46 replies to this topic

[Quxudica]

After yet another run on Alpine I figured I might as well post this up to see what the community thinks of our current map pool. Some of the maps are decent, some are just poorly done and some.. are so boring I wish I had an eject button. This of course will be an entirely subjective thread, but I figured it would be interesting to see the results. Should be noted this is from a PuG point of view since I rarely join in group queue, those with group queue experience may have different views and those would be equally interesting.

For me, personally, the maps I dislike the most are easily:

Alpine: It's huge, so anything slow moving means you are almost guaranteed to spend 1/3rd or more of the match just walking around (pitty the soul that brings anything under 60kph). To make things worse it's so wide open you can be pecked to death as a slow mover without being able to respond (if you brought a sub 60kph brawler you may as well put on auto-pilot and go make a snack). These two things are pretty annoying, but not enough by themselves to really get the map into "boring" territory. So what does? Every, single, non-conquest match plays exactly the same with only one minor variation. Both teams rush to the hill, either Antenna or H9/I9. The entire rest of the map may as well not even exist as there is never any variation and thus, while hill fights can be enjoyably intense sometimes.. it defeats the point of having such a huge map when none of it is used.

Terra Therma: Similar to Alpine, it's large, it's also even more hilly making it even more annoying for slow movers though the less open terrain is nice at least. Also similar to Alpine however is the predictability of every match - rush the caldera before the other team can. If you win the race, set up inside and (hopefully) have your team pick the other side apart as they try to peek in. If you lose the race, hope you can convince your team to hang back and wait for the other team to come out (good luck). Once again the majority of the map may as well not even exist (which honestly, like alpine, is not much of a loss since there's nothing overly interesting in the rest of the map). The nail in the coffin for Terra Therma however is obvious, at least Alpine is cold, Terra is a furnace and thus any moderately hot build can look forward to barely using their weapons.

Canyon Network: This one is not so much straight boring as.. just not really fun, and has some major design problems related to spawn locations. I've had enemy mediums and (I think) a heavy manage to make to my Assaults spawn location in about a minute and a half of game start. (might have been closer to a minute) The map itself also devolves into peek sniping every game, which in and of itself isn't necessarily a bad thing but again.. it's very predictable whats going to happen. At least the location of a fight varies routinely and the terrain itself is interesting, more than can be said for the first two.

While I have issues with other maps, these are the most egregious to me. Oddly some of my favorite maps are original ones, Frozen City (day or night), Forest Colony, River City. Though I enjoy Crimson Straight and even HPG Manifold. These to me have more character to them and fights are less predictable.

I've advocated for much larger map sizes in the past, so it may seem odd to pick out the largest currently in the game for being boring but it's just the way I feel every time they come up. I will say though that if maps the same size as or larger than Alpine/Terra are added, something will have to be done in regards to slow mechs. Personally I've strongly believed since closed beta that it should show the map after we launch, then let us pick from one of our four "ready" mechs (but this is another thread entirely).

So, what maps do you find the most boring, annoying or poorly designed and why? What maps do you like the best and what makes them enjoyable?

[Kilo 40]

Terra, and HPG.

hands down

[Quxudica]

Kilo 40, on 15 September 2014 - 10:48 PM, said:

Terra, and HPG.

hands down

What reasons make these your picks? I can probably guess at Terra, but HPG? I'm curious what the reasons for peoples choices will be.

[Mothykins]

Alpine is worse now that they've swapped things around. At least in conquest you HAD to use the entire map, and now you may as well play River City. Lots of running, yeah, but tons light and medium skirmishes in the hills, and some really good use of 'mech shut-down by a few Atlas players (Turns out people don't pay attention.)

Terra therma just plays flat. It's like Caustic with more cover. CIRCLE THE BIG CALDERA. Ugh.

River city is just... Really small and there's not much you CAN do with it. Usually it all revolves around the lower city.

Edited by Cavale, 15 September 2014 - 10:55 PM.

[Kilo 40]

Quxudica, on 15 September 2014 - 10:51 PM, said:

What reasons make these your picks? I can probably guess at Terra, but HPG? I'm curious what the reasons for peoples choices will be.

because they play the exact same way every single time. everyone goes to the exact same places.

[Mazerius]

River City(insert night/day mode here) pretty much always ends up a "lets circle the map in a blob and hope we're faster" map. And Alpine, needs more cover, possibly tunnels, the grab the hill or lose bit(in general) is boring.

[POWR]

River City and Forest Colony. I used to like these, but 12 players pr. team is just too much for these. Add to that the impact the super-longrange meta had on them and they sank to the bottom.

Assault/skirmish on Alpine and Terra Therma are not much fun either, as it's the usual rush caldera/rush i9 or lose kind of thing. Conquest could be more interesting if the capture points were split up a bit more on Alpine or if there were more capture points on these larger maps. I guess a major issue with big maps is the speed difference you can have. If there was another objective in this map, or if the map generally had more cover, like you could easily add a lot of snow from like avalanches in the passes that could act as cover from above, or some kind of rock formation, that'd make things more interesting.

In the positive end, I enjoy HPG Manifold as probably the best map. It has some very good mix up between open areas and close quarters. You can get some action of all kinds going on this map, and that's great. It desperately needs fixing in the hitbox department though. The small pillars that protrude here and there and ESPECIALLY the big round pillars up on the central building under the antenna. Those just absorb way too much fire.

Acid volcano is also nice, allows for some neat manouvering and supports both long and shortrange combat.

Crimson straights feels like it should be more enjoyable, but there's something about the movement in the map, how it all focuses on the dock area, that seems symptomatic of the way that MWO maps flow. The maps are full of interesting locations that are nice and fun to fight in, but most matches flow in to one or two specific locations and that ends it. I feel like something could be done to improve this map, but it's not too bad.

[Ghogiel]

River City most annoying. Either solo or group queue for different reasons.

Alpine most boring. Conquest is slightly less crap.

[Nullzero]

You should have made a poll for this topic.

But anyway, Terra Therma is number one on my ****-list.

It's not even the heat that bothers me. It's the map layout, black terrain, the confusing ramp routes into the center area, and the high mountains make any kind of LRM play near impossible. It's one of the largest maps in the game, but it feels like the size of Forest Colony or River City, because everything is so concentrated in the center.

After Terra Therma, I'd say my least favorite is probably River City or Forest Colony. They are WAY too small for 12v12. It's time to either expand them, or remove them from rotation.

[Lynx7725]

Therma's just boring. The gameplay is more the players' fault. The colour on that map makes it just annoying to play on.

River City can do with a size increase, but games there can be very tight and intense.

Alpine can do with some work to make things much more variable, but games there can still be very entertaining.

[Quxudica]

Nullzero, on 16 September 2014 - 12:08 AM, said:

You should have made a poll for this topic.

But anyway, Terra Therma is number one on my ****-list.

It's not even the heat that bothers me. It's the map layout, black terrain, the confusing ramp routes into the center area, and the high mountains make any kind of LRM play near impossible. It's one of the largest maps in the game, but it feels like the size of Forest Colony or River City, because everything is so concentrated in the center.

After Terra Therma, I'd say my least favorite is probably River City or Forest Colony. They are WAY too small for 12v12. It's time to either expand them, or remove them from rotation.

I would have made a poll but I didn't see the option for one when making the thread, I'm not sure if I've ever made a poll so maybe I just missed it.

[NextGame]

Terra Therma and Alpine.

Terra Therma is just universally bad. I can't think of any redeeming qualities that this map has.

Alpine is 2 dimensional as there is just 1 tactic. Even worse is getting charlie'd in a dire wolf.

[Moonlander]

I really dislike River City, just so cramped and so much stuff you can get caught on in a big Assault. Sometimes, depending on your spawn locations, it feels you can have the upper hand very easily. IMO, maps where that is most prominent are Caustic Valley and River City.

In Caustic Valley, it takes 30sec to take the caldera if you spawn on the refinery (or whatever it is) but if you spawn on the other side, you can easily be sniped and missile locked and there's nothing to take cover behind. In River City, I've had 2-3 lights on me long before I've even made it off a spawn area within the first 30sec to a minute of the fight starting. I don't waste time moving out either... and your only options as an assault feel to drop down into the tunnel and hope they don't see you and follow cause there's not much room to maneuver down there, or try and snake your way through all the stuff in the environment. Easy to get hung up on something and become food for a couple hungry lights.

I really like HPG, it's probably my favorite map. I like to rush basement, brawl for a minute or so with the enemy and disperse out the side to flank around the outside and move up the platform levels laying down the firepower. I really enjoy getting that map. I can understand some frustrations with it "always playing out the same way"

Alpine can be fun. Depends on which mode. I feel like conquest has the upper-hand when it comes to "fun factor" because there tends to be epic battles on the ground between the hills by Theta, Epsilon and Kappa. Most matches people ignore Gamma all together. Skirmish/Assault kind of always end the same way. Mountain peeking and whoever gets their first.

Crimson Strait is one of my favorite as well. Had some pretty epic battles there as well...

I dunno, I guess I don't mind the maps so much. A couple could use some size adjustments or could use some removing of buildings or other decorative stuff to make moving around as an assault (or any mech for that matter that has problems getting caught on stuff) a bit less penalizing.

[627]

Terrible Therma hands down. And not because of heat but because of map design and artwork. It all looks the same and you have no real hotspots to go or fight for beside the meat grinder.

Alpine became a bit stale since they changed the spawn locations, there where more diverse fights before. now it's "conquer the hill" every single game.

HPG could be a nice map but this is truly and way to much an arena map. I like the idea to make "destroyed" variant with destroyed walls and more ways to go.

The rest of the maps are nice for me, but after 2 years of playing them I really want some new ones...

[Nathan Xain]

I will buck the trend by saying I like Alpine but only as it is the largest map and it reminds me of older Mechwarrior games where the maps were much larger.
I wish it had an unpredictable blizzard or something though- that way you would never know how it will play out.

Terra therma sucks though. That damned caldera...

Edited by Nathan Xain, 16 September 2014 - 01:48 AM.

[Joseph Mallan]

Right now... HPG. It doesn't fit my load out since everyone seems to gravitate to under the HPG. Over all... Mordor!

[Jonny Taco]

All of them... They are all glorified Solaris arenas, not immersive battle tech maps...

Tera therma is hands down the worst though... The map makes no sense... Why are we fighting over an erupting volcano that some morons built a platform over? It feels more like a bad quake 3 fantasy map than anything battle tech...

As far as I'm concerned I'd like them to retain the assets and delete the entire lineup that we have currently. They should all be replaced by much bigger and believable maps with unique objectives that have dynamic effects on how the game plays...

Edited by lartfor, 16 September 2014 - 02:00 AM.

[Rushin Roulette]

For Assault I would nominate River City (day or night doesnt matter) hands down. Now that they have changed the spawn locations, the fights tend to center around snipe/LRM from the opposite shores. Brawling in the middle leaves very little cover from before mentioned snipers standing on the shores and if you get too close to the opposite shore then you get the base defence turrets ontop of everything else... All in all, this leaves very little space to actually maneuver and to position yourself tactically.

[Quxudica]

627, on 16 September 2014 - 01:42 AM, said:

Terrible Therma hands down. And not because of heat but because of map design and artwork. It all looks the same and you have no real hotspots to go or fight for beside the meat grinder.

Alpine became a bit stale since they changed the spawn locations, there where more diverse fights before. now it's "conquer the hill" every single game.

HPG could be a nice map but this is truly and way to much an arena map. I like the idea to make "destroyed" variant with destroyed walls and more ways to go.

The rest of the maps are nice for me, but after 2 years of playing them I really want some new ones...

I can understand that critisizm of HPG, I wish it was less of a "metal pyramid in a dish". I think my fondness for it is mostly because of the flavor behind it and the fact it's our only zero atmosphere map. Having zero sound in 3rd person and muffled vibrational sounds inside the cockpit is a great touch that a lot of scifi often ignores (the whole no sounds in space thing). I wish it had different gravity than other maps though, variable gravity impacting fall damage and speed as well as projectile weapons is somethign I'd really like to see added.

Personally I really hope they give us some much more alien environments. There's no real reason a planet needs to look like earth, yet many of the maps could easily be earth or some slightly alternate universe earth. I know actual "alien" creatures aren't a thing in BT (outside of the bird people), but maybe some more alien flora. Or even just landscapes. lakes of mercury, atmospheres of vibrant colors not seen here on earth etc. color in and of itself is actually something our maps really lack, everything is very drab, there's no reason we couldn't get a map that is a bright colorful verdant and fertile area instead of following the whole Modern Military Shooter theme of "everything is a different shade of brown". The famous "no mans land" of many a world war I battlefield were often covered in brightly colored wildflowers and vibrant grass during certain times of the year.

This of course is much more on the Aesthetic side of our maps and not really their functionality. But even using BT Fluff and the "Future of the 1980's", there's so so much more they could do with the environments we fight in.

[J0anna]

Terra Therma's the worst hands down. The problem isn't the heat, it's the layout. If you're not fighting in the center, you're fighting in hallways. The peaks are too high and too large, going over them is useless and going around them takes too long. The heat just adds to the problems. I probably have more matches on this map than any other where I've never even seen the other team before capping (in assault).

Alpine's next - the layout's horrible and the spawn locations too far apart. Conquest and skirmish are much better on this map after the changes, but assault's horrible. The low side always assaults up the h9 hill or around the radio tower. Due to the spawn location, the low side team attacks in waves and usually gets chewed to bits. The high side has huge defensive advantages. If the low side defends, the high side team usually takes forever to attack resulting in quite a few unfinished matches.