XXxPrePxX

Assuming the starting options in the following games: 1. Spot 2 FFA on DC Uprising https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU5tRXmSY2s 2. Spot 1 Hammer and sickle Chronosphere https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsN9VOx3CeE How would you beat these strategies?

I love EvB, only problem is the important of cliff oils. If a team loses one of them early (or gets engi-killed) it's almost auto-end game.

I am here to give an opinion. Today, I played the map Reconcile (created by Dylan) on CNCNet. This map is simply amazing. This map is the antithesis to what is Dune Patrol. Dune Patrol is an extremely basic map where games are purposely meant to be one dimensional. Reconcile is an amazing 1on1 map where games can end in so many different ways. This is a perfect sized 1on1 map that allows soviets and allieds to have some advantages. The middle features a derrick for each opponent which is cleverly blocked by a broken bridge and the cliffs (thus, making sure that one derrick is supplied per person). This map cleverly understands that adding an abundance of tech buildings is not a smart idea, but giving each opponent one tech building is good for strategy. The bridge is the easiest way to get to the opponent, but it is broken, thus, a soviet rush would likely benefit from fixing the bridge, but that requires an extra engineer + showing your hand to your opponent. The gems are not given to each person early which many maps do as a way to 'ease' a person into the economy of the map, rather, they are strategically placed in difficult positions on the map. This makes it very difficult to mine gems, but extremely rewarding. Games can develop where players are fighting and protecting the gem spots. While there are many pinch points and easy spots to camp, there are so many of them that it makes it difficult to fully camp. Also, once you get through the bridges/pinch points, the base is wide open in an almost impossible to camp array. This is simply an incredibly designed map that I think is the greatest 1on1 map in the game right now.

JSDS, there is no cheating going on. One of the players simply had a slightly better economy or was faster or a combination of both.

No worries, JSDS, If you have tournaments going in the future I got your back. If I'm on, i'll give you games on Heck. Take care, nice try.

JSDS, with all due respect, advertising for a tournament that is roughly 2 months away isn't going to gather a lot of players, and worse yet -- players that do sign up might not even be around again in 2 months time. I think a prime spot is a bout a week out from a tournament to start advertising. That way, people know its within their scope and can plan for a tournament. I'd be interested in any tournaments as long as their on CNCNet (I lag on XWIS, and don't know how to get into GR). You can sign me up if you get enough players.

Ruler is right. Right now on YR there are no real clans... okay, there might be 1-2 groups of random people clumped together under same clan name in an ode to the past, but realistically 0. There needs to be a reason for people to join clans, and perhaps, the biggest problem swaying away people is the lack of control over any clan. If I create clan "[Drake]" what's stopping people from putting [Drake] in their name? Without any control over who is in and who is out, I have no reason to get behind any clan name.

Doesn't that defeat the point of a 3on3? If you can spawn anywhere then it's just a random attack on whomever you are near. A proper 3on3 should be lvr or tvb or with some sort of continuity. Perhaps playing 3on3 without supers? LvR on Heck Freezes over when you take out the lame spots (8,5) is pretty good.

That's what I was trying to get at with my 'alternative ladder' concept (thread posted in this subforum). It would take away #2 from being used. I would imagine #1 would be designed to put people into clans. To me, that ladder would be sufficient enough for competitive gaming again. Yeah, it wouldn't have the amazing concept of randomized matching, but it would allow people to 1on1, 2on2, 3on3, 4on4 in competitive terms, and that's cool enough for a while.

Good topic, however it is quite hard to fly under the radar these days. I would say RT1, but he's not quite there yet, he's getting close tho, at least as a team player.

Damn man, I should start posting it around school in the computer science room, $800 to the programmer who can succesfully get a ladder working! It might work.

There's a few reasons for this. 1) I don't think the community really is looking for standard tournaments. Why? Likely because the players at the very top are too damn good. A tournament featuring Marko in it is going to make other players think twice about joining. I look to cater towards the players looking for improvement and want them to have fun. The worst possible tournament to me is one that features players getting swept 5-0. It's not fun for anyone watching, either. Thus, in this type of tournament, a top soviet player like Marko/TJ might want to join to prove that they could play as the allied faction at the top level. It might make it fun for them to try to compete as a team they don't normally compete as, and it might make it fun for their opponents to have a chance vs them. 2) A selfish reason -- it's more entertaining to watch. I've seen a lot of sov vs sov play lately, especially in 1on1s. I'm bored. I want to see the dynamic between allied players choosing to go for tech army or for the fast/swift rockie/grizz/para army vs. the power of the soviet force. This is Ra2/YR at it's finest to me. We don't often get to see these matchups without a randomized quick match setting because most players are going to mirror the other competitor on maps that have any sort of advantage for a certain faction (ie. how many competitive players are going to choose allies on dry heat or blood feud when they know their competent opponent is soviets? They might do it for fun, but in a truly competitive game, if they doubt their allied ability they will pick soviets). All in all, this idea will probably *not* happen based on the response I got in my past tournament offerings so its a moot point.

Damn, I was hoping to do it in May, as that is my only free week of the summer, but I'll consider anything.

I was thinking of creating a 16 player 1on1 tournament with 8 soviet players and 8 allied players signed up. Matches would be allies vs. soviets.

Yeah, I have no problem saying Sunny is a pretty good player. The problem around him has been a cheating past and the fact that he is generally overrated by players he beats due to his personality. He seems to pander to slightly lesser skilled players. I've noticed a lot of players of lesser skill praising sunny for his skill. This is actually really cool -- sunny helps out the community by playing/training the lesser-skilled, but it does factor into him being overrated. Nonetheless, he's an excellent player and I have no problem with him in Tier 2 of allied play(perhaps near the bottom) and his style of allieds is highly different compared with matt/justin, which is the cool thing about the allied faction.

Has there been any thought into have a very simplistic, scaled down ladder? 1 ladder that encompasses clanning and perhaps individual where it does not interface with the cncnet client, but rather is just website based where the games get played and recorded? I believe (a LONG time ago) there was this type of ladder on chat-stars forum when ra2 wol ladder was useless. I'm not sure how that'd work, but it would seem to be drastically more simple to code then a fully interfaced, multiple ladder design that CNCNet seems to be trying to do. The way it would work is: people register their name on the website ladder. People play games under a certain option on cncnet. The game stats get sent to the website and updated. done. I'm not sure how difficult this is, but I wanted to throw the idea out there.

Tier 1: Matt, Justin, ico0, Ankarar, buffalo, kinkys3x Tier 2: Mustachex, kireeek, Sunny, gun man Pretty good tier listing I think solely in terms of allied player. Perhaps an argument can be made for Tier 1a being matt/justin or just matt, who knows.

You know what would be a bigger improvement over training random newbs? Getting the other skilled players more involved in the community. Players like RT1, Karamboo, serbia_1, Chandlerr, Davidoff, etc. etc. who are on CNCNet a lot but rarely ever communicate on the forums etc. There is a wide range of players on the game of varying skill levels that are all good players, but if they were here on the forums and communicating we could have more tournaments and more competitive based challenges which would be good for everyone in terms of skill level.

I don't really know enough to comment on that. I know Matt has been dominating Ra2 XWIS clan ladder for the past year+ and has competed in Ra2 XWIS QM for a bit. Matt's competitive nature has him taking on everyone all the time. The games I've had with him have all been very impressive. Justin has a beautiful style of allieds, but has not had to compete as much as Matt has in the past 2 years so I think there would be some rust in highly competitive play. Justin dominated me in a 1on1 on top of heck the other day in one of the more enjoyable games I've had in a long time (I get a sick enjoyment out of losing these days).

For sake of analysis, we categorize players. This has been done on ladders since the beginning of competition on Ra2/Yr. On WOL if you played more as a certain faction, you would be identified as a color (red = soviet, blue=allied, purple = yuri), etc. I'm just interested in the players who play predominately as allieds, as I already know who I'd consider the top soviet players are. For now, my list goes as follows 1a Matt 1b Justin 3 Sunny? 4 ico0? With Rocketeer likely ending up at the 3 spot if I recall his play correctly. Kinkys3x I haven't seen him play enough as allieds in 1on1 games to comment on. Auf-Ruler doesn't play competitively to my understanding. Marsh, while being an amazing allied player, has never really played CNCNet, so he is outed in this convo.

Rocketeer, if you want, i'll vs you in a few 1on1's to check your skill level relative to the others. I would think you would be up there and I do recall you as an allied player. Further, if anyone else is an allied player and feels like taking some 1on1's, I'm tentatively open for challenges as a soviet player. I have one last week of school of the semester, and then finals, but my time should be opening up for the next 3 weeks.

I'm mostly looking for 100% allied 1o1n players that play on CNCNet for the great majority of their games. Marko -- Of course he is unstoppable, but he is mostly a soviet player that isn't considered a CNCNet player as far as I know. Buffalo - Soviet player greatly. Sure, could probably play a highly impressive allied faction, but not exactly what I was looking for in nominations :p. Some interesting names are ico0 and aufruler as I had those two names in my mind when creating this topic. I haven't seen enough good 1on1's from ico0 to nominate him, but he is a hell of a great teammate. Sunny has a pretty solid allied skill level and has been around long enough to be highly competitive in 1on1, but is he really in the top 3 of allied players on cncnet? Is there anyone else that we are forgetting?

Yeah, I think Nyerguds alludes to the point that we can't police people into playing more competitive games. It's good that we have activity, all we can do is try and help players by showing them what the game could be about if they tried. In the end, a lot of people play just to build units, a base and then mash their units together, nothing we can do about that! The best thing that can change a newb into a pro is a ladder as it forces the newb to see what it takes to compete / to understand his/her own inadequacies.

That would be a great idea.

Who are the best allied players on cncnet? For the sake of this discussion, this is about 1on1 game play, not how good they are in a team ( I can think of many good allied teammates, but only a select few who would be good in 1on1 games). This is just about allied players, so players that play their competitive games as the allied faction. For me, the only two that directly come to mind are Justin aka Mindwar and Matt aka vwwwwwwwwww. Any others?