Dear Bani

[derelictwhirl]

Rubbish. Most maps balance offense and defense and whats more most people like the way them the way they are.

you mean people liked etmain battery? railgun is liked just fine? these are balanced maps in your opinion?

etmain battery isn't much of a problem, with teams who know how to use heavy weapons right.

[>>steven!]

if u cant break down the defence stop blamin the map and wanting to change it.

take alook at urselves tbh, no1 else has problems.

if there r fullholds its because the attacking team aint up to the job.

whereas on maps like radar any1 can set times doesnt matter how crap they r, yawn** wheres the skills in maps like that.

IMO ppl who get bored whilst playing in matches (doesnt matter how long they r) aint true ET fans.

dont play games u dont like imo.

o, and if the teams r evenly balanced (skills/comms/tactics/teamplay), there is no good bank defence, aslong as the attacking team times their attack right and every1 on the team does their job the gold will be in the truck before the axis respawn. IF this is not the case, then the attackin team aint doing summet right .

IF sum1 says they cant break down a weaker teams defence because of this stage in the map, then obviously the team defending must have a good crossfire, and its up to the attacking team to break it down, by changing their tactics.

[Durinia]

I'd be interested in a poll asking what active, competitive players consider to be the best map for matches?

In NA at least, Radar would be the clear winner, with supply depot a close second.

etmain battery isn't much of a problem, with teams who know how to use heavy weapons right.

um...WHAT?
If BOTH teams know how to use heavy weapons "right", then the defense will win, EVERY TIME. That makes for really REALLY boring stopwatch matches. Trust me, I played in a couple.

don't worry if such a joke as limited lives becomes reality, then serious league admins will stick to 3.1.3 and bani will code mods for himself. gg

people need to realize that bani is adding OPTIONS. He isn't FORCING anyone to do ANYTHING. If a league doesn't want to do it, we'll play 3.2, and we'll just set b_banislimitedliveliness 0, and play on as we always have.

Same thing with the "new maps" - the old ones are still there and played by default. If you don't like the "new one", then ask your league admin to not use it. Think of it as just like bani is designing his own new custom map. The map designer doesn't force you to use it.

QUIT BLAMING BANI FOR GIVING US OPTIONS. If you don't like an option, talk to your league admins, they make the decisions.

[Nogen]

Please feel free to explain why maps like Supply Depot and Radar (fast offensively biased) involve less strategy than say Goldrush or Oasis (slower more defensively biased). Supply depot for example requires very good strategies to know when to push forward or fall back to the next stage

No you misunderstand...Each map has some sort of base time. I am saying that changing existing maps to shorten the base time results removes many well-loved strategic elements of a map.

Maybe the ladders should just be structured differently...
How about this for an idea. You put 10 teams in a division and choose 4 maps for the division. Each team has to play each other team on each map in attack and defense making 72 rounds for each team in total. You record the times for each round and put them in a table. You look at one team defending on one map and look at all the times that each other clan got against them. You then award points on a sliding scale based on who got the best times. This means you would have 40 sets of points to allocate, one for each team defending each map. Fullholds could result in bonus points for defensive teams and no points for offensive teams. This way if two clans play out a draw it doesn't matter and in a way their ladder position will be determined by how they also faired against each other clan on each other map.
At the end of a season you could have promotions and relegations based on the top 2/bottom 2 teams.
In a way I think a ladder like this would be more rounded since each team would be forced to play each other team in attack and defense on each map...gives a fairer assessment of who is the best. The divisions structure would take care of ensuring you only have clans of similar skill level playing each other.

[>>steven!]

well just taking a quick look at Clanbase (which covers all of europe nearly), tells everyone that the most played maps by far = goldrush and oasis.

radar has been played a bit more since grass has been taken off, but its still awful for fps. this is the reason y not many ppl play it in cb officials, as with awful fps ppl cant perform to their best.

no one is criticising bani for giving options, what ppl dont like tho is bani and others making sweeping statements about the most popular map in ET, just because they dont like it.

o and supplydepot 1 > supplydepot 2.

radar and supplydepot take defensive skill to win games (as attacking will always set times aslong as the teams r evenly matched), oasis and goldrush take attacking skill, as they r slightly easier to defend (so the attacking team must break down the defence to set a time).

so is this not a good balance in the game???

[Kendle]

people need to realize that bani is adding OPTIONS. He isn't FORCING anyone to do ANYTHING.

Unfortunately, whilst undoubtedly true, the reality is slightly different.

In Europe there are no leagues offering original Fueldump or Battery. Not that I'd want them to of course cos the ETPro versions are much better. There are also no Leagues in Europe offering non-Clanbase cvars. Again, I wouldn't want them to as they've massivley improved the game. But the point is if I wanted to play full-fat ET on original Fueldump in competition I couldn't because no-one's offering me that "option".

Options are only optional is someone is offering the alternative. Not Bani's fault I know, but that's just the way it is.

[Durinia]

But the point is if I wanted to play full-fat ET on original Fueldump in competition I couldn't because no-one's offering me that "option".

Thats true. However, the people responsible for deciding whether its played or not is the admins running the league (i.e. clanbase, in your case).

I'm just a little sick of people saying or implying that bani himself is "ruining" ET, or whatever map, as the original poster seems to think.

[Kendle]

Chicken and egg. If the "option" wasn't available they'd be nothing to petition Admins to change.

I'm all for making changes if they're for the good of the game. As I had course to remember the other day I've been on these forums since June '03 petitioning for the XP changes that have now been adopted in competition (my very first post here was to ask Bani to add a cvar to limit XP), and I'm a tireless campaigner for new maps, but I think we're getting into dangerous ground when

a) Bani can introduce whatever changes he wants on the basis they're optional so "no harm done".

and

b) His premiss for doing so is now, IMO, open to challenge. Some of his proposals of late have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the game (take the Tank out of Goldrush? The Tank IS Goldrush) and he appears to be being ill-advised (although that's extreme supposition on my part as some of his proposals smack of changes certain Euro's want to make that I know only play ET cos no-one else plays RTCW anymore). Coincidence and paranoia conspiring against me maybe (I hope )

[Durinia]

a) Bani can introduce whatever changes he wants on the basis they're optional so "no harm done".

I think this is fine - there are a lot of things that we *haven't* used that bani included. (including damage-based XP, actually) We get feedback, we study ideas, we change only what we think people will like.

b) His premiss for doing so is now, IMO, open to challenge. Some of his proposals of late have demonstrated a lack of understanding of the game (take the Tank out of Goldrush? The Tank IS Goldrush) and he appears to be being ill-advised (although that's extreme supposition on my part as some of his proposals smack of changes certain Euro's want to make that I know only play ET cos no-one else plays RTCW anymore). Coincidence and paranoia conspiring against me maybe (I hope )

well, I think he's getting feedback from a lot of different sources. There are a lot of people that think that Goldrush, while a lot of fun, has full-hold problems. If bani wants to try to solve that, while trying to preserve the "goodness" of goldrush, I'm curious to see what happens.

I don't think your "paranoia" is baseless. But I don't think that sentiment is incredibly extreme, either. As always, the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. Which, to me at least, means its nice to have some options.

[Kendle]

Funny you mention Damage XP. Bani proposed it, it was vehemently opposed (though not by me). He added it anyway and Clanbase added it to their config at the last minute unannounced. If that had been a bad thing for competition I for one would've been spitting blood at the way it was done. I know it's not Bani's fault the way it happened, but just goes to show the potential is there for people to fuck up our game big style unless we at least attempt to hold them to account.

Bani's proposal to improve Goldrush didn't preserve the "goodness" of the map, yet he seemed immune to the alternative suggestions being put forward to the one's he made. But that's another story that I'd best not go into

[MeeZ?]

sorry to break it to you lozz, but bani doesn't force the cvars to be used. He only gives admins the option to implement them. Playing 5 hour matches on goldrush is a pain in the ass. Bani's changes are highly influenced by the competitive et community's requests, which is trying to make axis and allies more balanced, moving towards being allies biased, so a team sets a time and doesn't get fullheld. As zinx said, fullholds don't find winners. Don't blame bani for admins using competition settings on pubs... that's just ignorant.

Yup, you have to remember that LoZz isnt really in the competetive et community. He's one of those people that come here and whine a couple of posts instead of kindly giving suggestions and input.

[>>steven!]

wtf LOL lozz plays alot more competitive et than u meez

[LoZz]

and melon stop contradicting urself, saying that the idea of stopwatch is to find the better team and then saying fullholds/double fullholds go against this idea. if there is a double full hold its plain to see that the clans r equally matched on that map. otherwise one of the teams would have managed to break down the defence and set a time.

no.

if a map is heavily defense biased, you end up with endless double full holds because the weaker team can full hold off the stronger team.

if teams are equally matched, a defense biased map will never end. we've seen this before with 3 and 5 hour double full hold matches where one team ended up losing purely due to fatigue, not skills.

a good stopwatch map is offense biased. both teams should be able to set a time but the stronger team will set a better time.

sadly most maps are defense biased.

so why not insted of makeing a new goldrush and all these changes we are causeing alot of contraverse why dont you just make a totaly new map with a totaly new theme and have your dream offencive map like radar.??? whats wrong with that

sorry to break it to you lozz, but bani doesn't force the cvars to be used. He only gives admins the option to implement them. Playing 5 hour matches on goldrush is a pain in the ass. Bani's changes are highly influenced by the competitive et community's requests, which is trying to make axis and allies more balanced, moving towards being allies biased, so a team sets a time and doesn't get fullheld. As zinx said, fullholds don't find winners. Don't blame bani for admins using competition settings on pubs... that's just ignorant.

Yup, you have to remember that LoZz isnt really in the competetive et community. He's one of those people that come here and whine a couple of posts instead of kindly giving suggestions and input.

Meez you are 12,
the last et clan you where in was ltc, which you where kick from for being an mimature little sob, hence why u are baned from there servers and website and irc
I play every night if i can,
ive beeing play rtcw-et clan matches sence you where 10
SO STFU

that said, your battery back door change is lovely. still, a new map similar to battery would have been even cooler, IMO

we'd still be waiting for a new map, if that was the case.

mappers have pretty much given up on the et community because of all the abuse. can't say i blame them, i know how they feel.

bani i dont mean to come on this forum and flame you, or abuse you, i know my choice of words can be a little harsh and to the point but i have a lot of passion for ET just like you do. so dont take it like that.

[bani]

does anyone recall how vehemently opposed everyone was to changing the XP system? all the abuse I (and others) received for suggesting the skill system was damaging to competition and should be limited?

players were so used to the etmain xp system and so attached to it that they were completely blinded to the fact that it might not be the best thing for competition. any suggestion of changes was violently opposed.

same thing is happening with these new threads.

players are so entrenched and attached to the status quo that theyre unwilling to even discuss changes.

this is the same reason new maps arent getting any playtesting. players are too attached to old maps, old tactics, old ideas, and dont want to be bothered to learn anything new. any new ideas/concepts/etc are met with incredible abuse.

mappers are leaving et because of these problems. don't you people get it? your abusive attitudes are driving away people who have the ability to make the game better.

some ideas might be bad, fine. but players are unwilling to even discuss any changes at all these days, regardless of the merit of the proposal.

instead of any reasoning or debate, its always "stfu you (some insult)" and "'omfg leave et alone and go play (some other game)".

i'm sure many of you will continue to blind yourselves to the fact that you're hurting et with this backwards attitude. probably the same people who will flame me now, and then go off on other forums to whine about the lack of maps.

[Nail]

I don't belong to a clan, nor do I play much competitive ET, cept for lan, but as part of the pub playing "minority", thanks to bani and the ETPro crew for making most of the pub servers so much better to play on. You "competion " players don't seem to appreciate the amazing amount of work to clean up actual playing bugs that was done. We pub players really appreciate it, c'mon bani et all, join the dark side, mod for pubs