48 replies to this topic

[Spleenslitta]

Why Crimson Strait? Why not Alpine, Caustic, etc?

Spoiler

-I got no ideas for Therra Therma, Viridian Bog, Mining Collective, Tourmaline Desert, Caustic Valley or Canyon Valley so i didn't choose one of them.
I didn't choose Alpine Peaks, Forest Colony or Frozen City because PGI probably already have rough plans for them since they put them in that poll.

I got ideas for HPG Manifold though but not nearly as many as Crimson Strait.
That was longwinded of me but now you see why i made Crimson Strait my choice for this thread.

Besides. I think the fact that Crimson strait could be last map that receives improvement is a good reason to discuss it right now.
Why?

Let's say we come up with loooooads of ideas and put it in a poll in the feature suggestion part of the forums.
And it takes a long time for Crimson Strait to be selected by PGI for improvement.
The longer the time it takes the more votes will be in the poll and the more ideas we will have for improvements.

I want to discuss how the Crimson Strait map could be changed to allow more attack routes and thus get more variety to our matches on it.

Keep in mind that i'm not suggesting all of these changes to the map.
They are just a bunch of alternatives and changing the map in these ways would not make the map less epic.
They would just give more alternatives to attack routes.



First off how about a valley going over the mountain (it's roughly marked in green) that does not demand JJ's to climb between F4 and E5?
This would make the E3, F3, F2, D5 and D6 sectors more active.

Line in red is a tunnel going between E4 corner and D5.
The exit in the E4 corner could be on top of the platform or below it. Maybe even both.

The area marked in yellow which the E4-D5 tunnel goes through could be an underground bunker for the city defence forces.
With buildings inside where we can brawl.

Dark blue line going from C4 to C5 is another tunnel. Exit could be under or on the platform
The area marked in brown is another place we could have an underground bunker.

Light grey line is the current tunnels.
Light blue line would be a tunnel that goes from the E4/D5 tunnel to the current tunnels.

Edited in some stuff.

Spoiler

I had a hard time figuring out what to do with the island.
But how about making it the harbor and use smaller boats to freight containers to the train area underneath the platform?
This way the big boats gets deeper water and we get a scattering of boats in the water between the island and the platform area.
Maybe even some smaller platforms in the area between the island and the platform so it's less suicidal to enter the water like Generalazure said.
I know you wanted the big boat moved to C3/C2 but the water is so shallow there so i thought platforms could do the same job Generalazure.

I've drawn a dock for big boats on the west part of the island and docks for the smaller boats on the north and east.
Added some bridges going from the island to the mainland.

Added multiple entrances to the underground bunker in E4-5. Numbered them so we can talk about them.
Nr. 5 entrance is to give the guys in the F1/F2 spawnpoint access to the bunker just as early as their enemies.

Also made the entrance to the pass over the E4-5 mountain start at E6 too.

When it comes to flattening or making the C4/C5 mountain easier to climb we need to discuss it further.
So i didn't do anything to that.

Edited in even more stuff.

Spoiler

To defend the city it would make sense to have coastal defences at B1 and G1.
Expanding G1 island with some buildings and a small dock.
Widening B1 so we have more buildings to hide behind if attacking the big island.

Landing area for dropships at G2 as suggested. The current road would still remain alongside it.
Expanding the A5/A6 area but very few if any buildings to prevent it from becoming a mountainfortress.
1 or 2 longrange mechs could defend it but the entire team would definitivly not have enough cover.
Bridge that connects it. It's the Northern road exiting the city.

Army storage yard at F6/F7. Connected by (X6) tunnel to the underground bunker at E4/E5.

Road going drunkenly down F5-G5-G4-G3 to the Dropship landing area.
We got lots of these types of roads in the mountains and fjords where i live.
Poorly made with bumps all over the place XD.

Both the army storage yard and the northern road out of the city could be new spawning points for the eastern team.
This way the opposing teams are more equal in their starting locations.
But maybe the north spawn should stay where it is? Uncertain.

If a huge number of you show an interrest in these suggestions i will make a poll in the Feature Suggestion part of the forum.
I refuse to let it be buried and forgotten there like my Solaris, AC2 fix, Binary Laser and who knows how many other suggestion threads.

So what do you think?

Edited by Spleenslitta, 13 May 2015 - 07:57 AM.

[generalazure]

Moving that docked freighter up towards C3/C2 could also make the water less of a death sentence and maybe allow flanking moves over the island by more than the occasional suicidal light.

I agree that a southern alternative to the pass could also help with opening the eastern half of the map to more action. Would prefer the eastern exit somewhere around E6 though, so it does not end right beside the pass. Anything that helps break up the usual chase around the mountain...

[MeiSooHaityu]

Crimson is actually a map I feel does things pretty right.

Fights are often at the 2 tiered dock, but often...
*They spill out into the city at C3
*Take place in the tunnel at C4
*Behind the tunnel at B4 due to flanking
*Saddle at D4/D5

Even fights break out at sniper point at D2

I really think Crimson is one of the better map designs. Maybe Crimson is the best in the game to date.

I'd leave it as is.

[Malleus011]

Crimson is a pretty great map. Shuffling the spawn points between a few more spots from time to time would help, as might opening up the valley from F4 - E5 for some versions of the map.

That freighter has always bothered me, because the water in the harbor is too shallow for it to make it to the dock when loaded.

[Spleenslitta]

generalazure, on 08 May 2015 - 09:06 AM, said:

Moving that docked freighter up towards C3/C2 could also make the water less of a death sentence and maybe allow flanking moves over the island by more than the occasional suicidal light.

I agree that a southern alternative to the pass could also help with opening the eastern half of the map to more action. Would prefer the eastern exit somewhere around E6 though, so it does not end right beside the pass. Anything that helps break up the usual chase around the mountain...

Noted on both points. Especially on the too shallow to allow the freighter to dock that Malleus mentioned.
Give me some more pointers and i'll add them to the map.

MeiSooHaityu, on 08 May 2015 - 09:12 AM, said:

I really think Crimson is one of the better map designs. Maybe Crimson is the best in the game to date.

I'd leave it as is.

It is indeed one of the best maps we have in my opinion too. But nothing wrong with discussing how it could be improved upon.
The F1-2-3 and E3 is barelly used except if someone tries to hide in the later part of the match.

Another way through the mountains would fix that somewhat.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Remove the big ass hill in the middle. Add city along the ridges. The Harbor, make it ALOT bigger, extend it into the water. Remove that big island out in the middle. Add more Cargo ships and shipping containers on the harbor. Add warehouses on the harbor. What is that upper level even for? remove the Saddle. Instead expand the Railroad, add some trains and stuff. The big empty hill across the saddle, add buildings or trees or something there as well. THere is alot of wasted space on alot of PGI maps.

Atleast judging by that River City redux they are starting to do something about that.

[Malleus011]

I like removing the big island from the harbor, or at least making it smaller and the harbor much deeper. I mean, look at that map. Would *you* want to con your multi-million C-Bill container ship into that tiny harbor on a dark and stormy night? Better have your insurance paid up.

Adding a lot more container ships in the harbor would be awesome as well. Cover, obstacles, platforms to JJ onto ... good stuff.

I don't mind the big mountain or the intermodal cargo platform; the whole thing makes sense as a port/rail node except for the water depth. I'd enjoy it if the southern pass (lined in green) wasn't out-of-bounds for no apparently reason.

I think a lot of PGI maps could be much improved by simply adding more and more spawn location sets as time passes. A map as big as Crimson could have a LOT of spawn options - all three lances together, two together one isolated, all isolated, spawning east-west vs north-south. I wish they'd do this with more maps, but they tend towards inflexible map designs that channel players into the same battle zones. (CW is this on steroids ... all tactics in CW are the same tactic).

[Spleenslitta]

LordKnightFandragon, on 08 May 2015 - 12:41 PM, said:

Remove the big ass hill in the middle. Add city along the ridges. The Harbor, make it ALOT bigger, extend it into the water. Remove that big island out in the middle. Add more Cargo ships and shipping containers on the harbor. Add warehouses on the harbor. What is that upper level even for? remove the Saddle. Instead expand the Railroad, add some trains and stuff. The big empty hill across the saddle, add buildings or trees or something there as well. THere is alot of wasted space on alot of PGI maps.

Atleast judging by that River City redux they are starting to do something about that.

Do you mean the hill in B3 or C4-5 mountain?
It's true that something more spread out cover could be better if your talking about the mountain. We just gotta explore the options.

Right now we tend to run around big things we cannot climb and thus Nascar matches happen.
Maybe a lower mountain that is climbable by mechs without JJ's. With buildings on the sides.

But that might become a fortress which would intensify the action in that area by a lot. So my idea might not be good on second thought.
Maybe a series of small hills/rocks and smaller buildings instead?

But i really truly love the idea of containers and a train. The train would take time to model so the containers should definitivly at least be there first.

Malleus011, on 08 May 2015 - 01:06 PM, said:

I like removing the big island from the harbor, or at least making it smaller and the harbor much deeper. I mean, look at that map. Would *you* want to con your multi-million C-Bill container ship into that tiny harbor on a dark and stormy night? Better have your insurance paid up.

Adding a lot more container ships in the harbor would be awesome as well. Cover, obstacles, platforms to JJ onto ... good stuff.

I don't mind the big mountain or the intermodal cargo platform; the whole thing makes sense as a port/rail node except for the water depth. I'd enjoy it if the southern pass (lined in green) wasn't out-of-bounds for no apparently reason.

I think a lot of PGI maps could be much improved by simply adding more and more spawn location sets as time passes. A map as big as Crimson could have a LOT of spawn options - all three lances together, two together one isolated, all isolated, spawning east-west vs north-south. I wish they'd do this with more maps, but they tend towards inflexible map designs that channel players into the same battle zones. (CW is this on steroids ... all tactics in CW are the same tactic).

If the island was made smaller we would have space for containerships, tugboats and maybe some platforms out in the water.
Maybe the big containership could be docked to the island with a bridge connecting the island with the mainland in F2 or B2.

A dock for the smaller ships to load stuff in the trainyard platform. Either way all that empty water is unecessary.

I'll alter the map tomorrow. It's midnight here.

Edited by Spleenslitta, 08 May 2015 - 02:12 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

MeiSooHaityu, on 08 May 2015 - 09:12 AM, said:

Crimson is actually a map I feel does things pretty right.

Fights are often at the 2 tiered dock, but often...
*They spill out into the city at C3
*Take place in the tunnel at C4
*Behind the tunnel at B4 due to flanking
*Saddle at D4/D5

Even fights break out at sniper point at D2

I really think Crimson is one of the better map designs. Maybe Crimson is the best in the game to date.

I'd leave it as is.

This.

I also often get fights in the C/D[5-6] square, and they are some epic games. Really Crimson is probably one of the best-designed maps in the game with regard to number of options and emergent play. I'd say it ties with Tourmaline.

[LordKnightFandragon]

Spleenslitta, on 08 May 2015 - 02:11 PM, said:

Do you mean the hill in B3 or C4-5 mountain?
It's true that something more spread out cover could be better if your talking about the mountain. We just gotta explore the options.

Honestly, I mean both. I hate the nascar effect on alot of the maps, or how so much playable space is wasted to useless obstacles. I would flatten that mountain, add roads up to a much shallower hill, put buildings up ther and stuff. THen the smaller hills on the other side, flatten them out, add more buildings and roads. Make Crimson a big city that expands across ALOT of its space. I would even expand the city out to the east? the side that has a road going out into nothingness...I would add more buildings alongthat side. Maybe make the Bridge a huge elevated incline bridge...like the broken one on River city that leads to the Atlas in TG....rather then just a flat road to no where.

Then where the Saddle is now, put a suspension bridge across the gap, below it, an expansive Intermodal/dock yard with multiple warehouses and the like. Expansive city along both ridges.

[OznerpaG]

Random spawn points - this map has both sides funneling to the exact same place every game. if you make the map big enough you could have off-setting spawn points which might involve using only one half of the map at any given match

for example if there was a spawn at A2 and the enemy at B6 you could have a great city battle in a different part of the map other than the car park.

[Nothing Whatsoever]

Hmm... well, I'd certainly like to add more to the area of E4 / E5 / E6 | F4 / F5 / F6.

Underground would be fine, but at least being able to go around and use that rectangular area would be nice.

[Alistair Winter]

I don't like Crimson Strait very much, because the huge mountain smack dab in the middle really limits your options. In 90% of the matches, it feels like the fighting takes place near the platform as you defend from saddle or tunnel / epsilon. Basically, if saddle is clear, then the east team will attack platform from the tunnel-side. Usually, the team on the platform side will hold platform, because this is to their advantage if the other team pushes saddle.

It's too predictable.

But I don't think a big number of tunnels and a new canyon as a "second saddle" would help very much. The It seems to me that the fighting would still take place around the platform, and the best way to avoid this would be to do something about that huge mountain at the center of the map. If they just chopped off the top and middle part of the big mountain and put a lot of buildings on a flat surface, while keeping the tunnel bemeath them, this would probably be my favourite map.

[Y E O N N E]

If you chop the mountain, then it just becomes another "hold the mountain" game like Alpine.

The way Crimson is set up now, it's very easy to force the other team to move off of the platform in any game mode. On skirmish, all you need is a UAV. On Assault, all you have to do is make a play (or feint) on the base. In Conquest, just cap around it.

These options are all so accessible that even PUGs use them. You get a lot of games that are fights for the platforms, but I'd peg those at around 60% of all Crimson matches. The rest are all over the place, and it's awesome. Alpine, by contrast, is 90% for the mountain, because the alternatives are somewhat obscure to people who don't spend unhealthy amounts of time thinking about it like some of us do.

I don't want Crimson to be like Alpine

[Pjwned]

I've always thought the D5 pass is stupid because if you approach from the ~C7 spawn area then you are guaranteed to come across the entire enemy team, and if your whole team doesn't push together with you then it's pointless.

That is stupid and should be fixed, what's the point of having an approach like that if it's only viable from 1 side 95% of the time?

Yeonne Greene, on 08 May 2015 - 06:21 PM, said:

If you chop the mountain, then it just becomes another "hold the mountain" game like Alpine.

The way Crimson is set up now, it's very easy to force the other team to move off of the platform in any game mode. On skirmish, all you need is a UAV. On Assault, all you have to do is make a play (or feint) on the base. In Conquest, just cap around it.

These options are all so accessible that even PUGs use them. You get a lot of games that are fights for the platforms, but I'd peg those at around 60% of all Crimson matches. The rest are all over the place, and it's awesome. Alpine, by contrast, is 90% for the mountain, because the alternatives are somewhat obscure to people who don't spend unhealthy amounts of time thinking about it like some of us do.

I don't want Crimson to be like Alpine

That wouldn't be as bad if both teams had an equal approach to the mountain; the biggest reason why the mountain in Alpine is so dumb is that the team spawning closer to it can just easily climb up the back of it and take the position in less than 2 minutes.

However, I'm not sure I like that idea either because it would likely make the rest of the map largely irrelevant similar to how it is with Alpine and I don't want to see that either.

Edited by Pjwned, 08 May 2015 - 06:29 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Making the rest of the map irrelevant was what I was getting at. There are actually so many better holding positions on Alpine, like the entire cliff behind the city, the hill containing the radio tower, or the outcroppings near where center cap point is on Conquest, but the mountain at I9 is the most obvious, which is why it gets used. It really doesn't have much to do with one team spawning near it, people would go for it regardless...just like they go for the center on Terra Therma (though that location does let you control the map by dramatically shortening time to travel to any other location).

[Alistair Winter]

Most of this map is already irrelevant in a game of Skirmish / Assault. It has roughly 40 grids, and the fighting inevitably takes place around 4 of those grids in almost every match, unless something crazy happens, which is rare.

The platform is so critical, it would be nice if there was some other place on this map worth fighting over.

[Pjwned]

Yeonne Greene, on 08 May 2015 - 06:37 PM, said:

Making the rest of the map irrelevant was what I was getting at.

Well, it could possibly be done in such a way that wouldn't happen...maybe; I don't really know how though.

Quote

There are actually so many better holding positions on Alpine, like the entire cliff behind the city, the hill containing the radio tower, or the outcroppings near where center cap point is on Conquest, but the mountain at I9 is the most obvious, which is why it gets used.

All those other points are not as easily accessible as the I9 mountain, have less cover, and are more vulnerable to flanking attacks, so no it's not just "it's the most obvious part of the map."

Quote

It really doesn't have much to do with one team spawning near it, people would go for it regardless...

People wouldn't go for it nearly as often if they didn't have such an easy approach every time; if they couldn't easily all climb up the back and had to go around the mountain to climb it then many would find other places to fight instead.

Quote

just like they go for the center on Terra Therma (though that location does let you control the map by dramatically shortening time to travel to any other location).

There are different reasons for rushing the center in Terra Therma, like you said, and also it's not a position where (unlike Alpine) 1 team is heavily favored over the other in reaching it.

I would also like to note that when Skirmish mode didn't exist and capping bases in Assault was something that actually happened ever aside from when the entire enemy team is stomped first, the center of the map in Terra Therma was not so overwhelmingly important; it's still not overwhelmingly important in Conquest because of the base objectives by the way.

Edited by Pjwned, 08 May 2015 - 06:54 PM.

[Y E O N N E]

Pjwned, on 08 May 2015 - 06:51 PM, said:

All those other points are not as easily accessible as the I9 mountain, have less cover, and are more vulnerable to flanking attacks, so no it's not just "it's the most obvious part of the map."

Wrong or uninformed on all counts.

[pbiggz]

Having more underground action wouldn't be a bad thing, and having the existing tunnel be a + instead of a T (having another exit on the opposite side of the mountain to the middle door, perhaps around c5) would make the tunnel a very interesting part of the map.