(Wolff suggested the prize room might need a hardened door with 2hp)

Why 2? why not the standard 5? I certainly would consider making that a hardened door if FBots start ruling this map, but i'm hoping that with the small number of build points plus the wide open space, and the moat, that FBs will not always fare as well as they happened to when alex & rick faced off against each other, both wearing the metal shell. (and even then, they didn't win...)

I have reduced the inner ring medpack count. I do like the idea of hardening the vault, but I also don't really want to underpower the flames, either. I'll keep it in mind if the map gets another rev.

Hardening the vault so that f-bots can't flame right through the cracked door sounds fine to me. Making it a 5hp door would be too much.

I didn't mind all the health packs, but what you've got now is fine, too.

Devolver: yes, the shortest to the flags is pretty close to the same for everybody; some people didn't bother to do much fighting of their neighbors first. Rick at least claimed to regret it, though, so i'm not too worried about the couple of steps difference.

Yep, regret. The center is juicy, but not *that* juicy, since a flag hit is only worth about a third of a unit hit, a calculation I didn't sufficiently take into account.

though, admittedly, had you gotten all that flag action and the one last hit on alex's exec, you would've been sitting madpretty.

True. It was actually you (I think) winging my Firebot from across the river that started things wrong; as a result of that, I sent him the longer way around to pick up another medpack. Aside from taking a bit longer, it meant he went in the other door from my Exec, who was a sitting duck when Alex showed up.

rubrick wrote:

Yep, regret. The center is juicy, but not *that* juicy, since a flag hit is only worth about a third of a unit hit, a calculation I didn't sufficiently take into account.

Right, it's not that juicy for single-shot guys, but it's nice for a Max and pretty awesome for a firebot because the flags are all bunched together.

I'm starting to be of the opinion that the value of the center flags should be increased; maybe doubled.. Perhaps I'm over-extrapolating from (mostly) one data point, but I think that as it's sunk in that the middle flags aren't that valuable and the key to winning is mostly how many execs you take out — with a corresponding upswing in snipey builds — things have gotten less interesting. Instead of a dangerous race to an overcrowded center, everyone's mostly just picking off their neighbors.

I loved the "can I get my firebot through to the center alive?" game, but it's becoming increasingly clear that it's not really worth it even if you do.

possibly. as i said in LW, i'm also pondering making the initial exec hunt less immeiately threatening via some minor blockage.

That might work too. I like the simplicity of just making all the 5-flags into 10s, though.

Yeah, i'm just not sure that really stops the coin toss of a neighbor building snipeys at you, and it really only improves the FB build, leaving (e.g.) the puffer rush a bit unloved.

Not that I'm opposed to some builds just not making sense, but on this map your options are already limited by the small point count, and frankly two options seems a bit meager. So I may as well try to solve multiple problems at once. Besides, Barrel proved that map design flaws can be solved by adding nukes between the execs.

I might as well say that I think Ringer is awesome as is. The 2-snipey build is dangerous for others, but also somewhat risky for the person who chooses it.

I actually don't mind the coin toss, though that may be because thus far I've mostly avoided being double-attacked.

Increasing the cost of the flags in the middle would just increase the LMS bonus. If you want a race to the middle what you want is a faster way to get score in the middle, e.g. by putting a RoboBot exec there with 1HP and lots of RoboBot units in the walls somewhere to make him worth around 100pt for one hit. Or some script to give the first person to the middle a lot of the flags (that's easy enough to script — just have the first shot on a flag trigger a second implied shot for the value of the flag or some such, similar to how telefragging works).

I think interspersing some crates with the flags would more simply accomplish the same thing.

Yeah if you have the room you can a series of crates... each crate can get you an average of 18 points, 21 for the end crate. That's a one-shot thing, though, it'd take a lot of room to give points for being in the middle longer.

I like the fact that you need to get a big unit into the middle in order to get the most out of the flag points. Clearly a firebot is better than a Max, but Max is better than the other units at clearing multiple flags.

To slow down the snipeys, then (as Vynce suggested above) put some cover around the outermost ring. It's probably sufficient to scatter some cracked wall out there. If they want clear firing lines, this forces snipeys to use actions to clear the cracked wall -- teams with Maxes or firebots will leave the cracked wall for cover.

But which teams have been winning? Are f-bot/miner teams getting hosed? Is everyone going with 2 snipeys?

Yeah, these days at least half the teams are building with two Snipeys (6, last game, i think), and I'm not sure I've seen a game where the big winner wasn't. Which is why I want to do something.

Someone -- Carinda, i think -- made a fair attempt at a puffer rush recently. depending how things go, i could see that working (kill one exec in the outer ring, duck inside, own the center). But it relies on not having a single snipey-based opponent dominating on the outside. It also relies, of course, on not getting picked off from behind while still in the outer ring. Since puffers are more powerful on the diagonal, and the snipey threat is bigger on the orthogonal, that makes the decision about which way to send the puffers possibly a toss-up.

I have only played this map 3 times. All 3 times I went with a snipey puffer miner combo and have finished 2nd twice and 7th this last time though this last time is the first time I have seen so many snipeys. I ended up getting killed just outside of the inner ring. Both other times I was the first to the center but did not have the firepower to flag-farm before someone else showed up to flag-jack me. Won't the proposed changes just move the optimal strategy for one static build to another static build? Not that I can think of any, but I would like to see a combination of changes that make most possible builds viable.

well, the idea of the blockage was to slightly reduce the effectiveness of the double-snipey build, which then should (?) increase the relative effectiveness of every other build, so i'm hoping it won't just make some other build obviously king.

won't know, though, till we try it.

I had traditionally gone with the fb/miner build, and was often quite successful at getting into the center early, but I never got better than third with it. This last time I went with two snipeys and took second (to another 2-snipey build).

Basically, to win you need to take out an exec or two, and the likeliest build for doing that is two snipeys. The main point of going with a firebot is the flags, but the flags just aren't worth very much on balance.

I've won twice and placed 2nd, and think they were all fb/mn builds (maybe the second game was sn/sn? I can go check if it matters). But I also haven't played Ringer in two months (?!), so it's likely that strategies have evolved past me.

I'll also note that unless it's a Medal Round, coming in first is no better than third (with equal ranked opponents) except for bragging rights.

I always try to play as if the real rank matters[1], partially for bragging rights, partially in case we get retroactive changes to the standings system, but mostly because it's what feels right to me.

1. I actually usually try to ply like it's the score that matters, as noted in other threads.