12 replies to this topic

[Tarogato]

This should help speed along the learning process with the new map.







Here's another version, showing terrain height a little bit:








– Neon green = impassable terrain; hard, tall cover
– Pale green = ledges, one-way terrain, plateaus
– Grey = structures and platforms
– Orange = the floor is lava!





And for what it's worth, here's a similar map of Forest Colony that I made eons ago and probably never posted.

[Tristan Winter]

Ultimately, I feel like this map has a lot of redeeming qualities, but it's still fundamentally the opposite of what I want in any kind of FPS map. Especially one that revolves around vehicular warfare.

PGI is still very much in love with bottlenecks. They don't like it when central 'grind zones' (their name for where the action takes place) can be attacked from multiple angles at the same time. They don't like when forces can quickly envelop or flank each other. The classic example is Crimson Strait. Imagine you're grouped up at saddle and you find that it's a stalemate. So you want to probe the enemy lines for weaknesses elsewhere. No problem. You just have to walk... three kilometers around a huge frickin mountain. By the time you've found another angle of attack, you're no longer fighting the red team, you're fighting their sons and grandsons. It takes at least two generations to get a good flanking attack going.

That was the main reason I disliked the old Terra Therma. It wasn't the fact that everyone had to charge the volcano. It was the god damn bottlenecks that made gameplay so predictable. You basically couldn't just disengage and try to attack from different angles, because moving from one 'gate' to another 'gate' was like a 60-year journey. The war was over by the time the cavalry arrived.

I mean, if you're in E7 and the enemy is in F7, where do you go? You go nowhere. You just headbutt each other until one side falls down.

Edited by Tristan Winter, 20 October 2016 - 11:12 AM.

[Duatam]

Nice maps!

Where is that big round fan which seems to blow air upwards? At first I thought it was a place where you can go and cool down mechs quickly.

Edited by Duatam, 20 October 2016 - 11:18 AM.

[Mystere]

In other words, a Skirmish team can send out 2 ninjas to kill a member or two of the enemy, put one lookout at H7, another at G10, while the rest hole up at the southeast platform to kill any comers.

Otherwise, that southeast section of the map will be totally ignored.

That's such a great map.

Edited by Mystere, 20 October 2016 - 11:23 AM.

[Deathlike]

F7 is a deathtrap.

The problem is ultimately the same, but I guess having more entrances is nice. If only there were more points of attack that didn't involve a long drive commitment that would've given an opfor a long of time to adjust.

[Vellron2005]

Tristan, i totally understand..

Unfortunately, sandbox design on maps this small makes them more arena-like than realistic. In realistic maps, there will be more than one avenue of attack, but even then, military assets will actively seek out bottle necks and easy to defend areas to strategically deploy, and create ambushes and effective kill boxes.

Terra Therma is such a map. Sure, it is hard to get around and flank. That's the idea in the map's design. It forces you to NOT get yourself into a bottle-necked killbox, and instead work like a team and pincer-maneuver and strike as a single coherent force.

The map is good. The player's anti-social "I in team" mentality is the problem.

In my oppinion, F9 is one of the more defensible locations, and don't even get me started on H8/H9 (the old vulcano). Easily defensible.

But most fights will probably happen in the central bottleneck.. because PUGs..

[El Bandito]

Good thing it has plenty of cover from LRMs, even around F7 area. Otherwise...

[Appogee]

Thanks for the map, very useful.

[TheArisen]

Tristan Winter, on 20 October 2016 - 11:12 AM, said:

Ultimately, I feel like this map has a lot of redeeming qualities, but it's still fundamentally the opposite of what I want in any kind of FPS map. Especially one that revolves around vehicular warfare.

PGI is still very much in love with bottlenecks. They don't like it when central 'grind zones' (their name for where the action takes place) can be attacked from multiple angles at the same time. They don't like when forces can quickly envelop or flank each other. The classic example is Crimson Strait. Imagine you're grouped up at saddle and you find that it's a stalemate. So you want to probe the enemy lines for weaknesses elsewhere. No problem. You just have to walk... three kilometers around a huge frickin mountain. By the time you've found another angle of attack, you're no longer fighting the red team, you're fighting their sons and grandsons. It takes at least two generations to get a good flanking attack going.

That was the main reason I disliked the old Terra Therma. It wasn't the fact that everyone had to charge the volcano. It was the god damn bottlenecks that made gameplay so predictable. You basically couldn't just disengage and try to attack from different angles, because moving from one 'gate' to another 'gate' was like a 60-year journey. The war was over by the time the cavalry arrived.

I mean, if you're in E7 and the enemy is in F7, where do you go? You go nowhere. You just headbutt each other until one side falls down.

I disagree with this as far a TF is concerned. On Dom it's pretty easy to flank &/or attack from multiple angles. I think with a bit more time people will learn it better.

Vellron2005, on 21 October 2016 - 12:37 AM, said:

Tristan, i totally understand..

Unfortunately, sandbox design on maps this small makes them more arena-like than realistic. In realistic maps, there will be more than one avenue of attack, but even then, military assets will actively seek out bottle necks and easy to defend areas to strategically deploy, and create ambushes and effective kill boxes.

Terra Therma is such a map. Sure, it is hard to get around and flank. That's the idea in the map's design. It forces you to NOT get yourself into a bottle-necked killbox, and instead work like a team and pincer-maneuver and strike as a single coherent force.

The map is good. The player's anti-social "I in team" mentality is the problem.

In my oppinion, F9 is one of the more defensible locations, and don't even get me started on H8/H9 (the old vulcano). Easily defensible.

But most fights will probably happen in the central bottleneck.. because PUGs..

Yeah, most don't know that F7 is a deathtrap. I try my best to herd them away & it's been somewhat successful.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

this is very better for a Minimap, as the color Pixel Con Carne Minimap from PGI

[N0ni]

What i don't like is that if you're on the team with the F7 encouraged spawn (to the center), you're forced to go around to avoid the deathtrap. The other team however can march right in the center no problem from the other side and will probably get there a bit faster.

Unbalanced.

[Tristan Winter]

Vellron2005, on 21 October 2016 - 12:37 AM, said:

Tristan, i totally understand..
Unfortunately, sandbox design on maps this small makes them more arena-like than realistic. In realistic maps, there will be more than one avenue of attack, but even then, military assets will actively seek out bottle necks and easy to defend areas to strategically deploy, and create ambushes and effective kill boxes.

That's fair, but ultimately this is a 12v12 game on tiny maps and they should design the matches to make this a thinking man's shooter. In a game with more realistic scenarios and objectives and bigger maps, the thinking would happen mostly before every engagement, in terms of when and where to deploy your forces. But in MWO, we "cut right to the chase". So we're in a situation where two equally sized forces are willing to engage, for whatever reason, on entirely equal grounds. Which wouldn't usually happen, realistically speaking.

Vellron2005, on 21 October 2016 - 12:37 AM, said:

Terra Therma is such a map. Sure, it is hard to get around and flank. That's the idea in the map's design. It forces you to NOT get yourself into a bottle-necked killbox, and instead work like a team and pincer-maneuver and strike as a single coherent force.

Pincer maneuvers are always great, but the bigger they make the objects in the terrain (E.g. buildings, volcanoes, mountains), the more risky it becomes to pull off a good pincer-maneuver. Which is why they so rarely work on Crimson Strait. When your units have to move so far to get into position, it becomes increasingly easy for the opposing force to counter-attack before you are ready. And then you get a roflstomp.

That's part of the reason why old Frozen city was so popular. Lots of terrain, but no huge, dominating terrain features. Just lots of small elevations, hills, buildings, etc. The lack of huge terrain features made it easy to maneuver and try to surprise the enemy team. There was a lot of room for action and reaction, instead of a map like Crimson Strait, where -even if you try a pincer attack- you have to go all in and you can't really change the plan, because there's no way to unite your forces again when they've first split up.

[WarHippy]

Tristan Winter, on 20 October 2016 - 11:12 AM, said:

Ultimately, I feel like this map has a lot of redeeming qualities, but it's still fundamentally the opposite of what I want in any kind of FPS map. Especially one that revolves around vehicular warfare.

PGI is still very much in love with bottlenecks. They don't like it when central 'grind zones' (their name for where the action takes place) can be attacked from multiple angles at the same time. They don't like when forces can quickly envelop or flank each other. The classic example is Crimson Strait. Imagine you're grouped up at saddle and you find that it's a stalemate. So you want to probe the enemy lines for weaknesses elsewhere. No problem. You just have to walk... three kilometers around a huge frickin mountain. By the time you've found another angle of attack, you're no longer fighting the red team, you're fighting their sons and grandsons. It takes at least two generations to get a good flanking attack going.

That was the main reason I disliked the old Terra Therma. It wasn't the fact that everyone had to charge the volcano. It was the god damn bottlenecks that made gameplay so predictable. You basically couldn't just disengage and try to attack from different angles, because moving from one 'gate' to another 'gate' was like a 60-year journey. The war was over by the time the cavalry arrived.

I mean, if you're in E7 and the enemy is in F7, where do you go? You go nowhere. You just headbutt each other until one side falls down.

Eh, I don't have a problem with the choke points, and I haven't had any problems disengaging and going around to hit from another side relatively quickly. It is quicker to flank on this map than the old TT map most of the time, and cover while doing so seems a lot better as well. When I have been in E7 and the headbutting starts I have on more than one occasion swung around to F8 and it really doesn't take long to do so. Granted I haven't been in an assault mech those times, but going 81kph in a Huntsman isn't exactly speedy either. Now I think they should probably add a pass through F6(maybe even 2) and then I think there will be a lot more options for people and a little less predictability.