Sudden Death on Warpath and Keeping the Server Full

[Food_Fight!]

For those of you that play Warpath a lot, you'll immediately understand the need for this discussion. I would say 7 out of 10 times that Warpath goes to Sudden Death the server will flat out die and go from 32/32 to 10/32 or even worse. Additionally, people will gripe about sudden death even if they decide to stay.

That being said, I think we need to explore the option of changing the time limits or sudden death structure on Warpath to keep it's rank high and the server full.

Many times Sudden Death will become a camp-fest where people just sit at their point waiting for the other team to come in and die. This is fine but when you die in the first few minutes of the 3 minute sudden death round it is extremely boring and this causes the serve drop off. OR, the sudden death will end in a stalemate and people will be annoyed and simply disconnect.

My thought is we need to change this and see if people stick around more often. There are a few options in front of us.

1 - Go back to Melee Sudden Death with scouts so it takes less time, prevents stalemates and doesn't allow people to just camp and build ubers.

2 - Lengthen the time limits on Warpath to 1 hour so battles have more time to work themselves out. Commonly a team is starting to push one way or another but time runs out and the server is forced into sudden death.

3 - Make the time limits extremely long or endless. This way the server has to work it's way out via a team pushing. Personally, I would equate this to the long time limits on 2fort and note that Instant Respawn on 2fort is almost always 100% full.

Please chime in here guys. I think Warpath is one of our best servers and I'd hate for it to fall by the wayside because of the sudden death issue I commonly see.

 

[Ravinx]

take off the limits

 

[Badfish]

I say melee.. cause it will go quicker and its more fun i think.

 

[Frazar]

take off limits... warpath goes by too fast

 

[Jubei]

I think this thread should go down to division discussion. Why should only the top admins and up be able to articulate their thoughts on this?

 

[Food_Fight!]

Jubei - I agree with you and was going to PM Garden to ask to move.

 

[AzzNik]

I am for this 100%. Longer time limits or no limits at all. If we have limits, then melee fights ftw. The server does lose a lot of players due to Sudden Stalemate.

 

[Food_Fight!]

I am for this 100%. Longer time limits or no limits at all. If we have limits, then melee fights ftw. The server does lose a lot of players due to Sudden Stalemate.

Glad to see your feedback here AzzNik. We gotta get all the Warpath regulars in on this thread to weigh in. Something HAS to be done - the question is what.

PS: I'll be on Warpath in about 3 hours

 

[ack]

Hi

For those of you that play Warpath a lot, you'll immediately understand the need for this discussion. I would say 7 out of 10 times that Warpath goes to Sudden Death the server will flat out die and go from 32/32 to 10/32 or even worse. Additionally, people will gripe about sudden death even if they decide to stay.

That being said, I think we need to explore the option of changing the time limits or sudden death structure on Warpath to keep it's rank high and the server full.

Many times Sudden Death will become a camp-fest where people just sit at their point waiting for the other team to come in and die. This is fine but when you die in the first few minutes of the 3 minute sudden death round it is extremely boring and this causes the serve drop off. OR, the sudden death will end in a stalemate and people will be annoyed and simply disconnect.

For me its not the sudden death issue that makes me disconnect after a round. Its the 20-30 minutes of deadlock that lead up to the stalemate. It gets extremely boring when one or both teams go into turtle mode. I cant imagine how painful it would be if we made it an unlimited/higher time limit.

My thought is we need to change this and see if people stick around more often. There are a few options in front of us.

1 - Go back to Melee Sudden Death with scouts so it takes less time, prevents stalemates and doesn't allow people to just camp and build ubers.

The best sudden death I have seen is each player being forced into a random class and melee only.

One other item that is annoying on the warpath server is the map time limit. It feels all too often you will be in the middle of a round and it just ends because of the map time limit.

We still have the updated warpath map to try out. Garden was going to upload it last monday, but that didnt seem to happen and am unsure whats going on with it now.

thx
-ack

 

[TcVinsky]

I would love to see the rounds either extended or the limits removed. I've noticed that it seems to always go from being full, to about 25ish players, and that the sudden death is a bit bland, like how you described it. Actually ending the round in warpath (not one of those 4 minute wins) makes me feel accomplished ...usually.

 

[DarkHawk101]

Melee is way more fun, besides like ack said, Sudden death makes me disconnect too.

 

[Captn Bean]

I'd rather take off the time limits, but melee would be pretty good as well.

 

[DrunkenSailor]

Well I think it wouldnt hurt to extend the timelimit to 300 minutes like 2fort and dustbowl are set. If sudden death is hurting the server then we need to change it, maybe we should put a poll up on the front page about Warpath.

 

[Ronin56109]

I'm going to have to agree with ack on this matter.

First, extending the normal time for warpath won't solve any problems, it will just extend the amount of time teams have to sit through the other side turtling. Put simply, it won't solve anything...it'll just exacerbate it.

Second, I actually enjoy sudden death; I find it very unique, and moreover, exciting in its "all or nothing" approach. If we are to keep sudden death (which I hope we do), then I suggest either two approaches:

1. We extend the time limit during Sudden Death. A similar alternative would be to fix the recurring issue where teams have to "juggle" capping a point in order to kill all of the opposing side, because capping the point with 0 time left adds no further time, but just ends the round.

2. Random class melee-only. And I mean RANDOM class melee-only. If the server doesn't automatically decide the classes players become, then what occurs is that 1 minute prior to the end of the round players "in the know" all become heavies. That isn't very fun for melee only. Randomness negates this issue.

 

[lillGIL]

I would say you have to stick with the 30 minutes because it does provoke change. The stated problem comes into play when teams set up a good defense with a few sentries. When this happens that team doesn't really push out much, which causes a problem because it becomes very difficult to move forward in the match. I would say change it to melee only because people become more aggressive and sudden death doesn't last but a minute.

New Warpath?

 

[Tattis]

For me its not the sudden death issue that makes me disconnect after a round. Its the 20-30 minutes of deadlock that lead up to the stalemate. It gets extremely boring when one or both teams go into turtle mode. I cant imagine how painful it would be if we made it an unlimited/higher time limit.

Yeah, I always hate when I get on Warpath, and you have one side at the final point with 20 minutes left. I'm sort of happy when the time finally runs out and you can go back to the center again.

I'm not a huge fan of melee only sudden death (as I suck at meleeing), but I think I'd much prefer that over making the rounds last indefinitely.

 

[TheZaw]

Best solution: 1 engy per team. Now i know ego never limits classes, blah blah, but i mean im jsut throwing this out there. 1 or 2 engies per team on a small map will REALLY help pull the map together.

 

[mudkiller]

Go back to Melee Sudden Death with scouts!

 

[Arbitrary]

First, extending the normal time for warpath won't solve any problems, it will just extend the amount of time teams have to sit through the other side turtling. Put simply, it won't solve anything...it'll just exacerbate it.

Second, I actually enjoy sudden death; I find it very unique, and moreover, exciting in its "all or nothing" approach. If we are to keep sudden death (which I hope we do), then I suggest either two approaches:

1. We extend the time limit during Sudden Death. A similar alternative would be to fix the recurring issue where teams have to "juggle" capping a point in order to kill all of the opposing side, because capping the point with 0 time left adds no further time, but just ends the round.

2. Random class melee-only. And I mean RANDOM class melee-only. If the server doesn't automatically decide the classes players become, then what occurs is that 1 minute prior to the end of the round players "in the know" all become heavies. That isn't very fun for melee only. Randomness negates this issue.

This. Either fix sudden death, by giving more time when points get capped (as normal), or allow capping multiple points in a row (because juggling the point doesn't work when the other team runs into their spawn and hides). Or, random melee. These are the only ways you can break stalemate without "stalemate!", on Warpath.
Sure, sometimes a team can push back, or the other team can overwhelm, but a good 75% of the time, at least, when one team is holding the last cap, with stickies, pyros, 4+ sentries, serious grenade spam, and they cooperate to rebuild, the other team isn't getting through without a lot of ubers, some excellent sniper coverage, and/or pulling back and spy-capping (this has happened a few times.) And I don't want to see 5 hour Warpath games. The map is much improved when it runs quickly, with maybe 10-20 minutes in any given position.
I hardly ever see everyone leave after sudden death, except late at night, where the server collapses. You get 6 people leaving, then everyone follows, because no one wants to play 12 v 12, or 8 v 8, despite that these numbers make the map much more fluid, and more individual (3 kills is a LOT in 8v8).

 

[wasawiki.]

Melee is always fun but it would be more fun if it was heavy melee and not scouts