[QUOTE=Anti;510181]Some data from the last three weeks, psychology is a powerful thing 
There are many things we can do to balance this out, even just by posting this image and having the reasons for it being discussed there is a good chance it’ll level out some more, “well ****, I’ll try harder if I attack first now!”.
As an example, something like an average completion time stat for each map/objective would give the first time attackers a much better target to chase, just as cricket teams in real life know good ‘runs per over’ rates to aim for.
The disparity between the maps is quite interesting, but without ranked matchmaking right now these stats are very prone to being skewed by randomly skill matched teams.[/QUOTE]
Hello Anti, I hope your ready for a long one…
Now there are a couple of things I find instantly interesting when looking at the graphs you provided…
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[li]1, That order (closest to furthest percentage difference) is the same as how I order my maps from best to worst.
[/li][li]2, That order is also the order of how far attackers spawns is from the action/objective area.
[/li][/ul]
Dome is the one I want to be most careful when talking about as there are a few “unknown” factors in why its balance seems the furthest off. This is actually the reason why I thought that it was a poor decision to make the following thread: Map Preference Poll!. Just like with music peoples initial impressions seem to be highly skewed and later become more refined. Often what will happen is you will HATE or LOVE a song but eventually it will level out. I really hope that Splash Damage did not look at that thread and take it as a sign that the map development process had finally got on track. Dome is actually the WORST map for multiple reasons and the graphs show this in a rather round about way. I will likely do a full thread on “initial map bias” soon, as I think it is very important.
When it comes to Dome and the “Second Attacker Advantage” the issue is not completely the second attacker advantage. The issue is how long and frustrating it can be to attack on! This is causing people to be frustrated, not confident and even absent when it is their turn to defend. You would likely find that the second team to defend (the first attacking team) will start the second round with at least 1 less player a high percentage of the time. Also, Dome has a glitch spot where you can plant the C4 meaning its impossible to defuse. There is a high chance that people that are getting bored of playing the map for 20+ minuets are using the glitch spot to end the map quickly. It is also the easiest map to attack the final objective on, this means it is the most likely map to be effected by the second attacker advantage. Finally, due to the number of new players joining the map. They are using the first round to learn the map and second round to execute on the map.
Anyway, enough about Dome.
I would like to quickly point out one more thing when it comes to the second attacker advantage, its not always down to the attackers mentality. I would actually say that more often than not, the reason for finishing the maps in the last 10% of round is due directly to the defending team. Unfortunately we as humans like competition and as the competition with the enemy starts to wear thin (due to over confidence) you will find the defending teams taking more risks in order to bulk up their scores and kills. That over confidence and risk taking is a much harder thing to fix when compared to “getting your act together”. This is why I would make the guess that adding a “par timer” would actually increase the likely hood of defenders becoming over confident earlier (once par has been reached). This COULD result in simply the desired outcome but it could also increase the number of full holds and spawn camps by the defenders onto the attackers if the defenders skill level is matched by their confidence. However, that said, I would still like to see it implemented.
Terminal and White Chapel are around what I expected to see. Bridge is on the border of what I expected to see (around the 10% mark). Underground and Train Yard show signs of bad map design + new map bias due to the changes on the objectives. They are also the most frustrating to attack on due to the difficulty. This all works to knock the confidence of the first attacking team. I would expect their differences to get smaller over time but I think they will always be more obvious then Terminal and White Chapel. There is also a link between difficulty of the final objective and second attacker win rates. Terminal, White Chapel and Bridge are by far the hardest maps to attack the final objective on and these are less effected by the second attacker advantage. This is simply because the natural difficulty outweighs the psychological effect towards the end of the time limit.
All this is without mentioning the other advantage the second attackers have… The fact that they better know the skill of the team they are facing in the next round. I think this has not really come into its own problem as of yet due to most people that play the game knowing each other. I do however think that when many more people join and public matchmaking is in full swing we will start to notice this having more of an effect.
