The reason why I was posting your game stats wasn't just to pick on you, it was in hopes that you would look at them yourself.  I was hoping you'd search back to find a game against good players that you won and see all the mediocre and bad players you've beaten along the way.

I haven't been revamping the content of my posts in any noticeable way unless you saw my post the instant and hit Reply and read within the minute or two in which I made edits.

Also when viewing edits realize that if you change a single letter it marks the whole line as "added text."  For example I had typed "instint" instead of instant on the sentence above this one and it'll look like I had made a major change when I hadn't.

Actually I do, and you COMPLETELY change the content of your posts sometimes, but I have to go for now. Be back in about 4-7 hours. Have fun SoFFacet

Edit: Find two partners. We don't ussualy play less than 3v3.. it doesn't feel teamish at that point. Our third is almost always random though.

The real problem with flag locks is that the cool down time on the flag lock scroll and teleport scroll is less than the length of the flag lock.  You can literally teleport back in and lock the flag before the other team can turn the flag - even if the enemy team is standing of the flag when the lock drops.

Premades do not go every single game without deaths or mistakes. Do you see us complaining about why we lost or messed up? No. We change our strategy to try to prevent it from happening again. Premades can do that on a team level. Also, we compare our tactics to a very wide range of good and bad tactics because we play against different players with a consistent strategy.

I consider puggers as brainstormers, we take into account the tactics of our opponents at the end of the game. Who did well against us? How did they get their kills? What caused trouble for us? What could we do to prevent any problems we ran into? Whenever someone uses a new tactic, we consider whether or not we think it would be effective. Puggers cannot do that, because they can only reflect on their own tactics over time.

Flag locks on cataract are a perfect example of how coordination changes tactics, for one, any attempt to capture a flag will be met with 2-3 demigods teleporting in. If your team controls the side flags consider yourself safe from sudden portal caps because you'll see them headed in that direction long before they can cap. If they rush three guys at a portal flag, you'll have your own team there to meet them. and probably have mobbed your creeps at their citadel before having to port. If you can't defend your portals 3v3 you're doomed anyways. Portal flag locks are not the goal, they're a shortcut against people who let it happen or a desperate measure.

When the portals are at a standstill, it boils down to advancing your creeps to the citadel, once their at the front door, capping portals won't do much because the citadel with about 50-60 creeps and 3 heroes bashing on it is going to drop regardless of whether or not you have portals.

Puggers have an understanding of the general abilities of individual DGs and what one can accomplish as a single player with unreliable allies. This is "Level 1."

Premades who only pubstomp have an understanding of how coordinated DGs can work together, how they can compliment eachother's strengths and cover up their weaknesses, and how the tactics of a single enemy DG can be mitigated by intelligent teamwork. This is "Level 2." 

As we've both said, the understanding of a premade player who has played against other premades is even higher: Level 3. These teams understand what coordinated attacks might be thrown at them and how they can coordinate themselves to stop it. They see that some tactics that looked like they could be controlled at "Level 2" actually become ferocious again once the enemies start coordinating to make it work. 

I suppose you doubt that this progression actually exists, but I have lived it, and in more games than just this one. 

And it's not just Cataract. Works on Zikkurat as well, and to lesser extant, Leviathan. The big thing is that, in an even game, having more portals and giants will usually win the game, and Flag Locks really exploit that.

Ok Mr. Technical, no, one does not necessarily acquire greater understanding from playing just one Pre vs Pre game against just any premade opponents. It would help if they were actually skilled opponents, and did something that you hadn't thought of before and/or gave you some trouble with the usual strategy that you had previously dominated everyone with. Obviously there are different shades in these levels (3.1, 3.2, etc), as some Premades are better than others because they have greater understanding. By the same token, all pubstompers are not the same. However, there is a very strong correlation between number of pre vs pre games one plays and his understanding of the game. If one plays enough Pre vs Pre one will develop at least some facets of the understanding present at what I previously dubbed "Level 3," and that understanding cannot be acquired any other way. 

If you want to list my game history, go ahead. You'll find several pubstomps, some with my full team and some with 1 pub ally. You'll also find quite a few pre vs pre games. If you have trouble finding them, I'm sure I can remember which ones they are, and probably tell you exactly what happened in any given one.

Yes, in fact I am. And?

And what happens when the opponents bring a friend? If they can't win an even fight on their home turf that late in the game, they're doomed anyways. 

I've said this before, but its the dead DGs that decide the game, not the locks. 

You're not fighting good players with any consistency and it's not even your fault, you explicitly state no noobs and bad players still join.  It sucks, but that's the way it is.

It's just absurd to think that you're reaching this different level of play by trudging through this game's absolute lack of competitive matchmaking.

Now you are deliberately misrepresenting my arguments. I did not say that I know strategy Z, I'm saying that whatever the "latest" strategy in the game is, a premade team has it, and the only people that can learn those types of strategies are the premade teams that play against them. Also, you know full well "level 3" does not describe a specific game, it describes a person's overall understanding. Playing some pub stomps does not undo the learning that took place during any previous pre vs pre games, and you know it. 

Also: 

http://pantheon.demigodthegame.com/game/689095

We were slightly ahead in kills and levels in the lategame before my router skipped and i disconnected. GTFO. 

I was discussing this a bit with some friends, and I came to a simple conclusion.

Base portals should be uncpaturable.  If it's not a neutral portal, but a base portal, it should be uncapturable. 

The ammount of time it takes to ninja a flag and lock, is a pretty small window.  And yah, you can counter it.  But Warscore, as a mechanic, is good enough.  It gives you incentive to cap flags, and keep them, and it gives you a hell of a large advantage, for 'x' ammount of time once you hit priests, catas, and giants.  The momentum you gain with priests allows you to push most base defenses down, and keeps retreating to a minimum.  The cata advantage, finishes off those towers that still stand.  So on, and so forth. 

Momentum is hard, but not impossible, to halt or even reverse.  But a successful sneak attack on a portal is very hard to come back from, because it further devides attention, and puts a lot more damage from the enemy team on the field, giving them a huge advantage.  As if the advantage of controlling the flags and warscore, wasn't enough.  The flip side to this coin, is that its also possible to come back, from a disadvantage, by capping portals and locking.  If a team gets giants, but can't spawn any troops, and you can keep it that way, you will push them from your citadel, push to theirs, and win the game. 

The fact is, end game, creeps are a powerful asset.  Too powerful to be denied to one team, and granted the other.  Having flags taken is detrimental in several ways, most of them obvious.  What about the upgrades youve put into it for creeps?  All that money is wasted if they can't spawn. 

The worst part is, when you get a portal ganked, its virtually impossible (without multiple interrupts) to keep it from getting relocked, and relocked.  Even if you guard it, the enemy has a great timer in the form of a cooldown, letting them know when it expires.  If they are like me, they will warp to it as soon as they know it is about to expire, and start to replant immediatley, then cancel, to try and make the enemy guarding it waste their stun, then proceed to actually lock it.  Worse still, most of the time, the citadel is being pounded so hard at this time that enemies will have to leave portals alone to get creeps off of it.

Thus came my conclusion.  The lock is not overpowered.  The ability to capture, and lock, base portals, IS a gamebreaking experience, and an overpowered strategy/move/whatever you wanna call it.

Perhaps my rush to say Portals shouldnt be capturable is extreme.  But one thing is clear to me.  At the very least, base portals should not be lockable by enemy teams.  This would mean they have to baby sit the portal to keep it under their control, and divide their attention, as well as the enemies.  This is a fair trade off, for the huge advantage gained by having an enemy portal.  The ability to simply cap it, then return to smashing citadel or ensure your own creeps are living and stacking up, is too large an advantage.

Make them uncappable, or unlockable, and the game has a lot more leg to it.  No longer would matches be determined as soon as you see that flag go red (cuz lets be honest, the chance of recovering from that is slim.  Yah it can be done, and I've seen it done....but its usually more than just skill.  It usually involves a mistake/carlessness by the enemy team and some luck).

I don't really see a disadvantage in terms of game play by having them either uncappable, or unlockable.  It would simply remove a fire and forget tactic, that is too powerful.  Those who argue that it isnt too powerful, I don't really understand.  If it wasnt a game ender or a tactic that had great impact, none of us would bother with it....But as I said...end game creeps are a huge advantage.  More of em, is more of an advantage.  Warscore is something you have to gradually work at, and put a bit of thought behind, and quite a bit of effort, sacrificing levels at times to secure flags.  But portal capping, is not nearly as strategic as some are making it out to be.  But it is powerful. And it is the way we have adapted to playing the game...so its scarey, for some, to think beyond that, and look at the larger picture.

Making them uncapturable would be a bad idea. Pressuring those flags is the best way to get them off the citidel mob. 3-5 demigods next to a health crystal could probably take the creeps down endlessly, especially the AoE ones. Unlockable isn't exactly the best solution in my opinion because the winning team would have to babyguard the flag or it'd just be recaptured the second they left. You have to remember the team is right next to both flags, the main lane, and a health crystal. Meanwhile the attackers usually have to move around the outside.

Completely denying caplocking portals is too much, it would drag out endgames unnecessarily. Perhaps it would be a better idea put a non attacking tower/fortress next to it and require that it be destroyed before you can capture the flag or something along those lines.

+Karma for getting us back on topic

LOL, this thread is full of win.  I wish there were a far better way to join games with friends and make new ones.  As for the challenge game matchup, I'd love to be involved in that, so lame that it is so hard to play a game with someone I don't know irl like wicked.  Since we can't rely on the retarded in game communication system maybe we can post a time in these forums and all meet up.

Oh and on topic, flag locks aren't overpowered they are just a game mechanic, I don't feel like games degenerate into some boring flag locking game when equal teams match up.  Flag locking has made the chance for some nice comebacks though, its important to understand all the tools available to you and when they might be useful.  If you are checking warscore and see your opponent at 8 or worse 10, better start keeping your eyes open.

Also on topic, if they were to change locks (again not saying they need to) I think an acceptable change would be a slight increase in cooldown, giving the enemy a small window with which to retake the flag if they can.  So that for about 5-10 seconds the flag would be unlocked.  Then again, a good enemy trying to retake the flag could always just use an interupt to stop the relocking as well.