Suggestions for improving Cryptic

[JWhatever]

'ey,

I don't like Cryptic at its current state. The games are very stale and tend to last over 20 minutes each. Long games are fine by me when the teams are equal and there's good action all around, but Cryptic usually ends up being a massive stalemate

I believe it's mainly due to the lack of viable passing options and moving the ball to enemy side is incredibly difficult. More often than not your clears end up bouncing back towards you due to the map geometry. Here's a pic to illustrate:



Starting off from right goal, the yellow lines show how hard it is to get the ball out of the goal area. Firstly, the top route gives zero leeway with your clears. The angle is really small and the route punishes you severely if you hit the walls on either side.
Clearing middle is easy, yes, but that's where the enemies are going to come from. Not really a safe clearing option.
The lower middle is also really unforgiving. You have to push our really far to be able to get the ball to the lower tunnels in middle. If you try to clear from too far away, you risk bouncing the ball back towards your own goal.

If you manage to get the ball to the top part of the map, you're left with very limited amount of options. You can't really use the top part due to how close it's to enemy spawn. You can try to clear through middle, however, the geometry is again playing against you. (imagine where the magenta lines will end up)

The green lines in middle illustrate how difficult it is to get the ball to the enemy goal area. More often than not, the ball is going to hit a perpendicular wall thus making the ball bounce back towards middle.

Moving on to the tunnels. The yellow lines show how limited angles you have for passing towards middle. The dark blue triangles at the top of the obstacles covering the tunnels are a big limiting factor.
The black lines show how hard it is to advance the ball along the tunnel.

The red lines at the end of the tunnel show how limited you are position wise if you want to get the ball to the enemy goal area. Again, passing options are very limited here as well.

I am no map maker so I can't test these myself. I've marked the spots on the left side of the map what I have changed on the right.



So, here's what I'd change:

1) Slightly flatten the top, make it easier to navigate and make it more reliable option to clear to.
2) Open the gap.
3) Remove the tip, easier to navigate and makes it more open.
4) Cover the gap, makes clearing both ways easier.
5) Remove the crest.
6) Extend the spawn further back into the ceiling. Move the front spawns back. Defending team has less presence in the top lanes.
7) Remove the pointy bit. Top route can be accessed more quickly and safely.
8) Remove the pointy bit. Gives slightly better passing options towards middle.
9) Remove the pointy bit. Makes bottom route more viable and makes clearing easier both ways.
10) Remove the light blue triangle. Opens up the chokepoint thus makes it easier to pass from.
11) Invert the geometry, flatten the ground.
12) Flatten the ground. See 11)
13) Remove the light blue triangle. I don't see this having any other purpose other than being an annoyance.
14) Remove the dark blue triangle. Creates a lot more passing options both ways and makes exiting the lower tunnels a bit easier.
15) Lower the obstacle. I feel that it's good to have some cover but at its current location, along with 13), the geometry makes passing really difficult. Lowering it still gives protection while making passing easier.

In hindsight, I may have lowered it too much. Having the obstacle between its current place and what I have here would be much better.

16) Chip away the pointy bit. Clearing the ball to the other end is currently really annoying when half of the lane is blocked by a mountain. Also need some real estate after 15).


I feel that those changes would make the map have better flow overall. They probably won't affect too much the general feel of Cryptic where whales and bombers can lock down big portions of the map but would at least make it less tedious to move the ball.

-J

[VAN1SH1NG]

I don't think really long games are as common as you make it sound like on Cryptic. I would agree with several of your recommendations though, but Cryptic is not a map I am going to change. I prefer to not alter maps by Nikon, at least without his approval. See if you can get in touch with him and ask if he will revise it himself or allow some minor tweaks to be made.

[Slender]

Just wanted to say that according to the data I have on ladder games, Cryptic doesn't have many games played to start off with (just 21 games) and out those 21, only 2 games surpass the 20 minute mark.

Here's the interesting thing: the longest game played on ladder so far was indeed on Cryptic, with an absurd 31 minute 43 second length and a full 4 minute difference compared to the second longest. So yeah, I guess something has to be fixed.

[sunshineduck]

i wonder what the median game length is for maps with more than 20 games played

[JWhatever]

Originally Posted by Slender

Here's the interesting thing: the longest game played on ladder so far was indeed on Cryptic, with an absurd 41 minute 28 second length...

ftfy. There was this monstrosity of a game:



I guess I was a bit liberal with the "every game lasts forever", but I'm a bit biased because of that match.

-J

[Oyster]

Replace cryptic with ball_altitude, problem solved ^^

[tomato man]

+1 to all j said, this map is bad if we dont make some changes and we are not talking about the Monna Lisa, Nikon wouldnt mind if we change the map to make it more enjoynable.