SIEGE MAP BALANCE FEEDBACK - Himmelsberg Monastery

[Elindor]

Diggles your question has already been answered - no one reads scene editing and i've already approved this with cmp (he moves them later)
And the secondary route is not out of the way, it stems from the main courtyard where all attackers go.
This happens anytime a new map is in rotation - people need time to "learn" it.  Although this one is pretty simple.

Joker - only stairs as depicted in my post a couple back.
Most attackers still aren't using it. 

[Joker86]

And what about a) and b)? I think they are rather important, a lot of damage could be dealt from there.

[Elindor]

Good ideas, but if anything I've seen defense being at an advantage already, so not sure I would want to add more to their defense...there's places to shoot at the attackers opening front gate and side gate already.

And you can't get in that tower you mentioned.
The monastery walls could shoot down on attackers coming in, yeah.

[Joker86]

Good ideas, but if anything I've seen defense being at an advantage already, so not sure I would want to add more to their defense...there's places to shoot at the attackers opening front gate and side gate already.

Well okay, as I was only asking and not suggesting, I guess this means no to both - you can't shoot down the sides of the wall and no, you can't shoot down the tower... well, okay, as we agree, this would make the map rather unbalanced in favour of the defenders.

...although I think it's a pity, because those two elements would be really nice defenses...

Another question: is it possible to implement destructible items (like doors) of any shape (unlike doors) onto a map? With as many hitpoints as you want to have? And can the destruction of such an item have the result of another item moving (like a siege tower)? Because I always whished to see a map where the attackers throw something down from above onto the castle, like abig rock or something. It would have been secured by some wooden framework, which needs to be destroyed, but then another path is open. On the other hand the wooden framework would be really tough and totally exposed to enemy fire... but I guess it's a) impossible and b) too much of a change to implement it in this map. 

[Elindor]

Siege 2.0 (under construction by Ozin currently) will have the ability to place doors (maybe other objects too?) with HP that you can set. 

Currently, no, just doors with preset HP.

I know, I would love other options too.

[Elindor]

Seeing a slight majority in "defense has advantage" develop, which I may agree with if I had to choose.
Will watch the poll and the in game results more...

If I change anything it will probably be things like :
- May open door to sanctuary a little wider to make it less defensible slightly
- Move some defense spawns
- Move the defense center spawn point
- Remove the door in the tunnel

[Elindor]

Bump - would like to see more votes come in over time...

[Tor!]

This map looks very nice! Good job.

[Turboflex]

not sure why people are voting that defence has an advantage... It's true the first choke is fairly strong, but once attack breaks those double doors and pushes through and forces defence back their only fighting spot is at flag. Only an elite D could hold that choke for the whole round, considering it's right beside attacker spawn. At that point it's just a straight 20 second run from attacker spawn to flag.

I would add a gate with opening mechanism to the main door of monestary.

[Digglez]

not sure why people are voting that defence has an advantage... It's true the first choke is fairly strong, but once attack breaks those double doors and pushes through and forces defence back their only fighting spot is at flag. Only an elite D could hold that choke for the whole round, considering it's right beside attacker spawn. At that point it's just a straight 20 second run from attacker spawn to flag.

I would add a gate with opening mechanism to the main door of monestary.

Because flag has 2 even smaller chokepoints, the gap in the doubledoors which 3 shielders can block easily and the stairs up which 2 people can block easily.  Archers all the while have massive height bonus and owning the crap outta incoming attackers.

[Elindor]

Uh oh - NH infighting!

Run! 

[Turboflex]

Because flag has 2 even smaller chokepoints, the gap in the doubledoors which 3 shielders can block easily and the stairs up which 2 people can block easily.  Archers all the while have massive height bonus and owning the crap outta incoming attackers.

In theory a lot of maps have really badass chokepoints that a shieldwall/archer formation could defend forever. In reality it rarely happens.

When the map came up last night attackers won easily 3-0, the close spawn to flag distance overwhelming the D with #s once the doors were broken down.

[Elindor]

I've seen this go both ways now.

Originally I was concerned it might give offense a slight advantage but needed testing.

When it first got on the servers it seemed defense had big advantage because people were not using alternate route to flag (side stairs), but now that they are, it is seeming to many to have an offensive advantage.

I'll let it settle out some and continue watching it before doing anything to it.

---

And to your point Turboflex, you are right that most people do not do that.

I try to balance my maps for what I call "average play" which I see as:
- a fairly full server
- balanced level of clan presence (so if there are 10 CLAN X on offense, defense needs to have 10 CLAN Y)

It's all you can really do.  Can't balance for low pop (defense suffers usually), and can't balance for one side having massive clan presence and other side having little.

[Joker86]

But perhaps two organized team with teamspeak like in strat could deliver a final result, as they are most likely capable of showing the best performance possible for defenders and attackers, and how those best performances behave on that map. If this test has the result of a draw or close to it, you can assume the map is balanced.

Of course there is always the possibility that on pugs the results can vary. The reason for that is often that pugs rather play "instictively", and if somehow, due to map design, for one team the best strategy is somehow unconsciously suggested by the map, for the other team the map suggests something sub-par, the results will deviate. But I guess that's a rather special case.

[Elindor]

Agreed...unfortunately the only proper venue with enough people is basically the servers themselves....

So currently best way to balance is :  get it as close as you can while in design (thinking through things, timing runs, etc), and then throw it up on servers, see results over time as best you can, revise...etc