1 reply to this topic

[NGxT]

]The biggest problem that Taiga has is that the attacker side has 3 very spread spawn points still. The defenders, once they kill any sort of attacker wave (this even includes having lost the initial 12 v 12 and needed their second wave of 12 to clean up) get to push out the gates and set up near or on top of one of the corner spawn points. This forces the attacker side to engage in piecemeal and are easy pickings for focus fire from the defender side. Please, consolidate the spawn points for the attackers. There is absolutely no reason for the attackers to spawn so far apart. It contributes nothing offensively in terms of both tactical advantage or meaningful decision making, and encourages dropship spawn rushing from the defenders.

Another major problem lies in how Taiga's gates are set up for the defenders. Every other map with the exclusion of Taiga and Boreal have very sharp turns and corridors near the gate entrance on the defender side which prevents a solid firing line from being built with 12 mechs all able to focus into the gates at about 400m range. The other maps either force the defenders to get uncomfortably close to actually hold the gate, or have very little actual space to place mechs in with LoS, forcing overcrowding. At least on Boreal, the attacker side can get angles from up top to shoot down at the defender's firing line because of direct LoS from the ramps. Taiga has no such ramps close to the gates, and the hills are at the wrong angle to allow any return fire lines to the center area of Taiga between the gates. This allows a defending team to stack in the middle gap, using the buildings and the shelf close to the gate ridge wall and build a firing line that can all point guns at the gate, while the attackers can only get LoS by actually moving through the gate. The attackers need to push through the gate at a severe disadvantage, even if they choose to push past, there is not enough cover to allow the mechs to get away in any sort of meaningful way. Once they are through the gates, there is very little actual cover to then take, and nowhere to build a firing line to receive the defender mechs who will move from their position to push into the rear of the attacking force that moved through. The defender always has the advantage.

To deal with those problems, the attackers need a ramp to a plateau near the gates on the outside that have LoS to the center area of the defenders, near the edge of the buildings. Not enough room to place a lot of mechs, just a few, enough to discourage the center camp by allowing a few mechs to pick and poke at the center fire line using angles if they are going to be static and in the open, waiting for a push. I would look at Boreal's gate ramps and use those as a template for the ideal ramp size. The lack of cover once inside needs to be addressed. This is less an issue on the D4 side, as there is at least an S ridge immediately, even if its a bad position to take and try to defend. A second ridgeline at the building that can be used as cover to build a firing line to receive the chasing defender mechs would be a huge help. The F4 side is merely a killing field. There is no cover in range by the time the defender mechs are pushing into the attacker's rear. F3 is much too far away to use as cover, and is too steep to use a ridgeline to defend with. The low buildings are also tucked in too close to the center that you cannot get a good angle back towards the gate from there, as well as just being too low to use as proper cover in general. F4 needs real cover that can be used to build a firing line on, like a low ridge. Even just mirroring the north side S ridge would be acceptable here.

When I played with KCom against other good premades like 228 on Taiga, it was by far the most unbalanced map. This is the easiest map to exploit to defenders advantage out of all the CW maps. Just because you don't see it from pug matches because you actually need to move with purpose to exploit it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. This map is garbage when you have real 12 mans playing it.

Edited by NGxT, 03 August 2016 - 05:39 PM.

[justcallme A S H]

NGxT, on 03 August 2016 - 05:38 PM, said:

Another major problem lies in how Taiga's gates are set up for the defenders. Every other map with the exclusion of Taiga and Boreal have very sharp turns and corridors near the gate entrance on the defender side which prevents a solid firing line from being built with 12 mechs all able to focus into the gates at about 400m range.

You can deathball at the gates on Sulferous / Hellbore very easily as defenders as well, so what you've said above is largely inaccurate.
Try a B2 defence on Hellbore or any-gate ball in Sulferous and you'll see it's no different. You don't know the enemy is there until the first mech is in, and dead accordingly.

Taiga, played properly, can be quite a bit of fun as inside both gates you have a little alcove that your 1st or 2nd in the gate and run into, while the others push in. Thus sharing armour and so on for an attack leading the first mech in to actually live.

I would say due to this it's a less troublesome map to attack, if approached in that way as it's one of the only gates you can't stack directly on..
If people wanna go right gate and curve into D4 (rather than push into defenders), then of course 2-3 mechs are going to get flogged out.

The overall issue though is attacking on ALL maps is hard work as the defenders can stack on any gate on any map basically and the gate itself acts as the choke. Only one they really can't is Boreal, but given you can sit on the hills with extreme range it's of zero consequence.