Base map and cramming

[Mela]

Would be cool if there was a different map for every week..

..or month :w00t:

[Mantra-Slider]

fucking mambo

[Noah]

Like I said, this is about the only game I know that keeps to the same map for comptetive play, when there are so many maps out there. Making maps for this game is easy, so there shouldn't lack with good alternatives.

If I were forced to play the same map for each Team Fortress 2 clan match, I'd probably quit playing that comptetive as well, same goes for every other game I play.

[PredatoR_FNM]

Do a cramtimer™ which works like sho(o?)t clock in basketball, squad can be in cram for uhmm lets say 5 minutes and then their terrier will be warped out to spawn. Different variations could be used also. Would be atleast intresting

[Kuukunen]

This is completely incorrect. People say this consistently, but it does NOT work in practice. The only consistent things to break crams are : laggy javs, laggy sharks, a complete imbalance in skill level, and luck. That's it. "Pushing effectively" does not always result in a cram break. It doesn't even work 50% of the time. Look at every match and every cram break. The majority of the time, the reason for the break will be a mistake on the defense or a completely lucky situation on the offense.

So true.

Leitz, Dab, Tsume, Ronn... I've seen so many comments like "breaking cram is so easy, just do x", but for some reason, it just doesn't work in practice. Be it "push effectively" or "experiment with specials", I've yet to see any kind of really effective strategy for breaking the cram.

I'm just of the opinion that if it isn't broken, don't fix it.

why change a perfectly good game.

But keep the base map as it is I really see no other map that will be as fun as this map.

What the hell are you people on? :P
Do you honestly think this map is perfect?! There's always room for improvement. The probable reason why people think this way is that they've gotten used to this map. So every improvement seems to suck at first. I like numbers. There are 2^3105 possible combinations of wall/space for an area of the size of the current flagroom. (The number would be 13 lines, so I didn't paste it here.) Do you think this one is the absolute pinnacle of map design? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think there hasn't been too much trial & error on the design. With simple changes getting this much opposition, I guess there never will be, and the improvements simply don't happen.

I honestly think if the league map was chosen from the current publicly hosted base maps, lots of them would be more fun than the current one after people get used to it and develop strategies. None of you have played real competitive 8v8 basing with good players in any other map. (If you have, at least not much.) So how can you say the current map is the definition of perfection if you can't compare it to anything?

I really don't know what to say here. Are you seriously suggesting that two squads of near equal skill in all facets of the game, including their attack and defense of cram, could end a fight in a 15:00-00:00 game due to one just getting that "lucky TD" at the beginning?

Well, I meant mostly near equal total skill. Especially if the other team is better at cramming. And yea, it was sort of exaggerated example, I don't know if it's even happened this season, but yea, it's very possible. Besides, after a 15:00-00:00 game, how can you even tell they're equally skilled? Of course the attackers look bad. From the games where the squads have proven to be nearly equally skilled (by beating each others in turns) I've seen lots of 7 minute crams.

I don't think a cram strategy is nearly as one-sided as you think, so it's entirely believable for me that people will come up with just as flawed maps.

Sure, they can come up with flawed maps if they want. But if people try to come up with non-flawed maps, they might actually succeed. When the current base map was designed, no one was going to think about cramming for years. Now if we take that map, make a minimal change that will weaken cram and affects nothing else, the possibility for another killer strategy suddenly emerging is pretty low.

Good analogy for showing your point, but bad analogy for actually relating to how cram works. I would totally agree with you if cramming was anywhere near that one-sided, but it really isn't.

It is. It's not one-sided in every game. But in lots of games it is.

Again, I'll have to say you've got a nice theory there, but I don't really see a good example of a squad that sucks that much at FR battles, is that good at cram, and has way more wins than it should.

They just need a bit better sharks than the other team. So even if terr, and spids totally suck, they can hold cram. After a certain level of skill and understanding of basing, holding a cram in spid is just stupifyingly simple. And especially terr. Terr's skill doesn't mean crap in cram.

The only fairly objective way of measuring a squad's skill level is to have them compete with other squads, and even then you only get a decent idea of how good they are at working that particular map used.

Sure, but still amount of luck is a factor, as presented in the previous examples. Like in TW, any newb can kill any vet in base with wb, but in SVS, a newb might play for a week before getting his first kill. The reason is the same. In TW, one bullet is enough, so with 20% of accuracy, you kill with 20% of shots, while in SVS that's not enough. I honestly think luck is currently too big of a factor in winning a base game and should be reduced. Getting rid of the boring cram is another good reason, after all, we're playing this game because it's fun. (Disclaimer: you people might have different reasons, such as money, power and sex.)

If a squad sucks that much it won't have a chance at holding cram. No squad that gets utterly dominated in FR battles by every other squad in the league is going to be able to win by keeping a cram up that long. The only time they would ever win is by a good bit of luck, and by being on their game while the other squad is underestimating them and fucking around or is just "off" themselves. You treat cram like an ultimate defense that any bunch of semi-competent players could keep up; it's not, it is just the best option available. And really, that's the whole basis for my disagreeing with you. The strategy just does not make up for shitty players.

Of course it doesn't fully make up for shitty players, I never claimed that. Just that currently, it's too emphasized, and worse squads are beating better squads because of it.

Terr deaths of the winning team should tell something about the length of crams, since it's not that probable the other team keeps breaking in but fails completely at killing the terr. There hasn't been too many games played yet, but I did some checking, and here's a couple of games I found: Mambo beat TeKs and Pandora beat Spastic with zero terr deaths. Dice beat Thunder, Penetrate beat Juice and Style beat TeKs with just one terr death. Sage beat Plade and Spastic with just two terr deaths. Then there's Plade. They had a game with zero terr kills, a game with one terr kill and a game with two. Then they beat Dice who's still leading the Eastern Conference. I saw the end of the game. No matter what they say, I saw them trying, but they just couldn't break the cram effectively. I'm not going to talk about skills of the said squads, and I'm not even saying worse squads beat better squads here. Those are just the extreme examples, where the other squad got totally owned. If the loser in those usually had 10+ terr deaths, do you really think all those numbers are fair?

[Static Burn]

they should make base like pubs in that after a few minutes, the terr gets warped in automatically! that way holding cram for 10+ minutes doesn't work! cuz you get warped in anyways after a certain amount of time.

how's that for more flagroom fights?

edit: hey cool! my join date is in 2002! i'm not that new to forums after all!

Was just gonna say that. If one team holds the flag for 5 minutes at a time, everyone gets warped into the ear(and ship are reseted) like in the beginning of the game. Add another timer for this so everyone knows how long they have until the ear warp.

[Evul Fly]

entrance on the roof
or
remove the two tiles kuuk mentioned

[Tsumetai]

This is completely incorrect. People say this consistently, but it does NOT work in practice. The only consistent things to break crams are : laggy javs, laggy sharks, a complete imbalance in skill level, and luck. That's it. "Pushing effectively" does not always result in a cram break. It doesn't even work 50% of the time. Look at every match and every cram break. The majority of the time, the reason for the break will be a mistake on the defense or a completely lucky situation on the offense.

llater,
Tony

You're right in that a team that has a perfect cram will hold up to very aggressive pushes, and that what's really needed is a mistake on the side of the defense. But very aggressive pushing that's done as a team forces more of these mistakes.

[Louis XV]

the cram

I hated the cram from the very start. All it does is force everyone down to the lowest common denominator (bland, all-spider lines). There was discussion of a spider limit way back when but I guess that was never tested.

Crams only get broken when the defenders mess up. The game is essentially 100% defense - the best defenders win. Oh, and lag. Laggy attackers can usually get in, too.

Enforce a spider-limit.

Oh yeah, and allow levs and weasels back in please. Whiny pussies can't handle a little blue bomb.

[Buja X]

they should make base like pubs in that after a few minutes, the terr gets warped in automatically! that way holding cram for 10+ minutes doesn't work! cuz you get warped in anyways after a certain amount of time.

how's that for more flagroom fights?

edit: hey cool! my join date is in 2002! i'm not that new to forums after all!

[brookus]

Here's a suggestion: learn to push effectively with 5 spiders or get a good jav or do whatever you think would work. You do that and you'll be able to break any cram.

This is completely incorrect. People say this consistently, but it does NOT work in practice. The only consistent things to break crams are : laggy javs, laggy sharks, a complete imbalance in skill level, and luck. That's it. "Pushing effectively" does not always result in a cram break. It doesn't even work 50% of the time. Look at every match and every cram break. The majority of the time, the reason for the break will be a mistake on the defense or a completely lucky situation on the offense.

llater,
Tony

[Tsumetai]

Lulz @ some of you using the newb card. I guess it's my forum join date that makes you think it even makes sense, but still, truly epic lulz right thar.

Anyhoo, I've been playing in competitive basing for several years now, and I *GASP* still seem to enjoy the game. I'm just of the opinion that if it isn't broken, don't fix it. I also tend to dislike basing events with multiple entrances or larger single entrances (though that may have more to do with the crowds and the lag they tend to draw), so I'm not too anxious to go to a completely new thing. Kuuk's first idea and some of porker's ideas are pretty good... I just don't see the need. I might change my opinion in the next few seasons, and I might not. I just really enjoy being a spider and playing this game as it is.


EDIT: Holy shit kuuk, sorry for getting you mixed up with Exalt. That's an insult that just cannot be forgiven.

[Major Crisis]

fr battles are far more enjoyable than cramming, and i'm a guy who actually likes cramming.

here are some ideas i dislike:
two entrance bases-they've always rubbed me the wrong way, i think this is the difference between ?go baseing hosted events and legit maps. maybe it's just me and i'm sure i could be persuaded, but i like the way the map looks now.
and that's pretty much the only idea i'm really opposed to

You are right about this
two entrance bases sucks.. then its like all the game fr fight

[Jeenyuss]

fr battles are far more enjoyable than cramming, and i'm a guy who actually likes cramming.

here are some ideas i dislike:
two entrance bases-they've always rubbed me the wrong way, i think this is the difference between ?go baseing hosted events and legit maps. maybe it's just me and i'm sure i could be persuaded, but i like the way the map looks now.
and that's pretty much the only idea i'm really opposed to

some ideas i do like:
changing the fr setup-ideas like kuuk's base2 map, flub's map, and even porkjet's map are all pretty good.
changing the map each season-the ability to adapt is an important one and i personally think this is a pretty cash one. the more i think about it the more it seems like a good one.

on one hand, something needs to be changed. on the other, too much change can be a bad thing. hopefully we can find a healthy medium.

[Vatican Assassin]

you guys are pussies i say we close the base up entirely and whoever wins the first fr battle moves on