BALL Standards

[tgleaf]

It is long past the time for someone to write the standards for plane ball, or what shall be known as ball:

[tgleaf]

FOR OFFICIAL MATCHES AND TOURNAMENTS

Match size: 6v6

Anything smaller than 6v6 makes it easy for self-pass mirandas to dominate, and also makes kills unbalance the teams too quickly. Without self-pass, 5v5 might be acceptable. Larger than 6v6 can cause map clogging.

Match length: Best of 5 or Best of 7

BALL games can be over in minutes. Teams need time to evaluate their opponent and make necessary in-game adjustments. This generally takes a few games to develop. Best of 5 allows for a minimum of three games to be played.

Good maps: darkwar, snow, mayhem, mayhem2

Fair maps: maze, cave, grotto, core, labyrinth

These maps can work for BALL, but they can also get over-crowded with limited passing lanes and narrow choke points. Core is a TBD map at heart, and there is no need for the large open center area.

Bad maps: woods, lostcity, football

These maps have wide open spaces that favor spamming and that are miranda self-pass friendly. The top areas of woods and lostcity are too easily spammed, and those maps do not have good pathways for flying and passing. The spawn points on woods should not be below the goal and below mid-map.

[eth]

Any reasoning here? Also, why not put this in the ball guide? mayhem1 plays like **** in ball as far as I know due to game length, why do you think it's a good map? I also feel lost city plays really really well, why is it a bad map?

[tgleaf]

eth, I know I posted this too early. It's not finished. But I'm a bit disappointed with the map selection on the Altitude Pro League and Captain's Games servers. It seems that TBD vets have monopolized what they think are the best maps. Maps like woods and lost city can function as great TBD maps, but they are horrible for BALL.

A short explanation is that they have wide open areas that allow what many people complain about (namely cluster****s), choke points without alternative paths, and poor spawn locations.

Mayhem (1) can be pretty exciting when played by two teams of competent ballers. The passing can be fast and furious, the choke point control is interesting to watch, and the "top" path is largely ignored except for surprise sneak goals. Contrast this with the way mayhem is played on most public servers and there is no comparison. Mayhem2 is not a favorite of mine, but several {ball} members and Mikesol like it, so I left it in the "good" list. I also like maze enough to possibly move it up. A work in progress...

Thanks for the feedback, btw. I welcome more of it.

And I purposefully did not add this to the guide, where it would have been swallowed up and largely ignored. This needs to be a thread that garners attention and debate.

[Herodadotus]

I enjoy Mayhem1, Darkwar, and Grotto the most, but I agree that woods is a bad ball map. There aren't many chokepoints, so just one explodet can defend against an entire team. This is, of course, if the explodet is really good. Still, it causes the game to be less and less about actual ball tactics and smart passing, and more about taking long shots and praying.

EDIT: I like the standards you made for match length, but why 6v6? 5v5 should be just as efficient, and that seems to be the preferred size of most really good games lately.

[{ICE}vega]

I disagree that football is a bad map. There is a lot of strategy that goes into that map. It is completely different then the rest of the maps (obviously), but i think it requires a strong team just as much. I agree it's not that fun when you are playing 10v10, but in a 6v6 or 7v7 game (with good players) it moves really fast and has a lot of strategy.

[drunkguava]

Originally Posted by Herodadotus

EDIT: I like the standards you made for match length, but why 6v6? 5v5 should be just as efficient, and that seems to be the preferred size of most really good games lately.

the difference between 5v5 and 6v6 is crucial because like tgleaf said, it makes miranda self pass a bit more stoppable. This is simply because there's an extra plane on the map that can get in the way.
Also, 5v5 is too much about the individual ball carrier and doesn't lend itself as well to passing as 6v6. In 5v5 it isn't too hard to just get behind the defense and put up a shot. This leads to less engagement between the teams, because a lot of the time people are just trying to speed past each other. One extra plane doesnt seem like it'd make too much of a difference, but believe me, it really does.

[GGQ]

Originally Posted by {ICE}vega

I disagree that football is a bad map. There is a lot of strategy that goes into that map. It is completely different then the rest of the maps (obviously), but i think it requires a strong team just as much. I agree it's not that fun when you are playing 10v10, but in a 6v6 or 7v7 game (with good players) it moves really fast and has a lot of strategy.

No, it doesn't. Bad map. It should be removed from every server.

edit- and purged from everyone's memories.

[eth]

Originally Posted by {ICE}vega

I disagree that football is a bad map. There is a lot of strategy that goes into that map. It is completely different then the rest of the maps (obviously), but i think it requires a strong team just as much. I agree it's not that fun when you are playing 10v10, but in a 6v6 or 7v7 game (with good players) it moves really fast and has a lot of strategy.

Please explain to us what all these strategies on football are about.

As for mayhem1 and LC, if the top path isn't used it's basically mayhem2 so I guess I can understand that, except for the redundancy. I get your point about LC, but from my experience I see people passing the ball in the mid/lower parts of the map much more often(as the spawn points deter fighting in the upper part of the map), and the fact that 90% of the map is viable fighting ground is pretty much why I think it's such a good ball map. The obstacles around the goal are also cool since they allow for some badass shots.

[Herodadotus]

Originally Posted by drunkguava

the difference between 5v5 and 6v6 is crucial because like tgleaf said, it makes miranda self pass a bit more stoppable. This is simply because there's an extra plane on the map that can get in the way.
Also, 5v5 is too much about the individual ball carrier and doesn't lend itself as well to passing as 6v6. In 5v5 it isn't too hard to just get behind the defense and put up a shot. This leads to less engagement between the teams, because a lot of the time people are just trying to speed past each other. One extra plane doesnt seem like it'd make too much of a difference, but believe me, it really does.

I guess that makes sense. I can see how an extra player can make a huge difference actually. One extra defender can be the difference between an interception and a goal, and vice-versa.

[drunkguava]

Originally Posted by eth

Please explain to us what all these strategies on football are about.

As for mayhem1 and LC, if the top path isn't used it's basically mayhem2 so I guess I can understand that, except for the redundancy. I get your point about LC, but from my experience I see people passing the ball in the mid/lower parts of the map much more often(as the spawn points deter fighting in the upper part of the map), and the fact that 90% of the map is viable fighting ground is pretty much why I think it's such a good ball map. The obstacles around the goal are also cool since they allow for some badass shots.

I don't mind LC actually. I think it should go in the fair map category. The thing about that map, from my perspective, is that it plays a lot like tbd. Teams remain on their sides more often than in other maps and try to control chokepoints. With good teams, when the team with the ball has an advantage in numbers (or gets bored), they shoot through the gaps with a couple loopys or a self passing miranda and just try to get a throw off. Counter-attacking is really where most of the goals come from though. And defense in LC basically just consists of tossing the ball back over the wall. It isn't hard to clear for the most part. It can take a veryyyyy long time, which is why a lot of people dont like it.

[r87]

Darkwar, snow, maze, and mayhem 2 are the best.

I actually think cave and labyrinth are very good as well. They are a little intimidating for some players due to the difficult maneuvering in the former, and teamwork required in the latter.

[wiseguy]

I must agree with r87 on his choice of maps--my favorite are darkwar, snow, mayhem2, and maze...with cave and labyrinth being additional possibilities.

I'm one of the few who actually like to play football, and I believe it's good for developing a sense of figuring out where the ball is going to go when all you can see is the off screen icon, but it probably doesn't have a place in real matches...it would only be about killing the other team and getting a randa self passing through.

Anyway, lostcity is totally out of the question because it's buggy--you can shoot through the goal sometimes. Woods, I agree, has bad spawn points and is in general not much fun for ball.

[Sean]

Personally, I agree with tgleaf for the most part.

-Edit: randomness coming up!

Ok, i just got back from playing 15v15 on ball_football. It took about 30 minutes to get the first goal!