Circular argument.
A: "How is this map imbalanced?"
- "Because the attacker has to have a better team to win."
B: "The attacker won 50% of the matches"
- "Attacking team must have been better, thus confirming A."
See the problem with the above?
The truth is you can't know that. It's not like a 2k or EA Sports game where each player is assigned a point-value stat and you've looked at both teams and added it up. Your Ph.D in electrical engineering, or whatever you told us as a justification, has no value here because you can't measure every variable that makes a team win or lose.
Maybe the map does favor the defender, maybe they win a bit too often and it is fishy (although practically everyone here seems to disagree). Just offer some solutions and maybe we'll try it out. But please quit it with the "Map maker should have known better" attitude.
You just don't understand.
I don't look at one game in isolation. I consider multiple games that I have played, how easy or difficult it is as attacker or defender, if one team tends to win/lose in the same way with many different teams on different servers, etc. Moreover, I also know the relative skill level of most players by being a regular so I am quite good at telling when the teams are stacked.
Also, please note that I have played this map many times on servers in different counties: Europe, Russia, and the USA. Even on Russian servers which is stacked Allies usually, they frequently lose to lock down at A. Generally, European servers are an Axis stack-fest. While there is great variation in the NA servers between Axis-stacking and neutral.
Stacked teams are actually very good at finding out flaws in a map. A stacked team has more experienced players (I don't like the description "good players" - if they were really good they wouldn't stack the easier side) who know the best positions and the correct things to do/positions to exploit. If a map is flawed, a handful of experienced players can lock it down. It only takes 4 experienced players to lock down A in these positions: top of defender left stairs holding the left two doors from the top level; on the defender right flank watching allies stairs (which is VERY stupidly see- and shoot-through); one if the door is blown in B pushing far right flank and cross firing the attackers spawn; one at the top of the left defender spiral staircase looking down to the route from the blown doors to A. Add in a handful of less experienced players sniping from the impossibly dark windows between C and D and you have a total lockdown.
A would be significantly improved with the small addition of making the left stairs not shoot-through (solid steel back to it) so that the attackers can get up to the top floor behind cover.
I have noticed that the perennial Axis stackers disagree with the post; while the smart people tend to agree and offer constructive suggestions.
I challenge you go away and play the map as both sides 10+ times each side, while using your head, think about repeating situations, and then come back and say that the map is balanced.
The map maker should have known better. Genius idea to give the defenders (who have dark uniforms) dark windows to hide in overlooking the whole map. I'm sure he thought it was also fantastic idea to give the defenders more routes into A with better cover than the attackers as well. I'm also sure that he thought deeply about allowing very limited flanking options to the attackers without having to run across open ground crossfired from said dark windows and many other locations. What the mapper designed was a textbook example of how to design a map favourable to the defenders.
Winterwald, on the other hand, is a well designed map where thought has gone into allowing defenders flanking options. The novel use of dense fog allows the attackers to rapidly flank unnoticed by the defenders. If the fog was not there the map would be significantly more biased to defenders (see Red October Factory).
It seems more effort goes into building the map layout (this is very considerable effort, I know), and then very very little thought goes into thinking about how said layout will actually play. It seems like the other way of thinking leads to perhaps better map design. Indeed, dare I mention dust2; where the mapper decided the figure of eight layout before actually building it.
