sure they protect their guys by repping.

Just an arguement to one part of your statement about the direction of the bombs. An nme jav can also shoot through the holes in a cram.

As for the fun part. I have tried lining before on NS and Spastic. I 'personally' find it not as fun as cramming. I remember an absolutely awesome game we had vs Camisade in a TWD game with both of us cramming and it was exciting for both teams (correct me if I'm wrong Cami ... I think they know which game I'm talking about).

[Randedl]

Originally posted by Troll King
You seem to have overlooked the point he was making with the word "trench". If by "most harmful" you mean lots of people getting killed, then isn't that a good thing in this context? More deaths = more points being doled.

Of course, Trench Wars was misnamed from the start. It's really more of a siege than trench warfare. The only difference is that sieges last longer with less turnover.

i don't know what i meant when i said harmful, but trench warfare had far fewer casualties than open assaults. . . (ie. verdun from ww1 compared to normandy during ww2)

[Miku19]

One thing to take in account is that you don't lose limbs while playing tw, so you really can't compare tw with real war... also, playing tw doesn't make me very frightened/nervous

[Verthanthi]

Originally posted by Sufficient
Lining is the same. Spider line up on predetermined positions on blocks, sharks make sure they protect their guys by repping.

Just an arguement to one part of your statement about the direction of the bombs. An nme jav can also shoot through the holes in a cram.

One, in a line, sharks still have other duties besides being a blocker, so there are more dimensions there.

And in a cram, yes javs can still shoot through holes, but the spiders almost NEVER have to dodge it. This is because the sharks (in an ideal cram, which is much easier to accomplish than an ideal line) are always in the same place as the spiders. And there are always sharks. As I said before, this is partially what makes cramming such an effective strat. It also reduces the need to think for both spiders and sharks. On the otherside of the cram, there is less thinking also as you never have to even decide which way to fire.

Furthermore, and this is the kicker, lines aren't the most fun of basing. Never said they were, or if I did I didn't mean it. But, to me and many other players, they are more fun than a cram. I'll offer a few reasons not actually linked to the techniques of cramming.

1. Lines are easier to break. No one is going to argue with that, I hope. Entrance defense is, in my opinion, meant to serve as a breather between heated flagroom battles and isn't going to be ESPECIALLY fun regardless. If you have issue with that, skip the rest. But it makes the fr battles much more exciting. Because lines are shorter (rarely more than 5 minutes) it sets up more flagroom battles, without overdosing on them.

2. Lines score less. Again, no one is going to argue with me. Why is this important? Well, because less points are scored on defense, the defense (team that owned flag right before) is much more concerned with flagroom battles. Also, if two teams are evenly matched in flag, but one is much better at entrance defense, it lets the worse entrance team stay in the game a little longer.

3. Lines tend to be all or nothing. It's not push in get pushed back out push in some more push back, push in, etc.... Usually the attackers will be decimated, the terrier will warp and the rest will be decimated, or the attackers get in. It makes the entrance more tense. You may or may not think this is a good thing.

4. Lines leave the attacking team in slightly better position. They have, by defintion cleaned out most of one side of fr if they get in. If the enemy terrier retreated out of a cram that is by no means true. That means if the attackers suffer heavy casualties on getting in, the terr may be extremely undefened when he does make it in and will be booted quickly. Then we start again at attacking the cram. Again, this makes the cram a much smarter thing to do while it's viable. But in my eyes, more boring.

5. Lastly, and this one is less awesome than my others, lines are less prone to lag problems. Because everyone's in so tight in a cram, any lag is more noticable.

I'm not saying the cram is skill-less. Thats not at all what I'm saying. I'm just saying the skills needed aren't interesting to me, aren't interesting to MANY others (as evidenced by this thread), and aren't interesting to speccers. That's not evidence supporting my argument that change is needed. I'm just saying we're not calling you losers because you cram, we're just saying "lets play a different game".

TK is probably going to say something along the lines of, "This is the old basers saying, 'You beat us at our game, but thats okay we don't like it anymore, lets play a different one.' And they'll keep saying it until they win." I really don't have an argument agains that besides, "Nuh-uh".

[Jeansi]

Limit sharks to 1. Cramming would be possible and one could even do 6 spids but it would be easy to break.

I agree with point nr 1 of verth, defending and attacking flagroom is a good change to fr batles. Some ppl would want to have only flagroom battles and I think that it is bad. Maybe 60 to 70% of a game could be fr fights and the remaining 30 to 40 defending lower in some form. That keeps the game interesting and adds variation. Also I'd like to seem more defending of the actual lower base and tube which would make TW basing 3 stages (fr, entrance and lower fights)instead of two as this season has been.

[Mattey]

Very nice post Veranthi, you summed it up pretty well, now all we need is a solution (bah).

[Sufficient]

My main pt is that 'successful' cramming involves technique, communication, aiming, skill just like in lining.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Verthanthi
One, in a line, sharks still have other duties besides being a blocker, so there are more dimensions there.

Explain what else sharks have to do in lining. They basically fulfill the same roles as cramming sharks: protect spids and terr by repping. To me sharks are in an even more tense situation in the cram bc they must react quickly (more quickly than in a line) to nme fire. As you said, 1 jav bomb can wipe out a cram. How does that not put pressure on the spiders and the sharks? To me that makes cram more exciting too. You put more 'on the line' in order to get more out of it (no pun intended).

And in a cram, yes javs can still shoot through holes, but the spiders almost NEVER have to dodge it. This is because the sharks (in an ideal cram, which is much easier to accomplish than an ideal line) are always in the same place as the spiders. And there are always sharks. As I said before, this is partially what makes cramming such an effective strat. It also reduces the need to think for both spiders and sharks. On the otherside of the cram, there is less thinking also as you never have to even decide which way to fire.

I can guaruntee you that if spiders shoot randomly down, and if sharks rep randomly in a cram, that they will lose. Spider do in fact have to aim in order to successfully hold a cram. Sharks do in fact have to communicate with one another and rep accordingly. There is decision making in crams as much as in lining, and the decisions must be made faster. There is absolutely no room for error in a cram.

Furthermore, and this is the kicker, lines aren't the most fun of basing. Never said they were, or if I did I didn't mean it. But, to me and many other players, they are more fun than a cram. I'll offer a few reasons not actually linked to the techniques of cramming.

Sry if I misread, but I thought you said you thought lining was more fun.


1. Lines are easier to break. No one is going to argue with that, I hope. Entrance defense is, in my opinion, meant to serve as a breather between heated flagroom battles and isn't going to be ESPECIALLY fun regardless. If you have issue with that, skip the rest. But it makes the fr battles much more exciting. Because lines are shorter (rarely more than 5 minutes) it sets up more flagroom battles, without overdosing on them.

You make it sound as if cramming eliminates fr battles, which is not true. Also, cramming does not eliminate midbase battles.


2. Lines score less. Again, no one is going to argue with me. Why is this important? Well, because less points are scored on defense, the defense (team that owned flag right before) is much more concerned with flagroom battles. Also, if two teams are evenly matched in flag, but one is much better at entrance defense, it lets the worse entrance team stay in the game a little longer.

You are right.


3. Lines tend to be all or nothing. It's not push in get pushed back out push in some more push back, push in, etc.... Usually the attackers will be decimated, the terrier will warp and the rest will be decimated, or the attackers get in. It makes the entrance more tense. You may or may not think this is a good thing.

How can you say this and say cramming is NOT all or nothing?


4. Lines leave the attacking team in slightly better position. They have, by defintion cleaned out most of one side of fr if they get in. If the enemy terrier retreated out of a cram that is by no means true. That means if the attackers suffer heavy casualties on getting in, the terr may be extremely undefened when he does make it in and will be booted quickly. Then we start again at attacking the cram. Again, this makes the cram a much smarter thing to do while it's viable. But in my eyes, more boring.

Again, can't argue much about that.


5. Lastly, and this one is less awesome than my others, lines are less prone to lag problems. Because everyone's in so tight in a cram, any lag is more noticable.

Also true.


I'm not saying the cram is skill-less. Thats not at all what I'm saying. I'm just saying the skills needed aren't interesting to me, aren't interesting to MANY others (as evidenced by this thread), and aren't interesting to speccers. That's not evidence supporting my argument that change is needed. I'm just saying we're not calling you losers because you cram, we're just saying "lets play a different game".

I think that cram is fun. Some ppl don't. But some ppl DO. So are you saying you would rather see ppl play lines just bc you play lines, or that lines are more fun, or that lines need skill? I assume you don't ... so what do you suggest to solve this "game play problem."

[Bosshawk]

lets be real here

the funny thing is most guys complaining about the cram is the squads that

a: dont have spider depth to play 5 spiders
or
b: dont have the sharks who can cram worth crap
or
c: simply cant cram worth crap

with the lag in TW these days...lining is easily broken

i dont care how well your line...brookus's and terrs like him drop a high portal and lag through the line for kicks...

and the lag isnt getting better its getting worse...

i sit during twlb games and all you hear by "vets" is that "any cram can be broken by a good jav" yadda yadda yadda

if thats the case why are we having this discussion at all?

we are having it because teams are having trouble beating a good cram.....and that is the problem.....

i saw a go base team the other day with 3 wb's and a jav own a 4 or 5 spider lineup.... any lineup can win if the team commits to their philosophy and has the teamwork and skill to back it up.....

restricting ships is only being offered because those squads dont have the spider depth or the desire to adapt to the way the game has changed.....and im sorry but lining in this lag is easily breakable....

you say a jav can break a cram easily?

break ours!
break spastic's!

you might do it once in a while....with a lucky shot by your jav, but when our sharks are on you will be very lucky to break it "if and only if our guys are doing their job"

this game is about mistakes as well, and the squad that makes the least is the squad that will win....




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