Critisising Desert Mesa

[poesel]

Since one is not enough heres the next one.

To make the proverb a bit shorter: if I wouldn't like the map in the first place I wouldn't write!

Theres IMHO a big problem with playing Mesa in CTF: the bases are just too far away.

Theres not enough time to batter down the defenses, get the flag and bring it safely home. If you fail on the first try you don't have time for a second and then the defender will win on points alone. That happened to jby and Jung when they played against me. I didn't even try to get the flag and just put up a heavy defense.

My proposal would be to put the flags in the middle bases. These are very close together which will hopefully produce a big clash in the valley inbetween. But there enough room for some flanking manoeuvres to make it interesting.

[Toby Haynes]

I'll play Devil's Advocate here. The most flag captures I've ever achieved on Desert Mesa is four in 30 minutes, so it is possible to strike fast and hard and rack up the points. My most flag captures on any scenario in 30 minutes is seven against bot opponents.

Granted that human players do up the ante on attacks. My usual strategy is to destroy (or capture) the enemy laser tower - that opens more paths allowing faster captures. I personally think that the SW base is easier to defend, but that's only my preference.

That said, changing the flag positions is really easy. The two central bases are far enough apart to allow some strategies - there are several choke points to channel defences/attacks. It would be trivial to either add a different CTF mode for this map (say CTF2) for a short-run CTF set up or entirely replace the existing positions in the CTF mode.

[poesel]

Well then we have to learn quite something from you!

Yes to the CTF2 nonetheless.

[__Yossarian0815[jby]]

Originally posted by poesel71:

My proposal would be to put the flags in the middle bases. These are very close together which will hopefully produce a big clash in the valley inbetween.

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