Apr 14, 2009, 02:59 PM
Okay, here's why I think watchtower is bad.
1) Snipers just have too much freedom on this map. On any other arena map, there are ways to deal with snipers and on certain arena maps, they get shut down very easily. However, here's why I think snipers are way overpowered on this map: Within seconds of the gate opening, a sniper can snipe into the enemy spawn. No class besides a scout can run to the middle without being exposed to sniper fire (and this is while running on a straight pipe...easy headshots anyone?) Needless to say, anybody who goes through the left or right of the map could be sniped too. When I sometimes play it with the regulars (just cause i have nothing better to do), if we see a sniper dot (sometimes more than one) covering the left or right, we tell everyone to avoid going that way and have to change our strategy completely. Additionally, standing on the point makes you vulnerable to sniper fire...it's ridiculous that you have to be crouching down to avoid being headshot (because, depending on your class, your head perfectly peeks out the top) Of course, in other arena maps, snipers can cover the cap point easily too. But it is rare that in a map where the cap point has 4 entrances, what people fear most are snipers sniping from a very long, very safe distance.
However, this isn't the real problem. The real problem is that more than any other map, watchtower is a map of counters. What do i mean?
Look at the various strategies:
1) flood the map with snipers, cover all positions
2) Rush the point with a large group, hold it until they can cap
3) Demo/rocket jump to the top, camp the point, sticky the point and make it difficult to attack
If anybody decides to execute these strategies, the other team can only hope to win if they counter them. If the enemy has several good snipers, the best chance at victory for the other team is to have enough snipers to force the enemy snipers to prioritize, making it a sniper vs sniper battle while the rest of the classes fight it out.
If a team say, gets two or three medic pairs and an engi pair and rush the middle (and encounter little opposition), they pretty much have the game in the bag. If i see a team doing this, I have to tell my team to prepare to rush the point next round, because that kind of defense is nearly impossible to push through, seeing as how closed the cap point is. (besides to snipers)
I've seen occasions where a pair of demos would sticky jump above, and put stickies all over the cap point, defeating a team with much larger numbers. The only way that a team can hope to beat people camping on the roof is to hopefully have a demo/soldier also able to jump up. A sniper can help, but no matter where you are sniping from, you can only cover about half the roof.
So you see, in my opinion, the problem with watchtower is that it forces teams to change their lineup to win, and that certain classes on watchtower are way more used/needed than they should be. One might say that this is fair and should be expected from arena gameplay, but consider this:
Let's say there are 20 people in the server. It's a 10v10. On every single arena map, I would say that a lineup of 1 soldier, 1 demo, 1 heavy, two medics, two scouts, spy, sniper, engi would be a very solid lineup. It requires little modification. However, on watchtower, i would scoff at that lineup. An engi is useless if you dont take the point early; even then, a lack of metal means that it will take upwards of a minute to get anything real situated there. A heavy, if lucky enough to make it to the middle (easily sniped anywhere else), needs teammates to hold the point with him. If our sniper gets sniped in the first couple seconds, the team will effectively be pinned down on their side, unless everyone charges from the same area (and just ignores the losses) In addition, from my experience, scouts are not nearly as useful on watchtower as you'd think. Scouts cannot easily rush enemy spawn to attack snipers; they have to traverse a long way, dodging sniper fire all the while. If there is a single soldier that stays behind to protect the snipers, scouts are effectively shut down.
I could go on, but the point is that watchtower doesn't promote diversity. I could play the same class for every other arena map, but when watchtower comes up in the rotation, I have to consider changing it to something that will be good in watchtower. When the cap point opens, if you happen to be far away (you were sniping in spawn, for example), it's possible you can't make it to the point in time. Is this possible with any other arena map? It takes such a long time to get to the point that if people aren't close to the point, it's hard to organize and make a coordinated charge into the point. I realize that this argument is perhaps the answer to the "snipers can snipe into the point easily and make it hard for people to cap" argument i brought up earlier, but both sides of this argument are problems that shouldn't exist.
another problem is that watchtower is glitchy: The water cooler in the point, if knocked over, can make people freeze for several seconds if they accidently step over it. Thus a strategy is to knock the water cooler into one of the stairs, making it difficult for anyone to run up without knocking it aside first. People can alsosticky jump out of the map. I dont know if this is because watchtower doesn't have a skybox, or because there are holes in the skybox, but i've seen it done before. Admittedly, i'm not sure that you can fire anything back into the normal gameplay area (the one time that i observed a demo doing that, his stickies would get stuck under the map), but he definately removes himself from gameplay. (not that i care that people can do this, just wanted to point out another glitch from watchtower). A third glitch i've noticed is that if you fall down into the rocks below the straight pipe, you can become stuck in the rocks. This doesn't happen often, but if you just happen to accidently walk off, you should prepare to be stuck for the rest of the round.
Keep in mind that most of this is just my opinion...if you think that some of the arguments I said are unjustified or should be expected from arena gameplay, i'm fine with that. I just wanted to tell drunken and anyone that thinks watchtower is a good map why almost every single one of the regulars (who put a ton of hours into the server) think that watchtower is flawed.
Drunken, map veto votes are perfect, if you dont want to remove watchtower from the rotation. However, I suspect that watchtower will be vetoed out so often that it might as well not be in the rotation.
Your votekick improvement is just what we need. Nothing to add there.
1) Snipers just have too much freedom on this map. On any other arena map, there are ways to deal with snipers and on certain arena maps, they get shut down very easily. However, here's why I think snipers are way overpowered on this map: Within seconds of the gate opening, a sniper can snipe into the enemy spawn. No class besides a scout can run to the middle without being exposed to sniper fire (and this is while running on a straight pipe...easy headshots anyone?) Needless to say, anybody who goes through the left or right of the map could be sniped too. When I sometimes play it with the regulars (just cause i have nothing better to do), if we see a sniper dot (sometimes more than one) covering the left or right, we tell everyone to avoid going that way and have to change our strategy completely. Additionally, standing on the point makes you vulnerable to sniper fire...it's ridiculous that you have to be crouching down to avoid being headshot (because, depending on your class, your head perfectly peeks out the top) Of course, in other arena maps, snipers can cover the cap point easily too. But it is rare that in a map where the cap point has 4 entrances, what people fear most are snipers sniping from a very long, very safe distance.
However, this isn't the real problem. The real problem is that more than any other map, watchtower is a map of counters. What do i mean?
Look at the various strategies:
1) flood the map with snipers, cover all positions
2) Rush the point with a large group, hold it until they can cap
3) Demo/rocket jump to the top, camp the point, sticky the point and make it difficult to attack
If anybody decides to execute these strategies, the other team can only hope to win if they counter them. If the enemy has several good snipers, the best chance at victory for the other team is to have enough snipers to force the enemy snipers to prioritize, making it a sniper vs sniper battle while the rest of the classes fight it out.
If a team say, gets two or three medic pairs and an engi pair and rush the middle (and encounter little opposition), they pretty much have the game in the bag. If i see a team doing this, I have to tell my team to prepare to rush the point next round, because that kind of defense is nearly impossible to push through, seeing as how closed the cap point is. (besides to snipers)
I've seen occasions where a pair of demos would sticky jump above, and put stickies all over the cap point, defeating a team with much larger numbers. The only way that a team can hope to beat people camping on the roof is to hopefully have a demo/soldier also able to jump up. A sniper can help, but no matter where you are sniping from, you can only cover about half the roof.
So you see, in my opinion, the problem with watchtower is that it forces teams to change their lineup to win, and that certain classes on watchtower are way more used/needed than they should be. One might say that this is fair and should be expected from arena gameplay, but consider this:
Let's say there are 20 people in the server. It's a 10v10. On every single arena map, I would say that a lineup of 1 soldier, 1 demo, 1 heavy, two medics, two scouts, spy, sniper, engi would be a very solid lineup. It requires little modification. However, on watchtower, i would scoff at that lineup. An engi is useless if you dont take the point early; even then, a lack of metal means that it will take upwards of a minute to get anything real situated there. A heavy, if lucky enough to make it to the middle (easily sniped anywhere else), needs teammates to hold the point with him. If our sniper gets sniped in the first couple seconds, the team will effectively be pinned down on their side, unless everyone charges from the same area (and just ignores the losses) In addition, from my experience, scouts are not nearly as useful on watchtower as you'd think. Scouts cannot easily rush enemy spawn to attack snipers; they have to traverse a long way, dodging sniper fire all the while. If there is a single soldier that stays behind to protect the snipers, scouts are effectively shut down.
I could go on, but the point is that watchtower doesn't promote diversity. I could play the same class for every other arena map, but when watchtower comes up in the rotation, I have to consider changing it to something that will be good in watchtower. When the cap point opens, if you happen to be far away (you were sniping in spawn, for example), it's possible you can't make it to the point in time. Is this possible with any other arena map? It takes such a long time to get to the point that if people aren't close to the point, it's hard to organize and make a coordinated charge into the point. I realize that this argument is perhaps the answer to the "snipers can snipe into the point easily and make it hard for people to cap" argument i brought up earlier, but both sides of this argument are problems that shouldn't exist.
another problem is that watchtower is glitchy: The water cooler in the point, if knocked over, can make people freeze for several seconds if they accidently step over it. Thus a strategy is to knock the water cooler into one of the stairs, making it difficult for anyone to run up without knocking it aside first. People can alsosticky jump out of the map. I dont know if this is because watchtower doesn't have a skybox, or because there are holes in the skybox, but i've seen it done before. Admittedly, i'm not sure that you can fire anything back into the normal gameplay area (the one time that i observed a demo doing that, his stickies would get stuck under the map), but he definately removes himself from gameplay. (not that i care that people can do this, just wanted to point out another glitch from watchtower). A third glitch i've noticed is that if you fall down into the rocks below the straight pipe, you can become stuck in the rocks. This doesn't happen often, but if you just happen to accidently walk off, you should prepare to be stuck for the rest of the round.
Keep in mind that most of this is just my opinion...if you think that some of the arguments I said are unjustified or should be expected from arena gameplay, i'm fine with that. I just wanted to tell drunken and anyone that thinks watchtower is a good map why almost every single one of the regulars (who put a ton of hours into the server) think that watchtower is flawed.
Drunken, map veto votes are perfect, if you dont want to remove watchtower from the rotation. However, I suspect that watchtower will be vetoed out so often that it might as well not be in the rotation.
Your votekick improvement is just what we need. Nothing to add there.