Ooops he did it again - Silentstalker's expert opinion on corridor maps

[Gharirey 992]

I love it when Silentstalker gives his "expert" opinion about WoT gameplay. This time he proceeds to enlighten us why corridor maps are actually great: http://ftr.wot-news.com/2014/09/26/corridors-really-such-a-problem/#more-17539

 

A few highlights apart from his usual envy-driven rants about good players and their whining:

 

He argues (rightfully imho) that corridors are easier to manage for noobs. However he completely fails to understand what good players want instead. Very few would want open "flat" maps "filled only with obstacles". I don't have an issue with corridors per se but rather with corridors that are completely cut off from the other areas of a map. What I want is a degree of interconnectedness between different map areas allowing to influence the fight on one part of the map from other parts.

• Examples for "bad" corridors according to that definition would be: Valley on Lakeville, Western corridor on Severogorsk, the Western one on Tundra, the Eastern one on Abbey.
• Playable corridors would be: Eastern corridor on Abbey (firstly its a double corridor with 2 crossroads, secondly it has openings towards the middle of the map), the reworked Pearl River also povides improved corridors since there are a lot more connections allowing for flanking and repositioning.

He fails to grasp any of the inherent problems with corridors:

• They reduce engagement ranges which - while not per se problematic - will turn into a major issue if a map offers nothing but corridors. In that case certain tanks or even entire tank classes become obsolete or at the very least much harder to play. This applies to scouts and soft TDs but also to a lot of non-turreted TDs and soft meds.
• The lack of a sensible role for scout tanks in the current meta is thus at least in part attributable to recent map changes.
• If you get too many corridor maps, the tank balancing as a whole is affected. The Leopard I and Leopard PTA are examples of tanks that are suffering a massive nerf by proxy.
• In other words: closed corridors cater only to a limited number of tank types. However, any map that only caters to some specific tank types is bad in my book. The game offers a wide variety of different tanks, the best maps cater to as many of them as possible by offering diverse terrain features (Ruinberg is a good map in that regard).
• The gameplay gets stale. Corridors don't provide for very exciting battles. Have you ever fought the valley on Lakeville? It's as one-dimensional as the game can get. The only tank class in which working the valley is fun is artillery since tanks will fight almost completely exposed. But that applies only if your teammates provide spots which they will be very hesitant to do since any tank peaking over the central valley ridge will immediately get shit on by enemy arty. Tanks in the valley will thus often just sit there and hope that someone else will peak.
• Again: while Silentstalker is correct when he argues that WoT needs to be accessible to new players in order to work as a business model, at least the mid and higher tiers are almost exclusively filled with players that have several thousand battles on their accounts. If you want to keep these players entertained you need to keep the maps interesting. If you dumb down map after map until it is nothing but two or three seperated corridors you greatly cut down the different ways in which a map can play out and players get bored.
• Moreover, the game stops catering to all types of different players: people who enjoy playing softer tanks that rely on speed or camo to avoid hits will lose interest.
• According to Silentstalker corridors prevent camping because they allow tanks to advance without taking fire from camping TDs. He uses Sverogorsk as an example. Unfortunately that is not entirely true. At least not of the corridors I defined as "bad" above. Closed off, one-lane corridors create an inherent stalemate that is extremely hard to crack. I explained that effect for the Lakeville valley already but the Western corridor on Severogorsk is an another great example: It is so narrow that only 2-3 tanks can fight there at any given time (of which only 1-2 will have any cover). The fight cannot be influenced from any other part of the map (except for artillery shelling) and flanking takes considerable time since you have to cross the entire map. In consequence, the only way to break through is a potentially costly frontal assault from which most players shy away. What players will do instead is just a different sort of camping. They will hope that their opponents are dumb enough to push first and play very defensively. At worst they will just stay in cover and do nothing; at best they will try to slowly grind their opponents down in a protracted peak-a-boom fight. Multi-lane corridors that are interupted by crossroads and provide openings towards other parts of the map avoid this issue and are therefore what I defined as "workable" or "good corridors".
• Corridors can induce a massive concentration of tanks and leave the rest of the map completely deserted. El Halouf is the main example. In the current meta you will see at least two thirds of each team head to the North-Western Corner (A1-2/B1-2). The map has completely lost its equilibrum and could just as well be cut down to the size of 300m x 300m.

Kharkov is apparently a bad map since it is too complicated to grasp for new players. Granted, it might be too complicated for SS, but for some reason it was nevertheless chosen as one of the most popular maps in a recent survey on RU. Apparently, it's not just the elitist players that enjoy a challenging map ...

 

Open maps according to Silentstalker invariably lead to camping. That is not true. Admittedly, an open map can result in camping if that map suffers from design flaws - Prokorovkha is such an example. However other open maps work very well. The Eastern half of Steppes offers hardly any hard cover, yet it is exactly that area where the gameplay is usually the most aggressive and dynamic. Some well placed terrain depressions make the map work. Silentstalker (of course) has a very different view: to him this map examplifies why open maps are bad since half the terrain isn't used (not quite true, for example scouts often go to the rock+bush in the middle of the field). Moreover, there are very few maps that haven't stretches of terrain that are rarely used (how much of the terrain on Severogorsk is actually used?). The nice point about Steppes is that there aren't any impassible barriers that block you from switching flanks. The fight can thus remain fluid and is likely to shift across the entire map as the battles progresses.

 

His 52% winrate places SS amongst the top 5.7% of players. WoT god Silentstalker! Shame he still doesn't understand the game.

 

There is no corridor whine about Himmelsdorf. SS finds this odd. It isn't: Himmelsdorf has not a single corridor that is completely cut off from the rest of the map. It is the definition of a map with interconnected corridors. You can snipe from the hill down all the way to the West of the map and vice versa. Every street has opening and crossroads.

 

It is a shame that the small piece of fame that Silentstalker has gained by translating developper statements from Russish to English has made him think he is competent to comment on all issues concerning WoT. It is just as regrettable that he seems to believe that anybody better than him in WoT is an arrogant whiner or evil statpadder. Last but not least the silly obsession with good clans in his hall of shame just seems spiteful. Besides, how can somebody who branded EXNOM and EXN0M as the worst of the worst for months suddenly join RI3E, the renamed EXN0M, and still believe in his own objectivity?

 

[Paozx 43]

I puked reading his comments below the article, answering to people trying to tell him how much bullshit he is writing.

[Expendable_Lad 752]

His 52% winrate places SS amongst the top 5.7% of players. WoT god Silentstalker! Shame he still doesn't understand the game.

 

No matter how many times I see it I can never get used to how poor the majority of the player base is. 

 

(And I am swiftly on my way to join them, under 60% recent for first time in 18 months RIP me). 

[KnobbyHobbGoblin 1,002]

Kharkov is apparently a bad map since it is too complicated to grasp for new players. Granted, it might be too complicated for SS, but for some reason it was nevertheless chosen as one of the most popular maps in a recent survey on RU. Apparently, it's not just the elitist players that enjoy a challenging map ...

I actually have no idea how to play this map and am constantly reminded of that fact whenever I get on it :\

Too complicated for noob like me.

 

But seriously, great post and analysis of the problem with the emerging meta

[_Dia 2,082]

I don't get why there is so much hate for FTR. He runs a really great comedy site! 

[KnobbyHobbGoblin 1,002]

I don't get why there is so much hate for FTR. He runs a really great comedy site! 

Turns out SS has just been satirizing the pubbie thought process the entire time.

GG SS, you sure got us good!

[Cunicularius 4,543]

...he's a 52%er? Wow, what a shitlord...

 

 

No matter how many times I see it I can never get used to how poor the majority of the player base is. 

 

(And I am swiftly on my way to join them, under 60% recent for first time in 18 months RIP me). 

I keep falling back to 60/61%... O,n,O I feel like I suck, i cant maintain 62% or return to my 64%...

[bjshnog 4,447]

What are you guys all talking about? SS knows the only thing that matters in this game is making the bots equally as effective as the super unicums. That way, SS non-elitists won't be insulted when called out on their consistently terrible gameplay, because everyone will be playing terribly like an average player then!

 

His next insightful article will be about why all tanks need to have their armour nerfed so that HE can pen every shot. That way, the bots newbies won't be confused when their HE round doesn't pen the upper plate of an E100!

[Expendable_Lad 752]

...he's a 52%er? Wow, what a shitlord...

 

 

I keep falling back to 60/61%... O,n,O I feel like I suck, i cant maintain 62% or return to my 64%...

 

Word, something is up with my tanking -just can't get wins these days. Hit me up in game if you want to work on maintaining our 60% equilibrium this weekend. 

[Enaris 215]

While my play is evidently no better than Stalker's, I dislike the growth of corridor maps, simply because I look at tanks as having something of a triangle of values: Firepower, Protection, Mobility. (Obviously, it's more complex than that, but that's a workable backhand approach.)  Corridors reduce the value of mobility, which happens to be the most interesting of the assets to leverage.

[Garbad 10,517]

He's jumped the shark.  He also starts from a fundamentally wrong position.  He claims:

 

- most players are bad and dumb

- WG gets most money from them

- therefore, wg should give them things that reward their dumbness

 

In reality, its:

 

- true

- false.  WG has stated most income comes from good players, and top players spend far more than casuals.  WG has stated before at first they tried to pander to the masses, but learned if they just made the game balanced people would spend.  Also, see esport hyping.

- furthermore, bad players dont want to turn the game into something dumbed down. if they wanted minecraft they would play minecraft.  They want wot, as complex as it is, they just want to not be bad.  Its an insult to bads to say they want pattycake instead of chess -- what they want is to enjoy chess and improve as they can.

- the silent majority does not approve of anything, they are just silent.  you cannot draw conclusions from silence

 

Therefore, WG should listen to the opinions of the elite, and give EVERYONE what they want -- better game balance.

[MajorStewie 24]

someone should make a wotlabs response article

[CarbonatedPork 1,585]

If we must have buildings, obstacles, and city fighting, Kharkov is exactly the kind of map I would want to fill that requirement. At almost any point in the map, you can be taking damage from two or three different directions and as such it rewards the ability to read and react to the minimap. I think Ensk would be just about the perfect map if it weren't for the 1-line wall that funnels people head-on against TDs and forces people to tangle with the heavies on that center road to get around it.

 

I'd agree that corridors are terrible for all the reasons Gharirey mentioned. Makes it feel like I'm playing Time Crisis or some other shitty rails shooter. If they're trying to help newbies out with corridors, please keep it confined to the lower tiers like Province is. I want complexity, not Cookie Clicker.

[Folterknecht 2,257]

someone should make a wotlabs response article

 

 

see first post

[OnboardG1 1,279]

Time Crisis

 

Old!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I remember it too)

[SoliDeoGloria 417]

Wotlabs response article insta-approved.

[MisterSwift 54]

• Playable corridors would be: Eastern corridor on Abbey (firstly its a double corridor with 2 crossroads, secondly it has openings towards the middle of the map),

Typo, you meant Western

[Pitch_Black 157]

SS was probably a cesarean birth and has a longing for "tight corridors"... He probably has something in his mouth constantly because he wasn't breast fed long enough either...

[RealBattousai 248]

I'm done with SS, just like a 3rd world tin pot dictator, eventually the power goes to their heads and they actually believe their own delusions. Really it was nice to know the insider info, but at the end of the day what does it matter, what is going to be done by WG will be done and we will find out in the patch notes, so I just won't know it a few weeks before..big whoop, rather wait a few weeks than support some arrogant know-it-all who is spewing crap and making people worse players, he is now basically becoming the anti-wotlabs. If you read some of the comments there people are taking him at his word and think they are learning something from him.

[MajorStewie 24]

see first post

i blame my phone

[Pryderi 6]

To say open maps encourage camping, while corridor maps prevent it, is simply not true.

 

IMO the worst corridor map is Abbey.  You get a choice of west, middle or east, or camp at base.  If you're in a TD, or anything soft, the last option is the only one that makes sense.  Same goes for Pearl River - if you're a soft TD/med/light you can camp at base or hug the southmost 10% of the map.  Nearly every battle in Pearl River plays out the same.

 

Corridor maps are at their worst when you can't switch between your choice (Abbey again).  Kharkov/Himmelsdorf aren't really the problems because it's so easy to switch - these can be great fun in a light, if you survive to the end game.  I'm sick of corridors.

[FlorbFnarb 537]

Bad corridors impede flexing not only by requiring you to go all the way back to flex, but also by making it extremely difficult to disengage and retreat. Simply turning around and heading back down the corridor would expose your ass to the enemy, so very often you have to simply back up until you reach a bend in the corridor large enough to protect your rear - which might be 300m back. This is a slow as hell process, so even if you have a fast tank that really is quick enough to go back to the start and flex from there, you still have to burn a lot of time in the initial disengagement and retreat.

I like Abbey and all, but the east side is awful and even the west side is a 50m did all every time. It really is dominated by heavies and TDs, more than most other maps, even Himmelsdorf, which is fine for meds.

[Meplat 262]

...he's a 52%er? Wow, what a shitlord...

 

I am 52%, achieved while playing infrequently and usually heavily intoxicated.

 

So yeah, that does say something about the community. (or maybe I'm actually worse sober and the booze helps?)

[peregrine 34]

No idea where the 52% came from...

 

wotlabs - silentstalker

 

-> 53.34% - 1654

 

So that's in the 95% percentile according to our local mathematicians.

 

While most of you have better stats than him, he is doing better than most of the playbase.

 

His opinion on map design is wrong, but at least we could check our facts.

[KnobbyHobbGoblin 1,002]

While most of you have better stats than him, he is doing better than most of the playbase.

To be fair, a filthy triple digit with 49% WR is also "better than most of the playbase."

I could literally afk for half of my battles and my average would still be better.