Making maps competitive
Scrajm
Join Date: 2011-10-17 Member: 127859Members
Join Date: 2011-10-17 Member: 127859Members
Scrajm´s 10 commandments.
1. Introduction.
2. Ten commandments for a map to be playable
2.1 Both sides at all spawn points should always have somewhat easy access to exactly two additional res nodes.
Arguments:
2.2 If the map is big, the RTs should always be forward on to the map from spawn
2.3 Both sides need a 2nd hive spot to expand into that cannot be too easy taken down, but not too easy to defend.
2.4 All tech points should be equally viable for both sides to expand to, given the proximity
2.5 Where marines spawn, there mustn´t be more than two entrances, and no vents.
2.6 The chokepoints cannot be too choky.
2.7 No hive should be able to get sieged from an absurd location.
2.8 There cannot be too many or too few res nodes
2.9 Spawns should always be far
2.10 No spot should be bile bombable where marines cannot kill the gorge
Now, feel free to make counter arguments against any of these. Maybe I will change my mind, or maybe you will force me to sharpen up my arguments. In either case, I’m happy. I will however tomorrow or when I have time use these to analyze why I think docking and descent not are playable yet.
1. Introduction.
After reading Cory´s post regarding maps, I discovered that UWE would like to have feedback regarding some maps created by them and their proxies. This is something I did not know they asked for, but considering their history of transparency and willingness to listen to their community, it didn’t come as a surprise. So I thought, well, why aren’t we playing some of the new maps more? I realized that I actually haven’t even looked at descent more than 5 secs before I judged it being bad. Same with docking. This is of course wrong of me, and now I actually feel ashamed for my behavior.
But the truth to the matter is that I believe there are some fundamental things that maps in NS2 needs in order for them to be playable in competitive games. And I feel that some of these maps lack this. So in order to remedy this, I wrote 10 things that I feel are fundamental for a map to be playable. The idea is that if a map lacks too many of these, I don’t like it. If it has most of it, it’s playable. If it has all, it’s awesome.
But the truth to the matter is that I believe there are some fundamental things that maps in NS2 needs in order for them to be playable in competitive games. And I feel that some of these maps lack this. So in order to remedy this, I wrote 10 things that I feel are fundamental for a map to be playable. The idea is that if a map lacks too many of these, I don’t like it. If it has most of it, it’s playable. If it has all, it’s awesome.
2. Ten commandments for a map to be playable
2.1 Both sides at all spawn points should always have somewhat easy access to exactly two additional res nodes.
Arguments:
Game is balanced around this already.
What I mean by this argument is of course to how the game is designed and balanced atm: with the current res flow and cost for getting techs and life forms, if you have access to more than or less than two additional, you either get a game which takes too long or just goes to fast. Also, if maps differ from this commandment, an already difficult game will be even more difficult to balance.
These two “naturals” mustn’t be too far away or too close to the spawn point
If they are too far away they get too difficult to defend for both sides and hence they will go down too often, resulting in a low res game which isn’t that fun to watch due to the super long game they will produce. If they are too close to spawn point, the other side cannot kill them easy enough which makes for stale game play (why attack something that is has such a low chance of succeeding, then it’s better to camp).
It’s nice for the casters
We want those moments where the casters can hype it up “WILL THEY TAKE IT DOWN?!” resulting in “WHAT A NICE SAVE!!” or “WHAT A NICE RT KILL”. Also, if they go down too often, it won’t be such a cool thing for the casters to highlight. We want them RTs to go down every now and then, but not too often.
What I mean by this argument is of course to how the game is designed and balanced atm: with the current res flow and cost for getting techs and life forms, if you have access to more than or less than two additional, you either get a game which takes too long or just goes to fast. Also, if maps differ from this commandment, an already difficult game will be even more difficult to balance.
These two “naturals” mustn’t be too far away or too close to the spawn point
If they are too far away they get too difficult to defend for both sides and hence they will go down too often, resulting in a low res game which isn’t that fun to watch due to the super long game they will produce. If they are too close to spawn point, the other side cannot kill them easy enough which makes for stale game play (why attack something that is has such a low chance of succeeding, then it’s better to camp).
It’s nice for the casters
We want those moments where the casters can hype it up “WILL THEY TAKE IT DOWN?!” resulting in “WHAT A NICE SAVE!!” or “WHAT A NICE RT KILL”. Also, if they go down too often, it won’t be such a cool thing for the casters to highlight. We want them RTs to go down every now and then, but not too often.
2.2 If the map is big, the RTs should always be forward on to the map from spawn
Moving backwards gives aliens too big of a favor
Since aliens are supposed to be the mobile race, it’s important that a marine can move to save an RT at the same time as (s)he moves more central to the map. If the marine have to move backwards from the spawn point relative to the central points of the map to save an RT, it will result in aliens being able to start biting that RT and basically removing that marine from quite some time from the game since it will take a long time for him/her to get back in the map. On small maps though, this isn´t an issue since that marine will be back out on the map in no time anyways.
Makes the map feel too “big”
If you have to move backwards to save RTs, it will result in the map feeling overly huge. If you want big maps, you need to be able to save RTs and move forward at the same time.
Moving forward is more action oriented
And since that marine now will be essentially removed from the game, it results in more needless leg work, which is boring for the player. Chasing them skulks just isn´t that fun. Being in combat is what both players and viewers alike enjoy.
Since aliens are supposed to be the mobile race, it’s important that a marine can move to save an RT at the same time as (s)he moves more central to the map. If the marine have to move backwards from the spawn point relative to the central points of the map to save an RT, it will result in aliens being able to start biting that RT and basically removing that marine from quite some time from the game since it will take a long time for him/her to get back in the map. On small maps though, this isn´t an issue since that marine will be back out on the map in no time anyways.
Makes the map feel too “big”
If you have to move backwards to save RTs, it will result in the map feeling overly huge. If you want big maps, you need to be able to save RTs and move forward at the same time.
Moving forward is more action oriented
And since that marine now will be essentially removed from the game, it results in more needless leg work, which is boring for the player. Chasing them skulks just isn´t that fun. Being in combat is what both players and viewers alike enjoy.
2.3 Both sides need a 2nd hive spot to expand into that cannot be too easy taken down, but not too easy to defend.
Giving teams options are almost always a good thing
If a second hive is too easy to hold for aliens, marines won´t be able to engage it, which is going to result in stale game where marines think it’s better to hold off and camp. This is boring for the spectators and boring for the players. If the hive is too easy to take down, marines will always make a push towards it which just makes predictable games. We want the marines to be able to choose: should we try to kill that second hive now when it’s dropped, or should we just expand ourselves and play a macro game?
Raising skill cap for commanders
When marines can make decisions about how they will play, aliens have to respond to that, resulting in a higher skill cap for commanders from both sides. If you know as the alien com that marines have the option to either push that hive or play macro, it requires the alien com to be able to decide what to do. It requires scouting from aliens in order to make proper responses. This is also good for creating meta games. If a team is known to play macro oriented, maybe aliens can cut corners some corners?
Gives casters tons of fun stuff to discuss
When marines can choose to push or to go macro, it gives the casters opportunities to discuss the strategy chosen by both parties, how it was executed, should they have done something different, what it resulted in etc. It’s just more fun to watch streams with casters discussing strats chosen from the teams!
If a second hive is too easy to hold for aliens, marines won´t be able to engage it, which is going to result in stale game where marines think it’s better to hold off and camp. This is boring for the spectators and boring for the players. If the hive is too easy to take down, marines will always make a push towards it which just makes predictable games. We want the marines to be able to choose: should we try to kill that second hive now when it’s dropped, or should we just expand ourselves and play a macro game?
Raising skill cap for commanders
When marines can make decisions about how they will play, aliens have to respond to that, resulting in a higher skill cap for commanders from both sides. If you know as the alien com that marines have the option to either push that hive or play macro, it requires the alien com to be able to decide what to do. It requires scouting from aliens in order to make proper responses. This is also good for creating meta games. If a team is known to play macro oriented, maybe aliens can cut corners some corners?
Gives casters tons of fun stuff to discuss
When marines can choose to push or to go macro, it gives the casters opportunities to discuss the strategy chosen by both parties, how it was executed, should they have done something different, what it resulted in etc. It’s just more fun to watch streams with casters discussing strats chosen from the teams!
2.4 All tech points should be equally viable for both sides to expand to, given the proximity
Makes games less predictable
If one tech point obviously is made for one team to expand to, it will of course result in that side always expands towards that way. This results in predictable games, which is boring for both viewers and players. We want games which vary. Predictable games removes: 1) Meta gaming 2) Strategic options 3) Casters being able to discuss the decisions taken by the teams
If one tech point obviously is made for one team to expand to, it will of course result in that side always expands towards that way. This results in predictable games, which is boring for both viewers and players. We want games which vary. Predictable games removes: 1) Meta gaming 2) Strategic options 3) Casters being able to discuss the decisions taken by the teams
2.5 Where marines spawn, there mustn´t be more than two entrances, and no vents.
Skewing balance
If there are a lot of vents leading into marine start, one marine most likely will have to stay there and camp it in the beginning. This is extremely boring for this player. Even if aliens aren’t base rushing at this point, marines can never know. This results in that if marines want to play somewhat safe, they can at any given point in early game only have 4 marines on the field, resulting in skewing the balance on the field. Even when the obs is up and if one skulk repeatedly can move into the base and force a beacon, it will end up in marines loosing map control hurting them too much.
Reducing skill ceiling of the marine commander and player positioning
A marine commander and the players should at any given point be able to screen of the map making somewhat sure aliens can´t attack base. In real game play, this can never be 100% and that´s how we want it. But we want the notion that the better the commander and the players are, the better (s)he will place the marines, and reducing the likelihood of aliens successfully making a base rush. Having vents leading into base which the commander/players cannot do anything about removes this aspect of the marine positioning, reducing skill ceiling for both players and commanders.
Makes base rushes too common
If base rushes are too big of a temptation for aliens, they will become frequent on this map, making the game predictable. We want base rushes to be somewhat uncommon, so when they do happen, casters can make a big thing of it. If it happen all the time, it´s just “*yawn* base rush again”
If there are a lot of vents leading into marine start, one marine most likely will have to stay there and camp it in the beginning. This is extremely boring for this player. Even if aliens aren’t base rushing at this point, marines can never know. This results in that if marines want to play somewhat safe, they can at any given point in early game only have 4 marines on the field, resulting in skewing the balance on the field. Even when the obs is up and if one skulk repeatedly can move into the base and force a beacon, it will end up in marines loosing map control hurting them too much.
Reducing skill ceiling of the marine commander and player positioning
A marine commander and the players should at any given point be able to screen of the map making somewhat sure aliens can´t attack base. In real game play, this can never be 100% and that´s how we want it. But we want the notion that the better the commander and the players are, the better (s)he will place the marines, and reducing the likelihood of aliens successfully making a base rush. Having vents leading into base which the commander/players cannot do anything about removes this aspect of the marine positioning, reducing skill ceiling for both players and commanders.
Makes base rushes too common
If base rushes are too big of a temptation for aliens, they will become frequent on this map, making the game predictable. We want base rushes to be somewhat uncommon, so when they do happen, casters can make a big thing of it. If it happen all the time, it´s just “*yawn* base rush again”
2.6 The chokepoints cannot be too choky.
If one point on the map is too chooky, all battle will be around that point
If there is a place on the map which is too important not to control, that maps battle will most likely always be around that point. This makes for predictable games, reducing the commanders tactical options. And again, we want games that vary, and we want options for the teams.
If there is a place on the map which is too important not to control, that maps battle will most likely always be around that point. This makes for predictable games, reducing the commanders tactical options. And again, we want games that vary, and we want options for the teams.
2.7 No hive should be able to get sieged from an absurd location.
If a hive is too easy to siege, it will result in predictable games
Competitive teams play to win. If there is too much of a temptation for an easy win just be sieging a hive, we will do it. This creates maps where game play gets predictable. And by know, you should know that predictable games are boring.
Hurting balance
If one hive is EZ mode sieging, that map will most likely end up in countless marine wins. How fun is that?
Competitive teams play to win. If there is too much of a temptation for an easy win just be sieging a hive, we will do it. This creates maps where game play gets predictable. And by know, you should know that predictable games are boring.
Hurting balance
If one hive is EZ mode sieging, that map will most likely end up in countless marine wins. How fun is that?
2.8 There cannot be too many or too few res nodes
Making balance more difficult
The game at the moment is balanced around having maps with about 9-10 rts. If you have more or less rts on a map, the game numbers needs to be balanced around that. Res flow needs to change, tech cost needs to change. But that would just be silly, having different game numbers for different maps. What you need is somewhat of a standard on maps so that balancing this games numbers has something solid to stand on. If one map have 5 rts, and the other 15, how on earth are you going to balance a game that feels balanced on both of those maps? The game is hard to balance as it is, don´t need to make it more complex than it already is.
Hurting game pace
If there are too many res nodes, it just results in game pace being way off. Late game 5 mins into the game? No thnx.
The game at the moment is balanced around having maps with about 9-10 rts. If you have more or less rts on a map, the game numbers needs to be balanced around that. Res flow needs to change, tech cost needs to change. But that would just be silly, having different game numbers for different maps. What you need is somewhat of a standard on maps so that balancing this games numbers has something solid to stand on. If one map have 5 rts, and the other 15, how on earth are you going to balance a game that feels balanced on both of those maps? The game is hard to balance as it is, don´t need to make it more complex than it already is.
Hurting game pace
If there are too many res nodes, it just results in game pace being way off. Late game 5 mins into the game? No thnx.
2.9 Spawns should always be far
Macro games often results in the better team winning
The longer a game drags out, the more encounters there will be. If a map is decided by 1 encounter, there will be quite a random factor involved who will win. Even a bad team can then win over a way better team. But if map instead is decided by 100 encounters it will result in a higher likelihood of the better team winning a majority of the engagements, resulting in that the better team should come off as a winner on that map. Also, the longer a game is, the more likelihood of both of the commanders to do good calls, and exploiting bad plays from the other team.
Makes balance more difficult
Balancing a game around both the fact that we can have close spawns and far spawns is just not that good. In the beginning of SC2, there were a lot of small maps like steps of war. But eventually they got removed, and bigger and bigger maps were introduced. Zerg just always lost on steps of war (a super small sc2 map). If you don’t have some form of standard on maps, like total number of rts, numbers of naturals, and a somewhat standard on spawn distance, the game just will never be balanced on all maps. You cannot have maps that differ too much in this sense; you can only balance numbers around some form of standard on the maps. Otherwise some maps will just always be biased towards one side.
Macro games are more fun to watch
Base rushes and egg locks shouldn’t occur to often. We don’t want predictable games. Both players and viewers also like longer macro games instead of rushes. Watching games ending in a rush is such a anti climax. I want to watch the games and analyze them. And longer games have more to analyze! There is nothing to analyze in a base rush / egg lock except that one side just failed.
The longer a game drags out, the more encounters there will be. If a map is decided by 1 encounter, there will be quite a random factor involved who will win. Even a bad team can then win over a way better team. But if map instead is decided by 100 encounters it will result in a higher likelihood of the better team winning a majority of the engagements, resulting in that the better team should come off as a winner on that map. Also, the longer a game is, the more likelihood of both of the commanders to do good calls, and exploiting bad plays from the other team.
Makes balance more difficult
Balancing a game around both the fact that we can have close spawns and far spawns is just not that good. In the beginning of SC2, there were a lot of small maps like steps of war. But eventually they got removed, and bigger and bigger maps were introduced. Zerg just always lost on steps of war (a super small sc2 map). If you don’t have some form of standard on maps, like total number of rts, numbers of naturals, and a somewhat standard on spawn distance, the game just will never be balanced on all maps. You cannot have maps that differ too much in this sense; you can only balance numbers around some form of standard on the maps. Otherwise some maps will just always be biased towards one side.
Macro games are more fun to watch
Base rushes and egg locks shouldn’t occur to often. We don’t want predictable games. Both players and viewers also like longer macro games instead of rushes. Watching games ending in a rush is such a anti climax. I want to watch the games and analyze them. And longer games have more to analyze! There is nothing to analyze in a base rush / egg lock except that one side just failed.
2.10 No spot should be bile bombable where marines cannot kill the gorge
A game should always have soft counters for everything, and so should the maps
If a carablink fade faces a single 0/0 lmg marine, the fade should win. But the idea that a better marine can kill that fade if (s)he just plays well enough is a fun notion. Same goes with most things in NS2: we have probabilities and skill involved in most things. And a core pillar of this game is just that notion that if one just practices enough one have a higher chance of winning engagements, even when outnumbered and on bad odds.
That’s why we don’t want rooms where gorges can bile stuff without the marines ever being able to counter it with skill. Having to research GL to kill a vent gorge bileing your power node or pg is quite the opposite of how the rest of the game is played. You shouldn´t need a specific tech to be able to win an engagement in form of a hard counter (if I have tech x vs tech y, I always win), everything in a game should be soft counters (if I have tech x vs tech y, it raises my odds, but I can still lose if the other player is better than me). Having to research GL or JP to kill bile gorges, is a hard counter in a game with no other hard counters. Hence, there should be no place in on any map where a gorge can kill stuff without the marines being able to kill it.
If a carablink fade faces a single 0/0 lmg marine, the fade should win. But the idea that a better marine can kill that fade if (s)he just plays well enough is a fun notion. Same goes with most things in NS2: we have probabilities and skill involved in most things. And a core pillar of this game is just that notion that if one just practices enough one have a higher chance of winning engagements, even when outnumbered and on bad odds.
That’s why we don’t want rooms where gorges can bile stuff without the marines ever being able to counter it with skill. Having to research GL to kill a vent gorge bileing your power node or pg is quite the opposite of how the rest of the game is played. You shouldn´t need a specific tech to be able to win an engagement in form of a hard counter (if I have tech x vs tech y, I always win), everything in a game should be soft counters (if I have tech x vs tech y, it raises my odds, but I can still lose if the other player is better than me). Having to research GL or JP to kill bile gorges, is a hard counter in a game with no other hard counters. Hence, there should be no place in on any map where a gorge can kill stuff without the marines being able to kill it.
Now, feel free to make counter arguments against any of these. Maybe I will change my mind, or maybe you will force me to sharpen up my arguments. In either case, I’m happy. I will however tomorrow or when I have time use these to analyze why I think docking and descent not are playable yet.
Comments
What is competitive? As long as there are equal opportunities for victory with each side having advantages & disadvantages, and as long as the gameplay involves the skills NS2 is supposed to be about, then it can be competitive.... It may take a ton of expertise to design something non-standard that is competitive, but I wouldn't call it impossible
There could be maps where marines are expected to win without getting a 2nd tech point
There could be alien harvester locations that are expected to be held only temporarily
There could be a map where arcs cannot roam freely but players can jump over the obstacles
There could be a map where teams start with 0 rts or 2 rts
etc.
etc.
lots of possibilities. not all maps must have the same pacing or flow...
Spoiler:
Macro games often results in the better team winning
The longer a game drags out, the more encounters there will be. If a map is decided by 1 encounter, there will be quite a random factor involved who will win. Even a bad team can then win over a way better team. But if map instead is decided by 100 encounters it will result in a higher likelihood of the better team winning a majority of the engagements, resulting in that the better team should come off as a winner on that map. Also, the longer a game is, the more likelihood of both of the commanders to do good calls, and exploiting bad plays from the other team.
Makes balance more difficult
Balancing a game around both the fact that we can have close spawns and far spawns is just not that good. In the beginning of SC2, there were a lot of small maps like steps of war. But eventually they got removed, and bigger and bigger maps were introduced. Zerg just always lost on steps of war (a super small sc2 map). If you don’t have some form of standard on maps, like total number of rts, numbers of naturals, and a somewhat standard on spawn distance, the game just will never be balanced on all maps. You cannot have maps that differ too much in this sense; you can only balance numbers around some form of standard on the maps. Otherwise some maps will just always be biased towards one side.
Macro games are more fun to watch
Base rushes and egg locks shouldn’t occur to often. We don’t want predictable games. Both players and viewers also like longer macro games instead of rushes. Watching games ending in a rush is such a anti climax. I want to watch the games and analyze them. And longer games have more to analyze! There is nothing to analyze in a base rush / egg lock except that one side just failed.
I strongly disagree with this point. There can be more encounters in close spawns because of the opportunity for faster pressure, they just take place in a shorter period of time. I would disagree that longer games necessarily = better games. I think that with variable spawns comes variable strategies and the requirement for more dynamic play which results in more interesting play (one of the main themes of your post). Of course there is the issue of balancing for different spawns, but I think its definitely possible as long as the maps are given appropriate choke points and RTs are fairly placed.
I don't think starcraft is a fair analogy because the zerg in that game were basically required to immediately expand which put them in a vulnerable position in the very early game, I'm not sure if aliens are equally vulnerable. I believe they have to tools (gorge) at the beginning of the game to deal fairly with close spawn situations. Obviously a map with close spawns would require a gorge defensible choke point.
rude
There should always be a minimum distance between spawns (I like the one RT between spawns that seems to have become the unspoken rule in NS2), but I don't think the most desirable situation is to always have the farthest distance between spawns. The threat of a rush is a valuable component in any strategy meta-game, that nerfing its possibility via distance will leave NS2 for the poorer.
I also see value in giving a lesser FPS-skilled team the opportunity for winning via superior coordination and strategy. Watching a rush win isn't very exciting, but watching a stomp is even less so. Having the possibly for the 'worse' team to achieve an improbable victory, as long as it is rare, is a good way to keep competitive seasons and tournies unpredictable and exciting.
@ScardyBob For my own document I have talked to people and this issue came out. The problem is that minimizing the distance between spawns results in less consequences for failing a base rush. As it is easier to constantly respawn and pursue the rush. While increasing the distance doesn't stop base rushes from happening. Its more about giving consequences to failed base rushes, than allowing base rushes to happen or not.
Also, distance has a pretty big effect on the effectiveness of rushing as a successful rush is dependent on speed and stealth. Its why you see way more rushes on tram and summit as opposed to veil. Maximizing spawn distance is a nerf of a rushing problem that I rarely saw in practice.
It makes the alien team having to constantly have some one in their base (sounds like fun!). To some extent it also reduces the need for scouting since you know that those two marines will allways come since it's the most advantageous thing to do. How fun is it, for either side to constantly have to walk down the same hallway and do the same thing for the entirety of the round. It isn't.
Close spawns are shit.
Also, Scardybob, I want to remember you saying that the imbalance is only noticable on the highest levels of play. (Sorry if I'm mistaken, but I'm also too lazy to find the quote).
How do you suppose the league should handle the problem then? Only having cross spawns for div1 teams? Or make the div1 teams suffer because of some teams not knowing how to handle the imbalance?
Less the highest levels of play, but more when the skill difference between the teams is relatively close (which happens to occur mostly in the highest levels of play).
However, my concern is more of keeping rushing (defined as a 4-6 player push to a single target) viable, but rare, rather then it becoming the dominant strat that effects overall game balance stats. For the sake of argument, lets say the chance of a successful close spawn rush is 1/100, while cross spawns is 1/1000. If we restrict to cross spawns only, then many teams would (correctly) not bother to do much to prepare for a rush as it would have gone from rare (1%) to very rare (0.1%). The strategic meta game becomes much less interesting and complex.
From my experience, the 'close spawn' issue was less about spawn distance and more about the imbalances between the alien and marine spawning system. Early game alien egg-spawning rate is highly vulnerable to egg-locking even when you go 1 for 1 in kills with marines. In that case, it makes sense for the marine team to constantly push the alien hive to try to drive up the alien death rate higher then their egg spawning rate. Since marines can easily and cheaper increase their own spawning rate (via IPs), they could ensure they wouldn't get spawn-locked themselves. Increasing spawn distance (via cross spawns) can help this problem, since it reduces the alien death rate, but the better solution is to improve the alien egg spawning system.
If anything, NSL needs a 'better alien egg spawn system' mod than a 'no close spawns' one. I guess I'm in the minority, but I don't think 'longer' games are a desirable goal of either watching or playing NS2. What I want to see and play are evenly matched games, where victory is neither easily achieved or completely unattainable until the very end. It just so happens that evenly matched games are typically longer ones, but that doesn't mean forcing longer games will make them more evenly matched (the old correlation does not equal causation argument).
I still remember in the beta when summit had fixed spawns and it was very boring and monotonous after 10 rounds of the same thing. Having this rule is just going back to that same boring and static play that we had a long time ago in the beta. I for one don't think close spawns is really an issue and the two spots (summit FC->Sub and Tram WH-> Serv) where it is should be addressed by changes in the map rather than restrictive and boring mods.
Removing the early game "where did they spawn?" mechanic results in boring games (in my opinion) because it creates the same encounters time and time again.
Lets stop dumbing the game down and actually learn to cope with close spawns - After all, the better team should know how to counter this if in fact they are "better".
I have always been annoyed with the vents into atrium, but never really bothered with the vents into sub. I think this condition adds alot and is more in line with my themes of the commandments, that both sides should be able to counter with good solid play.
I have to say that about far/close spawns I am still unsure. I always hear good arguments from both sides, and I just like good arguments. The main argument about not having close spawn has always been that it removes some fun factors like
1) Varation
2) Strategy
These are valid points made by ScardyBob and Tempest. Two of the main themes made in the 10 commandments have been just that: strategy and variation. Waving this off with any solid arguments seems overly difficult. I also think this is why I am so divided in this issue. But I was hopeing that variation and giving teams the ability to choose different strategies would come from other aspects of the game rather the close spawns. Tempest accusses this of beeing , but I feel that we can "sacrifice" these for something more desirable: longer macro games with occosational timing pushes. This is of course only if you agree to the idea that long games (15-20 mins) is a good thing from the very beginning.
ScardyBob seems to agree with that atm base rushes on close spawns are somewhat stronger than they should be. ScardyBob however argues that we might be able to keep the added variation and strategic depth from close spawns if we just balance the close spawn rushes to be less viable by, for instance, changing spawn system. This is an interesting idea. Another theme made in the commandments was that there should be some form of "standard" on the maps so the game numbers gets easier to balance. Spawn system might ofc change, but I wonder if its possible to change spawn system to someting that is balanced for both far spawn and close spawn at the same time? Maybe ScardyBob can make a suggestion on how this could be done?
One thing that I think would improve the document (at least for me), is to use some real-world examples of where maps do things well or do them badly. Points like "the chokepoints cannot be too choky" are reasonable, but I think it would help to get everyone on the same page if you could define terms with reference to examples that you think are good and bad.
http://www.hourences.com/the-hows-and-whys-of-level-design-examples/
1.1 Introduction
I will start by analyzing where the map fail to live up to the commandment, one by one, and try to explain why. A map can get “Good”, “To some extent” or “Bad”. After that, I will move on to giving improvement suggestions. I am unsure of the power distribution regarding maps and who has the power to decide changes (Wasabi, Dux, Mendasp, Cory, that crab guy?), but I sincerely hope that whomever has that power will be reading this and might be able to give a proper response.
1.2. The map
2. Analysis and justification
2.1 Both sides at all spawn points should always have somewhat easy access to exactly two additional res nodes.
Bad
If aliens spawn in departures, stab and east are naturals. Stab is ok distance, considering you can use vent, even though it might be costly with the cysts. East however is very far away. If aliens spawn in gen stab is ok distance, but maint is somewhat far. If aliens spawn in locker rooms, bar is ok using the vents (cysts still costly), but I´m unsure about maint from this spawn point though.
2.2 If the map is big, the RTs should always be forward on to the map from spawn
Bad.
2.3 Both sides need a 2nd hive spot to expand into that cannot be too easy taken down, but not too easy to defend.
To some extent.
2.4 All tech points should be equally viable for both sides to expand to, given the proximity
Bad.
2.5 Where marines spawn, there mustn´t be more than two entrances, and no vents unless marines can defend the vents.
Bad.
2.6 The chokepoints cannot be too choky.
Bad
2.7 No hive should be able to get sieged from an absurd location.
Bad.
2.8 There cannot be too many or too few res nodes
Good.
2.9 Spawns should always be far
Bad.
Now, this commandment is essentially contested, which makes me wonder if I should analyze docking through this commandment. I urge the reader to take this with a grain of salt until a wider consensus has been reached.
2.10 No spot should be bile bombable where marines cannot kill the gorge
Good.
3. Comments
Before I give my suggestions, I would be very pleased if the reader could have in mind that this is just propositions on how it can be solved, and I am in no way suggesting that this is the only way to solve the issues at hand. If you have other ideas on how we can make docking more in line with the commandments, please feel free to post them.
4. Suggestions:
I will now give some suggestions:
Make locker fixed marine spawn.
Move locker room “west”, to about where back alley is now. At the same time make it so marines can’t just move straight into court. They should have to move through either maint or bar.
Remove tech point in café.
Move bar “east”, so when marines go from locker rooms spawn, they will move “forward” to the map through bar.
Make terminal, dep or gen random alien spawn.
Make landing pad an RT again.
I think this would be a start. From there we might be able to come up with more fixes.
I remind the reader of the goal here: to make the map more in line with the commandments. If you don’t agree with the underlying commandments, you probably won’t agree to these changes and ideas. If you however feel that any of these changes might further the discrepancy between the commandments and the map, please tell me and maybe we together can come up with a solution. I hope you enjoyed reading!
I'd just like to point out that docking has always been a problem child since its earliest development stages. It was envisioned with its marine start being Landing Pad, hence the wonky setup down there and this was before random spawns got thought of, and a lot of the game mechanics as well. There are a lot of other factors in the design process of the map that I could talk about as well but I'd be here all day.
So to address some of your points:
I don't see lockers being sieged from the maintenance corridor as big an issue as it is made out to be. I am willing to fix this however, but I don't consider it as problematic as it is described.
Terminal with Three entrances and the broken window, again, this is from Terminal not being designed (at the time) as a Marine Spawn.
Docking was always intended to be big and quite open, Courtyard was always intended in the earliest of designed to be the central part that connects to everywhere. I don't think it was foreseen how good that would turn out to be.
Generator I flipped 180 degrees last night, along with changing certain aspects of it to make it easier for both teams to play in and I'm in the process of connecting it all back up. I've deleted the lower half of Maint and you're a lot closer to the RT now so both Maint and Stab are good options to expand to and reduces Stabs effectiveness at attacking Gen.
As for moving Bar and Locker, I'm open to this but it is all a lot of work for a map that has had a lot of time and effort spent on it already. But I'm willing to implement changes that will see this get played in competitions / gathers.
An alien team spawning in terminal could easily hold down landing pad, east wing and departures which would be 4 rts all difficult for marines to pressure. Since I believe the underlying point in your idea for the landing pad rt was so that aliens spawning in terminal would have 2 close rts, perhaps a better solution would be shift cafe to the southeast in accordance with onos bar and landing pad east as well (maybe shrink/remove part of landing pad area?)
Perhaps an RT in courtyard would be appropriate given the reduced ease of access by marines to that area, and the lack of a really good strong staging area for marines in the south east side of the map. I am wondering if this would help balance the potential jackpot RT that is eastwing which is near impossible for marines to effectively unless they control the terminal TP.
Regarding the issue with easy ARCability of both generator and departures, this could be addressed fairly easily if necessary by flipping the departures tech point onto the other side of the north point hallway.
I don't agree that res biting is tedious. In a pub maybe, but in a comp game you have to play very strategic as a res biter. Sure, there are times when you're not attacked, and will bite the whole RT, but you're still concerned that there could be a marine sneaking up on you.
The problem with close spawns really is what wiry said. Two marines will always push the main hive, only building/defending the one RT on their way there. This means that aliens will always have to defend their main base against these same two unlucky marines. The reason for this is that as the marine team, you want to attack different spots. Preferably as far from each other as possible, so aliens can't easily group up and clear both groups consecutively.
Another thing that really bothers me, is that random spawns make for unequal opportunities. You can drop a second hive way way easier, if you spawn close. This is simply unfair for the team that happens to spawn cross as aliens, and if we want ns2 to become an e-sport, these imbalances need to be addressed imo. I mean imagine Blind casting the finals with Joe or someone else from esl-staff and commenting on ns2_veil pipeline spawn: "Well, basically aliens are in a very very bad spot here." Before the round even begins!
In SC2 these kinds of imbalances were addressed very fast, even if it meant that each player (and the audience) knew where their opponent would spawn and if you ask me, so should it be done in NS2!
I even think completely fixed spawns would do the game good. At least for the two rounds that are played on a map in a match, so both teams have totally equal winning opportunities. But in that case, the spawns must be clear before the first round is played.
I think leagues could cycle through different fixed spawns per playday for example. This way you could even have close spawns in, even though they suffer from the mentioned monotonous gameplay.
Where dE/dt = the change in the number of eggs over time, S = the egg spawn rate, and D = the alien death rate. To get the number of alien eggs over any finite period of time, we simply integrate over some period from ti to t (and rearrange some variables) to get:
Where Ei = the number of eggs at the initial time, ti. Egglocking occurs when E <= 0. The next question is how do S and D change over the course of time in a regular match? I'm going to focus on the early game in comp matches as that is the period where I see close spawns causing the most problems (e.g. one hive, no shift egg-spawning).
S is a bit tricky, because it's based both on the number of players and existing eggs (i.e. S ~ f(p,E)), and since I'm arguing the number of eggs is also related to time (i.e. E ~ f(t)), we wouldn't be able to solve this problem analytically for all situations (instead, we'd have to do a numerical or trial-and-error procedure). However, close spawn egglocking is only an issue when the initial number of eggs is small (e.g. 1-3 eggs), so I'm making the assumption that over the periods of high risk of egg-lock, the egg spawn rate is effectively constant with respect to time. Using the eggspawntimes console command, I get that the egg spawn rate for 6 players is, 7s (1 egg), 11.05s (2 eggs), and 14.98 (3 eggs), such that I'm going to average it out to about 0.1 eggs/s (roughly 1 egg every 11s) which I'm calling C1. Now, we can easily integrate S to get the following:
D is also fairly complex, but I argue that (if we could find a good way to quantify them) its primarily related to the probability of the alien dying in an engagement (s) and the number of engagements between the teams (n). While this probably of dying in combat can be affected by a wide variety of in-game elements that do change over time (mostly upgrades, weapon/classes, and structure placement) I'm using the same 'short period' argument as above, such that we can set it to a constant (C2) and pull it out of the integral. However, the number of engagements do change over even short periods of time (i.e. n ~ f(t)), such that we cannot just ignore them. Putting it all together gives us the following:
To illustrate why this affects close vs cross spawns, I'm going to assume that the number of engagements is linear over time (e.g. n = At +
I included both the continuous calculation (E) and a more realistic discrete approximation (since we can't have fractions of an egg) so show what it would look like in practice.
What possible solutions are there? My first thought was to just increase the egg spawn rate (S), which makes it harder to egg-lock overall, but doesn't reduce the disparity between close and cross spawn egg-locking:
The other idea is to increase the number of initial and total possible eggs based on close or cross spawns:
That does solve the problem, but you have to increase the number of initial/total eggs by quite a bit. In the above example, to overcome a 30s increase in engagements (from 30s for close to 60s for cross), you need to bump up the initial number of eggs from 9 to 23. However, this value is highly dependent on the disparity of the frequency of engagements between the different types of spawns, such that dropping it down to close = 20s, cross = 30s, I get a more reasonable value of close = 15 eggs, cross = 9 eggs.
However, this does suggest a possible solution; make the initial and total possible eggs per hive based on the map (e.g. the expected frequency of engagements) and the type of spawn (e.g. cross vs close, but more specifically, the difference in expected engagement frequency based on the starting locations). It could be as simple as the mapper specifying the initial and total possible alien eggs that can spawn based on where the marines spawn. The default values can be the current values for NS2, but the NSL versions can be changed to make the close vs cross egg spawning situations more manageable.
what r u doing
scardybob
STAHP
Well done mate. Well done.
Let's look at an example:
1. Cross Spawn - Marines spawn Sub-Access, Aliens spawn Atrium
2. Close Spawn - Marines spawn Sub-Access, Aliens spawn Data Core
Marines play 2-1-2 split (we'll only be looking at the 2 marines going to Ventilation at round start)
In the first case, these two marines will build 2 RTs (Ventilation and Data Core) and then attack Reactor Core RT. First engagement will probably be either in Pipe Junction, Data Core, or Glass Hallway (in order of probability). Aliens can also avoid the engagement and attack Ventilation instead, forcing marines to either return to defend, or progress without dealing damage themselves while loosing their harvester.
In the second case, they will build Ventilation and then attack Data Core RT, which happens to be in the Alien Start. First engagement will probably be in Pipe Junction or Ventilation. If Aliens would let marines pass into Data Core, to attack Ventilation, the Marines would most probably not return to save that RT, since destroying the Alien Harvester would be more rewarding. So the engagement will most likely happen in Pipe Junction. If this engagement is lost by Aliens, Marines can already attack Data Core.
That being said, I still believe Aliens are in a better position, when they have close spawns, since they can more easily capture and secure their expansion Harvesters and Hive.
tl;dr: The problem is not the frequency of engagements, but the number of engagement possibilities before Marines can attack Alien infrastructure.
PS: A good Alien team will not get egg locked by engaging too frequently. When you realize that there are less than 4 eggs during a wavespawn, usually you avoid dying for a minute and all is good. But if Marines have easy access to Alien Spawn, they can take advantage of that.
After 4 years of calc and stats, I promised myself I would never use any of that knowledge ever again in my life. You sir, have made me break that promise. For that, I hate you. Your black wizard sorcery is not welcome here. haha
Anyway, props for the analysis. My thoughts are more along the lines of what 3del is saying. Engagement possibilities are limited in close spawns. (especially in the dreaded server/warehouse spawn).