256 replies to this topic

[Dr Horst]

Nice, big map, but the heat sucks. I mean, 98 degrees, and still same starting heat/ heatbuild as River City with 23 degrees. I mean, what the heck? And the lava sucks, too. Too less heat/ dmg while standing in it.
In my eyes, the map is a flop if there won´t be anything made better. It´s big, okay, thats nice. But the heat management is the same like River City, Forest Colony etc. Even in Canyon Network I overheat more.

[Bront]

mekabuser, on 31 July 2013 - 05:06 AM, said:

HOW ABOUT A FLAT BATTLEFIELD FOR ONE?

Flat is boring. No hills for cover, no real distinguishing features, it's all just there. River City is about as flat as I think we'll get.

Now, if we ever get an Arena level, THEN you'll see mostly flat.

[Wildstreak]

Whether they raise or not the lava damage, I just hope it is tested against the Trial Mechs for the new players. I tried this map last night while also testing the Trial BJ-1X, standing in lava pushed the heat up on it and damaged the legs. It is easy to see less effect against customs used by longer time players like myself and think it should do more penalties but if I were new....

[Bitslizer]

Leafia Barrett, on 31 July 2013 - 11:14 AM, said:

Apparently, the rate at which you heat up in the lava is directly tied to the number of heatsinks you have (and possibly whether it's SHS or DHS). It's possible that the Atlas simply had so many heatsinks that the lava couldn't even heat him up enough to matter.

I had 16 doubleheat sinks and I shot up to 89% heat pretty darn quick, but he was fighting/killing everything in the lava pit against everything that fell down for MINUTES

[Xandre Blackheart]

This map has been officially nicknamed "Mordor Alpine Zork".

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

It is basically Alpine with Lava and fewer avenues of approach and more limited fields of fire.
Every game we played after the first couple of 0-0 cap win/loss we just sat at base and waited. Turned out that was a hell of a lot more fun than walking around in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

I'm also noticing a trend towards unrealistic terrain. Mountains, everywhere mountains. Do we only fight on mountainous terrain in the future? What about gently rolling hills? Giant forests? Swamps?

If you look at military history battles actually ARE mostly fought on generally level terrain that allows for maneuvering. It's not until you get to Sicily, Southern Italy, Korea, or Afghanistan that you see a lot of dedicated mountain engagements. I'm not against mountain maps, but they shouldn't be the norm.

Every map in MWO except River City is mountainous terrain, and you could argue that River CIty is just a River valley in between mountainous terrain.

Tell you what, you replicate me something epic, like the southwestern approach to Stalingrad in WW2 or the Terrain around Kursk, or the eastern approach to Berlin, or crossing the Rhine and we'll just forget all about this horror of a map where I fully expect to see two Commandos with the call-signs Sam and Frodo trying to toss a Spider with call-sign Gollum into the volcano.

Edited by Xandre Blackheart, 31 July 2013 - 12:10 PM.

[Khanahar]

Too big is just right. 12v12 and all.

Also, regarding caps: There are always more caps right after a map is released. We just don't know how to scout properly yet.

[Reaper One Nine]

Ok, now that I have played the map a few times i simply do not like it either. Perhaps more mechs will make it more fun but there are some issues that are counter productive in the fun area.

First, the size is not friendly at the current state. You simply can not even scout it easily to find the enemy to engage. I agree with the other posts. The vertical approaches are simply to steep. Take the inaccessible areas and the playable surface of this map is reduced to direct lines of approach. If you want this corrected quickly, simply cut the size in half or we all agree that we treat it as and arena and simply meet at Theta.

The heat, well I think its just an issue we need to deal with. I for one simply don't want every drop to be an ice drop where the goal is who can put on the biggest gun without fear of over heating. So, I for one think the heat is just fine.

Future maps? I agree with Xandre, give us rolling hills, swamps and heavy, nearly impassable forests where sinkholes slow you down but can be transversed, trees block direct attacks and the real battle falls on and for the high ground.... give us a a full blown urban environment, sky scrapers and highways where every missile shot better be well timed or close by, where artillery and airstrikes play an important role and siesmic sensors or UAVs are needed, not just a toy.

I simply think, as a player and as most agree, this map will become another River City Night or Caustic Valley, one of those we will play, but simply would rather play others.... ( i actually like both of those, but others have voiced not so similar opinions)

[Force Majeure]

Lots of issues with the map.
First and foremost: lots of small rocks to get stuck on!
This is not an issue with the map per say, more with the way the game deals with low obstacles.
Here is a video to illustrate:


Notice how my tall Highlander should be able to step on those rocks and crates without any problem... and he does in some instances, but only when I have a running start. If my speed is too low, it's like the small object behaves like a very steep hill... even though I should only need to take one step to get over it.
This is a major issue with the new movement paradigm... but Terra Therma takes the frustration to new heights.


Next: inconsistent and incoherent lava heat/damage!
This video illustrates perfectly:


I like that the rivers of lava cause your heat to go up and damages your legs... but they don't always do. In this video, you can see that I found a cool spot, even though it's the same river of lava.
Same issue all over the map! Also, I would argue that even the "cooler" blobs of lava should inflict heat... Especially since the little fires in River City are enough to make your heat jump up 15% just by touching them!!! I'm pretty sure MOLTEN LAVA is a lot hotter than some burning trash!!!

And at the other end of the spectrum, you have the mouth of the volcano, which does't feel like it's inflicting enough damage... I'm no lava expert, but this stuff looks way too gooey for some 100 ton machine to run across, and not sink a little. In my opinion, falling into that stuff should be deadly... If you don't want your map to contain such an environmental hazard, then at least change the visual so it's more coherent.

Which brings me to the final issue, my favorite: the invisible wall at the middle of the map!!!
WTF guys?!?
I know this one has been reported already, but just for the heck of it:

[Stonka]

The map looks awesome.

But at the moment it doesn't play very well.

apart from the bugs found so far, my biggest gripe is not knowing i'm about to drop on terra therma, trying to level my highlanders and i see terra therma loading just makes me want to alt-f4 at the moment...

however if I'm in one of my lights with JJ's i love being able to dance around everyone who's getting stuck on pebbles!

[VXJaeger]

Horrible with Stalker/Misery. Invisible walls everywhere and snailwalking between them.

Pic1: Step is too high to pass. Same as driving into wall.


Pic2: Same here as in pic1. Cannot walk over.


Pic3: Stalker/Misery very often does snailwalk downhill, even when throttle is at max.


Neither fix map or fix Stalkers. Basically if you end up to this map with Stalker/Misery, it's that neither stay and defend base or disconnect immediatelly and try your luck w/ another mech.
Whole map is just walking and/or running in tubes between hills where you cannot climb.

GJ with that hill climbing limitation and bringing this kinda maps after that, nitwits. Now all maps are more or less walking in tubes and moving in them is limited to few strict routes.

Edited by VXJaeger, 01 August 2013 - 03:01 AM.

[Funkadelic Mayhem]

Every few matches I get a bug where I stop and go/ slowing down every other step. Impossible to get at full speed anywhere I have explored on the map.

[TygerLily]

arghmace, on 30 July 2013 - 01:57 PM, said:

Also why does the spawn point have to be in the cap zone? For big maps it would be wise to start closer to the center so that your own base is way behind you. This way you wouldn't have to spend several minutes of your life just walking forward and yawning until you see the enemy.

This is actually a really good idea! Although, it makes scouting in the first few minutes less important.

Maybe I should edit and offer my thoughts on the map...On topic? WTF?

I think the lighting is fine for this map. I also think the default is that people generally head to their main landmark, the platform. I think this map plays well for any sort of jumping brawler or light mechs but one wrong turn and you are trapped with the enemy main body. So far it's been really fun every time (including a couple cap losses - No cap races yet).

Edited by TygerLily, 31 July 2013 - 01:22 PM.

[Xandre Blackheart]

La Guillotine, on 31 July 2013 - 12:54 PM, said:

I'm pretty sure MOLTEN LAVA is a lot hotter than some burning trash!!!

You've never seen me burning trash before...

Thermite is the only way to go.

[Kyrs]

Invisible wall that block only my awesome 8Q, the rest of my team manage to pass to get inside the center ring zone.

4360 - 3921.4 - 480

[JDH4mm3r]

Well, new map is a new map, but aside from how nice it looks... I think PGI pulled a MS on this one. This map is nowhere near ready for game play and 8v8s. After 4-5 times i've played on this map, i grew bored of it like that. its just not that interesting.

PGI, If i were you, i'd run a poll to test the player base and see what are their favorite maps because, getting the same map over and over 2,3,4,5,10x in a row is NOT HOW IT SHOULD BE.

A code for every player so they dont get the same map more than once in a row would be suitable because there are certain maps that i'll only visit once and play more on others because according to my map stats, tourmaline is the most played map, ahead by 50 games over other maps. Something i really don't want with terra therma. You can either do that kinda code or give players map choice, otherwise this will surely fail at the rate of repeatability it has right now.

[Training Instructor]

It might be another map they tested with spiders to the exclusion of all other mechs, like Alpine Peaks and Canyons.

Their test team is small and mostly seems to be made up friends of the developers, rather than competent testers who actually notice problems before content is put into circulation.

[Tice Daurus]

Training Instructor, on 31 July 2013 - 01:51 PM, said:

It might be another map they tested with spiders to the exclusion of all other mechs, like Alpine Peaks and Canyons.

Their test team is small and mostly seems to be made up friends of the developers, rather than competent testers who actually notice problems before content is put into circulation.

That's something that shouldn't happen. ALL maps should be tested with multiple mechs and the Stalker should be with one of them so basic areas that are supposed to be accessable to all mechs the Stalker seems to be the mech you need to testing with to make sure you can reach it.

[Leafia Barrett]

[edit: reuploading]
Video of the lava damage as applied to the trial Commando 2D. (river near the caldera, couldn't find my way up to the caldera in a reasonable amount of time) Short story shorter: takes 1 minute 30 seconds (give or take) for a full-health trial Commando to die in the lava. I'm gonna rerender and reupload a fixed version of the video (the music goes all screwy about 2 minutes 15 seconds in).

EDIT: Removed video link, will be replaced when the fixed one is done uploading

Edited by Leafia Barrett, 31 July 2013 - 06:25 PM.

[Xenok]

I think when the hiding places and sticky spots are fixed this will be a good map. One item really gets me but its not specific to this map, its any map that is large. Conquest needs to have a modified score requirement based on map size. This map, like other large maps is an instant loss if you do not have lights and the other team does. The score requirement and capping time requirements should both scale up as maps get larger.

[Kelito]

Onlystolen, on 30 July 2013 - 11:54 AM, said:

WELL... its seems my commando is have ALOT of trouble (with an xl195 + tweak) traversing the new map.. what seems to be flat ground is slowing me down to half speed at some points.. i couldnt even out run a victor. the hell?

Yea, it is doing the same thing for the Jenner, flat ground I get really bad slow down and forget going over any sorta terrain. I think PGI messed something up. I can't even get sustained speed over 50k, its pretty bad when an atlas can traverse better, and go faster than a jenner