[quote1202198907=Signe]
A couple reasons - the jump platforms are a big one. Snipers went from "nearly no restriction" to "overly restricted", IMO. Anyone who decides to stay on the bottom level has almost complete protection from the snipers, which severely limits their usefulness. Other maps have similar underground routes (2fort, for example), however by taking that route you significantly increase the amount of time it takes to get back and forth. There's a penalty for your ensured safety. In v2 the "safe" route takes virtually the same amount of time to use as the dangerous route, so there is no incentive for people to go up on top.
[/quote1202198907]
I can still own pretty damn badly with the sniper pretty on v2, maybe your just not used to it being so easy like in V1? The number 1 complaint I have received from other server admins about v2 was that it is still too sniper friendly so I beg to differ. In v2, a sniper is still crucial to gameplay, especially to take out those who are trying to camp the top of the rockets, as well as the top of the intel room.
Anyways, about the shorter, lower protected path. It is extremely more dangerous than the upper path because it leads directly into the protected spawn area which is easily defended now in v2. Its a route meant for heavies and pyros because they are pretty much helpless on the upper deck unless defending and in V1 they were pretty much useless because of snipe whores. Most people tend to prefer the take the outer route because the lower is more dangerous. If you haven't noticed on v2, you will still see heavy traffic on the upper routes. From what I have seen, virtually no one takes the lower "sniper safe" path. I usually don't becuase 90% of the time, I bump into a heavy or pyro just exiting the spawn room, or a sentry gun guarding the lower entrance to the intel. If one wants to take the lower route safely, they would have to exit through the back end making the trip way more longer and putting them out into the open. Also, the only area with more protection from snipers is the spawn area. I noticed too much people sniping directly out the door of the spawn room, as well as getting sniped as soon as they exited the spawn room in V1, which is not a good thing for any map.
In the end, a map's over all balance boils down to how balanced it is for each class. It is impossible to have a map be perfectly balanced for every class in every situation, its something based purely on opinion, and you can't measure it with a scale in even units. However, I can say a map unbalanced to be in favor of all but 1 class is still more balanced than a map that is unbalanced in favor of only 1 class. Are you saying you prefer V1 because you are predominantly a sniper biased for a map that is in favor for none but the sniper class? Though my ownage record with the sniper on v2 disagrees with v2 being unfavorable for the sniper, I can imagine that would be the only reason why one would prefer V1 over V2.
[quote1202200345=AttikusV]
Some things that I liked about V1. The distance between the ships was perfect in the first version. Seems like you brought them a little closer together in V2 for the jump pad I presume? I also enjoyed the rocks passing through the middle, gave some nice scenery change. I like that you considered the sniper restrictions for V2, however perhaps a balance between V1 open-ness and V2 restrictions would be perfect.[/quote1202200345] The rocks still pass through the sides of the vehicles if you didn't notice. I had to remove them due to a glitch in the game engine that would occur randomly causing the rocks to be stuck in the middle, or on the vehicles after lag-outs or network hiccups for some players. Also, the distance between the 2 hasn't changed a hair.
No matter how much I balance between the 2, the overall feed back from V2 still suggests the map is still to sniper friendly. Also I would appreciate a more in depth suggestion for what you mean by "make it more balanced between openness and restrictions".
[quote1202200345=AttikusV]Its hard to please everyone, I've heard some people praise V2 while others hail V1 as the best. [/quote1202200345]Well its hard to please anyone who is biased towards a single class. V1 was way too friendly to snipe whores, so its obviously going to be the snipe whores who aren't pleased that other classes can stand a chance in V2. I agree with the majority of feedback I have been getting from V2 about it still being to sniper friendly because I can still own, scoring on average about 25 - 30 kills per death playing as sniper on V2 in full servers. Sniper is one of my best classes as well next to demoman and engineer. I don't see what I could do to make the map more friendly to snipers without penalizing every other class in favor of the sniper.
I encourage you guys to play v2 some more and adapt to the changes. I know first impressions suggest that it is too restrictive for the sniper, but snipers can still own and is still probably the dominant class on this map if you gave it bit more effort unlike in v1 which required little effort to score 50 kills before dieing as a sniper. The point of V2 was to make it more fun for other classes other than the sniper as well as fix the exploits.
[quote1202202214=chrisbliss18]
I'd rather have a map that penalizes one class to the benefit of all the others than a map that favors one class to the detriment of all the others.
If you have problems with the current design (which you seem to have made quite clear), can you think of any modifications that would balance out these problems? Often times a creator is so close to his/her creation that they can't see the problem nor any possible solutions since they don't recognize it. At the same time, it is quite possible that some of the things you believe are problems are actually not problems or were solutions to other problems that were bigger than the newly introduced one. It is also quite possible that you were so attached to certain features and "sweet spots" in the original map that you can't seem to find the new spots/opportunities. I noticed that many snipers found the top-side of the rockets to be good spots that kept them fairly safe from just about everyone but other snipers.
[/quote1202202214]
Thanks, I couldn't have put that into better words myself. This post says it all.
ctf_convoy_v2
