Kash I don't mean to be.. a pain with this right now. But there has been constant talk about the lower divs winning more with aliens than marines, turning a lot of games into alien wins only. So using the 1-1 draw isn't the 'best' argument for this map.

And please keep it civilized...

*EDIT by yalu*
I said keep it civil. No reason to say things like that.

edit:
Kash says

the skill level of low division teams is comparable to that of division 2 teams back in season 2 - 3

wroooooooong

Kash says

Wob says

blah blah blah, i'm so good at this game, I must know better than everyone, blah blah blah

I don't get it. You ask for legitimate reasons why not to try the new changes and I said I wasn't opposed to trying them, then you flame me. It's like you forgot the reason you're spamming offtopic posts on this thread.

Also I'm not surprised by this flame, it's the classic go to defense for people unwilling to even debate a L2P issue. Maybe you ARE right and maybe it is too op! Of course if you don't want to even attempt to prove it is OP we're kind of stuck in this loop of you being bad and mad. Just try and lighten up and answer like I have been for each of your posts :)

Kash says

But the TP vents are just stupid, yes I CAN block them, yes I CAN micromanage to make sure they aren't an issue, but the map becomes more about the vents than it should be.

Sure because at most 50% of games are played on those spawns and even fewer end up in OP alien base rush wins that aren't countered. I'm absolutely certain you can back up that factual claim that the map becomes more about the vents than IT SHOULD BE. I mean first of all you need to convince me that the map SHOULDN'T be about the vents, and then convince me that the map is centered TOO MUCH around the vents. Of course you could just throw your toys out the pram....

Also just want to point out that I looked at all the descent games from season 6 that are still on twitch and only 2 had base rushes through the vent (the ones I linked). 1 successful because unscouted, 1 unsuccessful because scouted.

Kash says

Just because I don't like something that doesn't mean I can't counter it.

--->
Kash says

why the hell would you want a map that is almost guaranteed to be 1 - 1

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Kash says

aliens can do cheese rushes all day on it and just annoy the fuck out of the marine team

You've lost me. If you can counter it why does the vent make the map guaranteed alien wins?

Kash says

Draw 1 - 1 is boring...

Then train and get the 2-0. Maybe every other team knows you hate descent and are going to look at nicking 2-0 from you now ;) Nothing in guaranteed in ns2. Also I don't believe that a 1-1 scoreline is inherently boring. You can have amazing games and still draw.

Kash says

and yet again, you only talk about "high skill" matches...

Because I argue that the vents allow an increase in skill ceiling for marines macro positioning. The best marine teams should totally dominate on this map because they're given this beautiful fluid movement between rooms to zone out the alien res biters. Of course I'm going to talk about high skill matches when that is my argument... Low skill teams can 1-1 it or veto it so it doesn't matter as much if they don't like it... This map is unique and emphasises different skills than other maps, don't change it because you "don't like it".

Kash says

the skill level of low division teams is comparable to that of division 2 teams back in season 2 - 3... which means the "low" skill teams are still much better than they used to be. so the "L2P" argument is an arrogant one

Yeah you're gonna have to explain how exactly you made those mental gymnastics.

Kash says

, and believe me bud, i'm not pissed off, I just emphasize aggressively... its where i'm from... you'd have to do a lot more than you're doing to even start getting on my nerves.

I'm glad because I haven't even done anything remotely inflammatory. I'm sorry if being bad makes you mad though... I guess?

Kash says

"the map is fine because you can refuse to play it" - Veto... the Perfect way to balance a map... GG, dickhead.

That's not what I'm saying... What I'm saying is, it works and is balanced and brings out certain skills in players and teams. If you don't have those skills, go for the best you can do (1-1 maybe) or veto it in the playoffs so you don't have to play it. But if you don't have those skills, there is no need to change the map to suit you. REGARDLESS, I AM NOT AGAINST PLAYING THE NEW VERSION, I just really love current descent and defend it whenever people whine.

Now as yaluzan said.... try to play nice this time.

As it is looking right now, we will probably hold the current map pool.
Maybe add docking2 if we get enough feedback from people that played it(mephilles go make people play pcws on it!!! )
Nexus has been getting a lot of improvements lately so that will definitely be ready for season 7. Regarding Descent, there haven't been enough arguments to switch and definitely not enough testing on the changed version so unless that changes before the new season, it will stay like that.

REMEMBER THIS TOPIC WILL BE UP UNTIL SIGNUPS FOR SEASON 7 CLOSE.

Wob says

REGARDLESS, I AM NOT AGAINST PLAYING THE NEW VERSION

That's literally all I asked for, you went defensive and I responded to that.

On the discussion of "learn to play it"... are you against Derelict being added to the pool?

Yes, needs vents. Alley is ridiculously OP. North east RT is also a little too marine friendly for my liking. Otherwise I think the map has huge potential

Worst case scenario, we can make a NSL version of derelict if Loki doesn't want to add some really needed vents or something. and also remove a ton of the plants outside of the map in the south west of the map which drain FPS.

sooo, you're saying that Derelict is too marine strong, which is bad... but descent is okay even though thats alien strong?

So, to paraphase yourself... why not just L2P, veto and/or go 1 - 1... Derelict is fine, its one of my favorite maps.

A few updates were just released for Nexus. Adjustments to make you feel all warm and comfy. I think we should keep Descent in rotation.

Also @yaluzan I think NS2+ has been updated to remove a huge amount of those plants, though I could be wrong.

Kash says

sooo, you're saying that Derelict is too marine strong, which is bad... but descent is okay even though thats alien strong?

So, to paraphase yourself... why not just L2P, veto and/or go 1 - 1... Derelict is fine, its one of my favorite maps.

Gr8 b8 m8.

Descent is and actually has a good spread of victories despite this one vent problem (it isn't actually alien strong btdubz). Derelict has a huge RT biting problem because of the lack of vents and huge open corridors which are difficult to circumnavigate. The entire game of NS2 is based around resources and res biting so when a map is fundamentally flawed across all lanes in that aspect, it is not balanced. When one singular vent is available to base which can easily be scouted/blocked, it is not that bad a deal. That and Derelict isn't tried and tested.

Please tell me you're not THAT stupid to understand the difference...

I want to steer everyone back on-topic.
We (and by we, preferably players that played Custom Map Cup and others who played the Custom Map Cup maps on their own) should decide on the NEW maps for S7. Descent2 or whatever you wanna call it, was not tested or played at all, get it done and we can see it by season 8. Talking about it in this thread is imho off-topic, take it into Feedback subforum. If you want to put it on NSL Gather servers and play it on gathers, talk to the Gather admins, I think they wouldn't mind, even in case of some servers it might take some time to put it on.
You are here to say what maps from CMC you would like to see in the map pool for S7 and if any from the current rotation should be taken out. Remember we are aiming at map pool of size 8 -10 to accommodate div sizes in S7.
So what do you think of docking2, fracture, caged, derelict, prison? (In no way I am sorting them from best I like to worse and trying to prime you.)

Wob says

Gr8 b8 m8.

You could have stopped at that Wob, the rest is plain for everyone to see (Although shade hive is OP as hell on derelict and actually, to a certain extent, balances the map) I was being sarcastic.

http://www.twitch.tv/vindalo0/v/13777414

PCW: first map was on docking2

any feedback you have for the map feel free to post it here

As a voice from the graves:

Descent is one of the few maps with unique gameplay and added variety to the map pool in my active play time. Honestly, I didn't like it very much, but that only referred from my own gameplay style on it where I didn't feel very comfortable on. In other words, I felt outskilled on this map since I couldn't get my sweet spots as I had on other maps - whether as comm or field marine, descent was always hard to play for me. But this again I loved. Descent was always a pinnacle to try out different approaches and test your own practice as a team. I even remember back in S2 when I trained old HBZ on it in D1. And the vents of course did play part in it as well in several strats. Depending on the spawning locations you can have different openings, and yes, the base vents allow some risky tactics and you have to respond to that as marine. Gosh, I even remember Fana being mad at me for all the cheesy and delay rushes and whatnot we tried on Archaea - but that also helped them to train their spider senses, map zoning and responding until a point they became almost cheese-proof ;)

And descent was considered marines-biased for some time, just FYI. Calling it alien draws on lower divs is also not necessarily a map flaw, it's mostly in the game design. I could draw you a graph where you see a not linear line between effectiveness as marine/alien with higher skill, but this is not the point I guess. Actually, it is nice to have a map where it takes more skill to take the 2-0. The perfect balance is not a 50/50 rate as Charlie always stated, balance goes way deeper IMO, most important is you have a *real chance* to win, be it 40 or 60 percent, it doesn't matter. ESPECIALLY if you play both sides anyways (which is only different on BO-X format I introduced in NS2 eliminations while NS1 was kept being played map after map until one team finally won the last map 2-0..).

Anyone remembers the (unfortunetaly terribly hosted face-painted) UWE event in cologne with Archaea vs Nexus? Arc took Descent as marines in 90 seconds and Fana could talk an hour about the gameplay of that match. Well, he did so. If you ever happened to play with Mendasp in a gather, there is a 80% chance you heard clips from his Fana-soundboard coming from that match review.

Back back on topic, those vents might be annoying to deal with, but they make marine gameplay more exciting and challenging in my opinion. I cannot remember how often I screamed "ZONING" in my mic as comm when my marines would wander off being overly excited and leaving the base open when my spider senses yelled out loud - of course at this point it's already too late. This can happen on every map, but descent trains this a bit harder. It also gives incentives to try completely different openings. The game meta has changed so many times over the years and I am probably out of date anyways, but you get the idea.

In my guts Descent always felt like a nice map addition - hard to learn and feeling really rewarding when winning. Definitely a good map pick in elimination matches when you trained on it.




TL;DR

L2P