95 replies to this topic

[Primus of ComStar]

The selection of potential map candidates for the Tournament has been narrowed down to the six maps deemed most suited to competitive play in the Conquest Game Mode. These six maps were arrived at with the assistance of various MWO community league runners.
In order for us to keep as many variables constant for fair gameplay, we will be selecting only one of the maps listed below to be used throughout the round robin process.

Canyon Network
Mining Collective
Tourmaline Desert
Polar Highlands
Caustic Valley
Frozen City

We are interested in hearing your feedback on these maps, along with any suggestions you may have as to which map we should lock in for use in this Tournament.

[avenger cannon]

Frozen City has space for sniping and hill humping in general, a nice risky flanking spot with the tunnel and the big spooky cliff side on the opposite end of the map. It also has the brawling and peekaboom potential offered by the buildings and wreckage.
It's cold so that helps all the laser meta mechs and keeps the action going with less people shutting down.

Edited by avenger cannon, 06 April 2016 - 09:50 AM.

[White Bear 84]

Did not vote, do not agree with the 'locked' map format, or the fixed skirmish format, fair is fair, but if teams have in excess of ?? months to practice, they should be familiar with each game mode and/or ALL of the games maps by the tournament date..

Edited by White Bear 84, 05 April 2016 - 06:31 PM.

[jadef1]

The map should be random at the time of the matches

[Tamerlin]

I voted for Mining, but like White Bear above I hope the round robin will change. Perhaps to "best of 3", with a different map for each drop. I don't mind skirmish only, but there better be rules to handle 0-0 ties.

Single drop tournements are rather anti-climatic.

[Zolaz]

Make the map as hot as possible. I want to see the elite skills of pilots riding the edge of shutting down from shooting. Also, it is awesome fun watching shut down mechs getting decapitated when they give the shut down bow in front of the enemy.

[Navid A1]

Polar highlands

[Cyrilis]

Its WORLD Championship...
Those players must be able to deal with everything.

Put all maps in the cauldron!
Put all game modes in the cauldron!

let it brew and see what they get.

Probably spice with an additional 'win by primary objective only rule' to avoid a boring skirmish everywhere soup.
I WANT TO SEE TACTICAL MOVEMENT FORM OUR COMMUNITY ELITE!!!

edited: spelling

Edited by Cyrilis, 06 April 2016 - 05:39 AM.

[Not A Real RAbbi]

I won't vote. I mean, ONE MAP ONLY?! REALLY?! Nah, man. NO.

What I suggest is this:

Each match is played in five rounds. Three maps are used. One HOT, one MODERATE/TEMPERATE/WHATEVER-IS-NORMAL, each used twice. Each team spawns each side of these two maps, for four rounds. IF a fifth round is needed, then the third map will be POLAR HIGHLANDS, and there will be only one round of it, as the match tiebreaker.

So, rounds 1 and 2 will be on Terra Therma, Tourmaline Desert, or Caustic Valley (PLZ Tourmaline). Rounds 3 and 4 will be played on Crimson Strait, River City, Mining Collective, etc. And if we need a round 5, it's played on Polar Highlands.

HOT maps are a must, at least for PART of the match. But running ALL hot maps kinda waters down the builds, since they'll just ALL be built ALL THE TIME for lower-heat weapons and more heat sinks, etc. We WANT to be able to run some stupid-hot builds in there somewhere, to just spew forth the firepower. But we also want to test the breadth of talents of the mechwarriors. And so, my vote...

Round 1 - Tourmaline Desert
Round 2 - Tourmaline Desert
Round 3 - Mining Collective
Round 4 - Mining Collective
Round 5 - Polar Highlands

Tourmaline is hot and big, with plenty of opportunities to use ranged fire as well as to close the gap and brawl. Mining is a smaller map, but not a hot one, that still has some cool snipey roosts. And Polar Highlands is just BIG, and the cold lets you run pretty much any build you like without an eye on heat, but also has those nice trenches that allow craftier mechwarriors to sneak around and to avoid the (we won't see them in the tourney anyhow) LRMs.

TLDR- 5 rounds, three maps, make it happen.

[Rushin Roulette]

For a competitive tournament of this nature you absolutely require a completely symmetrical design so that there is no reason for one side to complain about disadvantageous spawns. Maps that are fun to pug on do not mean that they can be used for a tournament style match

The only one on that list would be Mining collective (with Caustic coming close). I would also add HPG Manifold to the list of possible tournament maps. If you can reskin the 4v4a map to make it more presentable and make a few minor accessibility changes to it, then this could also be an excelent 8v8 tournament map.

Edited by Rushin Roulette, 05 April 2016 - 09:59 PM.

[Aresye]

Tamerlin, on 05 April 2016 - 06:38 PM, said:

Perhaps to "best of 3", with a different map for each drop. I don't mind skirmish only, but there better be rules to handle 0-0 ties.

Single drop tournements are rather anti-climatic.

^This

It honestly doesn't take long to do 2 drops (3 at most). Keep the same map but have teams switch sides between rounds, with no modifications to mechs allowed between rounds (save for reloading consumables).

Single drop tournaments not only end up being more boring to watch, but they end up screwing over so many teams due to outside influences.

For example, a player has a brief hiccup in their connection and drops a few packets (a very common occurrence), resulting in them experiencing a short period of warping. In high level play, small things like this can (and do) end up costing the entire team the match.

What about disconnects? Once again, very often occurrence, and usually ends up costing a team the match.

A "best of 3" system greatly reduces the overall influence these issues have on match outcome, which is good.

Single elimination is good for only one thing: Eliminating teams from the tournament for BS reasons 100% out of their control.

[Cyrilis]

Rushin Roulette, on 05 April 2016 - 09:58 PM, said:

For a competitive tournament of this nature you absolutely require a completely symmetrical design so that there is no reason for one side to complain about disadvantageous spawns. Maps that are fun to pug on do not mean that they can be used for a tournament style match

Then the only possible answer is to design a new map for nothing else that the championship in the style of the 1V1 or 2V2 testmaps that are in private matches availöable at the moment!

I personally say: make it random.

[AngelusDD]

i would rather see a random map selection
(and even unknown to the players, so no perfect match setup can be guaranteed - but that is just me)

but if it has to be a fixed map, i choose Tourmaline, since the tactical options are more diverse there than on the other 5 choices

Edited by AngelusDD, 06 April 2016 - 12:18 AM.

[JaidenHaze]

In MWO, unlike other games such as Counter Strike, you should strife for a perfect mirrored map. Since we dont have a "real" Attack-Defend Scenario (again, like in CS), you cant make a unbalanced map that favors another Team over the other, especially in a Best of 1 scenario.

I doubt, you can come up with an entire new map that is tested and balanced for the tournament, so of these choices above, i'd go for Mining Collective. It offers a "fairly" balanced map that is not perfect, but offers some more interesting ways to play.

The other big map is Canyon, but ist not balanced. The layout is vastly different on the outside ring and on the inside, where one ramp has an exit in the back, while the other does not. That seems like a minor thing but it is a big problem, if you play as an non-JJ equipped Mech that is heavy or assault. You just cant escape from that area without major hassles. While some may say: "Just deal with it", this is entirely decided by the spawn position and in a BO1, that is pure luck.

Do you really want that for your big tournament? I hope not.

[KHAN ATTAKHAN]

Tourmaline definately, it has the right terrain for lights, brawlers and support, no advantage of night vision, heat has to be managed well and tactics and strategy must be used, weapons of all kinds can be used, the usage of the terrain is paramount in winning a battle and ultimately you are forced to fight, the perfect map for honourable warfare.

[cry-]

KHAN ATTAKHAN666, on 06 April 2016 - 12:23 AM, said:

Tourmaline definately, it has the right terrain for lights, brawlers and support, no advantage of night vision, heat has to be managed well and tactics and strategy must be used, weapons of all kinds can be used, the usage of the terrain is paramount in winning a battle and ultimately you are forced to fight, the perfect map for honourable warfare.

It's one of the most "campy" maps, too. If you want ER Laser standoff battles, vote for this.

[Ranger Dave]

If forced to use a single map Mining is probably the most balanced. A single drop is over very quickly and may not be an accurate repressentation of player skills.

Random maps could end up randomly favouring teams that happened to luck the map that best suited their drop deck rather than the most skilled players.

Best of three is probably the fairest that would allow for fun viewing and still be fairly quick. Watching shoutcasts of MRBC a lot of interest is sparked by the review of a drop and speculating on how teams will adapt in the subsequent drops.

Agree with comments above that need a hot map and a 'not hot' map with the same mechs locked in to encourage interesting build choices.

[Tarogato]

crymoa, on 06 April 2016 - 02:27 AM, said:

It's one of the most "campy" maps, too. If you want ER Laser standoff battles, vote for this.

I'd prefer to see a good tactical ERLL camp-off any day rather than watching two teams just recklessly smash into each other until one of them loses.

[Zotzmaster]

Voting for maps, that all should be played ... but kicking out so many loyal players with the resolution destriction of 1920x1050 ... do your votes, i cant take part with my older rig

[SilverMalachite]

All of them, Because each may have a different purpose.

For example: Frozen city is quiet same so you would make that one the Assault class bracket.

Another Example: Polar highlands for Mixed class bracket, because it is bigger providing room for battle tactics such as ambushing/flanking/scout sniping etc.

Edited by EarthVen, 06 April 2016 - 04:58 AM.