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#1 DAEDALOS513

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Posted 27 January 2016 - 08:10 PM

Why are the maps getting bigger and bigger? Why did you remove the smaller maps?
As it stands we are wasting 2-5 minutes just walking at the beginning of most of the matches on the newer maps. Polar highlands is the worst of the bunch (and continues this unfortunate trend). We just spent 5 minutes running around without firing a single shot and that's why I felt compelled to post this.

I have a theory.. PGI is trying to make our matches last longer by adding walk time. Maybe we were making cbills too fast on the smaller maps? Maybe having matches last longer helps the matchmaker somehow? Who the hell knows.. all I know is these maps are toooo large.. and wait time between matches are tooo long.

My friend Goodtry broke it down for us in his reddit post.. he states the lag period between matches is:
30 second queue time
15 second voting time
60 second lobby time
15 secnd drop time
5 second boot up time
2-5 minutes of walk time (on newer maps)
and then usually 5 to 8 minutes of fighting (if you're skilled enough in tier 1 or 2)

Can we get a definitive answer on this.. why are these maps so large?

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 27 January 2016 - 08:13 PM.


#2 White Bear 84

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Posted 27 January 2016 - 08:39 PM

View PostDAEDALOS513, on 27 January 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

Can we get a definitive answer on this.. why are these maps so large?

Posted Image


Edited by White Bear 84, 27 January 2016 - 08:40 PM.


#3 Troutmonkey

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Posted 30 January 2016 - 01:41 PM

Maps like Polar Highlands offer something that smaller maps simply cannot. The ability to reposition and properly flank. When maps are too boxed in you simply cannot get around behind the enemy, so every engagement turns into a fight over choke points. I have to say I really like this new map and hope to see more maps heading in a similar direction

Edited by Troutmonkey, 04 February 2016 - 04:10 PM.


#4 MarsThunder

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 08:39 AM

View PostDAEDALOS513, on 27 January 2016 - 08:10 PM, said:

Why are the maps getting bigger and bigger? Why did you remove the smaller maps?
As it stands we are wasting 2-5 minutes just walking at the beginning of most of the matches on the newer maps.
...
Because it adds some more tactics to the game.

#5 Banse

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Posted 04 February 2016 - 10:33 AM

I also like this new map but must say that it is good to have variety with small maps like Mining Collective still in rotation.

When playing as a fast scouting light, Polar Highlands lets me do something which I feel I *SHOULD* be doing which is running way ahead of my side's main force and spotting enemy force movements. Now if only game score and C-Bills/XP wasn't 90% doing damage so my Locusts could focus on scouting and tagging/spotting instead of fighting.

On most other maps, there is no major point of scouting because there are limited points of contact with the enemy.

#6 Sable Dove

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 04:22 PM

It's literally just to increase grind. Adding 3-5 minutes of walking at the start of matches serves no other purpose.

If this weren't the case, teams would start closer together. The vast majority of conflict happens in a ring around the centre anyways (except in Conquest, where it's generally fought between two of the capture points), leaving 80% of the map unused for anything except travelling to the fight.

The terrain in Polar is what adds to the interest, not the size. If you cut the diameter in half, most players wouldn't even notice except that they'd get into action faster.

#7 Malavai Fletcher

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 05:29 PM

Maybe PGI wants to make scouting a thing?

#8 Kshat

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 11:36 PM

View PostSable Dove, on 08 February 2016 - 04:22 PM, said:

It's literally just to increase grind. Adding 3-5 minutes of walking at the start of matches serves no other purpose.

If this weren't the case, teams would start closer together. The vast majority of conflict happens in a ring around the centre anyways (except in Conquest, where it's generally fought between two of the capture points), leaving 80% of the map unused for anything except travelling to the fight.

The terrain in Polar is what adds to the interest, not the size. If you cut the diameter in half, most players wouldn't even notice except that they'd get into action faster.


If they wanted to increase the grind, it would be way easier to tweak the cbill/XP-gain.
Adding in ONE map of a dozen won't influence the grind that much.
You can safely drop your tinfoil hat regarding this issue.

The outer parts of Polar Highlands aren't meant to be played on. They're essentially fluff. It wouldn#t be right to find oneself running into visible or invisible walls in an area like that, so they added massive leeway that it feels to you like an open world - which is, essentially, not the case. Because your target to win the game forces both teams more or less to rally at points rather close to the middle of the map.
But yeah, they know that the gamemodes in public queues are lacking, which they promised to change during the upcoming year.

The only thing disencouraging scouting with lights (or meds) on this map is the pressure to field ECM in order to not get overLURM'd.
If they would link the sensor ranges at which a mech becomes targetable to the weight (size) of a mech, even a non-ECM-light could scout from ~700m afar.
That, and they should diminish the effectiveness of indirect fire for LRMs, so that you actually want to get your own locks.

#9 B0oN

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Posted 08 February 2016 - 11:38 PM

lol...lengthening the grind with map size ? You must be Vulcan, sir ? pffff, gnihihi
There´s all these flavours, and you chose salty ...


Maps SHOULD be effing huge . PERIOD
BUT WHY ?
- to let mechs stretch their legs
- give scouting some importance
- get some tactics and strategies into the game finally
- screw with the ADHD 2 second attention span crowd
- to shart into everyone´s cockpit that doesn´t like that "trend"
- maybe finally coerce a big part of the playerbase to start thinking, not only clicking and pressing "W" (either on mechs or "BUY" buttons in the store)

I hope this was easy enough to follow to make at least some sense .

Edited by Rad Hanzo, 08 February 2016 - 11:39 PM.


#10 DAEDALOS513

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 01:28 PM

View PostKshat, on 08 February 2016 - 11:36 PM, said:


If they wanted to increase the grind, it would be way easier to tweak the cbill/XP-gain.
Adding in ONE map of a dozen won't influence the grind that much.
You can safely drop your tinfoil hat regarding this issue.

The outer parts of Polar Highlands aren't meant to be played on. They're essentially fluff. It wouldn#t be right to find oneself running into visible or invisible walls in an area like that, so they added massive leeway that it feels to you like an open world - which is, essentially, not the case. Because your target to win the game forces both teams more or less to rally at points rather close to the middle of the map.

The only thing disencouraging scouting with lights (or meds) on this map is the pressure to field ECM in order to not get overLURM'd.

If they would link the sensor ranges at which a mech becomes targetable to the weight (size) of a mech, even a non-ECM-light could scout from ~700m afar.
That, and they should diminish the effectiveness of indirect fire for LRMs, so that you actually want to get your own locks.

First of all, please no disparaging remarks about tin foil hats.. that just shows other people you are grasping for straws before you present a likely weak argument (remember that for rl).

PGI is not going to touch the cbill/xp gains because it will turn off steam players (in fact they bumped them up just before steam to get these new players hooked easier). Expect them to go back down again in a year to year and a half.

It isn't just "one map in a dozen" that they added, the last 3 maps created have been overly and increasingly large..

The fluff as you call it is a time waster, plain and simple. There is no tactical (or even aesthetic) advantage in going into those outskirts.. I call it time-waster because the only time it's used is when there is a single surviving light at the end of a match. The light will drag the match on for a few more minutes running around. This extra space is not added-value realestate.. it should be cut down by at least 2 grid squares.

You do have some good ideas about ecm and sensor ranges. Thanks for the reply!

#11 DAEDALOS513

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 01:35 PM

View PostRad Hanzo, on 08 February 2016 - 11:38 PM, said:

lol...lengthening the grind with map size ? You must be Vulcan, sir ? pffff, gnihihi There´s all these flavours, and you chose salty ... Maps SHOULD be effing huge . PERIOD BUT WHY ? - to let mechs stretch their legs - give scouting some importance - get some tactics and strategies into the game finally - screw with the ADHD 2 second attention span crowd - to shart into everyone´s cockpit that doesn´t like that "trend" - maybe finally coerce a big part of the playerbase to start thinking, not only clicking and pressing "W" (either on mechs or "BUY" buttons in the store) I hope this was easy enough to follow to make at least some sense .


Logic is the beginning of wisdom... not the end... and your logic sir, is flawed. This is 'quick-play' not cw. Battle time should be far greater than search times + voting time + lobby wait + walking. You can still have scouting in smaller maps.. these maps are just obese. Anyway, that's why we have cw.. that's where huge maps should be found not quick-play.

You want more strategy, join a unit and drop CW. Quick-play should be like fast food, in and out, fast and quickly satisfying.

Live long and prosper.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 09 February 2016 - 01:37 PM.


#12 Duke Ragnar

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 01:47 PM

Polar Highlands is just the most recent example of PGI's never failing ability to screw up an iron ball with a rubber mallet. There was already waaaay too much wasted time in the game and these over-sized maps just make it worse. I was so hoping that the remake of Alpine would be an improvement, but nooo, we get this abomination instead. It has everything players hated about Alpine buffed up several notches. Way to go team!

Please don't "fix" any more of the maps.

Ragnar

#13 Anunknownlurker

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 02:57 PM

so, what I am reading here is that there are people who want to spawn, shoot, fight and die...well, there are plenty of games that provide that for you and if you really want that, then MWO is not the game for you.

What bigger maps give is is "movement into contact" (a phrase I recently learned) i.e. you have to move around the battlefield looking for lines of attack, defilade & enfilade, using cover to mask the true line of attack. Scouts finally have a role (in Polar Highlands they can be the difference between a dominating victory and a humiliating defeat). That's right, you have to actually THINK about where you are going and what you will do when you get there.

So it take you 2-3 minutes to make contact with the enemy, WONDERFUL, no more assault lances getting jumped by lights, no more being sniped as you leave the dropship/spawn point, you have the time to form up a firing line, get some flankers moving around to distract and harass the enemy once contact has been made.....man, I could go on for hours about how much bigger I want the maps to be and how much fun I have on the bigger maps.

But hey, what do I know, I just like stompy robots with fricking lazors....

Peace mechwarriors

#14 Azurhoden

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 03:10 PM

This new map is gorgeous, a light mech can really get around and be useful for more than peek-a-boo sniping. Oh, baby, the LRM rain, how it goes pitter-patter. This map make more sense than any other map thus far. Classic military strategies can now be put into play. Feints and Pincer manuvers and thing like that which are utterly meaning less on a tiny map where there are only two lanes of fire, one to the left and on to the right. On Polar Highlands you can really sneak up on people because you CAN finally get behind them, something usually not that easy to do because all appraoches are visible, thus leading to the NASCaR effect, which no one likes. NASCaR happens because the easiest way to kill a mech - other than by headshot - it to shoot them in the back, leading to most people thinking they can HERO their way thru it, and so the light tries to poke around a flank and... POP, busted leg as three mechs focus him, and then BANG, he's down... because the maps don't give enough room for a proper flank. BUT THIS ONE SURE DOES.
So, let me make this easy for you: If you don't have 15 minutes to devote to one match, then you might want to reconsider your hobby.
This game is an investment, in time, if not in dollars, if that's a problem for you...
If that element of time is taken out by some whiner majority, then you'll be left with a watered down, tin-plated shooting gallery, the worst kind of Lowest Common Denominator trash that a game can offer up for itself, IMPO, because such games are a dime a dozen and offer nothing in the way of mental challenge, just point and shoot, just like every other Call of Duty knock-off.
That kind of complaining was the same BS that got the voting system stapled into place, a system that has done nothing to improve the playability of the game and has done little to nothing to satisfy your time crunch. So please, stop, before you make bad, worse. If you don't have the time, then go find something else to do, but please stop trying to ruin this game any further by complaining about your casual player needs.

#15 Azurhoden

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 03:35 PM

Sorry, took me a moment to find the refference: punctuated equlimibrium. In context it describe something about biology and bological progressions, but it also has a secondary, almost coloquial meaning amoungst military personnel, especially combat personnel. Punctuated Eqilibrium is the almost perfect descriptor for war: hours - days, of tedious waiting and bordom, punctuated by infinitesimal moments of shear terror. That is the nature of war, and by extention any combat in that war. So, if you want to stand on your logic, fine. First, I defy you to give me a better descrptor of war - especially where "waiting" is the primary topic.
Next I direct your attention to the entire class of "predator", one of whom's primary characteristics is stalking or prowling, which translates as the abiility to wait for the right time, to seek the best position, and only then to strike. If you don't have the patience to wait a few extra minutes... then you really should go back to what ever FPS shooter you crawled out from under, but please stop pretending to be logical. For starters, wisdom, is an undefinded charactersitic, like "common sense", and it entirely dependent upon indivudual choices, as much as where you happen to be standing on the planet or who might be standing around you. I'm rather certain, for example, that if you went to a MENSA convention, you wouldn't be the wisest person there by any definition of the word. So then Logic is a subset of REASON, along with knowledge/experience as the other subset. And so I submit that your reasoning is flawed due to a lack of inherent knowledge/experience. I'm am certain that if you had been following this game from back in the day the way many of us have, that your perspective would be completely different. But I am just guessing here...

#16 DAEDALOS513

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 03:54 PM

View PostAzurhoden, on 09 February 2016 - 03:35 PM, said:

Sorry, took me a moment to find the refference: punctuated equlimibrium. In context it describe something about biology and bological progressions, but it also has a secondary, almost coloquial meaning amoungst military personnel, especially combat personnel. Punctuated Eqilibrium is the almost perfect descriptor for war: hours - days, of tedious waiting and bordom, punctuated by infinitesimal moments of shear terror. That is the nature of war, and by extention any combat in that war. So, if you want to stand on your logic, fine. First, I defy you to give me a better descrptor of war - especially where "waiting" is the primary topic.
Next I direct your attention to the entire class of "predator", one of whom's primary characteristics is stalking or prowling, which translates as the abiility to wait for the right time, to seek the best position, and only then to strike. If you don't have the patience to wait a few extra minutes... then you really should go back to what ever FPS shooter you crawled out from under, but please stop pretending to be logical. For starters, wisdom, is an undefinded charactersitic, like "common sense", and it entirely dependent upon indivudual choices, as much as where you happen to be standing on the planet or who might be standing around you. I'm rather certain, for example, that if you went to a MENSA convention, you wouldn't be the wisest person there by any definition of the word. So then Logic is a subset of REASON, along with knowledge/experience as the other subset. And so I submit that your reasoning is flawed due to a lack of inherent knowledge/experience. I'm am certain that if you had been following this game from back in the day the way many of us have, that your perspective would be completely different. But I am just guessing here...

It went right over your head too... i'll just repeat myself. CW is meant for all of the above you explained.. NOT quickplay.

I see you are new to the game and everything is exciting and new and shiny.. but to a veteran.. not so much.. we expect things to get better..not just 'bigger.;

The 'logic' comments I made were a play on his reference to Vulcans.

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 09 February 2016 - 03:55 PM.


#17 Azurhoden

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 04:08 PM

Wrong again... The game is not EVER meant to be less than a 15 minute draw on your time... And YES, I AM talking about "Quick-Play". CW is indeed for longer engagements, that's why they take a half an hour. This game is a time investment. Get over it.

#18 Azurhoden

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 04:22 PM

View PostDAEDALOS513, on 09 February 2016 - 03:54 PM, said:

I see you are new to the game and everything is exciting and new and shiny.. but to a veteran.. not so much.. we expect things to get better..not just 'bigger.;


LOL, I've been playing Mechwarrior since MechWarrior was a thing. I still have my BattleTech Minis from when I was in highschool back in the late 80's. So, yeeeaaah...

LOL, "Better" he says, as if you even had an idea of what that meant, rather than just some subjective personal opinion based on the gaming experience you want to have, regardless of the rest of the community or playable history of the game. But see, that's how I know you aren't a hunter. You don't want to have to think about what you are doing, which is what that map makes you do. Cuz you never know which side they will sneak up on you from.

This game is not about how you shoot, but it is about how you think, and so wide open spaces scare you cuz you can't just throw your self into a brawl and expect to win, you have to carefully out wit the enemy, play with them at range and make them come to you, and you just haven't figured out how to do that yet, because if you had, this map would give you a hard-on! this map is taylor made for real hunters, and I suspect anyone whose ever gone out hunting deer or elk, or some other larger game animal like that, would agree with me. This map teaches you to keep your head on a swivel, or risk getting jumped.

And, so what?!? That's all this particular incarnation of the game was ever about anyhow: figure out how to snipe from long range, or figure out how to get in close and jump the other guy, and, just a guess, I bet you like being in close doncha? Aw... (gives a hug and a little squeeze)

Tell ya this though: work smarter, not harder. Look up military tactics on YouTube or something, but leave the game alone because "you ain't got the time". Time crunch buggers have already ruined this game enough.

Thank you for playing, please try again.

Edited by Azurhoden, 09 February 2016 - 04:33 PM.


#19 DAEDALOS513

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 04:25 PM

View PostAzurhoden, on 09 February 2016 - 04:08 PM, said:

Wrong again... The game is not EVER meant to be less than a 15 minute draw on your time... And YES, I AM talking about "Quick-Play". CW is indeed for longer engagements, that's why they take a half an hour. This game is a time investment. Get over it.

It's all relative.. from TIER 1 perspective, games are too long if they reach 7-8 minutes.

View PostAzurhoden, on 09 February 2016 - 04:22 PM, said:


LOL, I've been playing Mechwarrior since MechWarrior was a thing. I still have my battle tech Minis from when I was in highschool back in the late 80's. So, yeah...

LOL, and see, that's how I know you aren't a hunter, you don't want to have to think about what you are doing, which is what that map makes you do. Cuz you never know which side they will sneak up on you from. This game is not about how you shoot but it is about how you think, and so wide open spaces scare you cuz you can't just throw your self into a brawl and expect to win, you have to carefully out wit the enemy, play with them at range and make them come to you, and you just haven't figured out how to do that yet, because if you had, this map would give you a hard on - even if you were a gurl! this map is taylor made for real hunters, and I suspect anyone whose ever gone out hunting deer or elk, some larger game animal like that, would agree with me. This map teaches ye te keep yer hed on a swivel laddie, or risk getting jumped. And, so what?!? That's all this paarticular incarnation of the game was ever about anyhow: figure out how to snipe from long range, or figure out how to get in close and jump the other guy, and, just a guess, I bet you like being in close doncha? Aw...
Tell ya this: work smarter, not harder. Look up military tactics on YouTube or something, but leave the game alone because "You ain't got the time". Time crunch buggers have already ruined this game enough.

Thank you for playing, please try again.

That's all fine and good (TL:DR) but to wait 1 year for new new map and to get this abomination is a slap in the face.. this is more of a filler map, something made on a weekend, something thrown in between 2 or 3 good maps where actual thought processes were involved in their creation... this map was thrown together so ppl couldn't say pgi wasn't creating new maps..

Edited by DAEDALOS513, 09 February 2016 - 04:26 PM.


#20 MechB Kotare

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Posted 09 February 2016 - 04:26 PM

Erm... I remember previous MW titles being also more about patience, rather than pure brainless FPS experience....





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