Competitive Map Pack: CoMP

[unicorn]

And on a side note, Random Plains is legal in BIT. I'm surprised we're seeing so little of it.

DON'T REMIND PEOPLE

 

[Madnes5]

But there is a lot of ground to be gained in US

THERES MORE TO NA THAN THE US like all the good players who are in canada duh

 

[Wappaw_Pizza42]

The re-rolling rules are too risky. You give up Vaegirs to the other team by picking it and then you will be at a disadvantage playing as Swadia if you hit a hilly map.

 

[Courtney_The_Tranny_Orc]

I always hated the re-rolls for random plains, simply because it usually takes so long. I think we should just disallow re-rolls if a side chooses random plains, and whatever map it rolls to, just play with that. As mentioned, the "randomness" of each plains map allows different strategies, which can distinguish a good team from a better team based on their ability to adapt quickly to the map.

 

[Catholic]

I always hated the re-rolls for random plains, simply because it usually takes so long. I think we should just disallow re-rolls if a side chooses random plains, and whatever map it rolls to, just play with that. As mentioned, the "randomness" of each plains map allows different strategies, which can distinguish a good team from a better team based on their ability to adapt quickly to the map.

That's pretty much the current rule.

Random Plains can be played, but the map cannot be re-rolled unless both team captains agree. Agreement must be explicit: the team captain (or an appointed representative) must type "reroll" or a similar phrase in the global chat to express his/her agreement with re-rolling the map. Re-rolling the map without the explicit agreement of both captains will result in a warning issued to the team hosting the match.

@Tesla: You also need to remember pickup parties are played at 1250, not 1000. 1250 is essentially 1500, as you can still get whatever horse and weapon you want, bump cav is easy to get, with the slight detriment of lower armor. It's also why I find the gold setting silly, as you might as well go to 1500g and observe no difference.

 

[BinaryAznMon]

Actually from what ive seen on 1250 it forces more decisions on optimizing than just downgrading everything like 1000 does.

Inf - has to optimize 2 our of armour, shield, and weapon.

Archers - has to optimize 2 our of armour, arrows, and bow

Cav - has to optimize 2 out of horse, armour, lance/shield

I dont think its a good replacement for competitve gold (maybe ) but its definitely a good compromise for casual-competitive level of my parties

 

[Courtney_The_Tranny_Orc]

I think 1000 gold makes matches a lot more challenging because you really have to choose whether to focus on good offense gear or good defense gear. With 1250 gold, you can still get good offense and decent defense, or vice versa. You'll have to rely even more on tactics and teamwork when start out with 1000 gold.

@Eternal: oh ok that's good. Besides the occassional pickups here and there, I haven't been in the competitive scene in awhile.

 

[KissMyAxe]

Sorry, took me a while to get to answering your posts.

*Posting here instead of in the BIT thread*

Much obliged.

To my recollection, the only round we won on Open Plains was when we went all-cav against Balion's mixed loadout.

I have a hazy recollection of that match, but I do remember losing at least one round on that map. But, what's your point? Are you saying that an all-cav loadout is the only viable strategy on Open Plains? If so, why didn't you win more rounds?

Just as a sidenote for Open Plains, the all-cav strats have been enormously more effective than mixed unit loadouts, in the matches/pickups I've seen.

That is roughly my experience in pickup parties, but I've had different observations in competitive matches. I think that doing well in open plains (or random plains for that matter) whether with a predominantly mounted, or mixed composition requires very good team cooperation -- something that pickups often lack.

The current layout of Open Plains is neither innovative nor exciting.

Duh. It wasn't designed for excitement and innovation. It's very simple-minded, thrown together in literally half-an-hour -- not to say it wasn't designed with a certain principle and an idea of the strategies available. Not to say that the map worked out exactly as I thought it would: I hoped that indirectly contesting the center of the map would be a more effective strategy. Not that it's not used or doesn't work, just pretty hard to pull it off. Hopefully it's addressed in the latest version (haven't had a chance to test it).

Other maps -- Swamp, Delta, Bay Farm and Suno Valley (the latter two didn't make it into BIT) -- were designed to try out new concepts, layouts and force new strategies. But most hate them, and hardly play them anymore. Everybody plays Open Plain; few, if any, matches (especially in BIT) involved Random Plains. It was quite a shock to me, but I've come to accept it.

It doesn't have any of the pro's of Random Plains (new scenery, new strategies, new loadouts), while still containing all of the cons (i.e. "we don't know what to do, so ALL CAV IT IS"). 

I disagree with you. Yes it lacks new scenery. But, IMO, the strategies for Random Plains weren't any more exciting than for OP. Especially, if you take in account the previous re-rolling rules and the fact that rolling an extremely flat map was the fashion -- that is, until BIT disallowed one-sided re-roll decisions. So, this is basically a flat random plains roll (and, as I said above, there were few non-flat rolls that were kept anyway) that doesn't have the disadvantage that on swap you get a completely different map. Yes, you have the possibility of using an all-cav strategy, and I think it's as viable as any other. But not the only one. We have seen mixed archer-cav or even archer-inf-cav load outs being effective. And the usual trade-off of the advantage of spreading your archers to flank and, eventually, surround the enemy ground forces, but be very exposed to enemy cavalry versus sticking together but be vulnerable to surrounding -- and anything in between. Yes, it's very hard to play archer on this map -- I've noticed myself. But it's also hard to play archer on any open map because you're very vulnerable to cav. And , for some, one advantage of OP over RP is that it seldom goes to MoTF -- I remember playing RP a lot where the plan was basically to wait for MoTF (not that waiting for MoTF is not a valid strategy).

Not saying it needs a **** ton of cover or houses or trees, but a hill here and there might be nice.  Just a suggestion.

Thanks. I have planned to make a map with multiple significant hills for the first release (I mean, the hill on Open Plain is not even a hill to begin with), but haven't had an idea for layout that I was happy with. I'll see if I can make something like that for the next release, but I'm not planning to make any significant changes to OP. It's going to be up to the future tournament and pickup organizers to decide whether to keep the map or deprecate it in favor of new and, hopefully, better maps.

You will never have the same map twice in random plains and when was the last time we even did random plains in a pickup? lol

Did it in the last pickup I've participated in. I remember playing them a few more times in pickups.


The rough plan is that I will make changes to Swamp and Delta, and, time permitting, work on a few new map concepts I have in mind. Not sure if I'd be able to address the water problems on Swamp (there are glitches if water is too shallow), so if that doesn't work out -- I'll remake it as a forest/woods kind of map -- should be interesting, IMO.

Assuming the map authors agree, I will include the custom mixed and closed maps used in BIT in the new release of the map pack (the name's going to be different, though). EDIT: Dry Valley and Verloren from the BIT tournament will be included in the new version of the map pack, courtesy of AE_AZAN.

It'll be open testing, as previously. However, I won't have as much time to organize the playtests. Towards the end of the playtest period you have been very good at making arrangements and submitting detailed feedback yourselves, as opposed to me pestering you for scheduling and comments. I'd like to proceed in that way. Barring that, I'd like a volunteer to help me with the playtests.

Finally, we can't start the playtests until BIT is over because the maps have to stay fixed on Event (and all the other servers). If you have ideas for new maps/map layouts, now's the time to post them. Also, if you'd like to submit your own map to the pack, now's the time to start talking to me and working on it.

 

[Courtney_The_Tranny_Orc]

Can't you test out maps on Balion server?

 

[KissMyAxe]

Can't you test out maps on Balion server?

The Balion server is used for BIT matches as well. Also, I don't have access to the module and the maps, so I cannot upload the maps myself. Neither do I have such access on Event, but thanks to Fehnor the maps there have been uploaded very soon (sometimes a matter of minutes!) after I update them on my side. I'll be happy to use any server that volunteers itself for testing and will be open to frequent updates of the sco files and/or the module.

 

[WilySly]

To my recollection, the only round we won on Open Plains was when we went all-cav against Balion's mixed loadout.

I have a hazy recollection of that match, but I do remember losing at least one round on that map. But, what's your point? Are you saying that an all-cav loadout is the only viable strategy on Open Plains? If so, why didn't you win more rounds?

I'm stating that an all-cav loadout seems to be exponentially more successful.  As to why we didn't win more rounds, we only went all-cav for one round.  Prior to that, we were utilizing a mixed loadout.

 

[Courtney_The_Tranny_Orc]

One very good thing about open plains is that it encourages both teams to be more active than random plains, where both teams would more likely just play archer tag and wait for MotF every single round. Therefore, the map would end much sooner on open plains than random plains. You definitely really need good teamwork in open plains, while random plains require more strategy (in addition to teamwork) to adapt to the terrain. Most of us aren't military strategists so we can't exactly come up with complex strategies on the fly. Finally, open plains is probably the most fair for both sides, whereas, random plains tend to favor one side over the other.

 

[KissMyAxe]

The map pack has been renamed to CoMP. Now it includes competitive battle maps of all types (open, closed and mixed). The first post with the description of the map pack and additional information for the mappers and the competitive community has been reworked. The GitHub page is still work in progress and, hopefully, will be updated in the coming days. We have two new maps in development, which soon would need to be tested (see OP for info).

Finally, I'm working on formal guidelines to help classify maps as open, mixed or closed. As far as I know, before maps were classified in an ad-hoc manner. I'd like to change that. If you have any specific suggestions, please, PM me or post here. I'll post the guidelines when they are finished and request feedback.

 

[Zaffa]

Kiss, if you would, please remove Sly's version of Snoop's Exile and replace it with the following:

http://www.mediafire.com/?v6hd5nblq2frk9c (link updated)
Snoop's Exile
Created by Zaffax with technical and early concept assistance by Slytacular

 

[KissMyAxe]

Sure, Zaffa, if Sly agrees.

 

[Zaffa]

Quick suggestion to Roman's map

Please knock out the suggested wall segment:
http://imageshack.us/f/708/15430662.png/
http://imageshack.us/f/802/27935860.png/

I feel that one of the major problems people are experiencing balance wise is troop movement across the map. Because the way the alleys are designed, players are required to travel a long distance across the map to get between the various sections. This allows the inside spawn to retain permanent xbow superiority and campiness over the attacking team.

I feel that by removing this one wall segment, a lot would be done in the way of team balance and general play on the map.

 

[Gelden]

We can call is zaffas gap

Please insert any necessary puns/jokes associated with this

"hey guys, i'm entering zaffas gap now, be there in a sec"

 

[Juve]

"They're making a hard push into Zaffa's gap!"

 

[Zaffa]

"hey guys, i'm entering zaffas gap now, be there in a sec"

But will it fit?

 

[Gelden]

"hey guys, i'm entering zaffas gap now, be there in a sec"

But will it fit?

On a serious note, I think it ain't a bad idea as that courtyard seems tough to attack and is a popular place to defend.

This change would make zaffas gap a popular place to penetrate.