87 replies to this topic

[MrMadguy]

Thorqemada, on 08 July 2017 - 12:26 PM, said:

Well, i see only 1 good map in the green part of the list and that is Tourmaline Desert.
In the Yellow Part i like Caustic Valley.
Then in the orange part Crimson Strait is a nice map.

All other maps are avrage at best to outright bad like Grim Plexus!

So, now that i have a good Internet again and would come back Map Rotation would drive me away pretty soon.
I will give it a try when the new tech patch arrives but i expect a week or two of playing mwo at most atm.

1) Caustic Valley was very good in the past, but has become bad after it's overhaul. I would even put it to orange category, but I'm too lazy to change this rating. This map is brought way too seldom to collect reliable data about it. Players hate it - the only thing, I can tell about it.
2) Many players like Crimson Strait, but I don't know for what. Very unbalanced map. Pretty good city part of this map is completely unused due to open space, that separates it from platform (same problem, as with River City). Every single match is stupid boring mess around platform and tunnel. Zero variety.
3) Grim Plexus is actually good map - cold variant of Turmaline Desert. May be lesser variety, but still good. Only bad thing about this map - too open center. Avoid it - and map will be pretty good. Completely terrible Domination due to this fact. Never vote for it on this map.

In short, we have following problem with most of new maps, created by PGI recently:

Brawling is simply dead on this maps due to this fact. For example it happened with me on Frozen City today. LRM crowd voted for this map. Yeah you can counter them via good brawl, but... First you need to cross extremely wide open space zone. 5 second under LRM rain - and you're dead.

[HIGH LORD KIT FAWKS THE WATCHFUL]

Possible fixes could be to have the game choose "random" segments of the map to be playable.

By that I mean the designers could place A,B,C,D etc map cutouts and we run those on a random selection, with random map picks.

The game could show the players what is about to be put up, then we choose a mode by 15 second vote. Done!

Thoughts?

[Kanil]

Grim Plexus, actually good map. Hah.

I'm not sure what you like about a big bowl of death with bare minimal cover, but to compare it to Tourmaline seems like an insult to a reasonably good (if somewhat small) map.

Worst part of Plexus is that most of the cover is buildings, chock full of LoD ****ery, but none of the charm of an actual city map.

[MrMadguy]

Kanil, on 08 July 2017 - 01:00 PM, said:

Grim Plexus, actually good map. Hah.

I'm not sure what you like about a big bowl of death with bare minimal cover, but to compare it to Tourmaline seems like an insult to a reasonably good (if somewhat small) map.

Worst part of Plexus is that most of the cover is buildings, chock full of LoD ****ery, but none of the charm of an actual city map.

Hills around center of map actually have lots of cover and very good for brawling. Some great brawls happen around them very often. Some spots around inner circle are actually good too. You just need to cross open space areas between them... But this is another story. Outer circle - is obviously just a waste of space, like on HPG.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not biased towards brawling. I just want maps to be balanced in terms of snipe/LRM vs brawling, cuz sometimes I like to snipe or abuse LRMs, but sometime I just want to brawl and some of my 'Mechs are dedicated brawlers. Snipers are always effective, i.e. when you've picked Gauss/ER-LL/ER-PPC boat - you're always right, no matter, what map is voted for, but situations, when you've picked brawler build, but map is extremely snipe/LRM-biased, so you simply have nothing to do on it - should be eliminated. I just want to have variety of tactics - not this stupid poke-poke-LRM/snipe-fest in every single match.

Edited by MrMadguy, 08 July 2017 - 01:21 PM.

[The Mysterious Fox]

map selection and maps without silly centre of map focal points ie...rivers, mountains, valleys...etc

[SuomiWarder]

I think Grim Plexus and HPG Manifold get picked often because they are small compared to the others and especially when people want to get in X number of 100 score games as quickly as possible those two foot the bill.

If PGI wanted to actually work at it and do a bit of programming the vote selection could start putting up the four with the least number of plays more often. They might also want to reduce the number of choices to 3 maps.

[Insanity09]

First, two stage voting. First you vote on a mode (skirmish, assault, incursion, etc.), then you get a slection of maps appropriate for that mode, and select one of those.

That will put more maps into rotation because the less desired modes (escort, incursion) have a smaller selection of maps. When they show up in the choices, only maps appropriate to those modes appear.

Second. Mix up the spawn points and objective locations a bit more. A number of maps (polar, forest, others) have large areas that are never used. It's time to mix things up a bit (in a hopefully balanced way <sigh>) and have us use more of each map.

Imagine, just for a second, that for an assault on polar, each team started at a corner of a triangle with the bases almost in sight of each other at the third corner. That would change things up a bit.
Suppose both teams in an escort started far from the VIP (and please let the defenders know where the VIP is going for goodness' sake).
Instead of putting the dom circle in the middle (sort of?) of both teams spawn points, move it off to one side (that triangle again).

All this would hopefully open the maps up a bit more, let us experience them in a larger variety of ways.

Third, yeah, I'd be in favor of more maps being added, but I'm not holding my breath.

The first two bits would be an easy change, I would think.

[jss78]

I'd just go full random at this point.

I supported the voting back when I felt some maps were completely unservicable. With the rework of Terra Therma, I regard all maps as just fine.

The outstanding problem is rather that map diversity is too low. I'm getting really tired of maps like HPG and Crimson -- which I always liked! Let's play all the maps at fair frequency, thanks.

[Khobai]

Quote

The "easy" fix would be to weight how often maps (and game modes) show up in rotation, inversely proportionately to how often they end up being played.

Thats what they do.

The problem is you get a choice of 4 maps. So the least played maps of those 4 never get chosen.



IMO what they need to do is have a specific gamemode for each map. Rather than trying to make every gamemode work on every map. So instead of voting on a map and a gamemode you would just vote on a map and each map would have its own gamemode customized for that particular map.

Because lets face it some gamemodes just fail on certain maps.

Edited by Khobai, 08 July 2017 - 09:44 PM.

[DAYLEET]

J0anna, on 08 July 2017 - 11:30 AM, said:

Ah, NO. You can have random maps ONLY after we get exclusive game modes again.

deal.

[Catra Lanis]

Plexus has made me not bothering to finish the event. After 60 games it's 40 on that map. I'll play a game or two now and then but no more. I don't mind the map, it's the frequency...

[MustrumRidcully]

Jay Leon Hart, on 08 July 2017 - 10:09 AM, said:

The "easy" fix would be to weight how often maps (and game modes) show up in rotation, inversely proportionately to how often they end up being played.

So Polar and HPG show up less, because they get chosen more, whereas Terra and Viridian show up more, because they get chosen less.

Also, less Skirmish...

Imagine they did that to game modes, too, and we end up with more INcursion and Escort

[xe N on]

Map selection should be random.

However, you should be able to choose a drop deck if you play QP. In contrast to CW you can only choose from one mech class, e.g. heavies.So you can choose 4 heavies. Otherwise the matchmaker would not function properly.

Two slots of the drop deck should be available by default. You can buy another slot for e.g. 500 MC up to a total of four slots.

The map would randomly chosen, but we would able to choose the mech we want to drop with.

So, Polar Highlands? Instead of dropping with your brawler, you choose your long range sniper or your LRM mech.

In addition, that would give the game a general more consistent feeling - because in real life nobody would go with a knife to a gun fight.

MrMadguy, on 08 July 2017 - 12:50 PM, said:

In short, we have following problem with most of new maps, created by PGI recently:

Brawling is simply dead on this maps due to this fact. For example it happened with me on Frozen City today. LRM crowd voted for this map. Yeah you can counter them via good brawl, but... First you need to cross extremely wide open space zone. 5 second under LRM rain - and you're dead.

First, you don't need to walk mindlessly through an open area. You would be dead even if there would be no LRMs at all, because long range direct weapons like Gauss/PPC would tear you up, too.

Second, use AMS, ECM and radar derp skill. On light and medium mechs I can understand that player don't equip AMS because of the weight. However, any mech above 65 ton should take AMS, if you playing in a lower tier or event and LRM spam is a problem. I rarely see people adapt to the situation.

Third, Stay in cover and wait. If it isn't domination or capture, there is no reason to walk in the open. Let them waste their ammo on you.

As brawler, I mostly do nothing than protecting slower mechs from light raids in the first half of the game. At some point, there will be a push. That is the moment the brawlers come to action.

In addition, not the map design is cause that brawling (at least in PUG games) is not very common. The reason is that most long and mid range weapons can be used in brawling, too - while brawling weapons cannot be used at range. So, using mid to long range weapons makes you more flexible.

Edited by xe N on, 09 July 2017 - 12:44 AM.

[Jay Leon Hart]

Khobai, on 08 July 2017 - 09:36 PM, said:

Thats what they do.

You got a dev quote about it? If it was how this already worked, I would be seeing Terra Therma every other match, or the other 23 players must have it more frequently than I. Answered below.

MustrumRidcully, on 09 July 2017 - 12:23 AM, said:

Imagine they did that to game modes, too, and we end up with more INcursion and Escort

This is my hope - less Skirmish.

Edited by Jay Leon Hart, 09 July 2017 - 07:15 AM.

[5th Fedcom Rat]

MrMadguy, on 08 July 2017 - 12:50 PM, said:

3) Grim Plexus is actually good map - cold variant of Turmaline Desert. May be lesser variety, but still good. Only bad thing about this map - too open center. Avoid it - and map will be pretty good. Completely terrible Domination due to this fact. Never vote for it on this map.

Except that's what I've had to play more often than any other combo in the last month.

GRIM PLEXUS DOMINATION.

[CENSORED] players keep voting for this combo over and over and over again. And it's horrible.

This whole map system is making me lose faith in democracy.

Edited by 5th Fedcom Rat, 09 July 2017 - 03:24 AM.

[Dale Grible]

5th Fedcom Rat, on 09 July 2017 - 03:21 AM, said:

Except that's what I've had to play more often than any other combo in the last month.

GRIM PLEXUS DOMINATION.

[CENSORED] players keep voting for this combo over and over and over again. And it's horrible.

This whole map system is making me lose faith in democracy.

That is probably the worst map/mode combo other than anything involved with VIP.

Escort should be "our dropship was shot down, escort the VIP to the firebase" with a base that can actually bring some pain and give you cover. mission not complete till all enemy mechs are dead.

This drop off, sunday stroll 3 clicks "hey bro, i need a ride" has no immersion nor makes any sense

[Captain Polux]

Bring back randomization. Playing domination on grim plexus or polar every other match is ******* boring.

[MrMadguy]

Jay Leon Hart, on 08 July 2017 - 10:09 AM, said:

The "easy" fix would be to weight how often maps (and game modes) show up in rotation, inversely proportionately to how often they end up being played.

So Polar and HPG show up less, because they get chosen more, whereas Terra and Viridian show up more, because they get chosen less.

Also, less Skirmish...

Yeah, that's how things actually work now. Russ has admitted it. And that's, why current map rotation is so terrible. Why? Because "best of the worst", i.e. average maps are being constantly picked. Good maps are too popular and therefore are brought too seldom. Bad maps are still never picked due to obvious reasons. So what? Players have no other choice, that constantly pick some average maps. PGI tried this approach in the past and...it failed. The only difference - at that moment Bog was that average map, that was constantly picked. Then PGI returned to normal rotation, but some vocal minority of players started to cry about good maps, being picked too often, and about lack of so called "variety". And all of a sudden after some time PGI finally catered to them. And now we have, what we have. I don't even know, what PGI try to achieve via this terrible mechanic. May be via this approach they try to allow vocal minority to stack enough multipliers to bring least played maps? Terrible, just terrible. I just don't want to play such game. First they remove all good old maps from it, but even this BS isn't enough for them - they restrict us to only 4-5 worst maps and may be 1-2 average ones, that are literally forced on us.

[Jay Leon Hart]

MrMadguy, on 09 July 2017 - 07:06 AM, said:

Yeah, that's how things actually work now. Russ has admitted it.

Then it needs looking at, because it's clearly not WAI.

Otherwise, I would hardly ever see Polar or HPG and would see Terra and Viridian so much more.

[Cy Mitchell]

MrMadguy, on 08 July 2017 - 12:14 PM, said:

Two of my favorite maps are terrible and should be removed from the game? BS! (and I do not LRM)