A rather long time ago, I wrote about the problematic of mixing typical long ET maps with very short and quick maps, which should ideally be played in a double-round setting.
I argued that it would be better to stick to one of both, either play double-rounds or only play longer maps. I claimed that only goldrush and oasis would be too long for a double-round setting and proposed changes to make them faster. Fast forward to today and oasis got voted out of the CB cups, goldrush has been replaced by sw_goldrush and a lot more very fast maps have been added to the competitive map pools, like adlernest, frostbite, et_ice and even braundorf. More and more commonly I hear complaints about matches with these new maps ending too fast or that they should be played twice to reduce the lotto aspect. Can you seriously tell me that you think it's a good idea to wait two weeks for a topmatch, spend two hours setting up ETTV servers and then wait 30 minutes for all players to ready-up when the actual match is then over after 10 minutes? I think it's high-time that we finally do something about the issue, so please let's make it happen this time.
If we evaluate the current maplist of WL and CB for what each map would be better suited for, it looks like this:
sw_oasis: 1 round
sw_goldrush: 1 round, maybe 2 possible but could be long
radar: both
supplydepot: both
et_ice: 2 rounds
braundorf: 2 rounds
adlernest: 2 rounds
frostbite: 2 rounds
If we look at the trend for competitive custom maps, it doesn't look like this situation will change a lot.
So what keeps us from doing double-rounds? Oasis is massively losing popularity lately, even sw_oasis doesn't seem to be saving it. If it gets a complete makeover to make it even more competition friendly, it could just as well be turned into a fast map in the process. My suggestion would be to try to move the guns to the north (instead of east) of the fortress and the spawn to the south-east (instead of north-west). Basically rotating the fortress by 90 degress counter-clockwise and mirroring it horizontally. This would result in a much shorter route for the allies and they would not have to cross the axis spawn anymore, which should make it far easier to take control of the gun area and end the map quickly after one breakthrough. The flagrun phase of the map could be simplified by disallowing landmines at many important chokepoints.
sw_goldrush is probably down to an average time of around 8 minutes by now, but fullholds are still a possibility. In the worst case scenario of a team fullholding and then beating the time in ten minutes, setting ten minutes in the second run and holding it, the single map would take 45 minutes plus ready ups, which is probably too long. One radical but certainly effective solution would be to simply drop the first phase of the map, with the allies already spawning at the tank. To compensate, the tank barrier should probably start out being contructed, so axis have a small chance of holding it for a while. These changes should be very easy to implement via simple script changes. This would turn goldrush into a two-phase map again. It would certainly hurt to lose one interesting part of the map, but I think it could be worth the sacrifice and the remaining part of the map is probably the more interesting one anyway.
Please consider my points seriously. Let's give it a try in pracs and maybe little cups or showmatches, so we can make a very educated decision when the next round of CB and WL seasons are getting planned.
Please excuse me if this had already been discussed in length, since I haven't followed the scene for over a year. I hope it will be useful food for thought in any case.
I argued that it would be better to stick to one of both, either play double-rounds or only play longer maps. I claimed that only goldrush and oasis would be too long for a double-round setting and proposed changes to make them faster. Fast forward to today and oasis got voted out of the CB cups, goldrush has been replaced by sw_goldrush and a lot more very fast maps have been added to the competitive map pools, like adlernest, frostbite, et_ice and even braundorf. More and more commonly I hear complaints about matches with these new maps ending too fast or that they should be played twice to reduce the lotto aspect. Can you seriously tell me that you think it's a good idea to wait two weeks for a topmatch, spend two hours setting up ETTV servers and then wait 30 minutes for all players to ready-up when the actual match is then over after 10 minutes? I think it's high-time that we finally do something about the issue, so please let's make it happen this time.
If we evaluate the current maplist of WL and CB for what each map would be better suited for, it looks like this:
sw_oasis: 1 round
sw_goldrush: 1 round, maybe 2 possible but could be long
radar: both
supplydepot: both
et_ice: 2 rounds
braundorf: 2 rounds
adlernest: 2 rounds
frostbite: 2 rounds
If we look at the trend for competitive custom maps, it doesn't look like this situation will change a lot.
So what keeps us from doing double-rounds? Oasis is massively losing popularity lately, even sw_oasis doesn't seem to be saving it. If it gets a complete makeover to make it even more competition friendly, it could just as well be turned into a fast map in the process. My suggestion would be to try to move the guns to the north (instead of east) of the fortress and the spawn to the south-east (instead of north-west). Basically rotating the fortress by 90 degress counter-clockwise and mirroring it horizontally. This would result in a much shorter route for the allies and they would not have to cross the axis spawn anymore, which should make it far easier to take control of the gun area and end the map quickly after one breakthrough. The flagrun phase of the map could be simplified by disallowing landmines at many important chokepoints.
sw_goldrush is probably down to an average time of around 8 minutes by now, but fullholds are still a possibility. In the worst case scenario of a team fullholding and then beating the time in ten minutes, setting ten minutes in the second run and holding it, the single map would take 45 minutes plus ready ups, which is probably too long. One radical but certainly effective solution would be to simply drop the first phase of the map, with the allies already spawning at the tank. To compensate, the tank barrier should probably start out being contructed, so axis have a small chance of holding it for a while. These changes should be very easy to implement via simple script changes. This would turn goldrush into a two-phase map again. It would certainly hurt to lose one interesting part of the map, but I think it could be worth the sacrifice and the remaining part of the map is probably the more interesting one anyway.
Please consider my points seriously. Let's give it a try in pracs and maybe little cups or showmatches, so we can make a very educated decision when the next round of CB and WL seasons are getting planned.
Please excuse me if this had already been discussed in length, since I haven't followed the scene for over a year. I hope it will be useful food for thought in any case.
