22 replies to this topic

[B E E L Z E B U B]

its a map set up for capping matches. you either fall down and waste half the time finding your way back in battle or your whole team gets crammed into a small opening and you get team killed.

personally, i have no idea why they thought this map would be good,

im gonna poll it.

please vote.

Edited by Karma Police, 31 October 2013 - 05:36 AM.

[Amsro]

I like it, its an insane map with none like it and with better game modes you might get to use more of it.

Like most people the grieve about a certain map its usually stems from the stale gameplay.

Currently both modes are Assault with a chance of Capping. The biggest zergball of 12 wins all matches. Your team scatters you loose the brawl.

Very rarely can a couple pilots win the entire match; either cap in or crazy last stand.

All the maps have issues, even the new one will have flaws, but more importantly we NEED MORE GAME MODES.

[Sandpit]

yay! another poll on terra therma. I'm glad someone finally got the nerve to post on this map.....

[B E E L Z E B U B]

Sandpit, on 31 October 2013 - 08:19 AM, said:

yay! another poll on terra therma. I'm glad someone finally got the nerve to post on this map.....

glad you enjoyed it dear forum dweller.

[Asyres]

I like Terra Therma - it's one of the better designed maps (minus the central mountain -- **** mt. doom).

What I don't like about it isn't a poll choice, so here goes -- the best parts of Terra Therma are the peripheral valleys. They're a playground for quick mechs, where a well-orchestrated flanking maneuver can turn the tide of a brawl. This makes Terra Therma one of the best maps to pilot a medium on.

However, all of the valleys look alike. The darkness of the map, combined with the red-on-black palette, make it difficult to tell where you are without consulting the battlegrid. This is where the map could use some improvement -- by adding stuff like sulfur vents, derelict industrial equipment, and a few more of those habitats you can see near one of the entrances to the caldera, it should be possible to make visual orientation easier.

[Bagheera]

Terra Therma would be a fun map if people would just stop lemming their way to Mt. Doom single file every match.

[Roadbeer]

This is serious business and it needs a poll.

[NRP]

Your second question needs an "All of the above" option. Terrible Therma is too hot, doesn't have enough open space, and the paths to anywhere remotely interesting are far too long.

I'm guessing the only people who like this diaper stain of a map are light pilots, and more specifically those with JJs. This piece of poop was clearly made for them.

[BarHaid]

NRP, on 31 October 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

Your second question needs an "All of the above" option. Terrible Therma is too hot, doesn't have enough open space, and the paths to anywhere remotely interesting are far too long.

I'm guessing the only people who like this diaper stain of a map are light pilots, and more specifically those with JJs. This piece of poop was clearly made for them.

Damn right it was!

[Sandpit]

NRP, on 31 October 2013 - 01:09 PM, said:

I'm guessing the only people who like this diaper stain of a map are light pilots, and more specifically those with JJs. This piece of poop was clearly made for them.

Looks like the poll results would say otherwise just saying


Pole fail is poll fail

[pbiggz]

I seem to remember it taking some time before people realized that the caldera on caustic valley was the hottest and least defensible place on the map. Eventually people will realize that mt doom is hot and just a bottleneck for everyone and they'll start skirting around the sides of the map instead, thereby making use of more area even with the crappy game modes we have. I just solved all your problems.

[Training Instructor]

This map would be awesome for a king of the hill capture game mode. As it stands, when this map comes up I hope I have three or four lights with capmods on my team who will do a baserush and end it quickly.

As it stands, I don't like that I have to constantly consult the battlegrid just to see where I am. On any other map that I've played more than 3-5 times I know exactly where I am at all times, and only use the battlemap to see where teammates are heading and their exact current locations.

Also, is there some way to get the minimap to stop spinning with my direction? Maybe it's a newbish question and there's some plain to see option I'm missing, but I wish my minimap would freeze to the same orientation as the battlemap.

Edited by Training Instructor, 01 November 2013 - 04:50 AM.

[Spyder228]

Asyres, on 31 October 2013 - 09:32 AM, said:

However, all of the valleys look alike. The darkness of the map, combined with the red-on-black palette, make it difficult to tell where you are without consulting the battlegrid. This is where the map could use some improvement -- by adding stuff like sulfur vents, derelict industrial equipment, and a few more of those habitats you can see near one of the entrances to the caldera, it should be possible to make visual orientation easier.

Exactly this. Put in some refineries or storage tanks for all the minerals they're supposed to be extracting. Anything to give us a slight visual clue as to where the hell we're at.

I also think the map could stand to cooler in areas away from the lava, and MUCH hotter around it. It'd make the lava more dynamic as opposed to a simple inconvenience. People would treat it as an obstacle instead of just rushing through it like it doesn't matter.

[Sandpit]

yet another example of how when a poll doesn't turn out the way the OP was hoping, they quietly drop the issue and move on to continue their rhetoric in someone else's thread

[Sandpit]

I think I'll start keeping track of these fail polls so when the OP starts up in another thread I can simply point to their poll that proved their opinion wasn't quite as popular as they thought it was

[Ryankamun II]

I like Terra Therma fine, but I cannot find out where I'm supposed to report this:

There's a terrain stuck issue in Terra Therma at the lip of a volcano at:
3195.8 3354.2 454.3

[corallein]

pbiggz, on 31 October 2013 - 05:50 PM, said:

I seem to remember it taking some time before people realized that the caldera on caustic valley was the hottest and least defensible place on the map. Eventually people will realize that mt doom is hot and just a bottleneck for everyone and they'll start skirting around the sides of the map instead, thereby making use of more area even with the crappy game modes we have. I just solved all your problems.

So we can more games with two ships passing in the night and have the games with cap races with zero shots fired?

Terra Therma is a terrible map on Assault for a number of reason, especially with pugs.
1. Two ships passing in the night issue (and no one ever scouts in pugs)
2. There are too many hills and cliffs around the map that make getting from one point to the another take forever. And getting from one side of Mordor to the other takes forever and a half without going through the middle (and even with going through the middle, if you're on the wrong side of the ramp up)
3. The middle gives too many advantages to the first group in that spreads out. Once that happens, assaulting it is impossible because of the tiny chokepoints. Bypassing the middle is also not realistic because of the amount of time it takes to get from one entrance to the next.

In short, the middle is too much of a chokepoint and the other pathing options are atrocious. Conquest is better because it forces engagements on the sides, but even then the middle is far too important for having a point and offering the only way to easily reinforce either side. And while this map isn't horrendously big for Conquest like Alpine is, the pathing difficulties for anything besides 100+ kph mechs with JJ makes it nearly as bad.

[Sandpit]

corallein, on 06 November 2013 - 02:16 PM, said:

So we can more games with two ships passing in the night and have the games with cap races with zero shots fired?

Terra Therma is a terrible map on Assault for a number of reason, especially with pugs.
1. Two ships passing in the night issue (and no one ever scouts in pugs)
2. There are too many hills and cliffs around the map that make getting from one point to the another take forever. And getting from one side of Mordor to the other takes forever and a half without going through the middle (and even with going through the middle, if you're on the wrong side of the ramp up)
3. The middle gives too many advantages to the first group in that spreads out. Once that happens, assaulting it is impossible because of the tiny chokepoints. Bypassing the middle is also not realistic because of the amount of time it takes to get from one entrance to the next.

In short, the middle is too much of a chokepoint and the other pathing options are atrocious. Conquest is better because it forces engagements on the sides, but even then the middle is far too important for having a point and offering the only way to easily reinforce either side. And while this map isn't horrendously big for Conquest like Alpine is, the pathing difficulties for anything besides 100+ kph mechs with JJ makes it nearly as bad.

1. That blanket statement is pretty uhm.... well wrong. I get lots who scout for me if I ask in PUGs
2. Uhm, it's a big map, take long range weapon and utilize them. Not every map is going to be a small "run otu and quickly get involved in a firefight"
3. Then flank if the other team gets there first. Or feint with 2-3 mechs while the rest flank

If any of your counters to those strategies involve "I can't because PUGs" then find teams to play with. Tools are available to you to counter the strategies others you.
If you don't like it I can understand that but everything you've posted has a viable counter to it.

[corallein]

Sandpit, on 06 November 2013 - 04:29 PM, said:

1. That blanket statement is pretty uhm.... well wrong. I get lots who scout for me if I ask in PUGs
2. Uhm, it's a big map, take long range weapon and utilize them. Not every map is going to be a small "run otu and quickly get involved in a firefight"
3. Then flank if the other team gets there first. Or feint with 2-3 mechs while the rest flank

If any of your counters to those strategies involve "I can't because PUGs" then find teams to play with. Tools are available to you to counter the strategies others you.
If you don't like it I can understand that but everything you've posted has a viable counter to it.

1. You must play at a different elo. I scout more in my mediums and assaults than any light that I ever see. 90% of lights I see in Assault just go straight to the edge of the map and run to the enemy base. **** scouting and reporting any enemies they see. I'd love to scout on Terra Therma, but that doesn't work on this map because scouting here requires getting up in their face.

2. Long-range weapons do NOT work well on Terra Therma because there are no sightlines. Everything gets blocked by the many hills and cliffs. There are many much smaller maps where long range weapons work much, much better than Terra Therma (Forest Colony is a small map with great sightlines for long range weapons).

3. You can't flank the middle. It takes too long to get around, and the "flank" is just another chokepoint. In the time it takes to get to the flank, the entire enemy team could have pushed through and rolled through whatever holding force you had. Or even if they don't immediately push, you still get stuck in two separate bottlenecks and they can push through the weaker force easily.

The problem with Terra Therma is that the number of viable counter-moves is one when the other team has moved out even just slightly faster than you: defend by passively waiting outside the center. Forcing your way into middle gets your team destroyed. Trying to pincer the middle gets your team destroyed. Flanking around the enemy loses to their straight push through. The map is simply not well designed, and not a fun map at all for Assault.

[Sandpit]

corallein, on 06 November 2013 - 05:51 PM, said:

1. You must play at a different elo. I scout more in my mediums and assaults than any light that I ever see. 90% of lights I see in Assault just go straight to the edge of the map and run to the enemy base. **** scouting and reporting any enemies they see. I'd love to scout on Terra Therma, but that doesn't work on this map because scouting here requires getting up in their face.

2. Long-range weapons do NOT work well on Terra Therma because there are no sightlines. Everything gets blocked by the many hills and cliffs. There are many much smaller maps where long range weapons work much, much better than Terra Therma (Forest Colony is a small map with great sightlines for long range weapons).

3. You can't flank the middle. It takes too long to get around, and the "flank" is just another chokepoint. In the time it takes to get to the flank, the entire enemy team could have pushed through and rolled through whatever holding force you had. Or even if they don't immediately push, you still get stuck in two separate bottlenecks and they can push through the weaker force easily.

The problem with Terra Therma is that the number of viable counter-moves is one when the other team has moved out even just slightly faster than you: defend by passively waiting outside the center. Forcing your way into middle gets your team destroyed. Trying to pincer the middle gets your team destroyed. Flanking around the enemy loses to their straight push through. The map is simply not well designed, and not a fun map at all for Assault.

1. That could be it but generally I ask the lights to keep their eyes out and they do. Sometimes they don't but you can always find teams to play with if that aspect gets to be too much

2. I guess we just use different tactics. I'm pretty good with me LLs and keeping LRM mechs at bay while using cover and movign in and out to keep ballistics from getting good shooting solutions on me

3. If you're going to flank you ahve to start it very early. Most of these tactics (or any tactics for that matter really) won't work if you wait until the big furball in the middle has already gotten underway.

I DO agree that pushing through into the volcano is key to securing the theta area and that the map has some real challenges to it. I like those challenges and things that make me work harder to figure it out. None of the maps are perfectly balanced in my opinion but they are all viable and have tactics that can be used effectively.

When you feint and flank you can't prolong any contact until everyone is in position. You can also have a squirrel flank and make them think you're going to flank pulling them back or have a squirrel hit the cap point (in assault that is) and make them think it's a cap race and pull them out of that center area. I'll definitely agree that you really have to think outside the box on it but I don't think it's a bad map and actually enjoy it.