Ok, I'll start it off. This isn't TR's vote, but I'll just get the wheels in your brains to start spinning:
- team_max_players - 6v6? 7v7? 8v8?
I feel like 6v6 wasn't as laggy as 8v8, but it did have it's ups and downs. It seemed like in 6v6, once 2 players died on a team, 6v4 was a pretty tough disadvantage. 8v8 was too laggy, 6v6 might have seemed a little better, but I'd be down to try 7v7 for the next Ladle.
- score_hole - yes (+1 point), no (0 points)
There should be no points awarded for going through the hole. When holes are used effectively, your award is easily getting into the other team's base. There should be no reason you get additional points.
- 2v2 - unconquerable? conquerable?
We all know that offense is harder than defense. If you can get 2 offensive players into the zone against 2 defenders, they should be able to conquer the zone. If 2v2 is changed to conquerable, it still takes 10 seconds, so it's not like the defense doesn't have a chance at killing them before the zone gets captured.
- scoring distribution - score_win 6, fortress_conquered_score 4? or score_win 10, fortress_conquered_score 0?
Again, offense is harder, so they should be rewarded more than defense (although with the new barrage of intentional holes, this could become an interesting discussion). However, if the defender wins, he will have gotten his "bonus" by killing the attackers (+2 if 1 attacker, +4 if 2 attackers, etc.). Also, if a team conquers the other team's zone just after theirs has been conquered, I believe they should get those 4 points, since they did conquer the zone, didn't they?
- brackets - random teams, seeded teams (top 2? top4?)
I would like to see the teams seeded. CT played very close matches against |x| and TR and those were the 1st 2 rounds of the Ladle. CT edged out |x| 100-98 in the 2nd match to move on. It would be nice if these exciting matchups occurred later in the tournament, because clearly |x| was a good enough team to move on past the 1st round. However, trying to seed 4 teams is hard. For example, the winners of Ladle 19 (KoD), didn't even play in Ladle 20 and the top 4 teams of Ladle 20 were CT, +Plus, WW, and pluS+. Notice something? Plus had enough players to split into 2 teams. What if they don't have enough for the next Ladle? I think seeding just the top 2 teams will be easier and more realistic.
- servers - random? balance of Euro/American? (like Ladle 20)
A balance only seems fair, although the 1st round had a few strange things. First of all, PinkTomatos wasn't there and his server was running the wrong settings, so it would've been nice to have another American backup server. Also, ID played against WWa in CT Fort, a European server. Both ID and WWa are "American" teams, so maybe next time, we'll randomize the teams, then try and arrange the servers, but only for the opening round since the rest of the rounds were fair. But, that would require having more than 8 servers; something that isn't that hard to do.
- finals - always Z-Man's? rotate between Z-Man's and American Server? (TR Fort? Server Pharm? PinkTomato's?)
We've always used Z-Man's server for the finals and it's been pretty good. However, maybe we could rotate it each Ladle (so have the finals in an American server for Ladle 21 (maybe TR server)). But, of course, the "home" server rule will still apply (if both teams in the finals are European, the finals would then be in Z-Man's server.
- server names - normal? (all different) coordinated? (like Ladle 20)
The color coordination was neat and easy. I just sorted by Server Name and scrolled down on the server browser to see what was going on. On a side note, that Ladle subculture that nemo had was neat, but not too many people knew about it.
- team signups - list players? (do they have to play with the name listed?) don't list players?
Yes, please signup under the name you're going to play with. If you really want to use an alias, put that alias on the Challenge Board when you signup. It's too easy to cheat if 1) the players aren't listed and 2) if it appears that "different" players are playing than the ones that signed up for that specific team.
Anyways, those are some thoughts to chew on. Let me know what you guys think.