86 replies to this topic

[ManOfAthens]

The worst guaranteed spawn situation in the game is Frozen City (Classic), Both Versions, Skirmish, North Team, Charlie Lance in A4 (trench).

Charlie lance will almost always contain Assaults, if it isn't entirely comprised of Assaults, who have 2 options. To move slowly uphill toward the enemy and away from their team into the B4 choke-point (a bad spot at any point in the game), or to slowly go west away from the enemy team in the trench until the next climb up point, which is on the far side of grid A3. Note that Bravo lance starts at the top of that climb up point, so it effectively places Charlie lance 2-3 minutes behind the meat of their team. Both are horrible options. Note that the overhead map image gives the impression that there might be an alternate path up into B3, but that is narrow, too steep for heavies, and requires enough JJs to hop over a lip at the top.

Easiest fix is to make the spawns the same as the other game-modes (Assault, Conquest) which, while maybe not ideal, don't leave anyone hanging out to dry. This could/should be done ASAP, even if it is a hot-fix.

I shudder to think about the W/L ratio of the South team vs North team on Skirmish on that map. Unlikely to be balanced. Would honestly love to see numbers like that for various maps if you have them... might help with figuring out some of the worst offenders, and I love stats in general.

[6yxapb]

All mechs should spawn in one group. Lights behind, assaults at vanguard. And remove stupid dropship landing , which only time wasting and gives nothing for gameplay. Remove possibility when enemy lights squad killing assault in a back after 1-2min from match begins, because assault was spawned at stupid place and behind whole team, which of course leave him behind.

[A21B]

hi daeron, all the quick play maps have an issue just have all the mechs spawn together. on a second topic why did you make caustic valley night? its not very good and i dont think im the only one, when i see it as a choice it get almost no votes please make it day time

[TheCaptainJZ]

To try and mix things up a bit and use parts of the map that are often overlooked...
(Ignore the blue and red markers which is what came on Smurfy's images)
Some spawn points would need tweaked because of travel times. Just take a locust and time it out to the exact coordinates, particularly for Dominion.

Assault


Conquest--Equidistant collector sites, both teams spawn equidistant from 2 (move the green down more to be equal).



Dominion--Inspired by VonBruinwald's post for other maps. Who says the Dominion site must be in the middle of the map? With this idea, your team can choose to go for the radar dish, or just duke it out in the middle and send a light to cap.



Skirmish--leaves a large section of the map empty but the C and D line are not used much except around D5 and D6.


Incursion would stay as it is.

Note: I didn't consider FP when I made these so that might need some thought.

Edited by TheCaptainJZ, 19 February 2021 - 05:15 PM.

[spannerturner]

Militarily speaking, why would you deploy your force completely spread out? That is stupid and insane. Realistically, you would want to deploy your force "en masse" to ensure maximum fire and force support. Especially when deploying against an enemy of unknown size, concentration, and firepower.

The easiest fix would be to just spawn the whole team within the same grid square.

It would be different if the contents of the lances adhered to traditional tables of order. Where Alpha Lance was all Lights or fast Mediums, a traditional "recon lance", and was then dropped in a position closer to the "expected enemy location". However, with the size of most of the maps and the speed of most lights and some mediums, even if you spawn the entire drop in a single square, the fast movers can go off and do their thing long before the rest of the company gets to the fighting grounds (ie Polar Highlands in Domination mode)

[PocketYoda]

ManOfAthens, on 19 February 2021 - 01:33 PM, said:

The worst guaranteed spawn situation in the game is Frozen City (Classic), Both Versions, Skirmish, North Team, Charlie Lance in A4 (trench).

Charlie lance will almost always contain Assaults, if it isn't entirely comprised of Assaults, who have 2 options. To move slowly uphill toward the enemy and away from their team into the B4 choke-point (a bad spot at any point in the game), or to slowly go west away from the enemy team in the trench until the next climb up point, which is on the far side of grid A3. Note that Bravo lance starts at the top of that climb up point, so it effectively places Charlie lance 2-3 minutes behind the meat of their team. Both are horrible options. Note that the overhead map image gives the impression that there might be an alternate path up into B3, but that is narrow, too steep for heavies, and requires enough JJs to hop over a lip at the top.

Easiest fix is to make the spawns the same as the other game-modes (Assault, Conquest) which, while maybe not ideal, don't leave anyone hanging out to dry. This could/should be done ASAP, even if it is a hot-fix.

I shudder to think about the W/L ratio of the South team vs North team on Skirmish on that map. Unlikely to be balanced. Would honestly love to see numbers like that for various maps if you have them... might help with figuring out some of the worst offenders, and I love stats in general.

Thanks for explaining it better than i could.

[Grumpy Old Man]

ManOfAthens, on 19 February 2021 - 01:33 PM, said:

The worst guaranteed spawn situation in the game is Frozen City (Classic), Both Versions, Skirmish, North Team, Charlie Lance in A4 (trench).

As someone that just spawned in that spot in a Heavy without Jump Jets, I wholeheartedly agree with this. With 70 kph I managed to get to the choke point in time to see two enemy Mechs already open fire on me. Could not get back to the rest of the Team, because too many did not press forward aggressively enough to save me and the two Dire Wolves stuck in that place with me.

However, while I appreciate PGI asking us where we see problems, shouldn't that be something that you have the tools to determine yourself? Things will tell you will be more or less anecdotal, from our personal experience, but that does not mean it is actually an issue everybody has, especially considering the majority of players does not seem to post on the forums.

I am trying to be constructive, but have you considered implementing some simple statistics that will help you determine things yourself, like:

Percentage of Wins for one side or another on maps.
Average time people live when spawning in spawn point A, B or C?
Amount of damage people do on average when spawning in spawn point A, B or C?
Damage done by weapon system on map (Medium Laser, Large Laser, UAC 10, etc.).
Damage done by mech type.
Most successful chassis on the map.

You can easily extend those analytics to check more balance all over your game. Least common Mech played? Obviously underpowered, buff. Least used weapon system? Buff. Everybody uses only Medium Lasers all of a sudden? Potentially overpowered, look into.

You guys need to be more proactive with this. Especially new players will probably not stick around to find out what the best Mech and weapon combo is. They want to play the Mechs they picked to be worthwhile, no matter which one they roll out with. And they do not want to die because the luck of the draw put their spawn point at the bottom of a ravine. By the time enough people have complained on the Forums, someone from PGI has realised they might have a point, starts a survey and Developers start fixing this, you have already lost (hopefully paying) customers. So you might be better off investing in tools that allow you to determine this kind of stuff yourself and much quicker than this review process.

[Kifferson von doober]

years ago they published views of the maps showing the routs taken and highlighting where combat normally takes place on every map, do they still do em? can we have that again? it was very interesting and would be good for this conversation. apologies if i'm being thick and this is already done.

[FastestDraw]

Yo, I'm a tier five player playing almost entirely quick play. Please fix Frozen city classic trench spawn and tourmailne desert 'middle of nowhere' spawn. At low teir where players do run towards the closest fight without looking at the battlemap. This means players will not group on these maps.


I have not seen trench spawn team win a match in this teir (including with 3 DCs), and have only seen tourmaline desert spawn win with weight advantage . When looking at the win percentage, please make sure to control for weight difference and DCs.

Regardless of win percentage, new players are loading into trench and far spawn, 'playing right' and wondering why they died. its just not fun. Since these are popular maps (Because other than that they are good), this can really sour the first few games.

[McGosy]

Groups spawn in Beta Lance (lowest impact to games)

hopefully not so long term.: get rid of groups mixed with solo..........it`s terrible
-----bring up 8vs8 groups only matches, attract more ppl.....and back to 12vs12 groups only someday

[Botaine]

Tourmaline desert and canyon network are the maps with the biggest spawn problems in my opinion. If you are a slow assault mech (under 60kph) you can get run over by the entire enemy team if they happen to head in your direction even if you go full speed from the beginning and don't stop. Maybe it would be a good idea to make assault mechs use the middle spawn points, not the outside ones. Or just bring the outside spawn points 500 meters or so closer to the middle of the map.

Edited by Lehv, 20 February 2021 - 08:38 PM.

[Rioting Baboon]

Krasnopesky, on 18 February 2021 - 06:20 PM, said:

One main suggestion I have is to simply spawn all 12 mechs together in one place. More suggestions will follow.

THIS.

This is probably the more sensible solution.

[KursedVixen]

Yeah teams should spawn generally in the same area and not super far apart i've seen lights tear apart a lance that's too far away from the team... frozen city seems to be the worst offender with this with the one lance spawning in the canyon on the side of the map....

Edited by KursedVixen, 21 February 2021 - 01:25 AM.

[FREDtheROLF]

Make spawn points random using the following rules.

- All 12 Mech start in on square.
- Both teams start minimum 3 squares apart

=> Result
eg Caustic
One team starts in C8 the other in C3 or H3 or G7 or E5
Or the fist team start in C3 the other in H3 or or or
eg Polar
One team starts in I9 the other in G7 or J7 or or or or

=> Result unpredictable team locations
Scouting required
Unpredictable movement.


FtR

[Gas Guzzler]

Honestly just have everyone spawn together.. being an assault and getting an unlucky spawn 1000m away from your team sucks, and its worse on certain maps where you can't even cross all the terrain (Canyon)

[Maxx31]

[color=#959595]Map spawn points: For the large maps, during mission planning you would have accounted for the assault mechs and placed them closer to the front (when you have to stagger drop locations) so the scouts can catch up and not overpace the rest of the unit. The algorithm should account for that.[/color]

[color=#959595]Second, I would like to have a map view showing while still in the drop ship, but before the drop to orient myself. That would be another more realistic aspect.[/color]

[Charon DOC Stock]

Just regroup spawn point and give back to us the choice to split or not.

Edited by Charon DOC Stock, 21 February 2021 - 10:50 PM.

[RUSTY RASTIL]

Just spawn us all together, like you do at forest colony classic in skirmish allredy.

[Son of the Flood]

Thanks for soliciting feedback on this!

Spawning far from my team, I've been harassed as a slow assault mech by lights, sometimes getting taken out quickly. I've also done some harassing myself as a light catching straggling assaults away from their teams (the latter is way more fun ). I agree with the majority of folks that spawning the lances together would help curb that.

As others have suggested, it would be cool to have more random spawn points to fight in different locations on the maps (especially some of the bigger ones). That would let us get more mileage out of the existing maps and spice up the battles a bit.

[Sasuga]

Crimson Strait Domination is utterly a mess as is right now. One side spawns and has to choose to go up or under the dock area, or run across open water, with only a tiny spot to try and get up into the city. While the other side has a city they can hide in, the tunnel to go through, and if they're feeling really cheeky, they can flank.