I have neither the skill nor the willpower to try to make this map (and make it popular) myself. I'm hoping that some of you might agree with my suggestions and implement them, even though I know most people have disagreed with me in the past. A very long post will follow this up, so much appreciation to anyone that actually reads all of it.
TLDR version: Make the map smaller while making wolves kill farms in 4 hits.
This increases technical skill and strategy, making the game more exciting.I know the knee jerk reaction is to think this idea is moving in a boring, backwards direction. But if you think about this for a little bit, you may agree the result would be quite the opposite.
The goal is not to make sheep easier or harder, but to make the game more exciting. An appropriate decrease in map size will counter the effect of making wolves weaker without making the game more easy or difficult for one side or the other. It's similar to what Beer's changes to revo did, in that he expanded the map (opening up new hills / ramps) while increasing wolf damage. Except it's ofc the opposite.
I'm not upset at you beer for doing what you did, as the map desperately needed to be mixed up to keep the game from going stagnant, and I applaud you for putting the effort into changing it. I just hope you approach my recommendation with an open mind, as you're the only one who seems interested in making new maps.The most boring part of being a sheep is massing endlessly, with zero contact with the wolves. As a wolf the most boring part is looking at an insanely big mass of farms and having no clue where to begin, so people afk and blame teammates. A smaller map right off the bat solves both of these problems.
It also increases what should be the exciting parts of sheeping and wolfing. As a sheep you will be closer to wolves at all time, and to your teammates, and bridging them will be more important. As a wolf no sheep is insanely secure or far away. With 2 hit farm and a giant mass, it's in the sheep's best interest to cornermass. We condemn people who do this as noob, when it's a completely rational approach. Harassing wolves is more dangerous and less effective when they kill farms in two hits. It's a much better idea for the sheep to just run away and the wolves to just chase, and I think this is a much more boring dynamic than it was in the past.
Wolf items are also much more useful and strategic when they are at 4 hit farm kills.
- STR pot and beam are near useless in today's sheep tag. Don't tell me that I'm a noob and don't know how to use them, and that they can be used very well. I want this to be the case -- but it's simply not a big deal to use a str pot to kill a farm in 1 hit instead of 2, when there's a huge number of farms anyways. If you kill farms at 4 hits, and there's less farm, suddenly a case can be made for str pot / beam to strategically cut off sheep. This case largely exists only in theory now, and 95% of str pots are used to try to snipe a sheep in combination with a golem.
- Golems are similarly not as important as they once were. They haven't suffered in popularity at all, but that's because ALL OTHER ITEMS SUCK in today's ST. It's an easy exercise to see why golems become more important in a 4 hit farm kill scenario. Consider how useless they are if you kill farms in 1 hit, and extrapolate backwards.
- Claws/cloaks/gloves are more important. When you start at 2 hits, there's only so much that damage items can do. One claw can get you to 2 hit aura'd farms, and several claws can you get to 1 hit normal farms. That's about it, and in most games you won't even consider going 1 hit, as it takes a big investment and the game will likely be over by then (in say 3v5s). At four hits there's simply more room to make choices that have consequences. I'd recommend something like 60g to get to 3 hits ( I don't expect most of the game to be at 4 hits just the beginning), and like 170g to get to two hits.
Better items allow wolf technical skill to shine, and make interactions between sheep and wolves more interesting for both parties. And there will be more of these interactions because the map is smaller. Harassing and bridging will be more important and will allow better sheep skill to shine.
On a different note, a smaller map is more fitting for games with fewer players. And we do have less full games now then ever before. 3v4 should not be taboo, and on this map it would not be. The ratio of sheep/wolf would increase slightly without slanting the game to make sheeping easy. People that love only sheeping should be happy that they sheep more often, and people that appreciate wolfing can look forward to more balanced game.
I predict a major objection to this will come from "runtaggers" who will see a smaller map as less room to run. I would point you to the success of bulldog to see why this is not the case. Bulldog is basically built around run tag, and yet it takes place in very small maps. What it will do is diminish "freestyling rt", where you're run tagging with no farms near you. This isn't the only way to RT, but it's what most people may think of. I've always felt run tag was a poor term, for what people mean by exciting and micro/trick oriented sheep play -- which is something I aim to increase in this map not decrease. Again I point to the success of bulldog in this arena. Already current revo isn't meant for freestyling, as usually you're filling up the map with farms / blocking off ramps. The freestyling RT people want is in -switch revo, and you could still play that. This wouldn't be a replacement for it, in the same way revo "mass" games don't exclude you from playing -switch.
So does anyone agree with my ramble