77 replies to this topic

[BluefireMW]

I liked the old Terra Therma and i like the new Terra Therma even more.
It has all, a good map needs.

[Weeny Machine]

A bit too one dimensional for my taste and brawlers have a hard time there. JJ are also not all too rewarding and things can bog down to a snipefest quickly

The visuals are nice, though, and it is a decent map but not really "good".

Edited by Bush Hopper, 23 October 2016 - 03:40 AM.

[Widowmaker1981]

To be honest i love it. Its the only map where nascar doesnt seem to happen! Solo queue is full of people who truly have been conditioned to think that on most maps the only acceptable strategy is to keep W mashed down for the entire game. TT, so far at least, seems to actually involve teams trading in fairly static positions.

[Chados]

I actually like new TT. It is like a cross between Polar Highlands and Tourmaline Desert. Polar is one of my favorite maps, and new TT has similarities, but it is hot and you have to manage heat carefully. It is not friendly to energy builds.

[Y E O N N E]

Widowmaker1981, on 23 October 2016 - 03:47 AM, said:

To be honest i love it. Its the only map where nascar doesnt seem to happen! Solo queue is full of people who truly have been conditioned to think that on most maps the only acceptable strategy is to keep W mashed down for the entire game. TT, so far at least, seems to actually involve teams trading in fairly static positions.

Ripe for back-dooring!

[Angel of Annihilation]

Widowmaker1981, on 23 October 2016 - 03:47 AM, said:

To be honest i love it. Its the only map where nascar doesnt seem to happen! Solo queue is full of people who truly have been conditioned to think that on most maps the only acceptable strategy is to keep W mashed down for the entire game. TT, so far at least, seems to actually involve teams trading in fairly static positions.

While the Nascar effect can get somewhat annoying at times, the problem with this map is that it has too many choke points and channels that turn the battle into snipefest or generally just bog it down into two blobs of mechs tripping over each other because there is so little cover and no where else to go. Flanking also is a very difficult option because often it requires you matching back down the channel, then way around some impassible terrain and finally after long minutes of matching, finally manage a flank. Of course by this time the main battle is over because the team that didn't flank used the time of your absence to push.

On the other hand, the outskirts of Terra Therma, where it is generally open with just lost of broken terrain is amazingly fun to fight over it is just unfortunate that people tend to always clot in the center.

On the other hand, Polar Highlands is more what they should be going for with Map design. This is the ONLY map in the game where battles are free-forming and can literally happen anywhere. It is large enough that you actually have to have light, fast mechs to scout and find where the enemy forces are and where they are heading. Then the terrain has enough dips and valleys to avoid LRM fire plus use the low point to actually screen your movement which means an enemy can apprear on your flank at any time if your not careful. Also the gentle up-down motion of the terrain lets you fight ether over the hill are around them catering to whatever configuration of weapons your mech mounts. Also most fights have a good combination of sniping and brawling so no one really gets left out. Finally the map is large enough that you can actually do a wide flank and get behind your enemy with fast mechs without being detected.

So I wish Terra was more like this. They should have just made alot of smaller jumbles of rocks and craters that kind of uniformly covered the entire map instead of all the channels and choke points. Honestly I wish they would do with with all map. No Channels, no choke points, No dominating terrain feature or building that just have to be fought over, those are the kind of maps I would love to see.

My wish list and every one could generally use the alot of the assets from existing maps:

Cityscape - General City mostly built on a grid with a mix or different size and type buildings. No dominating buildings, no open spaces or long lines of fire, no major elevation changes, No massive impassible blocks of building. Think Crimson Straight without the two mountains, the platform or the water, just the cityscape.

Borel Forest - Forest Colony but with out the dominating rock formations but with inclusion of more rolling terrain. Think Polar Highlands but covered in Forest and mist.

Rocky Desert - Canyon Network without the canyons. Again mostly flat with maybe a few scatter large sized rock outcroppings with the terrain broken by a few barely mech deep waddies, and quite a few mech sized rock formations.

Viridian Jungle - Viridian without the Plateaus.

Caustic Plains - Caustic without the Volcano.

All larger than average map sizes.

[Chados]

Viktor Drake, on 23 October 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

My wish list and every one could generally use the alot of the assets from existing maps:

Cityscape - General City mostly built on a grid with a mix or different size and type buildings. No dominating buildings, no open spaces or long lines of fire, no major elevation changes, No massive impassible blocks of building. Think Crimson Straight without the two mountains, the platform or the water, just the cityscape.

Borel Forest - Forest Colony but with out the dominating rock formations but with inclusion of more rolling terrain. Think Polar Highlands but covered in Forest and mist.

Rocky Desert - Canyon Network without the canyons. Again mostly flat with maybe a few scatter large sized rock outcroppings with the terrain broken by a few barely mech deep waddies, and quite a few mech sized rock formations.

Viridian Jungle - Viridian without the Plateaus.

Caustic Plains - Caustic without the Volcano.

All larger than average map sizes.

Not nearly enough likes for this. Yes, yes, and YES, James-Joyce-in-Ulysses style Yes.

Edited by Chados, 23 October 2016 - 08:51 AM.

[DaFrog Jr]

New terra therma is silly and mono linear. in skirmish, go to the volcano, hold H8, win 12-1. Read the salt.
Bring back the old one.

[Weeny Machine]

Viktor Drake, on 23 October 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

On the other hand, Polar Highlands is more what they should be going for with Map design. This is the ONLY map in the game where battles are free-forming and can literally happen anywhere.

While free-forming battles are true, you should also mention the drawbacks: LRM-fest and brawlers are screwed beyond belief.

The lack of cover is also a problem for brawlers on the new TT map

[Angel of Annihilation]

Bush Hopper, on 23 October 2016 - 01:12 PM, said:

While free-forming battles are true, you should also mention the drawbacks: LRM-fest and brawlers are screwed beyond belief. The lack of cover is also a problem for brawlers on the new TT map

Not at all. I mentioned this about Polar Highlands. The dips and valleys in the terrain are more than enough to get you out of line of sight of snipers and LRMs and they also offer you plenty of avenues to screen your approach to the enemy if you happen to be a brawler build. UAVs can be a problem but not if your team is on the ball.

Also I am not talking maps with no cover. I am talking maps that don't have dominating terrain features.

What is an example of a dominating terrain feature? Well lets start with River City where you have the Citadel which 9 times out of 10 is where everyone fights. Of course the fights tend to rotate around this point hence the Nascar effect. Frozen City has the same issue. That big huge open area in the middle prevents people crossing and closing on one another. This again causes the teams to pinwheel around that death zone in the middle as the brawler try to find a way to get in close with the enemy. HPG, huge pyramid dead center of the map, round and round we go yet again. Canyon Network, a high point of cover in the center of the map that all ramps lead to. Yep, we are circling yet again. Mining Collective, dominating point again in the center of the map, lets get our circle on. Forest Colony, several big rocks again in the center of the map, no real cover anywhere else, round and round we go. I can continue but I think it is pretty obvious why we have Nascar going on in most cases.

This obviously needs to stop with the new map that they push out.

Edited by Viktor Drake, 23 October 2016 - 01:30 PM.

[Moonlight Grimoire]

chewie, on 21 October 2016 - 11:20 PM, said:

Yea, its much better looking than the original.

BUT

Its worse than the original too.

Every match (pug, domination) I've played in the last 3 days, my team just hunkers down in a spot between G6 and G8 an just sit and die.

Its depressing.

Add this to all the same ol same ol builds, and its a wonder why people play now.

Apart from to prove how good they are with the common builds.

There's no Variety.

I just hope people actually get outta the mindset of "go here, hunker down, get greased" and actually try and flank or come in from a different direction for a change.

I wanted to reply to this. Most maps have this, in fact I don't think there is a map that doesn't have a hunker down and poke area. But, that is more due to players in MWO tend to poke as it is optimal in their mind. They maximize their damage output by building for high burst dps or alpha for when they poke and then hide again to cool off and avoid return fire. Polar and Terra Therma both punish this sort of play with while easy to break a lock the terrain is only in a few places going to actually stop LRM's diving. In fact, often, the terrain is sculpted so the LRM path against someone who just broke contact but has LRM's still incoming will get hit if they don't then move in a new direction. This punishes poking, however, players still will do it and just try to maneuver after the poke.

Terra Therma I have seen basically develop into three meta's on how to fight. First is the F7 fight, which is one team gets to F7 first and tries to hold it as it has the most choke points around it. Down side to this is it is still vulnerable to flanking and LRM fire.

From here I also see a number of fights develop in E5/E6/D5/D6 area where there are a lot of good spots to poke from, usually you also will see one or both teams send a force to flank through F7 to try to exploit the static nature of the fight in this area. This I see when there are no objectives in play or with conquest going on, though, conquest is probably the most enjoyable mode on this map due to how many options there are to get to each objective.

The last meta I have found is that a team will set up in the E8-E9 highlands and use the over watch potential of this and the rather limited ways to assault this position to allow them to get more guns on a single target. This is more common in Assault due to their base is right in E9 allowing them to quickly shift to fight either possible approach. I have seen this tactic only work once so far as people defending tend to over estimate how well they can trade the assaulting team, with no real LRM cover and the need for high mounted weapons to work the plethora of ridges anyone set up in D7 or D8 will easily get flanking shots and hold locks for missiles, let alone if someone gets below the face of a ridge and drops a UAV.

New Terra Therma is a lot more interesting as the only defining terrain feature of tactical note is F7 from a quick glance with it's choke points and cover, but, it is in all honesty, a death trap. Keeping time to a minimum in that area outside of domination is crucial as it is an easy place to get stuck being out traded or out flanked with no cover to retreat into.

[Tlords]

Viktor Drake, on 23 October 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

On the other hand, Polar Highlands is more what they should be going for with Map design. This is the ONLY map in the game where battles are free-forming and can literally happen anywhere.

So true.

[Chuck Jager]

Davegt27, on 22 October 2016 - 02:30 PM, said:

Here is a list of temperatures for the common types of lava: Rock type Temperature (C) Temperature (F) Rhyolite 700-900 1292-1652 Dacite 800-1100 1472-2012 Andesite 950-1200 1742-2192 Basalt 1000-1250 1832-2282
so for Mechs to be melting down in this 31 or 33rd century game is crazy

So do you snort and push your glasses up before or after quoting these facts that are for lava found on earth.
I am pretty sure in another galaxy far far away (wait for the obvious comparison), Lava can be way hotter if the author/dev wants it to be. For once maybe smurfy's would have been a better choice.

Seems that Lava is hotter but my energy boats not in lava seem to be running cooler.

The slight elevation changes creating cover do make running and gunning towards and away from the enemy easier, but pop tarting and high mounts (ebj, HBR, kdk3) are having a good time.

Edited by Chuck Jager, 24 October 2016 - 11:02 AM.

[Weeny Machine]

Viktor Drake, on 23 October 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

While the Nascar effect can get somewhat annoying at times, the problem with this map is that it has too many choke points and channels that turn the battle into snipefest or generally just bog it down into two blobs of mechs tripping over each other because there is so little cover and no where else to go. Flanking also is a very difficult option because often it requires you matching back down the channel, then way around some impassible terrain and finally after long minutes of matching, finally manage a flank. Of course by this time the main battle is over because the team that didn't flank used the time of your absence to push.

On the other hand, the outskirts of Terra Therma, where it is generally open with just lost of broken terrain is amazingly fun to fight over it is just unfortunate that people tend to always clot in the center.

On the other hand, Polar Highlands is more what they should be going for with Map design. This is the ONLY map in the game where battles are free-forming and can literally happen anywhere. It is large enough that you actually have to have light, fast mechs to scout and find where the enemy forces are and where they are heading. Then the terrain has enough dips and valleys to avoid LRM fire plus use the low point to actually screen your movement which means an enemy can apprear on your flank at any time if your not careful. Also the gentle up-down motion of the terrain lets you fight ether over the hill are around them catering to whatever configuration of weapons your mech mounts. Also most fights have a good combination of sniping and brawling so no one really gets left out. Finally the map is large enough that you can actually do a wide flank and get behind your enemy with fast mechs without being detected.

So I wish Terra was more like this. They should have just made alot of smaller jumbles of rocks and craters that kind of uniformly covered the entire map instead of all the channels and choke points. Honestly I wish they would do with with all map. No Channels, no choke points, No dominating terrain feature or building that just have to be fought over, those are the kind of maps I would love to see.

My wish list and every one could generally use the alot of the assets from existing maps:

Cityscape - General City mostly built on a grid with a mix or different size and type buildings. No dominating buildings, no open spaces or long lines of fire, no major elevation changes, No massive impassible blocks of building. Think Crimson Straight without the two mountains, the platform or the water, just the cityscape.

Borel Forest - Forest Colony but with out the dominating rock formations but with inclusion of more rolling terrain. Think Polar Highlands but covered in Forest and mist.

Rocky Desert - Canyon Network without the canyons. Again mostly flat with maybe a few scatter large sized rock outcroppings with the terrain broken by a few barely mech deep waddies, and quite a few mech sized rock formations.

Viridian Jungle - Viridian without the Plateaus.

Caustic Plains - Caustic without the Volcano.

All larger than average map sizes.

Sorry, but I still disagree. You can hide somewhere but as soon as you engage as a brawler - you are in the open and in the crosshair of several mechs. Your only chance is that you are in an aggressive team...but in PUGlandia this is often not the case. So the only thing you can do is to sit and wait until the snipefest ends.

As for LRMs...if the enemy has a light mech with ECM which spots for them you will soon discover that you have out-of-sight spots but no real cover from LRMs. Also pretty idiotic.

Take Mining Colony on the other hand. You can brawl without being easily focus fired by half of the enemy team and snipers aren't screwed either.

As I said before: Polar is a steaming pile of sh**. Terra Therma is leagues better than this map, however, it could have used a little more cover plus some different levels of terrain.

Edited by Bush Hopper, 24 October 2016 - 12:37 PM.

[Hellcat420]

mordor is still mordor. /fail imo

[Angel of Annihilation]

Bush Hopper, on 24 October 2016 - 12:35 PM, said:

Sorry, but I still disagree. You can hide somewhere but as soon as you engage as a brawler - you are in the open and in the crosshair of several mechs. Your only chance is that you are in an aggressive team...but in PUGlandia this is often not the case. So the only thing you can do is to sit and wait until the snipefest ends. As for LRMs...if the enemy has a light mech with ECM which spots for them you will soon discover that you have out-of-sight spots but no real cover from LRMs. Also pretty idiotic. Take Mining Colony on the other hand. You can brawl without being easily focus fired by half of the enemy team and snipers aren't screwed either. As I said before: Polar is a steaming pile of sh**. Terra Therma is leagues better than this map, however, it could have used a little more cover plus some different levels of terrain.

All I can say is that I never have this problem on Polar Highlands. Why? Don't know. Perhaps we use different tactics but I will say when some people have issues and others don't those people having issues need to really think about what the ones not having issues are doing to not have issues.

Honestly I don't think enough of that type of thinking actually takes place in the game.

[Widowmaker1981]

Viktor Drake, on 23 October 2016 - 07:02 AM, said:

While the Nascar effect can get somewhat annoying at times, the problem with this map is that it has too many choke points and channels that turn the battle into snipefest or generally just bog it down into two blobs of mechs tripping over each other because there is so little cover and no where else to go. Flanking also is a very difficult option because often it requires you matching back down the channel, then way around some impassible terrain and finally after long minutes of matching, finally manage a flank. Of course by this time the main battle is over because the team that didn't flank used the time of your absence to push.

On the other hand, the outskirts of Terra Therma, where it is generally open with just lost of broken terrain is amazingly fun to fight over it is just unfortunate that people tend to always clot in the center.

On the other hand, Polar Highlands is more what they should be going for with Map design. This is the ONLY map in the game where battles are free-forming and can literally happen anywhere. It is large enough that you actually have to have light, fast mechs to scout and find where the enemy forces are and where they are heading. Then the terrain has enough dips and valleys to avoid LRM fire plus use the low point to actually screen your movement which means an enemy can apprear on your flank at any time if your not careful. Also the gentle up-down motion of the terrain lets you fight ether over the hill are around them catering to whatever configuration of weapons your mech mounts. Also most fights have a good combination of sniping and brawling so no one really gets left out. Finally the map is large enough that you can actually do a wide flank and get behind your enemy with fast mechs without being detected.

So I wish Terra was more like this. They should have just made alot of smaller jumbles of rocks and craters that kind of uniformly covered the entire map instead of all the channels and choke points. Honestly I wish they would do with with all map. No Channels, no choke points, No dominating terrain feature or building that just have to be fought over, those are the kind of maps I would love to see.

My wish list and every one could generally use the alot of the assets from existing maps:

Cityscape - General City mostly built on a grid with a mix or different size and type buildings. No dominating buildings, no open spaces or long lines of fire, no major elevation changes, No massive impassible blocks of building. Think Crimson Straight without the two mountains, the platform or the water, just the cityscape.

Borel Forest - Forest Colony but with out the dominating rock formations but with inclusion of more rolling terrain. Think Polar Highlands but covered in Forest and mist.

Rocky Desert - Canyon Network without the canyons. Again mostly flat with maybe a few scatter large sized rock outcroppings with the terrain broken by a few barely mech deep waddies, and quite a few mech sized rock formations.

Viridian Jungle - Viridian without the Plateaus.

Caustic Plains - Caustic without the Volcano.

All larger than average map sizes.

While i kind of agree, especially for group queue, in solo queue flanking literally equals nascar. Someone to the right of the line tries to flank, the person next to him sees a distraction moving so they follow to try to get free damage on people shooting him, this snowballs and soon everyone is moving right, and since no one wants to be on the extreme left of the formation (because thats where the enemy is going to come from, and no one wants to be the one getting shot first) this movement never, ever stops - which is gigantically frustrating for someone like me who prefers long, somewhat static engagements and trading (and brawling is pretty much my least favoured playstyle). So i dont mind that you cant flank easily/at all, because that stops the goddamn nascar before it starts.

[SpectreHD]

Didn't read the whole thread but I wish Terra Therma was a bit brighter. Can't enjoy the ambiance of Mordor if I always have to see everything in shades of green.

Also, would love to see it in daytime. Doesn't seem Terra Therma has a day/night cycle.

Edited by SpectreHD, 25 October 2016 - 12:12 AM.