FrostbytePUG

Ucantry2run

Private Tester
For those of you who played FrostbytePUG last night, I would like to gather your inputs on the map's competitive viability (in terms of base structure and hill updates, if you found any). I know Frost is a crowd favorite so I wanted to make the map as balanced as possible. What is better about the map? What is worse? I plan to update it at least one more time (it is also open for someone else to update if they want to, I'm lazy) so drop your ideas here. I do primarily want to get input on the two back hills, the hill directly behind the beta flag stand, the flag stands themselves, and the side routes as well as their chaseabilty. Those are basically the changes that I made to the map, but anyone can talk about other problems they have with it (i.e. the bowl) or other suggestions to make it better.

For anyone who hasn't played the map, its on live right now. The tl;dr version is that I moved the flag stands back a slight amount, flattened the back hills behind both bases, halved the beta drop-down hill, fixed the hills around the crack area (so people can actually skii around there, it was literally randomized hills), added some starting slopes for side-routes, and did a general smoothing. The middle wasn't touched. Let me know!

lata
 

loc

#1 Private Tester
I'm curious to see the flag elevated from its normal position instead of moving it back. I can remember testing this map with the spot you've moved it to now but I think that was during a OD removal test as well so I guess only time will tell.
I'm lovin all the continued work. <3
 

TylerMarket

Heisenberg.
In short, I like the flags being moved back since it opens up side routes and makes the game more interesting. As a Hof though it seemed like it took too long to get back there to be able to block a good chunk of the cappers...i was also getting killed more than usual which could have played a factor but that's just my opinion. I didn't really see the effect of the flattened/adjusted hills because i only played one game. Overall i'd say i like the changes
 

Fixious

Test Lead
Some don't like the fact that it's moved back. Instead of elevating it we could try simply removing the blocks at either side of the flag, which would still allow more route variety while keeping the flag in the same location. It's been suggested before but never tried (afaik). Doing this for alpha is pretty easy, though I'm not sure how well it'd work for beta since beta is more 'dug in'. You might have to lower the hills to the right of beta flag a bit to make it easier, but idk.

OYsjjPI.png

UqtAJgI.png
 

SeymourGore

Flatulent Cherub
Why don't you nerds put a little quarter dome around the flag. Keep the side routes still fairly accessible and a little port door on the back of the dome. Even a guy like Application-1 should be able to deal with backroutes easier if he just needs to alter a backcappers route a bit (so they'll miss the port door and slam into the dome).

Here's an image to help understand what I'm thinking:
TYYiOYk.png
 

loc

#1 Private Tester
I like the idea of removing the walls in Fixious' idea. Definitively opens up more routes and gives Hofs more room to rumble.

Uhm. All that need fixing is backroutes. Let's not get sidetracked here.

Well, we can just think of it as a new map altogether instead of "ruining" the classic.
 

Ucantry2run

Private Tester
Nobody really wants to play frost anymore because it gets abused pretty frequently, that one of the main reasons why people are trying to change it. Its a good map if it gets balanced. We'll see how it plays next week though
 

Fixious

Test Lead
Having the entire defense go offense for a flag return, thus leaving your flag wide open for regrabs, is definitely one of the issues regarding backdrops. Keeping the HOF or one stay D back at home ready to stop them would certainly help, especially in 8s when you can afford to keep one back. With 7s and definitely 6s where there isn't any HOF things are different.

But hey it's easier to change map terrain than strats. No one likes to talk about the latter. :)

And this is really only aimed at backdrops. The 'traditional' backroute I use to run is pretty sneaky, but definitely stoppable if you have someone keeping an eye out for them at all times. Ucan's latest version more or less eliminates both of them, though a backroute on beta is still possible.
 

Xtreme

shaska's bff
Why isn't the solution to have people not play sloppy stay d instead?

Basically this.

I feel like home d has become synonymous with mindless frag-hunting, but in addition to killing LO and juggling the flag during standoffs, part of your job as home d is to make stops on the stand. For some reason this responsibility shifted to chasers, which I guess isn't completely crazy given that boost core and nadejumps make it that much easier to take off once your flag is taken, even if you're out of position. At the same time though, I'm not liking this new standard of having double chase, especially on small maps where you don't really need it. Like I get the reasoning that you still keep the pressure on enemy cappers in case LO shuts down one of the chasers, but I'd rather have one chaser who communicates with and signals a flexible home d if he's in trouble, than two dedicated chasers who can't seem to respawn quickly enough to stop the regrab.

And yeah, nobody really likes to talk about game strats, but I think it's stupid to change the terrain so that there's no viable backroutes when it's almost always a case of uncoordinated defense.
 

Ucantry2run

Private Tester
As a stayhome who's been playing the position for years, I can vouch for the fact that its extremely frustrating having to deal with both back drops and back routes (often right after the other in tandem with fronts/regrabs). I know how the position is supposed to be played and yes, Xtreme is right, its not all about taking out LO. When we're on frost I usually tell the defensive standoff players that I'm not going to pass during standoff because I want to make sure that nobody gets a regrab after the standoff is over because god knows there's going to be people just sitting on the hill behind our base. It doesn't really matter what the defense is, I've had games where I've played defense with darklord and sin (arguably the best spread for defensive players currently) and its still a pain in the ass.

This is twice as true if we're playing LT, I don't know how many times I've seen a backdrop/back route and wasn't able to stop it. With minimal defense, those routes are just broken. And you can't even see the back routes because the hill is so high. No, we're not perching on the hill. That's a waste. At least you can see backroutes if they're coming in now (yes, its still possible) like on alpha.
 

Sin

Private Tester
Without a competent HoF + somewhat competent stay D the backdrops are near unstoppable if a team decides to run them. I do find myself agreeing with xtreme here though. It really is a case of bad defense a lot of the time. A solid HoF can put a stop to 80-90% of backgrabs if he knows what he's doing. I remember playing a pug around a month ago, where I placed myself on LO instead of HoF in a 7v7 because I thought we would need the extra distract against the enemy defense. We went down 0-4 in the first 8ish minutes, and I swapped onto HoF. We capped out 10-4. Having a good coordinated defense with a stay D that REALLY knows how to play the flag and a HoF than can multitask is damn near as unstoppable as backgrabs. There was another game where we had a defense of myself, shaska, accelerator, and tyler, and we completely shut down the offense. It was probably one of the most dominating performances I've been a part of in a pug, and the players against us could attest to that. It was seriously like a meat grinder.

Again, this almost comes down to whether or not people want to tryhard or not. I find myself tryharding in maybe 30% of pugs these days, probably less. I like to go for the crazy mortar shots and make fancy plays with it, I absolutely adore that gun. If I'm tryharding, I have the rocket launcher out for over 90% of the time on stand. If I'm not, I usually try to time mortars on the flag.

My proposal for this is to have a couple games with the standard frost with a really focused group of players. I would want to explain how to play the defense to the less experienced before we started and really control the way my team played, and I bet the map would go back to being just as fair as it used to be when we could pick full teams of the highest skilled players in the game. It used to be personal preference for frostbyte sides, not one was simply better.

This is an entirely different story when it comes to LT. Perhaps we could try out Ucan's iteration of frosty in some LT pugs, and if the normal frost worked with coordinated defenses (like it used to) then we could keep both versions of the map - one for standard play and the other for LT.
 
Last edited:

Ucantry2run

Private Tester
Having a good coordinated defense with a stay D that REALLY knows how to play the flag and a HoF than can multitask is damn near as unstoppable as backgrabs. There was another game where we had a defense of myself, shaska, accelerator, and tyler, and we completely shut down the offense. It was probably one of the most dominating performances I've been a part of in a pug, and the players against us could attest to that. It was seriously like a meat grinder.

I agree with this, with a defense that doesn't know what its doing in general (especially the HoF) it is very easy to abuse them on offense. Similarly, it is very easy for a defense who are experienced at what they do to shut down an offense. The changes aren't really made to cater to bad players, however. Frostbyte as a map isn't balanced. I'm all for training sessions and movements to make players better, but it remains a fact that defensive players on beta have to work significantly harder to reach the same effectiveness as defensive players on alpha. There is a reason why captains pick frost alpha 100% of the time. Alpha has a strong advantage over beta in (1) the fact that you can see back routes before they're directly on the stand, (2) the impossibility of back drops due to the small back hill, and (3, personal opinion) the bridge and a better base in general (the reason you can see back routes). I tryhard every game and have an idea of how defense should work. But its so easy to play on alpha. There is literally nothing that you have to worry about.

This is an entirely different story when it comes to LT. Perhaps we could try out Ucan's iteration of frosty in some LT pugs, and if the normal frost worked with coordinated defenses (like it used to) then we could keep both versions of the map - one for standard play and the other for LT.

Definitely, people will never want to delete original frost, even if its broken. Its so close to all of our hearts.

Also something to consider, in the competitive scene before we starting bringing back pickup games, when we still had multiple teams competing against each other, frostbyte was played very differently. Back when I was on Zeta, we played frostbyte very frequently. Back drops and back routes weren't the win condition. Being the better team was. We were often counterpicked into frost beta and we won often, but we did not frequently have to worry about back routes like we did today. They just weren't run as much. We played darklord's team and it was pretty close, but we definitely would have lost if they ran back routes. They were just as good as we were. Point is, weaker teams and teams with similar skill levels have a much higher chance of winning due to back routes given that the offense slightly knows what they are doing (EMPs make offense even easier now). There are times when beta wins with superior defense, but that is in a minority of cases.

Whether or not maps are supposed to be balanced is a different argument, because we have a bunch of maps that are either balanced or imbalanced that are still played. If someone gets first pick, should the second captain get a better side on the map? Who knows. Frost is stupid though.
 
Last edited:

Jello

Contributor
Dearest christ you people are writing *dancing* essays, for *dancing* sake, remove the walls, lower back hill, have 1 or 2 people stay d (if you can) and try out the map
 

Frez

Member
I just want to react the debate of what is most important between changing maps or changing the strategy.

I agree with Ucan, Frostbyte is a bit unbalanced and it's easier to play alpha than beta. Hearing you saying it is a problem with the defense is proving that you need to have a more efficient strategy when you are playing D on beta.

Of course we must adapt ourself to the situations in game but it's not fair if the other team has to do less to win.

Modify simple elements on frostbyte could be a game changer. In my opinion it's not a bad idea at all. Like in basket or others sports, when you see the rules changed because of one player is showing weaknesses of a particular rule and make the sport unbalanced when this thing is abused.

Sorry Ucan I didn't really give feedbacks about the map itself...
 
Top