83 replies to this topic

[waterfowl]

Forest Colony is one of the more baffling maps.

Most maps, you can point at x, y, or z, and say that's exactly why they're not fun.

But Forest Colony, I'm having trouble putting my finger on what went wrong. It's ... baffling.

I guess that sentiment follows over into the layout of the map itself ... it's absolutely baffling. What in god's name is this map trying to achieve? It's an absolutely massive map, but fighting never takes place on any part of it except for a central pillar hump fest. If I had to guess, the fighting takes place on less than 5% of the map.

It's a giant pillar that people hump, surrounded by wide open areas, which makes any sort of flanking impossible. There is also a giant mountain that takes 7 minutes to go around. There is no other way to put it; this is a map design failure. One of the worst designed maps I've played in any game.

Once again, they designed something that looked cool, rather than putting thought into how the map would play. Instead of a dynamic and exciting experience, we have a pillar hump fest with lots of foliage that is just frustrating.

Let's examine the old forest colony. Teams could 1, go through the tunnel, 2, meet at the hills, 3, go through the water or snipe from it, 4, fight closer to the shore. Despite being a small map, there were a lot of options. Forest Colony 2.0, despite having five or six times as much space to maneuver in, manages to condense the fight into an even smaller area. Was this map not tested? Were there no design documents or mock fights while it was grey box? Did they even test it while it was grey box? I'm going to go with no on that.

I don't even know where I would start, given the task to fix this map. Bulldoze that entire mountain, to begin with.

PGI, for the love of god, please do more design work for future maps. I guarantee people here would volunteer to test while they're still in grey box

[Mcgral18]

It's also unpleasant to play on because of the nerf to Eyeballs Mk1


Both FCs are inferior goods, IMO
They took fun maps, and made them tedious. Less is more, in those cases.

[Gas Guzzler]

Mcgral18, on 12 July 2017 - 03:01 PM, said:

It's also unpleasant to play on because of the nerf to Eyeballs Mk1


Both FCs are inferior goods, IMO
They took fun maps, and made them tedious. Less is more, in those cases.

I agree 100%. Nerf to Eyeballs Mk1 is especially irritating to me.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

You basically touch on a lot of the issues with the map, and that is simply how much of the map is closed off from the rest. That central forest area (or Endor as some call it) is basically an enclosed area as you either have cliffs, mountains, or natural slopes that protect it from everything else keeping in mind this is a large part of the center of the map and thus pretty important for conquest and domination especially. The main contest point for old Forest differed between comp and PUGs but it was more fun because there was enough options on how to play the map.

Old frozen has a separate issue in that the center of the map is a giant ditch that might as well be no man's land which automatically creates a stand-offish fight or is a pushy map.

[Bud Crue]

Don't OP, just don't.

This game only exists for me due to nostalgia. Now you have me nostalgic for a map that I only ever played due to the nostalgia that this game inspired for a game I played as a kid. I can't take it.

Oh, and you mentioned going thru the tunnel, but you forgot to mention that players could also push the other tunnel too, the one with the waterfall. Damn I miss that map. I think I'm tearing up.

[Gwahlur]

I like forest colony

[Foxfire kadrpg]

I suspect it's mearly Visibility. Most players can't fly on instruments, and if they can't see something infront of them , it might as well not exist.

[ocular tb]

I been trying to play it more lately to see if I can grow to like it more. I don't absolutely hate it, but I definitely would take the old version over this one. For me the reasons I don't like it are:

1) Fog, trees, darkness, and just overall reduced visibility.

2) Clutter. Those boxes on the side near Kappa are annoying since it makes some of those passages narrow and hard to navigate. Makes the map seem smaller than it is.

3) The tunnel in the original was so simple yet added an extra dimension to the game. Same with the old Frozen City. It was close enough and short enough to be able to be used at any time. It wasn't so far out of the way that it wasn't useful.

4) Overall size would be fine if the terrain wasn't so boxed in. Most of the map just seems so isolated from the most used middle part near the water.

I'm sure there are other reasons I don't particularly like it but those are at the top of my head right now.

[Wildstreak]

Mcgral18, on 12 July 2017 - 03:01 PM, said:

It's also unpleasant to play on because of the nerf to Eyeballs Mk1

Actually the main issue is some of the playerbase. They get conditioned to only fight in certain areas depending on mode on ANY map, they rarely if ever try something new in SQP.

Using FC as an example, almost all fighting happens at the pillar except in Conquest and sometimes Escort, then it is the end of the G row canyon.

Water is no good anymore since ECM got nerfed that used to be used to cover teams and lances trying to use the ship to flank from there.

Tunnel got removed and replace by the G row canyon.

No one wants to try a D row water flank maneuver.

I once thought you could take a team, go to the E7/E8 beach, line up against the wall and try drawing people in to drop down and get ambushed. Problem is everyone is conditioned to just go to that pillar or the end of G row canyon.

Also a lot of terrain was made really high and unclimbable.

Gone are the days when you get a match and someone actually talks the team into doing something new on a map just to do things different than the same old usual, one of the reasons I have gotten tired of MWO in the past few years and play a lot less. I once thought about trying to get teams to do that and recording it to prove a point but given how deep the conditioning goes, I just cannot muster up the energy to even try. I also know from the different times I have played this could only be done with teams that actually have players that communicate, best chance of that in EST is either at night or on weekends, daytime weekdays is just out as almost no one communicates.

Oh the memories.....

*walks slowly out to play something else*

[LordNothing]

the 1in4 chance of it crashing my rig.
the ugly fog.
omg the foliage.

Edited by LordNothing, 12 July 2017 - 04:23 PM.

[A Really Old Clan Dude]

Cant wait for stealth armour on this map. You might never find them.

[evilauthor]

DrVoodooAUS, on 12 July 2017 - 04:42 PM, said:

Cant wait for stealth armour on this map. You might never find them.

That'd be annoying if he was the last guy on his team in Skirmish.

[nitra]

forest frustrates me because a majority of the player base does not take and hold the choke points they sit back and play peek-a-boo warrior over them . letting the brawlers have to deal with hill snipers or just sitting around with nothing to do.

the other thing is when the enemy chooses the pass and the team fails to shut it down instead again playing peek-a-boo warrior.

and one thing more, when your team chooses to take the pass and refuses to push through thus blocking 8 other mechs from participating in the battle.

this map along with canyon is terrible for splitting teams. over half of the players chose to sit in non-engagement areas while the rest of the team is left dealing with the majority of the other team.

Edited by nitra, 12 July 2017 - 05:13 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

Wildstreak, on 12 July 2017 - 04:01 PM, said:

Actually the main issue is some of the playerbase. They get conditioned to only fight in certain areas depending on mode on ANY map, they rarely if ever try something new in SQP.

It isn't conditioning if a majority of the game modes including conquest center pretty much around a central point.

[El Bandito]

Hated the fog on both old and new Forest Colony. I preferred Forest Colony Snow.

[Tier5 Kerensky]

My LRMs are hitting all those trees all the time

Jokes aside, I don't dislike the map, but it really sucks for me, of normal QP maps my W/L rate is lowest on it. Whopping 0.67 ratio.

I think it's because I got long range builds and those threes really eat up so much fire.

Edited by Teer Kerensky, 12 July 2017 - 05:57 PM.

[Alan Hicks]

Map looks good, I was impressed at first, but plays like hell because of the conditioned behavior most players bring with it. There is even a well known mode (domination) that promotes the waste of whole maps, in order to go and stay around center.

After all this time, players know what they are getting if they choose Forest Colony. The map is no longer frustrating, but someone somewhere who continues to select it.

I'm glad the map is really low in popularity, so is nearly as rare to show up, like what happens with Viridian Bog.

[Ruar]

For me the map feels out of balance. The team starting closest to the gap in the cliffs is at a disadvantage. They go through the gap and the other team is uphill with a wide area to fire into the gap. If you manage to break out there is no real cover to use except going to the left to get by the giant tree and the hill. If you ignore the gap and go to the left then you still have to be in the wide open while the other team has terrain to hide behind.

For the team on the uphill the problem is you end up spread out easily. Herding cats in QP is not fun and if a team doesn't use coms then the team that should be at a disadvantage can simply roll you up from one side.

Which basically means a coordinate team on the uphill side should always win, but if they are a group of individuals then the downhill team can pull out the victory. Regardless of what team you are on it's not much fun because the map has so much effect on the outcome of the battle.

They need to put a string of hills in the middle area instead of just one. This would give cover to both teams and allow for smaller fights separated from each other.

[FireDog]

A lot of people love easy mode.... well in the real world, you don't control the weather or the visibility. You get what you get. Look at it as a challenge.


As for the map funneling people to the same locations, well, PGI walled off most of the map...... I have to fault their poor map design skills. Its always a shame when they do this.

[RestosIII]

Mcgral18, on 12 July 2017 - 03:01 PM, said:

It's also unpleasant to play on because of the nerf to Eyeballs Mk1


Both FCs are inferior goods, IMO
They took fun maps, and made them tedious. Less is more, in those cases.

As someone who already has trouble seeing things on most maps due to my terrible eyes, Forest Colony is just the worst. I have to run heat vision on it, and thus I'm screwed if anyone is past 500m from me.