KotD5 - Discussion

[Chrazini]

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Discussion​

In an attempt to keep all the threads somewhat organised, we have created this for any general tournament discussion and questions. Predictions, expectations or just anything related to King of the Desert V.

 

[kalpit00]

Balance idea for non-meta civs to be viable?

Spanish, Goths, Bengalis, Dravidians, Slavs, Celts, Koreans, Malians

 

[LowEloNobody]

Will the KoTD Arabia map have woodlines this time?

 

[Tuunbaq]

Would be nice to have different variations of Arabia... One 'standard', one desert, one green, one with bigger woodlines, hills, etc.

Not just one arabia with so few and thin woodlines it's ridiculous.

 

[Captainj5]

No invitations is great!

 

[Chrazini]

Will the KoTD Arabia map have woodlines this time?

Absolutely not!
Maybe a few.

 

[Halleju]

Would be nice to have different variations of Arabia... One 'standard', one desert, one green, one with bigger woodlines, hills, etc.

Not just one arabia with so few and thin woodlines it's ridiculous.

I agree. Maybe also add a blue Arabia with water and maybe some arabia where you're protected by a stone wall from the start, that looks like an arena. And then we also could change the name of the tournament into King of Everything.

 

[Adico]

Love the deep payouts, but it is sad to see Single Elimination qualifiers show up again. Obviously, having two is better than one, but the strength of seeding is just too great, especially considering how with no invited players there will be 2-4 players in each of Hera/Viper/Liereyy/TaToH/Yo's path for Q1 that realistically have no choice but to take the L and try again in Q2.

Idk if a switch to Double Elimination could be considered or even possible, but still, I hate SE with the power of a thousand suns.

Anyway, looking forward to it!

 

[mogers87]

I was watching Memb's stream and I'm not liking the map generation. I understand the intention to restrict the ability to wall, but the wood lines look too far.

More problematic is that some generations had small ponds that greatly reduced the amount of wood available for only one of the players, e.g.

 

[LowEloNobody]

I was watching Memb's stream and I'm not liking the map generation. I understand the intention to restrict the ability to wall, but the wood lines look too far.

More problematic is that some generations had small ponds that greatly reduced the amount of wood available for only one of the players, e.g.

What are you complaining about? This is probably a "Green Arabia" gen with how chunky those woodlines are. Better be careful before all of the sand is turned into unwallable terrain

 

[Festivus]

Love the deep payouts, but it is sad to see Single Elimination qualifiers show up again. Obviously, having two is better than one, but the strength of seeding is just too great, especially considering how with no invited players there will be 2-4 players in each of Hera/Viper/Liereyy/TaToH/Yo's path for Q1 that realistically have no choice but to take the L and try again in Q2.

Idk if a switch to Double Elimination could be considered or even possible, but still, I hate SE with the power of a thousand suns.

Anyway, looking forward to it!

Just wanted to second this thought. The seeding is so important when there are qualifiers for this, and it doesn't take much to put a very good player in a borderline impossible situation with 2 brackets of death, where other brackets have it way easier. I do like having no invites, and understand that its probably not going to change for this event, but it feels like a definite area where improvement could be had.

Not sure if this would be popular, but for me I'd like to see the qualifiers be shrunk in size in terms of participants in order to be more meaningful. The first couple rounds just never seem to be that impactful, other than giving more people a 'chance to play'. To throw something out there, I think an ideal qualifier for me would look something like the top 80 seeded people, split into 16 groups of 5. Each group plays out a mini group stage, with the top player advancing to main event, the bottom 2 eliminated, and the middle 2 playing a series for the invite. Probably more total games and admin work, but if the main group stage games are allowed to be played any time the players schedule and the final series matches between the #2 and #3 in each group are played live it feels like a good compromise between flexibility and exciting live series. Plus those final series give some highlight to the #17-48 players who odds are won't last very long in the main event anyways as the #1-16 players are already qualified. IDK seems more 'fair' to me, but I'd be excited to see more thought put into this no matter the outcome.

 

[SouFire]

I hope the devs don't force memb's arabia again as the basic arabia map for ranked games, it was really painful to play those woodless maps with tons of hills preventing any tc placement, forcing the gameplay to one tc full agro most of the games.

 

[MembTV]

Just wanted to second this thought. The seeding is so important when there are qualifiers for this, and it doesn't take much to put a very good player in a borderline impossible situation with 2 brackets of death, where other brackets have it way easier. I do like having no invites, and understand that its probably not going to change for this event, but it feels like a definite area where improvement could be had.

Not sure if this would be popular, but for me I'd like to see the qualifiers be shrunk in size in terms of participants in order to be more meaningful. The first couple rounds just never seem to be that impactful, other than giving more people a 'chance to play'. To throw something out there, I think an ideal qualifier for me would look something like the top 80 seeded people, split into 16 groups of 5. Each group plays out a mini group stage, with the top player advancing to main event, the bottom 2 eliminated, and the middle 2 playing a series for the invite. Probably more total games and admin work, but if the main group stage games are allowed to be played any time the players schedule and the final series matches between the #2 and #3 in each group are played live it feels like a good compromise between flexibility and exciting live series. Plus those final series give some highlight to the #17-48 players who odds are won't last very long in the main event anyways as the #1-16 players are already qualified. IDK seems more 'fair' to me, but I'd be excited to see more thought put into this no matter the outcome.

there is 2 problems, time and money, we do what we can with what we have, thanks for feedback but we have already considered all the options possible for how i have said before the time we have and the money we have also.

 

[Hunyadi_]

Would be nice to have different variations of Arabia... One 'standard', one desert, one green, one with bigger woodlines, hills, etc.

Not just one arabia with so few and thin woodlines it's ridiculous.

Actually not a bad idea. This will make civ selection somewhat more strategic too.

 

[Chrazini]

Would be nice to have different variations of Arabia... One 'standard', one desert, one green, one with bigger woodlines, hills, etc.

Not just one arabia with so few and thin woodlines it's ridiculous.

Actually not a bad idea. This will make civ selection somewhat more strategic too.

It's an interesting idea. The current version should offer a good amount of variety; however, since it's unpredictable, you won't be able to use this to your advantage with the civilisation picks.
It's certainly something that would be interesting to explore in the future, but for King of the Desert V, we'll remain with one map for now.
Appreciate the input!

 

[Dusk2Dawn]

A double elimination is more relevant when it comes to placements and also superior, but football doesn't have double elim, so we can't have that either.
Also for the qualification a double elim can be used with lowering the number of participants; we know that rank 55 will not win vs hera or liereyy, they don't really get a chance and they never really had one
Usually main event follows the group stage and there is only 1 way to have more people in main event than in group stages: having the best 16 players already waiting in the brackets for the 16 players in the groups; but that is not what is going on here, so 32 players main event, 16 players group stage makes absolutely no sense in this scenario

 

[harooooo]

KOTD5 Arabia seems to be available on the PUP? (or at least a certain version of it)

Because I see that the number of carpets spawning has been increased to 5.

 

[TheCapybara]

Can I please make an absolute, on my knees begging request to not Chrazini our woodlines? Ponds offer no strategic value to Arabia and purely make the map more frustrating, both for players and viewers.

 

[LowEloNobody]

Can I please make an absolute, on my knees begging request to not Chrazini our woodlines? Ponds offer no strategic value to Arabia and purely make the map more frustrating, both for players and viewers.

How about instead, we add extra Ponds AND make it the standard Arabia on ladder for the next year

 

[kalpit00]

It's an interesting idea. The current version should offer a good amount of variety; however, since it's unpredictable, you won't be able to use this to your advantage with the civilisation picks.
It's certainly something that would be interesting to explore in the future, but for King of the Desert V, we'll remain with one map for now.
Appreciate the input!

not sure if I understood this correctly, but is there really variations to the kotd5 map? Like based on randomness, players might generate a map with more/closer woodlines or generate a fully open map with scarcer woodlines?

If this is the case, its a total disaster for the draft. Players will then have to gamble on picking civs. Imagine it's a BO7 and p1 has Mayans as one of their early picks, while p2 has a B-tier cav civ like Magyars as their last pick. While drafting, p1 will be thinking Mayans an S-tier pick probably a win vs most of the civs in p2's draft. But then in the set, p2 throws in magyars as a gamble early on, and matches mayans, and the map has no wood -> giving magyars a good chance to win vs Mayans, which was p1's higher picks. It's not too much strategic gameplay here, more like luck determining the map

I would not be happy if I was in p1's shoes, and such randomness in the map generations and only lead to bad things, tilt or unfairness. Rather hope all the maps are either fully open or not, and they can see everyone picking 80% mobility civs in their draft

 

[wincher01]

not sure if I understood this correctly, but is there really variations to the kotd5 map? Like based on randomness, players might generate a map with more/closer woodlines or generate a fully open map with scarcer woodlines?

https://www.aoezone.net/threads/kotd5-official-map.185842/

 

[JayGould]

I agree. Maybe also add a blue Arabia with water and maybe some arabia where you're protected by a stone wall from the start, that looks like an arena. And then we also could change the name of the tournament into King of Everything.

Nah, it could still be "Arabia". But you can have one Arabia that is fully open (very hard to wall), one that is like Standard Arabia on the ladder, and one with a bit more trees (like the old school Arabia). One with some more cliffs and elevation, one with less.

It would help increase the variety in civ picks and strategies, and would be more entertaining to watch (in my opinion).

 

[kalpit00]

Nah, it could still be "Arabia". But you can have one Arabia that is fully open (very hard to wall), one that is like Standard Arabia on the ladder, and one with a bit more trees (like the old school Arabia). One with some more cliffs and elevation, one with less.

It would help increase the variety in civ picks and strategies, and would be more entertaining to watch (in my opinion).

As long as its not random and players know which version they are playing. Like all the variations in arabia should not be masked under one map and leave it to the rng gods for generation. I remember seeing many times in some tourneys where the two most popular versions of arabia back in the voobly days : HC2 Arabia and KOTD2 Arabia, were used within the same set. HC2 arabia was the classic wallable map with 3-4 thick woodlines. The gold and berry placement was equivalent for both players (one back and one forward or vice versa). Civs like Mayans, Britons are super good on this version. On the other hand you have KOTD2 arabia, fully open, deserted, barely any woodlines, hilly. Civs like Franks, Slavs were solid on this map back in the day, and nowadays we would see Lithuanians, Khmer dominate such a map.

 

[Lokalo]

As long as its not random and players know which version they are playing. Like all the variations in arabia should not be masked under one map and leave it to the rng gods for generation. I remember seeing many times in some tourneys where the two most popular versions of arabia back in the voobly days : HC2 Arabia and KOTD2 Arabia, were used within the same set. HC2 arabia was the classic wallable map with 3-4 thick woodlines. The gold and berry placement was equivalent for both players (one back and one forward or vice versa). Civs like Mayans, Britons are super good on this version. On the other hand you have KOTD2 arabia, fully open, deserted, barely any woodlines, hilly. Civs like Franks, Slavs were solid on this map back in the day, and nowadays we would see Lithuanians, Khmer dominate such a map.

Well I guess everyone have their own taste. I agree that cav civs benefit from openes more, I overall find cav civ currently much better/easier, but at same time having runestones where most ppl just drush fc is just most boring thing ever both to watch and to play. Finally arabia have some life in feudal age, yeah sometimes it sucks, sometimes its amazing to have nice aggressive feudal, but there is nothing more boring that just hitting walls, though there are still sometimes nice generations in ladder where ppl manage to wall min8.

You have a point that it sucks a bit for tournament plans/draft, but I guess then players knowing this have to adapt a bit and pick decent civ for both options, not just pick burgundians, wall and win easily, cuz you have superior eco.

Is just really difficult to balance. If you make decent map, people will full all very fast, you make more open map, people start making smaller wallers, which are easier to punish. I understand it's a strategy game and some people want to have an option to just wall and boom, but at same time it's a strategy game, if that thing is good/works every game is also boring and dumb, you gotta adapt to your map and civ match up, not just look from dark age right away which way is better to full wall and make 5 troops in feudal and just go castle age. So again, it makes some more aggressive civs better, but at same time is much more fun, at least to me. Sometimes I have a game where both players barely have any walls and it's full feudal, god, that feels amazing 11 But in short, I just like when you have to adapt to the games, not just training X amount of troops, reaching castle age pretty much at same time behind walls every game and putting 2 tcs right away every single time.

 

[kalpit00]

one thing they could do is make the players generate closer in the wallable version (like if there are 3-4 woodlines and less probability to have hills, then increase the probability to generate closer or make it mandatory to generate next to each other instead of across like normally). Maybe then players cannot simply dr wall FC because the distance is so much shorter that if they don't go feudal early enough, the towers will definitely come.

I think in general nowadays the meta is such that dr-fc is never seen, mostly due to the arabia being more open (every tourney has their own version of arabia, god knows what changes they make but one things for sure, we will never see a more wallable version than HC2 arabia 11).

And also, ironically enough, like you said that if maps are too open, people just make small walls. This has forced the meta to switch into archer spear opening than the traditional scout opening, and we usually see archers into scouts to counter the potential skirms. (I know liereyy always does this). Direct scout opening is almost a losing play if we are talking the best of the best, because players have gotten so good at constantly being active with small groups of army and the first wave of few archer + spear holds so much threat, the scout player cannot engage with just 4 scouts and has to rush up a range for skirms, then the fletching time is off, all the while the other guy full walls and can choose to go castle age behind or add scouts depending on the civ and gold position.

I do feel like even in Kotd5, we will definitely see civs like Britons/Mayans for the arch spear opening. The openness of the map has never stopped these civs from taking games, it's just that castle age is where they really struggle vs the mobility of Knight civs. Most times they can win in feudal/early castle due to micro/ xbow timing, but one bad fight losing the archer numbers is bad for them. Knight civs like Lithuania, Khmer can match the range opening and play skirms in feudal, and if they are smart with their eco and game sense, they can catch the archers off guard and from there ease their way to castle age and Kt all in for the victory. I feel like we will see similar ideas for both sides/types of civs throughout kotd5, and either can win games