CP changes to highlander
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Opening remark:
If you are a newer player, and you have never played a cp map in highlander, besides cp_steel, here’s a quick rundown: A lot of cp maps in highlander would stalemate all the time, with matches just ending up lasting forever and causing teams to just not want to play them anymore.
Now, the content
I was wondering what everyone’s opinion would be on this simple matter;
Instead of playing 1 cp map per night , first to 5, teams would play cp maps as a best of 3 rounds, which means possible scores are 2-0, 2-1, 1-0, with no possibility of ties on maps (a golden cap is played in case of a tie).
Now, the second change of rule would be, each map would have a 15 minutes timer, which means, if all 3 maps are played, makes up for a 45 mins time max per match + teams being late and everything, I would approximate to 1h-1h15 mins (Which is basically the same length as of a scrim). This obviously does not count golden cap.
So, for example, a match result could look like this:
Map 1: cp_process 2-1
Map 2: cp_vanguard 0-1
Map 3 (tie breaker): cp_gullywash 2-0
And with this, team A would win the match.POSSIBLE SCENARIOS:
A. Teams will always go into golden cap on each map (Once the 15 mins has expired, and the map score is a tie), which would greatly expand the time of each map, which could make it hell if the golden cap just lasts forever on any map.
B. Since the timing is lower, teams will try to make plays more often, which will result in maps being played out much quicker, and these 3 maps going by in a much shorter amount of time (Could be 10 mins to play the full game if a team gets rolled on each map, which is currently possible in 6s, as I’ve seen some matches lasting 11-12 minutes).
Why is this useful?
A. In my opinion, while cp isn’t necessarily a good gamemode for highlander, it would at least make teams touch it. With having 3 maps played, in a shorter amount of time, it would mean that for example, week 5 of a season would be the “cp week”, and then after that no other cp map (besides cp_steel), would be played for the rest of the season.
If a team would decide to “pick cp” in playoffs, then they would have to play that set of 3 maps, but I think that having it BO3 on every map would be really stupid, so it would have to stay as it is in the regular season.
B. In my opinion, this might help out some teams that have good dm, but bad coordination to some extent, giving them the chance of getting some match point in those gamemodes, as well as adding more diversity as to picks during playoffs (Let’s say a team decides to only ban koth maps, because they are only good on payload, then the other team would have the possibility of picking cp against them).
Closing remark:
As this is meant to be a discussion, I am really open to changes to this and ideas, which is why I would like to hear everyone’s opinion on this.
Do you think scenario A or B would happen more often than the other? Do you think this would be more fit for another game mode, such as 6s or NR6s?
I would be really curious to test out which scenario would play out, either scenario A or B, at different skill levels.
If a couple teams would be up to test, just shoot me a message on discord gobitoe#5890 or on this thread, and I’d like to set something up between teams:)
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Edit: I know something similar was tried in NR6s, but with only 2 maps, which can be viewed here: https://rgl.gg/Public/LeagueTable.aspx?s=70&r=37
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I don’t think golden cap would be viable with how risk averse people are on it. IMO a tiebreaker round would just have to be a midfight
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@vibeisveryo This could possibly be better I agree
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While I like the idea behind this change, this will not however change how 5cp will be played in HL. This will just increase the viability of parking the bus since you only need to win one more cap to win a round, and with shorter times, its much easier to do as it adds more pressure to the team who is losing.
The reason why 5cp doesn’t work in HL isn’t because of the rounds, but because of how easy it is to stalemate due to the classes that slow down the game (Engineer, heavy, sniper). This config rework wont change that inherent fact. Lowering the map time to try and force teams to essentially sack, wont actually happen. Gullywash, the best 5cp for HL will play out in exactly the same way since it is the best way to play that map regardless of config.
5cp should not ever be played in HL again.
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I think something needs to be said here, I don’t think saying that the mode shouldn’t be played because of stalemates is good. Because by that logic, payload maps shouldn’t be played because you can just stalemate there as well.
The only difference between these maps and 5 cp, is you can’t just go back and recap the point (You can’t recap points on steel either).
So, because you can just go and cap back points in 5cp, it creates a lot of back and forth, so teams will try and park the bus, which in my opinion is a viable strategy if you’re ahead in rounds (I mean, people in 6s do it).
This is why, in my opinion, shorter map times could improve, because as the time go down, teams will want to try and make plays to counter the “bus parking” to win rounds, or if it is an even score, teams might try and win the round to not have to go onto the tie-breaker mid fight, like vibe proposed.
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@gobitoe I am pretty sure that if cp_steel could have points be re capped by the red team, no one would want to play it
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If most of the play time in 5 cp HL is stalemates, then reducing the time won’t change the fact that it stalemates, but the total stalemate time will be shorter … (If 50% of playtime is stalemate, instead of being 15 mins of stalemate it’ll be only 7.5 minutes).
I mean, how much of your time in payload will teams just spend trying to break stalemates when teams are even?
When teams get rolled, people will be able to score 4-5 minutes, sometimes 6, but then the second you stalemate one point for more than 1 or 2 uber pushes, that time will sky rocket to 8 minutes, not to count the time defending after that. I’ve even seen 11 mins times on upward because teams will spend 7+ minutes trying to push it.
I think it would just even out to the same in 5 cp.
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@gobitoe said in CP changes to highlander:
I think something needs to be said here, I don’t think saying that the mode shouldn’t be played because of stalemates is good. Because by that logic, payload maps shouldn’t be played because you can just stalemate there as well.
The only difference between these maps and 5 cp, is you can’t just go back and recap the point (You can’t recap points on steel either).
So, because you can just go and cap back points in 5cp, it creates a lot of back and forth, so teams will try and park the bus, which in my opinion is a viable strategy if you’re ahead in rounds (I mean, people in 6s do it).
This is why, in my opinion, shorter map times could improve, because as the time go down, teams will want to try and make plays to counter the “bus parking” to win rounds, or if it is an even score, teams might try and win the round to not have to go onto the tie-breaker mid fight, like vibe proposed.
@gobitoe said in CP changes to highlander:
If most of the play time in 5 cp HL is stalemates, then reducing the time won’t change the fact that it stalemates, but the total stalemate time will be shorter … (If 50% of playtime is stalemate, instead of being 15 mins of stalemate it’ll be only 7.5 minutes).
I mean, how much of your time in payload will teams just spend trying to break stalemates when teams are even?
When teams get rolled, people will be able to score 4-5 minutes, sometimes 6, but then the second you stalemate one point for more than 1 or 2 uber pushes, that time will sky rocket to 8 minutes, not to count the time defending after that. I’ve even seen 11 mins times on upward because teams will spend 7+ minutes trying to push it.
I think it would just even out to the same in 5 cp.
There is a huge difference between 5cp and payload/koth than beyond being able to recap points. And that is in respawn times and sack waves. In 6’s, the only class that does sack waves is typically the roamer, because being down more than one person on the team in a failed sack means you pretty much lose the point you are holding or get forced.
On payload and koth maps, the attacking team has faster respawn rates, which makes trades and sack waves worth it as you can just back up and wait for spawns before pushing. This is why 4 man sack waves happen in 6’s on koth, you can commit all those players with no downside while your med builds at spawn. You dont lose anything by doing it.
Stalemates on payload would imply that the attacking team is completely shut down by the defense. This would just mean that the defending team is better. I have also never heard the term stalemates being used to describe anything about payload before since the whole point of defense is to defend and prevent caps.
Again to reiterate, payload and 5cp are not the same thing and should not be compared to eachother as such. Payload defence is not like parking the bus on 5cp. On payload all you have to worry about is either attacking or defending. You dont have to worry about being pushed and losing points on the attacking team.
@gobitoe said in CP changes to highlander:
@gobitoe I am pretty sure that if cp_steel could have points be re capped by the red team, no one would want to play it
that would highly depend on red spawn timers, but I would most likely agree with that sentiment.
Lowering the map time does not make bad gamemodes better is the point I am trying to get across. lowering the map timers, changing the configs does not fix 5cp for HL.
Also 5cp is not like payload and should not be compared to it in the manner you are.
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Mothership I really disagree with your last part though, if a team can’t push on payload, it is a stalemate though, you can’t really call it anything else. Even if you do call it a “defense”, then you could just say the same thing in 5 CP
If a team can’t push a point in 1 push, it doesn’t mean the other team is straight up better, there are a lot of factors to take into account.
As I’ve already said, if a team in 5cp is better than the other, it won’t stalemate. The scenarios where it stalemates is where both teams know what they are doing, which makes it so no team can push, or where neither team are good, and they will just sac over and over and never push .
And if you use that logic, then technically no team should ever be able to push any point on payload, because the sentry and the sniper would never die since “everyone knows what they are doing at high level”.
I think stalemates are just part of the gamemodes. Remove engineer and heavy from all these gamemodes and they would probably be infinitely more fun. That’s not the point. 5 cp is going to stalemate, but if you have shorter round times, then those stalemates will not be as long.
Again, as I’ve already said. If out of a 30 mins round, 50% of it is just stalemate, then you reduce the time, and yes there will still be stalemates, but the overall playtime will be lower, which you can counter by making teams play more maps.
While I agree 5 CP is not a good gamemode for highlander in its current state, it’s still part of the game and straight up removing it just because teams couldn’t handle having to stalemate (Weren’t there golden caps on mid anyways?) for 30 minutes seems a bit ridiculous, especially that now people have been complaining “we don’t have enough maps to play”, yet when new maps are added or proposed, people are very quick to dismiss them and call them bad.
Even in the latest UGC polls I could find (S23 and S21, which I will link below) there were at least 2 CP maps which had the same ratings as other gamemodes. The game hasn’t changed since then, besides the addition of weapons no one use.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1PQ1iTwtKd9NNpdjoYu3dVCKa7r1UnHGhiWNpfnGxEX8/edit#gid=0
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1z7lDLzJJ9wq5Aw3GYrZ2c9L6x64jZHvyf15pr6WlpOE/edit#gid=0
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Successful payload defense can only be considered a stalemate if you consider the term to mean when neither team can successfully “push”, or when the objective doesn’t move. However, the term stalemate more accurately describes a situation in which neither team can accomplish their objective, but in the case of payload the objective of the defenders is to prevent the cart from being capped. Thus a true stalemate is impossible in stopwatch because one team is always succeeding, the cart is being capped or is not.
The advantage of payload in making this static sort of gameplay still somewhat interesting is in giving the attackers a massive advantage in spawn wave timing, allowing them room to take risks. The same feature does not exist in 5cp, the attacking team is always putting themselves at a disadvantage, because unlike in payload they do have something to lose by taking risks: their last point.
This change is effectively the same as decreasing the 10 minute in game cap timer, as both simply create more reset opportunities in case of stalemates. A lowered in game cap timer has also been discussed in 6s, mainly in the context of the euro config/playstyle, but I don’t remember where that ended up going.
At the end of the day I don’t think reducing the time maps are played would make the gameplay any better beyond potentially creating more “oh shit we are down points we need to make something happen” moments, but the possibility of 3 potentially never ending golden caps as opposed to one could actually be far worse for the gametype.
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@dt said in CP changes to highlander:
The same feature does not exist in 5cp, the attacking team is always putting themselves at a disadvantage, because unlike in payload they do have something to lose by taking risks
A similar feature exists in some 5cp maps–respawn time is lower if you control more points. It is true for Granary, Metalworks, Process, Snakewater, Sunshine. It’s not true for Gullywash, which has the same timer regardless of points owned. Vanguard is reversed, if you only have 1 point you have a respawn advantage
I’ve said this before, but I think you could probably reduce the propensity for stalemate in highlander by tweaking the spawn timers to give attackers greater advantages for aggressive play. Maybe also introducing disadvantages to attackers (midpoint owner) if points have not changed hands. Obviously this would require new maps and be a big departure from standard play
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@Teapot I didn’t really make this clear in the post, but what I intended to describe was that the attackers in pl maps both get a respawn advantage, meaning any trades they get are beneficial for the next push, AND get the advantage of not having anything to lose, besides maybe positioning at some points. This means the worst that can happen if you attack is nothing, just lost time. In 5cp, however, if you attack you can potentially lose your last point and the round.
It is true that the respawn advantages are present in some 5cp maps, though not to the same degree. They are often: 1. only present at last (meaning if you decide to park the bus at any other point, respawn times are dead even) and 2. usually much less than the pl/steel respawn advantages.
This is done for good reason- the main issue being giving “attackers” a sizeable respawn advantage is counterproductive when the “attackers” can simply decide to defend- in 5cp, if a team is up in round points, they may forfeit the opportunity to cap last and instead use their 2 second respawn advantage to defend much easier instead. This is related to the fundamental issue with 5cp in highlander- 5cp is designed to be fast paced, with both teams constantly switching between attacking and defending with very fluid gameplay, while highlander has multiple classes that slow down the game and encourage a static playstyle, making this fluid gameplay extremely difficult.
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@dt said in CP changes to highlander:
the main issue being giving “attackers” a sizeable respawn advantage is counterproductive
@Teapot said in CP changes to highlander:
Vanguard is reversed, if you only have 1 point you have a respawn advantage
SHIP IT
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@gobitoe said in CP changes to highlander:
I really disagree with your last part though, if a team can’t push on payload, it is a stalemate though, you can’t really call it anything else. Even if you do call it a “defense”, then you could just say the same thing in 5 CP
But the thing is that the payload objective is inherently one sided, and the 5CP objective is two-sided. At any moment in time, only one team can cap in payload, and either team can cap in 5cp. So then there’s zero disadvantage for attacking teams being held on a point on committing players for important picks so they get respawn ad and can just push again. Compare this to 5cp where if an attacking team is having trouble pushing a point and they commit 7 players, then they get rolled through two points.
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I agree with teapots idea here regarding reduced spawn timers for attackers