What's with the stacking of map pick AND color pick?

Side Picking

The Defending Team will get to choose the side that they want on the first and third map (if necessary), while the Attacking Team will get to choose their side on the second map.

Currently sides may be picked at any time up to immediatly prior to match start. This overrides the General Ladder Rules that follow. This rule may be changed based on community preference and feedback.

The winner of the match will be the first team to win 2 maps. To win a map you must destroy the other team's Core.


Ahem. Why oh why does a team have the ability to pick the map AND the color? That is extraordinarly unfairwhen it comes to ONS. There are plenty of maps where color DOES matter and the ability of a team to pick the map and color. It has always been around the competition scene that you don't get to have both. While Arctic with supers off lessens the impact, color still has bearing on tons of maps. A team should not be allowed to stack a map pick with color pick too.
Do you smell what my Napalm is cooking?

I agree 100%... If one team picks the map and the other team picks the color, then I think we would see a lot more even blanced maps being picked. It's almost impossible to win on Primeval or Dawn if you get stuck with the wrong color.

still doesnt matter, every team on the ONS ladder can be beat on whatever color they choose.

Ive seen it done to us, and ive seen it done to other top teams. Even recently you would say.

Didnt notice the singling out of Prime and Dawn.


Little history, SCK used to pick blue 100% of the time for a few months, still won. Now we pick red, still win. Even recently we picked blue against a top team and won. Color can be overcome, every side has its advantages, whether you find them or not, is your teams task. Been on Blue Dawn and won on numerous occassions. Tell me a time when Dawn didnt last 20 minutes? tells you the map is more even then you think. You might notice small advantages here and there for both sides, but none of them CANT be overcome with a decent strat.

A team that bases their choices of maps on color, is a team of flaws. If you see a team doing it, there is a flaw to be found, it shows they are concetrating on one advantage in which you should exploit and catch them off guard
Post edited by |SCK|NinjaX at 2/8/2005 3:18:14 PM

Ninja, we both know you're smarter then that... You have to acknowledge an advantage on some maps due to color selection, allowing a team to pick the map AND the color only magnifies this advantage. Try thinking about it this way; Assume there are two teams who have practiced ONS ad nauseam and know ever minute advantage that any particular color might have on each map and let's assume they have equal game playing abilities (imagine |SCK| vs. |SCK|, lol ;p), then inevitably the result of the match will be determined by color choice.

Maybe, I just misinterpreted what you were trying to say? If you are trying to say that color choice is not very critical then why would you be opposed to giving the team that didn't select the map color choice, after all, only a flawed team would do anything other then toss a coin to pick the color (right?).

Let's test this, this weekend, if color doesn't matter then pick Blue on Primeval, unless of course |SCK| is somehow flawed...

Post edited by ºMoneyº at 2/9/2005 6:26:17 PM

Holy crap - someone else who thinks the same way I do regarding color selection... and he's in a top-rated ONS team, no less! ty, NinjaX.

I think higher rung should keep color on thier choice, but only get 1 choice. Map 1 defender w/ color, map 2 attack w/ color, map 3 random TB defender gets color.

Ninjax, I could care less to hear about the annuls of SCK's history.

Back to the point. I'm looking to see what the admin response to this is. IMHO picking colors/sides on your own map picks stacks the deck a little. The mirroring of maps has gotten better. While I did single out ONS in my post, if this rule is true for CTF also it should be changed to avoid the stacking.

"Ninja, I thought you were smarter then that... "

"Ninjax, I could care less to hear about the annuls of SCK's history."

I think ppl here need to respect each other a little more. Why the **** do you need to provoke him and discard his argument altogether? You state something and automatically it's supposed to be true?

Money I have a lot of respect for you and enjoy playing with you so please have the same respect towards my clanmates or myself.

As for Napalm, I think you should appreciate what Ninja did. Look at SCK's record, look at SCK's history. Few teams can compare to what SCK has achieved. You feeling cocky, think Ninja doesn't know what he's talking about? Challenge us for a scrim. We'll be glad to show you that we can win on both sides WITHOUT any problems. There's something called strats that can be adapted to any situation.

*sigh*

/me gets provoked

First off, yes money, I am disregarding color, why if color DID matter, how did KoNA lose Crossfire to us with their choice of color(and it wasnt very contested).

Why if color DID matter, did LcD lose Primeval to us in a scrim last week when we WERE on blue?

Why do we have to crawl our way up to the top of the ladder using the same rules, challenging all the way up to the top, letting everyone have THEIR color choice, and now have to sit back and allow the lower teams to get theirs?

Sorry bud, we made it to the top with those rules, if you cant...thats your own teams fault.

This predates my time at TWL, but I would assume that it goes along with all the other ladders. Defending team gets home field advantage.

1st... I'm sorry, I didn't want to upset anyone, re-reading my 2nd post I can see how it could sound a bit provocative. I was just trying to point out, that IMHO, it would be a flaw for a team not to consider color choice when selecting a map.

"how did KoNA lose Crossfire to us with their choice of color(and it wasn’t very contested)." -NinjaX

On that given night |SCK| was the better team and was able to overcome any advantages associated with color choice.

"Why if color DID matter, did LcD lose Primeval to us in a scrim last week when we WERE on blue?" -NinjaX

Again, |SCK| was the best team that night, and I'm sure you can site several examples where any number of teams have been beaten by |SCK| or visa versa regardless of color choice... I'm not trying to base what I'm saying on individual examples, I'm looking at the overall picture, not taking into account the current rankings, and giving my honest opinion of what would be the most fair setup for matches.

"Why do we have to crawl our way up to the top of the ladder using the same rules, challenging all the way up to the top, letting everyone have THEIR color choice, and now have to sit back and allow the lower teams to get theirs?

Sorry bud, we made it to the top with those rules, if you cant...that’s your own teams fault." -NinjaX

I'm just trying to point out that color choice does matter. Given that, it is a GREAT accomplishment to work your way to the top under those conditions... Please understand that I'm not trying to do this for our upcoming match, but I think it's good to discuss this and perhaps it could be implemented over time so that teams can adjust.

Again, please don’t take anything I’ve said as a negative comment towards any particular team or player… I just feel that giving any team both map and color choice is to much of an advantage.

ps. I fixed the first part of my 2nd post...

Post edited by ºMoneyº at 2/9/2005 6:28:53 PM

Ninja:
Don't mention scrim results like they matter. Especially when you went out of your way to challenge us shortly after I told you our main force take Fri and Sat off. GJ owning up the leftovers.

As for these rules...

I like Euro rules now. Each team picks 1 map and both sides are played. Highest score wins.

Originally posted by: |LcD|SofaKing
Ninja:
Don't mention scrim results like they matter. Especially when you went out of your way to challenge us shortly after I told you our main force take Fri and Sat off. GJ owning up the leftovers.

As for these rules...

I like Euro rules now. Each team picks 1 map and both sides are played. Highest score wins.

So, we use leftovers against your leftovers and now we didnt beat your team on blue in primeval.... im sorry but doesnt that sum it up right there?

a leftover sck beats leftover lcd using blue on primeval in a scrim, what happened to the so called advantages?

play euro rules, GL on having umpteen million ties due to score... especially with top teams against top teams..

and jesus christ get over the 3v3 fri/sat thing...

same rules apply to everyone man... you challenge someone they get dates, and 1st and TB...

yet, people seem to want their cake and eat it too

I think we all need to stop looking at individual examples, It's undeniable that there are unbalanced maps in ONS. So unbalanced in fact, that color choice will predict the outcome, MOST of the time. The primary goal of implementing a rule change like this would be to eliminate the likely hood of teams picking unbalanced maps.

Color may not be the deal breaker for the top teams, for lesser teams it is. For KoNA vs. SCK color can be negated or overcome, a little less so with ~TZ~ vs. Ual... There are more mid range teams where it is a greater part of the strategy. Is the demand really that much for a change? I wish we could just leave it.

Top dog should have the advantage. As is you need to beat SCK on their terms, because they beat KoNA on KoNA's terms. If we do it where one picks map and other chooses color, it will not impact the LCD/KoNA SCK's of the world, but the TZ's and AC's ect will be picking the same bland ass maps because they have the smallest color advantage for a side.

I know you need to learn them all and all sides, but people won't want to do that shit. I think we would be f'd less then many because we have like 4 captains that all have made strategy and we can come up with one in a pinch, but there will be lower people dropping like flies. People that can't do that. Even though I hate the French, I like the "euro" way. each team runs each side, AS style fastest win is the winner, but even then, you will change the game in a new direction, now you will have way too heavy defense in bases, and it wont even be noob. "lets see we have 45 energy and we need to survive 1:30, man the turrets let the AVRILs fly"

It ain't all that broke that we *need * to fix it...

Post edited by DeadSlash at 2/9/2005 8:05:17 PM

Ninja:
I saw the screens, hardly leftovers on your side. But whatever...

I will say we lost to SCK in a match where we had Red Prime. But won Sev (blue) and Arctic (red). But I'll never commment on any scrim we have with anyone.

Ties won't matter that much IMO. And it creates pressure of the teams to win after they lose a round. Let the higher rung keep their spot in a tie, so the challenger has to work hard to win convincingly. If higher rung goes first they get to pick the advantaged color and then force the opposing team to match them when things flip.

Of course, you saying there will be a lot of ties clearly says that the maps ARE poor balanced. I mean if there was no clean cut advantage then the better team would dominate both colors right? Keep in mind that you win a map in regulation and lose in OT and then win overall. 2-1.

I am for having one side pick the map and the other pick the color. Defender already has an advantage with map choice, it doesn't need an additional one with color choice.

Of course, it doesn't mean that a map & color pick automatically determines the winner, or that the current system is inherently *bad*. It simply means it can be *better*.

Or if you just want to do it the easy way, if both teams agree to it before a match they *can* play with "one team picks color and the other picks map", like [DK] graciously offered to us in our last match.

Then you're boxed into limited map pics Thelo. Nobody would pic certain maps.

I like Euro rules.

"Then you're boxed into limited map pics Thelo. Nobody would pic certain maps."

Would you care to explain? As I understand it you're trying to say that the most symmetrical maps would get picked all the time with such a setup. Which doesn't make much sense since with a similar reasoning one could say that with the current system, the least symmetrical maps would get picked all the time, and then you'd be just as limited.

Unless you had something else in mind?

The only problem I'd have with Euro rules is the length of the matches.

nm... I misunderstood Euro-Rules, only 2 maps are played and I don't think that gives the defending team the advantage they deserve.
Post edited by ºMoneyº at 2/10/2005 1:34:51 PM

CursedM, you missed the point entirely. I'm not provoking Ninjax. This thread is about the stack of map+color pick, not examples of what SCK has or has not done in their ONS time. It's also not just about ONS. It's about CTF too. It's about TDM. In TDM, color won't matter for the map positioning but it could matter for how certain colors show against that map.

In all fairness since a defending teams gets 2 maps on servers of their choice and 2 map picks already, they should NOT have 2 color choices too.
Post edited by NapalmDawn2 at 2/10/2005 2:20:57 PM

Originally posted by: NapalmDawn2
In TDM, color won't matter for the map positioning but it could matter for how certain colors show against that map.

Don't UTComp's brightskins configuration options eliminate this problem? Not to negate your other points (I don't agree with them, but I know I'm in the minority), but wasn't the whole point of mandating UTComp to eliminate people griping about people being too hard to see on maps?

While the Euro rules are interesting (at best) this would not be the site or ladder to mess with it. Get another ladder to start these rules. For the same reason I became Admin over on another site , to have a "different" option for other teams to try out. Not to come onto the biggest ladder and try to get everyone to change...

The same thing happened over at PG, people wanted deemers off, so instead of finding another ladder which didnt have deemers on, they instead trying to push their idea on that ladder.

Heres a perfectly logical idea here.... waltz over to clanbase, request a north american ONS/whatever else, to be started there... and let teams who want it, join it.

You will never get 100% cooperation in changing a ladder, so just find somewhere else to do it, and promote it, the same way I promoted IGL to teams who were interested.

http://www.clanbase.com/ladderpetition.php?gid=31

At bottom of page... go reply to that thread, if it gets alot of responses, they will put it on.

Making it personal (i.e. arguing about what clan can do what from whatever color) is silly and doesn't address the point. Why do you guys always have to take & make everything so personal? How about just focusing on the idea that's being talked about without spazzing out?

Fact: the higher ranked team has a significant advantage because it gets to pick 2 out of the 3 maps.

Fact: many of the ONS maps are unbalanced and give one team an advantage over the other.

Fact: under the current system, the higher ranked team has its advantage *doubled* by not only choosing 2 of 3 maps, but also by getting to choose the color on both of those maps that has the advantage.

Now, those things really aren't debatable for anyone that has played any amount of Onslaught. What is debatable is whether you feel the higher ranked team deserves that advantage (by virtue of being higher ranked) or whether you'd rather have the playing field be a bit more even.

imo, if a team is actually better, it should have no problem playing on an *even* playing field and showing it (i.e. it shouldn't have to rely on the crutch of having that double advantage). That's why for ONS I actually like the euro method of each team picking 1 map and then playing each map twice (once from each color). That eliminates the color advantage and makes for a *fair,* *even* match. If people don't want that, that's up to them.

Oh, and this is not real world sports, so please stop trying to compare it. Real world matches have to be played in some physical place (either home or away) and that cheering crowd, sleeping in their own bed, being with their family, etc., is going to give them an advantage. The same things don't exist in an online match, so let's not pretend they do with bad analogies.

The bottom line is that you *can* make an online match fair if you choose to. The question is whether people want that or not.

And with that said, I really don't think that's an issue at all for CTF, since color matters very little there. I wouldn't mind seeing a random TB with a very short list of TB maps that could be chosen from (maybe 5 maps that could be agreed upon), but I really don't think any other changes would make sense for CTF.

Take care,

--Fro

Thank you for an enlightened post Fro. Glad to see some sensibility and expression of facts.

Yes gone are the days of original November and ECaves where color was a big factor. However, who knows what's to come in the future with maps. Color could be a factor in a match between even teams where side+map might bump them over the edge.

Mind you, I'm not here posting because a clan I was in got screwed. As Simley will tell you, we were offering color pick on our map choice. It was then I became aware of the rules that seemed so radically different. There's no need to go elsewhere if TWL chimes in with how they feel.

I wouldn't go with a random TB. IGL does that, so if you want that go there.

All of you are forgeting that the challenger gets to pick two times/dates for the match and that in itself can be an advantage!

The defender should have both map picks and the challenger should have 1. The only change, if (IF) one had to be made, I would change the TB to let the team that didn't choose the map to pick the color. Then it's 2 maps for the defender and 2 color choices for the challenger.

The other option would be to let the challenger pick their map choice when they pick the two times. Then they could take the map the other team wants and have the color.

Originally posted by: :-*ofDeath
All of you are forgeting that the challenger gets to pick two times/dates for the match and that in itself can be an advantage!

It can be but it really depends on the team you’re playing. I can remember us rescheduling a match for a recent MONEY tournament, so that KoNA could field their best team. We’ve done that for other clans too, even when we were the challenger & the other team chose the date but couldn’t make their own times. We could have easily forced them to hold up to their own time & probably made an easier match of it, but for whatever reason, we didn’t.

You bring up some other good points though too.

Anyway, I’m not singling anyone out but I think some of the people posting in here are a bit too wound up. You should try not to lose site of the fact that this is a game. It’s here to have fun & if you want the community to survive & even grow, shouldn’t you help foster that? Sometimes changes need to be made & other times they don’t, but being close-minded to every little change doesn’t help anyone. People shouldn’t only be concerned with wins & loses.

There are a lot of different ideas fly around in this thread.

We are kind of short staffed right now with SweetTooth retiring and all, but if you could decided on one thing that you would like to see changed, I will see what I can do.

Well, if you wanted to make the easiest, least threatening change, you could probably just change who gets to pick color on map #3 to the attacker instead of the defender (and leave everything else unchanged).

That would still give the color whores the opportunity to pick color on their favorite most unbalanced map but at least encourage them to pick a somewhat more balanced map for the TB since they'd know that the other team would get color choice there.

Oh, and thanks for picking this up, Shadow.

I think that's a good start... perhaps after a few months we could add the 2nd map and then after a few more even the 1st... That makes it a gradual change and the defender still has the advantage of picking the TB.

Shadow, you mentioned earlier that all the other leagues used the same side selection method. I cannot disagree more. As the former UT2004 Director at Proving Grounds, our rules were specific.

The team that did not pick the map gets side selection.

It assures consistent gameplay, as the attacking side does not gain such an advantage as to make it virutally impossible to win. In fact, it adds to the challenge of defending the rung.

My clan actually played ONS at PG, but I was never a big ONS person. But now that you mention it, I do seem to remember something about that.

It seems that the color picking situation is what you guys want to work on changing. I will do some research and let you know what I come up with.

---

{dKc}Shadow
Teamwarfare|UT Lead Admin
Email: shadow@teamwarfare.com