Profile of Rosbone

Thanks to all you guys saying Novgorod is not necessarily NOvGOrOD (trademark AE).

When the map came out it was getting decent plays. That quickly dropped to only getting a few plays. That told me something about the map was not fun to play. Since I dont play 1v1, I assumed I just missed some major piece.

Since then with some advice from you guys and watching some replays, we got some things changed around. But at this point I am not 100% sure it will be any better received. And everyone has already had to veto it for 4 months. The last thing I want is to make you have to veto it for another 6-12 months. Especially when there are new 1v1 maps out there that show a lot of promise to be FUN.

So I am not against the NEW Novgorod being updated in automatch. I am against it staying if it means one of the new maps will not be used. I would rather it get deleted and a NEW map take its place. Maybe dumping Arnhem for Novgorod is a possibility? That is up to Relic, Sturmpanther, you guys, etc.

I don't think map is bad at all. It's a very good map even on the current state. Why remove it?

The map has several things going against it:
- It is a winter map.
- The center is very open. Early game is easy for the enemy to get behind you at the far fuel and get wiped on retreat. Late game is easy to make a few team weapons and hold two VPs (Which I enjoy watching. Saw a game where a player made no tanks and won).
- The cutoffs are too strong and punishing. Winning a fight does not mean you get more resources.
- The VPs are in the corners.
- The fuel cutoffs are on red cover roads.
- Center church is strong.
- The COH2 community. Once a map is vetoed for months at a time, it will usually stay vetoed. Due to the balance patch, we have not been able to update maps for several months.
- There are several new 1v1 maps ready to go that may be better than even the updated version.

This all adds up to it being the least played 1v1 map.

The new version fixes/changes many of these issues and is visually much better looking. But it will at best go from being the least played 1v1 map to the 3rd or 4th least played 1v1 map.

One interesting note is the time of day the map gets played. Pacific rim time sees the largest portion of the play. European time, the least amount of play.

I made the map to test the open movement I like. With sight blockers that let you play cat-and-mouse games with your engagements. But I leaned too much on making it a technical map with harsh cutoffs. And this makes it very not fun to play. Which is the most important component of map.

If you don't have the time or desire, why are you still involved at all. Why not pass the proverbial torch to someone willing to take a more active part in developing and refining our gameplay experience?

This is a great question. Sturmpanther(SP) has very successfully driven the map changes for years. And is a hero of the community.

Since I have worked with him a lot I can comment on this. The person best suited for this job needs to have intimate knowledge of ALL game modes. If you look at SPs player card you can see he has games in every mode at high levels. He also has a ton of information about each map locked away in his brain.

Every successful map change/update has been driven by SP's inside knowledge of the maps, players, and game. We would probably need 2 or 3 people just to get close to the job he has done so far.

The hope is COH3 is not far away, so we wouldnt need many more map updates...

ok nvm, I did the 2nd test run just now already. Tested again with canceling the barrage at any possible point... with different veterancy, if normal auto-attack is still working, etc etc

Found 0 bugs. So if you'd ask me, I would say this fix is good to go!

Just to be clear, if you press Stop/Cancel and then move the ZiS, you will not get the bug?

This has been what I normally do for a long time. But my micro is slow. So my slow timing may play into not getting the bug.

Great work!

Nordwind