Ladle Fortress 2014 (Discussion)

[vov]

Sure, getting rid of seeds will suck for the stronger teams since they are more likely to face a team of equal skill early on

As a member of a "stronger team" at the moment, I disagree. The hard matches against equal opponents are the best!

I think part of the dilution of the ladle has come from center attacks. They determine so much of the game, that often the winning team did not outplay their opponent, they just outcentered them. If you can advance in ladles without being better, positions 1-6, than your opponents (or without proving it), why should your opponents respect your victory as meaningful? They shouldn't. Centering is overpowered and overinfluential to match outcomes. We have all been in matches where the centers determine each round. It cheapens the game for the other 10 players on the grid. We should strongly consider changing the map. My suggestion would be the zones be offset. The spawns would be outside of them, but the spawns would remain in the same spot they are now. The zone would be to the left of position 6. I attached a bad drawing of what i mean.

I'm probably going to get a loud backlash on this point from the good centers out there, and that is understandable. It must be great to have so much influence over the match. I don't blame you for yelling at me for suggesting we reduce it. I think, if you really think about it, you will at least understand my reasoning.

Counter tactics time!
Use a center trap so the opponent doesn't center! Might even get you some free kills! (was used by uNk last ladle)
Or train your def+sweepers to bottle & block centers and followups! If you do it right and kill the center and maybe even a followup guy who wants to sneak in, which my team did quite often last ladle, you get a free 6v4 sometimes!
It's difficult to deal with, I agree, but by far not impossible.

Tweaks to the ages old map layout though? Hell yeah, why not?
(while hitting preview i see conc's post got edited so my quoted stuff is a bit old, but I still agree to try the map change suggestion)

[Concord]

for good teams, handling center is feasible, I agree.

But for most teams, which are not good teams, they can be slaughtered by a good team just because of center play.

[vov]

Do agree! Same thing with holes, for good teams they get forced to sumo for a bit but are overall one player up. Weaker teams just get killed inside their base. Good point.

P.S. check out titan's maths on the previous page

[Soul]

for good teams, handling center is feasible, I agree.

But for most teams, which are not good teams, they can be slaughtered by a good team just because of center play.

if a bad team is playing a good team, they will be beaten anyway. yes, it is more of a quick match if the better team is centering, but center battles between two evenly matched teams are too epic

i've actually noticed a decline in centering during the past few ladles anyway

i'm in agreement with most of your earlier paragraphs in that post however.

also, looking at Titan's math, that reinforces what I was saying earlier in this thread

EDIT: The post below me is interesting.

EDIT 2: I kinda liked Concord's mine post in the very beginning of this topic. Do you or anyone have the settings for something like this so we could test it?

[akira]

I would like to raise a new idea.
Coming from chess I played alot of tournaments using the swiss system.
For reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swiss-system_tournament

Considering our stale playerbase and the monthly rhythm I propose a swiss system. It has a some advantages and a few disadvantages.

Pro:
- each team gets 4-5 matches
- meaningful results
- weaker teams get to play more often vs. stronger teams
- since you need a dedicated organizer, potentially more structured ladle and less fuckups

Con:
- no KO means less culminating event
- needs a dedicated organizer

for 8-16 teams 4 rounds are enough to have only one team with 4 wins, 16-32 you'd need 5.

[sinewav]

if I chose to make it perfectly accurate I wouldn't be able to do the math and you wouldn't be able to follow it even if I did

I know just enough about probabilities to know that those numbers don't make any sense. Let me go brush up on Bayes' theorem and see if I can calculate something more meaningful.

We did this a couple years ago by shrinking hole size. Holes were OP, so we tweaked the game to balance it out. I believe the same thing should be [done] with centers.

There was a period of time when center attacks became rare and early splits were popular. At that same time, Fortress got more defensive. Is the rise of center attacks the result of teams simply growing impatient and not caring enough about their zone?

I support a new map. It could be as simple as extending it 50 meters in each direction and moving the spawns outside the zone. Personally, I like the Fortress onslaught map that pushes the rim wall far from the zone, leaving more room to attack. Maybe we can make one to test in the upcoming FFA?

[Gazelle]

See i understand the want to get rid of centering, i see how it could ruin a lower skilled teams enjoyment.. but, i think its part the game at this point, and taking it away would be changing fortress, that almost like removing holing or removing tackling from Football and making it touch.

I think we should keep centering (Although i might be alittle biased as a i am a center myself)

There are many tactics to stopping it, unk did it to me in ladle, dig on the center and make it enticing and when your opponent centers, he dies...

Or split early. a good bottle, with sweeps to force into bottle.

Honestly, i know i've offered help to rising teams, because i've noticed that over the years certain centers just obliterate some teams by themselves and there is really nothing a team can do to stop it..

Which is why i'd be willing to work with any center or sweepers to help them understand how to stop center attacks.. (I probably shouldnt seeing as it would be hurting me in the long run) :p

[asdfasdf]

if I chose to make it perfectly accurate I wouldn't be able to do the math and you wouldn't be able to follow it even if I did

I know just enough about probabilities to know that those numbers don't make any sense. Let me go brush up on Bayes' theorem and see if I can calculate something more meaningful.

The numbers pretty much make sense in the context that he puts them; there are a couple errors, though. However, my major qualm with his organizational system is it assumes a static number of teams and a static "level" of each team – either noob, pro, or average, and therefore has a very limited implication in reality, which of course he does mention. I could design something if I have time that could assess skill of the top tier teams the last 5-8 ladles based on results (scores, matches won, etc) that would provide a more accurate guesstimate for any possible skill level of a new team and any possible amount of teams. (I designed something similar earlier this year). Also, as you said, using Bayes' theorem and integrating over all possibilities, you can assess all possibilities rather than remaining static, although I'm not exactly sure if this case merits that simply because it's so variable and mathematical modeling of it may not provide as much as would, for example, a similar model for something like evolution (that's where such models are often used).

I'll look into it later this month, potentially.

[Concord]

we should not get rid of centers, just consider helping defenses out a little bit by moving the spawn a little bit forward. It could just even things out a bit like we did when we shrunk holes a while ago.

[Monkey.D.Luffy]

How about a tourney where signed players would be randomized into randoms teams? Just a thought I had while reading this thread. Rookies with veterans, everyone having a fair chance to win a tourney

[ElmosWorld]

How about a tourney where signed players would be randomized into randoms teams? Just a thought I had while reading this thread. Rookies with veterans, everyone having a fair chance to win a tourney

Except in the case where 6 veterans get put together or 6 rookies get put together.

[Monkey.D.Luffy]

The probability of it happening would be very low. Or just replace rookies and veterans by winners and non-winners since it's not like the game is full of rookies, as it's been pointed out.

[epsy]

I think center attacks are very easy to block, especially for a team that regularity plays together. However, if you're serious about hindering centers, consider increasing the acceleration you get when against enemy walls. That way, almost any bottle will trap the center, and cutting is made a more viable tactic.

[ppotter]

Alternatively, reduce tail length by a small degree. This not only allows for tails to leave the zone quicker, but makes a "hiding" def quicker to shrink or easier to cut, depending on the defender.

[Goodygumdrops]

Seeding was probably the right thing to do when we started going it. It seems like a bad thing now, and perhaps getting rid of it will remove one of the blocks to getting and keeping new players interested in fortress. On the other hand, several people in this thread don't seem to care/understand why that should be important to them.

But we currently have a problem in Ladle Fortress where there is no smooth gradient from rookie to pro

This problem is not a new one, but it could be getting worse. It's also not a problem that seems solvable just by making changes to a once monthly tournament. If people want to improve from rookie to pro, they're going to have to put in a lot of meaningful effort between ladles. The trick is finding out what constitutes meaningful effort and creating an environment in which it can take place.