Bouncy or Hardwall

[Massi]

Just to see how much of the population likes Hardwall over Bouncy or vice versa.
Oh Joy 71-10
eth I'm sorry but you lost there is not a 99-1 in favor of hardwalls.

[zwanglos]

One has to wonder how much of the 'population' actually visits the forums, though...

[eth]

I believe most forumgoers are those who take the game a bit more seriously, and those who do that usually like hardwalls. Predicting 99-1 in favor of hardwalls, or a thread close :P

[Massi]

Yea I agree, though it wouldn't let me post a poll on the steam forums so I decided to try it here.

[Harmonica]

It all comes down to context.

Where bouncy walls afford more interesting game play -- more fun, more challenging tactics -- I'm in favor of them. Where they do not offer more interesting gameplay, I'm not in favor of them.

I've argued, and will continue to argue, that Bouncy walls allow for distinct tactics during serious Ball games. (They also allow for the spammy chaos often seen on the large public servers, but that's a well-known problem.) I haven't personally seen similar improvements for other game modes, but I haven't really looked.

"Bouncy or Normal?" is the wrong question to ask. We should instead ask, "What should the environment be like for each mode?"

[Smushface]

Wow....that's deep.

[Sean]

Originally Posted by Smushface

Wow....that's deep.

lol, yeah. I agree with Harmonica though. But I hate playing explodet on a bouncy server because it makes it really hard to damage people by throwing them into walls (that's mah main strategy!) IT'S ANNOYYING!!!!!!

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by Harmonica

It all comes down to context.

Where bouncy walls afford more interesting game play -- more fun, more challenging tactics -- I'm in favor of them. Where they do not offer more interesting gameplay, I'm not in favor of them.

I've argued, and will continue to argue, that Bouncy walls allow for distinct tactics during serious Ball games. (They also allow for the spammy chaos often seen on the large public servers, but that's a well-known problem.) I haven't personally seen similar improvements for other game modes, but I haven't really looked.

"Bouncy or Normal?" is the wrong question to ask. We should instead ask, "What should the environment be like for each mode?"

I have thought about this a lot and I used to think that bouncy walls seemed better for ball, or at least something less damaging than normal walls. But then I took a step back and I think I changed my mine. This is because the reason that ball is played the way it is is because there are bouncy walls. It's the ultra forgiving environment that promotes the horrible skill at flying that you see in the game. I think that if the game had developed in a normal wall environment that you would have seen not only a different style develop, but a better game that is centered around skillful play with more thought out decisions than just slamming your plane near where the ball is.

Basically, I think that bouncy walls have developed bad habits and created sloppy players and sloppy play. I think if hard walls were given a chance, at first people would be dying left and right, but then eventually people would adapt and being skillful at flying would be rewarded. So to answer your question, I think that the ideal environment for ball is the same as it is for any other mode: hard walls.

[Kuja900]

Their really isn't any debate as to which the community prefers enlarge.

[GGQ]

Originally Posted by nesnl

I have thought about this a lot and I used to think that bouncy walls seemed better for ball, or at least something less damaging than normal walls. But then I took a step back and I think I changed my mine. This is because the reason that ball is played the way it is is because there are bouncy walls. It's the ultra forgiving environment that promotes the horrible skill at flying that you see in the game. I think that if the game had developed in a normal wall environment that you would have seen not only a different style develop, but a better game that is centered around skillful play with more thought out decisions than just slamming your plane near where the ball is.

Basically, I think that bouncy walls have developed bad habits and created sloppy players and sloppy play. I think if hard walls were given a chance, at first people would be dying left and right, but then eventually people would adapt and being skillful at flying would be rewarded. So to answer your question, I think that the ideal environment for ball is the same as it is for any other mode: hard walls.

Thank you for saying what I didn't want to spend the time typing out.

[Harmonica]

Originally Posted by nesnl

It's the ultra forgiving environment that promotes the horrible skill at flying that you see in the game.

I agree completely: while individual maneuvering in Ball games is often exceptional, the obstacle-avoidance is very lacking: in addition to the lack of respect for walls, most Ball offenses can be halted via a single rocket or mine. There is a severe need to provide some punishment (or incentive?) related to clumsy (or exceptional) flying.

However, I still disagree that "normal" and "bouncy" are the only two options to be considered.

Originally Posted by nesnl

I think that if the game had developed in a normal wall environment that you would have seen not only a different style develop, but a better game that is centered around skillful play with more thought out decisions than just slamming your plane near where the ball is.

Unfortunately, we'll never know for certain what might have developed, but I disagree with this assertion. On the normal-wall servers which play Ball games, there appears to be zero development of Ball play styles: people still play TBD-style zone defense, circle while holding the ball, place walls in goals, fail at any semblance of clearing or touch-and-go, throw the ball away haphazardly, leave the ball lying on the ground, and generally treat the ball as little more than a bomb which can be thrown away.

Most Ball games on normal-wall servers are indistinguishable from an all-noob game on a bouncy-wall server.

I've tried repeatedly to enjoy Ball games with normal-wall servers, but in my opinion the level of play that's developed there is a disgrace and an embarrassment, especially considering the superb level of TBD skills possessed therein.

Since it's likely that the players truly interested in developing deep, Ball-specific tactics all migrated to the popular ball servers, we'll never know what might have developed if Ball had been given a chance on normal-wall servers. I agree with you that eventually people would adapt and become skillful, and it's quite possible that we'd see much richer strategies and tactics as a result. However, this has not been the case on the normal-wall servers, so there is presently no evidence to support that line of thought (despite my wish for the contrary).

Originally Posted by nesnl

Basically, I think that bouncy walls have developed bad habits and created sloppy players and sloppy play.

Again, I agree completely. While I feel the 10v10 servers have also contributed to the bad habits, there's absolutely no question that bouncy walls have led to inferior gameplay and inferior competition.

I would, however, point towards the more serious ball games -- where a completely different set of tactics usually dominates -- as an example of flowers flourishing in what would otherwise be a pile of dung. The spammy, chaotic, always-going-for-the-ball tactics currently prevalent on the large public servers are merely a flash in the pan for Ball as a serious mode of gameplay.



I have my own vision for what the future of ball strategy and tactics will involve -- and I'm sure many others do as well -- and it has nothing in common with the mess seen on the crowded public servers. Instead, it deals with elements like consistently-parallel flight paths, pre-arranged passing patterns, and an overall shift away from "OMG GET THE BALL" to "ensure that your team is the one that sets the boundaries for where the ball can go next". However, such appropaches are largely infeasible on normal-wall servers, as even for the top players that environment encourages a style of gameplay so conservative as to reward only the slow, TBD-style tactics -- when, arguably, the whole point of a new game mode is to allow new tactics to bloom.

I'm not arguing in favor of bouncy walls -- I think they're a severe fault in the game. However, I'm not arguing in favor of normal walls either (at least for Ball). Rather, my stance is that we need an environment which affords the best gameplay for Ball mode, and neither bouncy nor normal is the ultimate ideal.

[GGQ]

@Harmonica. First of all I respect your Ball play, I really do. However, I disagree with your opinions.

First let me try to sum up what I think you are saying. You seem to think that TBD is slow-paced and conservative because of hard walls. You suggest that Ball on hard walls would likewise be slow-paced and conservative. You believe that Ball has become the fast-paced game mode that it is because it is played on bouncy walls.

I disagree, and will argue my position. We'll start with why exactly Ball is faster paced than TBD, and why it has nothing to do with bouncy versus hard walls.

Ball is much faster paced than TBD for three main reasons; first is the faster respawns. Spending less time dead means that you risk less when you expose yourself to death, meaning you can take more risks. Taking more risks allows you to attempt fancier plays more often, rather than playing it safe and moving out only when a firm advantage has been established like in TBD.

Second is the ability to pass the ball. This allows an attacking team to move the ball towards the opponent's side much much more quickly than a team in TBD can move the bomb across the map. It also allows an attacking team to outmaneuver defenders more easily to score a point. Any game that rewards the attackers more will tend to be more fast-paced.

Third, and this is more subtle, game play in ball is faster paced because of the nature of the ball itself. The bomb in TBD can be discarded or disarmed. The ball in Ball is always active. (In mathematical terms, the periods of threat in TBD are discrete while the periods of threat in Ball are continuous). What I mean is that in a game of TBD, the game cannot progress significantly to either side unless a bomb has been picked up, and will no longer progress after that bomb has left play in some way. Of course, you can control power-ups and knock down turrets and those things will give your team a real advantage when it comes to the periods of high threat, but you win the game solely through base damage, which doesn't change outside those periods of threat. Thus during these periods without any threat, players (safe from the fear of taking any bomb damage in the immediate future) try to control the map in order to generate small advantages which can be exploited once the game enters a period of high threat; ie when one of the team's bomb runners picks up the bomb. At that point, the focus for every member of the attacking team is to get that bomb through and hit the base, while the focus for every member of the defending team is to neutralize that bomb. This focused and dangerous period has a distinct beginning (picking up the bomb) and a distinct end (the bomb hits the base, is defused, or is dumped **occasionally in neutral maps the bomb will change hands but in high level team play the defenders will usually opt to dump the bomb rather than risk losing it so close to their base**). Afterwards the game resumes in a period of no threat until another bomb is picked up. Thus TBD consists of two teams jockeying for positional and numerical advantage during periods of no threat, and then pressing those advantages as hard as they can during periods of high threat. It's a very controlled atmosphere, where threats have a distinct beginning and end. Thus slow and conservative play wins the day. IN CONTRAST, the ball in Ball is always a threat, and its threat is more or less proportionally higher the closer it is to your net. This also means that a game of Ball always has a center of attention which a TBD game only has once a bomb has been picked up. It is theoretically always beneficial to stop the ball as far away as possible, since the nearer it is to your net, the higher the chance that an enemy loopy can get a hold of the ball and sneak a goal in before you can stop him. This is the theory behind clearing as well: getting the ball as far away as possible to minimize the threat. Ball, unlike TBD doesn't give the option of neutralizing the threat.

Allow me to give a couple of examples to illustrate the point I made, since I don't feel like I explained it very well and I don't want to re-write it. Example 1: You are holding the ball/bomb on your side of the map, and the enemy team gets a huge advantage, killing most of your team, and suddenly there are four enemies swooping at you from all directions. In TBD you either die and the bomb gets defused (team bomb) or you dump the bomb and then die (neutral bomb). Either way, the enemy team has neutralized the threat you posed, and the game has reverted to a no threat situation; it's back to a fight for advantage before another attempted threat. In Ball, the best you could do is throw the ball in some random direction. If the enemies are any good they will most likely get that ball and score. The threat in Ball is continuous, making the game more fast-paced. Example 2) Your team just pushed hard to try to score but failed, and you were the last one to die with the bomb/ball. In TBD, your attack is completely over. Your threat was removed, and your team has to move on. You will regroup with your team on your side, and try to gain an advantage again while waiting for your next bombing opportunity. In Ball, you know that the moment you spawn you are going to be afterburning for your life towards your opponent's side, because you know that if your teammates all did the same, they are already over there, trying to keep the ball as close to the opponent's net as possible in order to keep your team's threat high.

Thus, the fast paced nature of Ball in comparison to TBD is owing to the faster respawns, the ability to pass, and the continuous threat. These points may seem obvious, but what I'm trying to say is that these things by themselves are what make the difference. It's unrelated to the walls. None of what makes Ball faster paced than TBD has anything to do with bouncy versus hard walls. In all honesty, hard walls should be irrelevant in a skilled game, except when an explo knocks a plane into them, as it's designed to do. I assure you that hard walls are not what makes conservative play popular in TBD, and that hard walls will not make Ball more conservative. The reason you see people playing Ball as if it were TBD on hard wall servers is because the people who play hardwall servers don't have a clue how to play Ball because they only play TBD.

I'm not sure why you think that many advanced ball tactics would be 'largely unfeasible' on hard walls. Certainly they would be more difficult, but isn't that what makes a game good? When a skilled team can pull off an advanced play that a weaker team couldn't? I know from experience that you can get away with some really really ****ty play in bouncy servers. And I don't mean 10v10 noob spam, I mean 5-7 a side bouncy Ball with good ballers. I can't count the number of times I've been flying with the ball on my loopy, dodging enemy bullets and trying to line up a pass when I hit a wall head on because I wasn't paying enough attention. And then I take barely any damage, and pass the ball easily to a teammate who scrapes across the rock ahead and scores. And everyone says 'Nice pass!' And I feel like saying 'No, I ****ed up. I hit that ****ing wall right on. By all rights we should have lost possession right there." And it makes me sad, because that's not how that play should go. Someone with a lot more ball skill than me should make that pass while avoiding the wall, and his equally skilled teammate should pick it up, use the rock for cover without hitting it while he gets into position, and make a beautiful goal. Instead we get this crappy excuse for a play, brought to you by bouncy walls, and it's just as effective as the beautiful play.

That's why Ball should be played with hard walls. So that skilled players can be rewarded for making plays while avoiding walls, and the less skilled players can crash into them and die, and learn to get better. I promise that all advanced ball maneuvers will be possible on hard walls, if you get good enough to pull them off. I guarantee that if all Ball was played with hard walls, the game would be a lot more fun, and the average skill level would go way up really fast. And not just the average skill level in flying, but in awareness of the ball and the map and the other players.

TL;DR - Wall of Text crits you for 8999

[Massi]

GGQ you should write novels. That thing/monster scares me, maybe horror novels? Anyway
POLL UPDATE
Bouncy: 3
Hardwall: 41
Hardwall wins until The new steam people infest and all chose Bouncy.

[Harmonica]

Thank you for such a well-worded and well-thought-out response. =)

Originally Posted by GGQ

First let me try to sum up what I think you are saying. You seem to think that TBD is slow-paced and conservative because of hard walls. You suggest that Ball on hard walls would likewise be slow-paced and conservative. You believe that Ball has become the fast-paced game mode that it is because it is played on bouncy walls.

I should have clarified myself a bit more, sorry about that. My key concerns are:
1) While Ball is certainly a fast-paced game on the bouncy-wall servers, it generally is not a fast-paced game on normal-wall servers -- despite those three excellent reasons it ought to be.
2) Almost everybody (myself included) agrees that bouncy walls need to go away (and soon!) but I fear Ball mode will become bland if bouncy walls are merely replaced by normal walls, based on the observations in concern #1.

For some time, I'd been saying that Ball should be a faster game regardless of wall type, due to the points you described above. (I too prefer normal walls: while I haven't been around nearly as long as you, I did get 6 months in TBD before giving either Ball or bouncy walls a chance, and I really wanted to see Ball played with normal walls.) Recently, I've spent several weeks joining all the normal-wall Ball games I could find, and coaxing friends to join and play, but the result is not what one would expect: instead of raising the skill ceiling such that people passed better and flew more sharpy, the games were just bland rehashings of TBD -- with the addition of people whining about the mode. =P Despite all reason to expect the contrary, for most games the pacing was slow, the action was intermittent at best, and the mode seemed to annoy just about everybody.

Ultimately, that's the crux of my argument: Ball mode should, by all reasoning, have the same pace and gameplay across both wall types, with more interesting challenges and a higher skill ceiling on normal-wall servers -- it should be a lot more fun, and the average skill level should go way up really fast -- but that isn't what's happened on the normal-wall servers.

In statistical terms, the variance in gameplay between Ball and TBD is not explained by the differences in the modes, but rather by the hardness of the walls. The reasoning you present is absolutely valid, and I agree with everything you've written, but for some reason the games themselves haven't yielded what the reasoning predicts, despite months of incubation time.

I'm not arguing in favor of bouncy walls: they need to go away. The sooner the better.

Instead, I'm arguing that normal walls are not the right thing to replace bouncy with, at least for Ball mode. Normal walls work superbly for FFA and TBD (and, presumably, the other modes), where they add challenge and make games more fun, but they inexplicably don't seem to have that effect on Ball.

Looking forward, I believe that something different from either wall type could fit the gap between normal and bouncy in such a way that it too adds challenge and makes the game more fun -- in addition to removing scenarios like your "crash and pass" example -- without resulting in the stagnation that normal-wall servers appears to have caused for Ball games. I think the right way to solve this issue is to craft a distinct wall for each mode, something consistent with the other mode attributes (eg, respawn times, game pacing, patterns of threat vs no threat). But for now that's just the pipe dream of someone who wouldn't have to do the dev work for it. ;-)


TL;DR - I agree with everything you wrote, and have used some of those arguments myself, but for some reason the expected results haven't occurred on the normal-wall servers. Bouncy sucks, no argument there, but normal seems to cause stagnation.

[Swiftee]

Im a 'Steam newbie' and I have chosen hardwall, this is because i want to learn to fly properly and hardwalls are unforgiving.

[nesnl]

Harmonica,

What I am interested in hearing is this: you say that normal walls are not the ideal environment for ball because it prevents some type of optimal strategy and by saying this you are implying that the strategy of ball should somehow incorporate crashing into walls. To me that just doesn't make sense. If you could explain to me what exactly this "crash into walls to win ball" strategy entails then maybe I could understand your point. But all I can see right now is that you somehow think you should be able to crash into a wall with a very small penalty so that you can continue to advance the ball. Everything that GGQ said is correct and he wrote exactly what I would have wrote. In no way should crashing into a wall ever be rewarding towards to team advancing to the goal of winning and this is true across all modes. Bouncy is not a ball mode and it just happened that ball and bouncy are both modes that new players like. I think that if you played with good players all the time on hard wall servers you would really see what I am talking about. But if you feel that you can explain how crashing into walls is a valid strategy then by all means please explain it to me.

[Flyngbanana]

How do you see who voted for what in the poll?
Insta-ban those who voted bouncy.

[Stormich]

Just click the number next to the bar, you get a list of people.

[CCN]

Originally Posted by Stormich

Just click the number next to the bar, you get a list of people.

I really believe that the "TBD" style is somewhat appropriate for ball. Just that bouncy lets you get away with so much that people can abandon so much.
Honestly the fact ace beat ball using "tbd" style vs "ball" style speaks somewhat about how viable the strategy is.

[Stormich]

Well to be fair Tyr, Maimer, GGQ and me play a fair ammount of ball, not to mention Mike

[GGQ]

For some time, I'd been saying that Ball should be a faster game regardless of wall type, due to the points you described above. (I too prefer normal walls: while I haven't been around nearly as long as you, I did get 6 months in TBD before giving either Ball or bouncy walls a chance, and I really wanted to see Ball played with normal walls.) Recently, I've spent several weeks joining all the normal-wall Ball games I could find, and coaxing friends to join and play, but the result is not what one would expect: instead of raising the skill ceiling such that people passed better and flew more sharpy, the games were just bland rehashings of TBD -- with the addition of people whining about the mode. =P Despite all reason to expect the contrary, for most games the pacing was slow, the action was intermittent at best, and the mode seemed to annoy just about everybody.

Ultimately, that's the crux of my argument: Ball mode should, by all reasoning, have the same pace and gameplay across both wall types, with more interesting challenges and a higher skill ceiling on normal-wall servers -- it should be a lot more fun, and the average skill level should go way up really fast -- but that isn't what's happened on the normal-wall servers.

In statistical terms, the variance in gameplay between Ball and TBD is not explained by the differences in the modes, but rather by the hardness of the walls.

In statistical terms, you are seeing correlation and assuming causation.

You've noticed that Ball on hardwalls tends to be slow-paced and not as exciting. You've noticed this correlation and assume that hardwalls are the cause of it, but you haven't said anything to prove that causation, and I can't think of any reason for it.

I don't disagree with your observation, but I propose a different explanation. For the sake of argument, let's say that there is a set of players who are used to playing on hardwalls. There is also a set of players who are used to playing Ball. I think I can safely say that there is very little overlap between those two sets of players, and that is why Ball on hardwall servers is so bad. TBD players who join because it's the only hardwall server open have no idea what they are doing, and yes they complain about the mode and etc as you mentioned. Ball players that are trying out hardwalls keep crashing and failing to make the plays that they are used to being able to make and so they get frustrated. Once again, if players were flying and passing skillfully, they wouldn't be hitting the walls, and it wouldn't matter that they were hardwalls except when an explodet knocked an enemy into them.

Hard walls don't make Ball slow-paced, they just make it harder to maintain control during that fast paced action, which is a good thing because it rewards players and teams that can maintain control, rather than rewarding anyone who can afterburn their plane toward the ball with reckless abandon.

[carstairs]

Originally Posted by GGQ

Hard walls don't make Ball slow-paced, they just make it harder to maintain control during that fast paced action, which is a good thing because it rewards players and teams that can maintain control, rather than rewarding anyone who can afterburn their plane toward the ball with reckless abandon.

I couldn't agree more with this. Sadly, I'm rarely able to find a hard-walled ball server with people, but on those rare occassions that I do, the challenge in maneuvering throughout throngs of loopies while avoiding obstacles is always worth it. It's simply more skillful due to the higher danger in hard walls. The adrenaline makes it more fun.

Hopefully the newer players reach the point where they want to go to hard servers, becuase they are the real game, in my opinion. If they need help, there's bouncy hull. It's a shame that it's so difficult to find hard-walled ball servers.

[Harmonica]

Originally Posted by nesnl

What I am interested in hearing is this: you say that normal walls are not the ideal environment for ball because it prevents some type of optimal strategy and by saying this you are implying that the strategy of ball should somehow incorporate crashing into walls.

I didn't mean to imply that there exists an optimal strategy -- rather, we're starting to see the appearance of a variety of new, innovative strategies. (Ie, "flowers blooming in a pile of dung.") These new strategies obviously don't incorporate crashing into walls; however, it appears that new ideas have only developed within environments which don't punish crashes.

I should have said that normal walls appear to halt the development of better strategies, not that they prevent the strategies themselves. Poor writing on my part; sorry about that.

As an example, it took some time for ball-clearing tactics to develop: early on (and still today on normal-wall servers) most people just threw the ball away, as the environment would usually dissuade anybody, even top-notch pilots, from rushing in to try for an immediate recovery or rebound. Over time, however, players learned to carry the ball out and away, and there's been a lot of experimentation over the best way to do that: what planes/perks to use, whether to take straight or angled paths, whether to pass inline or vertically, whether to use afterburners or weapons, when to break from the clear path and move to an offensive route, etc. Initially, that experimentation led to a lot of crashing (I'm a decent pilot on the planes I'm accustomed to, but I'd never tried afterburning in a flexi-wing reverse Loopy through the bottom of Mayhem, for example,) and the environment offered enough of a deterrent that the more-effective tactics survived over the less-effective ones, without frustrating or discouraging the development of new ideas -- even ideas which might seem absurd at first, like carrying the ball out when you could just chuck it away. The result of all this (so far) is that the ball-clearing tactics developed on the bouncy-wall servers currently have a higher skill ceiling than what's seen on the normal-wall servers, despite all reason to expect the opposite.

I'm not trying to imply that there's one ultimate ball-clear to rule them all, and I'm certainly not suggesting that bouncy mode is the right place to develop new ideas. Rather, I want to point out that such ideas and experimentation don't seem to be occuring on the normal wall servers. Eventually the strategies and tactics will settle and the rapid experimentation will slow, and the result will be, I hope, a superior challenge and experience on normal-wall servers, but the mode has a lot of maturing to do first.


-- end "reply to Maimer"; begin "let's move foward" --


This is why I'm proposing a different, Ball-specific environment: what if we had something like normal walls over most of the map, but slightly different behaviors for areas and situations where the ball has a large role?

For example: make the goal behave as a normal surface for the defending team (to prevent planes just lying in the goal) but a more lenient surface for the ball carrier (to prevent the annoying "I made it all the way into the goal, but Explodet registers a crash before the ball it's carrying registers a goal" glitch).

Similarly: have normal collisions for most surfaces, but if the ball is lying somewhere, make that spot softer. In normal-wall games a discarded ball lying on the ground (or in the nook above the goal, etc) often remains there -- it's treated more a nuisance and a delay than an opportunity to benefit from someone else's mistake.

Another idea suggested earlier (by someone else) is to change the scales at which bouncy works -- so that instead of "all bouncy, all the time" it becomes "if you crash you crash, but if you just scrape then you lose momentum/orientation". While something like this might or might not be the right long-term approach, it could provide a reasonable transition for the players who've grown up on bouncy.


I've tried to make the case that "bouncy xor normal" is the wrong way to frame this conversation: While it's clear that a shift from bouncy towards normal is sorely needed, it's both unrealistic and distracting to think that a wholesale migration to normal walls will somehow fix the wide-ranging problems that bouncy has created. There needs to be some sort of transition, and there needs to be a end goal which offers more than normal walls have offered Ball thus far.

That's my $0.02, at least. =) I'll try to avoid posting any more walls of text.

Edit: and I'm a slow typer. Oops -- didn't see that others posted while I was writing this.

[GGQ]

Originally Posted by CCN

I really believe that the "TBD" style is somewhat appropriate for ball. Just that bouncy lets you get away with so much that people can abandon so much.
Honestly the fact ace beat ball using "tbd" style vs "ball" style speaks somewhat about how viable the strategy is.

I both agree and disagree with you. As Stormich sort of alluded, we didn't play TBD style during that game, we played Ball style. We won because we kept a large number of them dead the entire game which gave us a lot more openings to score. If you mean TBD style as 'killing your enemy's planes' then I guess I agree, but I don't think that's TBD style as much as general Altitude skills.

I do agree that if Ball gets more competitive, we'll see it come to resemble competitive TBD a bit more, as skilled teams try to maximise their chances of winning by using consistent gameplay. For example, controlling areas with bombers and explos will be more important, and ball carriers will be more likely to wait for a bit of support before attacking rather than risk losing possession of the ball. Ball will, of course, remain much faster paced than TBD, even if the metagame changes the way I suspect it will.

[Smushface]

Any chance we can readdress this issue?

It's getting kind of ridiculous how hard it is to find games on non-bouncy servers. From this poll, its pretty obvious that the altitude forum-viewing community overwhelmingly prefers hard wall servers. As it stands, its getting incredibly difficult to find decently populated hardwall games.

I just do not understand the reasoning for making bouncy servers the default mode. I agree that there is a fairly steep learning curve to this game that may detract from the experience felt by new players, but as maimer said earlier, bouncy servers are just a cesspool of poor play and bad habits.

It'd be nice if we can get some sort of change so that hard walls becomes the dominant game mode again.

[tgleaf]

EDIT: Sorry, didn't see the last post date when I wrote this.

Where, oh where to begin?

Great points, GGQ. I agree with your outlook. And Harm, you are far and away the strategy guru when it comes to BALL. It's very possible that I don't understand your argument as well as I could, but I will try Obi-Wan.

In general, I am starting to appreciate the appeal of hard wall servers. I think that {ball} and other experienced BALL players have grown up on bouncy walls, and the sooner we get used to avoiding walls/obstacles, the better. Harm, I do actually think that we can create the same strategical brilliance on normal walls, but it will take time to adjust our flying style. And, as you said, it may change the nature of the game a bit. ACE killed us (literally) and won, but part of the problem was that we were all crashing into walls. It wasn't the main problem -- as we were outmatched -- but it was an issue. The recent BALL matches I've been part of (say, 4v4 to 6v6 on normal walls) have involved a lot of skill and strategy. Passing is still limited, but that will hopefully improve.

What follows is my appeal for fewer bouncy wall servers and for no 10v10 BALL servers:

It appears there are nine public servers with either "Bouncy" or "Fun" in the name that host BALL. Five of those servers have 20 spots, while the other four have 14 spots.

There are also seven normal (non-bouncy) wall servers that host BALL. So already, bouncy wall servers outnumber normal walls.

I would like to see all of the public servers that host BALL changed to a max of 14 (or even 12, but I'd be happy with 14). Is there really a reason that we need 10v10 BALL matches at all?

And how about if we just have three public servers (one US, one NL, one SE) that are bouncy? Most times of day, only two of the BALL servers are populated, both with 20 players. Those 40 players would have to move to three 7v7 servers to fit them all. That seems like a good thing. And if there were fewer bouncy BALL servers, perhaps more players would be coaxed into trying normal walls.

[Harmonica]

In the time since this discussion was started, I've played ball primarily on normal-wall servers -- but with good ball players, rather than TBD players and ball noobs. I still feel that the normal-wall environment isn't quite ideal for the goal area, but there's absolutely no doubt that good tactics thrive in both environments. It depends more on the players and the map than on the wall hardness.

I agree completely with tgleaf's appeal for fewer bouncy servers and no 10v10 ball servers. I think such changes would lead to improvements in both flying skill and tactical use.

[Sarah Palin]

I have seen several "fun server" players try out hardwall TBD and then announce they are going back to their usual server because they don't like TBD, or they don't like hardwalls, or they don't like the smaller servers, or they don't like the challenge or noncasualness of playing with the veteran TBD crowd.

To these players the 20 man bouncy wall ball frenzy games are the standard. I even had one player ask me why the devs added the TBD variant, because ball seems fine as it is?

Kinda disappointing.

[Phenoca]

Originally Posted by Harmonica

"Bouncy or Normal?" is the wrong question to ask. We should instead ask, "What should the environment be like for each mode?"

Well actually, the reason I prefer hard over bouncy is because I am new. If I had skills then I would play bouncy because I Randa and would be able to do the wall-jump thing (Randa's reverse + a bounce = speed-boost away from the wall). But since I haven't practiced this, I would rather hardwall it, because of the necessity created for aerial-maneuvering, which allows me to become better.

[Mouse]

This is a massive wall of text, so I figure I'll only read 1/2 of it before making a blind post.

I'm hardly a pro player, but pros don't scare me either. I strongly prefer hard walls, but will play bouncy 10v10 sometimes when I don't feel like caring. I play seriously but I'm not interested in leagues. You could call me casual if you wanted, but I'm just snobbish enough about my game that that the association of ball with bouncy walls turned me away.

I always preferred TBD and never gave Ball much thought as a "real" game mode. After playing some low-pop non-spamfest Ball with good players on hardwall servers, however, I've changed my mind. I feel like the ability to pass the ball, unlike the bomb, makes for better team play, and that the ball is never out of play means the game has a lot more offensive momentum. You can argue that it's not "faster" than TBD, but it's safe to say that nobody could argue that Ball is slower.

Finally--this is the main reason for my post--I noticed some comments that bouncy walls might actually be a better play environment for ball. I think this is a terrible idea. Bouncy walls definitely open up some extra tricks that can be useful in Ball, but that's what the Rubber Hull perk is for. If the Rubber Hull perk isn't worth using, even in a Ball game with hard walls, then I submit two possibilities: the rubber hull perk is not good enough and/or bouncy walls do not make Ball noticeably better or more interesting. (The other option, I suppose, is that the perk is useful in such a game, but that people are too scrubbish to touch a perk they think is for n00bs.)

[tgleaf]

Originally Posted by Mouse

I always preferred TBD and never gave Ball much thought as a "real" game mode. After playing some low-pop non-spamfest Ball with good players on hardwall servers, however, I've changed my mind.

Nice. That's our hope!

Originally Posted by Mouse

Finally--this is the main reason for my post--I noticed some comments that bouncy walls might actually be a better play environment for ball. I think this is a terrible idea.

I tend to agree, but I'm really interested in Harmonica's reason for thinking this. He's probably the authority on ball strategy (much of what he's written is on our clan strategy site, but a fair amount is posted in the forums), so if he says it can be better, I'm all ears.

[Tank]

There is nothing more annoying than when you send someone flying into a wall, then you turn around to kill someone else, when you realize its bouncy, and the other guy didnt die. This tends to piss me off, especially when there are people who just sit on the ground and shoot. So i pick hardwall.