Hey LD,Lorrydriver wrote: ↑Hey,
I think whoever will be in charge of the new mappool will have to make a choice which is gonna be very siginificant for the future of RA. I get the idea of pushing new maps, more experimental maps, which can be very fun. This will however hurt the competitiveness of the league.
Maps that are very popular amongst the top players usually offer a lot more possibilities and depth than most other maps. It may not always be obvious to everyone, how much different you can play games on Pitfight, Green Belt and Sidestep for example. Also how much thought you can put into your strategy on those kind of maps is actually insane.
Furthermore, do we need to get rid of the thought of the Meta playing such a huge role. This is a myth created and fed by some of our most popular members of the community and it appeals to a lot of people for good reasons: Top players mass inf, tanks and if they get an advantage they push that advantage by base pushing. Newer players obviously copy build orders of top players, which will drastically improve their winrate. The old strategies don't win you games anymore.
All that supports the idea of the meta being inf/tank spam and being superior.
This is where you need to analyze the development of the competitive scene in more detail: The overall skill level has improved immensely, build orders have become almost scientifically, just have a short chat with Happy and ask him about exact timings. He'll explain to you what that slight change in build order does provide you with. You can't win games anymore on the highest level if you constantly float 5k+ which was no big deal a year ago. You'll have to macro to perfection to stand a chance against top 5 players. Playing the player instead of playing one build order against everyone at all times has become extremely important. Extremely small advantages will be pushed by top players.
Believe it or not, I used to be able to win 90% of my games against top players, regardless of how the first couple of fights went, just because I was superior in so many other parts of the game. Mainly macro, multitasking and understanding of the game. Nowadays if I screw up slightly against players like Orb, Smitty, Happy or Barf, my chance of winning will be very limited. That's because they caught on. Of course theres not a lot of players on that level, but those players are not on that level, because they basepush or mass inf/tanks, but rather because they do everything else so well.
I experimented with fast tech strategies and had a lot of success with it. We've seen Orb destroy 'meta' players with his minute 4:30 v2s. A great number of high tier games end up in tech center play.
I beg every 'Meta is too hard' believer just to look closer and maybe come to the conclusion, that the unit choice are just a part of the equation. An important one, but no where near as important as most people think.
A map pool so important for the competitive scene, shouldn't consist of maps that punish macro players, multitasking and aggression to force games that limit the options of how you can play the game and don't encourage players improve their overall game.
Thanks for your reply.
Please shoot me if Im wrong, but I really feel you want to have a map pool selection, where ultimately the best players have the best changes, eliminating chance. I feel the RAGL players should be able to play different styles of maps. And with that, I mean variation in size, landscape economy etc, of course not going into extremes, where only one tactic is viable.
Extreme example: Sometimes in the lobby I see a player selecting Singles / Allies playing on " Fastest" gamespeed . Ill wish you the best of luck trying to beat the guy with Soviets.
The question is, where do we want to go with this mappool. The most important factor to me is balance. Also, I think the 3 main options (Tech / Army / Economy) should have a decent chance on any map.
Could you please explain how this is related to the mappool and provide some examples of maps which you think should and shouldnt be in the map pool?