LV fog and the gaps

[Madventurer]

LV, the classic map. It got the nightmare mode update quite a while ago, and it turned out quite nicely.

Except for the fog gaps, that turn the formerly nicely variable map from having an open area to having a chokepoint with 5 boilers and the tank having a standoff.

End result is LV fog, that used to go down at a reasonable time (12:40'ish?), to always go down after 13:30 with fog gaps that seem to be ALWAYS generated, or in the unlikely case none are generated, before marines land.

In the former case, marines have to push through a chokepoint that's guaranteed to have at least one boiler making life hell, or try to flank through possible similar choke points and hope xenos are too dumb to guard them, or wait for fog to go away, doing fuckall but holding against bombardment for far longer than most natural stalemates.
In the latter case, the fog is often down before marines touch down, which helps both sides, but tends to turn rounds into aggressive xeno pushes where marines are taking casualties before anyone has time to build an FOB.

Regardless, fog gaps should be made much, much more rare and the fog disappearance time less extreme (12:35 at the very earliest for no gaps, no later than 13:00 for gaps).

[Swagbag]

LV, the classic map. It got the nightmare mode update quite a while ago, and it turned out quite nicely.

Except for the fog gaps, that turn the formerly nicely variable map from having an open area to having a chokepoint with 5 boilers and the tank having a standoff.

End result is LV fog, that used to go down at a reasonable time (12:40'ish?), to always go down after 13:30 with fog gaps that seem to be ALWAYS generated, or in the unlikely case none are generated, before marines land.

In the former case, marines have to push through a chokepoint that's guaranteed to have at least one boiler making life hell, or try to flank through possible similar choke points and hope xenos are too dumb to guard them, or wait for fog to go away, doing fuckall but holding against bombardment for far longer than most natural stalemates.
In the latter case, the fog is often down before marines touch down, which helps both sides, but tends to turn rounds into aggressive xeno pushes where marines are taking casualties before anyone has time to build an FOB.

Regardless, fog gaps should be made much, much more rare and the fog disappearance time less extreme (12:35 at the very earliest for no gaps, no later than 13:00 for gaps).

do you maybe think it was designed this way, perhaps?

[Dinobubba7]

Last night there was a round of LV with no gap, and it was just like classic LV, it was fun, the boilers were manageable, the combat was fun and it was overall great.

However the fog gaps that cover West, Bridge, and Eat are not fun, more specifically bridge.

Xenos can lock it down with 3+ boilers and maybe 1 crusher, since its very narrow, and extremely hard to push, sure you can OB or CAS one of the boilers, but there is always a second one still in the area firing at it.


Not to mention for any marine attack to be successful you need to be able to move with the tank, which is of course getting gassed 24/7 and overall just isn't fun.


I honestly do wish for a rework maybe, give less of a checkpoint to each sides or just have it go back to normal.

[Madventurer]

do you maybe think it was designed this way, perhaps?

If it was, it's leading to less enjoyable gameplay, so either it wasn't intended that way or it's bad design.

[MChosen]

Just make gaps appear when time passes and not immediately at roundstart.
Like at 13:30 a random gap is created at a random fog location.
Nobody knows about it, so the first one to find it will get an advantage, maybe
An then at ~13:40 the whole fog falls.

Additionally, make those gaps wider (like 10-14 tiles).
So that 1 boiler shot won't cover the whole gap.

[Chaznoodles]

Bridge fog gap and vine hydro are zero fun for marines.

[Shadow]

I think the bridge gap is a joke of a mechanic. It makes every round the same, the variance is drastically reduced. I think that it was a lot better when it was a solid fog wall all the way across. Additionally, and this is just personal bias, but LZ makes me change my medic loadout to sccommodate for the boiler fuckery at the bridge.

[awan]

So, here was the flow of choices behind this.
Before I can properly explain our point of view we need to make a few assumptions.

1. The fog is a mechanic added to prevent early rushes.
2. The fog is an artificial way to make rounds longer.
3. In general, all marines do is wait for the fog to lift and make a hydro fob.
4. Aliens will not cross the fog to fight the marines on their side of the fog.
5. Seeing no action until the fog lifts is boring gameplay.

Now, the above is about lv before the gaps in the fog.
Those are general assumptions they indeed may not apply to every round. They will however apply to the majority of (old) lv rounds.
In general I do see that our choices on their own might not make sense. But that is maybe because you do not see how the choices hang together.

Now here is the exact changes we made.
1. The fog drops sooner in general.
2. There is a chance for a gap in the fog in the middle.
3. There is a chance for a gap in the fog in the east.
4. There is a chance for a gap in the fog in the west.
5. 2,3,4 will each increase the timer for the rest of the fog to lift.

The only time the fog will go down later as the normal (old/12:50) time is when multiple gaps are active.
With 1 gap in the fog it will still go down before the old time. (12:50)
The time in general was lowered yes. So if there are no gaps it will indeed go down before the old time as well.
But this was done because of the changes to xeno's and us thinking they are a bit more resisting on early fighting.
In general the only time it will go down later then there are multiple gaps.
Our round times are also between 13:30 and 13:45.
I filtered out just marine wins.
https://gyazo.com/0771190c59bd1c83e4bbf25f507f2301
And before anyone asks. Average xeno wins are 90% of the time within 20 minutes of this.
I think that the rounds that do have the fog drop late stand out.
I dug into the data a bit to check. This is at the end of the post.

The gaps are intended to be hard to push. And I would consider them easier to push then the podlocks on big red.
But I never hear anyone complain about those being stalemates.
The idea is to give the xeno's a fortified position they can defend. Because it's less boring then looking at the fog until 12:50.
The idea of the gaps is to have actions. Marines do not have to wait for the fog to lift and xeno's can try to cross.
Games did become shorter because of it. And it still prevents rushes.


Here is the math on why it cannot be so that the fog most often drops after 13:30.
Now let's assume a 35% marine winrate.
I can get the actual winrates but I am not willing to share those without permission.
I can say that if we were not within 10% of that winrate it was marine favored.
So the lowest winrate you can assume ever happened during this time for marines is 25%
26/35*100=75ish games played.
23/35*100=65ish games played.
13/35*100=38ish games played.
16/35*100=45ish games played.
25/35*100=72ish games played.
Now, we know the average times of these games they are included in the image.
We also know the average time of xeno wins these rounds are just around 20 mins longer then marine wins. I am willing to give out that info.
If we take the 35%of the rounds is marine wins number that means 35% of the rounds is 20 minutes shorter.
So, they take the average down by 7 minutes. Or if you want to do it the other way around. Add 13 minutes to the time marine rounds take to get close to the average.
This data does not support even a 50% chance of the fog being down at 13:30. Half these rounds are already below 13:30 if we add these 13 minutes. 1 out of 6 still is.
But you expect the marines at the fob and almayer to not hold 13 minutes? Honestly I do not know how long xeno's take to break the fob and go upto the almayer and end the game.
But I do expect it to take more then 13 minutes. If the fog was down at 13:30 the majority of the time round times would be way longer or have a larger diffrence. 60% of all rounds is within the average round time + or - 15 minutes. Both sides need time to push and mop up.

[awan]

The exact chances are the following.
1. East/west/middle hole all have a 30% chance.
This means the chance to have 3 holes in the fog in a round is 2.7%
The chance to have 2 holes is 12.6%
The chance for 1 hole is 50.4
And last the chance for no holes is still 30.4%
So most of the rounds you play have a gap or more in the fog (70%)
But only 15.3% of rounds have 2 gaps or more and thus fog lifting later then the old time.
I just got word the latest the fog should be able to drop is 13:20ish. And that can only happen in that 2.7% of rounds.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...it?usp=sharing
Table with probability.

[PogoMarimo]

Thanks for the awesome info, awan.