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Neutrals/Counterpicks/Bans For map selection in tournaments thread

Power

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There are definitely several spots that you can place the rainmaker that make it very hard for the enemy to get to. You can simply leave the rainmaker alive in a secluded area (think places that have only one route to enter.) With the rainmaker, getting splatted by the enemy in these areas is a large blow to them as trying to take the route to get there is mostly no man's land.

@KTKres The evidence I had provided did not have much to do with stall points at the base, including the possibility of being splatted. It was early on in the process and we were mostly searching for different stall points that could break the mode. With further testing I can see that doing it at your base is the most effective way to stall (Provided that you are splatted by the enemy) as you spawn right there and the area can be very tough for them to get to.

Some of these areas off the top of my head: (Could refer to @Agosta44 map post)
-Arowana's grate or mini ledge before the hallway
-Walleye elbows, or mini ledge before the hallway
-Flounder heights, top of the buildings (the straight, thin platforms that you can climb from your side)


The only thing the enemy could do is wait for the rainmaker to explode, or just try to establish map control (while at the same time letting it explode at the 60 second mark) The enemy should not aim to splat the carrier at the isolated area, making it harder for them to get there. (similar to what @Hitzel had said) It is the enemy team's fault for splatting the rainmaker in a bad area, this can be prevented.

With this in mind, I feel that rainmaker shouldn't be written off yet.

tl;dr: Enemy can stall rainmaker, if you splat the rainmaker in a bad area. Other than that, wait 60 seconds and try to gain map control. (if they try to stall)
 

Agosta44

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To meet eye to eye with me, you're gonna have to discuss how camping with the rainmaker before the last 60 seconds is beneficial if the other team leaves the Rainmaker alive and paints the map. No one has done that yet. You can only camp forever if the Rainmaker dies.
Alright, fair enough. I will meet eye to eye with you.

Bringing the Rainmaker to the points I indicated does not mean the entire team needs to stand with the holder. Hell, a lot of those positions you WANT the opponent to kill the holder. If you bring the flag to top left or top right on Mackerel or onto the grating in Walleye, they have 2 options:

-kill the holder, giving the opposing team 4 players to defend the flag
-allow the holder to explode, eating up 60 seconds on the clock

You DO NOT have to defend this player. He is the decoy. You spend your time now charging your specials and staying in the area. If they decide to push the holder, you pick them off and let the flag stay there. If they choose not to, you have your specials prepped and wait for it to respawn in mid. After it respawns, either the opponent will be out of place and allowing for a huge push (backed by multiple specials) or you defend it, wipe the opponent team, then going back to stalling.

Note that you do not have to wait for the flag to blow you up. You can jump off early to catch the other team with their pants down if they're waiting to push at 0.
 

Hitzel

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Alright, fair enough. I will meet eye to eye with you.

Bringing the Rainmaker to the points I indicated does not mean the entire team needs to stand with the holder. Hell, a lot of those positions you WANT the opponent to kill the holder. If you bring the flag to top left or top right on Mackerel or onto the grating in Walleye, they have 2 options:

-kill the holder, giving the opposing team 4 players to defend the flag
-allow the holder to explode, eating up 60 seconds on the clock

You DO NOT have to defend this player. He is the decoy. You spend your time now charging your specials and staying in the area. If they decide to push the holder, you pick them off and let the flag stay there. If they choose not to, you have your specials prepped and wait for it to respawn in mid. After it respawns, either the opponent will be out of place and allowing for a huge push (backed by multiple specials) or you defend it, wipe the opponent team, then going back to stalling.

Note that you do not have to wait for the flag to blow you up. You can jump off early to catch the other team with their pants down if they're waiting to push at 0.
Well, we're talking about a team who's not going to take the obvious bait. I don't think that the camping team is in a good position in this situation for two reasons:

  • If the other team doesn't take the bait and charges their specials, you have to fight a 3v4 when the Rainmaker respawns because your 4th just exploded.
  • You are risking risking losing map control if there are 4 mobile players painting the map on their team and only 3 on your team. You're effectively playing a 3v4 for those 60 seconds.

In my experience, the team that counter-camps ends up being in the better situation when the Rainmaker explodes for those two reasons.

What I'm not taking into account are maps where the Rainmaker can camp somewhere that controls space for his teammates, which I'm sure is something to consider on more than one map. I'm also not taking into account someone with maxed out Quick Respawn (and maybe some special saver) being the one to hold the Rainmaker. Those things can definitely mitigate your disadvantage.
 

Power

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I say somebody holds a RM only tournament to see if stalling actually proves a problem in competitive play. That way, we can get a lot of data and finally put this discussion to an end, whichever way it goes.
Would love to work on holding a RM only tourney.
 

Agosta44

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Well, we're talking about a team who's not going to take the obvious bait. I don't think that the camping team is in a good position in this situation for two reasons:

  • If the other team doesn't take the bait and charges their specials, you have to fight a 3v4 when the Rainmaker respawns because your 4th just exploded.
  • You are risking risking losing map control if there are 4 mobile players painting the map on their team and only 3 on your team. You're effectively playing a 3v4 for those 60 seconds.

In my experience, the team that counter-camps ends up being in the better situation when the Rainmaker explodes for those two reasons.

What I'm not taking into account are maps where the Rainmaker can camp somewhere that controls space for his teammates, which I'm sure is something to consider on more than one map. I'm also not taking into account someone with maxed out Quick Respawn (and maybe some special saver) being the one to hold the Rainmaker. Those things can definitely mitigate your disadvantage.
"What if" situations are great and all, but what teams are truly capable at the moment to hold off say, Squid Squad Spades or imperious if they decide to camp with the Rainmaker?

3vs4 can be a disadvantage, but nowhere near an issue. If you choose to stall, you can easily set up gear for the designated flag holder which is nothing but Quick Respawn (which is almost instant respawning). Using a weapon like Krakon Roller or Tentatek allows you to do so without any negative affect on the player.

3vs4 on map control is not an issue either. If you're really concerned that you will lose map control while camping, enlist a dynamo in your team comp. They do the work of 3 people on area control and also carry Echo.
 

flc

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It's funny because I said to begin with that rainmaker couldn't possibly be a bad mode but I forgot that the maps are not classical fps maps where there are always multiple ways to any given position and that every other assault gametype I've played only rewards getting the bomb to the goal and not how far you got. I really couldn't have been more wrong.

I still insist that rainmaker should be tried, just like how turf war was. In its own separate tournaments, where people go in knowing full well that they're going to see some cheesy ****. Perhaps we could try a system whereby you can only win a rainmaker map by knockout (and distance is not taken into account; 100-2 would be a tied game), which would make stalling less effective. Granted, this could also give us a problem of games that never end ("Round 5, score is still 0-0!") between two very competent defensive teams, and it could also be a problem for spectators who come in and wonder "why is the score not being updated after that team won?". It also makes overtime inherently useless, since the game will end before the knockout, even if the knockout is inevitable (wipe at the 20 point mark for example). That said, it does address some of the mode's biggest flaws--stalling, for example, becomes counterproductive--and might be worth a shot.

Incidentally, people saying that the game becomes 3v4 when you're holding the rainmaker aren't quite correct. The rainmaker tornado is ****ing huge and goes a very long distance; provided it's covered against elitres and scopes, it's very difficult to fight into a rainmaker that can run away or that has team coverage. But even still, the point was that 3v4 holds are actually pretty straightforward in some camping spots; being able to simply set up in some unassailable corridor becomes even easier when the rainmaker knows how to fight back.

I've already argued for having Rainmaker be round-based regardless of whether my proposed ruleset is adopted, and I think that should absolutely hold true here. Running a ft2 or ft3 Rainmaker game, where only knockouts score, might actually work. It would need a lot of experimenting to find which maps work and which ones don't, of course; I don't, for example, see the larger maps working very well in this context. But it would at least make the smaller maps playable.
 

Hitzel

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Incidentally, people saying that the game becomes 3v4 when you're holding the rainmaker aren't quite correct. The rainmaker tornado is ****ing huge and goes a very long distance; provided it's covered against elitres and scopes, it's very difficult to fight into a rainmaker that can run away or that has team coverage. But even still, the point was that 3v4 holds are actually pretty straightforward in some camping spots; being able to simply set up in some unassailable corridor becomes even easier when the rainmaker knows how to fight back.
That's not my argument, to get you caught up:

My argument is that if a Rainmaker camps somewhere far-off and hard to reach, but the clock isn't close to running out, the answer is to counter-camp and paint the rest of the map.

This means that if the Rainmaker keeps camping, he will not be able to help his team 3v4 you, and then he will explode and the Rainmaker will respawn, which will most likely be in your hands since you just had 60 seconds to get map control in a 3v4.

Of course, the Rainmaker could just stop camping and actually play normally... which gets rid of the problem in the first place.
 

WydrA

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I'm sorry, but banning stalling is not an option because it's not discrete:

"Discrete
The thing to be banned must be able to be “completely defined.” Imagine that in a fighting game, repeating a certain sequence of five moves over and over is the best tactic in the game. Further suppose that doing so is “taboo” and that players want to ban it. There is no concrete definition of exactly what must be banned. Can players do three repetitions of the five moves? What about two reps? What about one? What about repeating the first four moves and omitting the fifth? Is that okay? The game becomes a test of who is willing to play as closely as possible to the “taboo tactic” without breaking the (arbitrary) letter of the law defining the tactic.

Or in a first-person shooter game, consider the notion of banning “camping” (sitting in one place for too long). No friendly agreement between the players is necessary for the ban, which at least means it’s enforceable. The server can monitor the positions of players, and it knows exactly who breaks the rule and can hand out penalties accordingly. The ban is enforceable, but the problem is being able to completely define camping. If camping is defined as staying within one zone for 3 minutes, and if it really is the best tactic, then sitting in that zone for 2 minutes 59 seconds becomes the best tactic. It’s a slippery slope because there will always exist camping tactics arbitrarily close to the specific kind of camping that is banned.

Here’s an example of a completely defined game element. In the card game Magic: The Gathering, if a particular card is deemed to be too good, then it is possible to ban it. One can define completely that “that card cannot be used.” There is no fear of players still “sort of” using it, in the same way they could still “sort of” repeat the moves from the fighting game, or “sort of” camp for 2 minutes 59 seconds above. The card is a discrete entity that can feasibly be banned."

Source: Playing to Win by David Sirlin, Chapter 6: http://www.sirlin.net/ptw-book/what-should-be-banned
I suggest reading this chapter before discussing bans in general.

Stalling is not a problem in this game anyway, and even if it was, banning "stalling" is just a poor, embarrassing way for a community to handle its game. The correct response is to omit problem map + gametype combinations from tournaments and play on better-suited combos more often, and that doesn't need to happen yet. The ban isn't even warranted.
You've taken poor Mister Sirlin's words out of context, and even worse, implied that the solution you've added at the end of your comment is supported by his reasoning.

I skimmed the whole chapter. It's quite well written, and he makes several very good points.
However none of it applies to the situation at hand and what I'm proposing.
Basically, he's talking about banning moves and techniques, I'm talking about banning a strategy. He's talking about banning said moves and techniques because they gives unfair advantages. I'm talking about banning strategies because, balanced or not, it's not enjoyable to watch or play against, and will drive people away from the game.
If you want i can get into exactly why these rules aren't going to work when the whole basis of the ideas are so different, but hopefully you see it for yourself.

Additionally, Sirlin in no way suggests that banning game modes or gametypes is a logical solution to any sort of issue pertaining to strategy and keeping viewership up and players happy. In fact he doesn't even suggest it for overpowered techniques and moves like he's actually talking about. Most likely because it is no way actually a logical solution to the problem and actually goes almost completely against what he's just talked about. Sirlon says that if the card/move/technique etc. does not fullfill these standards, that you just simply leave it in. He does not say "you obviously must simply nuke the whole thing. Just don't even let people play the mode."
It's grossly overcompensating for the problem. It's taken an issue that may have been manageable before and decided made it out to be a problem that's not even worth trying to fix, destroying all the good things about the mode (that most likely hugely outweigh the problem) and just getting rid of all those things as well.

Also, you've conveniently forgotten that adjacent to things being discreet Sirlin states that things you're going to ban must also be Enforceable (which a mode or map ban admittedly would be) and warranted. And that's where you've massively overstepped. Sirlin himself says whether or not the ban is warranted is "the whole issue". Immediately afterwards he states"If it isn’t warranted to ban something, we don’t need to even consider whether it’s enforceable or discrete."
And then from there he gives examples of moves and techniques that had huge effect on certain games because of just how strong and versatile they were. Then he talks about game breaking glitches. Then he presents that the only time things should be banned is when they are so strong that essentially everything else becomes totally nonviable. And then he's done. No mention of banning modes or maps as a response. Probably because the idea of that being warranted was so outrageous it didn't cross his mind.

Bonus: I lied. He wasn't quite done. He goes on to talk about the concept of a "soft ban". In other words, an ban that isn't set in stone/official in any way, just a sort of unspoken agreement amongst the players. Interestingly enough, the soft ban he used as an example was banned not mainly for balance reasons, but for the beauty of the game and to keep things interesting and diverse.

Hmm. Almost sounds a bit like what I'm proposing.
 

Hitzel

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Erm.. my stance in this thread from the beginning is that nothing should be banned, and that Halo-style map + gametype selection solves a lot of the problems being discussed.

If a particular map + gametype combo is soooo broken that it can't be used at tournaments, then maybe it shouldn't be used in tournaments. Its inclusion could also simply be limited. That's another advantage of Halo-style gametype selection, TO's can simply recognize a problem combo and make sure it doesn't appear too often.
 

WydrA

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Erm.. my stance in this thread from the beginning is that nothing should be banned, and that Halo-style map + gametype selection solves a lot of the problems being discussed.

If a particular map + gametype combo is soooo broken that it can't be used at tournaments, then maybe it shouldn't be used in tournaments. Its inclusion could also simply be limited. That's another advantage of Halo-style gametype selection, TO's can simply recognize a problem combo and make sure it doesn't appear too often.
Just checking you don't mean me, right?
 

Kbot

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Erm.. my stance in this thread from the beginning is that nothing should be banned, and that Halo-style map + gametype selection solves a lot of the problems being discussed.

If a particular map + gametype combo is soooo broken that it can't be used at tournaments, then maybe it shouldn't be used in tournaments. Its inclusion could also simply be limited. That's another advantage of Halo-style gametype selection, TO's can simply recognize a problem combo and make sure it doesn't appear too often.
However, for TOs it would be nice to have a reference list of what the community thinks. That's where this comes in for you.
 

Kbot

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How about we make a thread of the most balanced mode/map pairings. Anyone up for it?
Would that not be what this thread accomplishes when we do come across a final decision in 2 months? I mean, we're all doing the same thing here.
 

flc

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How about we make a thread of the most balanced mode/map pairings. Anyone up for it?
content of said thread:
"Arowana Zones is ****!" - posted by people who haven't played arowana zones since it was patched
"Moray is broken by elitres!" - posted by people who haven't played moray against an elitre in a proper team game or otherwise don't exploit its complete lack of options outside of mid

and so on.

nobody, myself included, has a ****ing clue about map balance. give it time.
 

GameGalaxy64

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content of said thread:
"Arowana Zones is ****!" - posted by people who haven't played arowana zones since it was patched
"Moray is broken by elitres!" - posted by people who haven't played moray against an elitre in a proper team game or otherwise don't exploit its complete lack of options outside of mid

and so on.

nobody, myself included, has a ****ing clue about map balance. give it time.
I totally agree with you, but we can at least make preliminary judgement regarding the matter and see how it stands over time.
 

GameGalaxy64

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But it was relevant and a discussion we needed to have somewhere. And it will most likely still continue.
Yes, it was totally necessary. It was more "Should RM be banned" rather than "Neutrals/Counterpicks/Bans For map selection in tournaments thread". Not that it's a bad thing or anything. This conversation was really useful and constructive!
 

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