lartfor, on 22 December 2014 - 11:40 AM, said:
Maps are the problem here folks... Lets try and not distract ourselves.
Maps are 90% of the problem, they're pretty badly designed and don't seem to have been thought out much - I don't understand how there are only two of them, with the lack of thought and the amount of assets built up from the other maps, they should have been able to create so many more if this low standard was all that was required and pruned them down.
I mean, it's pretty much
"drop point, some lanes, some gates, a cannon for the target, dot some turrets around. Done. Hmm, thats not working, just throw in some more generators ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ "
compare that to the kind of thought that goes into something like CS:GO:
http://www.counter-s...troducing_train
Now, de_train is 14 years old. They've had plenty of time to do several passes on it, make lots of improvements over time. There were a handful of terrible maps in the CS betas that have been pruned out or refined over time. However, it does highlight the level of attention to detail required to make high-quality competitive multiplayer maps.
The CW maps don't just lack that attention to detail, they appear to lack any understanding of how the game actually plays out.
However, there are other aspects that make it harder for IS teams to co-operate. The clan mechs are all pretty similar in approach - medium-to-long range, mostly 80 - 100 kph base speed, lots of main ball ECM cover and a few of the mechs are so good that most people have very similar drop-decks. This makes it a lot more simple for people to coordinate than an IS group where it's likely to be a lot more of a mix of different stuff. That, combined with not being able to see in advance what map its going to be leading to people picking brawly stuff for their first mech and ending up on Boreal makes it much more difficult to play to your strengths when playing as an IS PUG.
I'd like to be able to see a team's full drop deck rather than just the first mech people are taking. I'd hope VOIP would also help.
However, it does come back down to the awful maps.