8 replies to this topic

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

I mentioned in the other thread about clan vs IS balance that map balance might be the more important factor that people are overlooking constantly.

If we look at the Tournament finals of this year the maps were 9 Canyon Networks, 6 Tourmalines, and 3 Polars. These maps all have long range open firing lines that favor poptarts, extreme range engagements, and high heat/high alpha trading builds. They also make brawling nearly impossible as the enemy can easily see your push moving towards them with even basic map knowledge and scouting and setup a long range firing line to shoot you whenever you try to move out of that cover.

If the tournament was played based around using both close range and long range maps we'd see a large shift in the gameplay during those tournaments. For example, if battles were had on Mining Collective, Bog, and Rubellite as the main three we'd have a larger focus on brawlers, as the firing lanes are very scarce for long range engagement, there's heavy cover, and first spotting of the enemy usually happens within 500m of them.


Aside from just the 6 maps named above, we have a total of 15 maps not even counting the faction play ones. If there was some more requirement to play on each of these map types throughout the tournaments we'd see a lot more diversity in matches as certain mechs would excel in certain conditions.

The way we currently have the Tournaments setup with teams just constantly picking huge open maps with clear sight lines leads to a much more narrow selection of viable options available.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Bumping this back up into the discussions, as its still an important factor.

I'd like to bring in the suggestion that players would see the map they are dropping on then be able to pick the mech they want to drop in similar to how faction play does it. This way we'd have an extremely diverse meta that would be different for each map since people would be allowed to bring in specialists for each map such as brawlers for mining collective, dual gauss or night gyrs for Terra Therma, extreme range on polar, etc. We'd also have counter metas to choose from that would develop.

It would be a whole lot less stale than the current mid range laser vomit all day every day because that's the build that works at an acceptable level in most conditions that you'll find.

With the ability to pick a mech before you drop on the map we can make map selection randomized yet weighted to pick an equal number of long range, close range, and hybrid range maps.

[Asym]

Ha ! This will never happen even though it's how comp should be run... The comp teams should have completely random map selections to make their meta gameplay more consistent with normal gameplay. Having two completely seperate worlds isn't smart nor profitable.

If I were in charge, the comp teams would fight in any of the maps available and they'd have zero choice in those selections. They'd be allowed two drop decks and I'd have the maps changed to create comp spawn points that are different that normal gameplay.... They would NOT be allowed on those maps to practice at all and I'd also add unique AI no-go turrets, lock-on dead zones, no-go terrain, IDF lethality buffs and game time changes. If they are the "best" of us, let's see if they can use anything other than meta builds on maps that they've never had months to "game out"..... You want exciting, stop being status quo....

Edited by Asym, 17 January 2018 - 03:26 AM.

[sycocys]

Map selection might be one of the worst updates they made.

Mode selection isn't far behind.

Having mech choice at drop wouldn't work out that well though for normal game/QP type settings as it only serves to increase the gap between newer players and veteran players who have more available dialed in options.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

sycocys, on 17 January 2018 - 03:37 AM, said:

Map selection might be one of the worst updates they made.

Mode selection isn't far behind.

Having mech choice at drop wouldn't work out that well though for normal game/QP type settings as it only serves to increase the gap between newer players and veteran players who have more available dialed in options.

That could be alleviated through a trial mech rework that provides builds for each role and stays up to date with the tech rather than just old builds that may or may not have any solid role.

[Luminis]

And that changes what, exactly?

IS winning on brawling maps and Clans winning on trading maps, so we call it a day because that's, apparently, balanced?

[justcallme A S H]

Asym, on 17 January 2018 - 03:24 AM, said:

Ha ! This will never happen even though it's how comp should be run... The comp teams should have completely random map selections to make their meta gameplay more consistent with normal gameplay. Having two completely seperate worlds isn't smart nor profitable.

If I were in charge, the comp teams would fight in any of the maps available and they'd have zero choice in those selections. They'd be allowed two drop decks and I'd have the maps changed to create comp spawn points that are different that normal gameplay.... They would NOT be allowed on those maps to practice at all and I'd also add unique AI no-go turrets, lock-on dead zones, no-go terrain, IDF lethality buffs and game time changes. If they are the "best" of us, let's see if they can use anything other than meta builds on maps that they've never had months to "game out"..... You want exciting, stop being status quo....

The old 'if I were in charge's statement again?

While PGI might not be a great job of things, I'm glad it's them and not you.

There would be no players left and non comp to speak of going by what you have outlined which is nothing short of clueless. I say that because if you'd ever played competitively you'd understand that just isn't how you run a Tournament.

[Seranov]

Asym, on 17 January 2018 - 03:24 AM, said:

old man rambling

You are aware that comp teams train for tourneys just like any other team trains for them, right? I'm sure that means dicking around on every map, looking for the best tactics for each. They just pick the ones that benefit them the most once they get to the tourney, which is why they play the three maps they did.

[Champion of Khorne Lord of Blood]

Luminis, on 17 January 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

And that changes what, exactly?

IS winning on brawling maps and Clans winning on trading maps, so we call it a day because that's, apparently, balanced?

Yeah, that's considered asymmetric balance, each team is good at one thing in particular over the other, thus they have an equivalent amount of pros and cons and generally will both win 50% of the time.

If anything it would raise the IS win rates considerably and change up the meta entirely, especially that of tournament level play. This would also raise the number of IS mechs used in the tournaments due to people actually having a reason to take the brawling faction instead of the high alpha trade faction.