10 replies to this topic

[Varvar86]

Hello everyone.
New amazing Polar Highlands maps and its high variability of situations and action places made me think about old maps problems.
Older maps problems are small size, Center hot point and obstacles placed in manner that they “leading” players to the center. Those maps need complete overhaul and rebuild from the scratch. But today I want to talk about quite fresh map as Forest colony that big enough to provide beautiful tactical game play, but at the same time it have old “artificial area limitation obstacles” as older maps do.
Is it can be updated?

First of all, let’s look at average action areas at this map.


Reason №1 – map has been updated from older tight and small “forest colony v.1” and people tend to stick to the familiar zones.
Reason №2 – design mistakes. PGI tried to make new forest colony a remake, so players can recognize old map areas. They did a great job spreading the area in left side of the map, but they also wanted to save that familiar battle zone near waterfall at H9. And waterfall needs a rock or a mountain so they place a HUGE mountain an automatically killed half of their map.
Lets see how that mountains limits the map:


Left side is Fine – spawns are spread and players have big entrances in central area. Right side is where the problem is. Nobody goes that little pass f9-f10 because this is a bottle neck and death trap. Nobody goes d9-d10 because nobody wants do spent 10 min. on walking around, So people who spawned 12 line going down to the H line because they have that huge mountain that lives them no other choice. And players from the other side knows that and also moves to the H line leaving central area neglected. So as result more than 60% of this beautiful map is not in use at all.

Simple decision – get rid of the mountain in g9-g10/f9-f10/e9-e10/d9-d10. Make couple of small hills and wide entrances in central area. Mountain in e7-e8 also must be deleted. Passes in i5-i6 and c6 must be enlarged. Move bases up to the G line in assault mode. And move each capture point one square up in conquest mode. Bum – all map is in use and we have more variability and tactical choices.

But… but what about old Forest colony?
Nothing - new forest colony is already not an old forest colony and never will be. Old design must stay in the past and game must evolve from corridor shooter to MechWarrior.

Thoughts?

Edited by Varvar86, 28 January 2016 - 06:58 AM.

[Brandarr Gunnarson]

I actually love Forest Colony as a map, but I definitely recognize the movement problems.

That huge mountain should really just be two moderate hills with a road between them and be covered with the same huge, redwood-like trees that we see to the west of the mountain.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Nice thread Varvar86, I generally have the same thoughs about Forest Colony - half of the map is unused. Nobody ever goes north anymore because 1. It is a bad place to be due to the deathtrap tunnel on the right and general lack of cover on the left and 2. on top of that basically all bases and cap points are located south. No need and no use to ever go north.

Suggestion 1 - Move the bases / some caps more to the north north. Duh.

Suggestion 2 - Bring back the tunnel! Or a few tunnels actually. IMHO there should be a cave complex in the big mountain, with exits in H9/H10 border, G9, the middle of the F9/F10 road and even an additional one from f9-f10 road going north to E9/F9 border.

[adamts01]

Your proposal is a popular one, and I definitely agree with it. PGI is embarrassingly bad at building maps. They definitely surprised me with Polar. I hope they keep it up.

[PigsinBlankets]

This is actually one of my favourite pug maps as the funnel effect really emphasises Brawling which is easily the aspect of gameplay I enjoy most. Peek and Poke I just find boring I am afraid. That said - more tactical flexibility is necessary - reducing the mountains height and enabling it to be traversed by at least light and medium mechs would be a start , as would a tunnel/2nd pass, or an expansion of the village/building complex to make it multi Level..

Edited by Asrael999, 28 January 2016 - 06:00 AM.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

Forgot one thingy though - that mountain is so big to cut sightlines/need to render too large amount of objects. Just removing it would make Forest Colony kill performance at PCs/settings that can handle all the other maps well. Mountain cannot be removed, this is why I proposed the tunnels

Edited by Prof RJ Gumby, 28 January 2016 - 06:02 AM.

[TheCharlatan]

Yes, the mountain range on the 9-10 lines is terrible, it basically takes away 3/4 of the map.
It needs to go, or at least be made into a hilly/rocky area.

[adamts01]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 28 January 2016 - 06:01 AM, said:

Forgot one thingy though - that mountain is so big to cut sightlines/need to render too large amount of objects. Just removing it would make Forest Colony kill performance at PCs/settings that can handle all the other maps well. Mountain cannot be removed, this is why I proposed the tunnels

I'd rather have better map design/gameplay and have them remove all the unnecessary **** that takes up so much cpu. Tourmaline and Polar are huge and render just fine.

[Prof RJ Gumby]

adamts01, on 28 January 2016 - 06:16 AM, said:

I'd rather have better map design/gameplay and have them remove all the unnecessary **** that takes up so much cpu. Tourmaline and Polar are huge and render just fine.

Desert or polar maps can live without much detail. But a city? A forest? Not really IMHO.

This is why there should be tunnels through that mountain, similar to hose from the old forest colony. That way we could have both "unnecessary *****" and better gameplay.

[sycocys]

Prof RJ Gumby, on 28 January 2016 - 06:28 AM, said:

Desert or polar maps can live without much detail. But a city? A forest? Not really IMHO.

This is why there should be tunnels through that mountain, similar to hose from the old forest colony. That way we could have both "unnecessary *****" and better gameplay.

I agree and 100% agree with tunnel systems, that was a key feature of old Forest Colony and should have never gotten eliminated.

Also is there a need for 1k+ snails all over the map? They don't add anything to the map and there'd be a little performance gain by eliminating them.

[Jables McBarty]

Good analysis OP!

However I think a lot of the problems can be quickly and easily solved by changing the spawnpoints. Everyone goes to H9 because by the time the East-side team groups up, they are in H10. From there it's too far to flank through D10, and the West-side team is grouped in G8 so the F9-F10 pass is a death trap.

Putting one team in D11 (concentrated spawns) and the other in I8, H7, or J9 would open up both sides of the mountain for combat. The pass is still sort of a death trap, but you could send a light to scout through there to figure out which side of the mountain the other team is pushing up.

Mix up the spawnpoints by game mode. So skirmish is D11/I8; make Conquest E12/E7 (you'd have to move around the cap points a bit, but put the pre-capped points in G11 and F8, then keep J11, one in H6, one in H8; keep Assault generally the same if you like that gameplay--but group the spawnpoints so teams are immediately grouped and can maneuver from there, rather than spending 2 minutes to group and then barrelling forward on existing trajectory.

All this was inspired from this PGI-generated topic about switching up the Alpine Peaks spawn points:
https://mwomercs.com...pawn-locations/

And I really do think that changing up the spawnpoints is a quick, easy way to make up for a map's deficiencies.

I'd even encourage PGI to consider regular spawnpoint changes across all maps, monthly or quarterly, however often they can afford to, just to keep gameplay fresh.