XXxPrePxX

That's less of an issue with CNCNet and more for the community to solve. There are plenty of mods, maps, and balances that attempt to fix this issue. If you are seriously interested in finding these sorts of things they are out there that maek the AI much, much more difficult to handle. CNCNet can not do a thing to change this issue, from what I understand.

Here you go: https://www.youtube.com/user/dsect0r/videos enjoy

Ceka, your list seems good up until Bay of Pigs. Who in their right mind wants to play bay of pigs in a 1on1 game?? That's worse then playing Sedona Pass in 1on1 games.

To me, a bit of imbalance is a very good thing. The way YR is set up is such that the soviets dominate the early part of the game and the allieds dominate the late part of the game. This creates the perfect type of gameplay in competitive 2on2/3on3/4on4 games where sides have to use the best of both worlds to succeed. That is the truly beautiful part of YR. However, in 1on1 competitive games over a wide range of maps, the soviet player has the general advantage. My argument would stem from their ability to rush the allied player. On YR the slightly slower methodical pace allows me as a soviet player to perform almost perfect rushes every time. The APP problem, the slow build of the grizzly's, the less effective rocketeers (seemingly), the pace all factor into this. It is very difficult for an allied player to stop a good rush on most maps in YR.

Interested topics here. Regarding MustacheX's mod: I think it is one of the best balance options out there. In fact, I highly advise "MapDesigner" to check it out. He will be pleased with the tweaks, I think. With that being said, I'm not interested in playing it... that's because I'm not interested in learning a new set of BO's and balance options. I have 15+ years of experience with YR and I have no interest in replaying the base game with mods to re-learn it at my stage. :p. To Zain's post: I do not think anyone is denying that Yuri is the most OP faction. I'm not sure how you go from calling Yuri OP in the first sentence, and then saying nothing is over powered in the second sentence. The number of usable factions has nothing to do with how over powered the side is. The difference between a deso and a spy/legionnaire is great. First and most importantly, deso's are built from radar tech, meaning they are much more prevalent in the game. This is no short statement. In 1on1 combat (AvS) if you let the allied opponent get to a tech on YR, you are doing something wrong (or the map forces it). In the 1000's of YR AvS games I've played, I've had to deal with spy's rarely and legionaries almost never. When the spy did succeed vs. me, I would just attack with everything I had and usually would win as the allied player had to spend money teching up, getting the spy in, whereas I should have been building a force to defeat them quickly (i.e. you don't want to go toe-to-toe with an allied teched player on YR, so you better be thinking about how you’re going to end the match early and not get to this stage). Next, they cost more money, and they are exceptionally weak against dogs and some basic defense. They can not be compared to the power of the deso. (p.s. if your opponent is able to buy 4 chrono Legionnaire's against you, you are really not doing something right) I've seen a number of Allied players go to soviet and play well. I don't think anyone is whining here, just a fun discussion regarding the game.

Likely not, the the opposite would occur where the allied player would be far too over powered and don't even get me started on soviet vs. yuri without the desolator. The desolator is the most polar unit in the game, you take it out and the balance switches greatly the other way. You keep it in and the soviets are overpowered.

Hi MapDesigner, I like your enthusiasm for interesting additions in the game and curious concern over balance. I will try to answer your two questions. First, the reason why no team has a naval specialty unit is because it would be worthless compared to other units and also would throw off balance (potentially). First, no one would pick it on 95% of the maps, but then on maps like Depth Charge which is almost strictly naval based, it would give an unfair advantage to said team. I think this is pretty clear to see. Maybe your argument may be that there should be special units added for every team that are naval based, however, this is very challenging to do from a balance perspective. I don't think Ra2/YR was meant to be very 'difficult' to grasp, and adding this would really screw up one part of the game that I feel is really well done -- the navy balance. More on that at the end of my post here. Second, the fact that yuri does not have an aint-air naval component has always stumped me as well. Yuri's naval is very basic, but it is a game changer. The reason yuri shouldn't have an aint-air component is simply because Yuri's navy is ridiculously overpowered. So much so, that in ranked, competitive games, Yuri is almost universally not allowed to participate (it's been banned on ranked games for over 10 years). The fact is that yuri can get boomers after a psychic sensor, which is significantly faster then it's soviet and allied counterparts (dred/aircraft after tech lab) and this allows yuri to rush the opponent on any naval map. The unfair thing about this is that Yuri's boomers go unseen, meaning there is really no reasonable defense against the unit. A soviet/allied player needs to have pre-emptive anti-air units/buildings (which cost way more money then the boomer, and rarely work perfectly against unseen attack angle), AND needs to have some naval units to stop the boomer, where as the yuri player can have the $2000 boomer out early and attack one building and then the game is over. Giving the yuri player anti-air naval units on top of this would simply push the boundary here. The naval element between soviets and allied forces is one of the more beautiful aspects in this game. The goal for soviets on naval maps would be to amass a large amount of submarines which are extremely powerful, but slow, and methodically take out the allied players naval before the allied player can adequately tech up and a mass a flow of dolphins which are much faster and can own the water late games. This is truly a beautiful dynamic, on a map like Beach Frontier, it is simple for a soviet player to own the water as it is linear, but on a map like depth charge it is incredibly difficult. EDIT: Note, when I say yuri is banned from competitive play, I mean that yuri on water/naval maps has been banned from competitive play, NOT the yuri faction entirely.

Wow, I didn't know about the stats there, so it really is that bad. Yeah, then the argument that allieds are much weaker on YR compared to Ra2 holds with even stronger conviction.

No -- I'm with you here in terms of Ra2 / YR allies. I feel YR allies are weaker than in Ra2. The reason why YR players now think allieds are OP/or better than the Ra2 counterpart is because YR has nerfed into a glorified FFG 6-8 player game, where, indeed YR Allies are much stronger than Ra2 Allies. However, in 1on1 combat like quick match, YR allies suffer from getting easily owned by rushes. It's much harder for me to rush an allied player in general on Ra2 then it is on YR. The reason may have to do with the quickness, the focus on allied players getting para/rockies/grizz, etc. On YR the slowness allows for a more methodical push from the soviets in the early going. Perhaps there is more time for a soviet to rush on YR compared to Ra2 and this is a major problem for allieds on YR.

I agree that a B/C list tournament would be preferable. The problem with it is that we suffer from little to no support from the B/C group :(. There just isn't enough of them active on the forums that actually care enough. I would be all for it and wouldn't mind organizing it if there was enough.

The tournament scene in Ra2/YR is somewhat dead. It is completely lifeless on CNCNet currently. The reason is that people are simply not interested in joining/following through with it. There is not enough incentive. Another possible reason is that the competitors are too top-heavy and everybody already knows who is the best/better then them (no reason to join a tournament if you've played the guy already 100's of times, etc.). We had a 2on2 tournament in the previous year that was somewhat successful and saw some great games. @AufRuler really did an impressive job with it. These days there either just was or is still going on an XWIS vs. Chinese Red Alert 2 tournament. For more information on that, I lead you to the XWIS forums and you can find the topic and streams/past videos in the tournament sub section of the forum. These are highly impressive gameplay with some of the very best in the world playing. Besides this, there are countless youtube videos with pro games that you can watch. More competition should be in the making as the ladder progresses.

TOE, Sedona Pass, EvB to name a few. Of course, these maps don't always have to be campy, but I think it tells the story that 3 of the most popular maps (arguably the two most popular by far - toe/sedona) are made for camping with the play style. (how many times have you had to take on someone on sedona who camps on their cliff, etc.

Post of the year material.

The other problem is the veto. How many vetoes does one person get? Is it unlimited? If it's unlimited, then the system will be broke. If its limited then you have to be very careful with your scenarios. I think it's more work then good, and any scenario leading to crates and starting units loses credibility: With crates it's random luck and many people despise this. With starting units, it's the ability to rush an opponent with less tank control or a disadvantage. It could also end up in luck as well. Also, both are great assets for cheaters to take advantage of (not sure if CNCNet is completely anti-cheat or if there are still cheaters possible, mainly what I mean is it lends to map-hackers who see all from the get go and can get all the crates or just move their starting units to take advantage of opponents). If possible, the easiest way to do things would be to have a standard QM setting with the 15-25 maps, and then allow people to host their own games. This way, 'casuals' can still play with their settings and get ranked games against people who are willing to play their maps and settings, and the player matching system keeps its credibility.

Sodsw, the problem I have with using the latest YR XWIS QM map listings is the following: a) There's too many b) It doesn't take into account the plentiful new map additions from Ra2 XWIS like Reconcile, etc. On a personal level, I love loading up quick match with maps, but from my experience, the players want a more limited map pool, which would be especially helpful for the vast majority of CNCNet players who are not pro's (i.e. it'd be easier for them to learn 15-25 maps instead of the 60+ maps presented there. If they do decide to go a limited map pool with 15-20 maps, the best idea would be to alternate some maps in and out every ladder month to keep it fresh, whilst keeping in some reliable classic maps.

A lot of players would have a problem saying that yuri would not be allowed in QM. From my viewpoint, yuri should be allowed as it is an important part of the Yuri's Revenge game, but it needs to be nerfed through a selective map process. Otherwise, you end up taking on Yuri on a water map and have no chance even if you are a super pro and the yuri player is mediocre. A lot of people enjoy QMing and have more fun in it than they do in FFGs and I know there is a lot of people that genuinely enjoy playing as yuri in 1on1 games. I think taking that part away would be disappointing, and this is coming from the biggest anti-yuri proponent you will find :). Picking random just to get Yuri in a rank game seems really bogus, especially if you are suggesting that we shouldn't limit the maps. It then takes a lot of the skill out of it, and becomes a game of chance/roulette. If I'm vsing a better player and he is soviets, I go random in hopes that I get Yuri on a water map that is easily to manipulate and own him, for instance. The better player loses x amount of points and I run away into the lobby. Bogus scenario. Anyway, I'm interested to hear more about what *can* actually be done. It seems like this is a QM system that arranges two players randomly (or does it do it via player skill level somehow, like how many points you have etc.). Does this system have the ability to separate maps based on which teams are playing? Does this system have the ability to alter if supers are on/off based on which teams are playing the map? Does this system allow for an unlimited amount of scenarios? Does it allow for users to host games and create their own settings to be ranked on? Thanks for your time/help.

Excellent! That is very good news. In regards to veto: While it's good to veto certain scenarios, the idea of having crates on and/or starting units just spells disaster to me. In Ra2, they have the option to host a ranked game and the host can create any map, any settings (short game must always be on tho, for good reasons), and use any team they want. This is kinda neat as it means both the host and the opponent have to accept the settings to play the game. The small issue is that it can be abused by the more knowledgeable players and one-mappers. In any event, I think having the option to host a game is better than getting randomly matched on a scenario with crates/units even if I have the option of some vetoes. Any ladder where there would be a chance that I'd have to defend a top rank vs an opponent with crates on has little to no credibility. Now, I'm not 100% sure how the veto system would work, maybe I could always veto crates/unit starting options to ensure that I don't lose based off some random luck, which in that case it could be palatable, but that would essentially separate the ladder into newbs and pros and newb-bashers. When one includes crates and starting units as a scenario option, it's just asking to be corrupted.

I think there's two things that are important: 1) Is this a randomly generated QM map pool, similar to how it's been classically, where the competitors do not know the map prior to playing/starting/getting matched the player? Or is this a system where you know the map and wait for the player? If it's the latter then that will create bailing based on map preference. 2) In terms of settings: Short game should always be on, unit count should really always be 0, and crates should always be off. Messing with these settings leads to a very wonky ladder and is easy for the experts to take control over or make a living hell for other players. Now, In regards to superweapons, this is a very delicate issue as it greatly changes the balance. In sov vs. Yuri games, superweapons need to always be on. Soviets stand no chance against yuri long game without their supers. Allied vs. Yuri is less dramatic, but it still sets up better games with supers on in allied vs yuri warfare. Sov vs. Allied is map dependent. Supers give soviets an advantage over allied's, but this is needed on some maps. One key map for example is Death Valley girl. This could end up being a 4 hour game without superweapons if allieds just camp the two entrances. Another map would be Hammer and Sickle. SvS, AvA is obviously balanced, but still needs supers on maps where those situations occur. I tried to implement a lot of maps in the QM system before, but it seemed to back fire as there was simply too many maps. The YR crowd is not interested in learning a lot of maps with different situations. So I'd try to stick to a smaller size this time around. The nice thing is we have the highly competitive maps created from Ra2 XWIS involved. So these maps should be included. I think the very best thing to do would be to have a map pool of a set amount (15? 20? 25?) maps that you can rotate every ladder month. The challenge has always been how to deal with yuri... Yuri can easily manipulate over 75% of the maps to their advantage. Historically, this has been done by putting limits on the map pool for yuri players. This gives them something like 8-10 maps compared to the sov/allied players who had 30-50. Some of the maps for yuri in the past: Country Swing, Blood Feud, Dune Patrol, Golden State Fwy, Hidden Valley (ew), Dry Heat, offense defense (can't think of tooo many more) As one can see, the maps for yuri gameplay is very limited and will be the key problem. With the addition of the new maps, there is likely to be a much better map pool this time around tho. I would stress that unlike Red Alert 2, Yuri's revenge is incredibly map dependent, so it should be taking with great care. If one ignores the yuri advantages on maps, then the ladder will be dominated by yuri players with less skill. If one adds too many of the crazy yuris revenge maps or the crazy large maps, then the ladder begins to feel like a joke. Ra2 has always had the simple 1on1, 2on2 classic style gameplay, so they never needed to worry about maps as much. YR has chaotic maps and incredible imbalances in situations, so it must be made with care.

Zig is correct! One thing I'll add regarding the miner conversation is to stress the high importance that soviet miners have a gun on them (compared to allied miners). In 1on1, highly competitive games, that Sov miner will often win you close games, especially if you are rushing / enemy allied player rushes. That is easily accountable for a set of wins per month as a huge advantage. So often vs allied players I'd get into a pickle with a rush on a map like blood feud or even heck freezes over top vs top where I'd go kamikazee and send my miners with me to attack and completely pummel a seemingly-stronger allied opponent due to the miners. In particular, on a situation like Heck Freezes Over where you are spot 1 and enemy is spot 2 (top vs top), and the allied player is trying to tech up and have his prism towers, the only hopes for the soviet are to tech up and try the boris/kirov, but if that fails, the next hope is to attack kamikazee style with 5-6 miners and infantry/rhinos. That usually works unless the opponent you are facing is an incredible player.

Additionally, it would be wise to have it launched with or just before the ladder goes into effect. The ladder starting --> Gets people (newbs) caring about being better --> Videos could be helpful.

Nice games with Zig and Vwwww thanks.

Savage AF!

Topic already started: https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/6739-your-favorite-map-why/#comment-52120 Least favorite map topic as well: https://forums.cncnet.org/topic/6777-least-favorite-map-that-other-people-enjoy/#comment-52450

Yeah, it's apples to oranges anyway... Ladder play in 2000 had a 3 minute bail rule, meaning in a 1on1 game if you didn't like how things were going you could just leave within 3 minutes... That a lone skews the entire strategy comparision between those days and now. Players now are likely more skilled at rushing, abusing the strengths/weaknesses that certain factions have, and lame tactics like engi-killing, engi-rushing. My money would be on players nowadays, the game continues to evolve.

The only way to accomplish this with any sort of noticeable success is to have the CNCNET Youtube channel host the streams AND have a link in the lobby when players join the server stating something a long the lines of "Want to learn how to get better at the game? Watch these videos ______". The videos will need to be made with great care. Otherwise, it will just end up another video in the 100's of videos of ra2/yr play on YouTube. Good luck!