52 replies to this topic

[Y E O N N E]

Tarogato, on 23 October 2016 - 06:09 PM, said:

Try looking at the map of Terra Therma, and then looking at a similar map of Tourmaline Desert.













I had to go into a lot more detail to get Tourmaline across because it is a much more open map - the nuances in terrain matter more because large swathes of the map aren't completely blocked off like they are in Terra Therma.



Here's a fully detailed map of Terra Therma if you're interested:

Spoiler

It doesn't matter that they aren't completely blocked off in Tourmaline.

Why?

Because the only 'Mechs that can ever perform a proper flank are Lights and certain fast Mediums (IFR, CDA, VPR, SHC). These are 'Mechs limited in their ability to be threatening at the 800+ meters you damn well know that using those flank options will require. Everything that can remain dangerous is too damn slow to make a flank in a remotely timely fashion without getting spotted early. To add, the moment the enemy smells something like a Heavy missing from your main force, they start moving in because they have more guns at that point.

It's happened in pretty much every single MWOWC match; as soon as a heavy goes missing through death or mal-positioning, it's clean-up time. There were no inherently effective flanks in the matches that weren't a Light going wide toward the end of the match, when people are damaged and the Lights can actually be threatening.

Now, it's precisely because only those Lights and fast mediums that can perform the flank, that the blocked sight-lines to center in New Terra don't mean diddly squat. They couldn't take advantage of the angles anyway. The reality is that you are free to let the enemy have Theta, and all you need worry about is controling E6 and/or G6, and those regions have some fine terrain to work with.Trying to hold F7 is literally the worst possible play you can make, because if you take it and then try to move out of Theta and the enemy has E6 and/or G6, they either rotate to come in behind you or head you off entirely, depending on if you are circling to their rear or you are coming straight at them.

What this does is turn Theta into a wildcard gamble. Which makes it interesting. Unlike old Terra, it doesn't take me literally two minutes to get from one cap point to the next around the outside in the fastest 'Mechs available in the game, which makes it even more interesting.

And you know what? Games on Tourmaline are not terribly fun to watch or play. It's a degenerate snipe-fest with PPCs and Gauss being traded for ten frickin' minutes until one side nuts up to make a finishing play. So, for all our theories on how it is superior, the execution ends up being nigh identical.

Edit: And to add, all opening up sight lines to center would do is turn it into a no-man's land like Grim Plexus.

Edited by Yeonne Greene, 23 October 2016 - 10:21 PM.

[Fox With A Shotgun]

Map geometry wise? Maybe.

New TT is actually fairly well designed so far. Barring Domination, I don't think I've had two matches play the same way ever in QP.

Visuals? I'm of the opinion that they went over the top with unnecessary visual effects. The number one beef I have with the newer maps (particularly reworked FC or Bog) is the damned fog. Absolutely nothing you can do about it; jacking gamma up or down does little to reduce the blinding effect that the fog has. Couple this with a team that's got absolutely no ECM, vs a team that's got ECM, and you've got a recipe for getting sniped to hell and back with no recourse. As an added slap to the face, the trees in reworked FC - yes, those destructible ones that they're so proud about - are exactly cockpit level for most, if not all, lights. It's not fun trying to wade through a sea of trees and seeing only green bottle brushes in your face for most part.

So overall? I think only Terra Therma and possibly Grim Plexus has shown promise of being well designed. Polar LRMLands is a wake-up call for people to go for herd LRM immunity via AMS (though it seems that hasn't caught on yet, and a NARC is still a death sentence). Some of the effects-heavy reworked maps can really be put through the mulcher for all I care, though. I don't particularly find it amusing to drop visual detail to lowest just so I can actually see something other than target markers and trees.

[Y E O N N E]

I'm of the opinion that anything that puts a kibosh on players being able to abuse gamma for an advantage is a good thing. Nobody should ever be able to abuse video settings to gain any edge other than increased FPS. No visual setting should ever interfere with effects that intentionally inhibit viewing targets at range.

Fog also tends to put a kibosh on effective sniping, since you need to get within 500 meters for the target to show on thermals.

The brush for Lights on FC and Bog are murder, though. Not only does it interfere with maneuvering unfairly, it also inhibits your ability to shoot things, since brush just absorbs your shots and doesn't care.

[MechaBattler]

I think they're an improvement. And I see people saying they don't like big maps. But big maps were requested for the last 3 years. Bigger maps has been a very common theme in what people have said the game can improve on. Granted sometimes when they said that, they also wanted more **** to do on the map. Objective based stuff, though I really doubt that'll go over as well as people dream it will. Think of all the people who rage at losing because of caps. Well they'll rage if they lose a match that doesn't involve direct fighting. Long Tom is like that, though in a more directly blowing your enemies kind of way. Personally I would love to see some kind of resource system and have vehicle AIs swarming around the map. I know, I know, it sounds like a moba. That's not a bad thing though. Closest thing we'll get to combined arms battlefield.

[Tarogato]

Yeonne Greene, on 23 October 2016 - 09:47 PM, said:

It doesn't matter that they aren't completely blocked off in Tourmaline.

Why?

Because the only 'Mechs that can ever perform a proper flank are Lights and certain fast Mediums (IFR, CDA, VPR, SHC). These are 'Mechs limited in their ability to be threatening at the 800+ meters you damn well know that using those flank options will require. Everything that can remain dangerous is too damn slow to make a flank in a remotely timely fashion without getting spotted early. To add, the moment the enemy smells something like a Heavy missing from your main force, they start moving in because they have more guns at that point.

It's happened in pretty much every single MWOWC match

I'm not talking about competitive play. I'm talking about run of the mill solo queue and group queue, where 99.99% of the game is played. And if you don't see how Tourmaline has much more accessible flanks, here's some common meeting points for both maps and the available flanking maneuvers. The differences should be quite clear.

















As you can see, on Terra Therma, the flanks require much more wide maneuvers that take a LOT of time to traverse, even for lights and mediums. And usually if you do make it to the other side to get flanking or rear shots on the enemy main body, enough of them will turn and chase you down because you have such a hugely long distance to traverse in order to get back to the safety of your teammates. And even if you do manage to turn around an entire lance of mechs to chase you down, your allies won't notice since there was probably only room enough for eight mechs to trade at the chokepoint at a time, and not all twelve. On Tourmaline, the flanks are much quicker, and you can get back to safety much earlier. As more people try to operate on these flanks, the entire frontline can shift to new paths, making engagements much more diverse and interesting. On Terra Therma, it basically comes down to "do we meet the enemy in the middle, or in the northwest?" and it doesn't get any more complicated than that most of the time.

[Wil McCullough]

some of the maps suffer from the same issue - a lack of objective.

some maps like polar highlands (which i personally hate, but still) have a clear objective - to give players a large open space for fights whether they like lurming, poking or flanking around and brawling. and the map works.

others like crimson strait have another objective - to give brawlers the opportunity to fight in close quarters urban slugfests. knife fight in a phone booth so to speak. fun.

canyon network also as a clear objective - a twisty network of tunnels with very little los and where danger may lurk at any corner or above. which makes it interesting.

hpg - force a confrontation right in the center. will you win the battle above, or will you hold out in the basement alamo? cool idea.

then there's grim plexus and terra therma.

maps with no real objective, no real plan, just a mish-mash of random things for everyone, everywhere. they're just so incoherent and herpy derpy. reminds me of a child's toybox full of lego, plushies, gi joes, robots and whatnot.

[invernomuto]

Tristan Winter, on 22 October 2016 - 11:07 PM, said:

Looking at maps from 2012 to 2016, do you think there's a positive trend in the quality of maps in MWO?

Note: I am not talking about the aesthetics and cosmetics. Textures, time of day, weather effects, that's not what this thread is about. Obviously, they're getting better at that.

Some questions to consider:

• Do you enjoy the newer maps more than the old maps?
  
• Are the new maps better balanced?
  
• Do the new maps offer more variation in terms of gameplay vs always fighting on the same location?

I like most of the new maps.
Grim Plexus for me is a good map.
I like new Frozen City map a lot, it's better than the old one in my opinion. In the old one you fight always in the same location and you could start very near to the enemy team. Right now it's more balanced.
New Terra Therma seems good, the old one was really bad for me expecially with slow mechs (a lot of steep hills to climb) and usually every game was decided fighting in the small crater in the center.
The old Viridian Bog was a good map with some "flaws": Usually the team that started near the "stairs" to climb on the platform could dominate the high ground. Right now the map seems more balanced to me (and the "stairs" easier to climb with assault mechs).
Forest is still "meh" for me and River City, respect to the old map, got only minor improvements.
So, overall for me PGI was successful in improving old maps.
BTW I would like some more maps, at least 2 a years.

[Vellron2005]

IN my humble opinion, YES, PGI has gotten better at making maps.

The aesthetics aside (which are awesome), the last few maps are diverse and much more balanced than the old ones. The only new map where this is not the case is Polar Highlands, which is LRM heaven.

Grim Plateau is bad though. It's too cluttered and forces battling in the same areas.

The new Terra Therma though is fun,diverse, beautiful, and just a tad too dark (shame to have to use night vision and miss the beauty of lava). Also, the revamped Viridian Bog is much better than it used to be.

So yes, I think they are getting better.

I hope they do more maps though.. new maps.. We really need new maps..

[Belacose]

Not been here long enough to have witnessed all the map changes but those I have ( Frozen City, Forest Colony, Crimson Strait and Terra Therma ) I really like.

In fact I've enjoyed each every update besides the first iteration of the new mini map but after they hotfixed it I felt it was even better than the original.

[Duke Nedo]

I always vote for the maps where I feel the two sides are very balanced, because I UTTERLY HATE spawning on the "losing side" (for example Alpine, Grim or TT Domination are out). Hence: HPG and Mining colony are my two favorites. Sure, with tactics you can win on any map on any side I guess, mostly, but in the solo queue I have little luck trying to affect the pug hive mind...

[Y E O N N E]

Tarogato, on 23 October 2016 - 10:57 PM, said:

I'm not talking about competitive play. I'm talking about run of the mill solo queue and group queue, where 99.99% of the game is played. And if you don't see how Tourmaline has much more accessible flanks, here's some common meeting points for both maps and the available flanking maneuvers. The differences should be quite clear.

















As you can see, on Terra Therma, the flanks require much more wide maneuvers that take a LOT of time to traverse, even for lights and mediums. And usually if you do make it to the other side to get flanking or rear shots on the enemy main body, enough of them will turn and chase you down because you have such a hugely long distance to traverse in order to get back to the safety of your teammates. And even if you do manage to turn around an entire lance of mechs to chase you down, your allies won't notice since there was probably only room enough for eight mechs to trade at the chokepoint at a time, and not all twelve. On Tourmaline, the flanks are much quicker, and you can get back to safety much earlier. As more people try to operate on these flanks, the entire frontline can shift to new paths, making engagements much more diverse and interesting. On Terra Therma, it basically comes down to "do we meet the enemy in the middle, or in the northwest?" and it doesn't get any more complicated than that most of the time.

Just to save you some time in the future, I am capable of visualizing the routes. I also know what those routes are actually worth when you apply 'Mechs to them.

Your representation of Terra has the upper engagement zone too far south. The southern team is able to get to that location faster and so contact happens at upper E6 just past the platforms on a ridge. There is a lot of concealment there to enable short, West-side flanks by either side and the area is actually larger than your map detailing lets on.

You have also completely neglected the bottom and right sides of the map, which contain two cap points and an entrance to Theta. That entrance has the very sight lines you are looking for with interspersed, tall cover and short flanks and control of it enables wildcard plays for center. It's not trivial.

Your Tourmaline diagrams demonstrate exactly why most PUG Tourmaline matches become NASCAR around those cover formations and why the match is won by the team that didn't leave their firepower behind in doing so. Those flanks are useless because they are too visible, and only work when the enemy is full of derp or already on the ropes from earlier exchanges. Simply backing away to put all of the flank exits into the team Cone of Fire cancels the movement.

And seriously, PUG play can be altered by taking charge, which I do often, so it is not worth discussing. Stupid play begets stupid results and is not necessarily the fault of the map.

[MauttyKoray]

They're definitely getting better at it.

Too bad they let the pug-tards pressure them into keeping the worst map in the game: 'Alpine Noobs'

[LordKnightFandragon]

I like big maps, its just this game doesnt have enough to do with a big map.

If they even start making PVE missions, the bigger the better. Ofc, dont include a timer so we can take our time and play Mechwarrior and not Rushwarrior online.