TWLB mapchange, why it is needed

[CrvenBan]

Originally posted by Sufficient
...just don't complain if things don't work out for you next season.

I don't know why you (Spastic ppl) continue to push this complaining shit, no one is complaining here (you got the win, gg), as I said earlier somewhere, it's not first time we lose (and especially now that both we and you know you won cuz of lag), and we had good season, everyone is happy. So, drop that.
You just don't want to acknowledge that putting laggy ppl into cram (from terr to spiders) will indeed provide defending team with unfair advantage towards the attacking team.

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by CrvenBan
I don't know why everyone is so hung up on fr battles: ANY team playing will want as LITTLE as possible battling in fr where they can win or lose depending on skill/luck/lag.
That's why every team moves to a choke-point (bottleneck in lower) to prevent other team of coming in, that's why you mine, and chase ppl in lower. However, piling 8 unreppable, laggy, ships in a tighets choke-point of them all, WILL create lag shields that give unfair advantage (where a good part of attacking spiders bullets is lost) and, god forbid, that there is a floater on defending team...

Well according to other posts ... it seems like *many* ppl complain about cramming bc it takes away from FR battles.

It seems like your (Crvn's) major complaint about cramming is that it brings in "unfair lag." If lag is unavoidable ... and no one is lagcheating ... then what makes the cram unfair? You think ppl *purposely* cram in order to lag their way to a win?

Also wouldn't you expect a cramming team to lag out? Lag is lag ... nothing really can be done about it expect keeping ppl from using programs to purposely lag ...

Cramming teams STILL need to learn how to fight in FR and STILL need to know how to fight in mid and tunnels ... cramming teams STILL need to learn how to break OTHER squad's crams and lines ... AND ... cramming teams also employ other strats ... look at Diso ...

There is only so much you can do about lag ...

To Crvn: Complaining is posting on the forums about your displeasure with one specific team in 2 specific games (the only real Diso who did that was you) ... YET you did not bother sending in an appeal to the TWL ops OR using ?cheater command ... which you should have done if you truly believed Spastic lagcheated ...

[BLeeN]

Originally posted by Sufficient
I'm sry if I suggested that mining sharks are not considerate of their teammates ... that's not what I meant. However, you seems to not understand WHY cramming sharks don't mine ... it's for their teammates. You know one real important reason why crams play 5 spids ... it's bc spids don't TK ...

The main reason for changing settings/map/etc is the following ... tell me if I'm wrong ... *You don't think cramming is fair/balanced bc, successful cramming means almost no FR battles* ... fair enough.

Tell me now ... successful lining means no FR battles right? Isn't that the same as successful cramming? ... the results are *both* no FR battles.

However, you seems to not understand WHY cramming sharks don't mine ... it's for their teammates. (Quote from you =P)
I don't think you read my why post good enough.
And I didn't even point out the fact about succesful lining and cramming. You really should read better before you even tell us things, what we hardly even talked about.

Also, we are just saying we might want some little changes.
And how you are kinda bashing, Crven, Miau and me is like you are afraid that Spastic might not win next season, since cram might be less succesful after those changes.

[CrvenBan]

Originally posted by Sufficient
Well according to other posts ... it seems like *many* ppl complain about cramming bc it takes away from FR battles.

It seems like your (Crvn's) major complaint about cramming is that it brings in "unfair lag." If lag is unavoidable ... and no one is lagcheating ... then what makes the cram unfair?

Cram is like any other strat, except when extra lag is involved. How can you stop ppl from using kazaa and other programs ? Would you put your 300ms guy into shark or spid ?

You think ppl *purposely* cram in order to lag their way to a win?

No, they accidentally gathered at the entrance because they are on the way to a forest picnic.

Also wouldn't you expect a cramming team to lag out? Lag is lag ... nothing really can be done about it expect keeping ppl from using programs to purposely lag ...

That's the point, they don't lagout cuz they're still on low ping'n'ploss, it's just they spike more.

Cramming teams STILL need to learn how to fight in FR and STILL need to know how to fight in mid and tunnels ... cramming teams STILL need to learn how to break OTHER squad's crams and lines ... AND ... cramming teams also employ other strats ... look at Diso ...

I don't want to be mean now, but Elusive's spiders were good spiders that could fight in open spaces, Spastics are decent, but that is all.
How to break other squads crams and lines ? Put your spikiest, laggiest guys in sharks and let them lead the way (jr and eggs).

AND....Diso never was a cramming team.

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by BLeeN
However, you seems to not understand WHY cramming sharks don't mine ... it's for their teammates.
I don't think you read my why post good enough.
And I didn't even point out the fact about succesful lining and cramming. You really should read better before you even tell us things, that we hardly even talked about.

I can't understand your English too well Bleen. When I said *you* I was probably referring to ppl in general.

As for both successful cramming and lining creating less FR ... I was just pointing that out to ppl who use lining and ppl who believe that lining or believe lining is intrinsically a more fair strat than cramming ... or that lining is more exciting or creates more FR

[BLeeN]

Originally posted by Sufficient
I can't understand your English too well Bleen. When I said *you* I was probably referring to ppl in general.

As for both successful cramming and lining creating less FR ... I was just pointing that out to ppl who use lining and ppl who believe that lining or believe lining is intrinsically a more fair strat than cramming ... or that lining is more exciting or creates more FR

Read above, Suff =P

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by CrvenBan
Cram is like any other strat, except when extra lag is involved. How can you stop ppl from using kazaa and other programs ? Would you put your 300ms guy into shark or spid ?

No, they accidentally gathered at the entrance because they are on the way to a forest picnic.

That's the point, they don't lagout cuz they're still on low ping'n'ploss, it's just they spike more.

I don't want to be mean now, but Elusive's spiders were good spiders that could fight in open spaces, Spastics are decent, but that is all.
How to break other squads crams and lines ? Put your spikiest, laggiest guys in sharks and let them lead the way (jr and eggs).

AND....Diso never was a cramming team.

Plz don't give me any BS about Diso NOT cramming. Diso has crammed ... that's all I want to say ... you may not label yourself as a "cramming team" ... but you simply do cram.

As I said before ... lag is lag ... you only can stop ppl from cheating. It is a part of everyone who plays this game. I think there was a discussion awhile back on lagging and both the advantages and disadvantages it implies. If you think Spastic cheated then use ?cheater Crvn. If you don't do that then why keep with the posts?

Take a look at this situation:

Let's assume no one ever lags out in this TWLB.

Team A lags.
Team B lags more.

Team B has a unfair advantage over teams with lower lag including Team A. Can this problem be solved?

Lemme give you a comparison (I know comparing with other leagues is sometimes not a good idea but here is what I think):

In Pro/IML/AML (the SVS League) ... (I don't know that much about it so correct me if I'm wrong) ... the main strat is to stay together and fire together to eliminate the nme team. Simply being grouped together increases lag (applying the idea Crvn and Maiu and even I believe ... prob everyone believes). Thus do you call teaming up on the nme in such a grouped up strat to be and unfair lag advantage? Tell every single player and team who has/will ever play AML/IML/PRO and grouped up to team their nme that they lagcheated ...

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by BLeeN
[B]

Also, we are just saying we might want some little changes.
And how you are kinda bashing, Crven, Miau and me is like you are afraid that Spastic might not win next season, since cram might be less succesful after those changes.

I'm not trying to bash you guys (Miau, Crvn, and Bleen) ... in fact I have a lot of respect for you guys ... for Diso and WR ... why do you think I asked bigwig to join a when I first got into basing (prob 9 months ago) =)? I think I even asked to join Diso then.

I am not afraid that Spastic will not be successful next season bc I know that they've worked hard and developed into better players and a better team. Didn't you see that I WANT to make changes ... (to me ... even more helpful/drastic) than Miau's suggestions. How is that not wanting to improve basing?

My main concern is that you guys (and gals including Miau) are focusing too much on trying to eliminate cramming when ...

[emphasis] you should be focusing on OPENING UP the possibilities for other strats ... not taking anything away from the strategies already tried by other teams ... but adding to them by showing what else can be done[/emphasis]

You guys are simply not making any concessions/compromises on the issue.

[BLeeN]

I said this before, I didn't say I want to eliminate cramming.

We mainly pointed out how a shark might want to play and not just a meat shield.

Everyone has his own style of play, and that means he/she should play how he/she feels best with it.

Im not giving or bashing any suggestions. Since everyone has a different idea how he/she thinks about cramming. This whole thread is just getting biased imho, so Im this close to closing the thread.

[Windreaper]

Heh I suppose I could tell a story here. Before that I should point out that some sharks stopped or seriously limited defensive mining (I first scaled down to 2 hard to rep mines before giving them up altogether) way before cram was implemented in its true form. Some people claim that me and myth invented cram.

While it may be true in some respect we shouldn't really be given full credit. People have always been clumping up at the entrance firing down. There are however certain outside factors that led us into developing it into a tactic. Actually when I returned from army I was shocked to notice that it had become so popular and now I'm kicking myself in the head for ever coming up with it (I suppose people would've invented it anyway so no use crying over spilt milk in this case).

We used to team up with Myth a lot in ?go base that time. Myth wanted to try how well one shark teams work. We were, however left with at best average spiders who wouldn't stay in line no matter what. They were more interested in rushing out of entrance instead of lining. Myth's aggressive playing style didn't help much either. In other words the defensive team tried to push out of fr all the time and got horribly slaughtered.

I sort of thought that I should be protecting my team somehow and since they were all clumped up at entrance mining was no option. The simpliest thing I could come up with was moving in front of the spids rushing out and protecting them with reps time after time. We lost first time because we didn't quite know what doing but we decided to give it another go. This time it worked to perfection: our average spider line totally owned a line I considered to be vastly superior. I don't think we ever lost flag there.

Next game wasn't as rosy, though. Our 1 shark setup got mauled by nmy 2jav team. This was partially fixed by adding a second shark. I can't remember his name but I don't think he had sharked much. He did the job fine with little instructions: a) Don't _ever_ mine b) stay in front of your spids and rep incoming bullets c) when out of reps, die.

When I thought about this afterwards I noticed that me and Myth just sort of adapted to what our spids were doing (okay, Myth was already an experienced suicide terr at that time . So you could say that those 6 green spiders made up the strategy everyone hates right now. That's about the only time I really used cram myself (until now that is, left for army shortly afterwards). I suppose myth used many more cram lineups since it has become so popular. What I described were the happenings of 1 night of privbasing where we noticed just how damn effective it can be (ie. weaker team easily overcoming a stronger opponent).

Cramming should be viewed taking these events into account. It was basically a way for weaker basers to succeed at that time. I didn't even think using cram with a decent lineup not even mentioning leagues. I didn't think it was boring or unfair back then tho (I was completely surprised of its effectiviness). We didn't think it would be unfair against an established team either since a skilled jav was supposed to be able to break it as with happened with nmy 2jav setup. As mentioned before, I left for army after this.

When I came back from army I was shocked to hear that everyone was now using cram and that new teams were now seriously competing with squads like Diso/Pallies. At first I thought: "Good, so it evened up the skill difference after all". The illusion started to fade after a few games though. Teams of same skill level had hard time breaking each others' cram thus giving the team getting into flagroom first a huge advantage. As mentioned earlier Myth and I had noticed it worked very well even with a weak lineup and it was really put to show here. League level spids and sharks were easily being nullified by their green pubber counterparts (I'm not saying pubbing is bad, used to play lots of pub before privbasing).

In the end the strategy that was just supposed to give the underdog a fighting chance turned out to be the one that won Spastic TWLB this season. I could only watch the finals but I still got a good view on how powerful a squad that has trained cramming to near-perfection really is. Don't take me wrong, though. I give Spastic all credit for the win - you were amazing in flagroom too. You certainly are up there with the top guys where skill is concerned.

What we got left now is to develop an effective counter to cramming. Widening the entrance by a tile or two and removing the corners the spids nowadays lean against would make defeating cram easier and even boost other defensive methods (mainly lining, some new up --> down arcs would be opened). Cramming could still be implemented but terr would have to wait further from entrance. Also, good sharks would really get to shine here since nmy spids would now be reppable (ie. you could rep one side away from entrance, apply pressure to other and break in).

Okay I admit this post was totally off topic but I suppose the story had to be told. Myth might have a different version of this but this is how I remember it. The point I'm trying to make that instead of constantly bashing cram you should take into account the circumstances that lead to it.

Cheers.
-Wind

[Sufficient]

Originally posted by BLeeN
I said this before, I didn't say I want to eliminate cramming.

We mainly pointed out how a shark might want to play and not just a meat shield.

Everyone has his own style of play, and that means he/she should play how he/she feels best with it.

Crvn seems to want to eliminate the cram (tell me if I'm wrong).

I agree 100% with that statement. So if jr, eggs, gab and any other shark wants to play with no mines ... let them.

[Sufficient]

Interesting post Wind. However, instead of specifically targetting the cram (what even you claim to be a valid strategy ... but what others think is "using lag to gain an unfair advantage") ... why don't we just open up the FR more ... lines still can be played and cram still be used. To me 2 entrances is not as biasedly motivated (to those who want to eliminate cram) change ... rather it affects all styles of playing and strategies (lining and cramming are sort of equally affected).

(not aimed at anyone)
One cannot make a assumption that a cramming team has no skill ... that's like saying Mambo and Cami have no skill (both individual and team skill) ... which simply isn't true ...

[Luckily Yours]

guys , i found a minimum change that will not downgrade cram but make it breakable all the while...

u know how the platform holding the flag is ... in the bottom part of it there are 2 corners where cramming spiders sit and make themselves unreppable... so removing all the corners that exist in the flag platform would allow for alot more space in FR ... and alot more ability to hold the flag since sharks and spids wont be able to sit there and not be repped away ....

imho this would be the greatest minimum improvement to basing

remove the corner tiles from the platform

[Windreaper]

Heh, Lucky doesn't read :P. That's what me and Miau have been trying to tell you guys all the time. Coupled with a bigger entrance it would also make the base more open. I would try these two first before adding a secondary entrance (it's a last resort in my book).

[BLeeN]

Snif, Wind forgot it was me who played that game T_T

Those days were cool, it was those days when I was at myth's alot. And he explained his idea of getting his spiders quicker in the action. It was easier for me to shark since Myth could just yell when he needed help =P

I didn't mine alot or at all since I still was a newbie shark =)
Though it got me thinking more thoroughly about protecting the small entrance and just rep and protecting the rest.
5-100+ kill/death ratio wasn't uncommon for me heh