154 replies to this topic

[Yozzman]

Catho Sharn, on 05 January 2016 - 11:35 AM, said:

Well said. The biggest problem I have with this game right now is map boredom. I'd love to see old River City and Forest Colony maps back in the game too.

Amen to that!

Reworked maps fail to get new fighting gounds.
Thanks to reworked maps it takes longer to walk to the same central point in the map

[Kalimaster]

My suggestion for Alpine. Random Drop points. You simply don't know where the dropship is going to dump you.

[Zephonarch II]

I would link my earlier thread about Alpine 2.0 to this, but I think I've seen enough huge Close range maps now(FC2 and RC2 are both filled with more brawls than long range fights). Now I'd rather see them add a Long-range map almost like Caustic Valley 2.0 and Tourmaline. But the devs have to make sure they don't make this an overcrowded rock-peaking brawling game.

Give us more levels of elevation in cliffs and vantage points to fight from. The game has enough rocks to peak behind of.
Like say put at least 3 giant mountains in PH, right near the middle, that can ALL be used as great routes for entire teams to move up and down from. Think like you did when you designed the Mining Collective PGI! That map is soooo symmetric, every part of it is used. But this time make a Long Range one.

Put a giant Ice-base hangar in Alpine or Polar Highlands that at least 3-5 mechs can brawl inside of without fear of Long Range attacks. And on the other hand make an empty huge field that mechs have to run through before they get to that cover in the hangar.

For Alpine add at least one other mountain to take as a team route. And definitely change the spawn locations.



Now there's my 2 cent opinion.Basically, I just think the game doesn't have Canyon-Network, Caustic-Valley, Crimson Strait or Tourmaline style maps. Those are balanced maps with the right amounts of brawling and sniping. (Maybe I'll include Frozen City on that list) Or enough symmetric maps like Mining Collective and HPG Manifold. Those maps see action everywhere.

Maps like Alpine, Viridian Bog, RiverCity2.0, and ForestColony2.0 all tend to lean one way. They're either central to brawling matches or sniping fights. And they seem to me like the most unbalanced problems in the game right now. (Ignoring CW, I avoid that mode so don't comment on that)

And Therma just needs to fix that one winding chokepoint. I can manage my heat. Who's complaining???

Edited by Zephonarch II, 11 January 2016 - 09:42 AM.

[TTDeadsayer]

Kalimaster, on 07 January 2016 - 08:22 AM, said:

My suggestion for Alpine. Random Drop points. You simply don't know where the dropship is going to dump you.

Random drop points (and base locations) should be implemented in every map, IMO.

Edited by TTDeadsayer, 11 January 2016 - 12:26 PM.

[Tesunie]

TTDeadsayer, on 11 January 2016 - 12:25 PM, said:

Random drop points (and base locations) should be implemented in every map, IMO.

Wouldn't be too bad for that.

My biggest thing is I wish they would make Assaults drop in the center most spawn point. When your assaults all drop on a single side... it leads to massive imbalance. Often times, those Assaults are out of the match for most of the game, separated, alone, without backup, and tend to die that way.

Edited by Tesunie, 11 January 2016 - 08:04 PM.

[TTDeadsayer]

Tesunie, on 11 January 2016 - 08:04 PM, said:

Wouldn't be too bad for that.

My biggest thing is I wish they would make Assaults drop in the center most spawn point. When your assaults all drop on a single side... it leads to massive imbalance. Often times, those Assaults are out of the match for most of the game, separated, alone, without backup, and tend to die that way.

I agree that assault mechs should be placed so they can easily catch up with the rest of the company, but other issues would need to be addressed before that got tackled though, I think. I've seen two assault mechs placed in the same lance as a couple of locusts, which completely nullifies the need for the assaults to catch up with the company. Should lances be separated by weight class or should they be balanced or randomized? I don't know how that's all determined. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think at one point matches were created with 3 mechs of each weight class but now it's all just random (I've seen companies with five or more light mechs and a bunch of mediums and heavies and not a single assault mech) or maybe it was always random.

Edited by TTDeadsayer, 13 January 2016 - 12:52 PM.

[Stingray Productions]

In a recent post from Russ, he said they now plan to keep it in rotation instead of taking it out, but he didn't say how long it will stay in rotation.

[Tesunie]

TTDeadsayer, on 13 January 2016 - 12:42 PM, said:

I agree that assault mechs should be placed so they can easily catch up with the rest of the company, but other issues would need to be addressed before that got tackled though, I think. I've seen two assault mechs placed in the same lance as a couple of locusts, which completely nullifies the need for the assaults to catch up with the company. Should lances be separated by weight class or should they be balanced or randomized? I don't know how that's all determined. Correct me if I'm wrong but I think at one point matches were created with 3 mechs of each weight class but now it's all just random (I've seen companies with five or more light mechs and a bunch of mediums and heavies and not a single assault mech) or maybe it was always random.

The match maker looks to create matches with 3 of each weight class (also called 3/3/3/3 matching) (3 lights, 3 mediums, 3 heavies, 3 assaults). However, if the match maker can't create a match within a specific time frame, it loosens these restrictions. So, for example, if there are only 9% light mechs queued up, and 50% heavies, you are more likely to see 4 (or even 5) heavies on your team that match and 2 (or 1) light mech.

Also, lances drop with mechs in the nearest weight category. So you may see a medium or two in with the lights for example. You currently should never see an assault in with the light mechs, nor medium mechs either.


At one point (in the far reaching past of MW:O), there use to be no match maker, so teams were a bit more random. The only thing that Match Maker matched up (hidden pun maybe?) was weight classes. Back then, if a team had a light mech, so did their opposing team. If they had 3 assaults, so would the enemy. If you team was nothing but assaults, than your opponent was an all assault team as well. This has not been the way of MW:O for a long time though. (This was back when repair and rearm was in the game.)


Group queue is a different animal all together though, as it tosses out thew 3/3/3/3 rule in favor of trying to balance each team's total weight. This was due to how difficult it is to pair up matching 3/3/3/3 teams, so match maker tended to take a really long time until it just gave up and tossed whomever it could together.

If you play a lot of group matches, this could be why you saw an assault mech in with light mechs. (Because in group queue, it will try to drop premade teams of players together in the same lance. So, if you had a 4 man team with 2 Atlases and 2 Locusts, they most likely would drop together as a single lance.)


And then, CW (Community Warfare, recently rebranded as "Faction Warfare") is completely different from that, and any person might drop with a lance with any weight, depending upon what their lance mates dropped in with that wave of mechs. (CW is vastly more intricate, and I'll go no more into it here unless asked.)

[Moebius Pi]

Keeping it "as is with a few tweaks" was what the new map originally was going to be in regards to Alpine. It got ditched for a full bore rework as that turned out to work better.

So no. The map doesn't have the necessary wiggle room for you to "make it work" with a diverse set of load outs with that damn derp mountain in place.

The amount of rejiggering it would take to get it into a state that still allows for it to be a good long range map while actually being fair to players who didn't make a sniping/LRM build (setting derp mountain more as a strong of plateau's or a dividing glacial wall with some massive retooling that can be climbed) wouldn't actually resemble Alpine anymore beyond the textures used.

The defining feature needs retooling, as do cover point distances and movement paths for it to be more fully utilized. To me that says "ditch the PoS, as it won't be Alpine anymore with a "tweak". If you need to redo -the- dominant map feature along with the spawn points and all that to make it remotely interesting, there comes a point where you just have to admit it's garbage.

I'm all for having more maps (including cool ones), but Alpine has always stunk of EZ mode "HAHA *******, I won the ERLL PPC LRM lottery and you didn't, suuuuuuck it". I can snipe in tighter ranges, on Viridian Bog ffs, HPG, Mining collective (with a good jump capable mech at least), even Terra Therma with some good jumping to the rim. I can do that in Tourmaline as well with various outcrops/high points. Hell... Caustic even lets you with some of the outlying outcrops for that matter.

Alpine isn't the only long range capable map, it's just the only one -utterly- dominated by it due to poor map design. It's alright in Conquest mode (which often gives more chances to use all the features, crummy as they are), and almost tolerable in Assault (assuming everyone doesn't derp and go derp mountain and leave the backdoor to the base open, like, you know, most matches) at least to an extent, but it's too myopic in how it commonly plays out. I loathe "go to center" Terra Therma, but even I look forwards to it more than any Alpine match.

I won't shed a tear if it gets eventually ****-canned, it had it long in coming, and I may get lynched for it, but I'd rather have Terra therma with some caldera and ramp tweaking (while retaining that feature), than a minorly adjusted Alpine. A lack of good maps shouldn't necessitate keeping a farming trash map in rotation. I'm not -that- desperate for diversity or cruel enough to the new players to encourage its retention due to some very misplaced sense of nostalgia.

[TTDeadsayer]

Tesunie, on 13 January 2016 - 05:44 PM, said:

The match maker looks to create matches with 3 of each weight class (also called 3/3/3/3 matching) (3 lights, 3 mediums, 3 heavies, 3 assaults). However, if the match maker can't create a match within a specific time frame, it loosens these restrictions. So, for example, if there are only 9% light mechs queued up, and 50% heavies, you are more likely to see 4 (or even 5) heavies on your team that match and 2 (or 1) light mech.

Also, lances drop with mechs in the nearest weight category. So you may see a medium or two in with the lights for example. You currently should never see an assault in with the light mechs, nor medium mechs either.


At one point (in the far reaching past of MW:O), there use to be no match maker, so teams were a bit more random. The only thing that Match Maker matched up (hidden pun maybe?) was weight classes. Back then, if a team had a light mech, so did their opposing team. If they had 3 assaults, so would the enemy. If you team was nothing but assaults, than your opponent was an all assault team as well. This has not been the way of MW:O for a long time though. (This was back when repair and rearm was in the game.)


Group queue is a different animal all together though, as it tosses out thew 3/3/3/3 rule in favor of trying to balance each team's total weight. This was due to how difficult it is to pair up matching 3/3/3/3 teams, so match maker tended to take a really long time until it just gave up and tossed whomever it could together.

If you play a lot of group matches, this could be why you saw an assault mech in with light mechs. (Because in group queue, it will try to drop premade teams of players together in the same lance. So, if you had a 4 man team with 2 Atlases and 2 Locusts, they most likely would drop together as a single lance.)


And then, CW (Community Warfare, recently rebranded as "Faction Warfare") is completely different from that, and any person might drop with a lance with any weight, depending upon what their lance mates dropped in with that wave of mechs. (CW is vastly more intricate, and I'll go no more into it here unless asked.)

Interesting. I had no idea it was quite that complex. I think they should reintroduce an option for single class matches. It would be fun to fight lights on lights or whatever.

[Stingray Productions]

Well I guess it's announced now: http://mwomercs.com/...06#entry4947006

[Tesunie]

Moebius Pi, on 13 January 2016 - 09:21 PM, said:

The amount of rejiggering it would take to get it into a state that still allows for it to be a good long range map while actually being fair to players who didn't make a sniping/LRM build (setting derp mountain more as a strong of plateau's or a dividing glacial wall with some massive retooling that can be climbed) wouldn't actually resemble Alpine anymore beyond the textures used.

...

I'm all for having more maps (including cool ones), but Alpine has always stunk of EZ mode "HAHA *******, I won the ERLL PPC LRM lottery and you didn't, suuuuuuck it". I can snipe in tighter ranges, on Viridian Bog ffs, HPG, Mining collective (with a good jump capable mech at least), even Terra Therma with some good jumping to the rim. I can do that in Tourmaline as well with various outcrops/high points. Hell... Caustic even lets you with some of the outlying outcrops for that matter.

...

I kinda cherry picked your post, as I didn't want to have such a long post repeated.

However, I do what to mention that yesterday I did a lot of good solid brawling on Alpine, with no long range snipping involved. I was in my Wolverine (L) set up with twin SRM6s, a MPL and an UAC5, and I got right into SRM range with my first contact.

Alpine has so many playing options, often times not used by players because they either don't see it, don't think of it, or they don't consider it viable. Everyone has it in their head to just go to that mountain. If your team is smart, they can easily control where the fighting happens knowing this information. Even then, I still saw it about a 50/50 on if the team that took the mountain would actually win from my experience (in PUG land at least).

If you are in a brawling mech and wish to brawl, one way is to avoid the mountain, and walk behind the mountain. Go through the base and get behind or beside your opponent. I was able to remain hidden on my approach (though I did spawn by that dish up top) and half my team also went with me. Unfortunately, the other half decided not to push up the back side of the hill, and decided to remain on the slop side of the mountain (by the dish). This let the enemy be able to turn around and deal with one group at a time. If we were more coordinated... (But, PUGs are PUGs, including myself.)


Of course, in Stock Mech Monday, we've had a lot of interesting tactics on Alpine. I or H10 are actually a more fortified position for a team, as they can snip anyone who goes up the mountain, and you can place brawlers on the J10(?) slop up to protect your flank and rear. Lots of cover, and places to have your LRMs hide in. We've also fought down in the hills, avoiding the mountain all together, and that was a lot of fun as well. We've battled inside the base too.


I think Alpine is not a bad map. It has a lot of potential wasted on players who don't want to use it. One of the problems is spawn points though. One thing that could liven the map up would be a set of "semi-randomly" determined spawn points. Saw, you have three sets of spawns that the game randomizes between for every match of Alpine. You could have one set be all in the hills. Another be on the sides of the mountain (so you fight across it instead of up/down the mountain). The last one could be positioned near the two big hills (the mountain and the H10 area), forcing a bit of a fight across the ravine and/or a daring leap off the mountain and up the respective slops to brawl (last spawn idea probably not a good one...).

Another thing that would help Alpine would be to make more slops climbable, especially by Assaults. So a few slops would need to be smoothed out a bit, which would alter the map some.

One more thing that could help all maps out would be to have the Assault lance drop in a more centralized position. When that lance drops on a flank, it's really hard for them to do much (besides hope the team forms on them, or they die alone in their corner). A centralized position would help assaults be able to form on a side if needed, and the faster elements would drop on the sides, so they could all get to the assaults if desired. Alpine would do well with this, as well as most of the maps. (Mining collective comes to mind, as well as Tourmaline and a couple others.)

TTDeadsayer, on 14 January 2016 - 06:23 AM, said:

Interesting. I had no idea it was quite that complex. I think they should reintroduce an option for single class matches. It would be fun to fight lights on lights or whatever.

Wasn't an "option", it just sometimes happened (though extremely rarely). I never had one of those matches, but I was told about an all Atlas vs Atlas match at one time... and was informed "It took so long to kill anyone! It was so much fun!"

[TTDeadsayer]

Tesunie, on 14 January 2016 - 07:40 AM, said:

Wasn't an "option", it just sometimes happened (though extremely rarely). I never had one of those matches, but I was told about an all Atlas vs Atlas match at one time... and was informed "It took so long to kill anyone! It was so much fun!"

Oh, I know. I'm just saying they should make an option for that. I bet that Atlas vs Atlas match was a lot of fun.

I'd also like to add that I've done some pretty fun brawling on Alpine. The last time I played just the other day I was using a SDR-5V with a single medium pulse laser on Alpine. The rest of Alpha lance followed me around behind the enemy and we gang ***** a king crab and a couple other big mechs one at a time, distracting and harassing the enemy while the rest of our team took them from the front. It was great.

Edited by TTDeadsayer, 18 January 2016 - 12:32 PM.

[Smoked]

Alpine Peaks much better than the new Polar map. I disliked it the moment I saw it.

[Vlad Striker]

I like Polar Highlands but I wish to return Forest colony snow map also.