Profile of A_E

This first post, should've been everyone's attitude 4-5 years ago, it was not. Instead people, including other content creators, publicly shit on the hard-work you are now advocating for.



I especially want to focus on this



I have been stating this for years, other mappers, whom are now all gone due to harassment and toxicity from this community, have also said the same, and tried in their own ways to implement them.

People wanted 2v2 maps? Put in some fun ones, and they were removed. Why? As Andy stated in some messages to me, because top players have said they shouldn't be in.

Yet I get messages at least a few times a month asking why they were removed cause players like the change of pace, and new scenery. We removed them and didn't replace them with anything.

This offers up a few questions.

Who do we listen to?
-Top players?
-The vast majority of players?
-Casual players (often silent)
-The vocal minority (non tournament players)

These groups are often at odds with one another. One one hand you have a fun map that the majority of people want to play on, or don't mind, but on the other you have people who are grinding elo that don't want to play around something that doesn't necessarily favor their playstyle or meta.

Both have fair arguments.

For the latter part this comes into play:



If this is that attitude we should take, then why are maps being removed that are different? And more importantly why are they being removed with no replacements?

Also keep in mind who do we listen too? Top players or the majority? How do you take the voices of 100 or so people and pit it against thousands and make it fair? There is so much biased shit we would have to filter through it would be impossible with a vote, as we saw with polls being bombarded by other communities in the past, or by rules being broken for tournaments so personalities would be voted for.



Who gets to decide this?



What tenants do you speak of? Where are they listed?

I specifically remember you fighting tooth and nail for the changes on the maps in rotation, even with the GCS champion, Talisman, among other top 10 players at that time as well. Is your word better than theirs? Ultimately we made the changes regardless, that you didn't want, and the maps now play better for it. This isn't intended as a call out, more an example, looping back into who's voice do we listen to, and how does everyone end up feeling heard, as Cresc, apparently does not, and this is something that I would like to genuinely solve with the people that still care about this game.

I have tried multiple ways to accomplish this
-Map contest with Judges from varying backgrounds
-Map contest with private submission and community voting
-Tournament with maps designed with top tournament players

And all have their weakness and strengths, and their own varied failures and successes.

And why does the voice of the few out weigh a large part of the silent majority? The stats don't lie, they aren't made up, so do we just remove whatever is in the lowest tier and rotate out maps? (I would love this, but its too late for consistent updates like that to take place).

I'm very happy that people seem to be finally realizing what I've been saying for years, isn't me just making shit up, but a re-occurring problem, and issues that I've seen, and have tried multiple different ways to express or solve, albeit, I didn't always do it very well, or level-headedly, but it was a large learning experience for me.

I, however, feel its a bit too little too late. I have some plans in the future, and will help with things here, just need a bit of time to get them setup for people to use, regardless of what I feel personally is too late or not.

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I've always held these views on maps, and always considered myself a good source of feedback for mapping processes. As far back as 2012 I have been involved in map feedback and iterative processes.

Just recently as part my work for the World Championship I "coherently worked together" with Sturmpanther and Rosbone to make excellent improvements to Faymonville approach and then with WhiteFlashReborn to make excellent improvements to Nexus and make it the solid map it is now.

I literally don't recognise this to be true: "I specifically remember you fighting tooth and nail for the changes on the maps in rotation, even with the GCS champion, Talisman, among other top 10 players at that time as well."

Nearly all of the top level players can attest to the fact that I consulted them and at least listened to their opinions before drawing up map pools, from GCS1 to WC2019. I consider this consulting process the parent of the current roster of tournament staples.

I do not want to get into a lengthy discussion with you Tric, I am confident people respect my opinion, without needing you to validate it or attempt pick it apart. I have my criticisms of map makers just like the rest of people but know what makes a good map and when a map isn't as bad as people are making out.

If you must know I would consider your 2016-2017 maps in the 1v1 pools to be part of an LSD trip and diorama of the human psyche, and your 2018-2019 maps to be very strong and solid work. Vilashanka for example should have been in World Championship 2019 over Nexus but needs a complete 1:1 reassembly to get past 'the bug', which I respect you not being willing to do as it's not your fault etc.

Like these two maps are fine, you're all weaklings that blame your lack of adjustment and inability to adapt to new environments on the hard work of map makers.

The 1v1 map pool right now is literally the best it's ever been since 2006, CoH1 had 5 maps for the most part and in its end state this included Wrecked Train and Baux Lowlands... CoH2 launched with Moscow Outskirts as a 1v1 map...

Not every map has to be a tournament contender some are meant to be fun tactical conundrums that keep you thinking.

Considering I'm a CoH1 and CoH2 fan and have cast tournaments and enjoyed both games equally, seeing no merit to the old arguments.

I find your comments here irrelevant and out of date.

I personally believe Soviets are stronger than USF as OKW are the most viable Axis faction and Soviets can out-power them in the late game reliably, due to superior manpower economy as the game wears on. With USF they tend to trade equally vs. OKW and so the advantage isn't as pronounced.

Great Tournament!
I almoust get as exited for these big events as i used to get for football worldcups years ago.

Great competition overall and the finals were coh2 at its best.
Some creative strategies - Noggano in the finals and Aimstrong in the early rounds come to mind.

Fantastic to see all those new asian players.

Nice to have so many casters for different games that were live at the same time.

Excelent casting as ever in the end in a professional environment from AE and Stormless + Ed!

The skill-level at which the game is played at top level seemed to still have improved by a good bit over the last year and lots of games where decided by just tiny advantages one player had over the other.

That all said - overall i liked the meta and the format with double elimination in GCS2 a tiny bit better - those massed medium tanks that especially Talisman fielded where really exiting to watch. this time it was more dominated by the super tanks and some games i watched games were played more carefully. The variety of strategies also seemed to be a bit lover this time.

I hated the fact that Aimstrong and Hans got knocked out so fast versus the best players because i really wanted to see more of them - especially more of Aimstrongs Wehrmacht-play.

Too bad that kimbo could not play though i fully understand why he was not allowed to compete- I would have really liked to see what he could have done this year.

What happend with prodigy anyway? He was on my list of candidates to win the title.

I am already exited for the next big event.

I also wish we had seen more oppurtunity for players like Aimstrong and Hans etc, but with condensed time period, it's difficult to provide a multiple tournament style system.

I also preferred GCS2 in the ways that you mentioned, although I think this was a great success in its own right.

Let's hope Kimbo sticks around long enough to grow up and stop getting himself banned.

Prodigy quit for personal reasons (not aware as to what those are but I believe he prioritises school etc. so fair dos if so).