175 replies to this topic

[Lavi]

I don't know if it's a bug related with this map or not.

On testing grounds I climbed with a K2 through one of those amazing crystal ramps to be able to see the entire map.

My guilty side on me thought.... what would happen if I fall from here?
I pushed forward and....
NOTHING

no damage on my legs. EVEN the velocity of my falling felt BAD no acceleration.. HELL i doubt I arrived to terminal velocity with the height i was before.

BUT
traveling with the same K2 i fell from a minor metheor crashing ridge , the mech did the classis "miss-step", and got my leg turned yellow instantly


It's not a fault in one of the crystal ramps, i tried it in 2 of them at least.. i Don't know if the third was a repeated one or not

Genewen, on 20 March 2013 - 01:44 PM, said:

Starting to hate this map. Every second drop is Tourmaline. Last few matches:
Tourmaline - Frozen City - Tourmaline - Forest Colony - Tourmaline - Frozen City - Tourmaline - Forest Colony Snow - Tourmaline.

STOP IT!

You have had bad luck...
I have only been able to be on it in testing grounds.

[JediMechwarrior]

This map is very different. love the layout. high to low. open to contained. a wide variety of fighting tends to take place. only issue i've come across is a bug where my IFF shows on the minimap only. no blue triangles. no red boxes. I don't know where i should post that, but there it is.

May the Force Be With You...and steady supplies of ammo

[Riddler9884]

The Good
This Map definitely gets top marks
Good places to snipe from
Plenty of places to take cover from both LRM and PPC snipping.

The Bad
Compared to Caustic Valley, Caustic Valley needs an Overhaul (they are both hot maps)
Compared to Alpine, Alpine needs more Jagged Cliffs a la tourmaline, otherwise its a bigger just as desolate and cold version of Caustic Valley (Alpine is the only other map that comes close is size)

Edited by Riddler9884, 21 March 2013 - 07:25 AM.

[EV1LSPOCK]

Great visuals and cover to fight from. Would work better in a deathmatch mode where mechs were forced to fight rather than cap though.

[Herr Vorragend]

I don´t know if I am the first one, but I am not sure, what to think about tourmaline. After PGI is collecting data by putting this map very often into the map cycle I am missing diversion. You could have put in cave-like elements (something like a cave with lot´s of holes in the roof). Those crooked crystals are getting to boring soon and seem a bit, well.. uninspired.

What i am missing is: different "floors". More layers where you could walk. Atm it´s always one layer, except the bridges in the city map. Of course, you can climb thos crystals in tourmaline, or use the mountains in the other maps. But usually it´s one layer. The tunnel in the upper city comes a little close to my idea. you can walk the tunnel, or get up the hill and use the small bridges to cross the tunnel on the second "floor".

Also i often get the feeling (and that´s the reason, why I don´t like alpine that much, too), that some ways are too long. You´re putting your mech on speed and wait... and wait... and wait... the surrounding "nature" gets boring soon and I almost could smoke a cigarette while watching my mech walk, until the battle starts. I appreciaty more diversion inside the maps.

So i am looking forward to a city map with that size of tourmaline

[Hauser]

Love the map.

Loads of cover that with good manoeuvring can be circumvented.

It's a tad big when playing a sub 60kp though. Haven't seen much of the map yet besides the direct line to the enemy start. Would like to see this play w/ dropship mode.

[SpuriousLogic]

This map is ******* incredible!


MOAR!!!!!!

[Koniving]

Great map. Love the details. It brings up a few issues though.

Certain mechs, due to not having back walls to their cockpits, reveal glaring sunlight that passes through the backside of the cockpit and bounces all over the consoles while walking; especially on the Awesomes. Annoys the crap out of me in my Pretty Baby.

The maps all use the same grid system and not fully. So one grid square in Forest Colony covers a tiny space where one grid square in Alpine or Tourmaline Desert it may as well be 1,500 meters or more (about half of Forest Colony in size). Makes the grid system about worthless and the comparison in size very difficult to judge when looking at the command map.

I love how -- since PGI has not had the chance to dillute it with the dozens of really gritty and terrible filters -- colorful everything is in terms of mechs. A lime green looks lime green rather than just 'green', I can really tell the difference between my duller color choices compared to merc company's more expensive, brighter colors. That's good. In previous maps such as Frozen City, blue looks black. Black looks black. Pink looks red. Red looks red. Orange looks red. Yellow looks red. You get the idea. Here, colors look like colors. I like that. Don't you DARE put any of those crappy filters on this map. They make the game look like crap.

That said, in case if PGI does do that, enjoy some shots taken at very high settings.


Any other map, this Jade Dragon paint job would look like Basic Green. Atrocious. Here, it looks awesome.


Can't wait for tesselation.



Star gate anyone?


Reminds me of the Desert Concept Art released back in Closed Beta. But with more black and no lava.


Texture quality isn't even all around, but certainly more consistant than existing maps.


It's really beginning to look like a next gen game.


I'm hoping that eventually some of these spikey rocks could be ripped through over time so that cover isn't permanent.



Weapons fire in the distance.



Makes me wonder if an urban map could be this big.



My favorite thing about this map is that it's not flat. My second favorite thing is PGI hasn't dilluted it with thousands of lousy filters. Let's keep it that way.

[Deathlike]

This map is great... probably the best of all the maps they have released (Alpine being the worst IMO).

With that said, the only major issue is that a lot of the HUD bug issues seem to occur on this map. For what reason, I don't know.

Luckily, it doesn't suffer from the same occasional lockups on Caustic than here...

[Noobzorz]

Merchant, on 20 March 2013 - 10:07 AM, said:

Only been on this map in Testing Grounds so far.

Along with Alpine, I believe the time allowed for a match should be increased and/or bases should take longer to cap.

Cannot find the Cicada in Testing Grounds yet, almost missed the Catapult.

Heat, noticed when doing nothing Mech generates 6% heat compared to 5% on Caustic, 1% is not much of a difference though the temp is not far off either, 97C on Desert vs 85C on Caustic.

You should find ways to play the maps differently.
Once on Alpine, my team started from Sigma point and headed south instead of the usual Epsilon location. Enemy team came to us and the fight was just west of Kappa heading into the path to Gamma. Lot more fun than the usual Epsilon battle.

Bases do take longer to cap I believe. In fact, they take so much longer to cap that it is actually realistic for someone a kilometer away to make in time. It is that noticeable.

[Glowhollow]

Hi there !

First Impression - The map is designed like a tube... The most fights will be done around E5...

If you know that, the fights are interesting - and if you got some excellent snipers you can deal a lot of damage to your enemy because of its design.

-----

negative is here - the design as a tube... you have predfined routes, and not that possibilties to switch from one route to the others, because of the Stagnites. Also the "fall-damage" is not correctly calculated...

----

Result:

If you can add some small paths between the main routes - you will add some more diversity !

greetings !

[Kilo Sensei]

I love this big map!!

This happened the first time though...



Keep making em big! Makes for more varied games.

[Versak]

The terrain hitboxes are absolutely awful. Almost everything that isn't flat ground doesn't match visually with where impacts can occur.

[irony1999]

Map is all wrong in Heat Vision. Looks like -100, and mechs stick out like bright sore thumbs. It should look like Caustic Valley in heat vision - practically useless.

[Das Wudone]

whenever my lasers graze the terrain hitbox at point blank my fps stutters horribly. this doesnt happen on other maps.

[Koniving]

irony1999, on 21 March 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

Map is all wrong in Heat Vision. Looks like -100, and mechs stick out like bright sore thumbs. It should look like Caustic Valley in heat vision - practically useless.

They haven't set up the heat vision since they plan on introducing a whole new heat vision system in the next big patch or two. Honestly I wouldn't have either if I planned on swapping the whole system in the next couple of weeks.

[Forestal]

irony1999, on 21 March 2013 - 06:47 PM, said:

Map is all wrong in Heat Vision. Looks like -100, and mechs stick out like bright sore thumbs. It should look like Caustic Valley in heat vision - practically useless.

Hmm, that's exactly what I'm getting-- heat vision virtually useless (slightly lighter greens on slightly darker greens) because of high ambient temperature...

Edited by Forestal, 21 March 2013 - 08:24 PM.

[Forestal]

After playing by myself in Tourmaline Desert (to let all the patch/hotfix outrage play out...) until my legs literally gave out, I have 2 more words for this map:

"Jump-Jet Heaven"


Although virtually all areas/levels of the map are accessible by simple trekking/climbing (what do the mech have on their feet? 31st Century Grappling Hooks?), Peak-hopping/Cliff-jumping is really where it's at (that's why my legs were giving out)! BTW, is it intended that Tourmaline crystals should offer so much traction?

Checked out most of the peaks looking for the highest, but realized that their maximum height seemed rather uniformed (a property of Tourmaline crystal formations?)-- would have been sniper heaven if it weren't for the fact the map is so large that the edges extend beyond the range of my ER PPC.

And of course, the overlapping/interlocking peaks means there is no single spot where you can get a clear shot at everything, though it does allow lots of fun peak-hopping/cliff-jumping if you have the jump-jets for it. Similarly for the "crow's nests" found just before each base-- easily defended (& to defend the base from) unless enemies have the jump-jets to circumvent the main entrance routes.


But ultimately, it's so large and varied that it feels like a map designed for mission-based Game Modes (*hint-hint, Devs*)-- just add some dungeons and you have the Valley of the Mines in Gothic II... all that's missing are 4 different Dragons, err I mean, Drop-ships for encounters!


Possible Bugs:
Noticed that my sensor did not register mechs on a different level/plane from me, even though they are in my line-of sight(and less than 800m away) -- never tried sniping from such great height differences before (even in Alpine Peaks), so I don't know if this is a Testing Grounds or Tourmaline Desert issue.

Edited by Forestal, 21 March 2013 - 08:52 PM.

[Hobietime]

Koniving, on 21 March 2013 - 12:43 PM, said:

Great map. Love the details. It brings up a few issues though.


Can't wait for tesselation.

...

Tessellation will be all kinds of sexy. Hopefully they have some nice displacement maps for those crystals. Right now the leave something to be desired when it comes to model quality, which is complacently understandable. Without tessellation the amount of polys that would make something like that look nice would be far outside any engine's budget.

The only other gripe would be the transitions between those crystal things and the base textures. Baking in some heavy ambient occlusion would help a ton (on almost all the maps, not just this one) for now until we get HBAO and/or SSAO.

[Scop]

A heads-up in case no one's pointed it out yet: Tourmaline is currently absent from the Map Stats tab.