32 replies to this topic

[Johny Rocket]

I have to say I really like the changes to the map, good job PGI.

Ran a jumpy boy spider and got on top of the towers and even from up there the taller mineral formations and other towers stop it from being a perfect sniper perch. On the tallest tower in the middle you could still be hit from C5 ridge.
The umbrella shape of the towers doesn't off as much missile protection as I had thought because they are a bit to tall but yeah still nice cover.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i have to say the changes are horrendous. they took a map where most builds can function well (a bit to friendly to Snipers perhaps) and turned it into something worse than Solaris. if they would have just stuck with the umbrellas it would have maybe been alright but they also added a **** ton of crystal pillars that make any weapon system that requires locks or does well at mid to long range an effort in frustration to use.

[sycocys]

Haven't dropped yet, but the only thing wrong with the map they had was possible the domination puddle placement - other than that it just boiled down to people not being able to run their ultra slow mechs without some amount of direct punishment means for choosing that type of build.

Snipers on the first version weren't an issue if you had any amount of awareness to just use the terrain instead of stand in the open as you approached them - the entire map was already a counter to long range play.

[VeeOt Dragon]

even super slow mechs could get around with some good positioning (i agree that it was a bit sniper heavy of a map but it was manageable. hell most of the sniping locations i could easily enough get into LRM range of and rain on em.)

[sycocys]

The problem I see is that most of the levels were designed with feature that promoted standing behind a wall/building/rock and developing or retaining any mobility skills. Too many folks seem to have fell into that methodology and when a moving brawling map gets dropped they ran themselves into a steep learning curve that they weren't interested in doing.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i honestly have problems with any map that only supports one play style. a good map should allow all kinds of builds to shine not just one or two. yes the original FWL needed a bit of fine tuning but what we got was something completely different.

i have the same problem with Crucible, it started as an interesting map that just needed a small tweak here and there to something that is nearly unplayable. (hell i loved the whole top side underside play with the holes where you could shoot down into the underside or vise versa. all it really needed was a bit more cover top side for Domination and it would have been perfect. instead they completely redid it into a map that never gets voted for and not just because its a hot map)

[sycocys]

I don't even vote for maps or modes anymore, rather it just be random to me.

The only map I have any major issue with is honestly Alpine, and like you say even that could be corrected with some passes to make approaching the mountain and highgrounds more possible. HPG would be really the only other one just because of that ring, but again making it accessible from the inside would alleviate that - although most of it could be mitigated by just removing skirmish as a game mode as well (and possibly adding pathing back to bases to allow a covered/forced movement).

Haven't seen Crucible enough to have an opinion one way or the other though I don't really care for the lava map layouts on the whole.

[feeWAIVER]

been playing a couple hours and haven't seen it in rotation yet,

[Storky]

I have to say that old Solaris was fine. The amount of frustration from snipers, lurms, and Nascars was lower compared to other maps. Lights threat was pretty high, tho.

But the new one is much better, there are solid covers, you can enjoy positional fights, closing for brawling, take cover from snipers and lurms.



It reminds me of the riverside at the Canyon, but more wide.

Edited by Storky, 19 April 2023 - 12:24 AM.

[PocketYoda]

I agree i no longer vote on maps anymore, most of my favorites never get a look in and well if they just removed voting completely and made maps rotate or random somewhat, i'd be fine..

[VeeOt Dragon]

i still vote for maps now and again. i tend to save up my multipliers to use so i can vote against certain maps FWL is now one of those maps (the others are Solaris and Mining,)

i actually like the lava maps as well as other hot maps because my builds tend to shine there while meta try hards have trouble because they almost all make builds that run hot.

[Widowmaker1981]

VeeOt Dragon, on 19 April 2023 - 07:16 AM, said:

i still vote for maps now and again. i tend to save up my multipliers to use so i can vote against certain maps FWL is now one of those maps (the others are Solaris and Mining,)

I do agree that Solaris City is sh!tty (way too many excessively narrow chokepoints), but whats your issue with Mining Collective? I think its a great map that caters fine to everything - except LRMs, due to the vertical cover, but those are just as busted on River City / Crimson Straight so it seems odd to single out MC if its that.

FWC is obviously controversial. I think updated version is an improvement overall, but they went pretty OTT - i think if they about halved the number of towers and extra cube/pillar/thingys it would be much better.

VeeOt Dragon, on 19 April 2023 - 07:16 AM, said:

i actually like the lava maps as well as other hot maps because my builds tend to shine there while meta try hards have trouble because they almost all make builds that run hot.

It always makes me laugh a bit when people use 'Try Hard' as an insult / derogatory term. Id consider myself a 'try hard' (though maybe not a 'meta' one, since i do create my own builds for my own playstyle) - i dont think its an insult to say i want to win and use effective strategies and builds to do so..

Also, many of the 'meta' builds run absolutely fine on hot maps. Tbh it doesnt really make that much difference ime, if a build is too hot to function at all on a hot map, its probably too hot on all maps. Temperature doesnt factor into my map preference at all these days.

Edited by Widowmaker1981, 19 April 2023 - 07:56 AM.

[bilagaana]

I can't stop laughing at the mushroom forest.

[Leadpaintchips]

The changes I'm not impressed with. Narrow corridors makes traffic jams common and tbh rewards more passive play. Better to sit back and let your opponents try to push through and alpha strike them down one by one then it is to try to get multiple angles aggressively like it was before.


The 'old' version had a very simple cure for snipers sitting up on the ridge since both teams got easy access to said ridge. Send in a couple of brawlers to eat them alive. Was actually fun to be said brawler going up there, and if there wasn't someone up there it gave a pretty good direction to flank from. It also wasn't as hopeless being a slower 'mech on the low ground as people made it out to be, as long as your team actually dealt with UAVs. There was enough accidental coverage from AMS and ECM that a whole team could be covered from the feared LURMS, while there was enough rolling hills to deal with the blue lasers as long as you didn't just aim towards their base and go 100% throttle.

[TheCaptainJZ]

I only dropped on it once so far but I like the additional cover. I do think the smaller dragons-teeth are completely unnecessary and should not have been added. I did see a light on top of one of the metal structures so that could be a problem where you can't shoot up at them.

The first version definitely favored snipers. Yes there was cover, but I often found myself pinned down and unable to advance because they had sniping weapons and I did not.

I would personally have been fine with adding medium sized rocks throughout to add that additional cover so you can run from rock to rock to advance and I would have preferred that the map edges were lowered about 30% so the sniper ledge wasn't so high and didn't provide as good of an angle to the snipers. It makes it that much harder to advance on their positions and return fire since the elevation provides additional cover.

[Scout Derek]

VeeOt Dragon, on 18 April 2023 - 03:26 PM, said:

i have to say the changes are horrendous. they took a map where most builds can function well (a bit to friendly to Snipers perhaps) and turned it into something worse than Solaris. if they would have just stuck with the umbrellas it would have maybe been alright but they also added a **** ton of crystal pillars that make any weapon system that requires locks or does well at mid to long range an effort in frustration to use.

My man you're coping; FWC in it's 1st iteration was horrible, It didn't let all builds work on that map, quite the opposite in fact; the fact you could also shoot into the enemies spawn from the start was also an equally awful feature of the map, and the fact that high ground could constitute an easy win granted the collective intelligence of the team knew how to play, would just bludgeon the team that always ran low.

There's a reason why it's played now, and that's because you can actually use mechs that don't require blue lasers, ERPPCs, or Gauss rifles to play without punching yourself in the face repeatedly.

[VeeOt Dragon]

i played the map a number of times before the crap change and never once saw anyone shooting the spawn or base from the opposite base area. i do agree it favored snipers a little much but they went to far. i'm personally more of a mid range player (yes even when i run LRM unless i am raining on some sniper 1k out). there was plenty of cover (a couple more crystal pillars wouldn't have hurt or just a couple of the metal shrooms but they went overboard with them.)

before the change i had it picked perhaps every 4 match or so now i rarely see it get more than single digit percentiles. that tells you something. its not as bad as crucible but thats still pretty bad.

[VeeOt Dragon]

Widowmaker1981, on 19 April 2023 - 07:54 AM, said:

I do agree that Solaris City is sh!tty (way too many excessively narrow chokepoints), but whats your issue with Mining Collective? I think its a great map that caters fine to everything - except LRMs, due to the vertical cover, but those are just as busted on River City / Crimson Straight so it seems odd to single out MC if its that.

FWC is obviously controversial. I think updated version is an improvement overall, but they went pretty OTT - i think if they about halved the number of towers and extra cube/pillar/thingys it would be much better.

nah its more a player thing. it seems every time i play MC i get on a team that scatters or tries to go extra wide to the right so that the assaults that spawn over to the far left can never catch up and just get torn apart by the enemy team that goes just left of the central castle.even when i or some other player tires to call out any kind of tactic.

i do tend to play LRM often but its a combination of actually liking the weapon system and having hand tremors that when they act up i can't hit a Union Drop ship if its sitting on the landing pad with its engines off. honestly the only weapon i don't use much are Clan weapons (because i don't really play clan mechs) and SRMs, SLs, and SN-PPC (hell i only really use ER SLs and MLs as secondary weapons to other ****)

Edited by VeeOt Dragon, 19 April 2023 - 08:18 PM.

[Johny Rocket]

Leadpaintchips, on 19 April 2023 - 11:42 AM, said:

The changes I'm not impressed with. Narrow corridors makes traffic jams common and tbh rewards more passive play. Better to sit back and let your opponents try to push through and alpha strike them down one by one then it is to try to get multiple angles aggressively like it was before.


The 'old' version had a very simple cure for snipers sitting up on the ridge since both teams got easy access to said ridge. Send in a couple of brawlers to eat them alive. Was actually fun to be said brawler going up there, and if there wasn't someone up there it gave a pretty good direction to flank from. It also wasn't as hopeless being a slower 'mech on the low ground as people made it out to be, as long as your team actually dealt with UAVs. There was enough accidental coverage from AMS and ECM that a whole team could be covered from the feared LURMS, while there was enough rolling hills to deal with the blue lasers as long as you didn't just aim towards their base and go 100% throttle.

I did this about every drop on it. Run up there push out the sniper with a dps missile boat and then rain hell on anyone in the open. atms plus range quirk could get you almost all the way across to E4 from C5.
I like it better now because it is more challenging for me than get the high ground and rain on people.

[Strelok7]

bilagaana, on 19 April 2023 - 10:57 AM, said:

I can't stop laughing at the mushroom forest.

Seems like an intentional joke. Here you go whiners. You want cover? LMAO

It is like a player is supposed to get high on all those toxic mushrooms, and then barf purple, while hallucinating zeppelins in the sky. But where are the fireworks.

...

Overall. I am gonna be critical here.
Thumbs down. A fine example that you can't and shouldn't satisfy everyone.

Map went form:

• cool
  
• new
  
• interesting
  
• offering new game dynamic
  
• fireworks

to

• old
  
• boring
  
• million obstructions in a way
  
• purple barf on the walls x10.

Edited by Strelok7, 19 April 2023 - 07:42 PM.