Sheep Tag 7.2.6B

Fixes
Hotkeys in shop for c9 and scythe
Color code problem for invis potion in portable shop
Mana from shop now costs the proper amount that is displayed
Tooltip for Scythe now also says "Does not stack"
Scythe now displays proper bounty upon killing farms
Removed vision behind shops where it says "Gosu"


Items
Increased beam cost to 70/98 from 60/84
Replaced beam with invis in quick shop


Farms
sentry farm gold cost reduced to 9 from 12
sentry farm health reduced to 40 from 120
sentry farm build time increased to 3 from 1
Savings farm gold cost reduced to 26 from 30


Invis Rework
Invis is now an ability instead of an item
Duration 40 seconds
Mana Cost 125
Hotkey E
3 minute cooldown


Bomber Rework
Has no unit collision
Range increased from 900 to 1000
AoE increased to 270 from 135
Deals damage to structures
Cost increased to 60/84 from 40/56


New Host Command
-fafk #
Forces a player afk, can only be used before round starts
Cannot unafk a player


General
Many Changes to Terrain
Reworked items in shops
Changed wisp movespeed back to 200 from 220
Removed flying dollies
Added a message and sound for Firstblood
Added a message and sound for Humiliation
Humiliation is when your killed within 1.25 seconds of spawning (Spawn killed)



Download:
http://www.epicwar.com/maps/217541/


Enjoy.

Well done beer i need just USB Cabel and im back ^^

Remove invis, it is the CONCEPT of it that makes sheeptag boring.

Shoop wrote:

Remove invis, it is the CONCEPT of it that makes sheeptag boring.

Indeed, please remove it.

invis as a skill rofl, lets see how that works out ^^

Good job Beer.

the people who want invis removed (shoop/drew etc) are the people who have had most success in convincing the old mapmakers to implement their ideas. and that map is SCREAMING for a major revision. keep that in mind when you consider their ideas of removing everything from the map and going back into the direction of the old map that noone plays anymore.

apart from the trackrecord they hold, they can also try to defend their ideas in debates and you can evaluate the arguments for yourself. listening to "remove X because its boring!" and other baseless arguments is what brought the map in the toilet to begin with.



keep the invis in its new form. its gonna make wonders for sheeptag. give it atleast a month for people to get to know it and soak it in. quite insane to even consider disabling the invis at this point without offering alternative map-improvements. beer is here to develoup the map because the current one is boring..not to be the chakra 2.0 and listen to shoops ideas while improving armor rating on upgraded farms by 7% every 3 weeks.

So your argument to keep invis is that the map is SCREAMING for revision. Nice. And how the fuck is removing an item we had since DAY ONE a step BACKWARDS to the map we used to play lol?

I got TONS of ideas of how to change the map and even though I have been successfull in implementing a few of my ideas (removing stack, adding str beam) that doesnt mean the map is how I want it to be. The map is DEFINENTLY not how I want it to be and it is a fallacy trying to make that argument.

Instead of focusing on who wants invis removed (except me and drew, tons of others by the way) you should focus on the actual matter. Why do you want invis in the picture? Not once do you mention anything about that.

Yeah we know it is a skill and we know it contains "mastery" (a bullshit term without any relevant meaning btw). But so is and so does blink-attack, warstomp and earthquake aswell so clearly that is not enough to add something. Unless you want those added aswell?

I agree the map needs change and that is why I want invis removed. Removing invis is a key aspect in making sheep tag less static and more actionfilled. I think everyone will agree that the 2-20 problem have drasticly decreased since we started to play without invis. It is time for people to start analyzing the full effects of the items. Its not just a matter about if like to use invis or not. If that was the case, then obviously we should keep it. But it is also a matter of what effect someone using invis has on other players, and the mere threat of invis, what effect it has on the sheep. They have to mass more carefull and take less risks. I want to be forced to take more risks, I want more action, both as sheep and as wolf, and if we are going to get that we must encourage risktaking and decourage safemassing. Invis does the opposite.

its a step back because you started a campaign banning invis from games since early 2012. the invis was practically removed from the map in terms of gameplay. st was thriving at ''day one'', so it would make sense to move the map backwards to that stage(when the invis was in play), and revert the changes that caused a major fall in activity. at worst, its worth trying this and see where it leads. i have no idea how you could get this part wrong.

stack = relevant to why people think the invis is boring. point being made is that you can't attack the concept without looking at all the relevant factors. farms would be boring as well if wolves had 0 attack damage. the concept of the invis is fine, the enviorment isn't. the new invis (20 sec duration/3 min cd) partially solves this problem without adding stacks/making wolfing much less team-oriented. ONE STEP AT A TIME



you don't understand the mastery argument. as long as the mapmaker does, explaining it for the 15th time is a waste of time.
PS! shoops solution to the 2-20 problem is stripping both teams of all individual skill, and evening out the playing field this way. this is not the solution. the 2-20 problem should be EMBRACED if it's caused by a difference in skill between the teams.
PS!2 Risk-taking shouldn't be a given. Good players should be awarded by taking risks and low players should die. You're just making risk-taking easier for everyone instead of emphasising the reward on the skill of the player. another HORRIBLE solution to a problem(safemassing).

Invis is a neat aspect in Sheep Tag and it's really up to players to learn how to use it properly. Currently the problem with invis is that it gives certain players who don't feel like wolfing something to do which then ruins the teamwork aspect of wolfing in Sheep Tag. Understandable. However you can also use invis to force sheep to safe mass in a certain direction then have the rest of the wolves cut etc. Invis should be used to contain the sheep not to always get that snipe kill, but to slow the sheep expansion.

I would hate to remove an aspect of Sheep Tag that people enjoy just because people think it dulls the game. Although it can dull the game the idea of making invis an ability helps prevent that in the sense a wolf won't feel as though he wasted his gold on invis so he might as well stay invis. Also now people have to decide when its appropriate to use their invis since its on a 3 minute cooldown.

Anyways let's see how invis as an ability works on before we ignore the situation by just removing it.

Thumbs up for you beer !

Lol, another sheep tag theory debate.

Amir is using the same cheap trick as always, blaming the constant decline in st activity on w.e he is arguing against. The fact is ST has declined since 2005-2006 on all servers every year. Sure our community have experienced boosts in activity from time to time. Around tournaments, when stack trial came out, the Garena years, when RoC and TFT merged, or maybe just beacause some oldschool players start playing again for a while and start a hype. But in the long run the only pattern has been a decline in activity and the boosts have been temporary. To assume the majority(!) decision to stop playing with invis have had anything to do with this is not just idiotic it is also a dangerous fallacy to base decisions on. To let this dogmatic reasoning in any way effect the way we look out our map would be equivelent of reasoning that all kids should be shaved beacaus we have seen that kids who already shave their heads learn things in school. The argument is fallacious beacause all kids learn things in school, same as amirs argument is fallacious beacause we constantly experience a slow decline in activity which is normal beacause the very platform that we play on i declining in activity and beacause there are other maps who are updated and adjusted in a much more efficient way than sheep tag.

BEER, why are you attacking an argument noone made? Noone is arguing that invis should be removed beacause people use it wrongly. I argue that it should be remove beacause even when, or better yet especially when, people us it right it makes sheep tag boring. For both sheep and wolf.

If we want to compete with maps like DotA we have to learn to analyze what makes the game tick. It is simply not enough to just say to yourself "well I like using invis, therefore it makes sheep tag funnier for me". Not if we want to compete about players in a declining but still active gameplatform and not if we want sheep tag to be as good a map as possible

If we want to do that we must problematize and take into consideration the full effect it has on sheep tag. Ask yourselfs how the knowledge that the best invissniper in the world, whoever it may be, is wolf and you are a sheep. How will it change your way of playing compared to a game where there is no invis? Well obviously you will be forced to mass a lot safer and slower. This will without doubt give the sheep team a disatvantage compared to sheep tag without invis. Therefore, if we remove invis, we can maintain the same balance between the teams but make the safemassing less efficient. If we remove invis we can reduce the safemassing, cornermassing, banking, the time where you just walk around as wolf, the time where you cut meaningless farms as wolf, etc and replace it with more actionfilled sheep tagging. We will force the sheep to expand rapidly, make quick second decisions, runtag, etc, but those risks will be worth taking beacause we removed invis. Invis is the single biggest threat to all of that and once we remove it they will be rewarded and your skill both as sheep and wolf will be tested in a whole other way than today.

Playing without invis was a step in the right direction, but now it is time to remove it so that we can make the other balancechanges against safemassing.

Quote :

How will it change your way of playing compared to a game where there is no invis? Well obviously you will be forced to mass a lot safer and slower. This will without doubt give the sheep team a disatvantage compared to sheep tag without invis. Therefore, if we remove invis, we can maintain the same balance between the teams but make the safemassing less efficient.

what shoop means by saying ''making safemassing less efficient" is "making risk-playing easier and more rewarding.

the correct analysis goes like this:
WITH invis - good players like cmk can expand fast and not die. they have the skill and reflexes. bad players will die if they attemt to do the same.
WITHOUT invis - good players AND bad players can expand fast and mass at full speed constantly.

clearly, good players will win more WITH the invis while bad players will DIE more. the same applies to wolfing. skilled snipers are rewarded, bad ones make their team lose. no invis = all wolves are reduced to the same level. cmk can't do anything if simba and turbo are responsible for 50% of the isolation.



the same applies to all of his arguments. yes shoop, safemassing will be reducide and runtag will increase if we REDUCE WOLFSPEED BY 50% AS WELL as long as you agree that the map should give advantages to skill, talent and practice, all of shoops arguments fall down the toilet in less than 2 seconds.

increasing runtag/speed-massing by removing all threats is another HORRIBLE idea from shoop. rather buff the wolves so that the sheep die fast if they only safemass (making speed-massing a NECESSARY skill, not a GIVEN skill).

Lol. Good players will always win more, that is the defenition of good players. We will simply have more speed expanding, more runtagging, etc beacause it will be the best choice in more situations, to get from there to basically saying it will be so easy anyone will be able to do it is just ridicilus. Infact I think it will give the sheep who does expand more options, you will get MORE rewarded for individual skills like runtag and speedmassing than before.

Quote :

increasing runtag/speed-massing by removing all threats is another HORRIBLE idea from shoop. rather buff the wolves so that the sheep die fast if they only safemass (making speed-massing a NECESSARY skill, not a GIVEN skill).

I am arguing that we do both. We make sure you die fast if you only safemass, but we also give you a lot of space to runtag, speedmass etc. And however much we nerf safemassing with invis we can always nerf it more if we remove it and still have the same balance.

And no I do not think we should reduce wolfspeed (w.e that is? attackspeed? movement speed?) with anything.

shoop really doesn't grasp anything lol..anyway, i don't see any new arguments from shoop. i think i have successfully dismantled his entire case against the invis in 2-3 posts. if anyone(particularly beer) feels that there are arguments from shoop that haven't been adressed and refuted, quote them.


NOW! the last puzzle-piece to complete this masterpiece of a debatecrush; shoop is going to try and convince/pressure you in 1on1 chats on bnet. not just to beer, hes gonna try and gather supporters for his case from any active player. don't fall for this, like mappy and others have. send him to the forums to defend his ideas publicly instead of running a campaign 24/7 all over bnet, pressuring turds to support his ideas. that applies especially to you beer. if he wants to 1on1 chat, i suggest you send him to the forums. do that with invis-supporters as well.

over and out.

One of your arguments can be mirrored by the stack argument:

the correct analysis goes like this:
WITHOUT stack - good players like cmk can expand fast and not die. they have the skill and reflexes to place tiny/normal farms. bad players will die if they attemt to do the same.
WITH stack - good players AND bad players can expand fast and mass at full speed constantly by placing stack farms the moment they fall into danger

stack benefits cmk more than bad players. the difference in performance between cmk and bad players will increase with the addition of stack, even if the stack is an advantage to every sheep.

no stack = cmk survives 10 min on average, simba survives 8 min on average.
with stack = cmk survives 15 min average, simba survives 9 min average.



no invis = the only threat to massing carelessly full-speed is gone. meaning that anyone can mass full speed. meaning that a mastery is given for free (massing fast without dying) in order to reduce safemassing(shoop argument).

no invis = cmk makes 200 farms/min and simba makes 195 farms/min
with invis = cmk makes 200 farms/min and simba makes 160 farms/min

God cmk is a beast

Amir you havent even come close to "dismantle" the argument against invis.

It still stands.

The concept of invis leads to more static sheep tag. It leads to safemassing and it increases the 2-20 problem.

If we remove it we can compensate the wolves by somehow nerfing safemassing and through that get a lot funnier map.

I am still waiting for the first valid reason to keep invis.

And no amir, you making up random numbers out of the blue does not constitute as an argument. You have no ground for any of those claims and if you want to make them as a part of your argument the burden of evidence is on you.

lol ^^

So you argue that stack farms can be used to a far greater skill (hold a higher mastery) than tiny/normal farms? I firmly disagree. Whenever I play Bulldog, the major time I leak is when a sheep pulls a WTF with a stack farm. However, when I, Drew, Eenz, etc make a score, which occurs a lot more frequently, it is heavily on the front of over manipulation with normal/tiny/frost farms.

Of course a pro can use a stack farm better than a pub, but the mastery involved is little. Perhaps "quick fingers" is relevant, put sheer manipulation pales in comparison to the use of normal and tiny farms.


You honestly think invisibility has no effect on the massing rate of sheep? Eenz just posted about how invisibility use leads to the map being massed up. Invisibility leads to sheep massing faster, not slower. It is utter bullshit to suggest otherwise. The less time shepherds spend invisible, the more time they spend cutting and preventing sheep from massing, thus decreasing mass speeds.

no invis = cmk makes 180 farms/min and simba makes 160 farms/min
with invis = cmk makes 200 farms/min and simba makes 175 farms/min


Keeping invisibility is the wrong direction. If you want the game to be more enjoyable, compensate for the reduction of average latencies times, like we did in the past, by lowering the number of hits required to kill normal farms. Give a slight speed boost to sheep and substantially lower the cost of special farms--perhaps also dull their buffs a bit.

your invis argument is the exact opposite of what shoop proposes. shoop suggests that invis leads to LESS farms being made, because you have to be careful. and shoop is correct. suggesting that speed-massing is increased with the addition of the invis is absolutely absurd. there is NO threat to speed-massing without the invis. massing at full speed doesn't have any consequenses. with the invis, speed-massing causes people to DIE without good reflexes, predicitive abilities and map-awareness.

the map should get spammed with farms when bad players use the invis, or if 3 people go invis at the same time. it should also be filled with farms if all the wolves invest in gems of true sight and other useless items instead of claws. whats the issue? they will stop using the invis if it decreases their win-rate, while good players (like myself) can still use the invis to get fast wins.



its hard to take you seriously when you suggest that invis leads to faster massing when ALL evidence and logic points the other way around. the map gets filled with farms if 3 people use the invis because the amount of farms being destroyed is negligible and/or the invis-users aren't doing a good job, NOT because massing-speed increases.

Quote :

the map should get spammed with farms when bad players use the invis, or if 3 people go invis at the same time

This is precisely the reason WHY sheep, on average, mass faster with invis. Of course if everyone was good and used invis correctly massing would, theoretically, decline. But the problem is they don't, for two reasons.

One, everyone overestimates themselves. If you don't think you are good enough to go invis, you probably aren't a STer.
Two, cutting is boring. Invisibility offers an arrangement where cutting isn't done, thus individuals will prefer that. Even if it means their entire team is going invis.

No amir, what Chakra says is not the opposite of what I say. We just use the term speedmassing differently. I use it as a term, in lack of better ones, to describe, more or less, the kind of massing that isnt safemassing. Chakra uses it, I think, as general "fast massing".

My argument is this : in less situations will it be smart to runtag, expand, or "speedmass" (with my definition) etc with the threat of invis around.

Chakras argument is this (I think) : if a wolf is invis there are less wolves cutting farms, which makes it easier to safemass mass (which you can also call speedmass) and less farms are destroyed which leads to more farms.

They both touch the same thing though, the parts of sheeping thats repetitive and easy are encouraged with invis. Without invis more challenging and less repetitive parts of sheeping such as quick expansion, runtag etc are rewarded. If we combine removing invis with something that counters safemassing we will get less static and more challenging games.

Quote :

Invisibility offers an arrangement where cutting isn't done, thus individuals will prefer that. Even if it means their entire team is going invis.

the model i suggested (with invis being an ability with a high CD) partially, if not fully, takes care of this problem. it's just a matter of finding the right values.

but why do you think people share gold in games instead of saving it for golems/items? the fun you derive from being selfish is outweighted by FAR by the fun of having an effective team strategy(winning as fast as possible). half the team won't get the invis if it reduces their winrate. the problem of the invis has NEVER been that many wolves use it at the same time precisely because of this.

the invis is being accepted again after a long non-invis period, and it's reworked into an ability. people are eager to try it out. this is why 3-4 wolves went invis in eenz's games.

Quote :

Without invis more challenging and less repetitive parts of sheeping such as quick expansion, runtag etc are rewarded. If we combine removing invis with something that counters safemassing we will get less static and more challenging games.

massive logical fallacy. why would you add something that counters safemassing when you remove the counter to speed-massing? do you think people are going to safemass if there is NO BENEFIT(increased survival) to safemass?

the invis is a necessary part of the big picture. there HAS to be a counter to speedmassing. the counter to safemassing is obviously that its a massive dissadvantage having less farms. find the right balance and teams that safemass to avoid using skill(runtag/expanding/speedmassing) will lose fast. teams that are low-skilled will also lose fast if they dont safemass/try expanding. teams that are skilled can speedmass despite the threat of getting sniped.

without the invis, speed-massing and expanding is a given. its not a talent, its not a skill you have to aquire. its given for free. meaning that it won't solve anything. the next step would be balancing the game so that wolves can win even if the entire sheepteam speed-masses and expands(which they can freely do) => the influence CMK has on the game is minimal compared to the influence SIMBA has. its one less skill cmk can use to advance his win-rate (because simba and everyone else can speedmass as well).