Descent and competitive play...
ritualsacrifice
Join Date: 2012-11-14 Member: 171148Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Join Date: 2012-11-14 Member: 171148Members, Reinforced - Shadow
Have people been scrimming this map at all? I know my team played one round on it against 156, it was basically everyones first or second time seeing the map, and we had a great time playing on it. It seemed fairly well balanced, it's a larger map which is nice, and it's a change of pace from playing the same 3 maps over and over again.
I took a look at the ENSL website and noticed that currently the majority of people are voting no on descent being used in ENSL season 2. I personally don't understand why, but more importantly I'm left wondering if most teams have even played a match on it. Maybe another little weekend tournament is in order to see if people enjoy competing on this map?
I just feel like it would be such a shame to go into season 2 still stuck on the same 3 maps we've been playing on for forever now.
Admittedly, I'm still fairly new to the competitive scene compared to a lot of people. I most definitely don't know all there is to know about how map balance works in this game, so I could just be wrong or something. But it sure was a helluva lot more interesting than playing tram for the thousandth time.
I took a look at the ENSL website and noticed that currently the majority of people are voting no on descent being used in ENSL season 2. I personally don't understand why, but more importantly I'm left wondering if most teams have even played a match on it. Maybe another little weekend tournament is in order to see if people enjoy competing on this map?
I just feel like it would be such a shame to go into season 2 still stuck on the same 3 maps we've been playing on for forever now.
Admittedly, I'm still fairly new to the competitive scene compared to a lot of people. I most definitely don't know all there is to know about how map balance works in this game, so I could just be wrong or something. But it sure was a helluva lot more interesting than playing tram for the thousandth time.
Comments
- Is the layout reasonably balanced (e.g. no starting tech node has a serious advantage or disadvantage than the others)?
- Are the res node placements generally balanced for each side (e.g. res nodes are within reasonable distances of tech nodes and are more or less evenly distributed throughout the map)?
- Are there a reasonable number of paths between each important location (e.g. between 2-3 paths in/out of each tech node, the number and location of important chokepoints, etc)?
- Are there any seriously map-breaking bugs or exploits (e.g. impenetrable ARCing locations, marine inaccessible bilebombing spots of important areas, map holes, etc)?
As far as I can tell, descent does no worse than the current competitive maps for all of these questions.
You are wrong on this, I don't know where people get this misconception from. The travel times on the map are comparable to Veil/Tram.
I think drone bay (the tech point at the bottom) is one of the best rooms in the map, tbh. It's an open room, but it has just the right amount of cover.
Give the map some time and feedback and it will be around more.
Which spots?
I also agree that Shuttle Bay-Launch Control is problematic (since the shuttle only provides a limited amount of cover in an otherwise very open room), but its no worse than North Tunnel-Warehouse or Hub-Elevator Transfer on tram.
Once again, I see people searching for perfection rather than whether its equal to or better than the current comp map selection.
I think the issue is the time its been around, people know tram summit veil and know they're relatively balanced. No one wants to worry about descent having op spawns and have matches tipped because of it only to have it changed halfway through the season. (If I make sense).
Flipper hits the nail on the head. Tram, Summit and Veil at this point are fairly stable maps, we know all the potential exploits and how to deal with them. Descent is new territory, and losing a match (or several) because of some sneaky new spot where you can set up a PG or an ARC or whatever, is not something we're big fans of.
@Scardybob
As far as your point about Crevice, it's relatively easy to assault Summit so it ends up not being a huge problem. Elevator Transfer you need to step into the hive area itself to shoot the RT, again, easy to assault. It's not about distance, but safety. Cargo is difficult enough to get to already, I don't think the harvester there is too exposed. There's no long tunnel between you and the harvester, like in Club or Monorail.
Just because a map is new territory, should not immediately exclude it from consideration, for an entire season of play, if the core layout and mechanics seem like they can work. Many concerns and issues brought up by players are things which can be easily adjusted and fixed, and this would be no different then what has been going on with Tram, Summit, and Veil -- all maps which even now are continuing to be fixed and improved based on feedback from competitive players. Even something as large of an issue like OP spawns can be fixed, at least temporarily, very quickly, by removing a particular spawn option from the random techpoint selection. Jonacrab, the mapper on Descent is very open to feedback, and willing to work to make the map better.
However, if the map is not chosen for competitive play, it will be a much slower and harder process to improve the map for future seasons, since it will not be getting the competitive playtime and feedback necessary to make any potentially necessary changes. So, that seems like a bit of a catch 22, if a map is voted down because of concerns that it is not yet ready, but then not giving it the gameplay time and attention it needs to get it ready.
The strive for a perfect map seems kind of extreme to me, as well, considering all the large gameplay changes to the game itself that are still occurring. Competitive players have had to roll with the punches when movement mechanics on core classes change, for example, but yet there's an unwillingness to have some matches on a map where some issues might pop up and throw the game off a bit.
Beyond this, for very high profile events, like the upcoming Cologne finals, we will be having players play on Descent, even if they are not voted in as official season maps. So, it would be in players best interests to get playing time in on these maps ahead of time, since they may end up playing on them anyway.
We know players want to play on new maps, and we are doing our best to get new maps into your hands to play with. We'd appreciate it if the comp scene can be a little more understanding about this process, and willing to trade some potential frustration for helping us whip these maps into shape for you.
Thanks.
--Cory
It's the same reason why in Halo 3/Reach/Presumably Halo 4 they kept remaking old Halo 2 maps for competitive play in MLG.
Is this something that we should be happy about Cory? Having a crucial mechanic changed without enough time to practice it for the biggest tournament so far? Referring to skulk movement changes (and other documented/undocumented changes in Gorgeous). According to IronHorse, stopping dead in your tracks when you hit the ground as a skulk was unintentional, on top of everything else.
If anything, I'd be inclined to downvote Descent just in spite, given the frustration that releasing a patch before a tournament has caused on our end, several times.
/offtopic
As far as the map discussion goes, I'm inclined to vote for the inclusion of Descent. I just see from experience that the one that shouts the loudest is the one that gets his way, and there are some things that need to be looked at from my perspective for Descent, as mentioned above.
Edit: Comment from IronHorse and wording.
As for some of the other responses in here, if people feel the need to comment on the work that others are doing, feel free to step up and help yourself. Otherwise shut the **** up.
All I've stated in this thread are things that should be fairly evident regarding poor gameplay in certain areas of Descent.
I like Descent. I don't like horribly unbalanced gameplay. There's a reason you can no longer siege Elevator from Observation, Warehouse from Ore, Locker Rooms from Central Access. It's too easy to do.
@WasabiOne Don't get me started on what it would take to fix the custom maps, aesthetically or play wise.
I like Descent. I don't think that point made it across.
The gameplay seems very similar to summit, and if small changes to give RT's more cover need to be added, there is enough time that could prob be fixed in a competitve version (nsl_map) or even the official version.
"and losing a match (or several) because of some sneaky new spot where you can set up a PG or an ARC or whatever, is not something we're big fans of." - Wildchicken
Having sneaky and well thought out strategies used against you on a new map can be infuriating, sure.. but only because you weren't the one to come up with it first. I remember when arc started using arcs to siege double, that was only a couple of weeks ago and no one really knew how to counter that the first time they saw it happening against them.
I'm hoping for more of those kind of moments, because they help the game feeling fresh, instead of the same old stuff we see on every other map.
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I would rather see this map included in season 3, but also that teams started playing it straight away to learn the maps well, and to squash out bugs and exploits. The problem is that if this map isn't included in season 2 I could think that a lot of teams wouldn't want to start playing it. Basically it all boils down to how fast problems can be solved I guess. By looks alone, I would rather have descent than any of the other custom maps. Except Honorguard of course.
At the moment we are discussing a possibility to include the map into S2 but postpone the first official matches with it by 2 weeks, so we have more time to get input about it while the teams have to practice it since they have to expect playing on it on week 3. If possible, we might also host a fun cup event (Gather Night Cup for example) inbetween to play this map (and icarus) specifically and analyse the gameplay on more data available. So it would be still possible to a) give the mapper valuable feedback for hotfixes and b) in worst case remove the map from the pool before week 3 if it is horribly broken. But this is just an idea for now. We will come up with a decision on this matter soon.
Right now, only one thing is sure - no team has serious experience in how this map actually plays out. And I'd love to see descent in S2 when it is playable for competitive.
when you load up a map and have to wonder "do the devs even play NS2?" it's very hard to imagine that enough thought was put into balance... (and this is the case with all the UWE patches lol... alien techs were completely broken for maybe an entire month or more)
When I make RTS maps for more symmetrical games, I can iterate extremely rapidly just with expert game knowledge and looking at the map that gets generated. NS2 is a completely different beast. Testing is a pain and there's a lack of expert knowledge, especially when the game rules are changing behind the scenes. It's perfectly reasonable not to compete on maps that haven't been out very long...
if UWE takes about a month to fix stuff, then 10 iterations is going to be about a year. and maps often need a lot more work than that.
that said, NS2 isn't exaclty well-balanced so the standards for descent don't need to be so high, especially if you can get revelaed + mirror spawn locations and make each team play each race.
anyways, you should move beyond minor balance concerns that can be fixed and primarily look at what the map can add to the gameplay and what skills it rewards. Some people want to compete over who has better execution of fairly fixed tactics. Others want a game where you have to make tough decisions about how to spend resources & adapt to change. And teams will be very biased based on the abilities of their own players.
I view it from the perspective that NS2 kind of fails as an action game (compared to other FPS games), so it doesn't make sense to emphasize that aspect.
But the resource management / scouting / adaptation aspects aren't completely outclassed by other titles, so that's what NS2 should be about.
so what is a fixed version of descent actually about at a fundamental level? nobody knows...
Whatever happens, I do hope decisions get made based on more than "played a gather" or "played a scrim"
video of some problem spots for RT's