Experimental change: finite cycle width

[Lucifer]

Heh, actually what I've been hearing about this ady lucifer guy is that he's a Real Prick, and I've been kick-voted a couple of times when people thought I was him. I thought he was new to the game....

Anyway, wht standard moves are you talking about? Like I said, I had no problems making my regular attacks, nor making my regular defenses. In fact, I was still outgrinding folks no problem. And as defense, I saw nobody having problems making their regular attacks. Of course, it ws hard to tell since I was 1 v 5 while the rest of my team were killing themselves on the other team's defenses. (Sorry I'm so annoyed by it, but I thought we were past the ball-hogging stage of development with fortress. Apparently I was wrong)

Umm, rubber is there to correct for network latency. I don't see how rubber and cycle width are mutually exclusive.

The center has always had to worry about whether or not he'll make it. How has the situation changed? You need to get your team inline. If they're not letting you survive, and you don't want to shuffle out, talk to them. ALl too often what I see is "QUIT KILLING ME YOU ASS". Why should anybody listen to that? Worse, "You're not breaking early enough" when there's kilometers of room in there. That usually happens because the guy's a wuss, or refuses to trust anyone. You have to trust your teammates to some extent. I shuffle out when someone doesn't listen now, and have even when I had to leave the game to do it, ever since the ordering was changed so new players got inserted at the outside. Anyway, if I'm center and I really think I should play center, I'll teamkill to get my team inline. If they want to kick me, fine, I've got better things to do anyway than deal with them. A teamkill usually gets someone's attention, and when the center teamkills it usually gets the whole team's attention. So if you have to do it more than once (and can't weather a poll anyway), you should probably shuffle out, join the other team, or press shift-escape for special cheats. But this isn't a new situation for the center, he's *always* had to deal with this.

So, I want to know exactly what's new. What I keep hearing is "I can't doublegrind anymore" (Which Zop and Spidey proved wrong), and "The center still has to worry about whether or not his teammates will let him live". What's actually new?

Here's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing people having to make more coordinated attacks because the defense is stronger now. But I'm also seeing attacks that previously wouldn't succeed (but arguably should have succeeded) starting to work. I'm seeing some old moves not being useful, and new moves becoming more useful. Maneuvering is now much more important, pushing your own zones of control around is now much more important than just grinding your way past danger.

Honestly, if I was scared, I'd stay home. I like change, change is good and good for you. I can just about guarantee that if z-man were to say "Tough, deal with it" and American Fortress disappeared like it did last time, in a month you guys will like it. Most of you, anyway. The ones that don't in that time will be the ones that just spoil the game anyway. I honestly think most of the objection against this thing is just people resisting change.

[spidey]

i'd have to agree with root....it's the defenders job to pick up the slack of offense....if the person can't handle it,then he shouldn't be defending,really center attacks aren't hard to defend against,i only get centered when the outer wingman breaks off at the start......and yes lucifer i was helping zop doublebind,but not all wingmen are going to help,more the less not many care if you live or die before the break so why should i trust them? sometimes the center of the enemies grind is the only way to survive after a break so basically you're telling anyone that's center or possibly beside center that have shitty teammates,they have to die and there's nothing they can do about it

[Lucifer]

? NO, I just told you what the center can do about it. Go back and read it, I hate repeating myself. I gave 3 options for the center, I'm sure y'all can think up more. More importantly, I pointed out that it's nothing new for him anyway.

A better question is, if your teammates are so shitty, why aren't you doing something else? When the game is good, it's really good and time well spent, but when it's not, aren't there other things you'd rather do? Just like you can't play soccer on a rainy day....

Bottom line, bad doublegrinding is bad for the team, why should the game allow you to do so without at least asking the other players on your team what they think? Looks to me like you're complaining that you have to play as a teammate, rather than an individual. "Oh no, I need someone to help me doublegrind now, that is soooo unfair. Doesn't matter that most doublegrinders just kill themselves at the break anyway, nor does it matter that I've always depended on the wingman to break early enough anyway, but now I need him to help start the grind". Really, what's changed? For real? Besides letting the rest of your team have a say in whether or not you screw them over...

Edit: Oh yeah, I agree that the goalie has to pick up the slack of an offense that leaves a bad grind, but I don't see how the goalie has to pick up the slack of an offense that takes 7 people to attack and leaves him to fight off 5 by himself. That situation is that the attack is doomed, there's too many of them, and it takes a really good goalie to fight off a coordinated attack by 5 people. sure, most goalies can fight off uncoordinated attacks by 5 people, but you're not guaranteed the attackers won't be coordinated.

[omega]

im talking about the attack where u go very close to the def and grind back on urself over and over gain until theres a gap, this tactic requires loads of speed and timing and its now impossible. Seeing as how most of the players use it and the best 2 attackers psyko and zop use it its a important tactic, which has been made useless. Theres no way to attack anymore that will not work. The only ways now are luck, def doing something stupid. The radiator dont work unless u wait like 10 mins if the def is good.

Defense is already easy enuff. Most games defenders win, even on 2 on 1 and 3 on 1 if the def is good. This makes it even easier.

Also when ppl grind from breake to wall it was a skill to be able to get thru and attack the core. Now if some1 really wanted and they had 3 determined teamates u cud simply block the entire half of the field off, as tighter grinding is impossible. I never swear at them until like the 10th time.

I have handled 6 on 1s be4 and won, and my def aint too hot. U shud u have to ask to doublegrind, most ppl do it well andif they dont every1 tells them to stop or makes them stop.

Also the break, there was skill involved in getting loads of speed and dumping ppl. Yeh spidey and zop got it to work, but unless u have ppl like that ability it just dont work. I tried and normally i grind at somewhere between 3.5 and 4.5 in a normal game. WHen some1s double grinding i go to 2.5 normally and i still do occansionally go to 3 and kill them. I tried with zop to let him doublegrind and i cudnt stop myself grinding at 2 my fingers wud not let me grind at 1. I ended up grinding at 0.2 and just going relatively close to the wall. Also this change is even worse for centres with 2 annoying grinders. Ive always had the escape technique of grinding damn close to my teammate and going thru the centre. i practiced and have now mastered the going thru middle cos of annoying grinders, simply as a way of getting out alive from the grind. This new law has ended that. I can actually seriously forsee getting killed 10 times in a row from break and not standing any chance.

Lol on the subject of telling them to break believe me some ppl no matter how stressed u get will not listen. in 1 ear out the other. U can tell em 10 times theyll agree then 5 secons later will kill u again. U ask them and they go killer instinct. or some rubbish like that. This will make it impossible for centres if they have the wrong wings. yeh u can shuffle but whats the next guy gonna do shuffle too

[Lucifer]

So, you're telling me an attack on the goalie is impossible that I just did myself? Not only did I see it with my own eyes when it was done against me, but I also did it to the other goalie? Since when does impossible mean "everyone else can do it"?

The situation for the center is really simple. If his team breaks and he has room to slow down and go down the center, he has room to go other places too. If he doesn't really have room to slow down to go down the center, but he makes it anyway, it'll probably still succeed, you're just not grinding tight enough. Even if you are, you're still in the same situation as before, it's just easier now for the other team to seal the center, so the center attack is harder. But, and this is very important so I'll put it in bold, center attacks have always been mostly suicide attacks anyway, and since few if any can follow you, they're unassisted attacks, therefore mostly wasted. How has that changed?

Now, let's say they do leave you a little bit of room. Now the concern is the other team will cut you off. As a matter of fact, in the space we're talking, that mostly means the other team's attacker will kill himself on your wing's wall. What does that mean for you? One of those holes to go through that will more than likely lead to some open space. Either your wing will die, their wing will die, or both wings will go to the wall. If they go to the wall, you're now in a narrow corridor, and if you play it right, you not only survive, but you or your wing gets around the other guy to attack, while the other one of you stays back and kills him. How has that changed?

It's true the defender has the advantage of being in a prepared position. He's always had that advantage. The radiator coil attack has always been dumb and any halfway decent goalie can defend against it. It was useful for a brief period before goalies figured it out, and its occasionally useful against a new goalie, but otherwise it's worthless, and that hasn't changed. But one thing that has changed is that if he's grinding closely enough, a second defender can't come in, beat his grind, box him, or otherwise pull him off the goalie. That's an advantage taken away from the defense, thanks for mentioning it.

I don't know about pysko, but zop has always run his little track a distance from the goalie, and dealing with it is about just disrupting his track. Granted, that's not easy, and it's very dangerous, zop's a good player, but it's how you deal with it. The people you should be scared of are the people who can make that high speed attack without needing to setup a track (i.e. me and a few others). Again, something that hasn't changed. Fact is, rubber was and still is the limiting factor in running that track. Adding cycle width doesn't change that at all.

I don't think there's any such thing as mastering going through the middle. If you time it right, you can get there when the goalie's gap reaches the middle, but if he's watching, he prepares for your attack by giving up some of his zone and calling for backup. Even without backup, he has to sumo you anyway, it's that or give up the whole zone. And I repeat, this same attack is still a valid attack, since it never truly depended on beating the other team's grind, it depended on waiting long enough to initiate the attack. Chances are very good that one or more walls from there have receded or dropped (due to a kill) by the time this attack becomes useful. Otherwise it's a suicide attack anyway, except against those idiot goalies that don't seal the back, don't watch who's coming in, and don't take steps to deal with it. Those goalies would fall to any number of other attacks anyway, even if you can't make this one any more, which you still can. In any case, all you've really done is gotten used to looking at your rubber gauge when you grind.

Yeah, I know how hard it can be to be center. sometimes I'm the person on the team that's best suited for it, and I'll do it when that's the case. Most of the time, I admit I prefer playing farther back. But then again I'm one of those guys who really and truly tries to leave room, the best breaks are the clean ones where everybody breaks and nobody dies, and the team that can do that still has an advantage. Again, nothing changed. So, while you're busy "foreseeing" getting killed 10 times in a row from a bad break, some of the rest of us are still nursing wounds from being killed 10 times in a row from bad breaks as centers. Soooo...what's changed? Situation's always been impossible for centers with the wrong wings, but after they've all teamshuffled out or left the grid, you're usually left with people that will break, at least on call if you're willing to make the call.

[~*PsYkO*~]

Double grinding and going down middle are 2 out of the 5 big strategies in Fortress. If you were to include outgrinding other people which it does distract from that you can say 3 out of the 5 biggest strategies are taken out.

[Van-hayes]

Since I played fortress before double grinding and middle attacks became standard tactics, not having them doesnt bother me too much. What I don't like about this change is how it affects other parts of gameplay, tunneling is alot harder now which means it is harder to get around sweepers, and if the defender wanted to they could just grind the inside of their wall and you couldn't even try to get in because now you cant get in that little space they used to leave between the cycle and the end of the tail. The worst part is that I see holes becoming very popular again, which is one of the worst tactics there is IMO, and whats even worse than having holers again is the instant chat "make a hole for me, I'm going in" or something like that.

[Lucifer]

@pysko: 3 out of 5 of your tactics, but you have a pretty small set of tactics. "Well-rounded" isn't a word that describes you.

@vanhayes: I hate the "make a hole for me" calls too, but I like the "I'm making a hole for you" calls. The first is usually used selfishly, as in "You're not good enough to be anything but my hole" or "I won't make a hole because that means I can't play until the next round". The second is selfless and is very good team play.

[omega]

holing is a noob tactic, i dont use holes at all unless ive made a def hole himself. And luci ure wrong about centre being sucide. If u practice enuff u can time it so u get straight in or u give urself to pull out capturing a bit of the core. Also if u time it right theres no sumo, he has about 1/4 of the core. Psyko has taken attack to the next level, the new tactic since every1 grinds there tail is to go thru there grind, this is now impossible. And lol psyko aint well rounded i think u cud ask any of the fort players that and theyll disagree.

[Van-hayes]

Getting a little off the topic but, I have never considered holes a good tactic beacause A) At best you still lose 2 points B) Worst is that you lose 2 points from the holer and then the def kills the other attacker and you gain nothing, and C) holes take no skill to do, to me a hole is a byproduct of a failed attack. And if holes did become more popular again there would be no need to get better, when all u have to be able to do is either drive into a wall, or drive alongside of somone who is driving into a wal.

[Lucifer]

Really? Take away speed and the center attack and what can psyko do? Besides whine...

And I told you how to deal with the center attack as a goalie, the fact that you're encountering goalies who are clueless doesn't change that. Like I said, any halfway decent goalie takes steps to deal with it, and success only comes as a result of his failure to do that. A goalie who seals the back kills any early center attack, and a late center attack finds the goalie's already passed the spot anyway.

So you guys say you're more well rounded? Then instead of whining about what you can't do, show us what else you can do. I don't have any problems, my attacks are still just as they always were and my defenses, and it's a known fact that psyko thinks I'm a sucky player (it's a mutual thought, the difference is that he really does suck). So why don't you guys show us what else you can do? The fact that you keep saying you can't do anything else only tells us that we're right, you're in that group of people who only have a few tricks but no real tactical ability. Fact is, everytime I kill psyko, he says "lag" just so nobody suspects the truth (not that anybody's fooled, he says "lag" everytime he dies anyway and nobody's fooled by it anymore). So come on, show us what you've got. You're such well-rounded players, why are you having problems with this?

Note, it would be different if the feeling was unanimous, but the players that I generally rank as "good" are the ones who are also supporting this setting, and the same ones that when you get them on a team together, no amount of SP or former SP or even Formerly Elite can defeat them. So something's not meeting reality on your side, what is it?

[oO.k3nNy]

lol i just got amused. HOLES!
y they suck, but i must admin, i have an instant chat msg for it lol. when an attack of me failures and i make a hole then i got the chat msg: "i made a hole!" lol, so at least maybe someone can abuse my failure

[omega]

lol yeh, u do waste a lot of time just holing for better players rather then learning to atttack urself. I wasted weeks just doing this, and quite often the def realises and can counter. iI thought part of this rule was to stop middle attacks which are annoying, quick and theres little or no way out, isnt holing doing exactly the same thing but making it even easeir to do?

[omega]

ok luci lets not get personal i never insulted u and u dont need to insult me or any other ppl either. . W live in an adult world u can discuss stuff and every1 who disagrees with u inst crap or stupid I bet half the ppl u just insulted could take u down on a fort server.

If u time centre attack right the goaly will lose or maybe he will survive but if he survives it isnt to hard to break off slightly early and survive urself.

[Phytotron]

I don't care what the game mode is, all the reasons these kids are whining and bitching about why cycle width is bad are exactly the reasons why it's a good thing.

[rant]Unfortunately, it's a fact of life now that all but a couple active servers have absurdly high and ridiculously pliable rubber settings. Rubber hasn't been about compensating for network latency in, well, at least since I've been playing. It's now a "feature." Anything below 10 is considered "low" and "sux!" You go to some servers and they talk about "digging." And of course, the ubiquitous 180ing and adjusting back and forth to achieve maximum depth of grind. That's all there is, so that's what they learned on. So, naturally, most players think that this is the way it's supposed to be, and that being able to do these things makes one a master (not a "nOOb"). Hence the comments in this thread. Sorry, kids, none of that takes skill—no more than pushing two buttons at the same time. Manipulating rubber does not qualify as "ub3r l33t" moves. What you've discovered (and what many players discover when they come to a server like Shrunkland) is that while you've spent all your time figuring out how to maximize the ridiculous physics of rubber and grinding and all that crap to your advantage, coming to completely depend on it, you've entirely skipped over actual moves, maneuvers, tactics and strategies. Now you're left holding your jock and having to face that maybe you kinda suck. Meanwhile, players like Lucifer are likely chuckling at your expense.

It's as though you have that game Guitar Hero, with its guitar-shaped controller, and you got really good at it, and man, you thought you were the shite. Then someone brings you a real guitar and says, ok, rock out. And then you start yelling about how all the fun was taken away. (Overstated analogy.)

Having cycle width eliminates the concept of rubber? Well, you're wrong in terms of why rubber was originally developed—to deal with latency. But you're (somewhat) correct in terms of rubber's current place in the game. In that sense, I say good! Down with rubber![/rant]

At any rate, I haven't tried it yet, and while I don't like fortress, I may pop in just to see how the cycle width behaves. I'm sure I'll get kicked very quickly for not falling in line and doing exactly what the "elites" there want me to.