Belacose, on 25 June 2016 - 06:05 AM, said:
Polar Highlands is broken, it isn't the fault of LRMs. It's like PGI doesn't even play their own damn game. Why the hell they would make a map with basically no cover high enough to block incoming LRMS just blows my mind and frustrates me to no end. The hard counter for LRMs, even if you are NARCed, is simply to put tall cover between you and the enemy missile boat, and they are rendered completely useless. You get NARCed on Polar Highlands, and you are a dead man walking. No discussion. You get targeted by a light missile spotter there: again, you are just dead. No counter possible. Get targeted by a light LRM boat like an Oxide on Polar? Yet again, you are dead and can do nothing at all about it. And yet, they could have completely fixed it simply by making the trenches just high enough to cover you from LRM fire in certain places. Put a few big chunks of rock and ice scattered about the battlefield, even better. LRMs would still be effective (In addition to doing damage, they are great area-denial and suppression weapons.) and useful, but you couldn't just sit there and hold down the fire button all match and win if your team happens to have a couple dedicated LRM boats and a spotter or two.
But, this is PGI, and clearly they have no idea how to balance a map. The ones they make that ARE balanced seem almost like complete accidents. However, even a mentally deficient monkey should be able to tell why maps that have a good scattering of tall cover and also long-range elements are the maps everyone likes the best: Because they give all build types a viable role to play without giving an unfair advantage or disadvantage to anyone. For example: Canyon Network. It offers opportunities to snipe, use LRMs, skirmish, and enough cover for short-ranged brawlers to close distance without getting ripped to pieces.The terrain is balanced evenly across the whole map. People like this, and vote for it because they know it's a fair match for everyone no matter what builds they bring. I also enjoy the new Frozen City remake. It has a great mixture of cover and open spaces. Make the wrong move and get caught in the open and you can get shredded by LRMs, but it's generally your fault for making a bad move and leaving cover at a bad time, not the fault of poor map design.
Then there's clear examples of shite maps that rarely get voted for: Alpine Peaks and Terribad Therma. People don't really like Alpine unless they have LRMs or a sniper setup because it clearly favors those builds. Even worse, before the new spawn positions, one team would start with high ground and partial cover while the other poor saps had to advance with no cover in the wide-open up a slope on an entrenched enemy who had the high ground. Anyone who carried short-range weapons on that map was just dead weight for their team most of the match. Terra Therma wouldn't be all that bad terrain-wise, it's just so damn hot that people running energy-heavy builds are ham-stringed from the start simply because cooler ballistic, Gauss, and LRM builds can keep pouring on the attacks while energy-based mechs sit there melting down in their own slag trying to fire back.
End of story and partial rant: You can't balance weapons properly until your maps are balanced properly, and since PGI does this arse-backwards you get angry players and stupid weapon mechanics like ridiculous LRM spread.
Edit: Since people keep missing the damn point and keep posting stupid shite about "Just hide in the trenches, blah, blah..." and disregarding the fact that tall cover is the ONLY counter for certain situations, and that having none on Polar is it's problem, I'll just leave this right here. The chaos starts about 2 minutes in:
Counter THIS guy on your flank on Polar in a pug match. Really, I would like to see you try.
Edited by Mcchuggernaut, 26 June 2016 - 05:53 AM.