Why don't we just create unlocks that promote outputting damage instead of changing the fundamentals of maps

poor twiggy: prem brain trapped in a mid body :(

People are still thinking the way maps are designed isn't one of the reasons stalemates occur....

There is no point on any map where the map maker thought how long it takes a team to rotate from one choke to another, and if they did, it's not designed that well. On top of that, half the maps have ONLY chokes to push through (gullywash, badlands, etc).

There are more reasons why tf2 is stalematey, but I'm 100% confident that if somebody made a map with these things in mind, each team would be able to take more risks without a high chance of failing. Take granary 2nd (holding yard, pushing 2nd) and snakewater (holding mid, pushing 2nd). Which is easier fail?

The answer's obvious. The map does play at least a small role in being able to take risks.

Exactly. In starcraft brood war, balancing the game could only be done through maps, and current maps have nothing in common with early 2000s maps.
Now look at TF2 maps evolution :p

Please go back to playing ammomod pyro (and apparently call0doody)

One of the main reasons we aren't building maps in that way is because people are so used to being defensive that if you create an easier push people aren't necessarily happy with that. Its actually hard to make maps that aren't small variations of map design that already exists, not only because the design space is actually very small, but people also don't even want to take the time to practice new maps. In EU at least, nobody ever scrims new maps in the pool until their week.
Its not necessarily worth the risk because if you experiment too much you can lose your audience immediately. It takes a lot of mapping talent to be able to create a map good enough for competitive and general play, and even with a good understanding of tf2 (I'm nowhere near prem granted, but I can comfortably play solid high) I was still unable to create an idea that worked.
This really isn't simple stuff and requires way more from the community if we want people to make these innovative maps. Mapchamp was about half way there, but top players have to get involved. A+ effort from banny who worked with phi on cardinal and stark who worked with me on my map, other than that I can't think of much tbh.

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At any rate, I have managed to get my housemates to watch some tftv and the main complaint I get is always that the maps are too similar, because to someone who barely or doesn't play at all, the difference between a stalemate on gullywash and a stalemate on granary is almost nothing at all. We need koth in the map pool so things are changed up and frankly we could do with a decent ad map as well, but that's a while off.

i know the new map cup wasnt perfect but we did have a bo5 grand final played entirely on new maps for $500 between the top 2 teams in NA doesnt that count for something :(

you're right people are way too disapproving when it comes to new maps, but that is an absolute terrible reason for this--to not make a good map--because if done right, it's not a risk, since it isn't really that much different; it's just making a good map, rather than a bad map. so actually, i would think fewer people would complain about how they don't want to play a new map "because it's aids" or specifically "because pushing x point is way too hard" or "there's no interesting props/geometry in x transition"

now, to make it good, that takes a lot of talent, as you said, and we do have the map makers to do that, with people like phi, hyce, and others who are actively making new maps. b4nny is making a map with phi, for example, and it is a good map, with the exception that it still has the problems of every other map, because they obviously didn't think of the ideas i mentioned. and again, we do have the community to give feedback on maps, because they already give feedback on good maps as well as maps that were originally very bad.

what i'm trying to say is it's really not as complicated as it sounds. you just need to keep these things in mind when making a map.

Or we can play more koth?

the fact that the ONLY koth map in rotation anywhere is Viaduct is pretty ludicrous.
I welcome our new bagel overlords.

Yeah of course it does - but that is just one thing. The fact is these maps can/do contain the exact same problems that other maps do like corsa said and that's exactly my point. None of these maps solve stalemates in particular. That's not to say these maps are bad I'd much rather play log or cardinal than granary and both are far better than mine was.

Creating a map which does solve stalemates takes far more design time and far more testing and far more versions and far more experimenting. Its arguable obviously but making something that solves a problem others can't do, that's hard. It just is 100% not as simple as just keeping stalemates in mind. If it was we would all have done it.

Absolutely stuff like that big map cup are great for bringing up the notoriety of the maps and that's perfect, but that's not going to solve the stalemate problem - koth does, 5cp does not unless we are willing to put more in, that's all I'm saying. We have talented mappers who can do it if we give them more back, I probs can't.

even if a map solves a particular gameplay problem, it doesn't make it fun. This can be cause solving the problem is a big can of worms or the execution is off. Gully is off-class friendly but also horribly flawed, and it'd be hard to make it less chokey without sacrificing the off-class viability. You can't just take badlands, remove the shitty parts, and suddenly have a good map. The shitty parts are inherent to the map and make the good parts workable too.

IMO the gamemode is really to blame much more than the maps. It provides no pressure for either team to commit to a push into/out of last, other than "it's 30 seconds left, we should push now or we get stalemated" for the winning team. As 5cp is now, pushing last without a huge advantage is a very big risk. Taking such a huge risk while you're already ahead just isn't strategically viable (minimising risk is always the best course of action for a team that's ahead) so the long process of sieging & trying to get an advantage to push with begins. On the other hand, while the losing team technically should be taking risks to try and get back in the game, they don't need to, because the game mode allows them to sit on their ass and do nothing, since after 10 minutes they'll just get stalemated and it's a better scenario for them than trying to make a play and lose last in the process. Sure, the maps may be choky and hard to rotate around, lasts may be bunkers, pushing out of lasts may be suicide, but making those things easier won't really change the fact that the gamemode itself is designed in a way that promotes passive playstyle.

In this regard, KOTH is a model example of how push dynamics should work, forcing the losing team to commit to a push and allowing the winning team to play safely around the point.

koth anyone?

There needs to be a big change if you want to try and prevent stalemate gameplay (change of gamemode, ban certain influential/stalematey weapons) but I'm pretty sure the community won't accept even testing of changes. I remember when the crossbow was banned in the etf2l whitelist cup and people were actually complaining on the etf2l forums about the xbow being banned even though it was just a test run.

Looking at the season results Arctic Foxes would probably have picked up a few more league points and might have gotten 2nd and a better seeding. Depending on how it was formulated it might open up some avenues for collusion though which would be bad.

It wouldn't work for playoff games, but they're supposed to be exciting anyway because of what's at stake. It's really the fault of the casters if they feel nothing about the game they're casting.

Although playing another koth map is a good idea and bagel has received a lot of positive feedback it's still going to leave a lot of 5cp in the pool. If people want to address the problem any time soon then they need something other than maps that will take years to build.

Either that or koth_nucleus

I think you could just change the way points work in 5cp and have a good chance of encouraging more aggressive play. Change round timer to 5:00, make it so it never resets, and then give the team controlling mid points at the end of the round. With current point rules you'd just sit at mid after winning and turtle for two minutes, so you need to give them a reason to move. A simple way would just be making it so having more cps controlled at the end would give you more points. Holding mid gives you 1 point, holding second gives you 2, capping last gives you 3. The team holding mid would be encouraged to push to get more points, while the other team would have a reason to push out of last more often.

The problem right now is the stalemates are sort of a minima when you look at the risk for everything you could do. Changing the round timer doesn't make standing still more dangerous, but making it so standing still loses you points makes it really important to at least try and retake second

bump, any fast paced games today or epsilon style teams at 8th place? not following the scene that much rn