17 replies to this topic

[Fu Sun]

First Polar Highlands, now this new map. What is Piranha's problem with maps with flat or just mildly hilly terrain and nothing else? Is having a map free from crap on it a nuisance? A lot of people prefer having something less of a headache sometimes, if you haven't noticed there are a lot of complaints about getting stuck in badly designed terrain.

If Piranha Games Inc. wants to be brave, like many of the mechwarriors that don't mind playing in its POS creation, just make nice maps with variety, LET PEOPLE PLAY ON ALMOST FLAT, FEATURELESS TERRAIN SOMETIMES.

having like 20 maps requiring people to maneuver more than fight is absolutely miserable. Sometimes when battles in real life happen, they happen on completely open fields. I get the impression some of these map designers just think of something to block mechs from walking around, duplicate it 100x and scatter it around the map.

Bring back the old New Worlds Coliseum.

Fu Sun
MU* Battletech player since 1995

[KursedVixen]

LRms, snipers

[BLACKR0SE]

They shaped all the maps for small machines. What about the large ones

[epikt]

I too love open maps, given there are some ravines to hide and approach sneakily. The old Polar Highland was awesome. The old Caustic Valley was great. Alpine Peaks is mostly good. The first version of Free Worlds Coliseum was good too, except maybe the sniper hill that was too powerful a position.

But when they release such maps, most people complain it's a LRM/sniper fest... :/

What I'd like is for the old versions to be available in private lobbies.

[BLACKR0SE]

all maps are designed for small machines. With an Atlas or a Crab with low arms, what can I do in small maps? I can only watch the small machines and wait to die. I can't do anything else. I'm just watching and waiting to die. There is a machine type called Assault, but there is no Assault map.

Not everyone likes small mechs.

[Kynesis]

PGI being PGI. They know with stone cold certainty that we detest clutter on the ground that snags our mechs... and so scatter it haphazardly all over every map.

It's almost like going to a camp and having someone go out of their way to collect pointy rocks, build a fire, roast the rocks and spread those hot pointy rocks and hot coals around on the ground, in tents and sleeping bags.... for some reason only they understand.

I'll never understand why PGI goes out of their way, every single possible opportunity, to sabotage their own work and make it seem like its full of bugs and insanely bad choices.
BattleTech is an absolute gold mine of an IP and you're forever jamming sticks in your own bike wheels!

Edited by Kynesis, 06 May 2023 - 04:11 PM.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

I went and looked at old videos of play on old Polar Highlands.

It looks terrible to me. It's large and bleak, most of the space went relatively unused. Relative absence of hard cover. A lot of squatting behind a hill waiting for one team or the other waiting to get bored enough to rotate, picking off UAVs popped at the ridge. New Polar looks like an objective improvement to me, it's still a bit large.

I also looked at old Caustic. The main difference I see is that new Caustic has 2 potential racetracks for rotation (outer hills and that little inner henge) where old Caustic was all about the caldera area.

Free Worlds Coliseum enabled potential NARC+LRM rain ad nauseam, had one Position To Rule Them All on a very large map so a lot of that space went relatively unused unless your team was deadset on dying to sniper and LRM fire. New Coliseum looks like an objective improvement at first glance.

The only maps I can think of with annoying floor clutter are Solaris City and HPG. Solaris is usually a good place to be a brawlish assault. Lights did not seem inordinately potent there, they just had good movement options if they minded the usual death alleys. LRMs are not strong on Solaris, but they can be used and I have seen them used well. Snipers can help secure long alleys from pushes without dominating the map. Mechs with lower mounts are not heavily disadvantaged there compared to mechs with high mounts.

HPG's floor clutter stops being a problem once you reach middle, at that point your own teammates crowding into areas to deny snipers angles is much more troublesome, as is the relative dearth of access points to reach outer rim from inside the "bowl".

I dissent from the notion that maps inordinately favor lights. The scale on Solaris is a bit weird, the floor clutter is more of an impedance to lights than it is to anyone else. I dissent from the notions that old Polar and FWC were better. I have no strong feeling either way on Caustic. Old HPG looked interesting but no strong opinion. I do think that new Polar is a bit too large, but old Polar was just as bad about that. I dissent heavily from the notion that Alpine Peaks is a good map for most modes. It seems strange to praise Alpine and knock the sniper hill on FWC.

[BLACKR0SE]

In maps like HELLBORE with many hills, models like ATLAS, CORSAIR, and BLOOD ASP are useless. We were placed in a small snowy section, I don't know its name, but we started the game inside a tunnel and when the tunnel ended, I found myself in a pit. It took me about 5 minutes to climb up the hill with BLOOD ASP. However, when I reached the top, I was faced with light mechs and couldn't do anything. Should I have fun in this game? I DON'T THINK SO.

Friends who use light mechs. Sometimes, when you find yourself inside heavy mechs on small maps, you will understand what I mean better.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

TAMTAMBABY, on 06 May 2023 - 12:18 PM, said:

In maps like HELLBORE with many hills, models like ATLAS, CORSAIR, and BLOOD ASP are useless. We were placed in a small snowy section, I don't know its name, but we started the game inside a tunnel and when the tunnel ended, I found myself in a pit. It took me about 5 minutes to climb up the hill with BLOOD ASP. However, when I reached the top, I was faced with light mechs and couldn't do anything. Should I have fun in this game? I DON'T THINK SO.

Friends who use light mechs. Sometimes, when you find yourself inside heavy mechs on small maps, you will understand what I mean better.

Blood Asp is great for peeking over hills and ramps. Some Corsairs have very high mounts relative to cockpit. Both would fare about the same in Hellebore humping a hill or ridge up high. Hellebore is very difficult to deathball effectively on, a light without jumpjets will still spend a great deal of time navigating up to perches to go after mechs up high if the light had to drop and trench-run to close. Seismic will thwart a lot of these lights if you pay mind to your minimap. Depending on which direction you end up facing on Hellebore enemies hiding behind ridges can be given away by shadows. Hellebore's practically un-NASCAR-able, un-deathball-able, has a ton of good hard cover, plenty of obscured approach paths and opportunities for sneaky stuff if you can avoid getting lost. It also has tons of ways to screw you over. I very much like Hellebore, it's just been extraordinarily difficult to learn/memorize and it very much favors being able to jump very high.

What does this have to do with FWC, though?

Edited by the check engine light, 06 May 2023 - 03:47 PM.

[BLACKR0SE]

the check engine light, on 06 May 2023 - 03:46 PM, said:

Blood Asp is great for peeking over hills and ramps. Some Corsairs have very high mounts relative to cockpit. Both would fare about the same in Hellebore humping a hill or ridge up high. Hellebore is very difficult to deathball effectively on, a light without jumpjets will still spend a great deal of time navigating up to perches to go after mechs up high if the light had to drop and trench-run to close. Seismic will thwart a lot of these lights if you pay mind to your minimap. Depending on which direction you end up facing on Hellebore enemies hiding behind ridges can be given away by shadows. Hellebore's practically un-NASCAR-able, un-deathball-able, has a ton of good hard cover, plenty of obscured approach paths and opportunities for sneaky stuff if you can avoid getting lost. It also has tons of ways to screw you over. I very much like Hellebore, it's just been extraordinarily difficult to learn/memorize and it very much favors being able to jump very high.

What does this have to do with FWC, though?

I didn't mention a specific map. I'm trying to say that having so many obstacles in general is a disadvantage for big machines. Additionally, the newly added umbrellas in FWC make the flying lights the kings of the game. How can I hit the small machines when they are on top of the umbrella? Even the field of view of many big machines is not suitable for that.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

TAMTAMBABY, on 07 May 2023 - 01:43 AM, said:

I didn't mention a specific map. I'm trying to say that having so many obstacles in general is a disadvantage for big machines. Additionally, the newly added umbrellas in FWC make the flying lights the kings of the game. How can I hit the small machines when they are on top of the umbrella? Even the field of view of many big machines is not suitable for that.

Until I get a chance to drop on new FWC and see the umbrellas in use I won't be able to say for certain but jumpy lights have failed to dominate Solaris City by jumping atop buildings, so I doubt they would be inordinately powerful on FWC. At first glance those umbrellas look very much unsafe to camp atop of for any length of time, with sufficiently attentive opponents. By this metric the rock formations on Tourm would be godmode for my jumpers - while they are handy for harassing enemy mechs behind the ridges at center and spotting enemy movement, they have not proved inordinately oppressive to my opponents. Same with opponents getting into those rock formations on the perimeter of that same map, or the ones around the edge of Grim. Shadowcats with Gauss or ERPPC or ERLL can be very annoying in those positions but I have yet to see them consistently dominate enemy teams from those static positions.

As for ground clutter bothering assaults, I will repeat that ground clutter kills me in lights more often than other weight classes. Lights need to be able to scurry around and having your momentum broken by an HPG floorboob or a low building in Solaris gets you dead in a hurry when one salvo from an assault is potential death.

[BLACKR0SE]

the check engine light, on 07 May 2023 - 06:47 AM, said:

Until I get a chance to drop on new FWC and see the umbrellas in use I won't be able to say for certain but jumpy lights have failed to dominate Solaris City by jumping atop buildings, so I doubt they would be inordinately powerful on FWC. At first glance those umbrellas look very much unsafe to camp atop of for any length of time, with sufficiently attentive opponents. By this metric the rock formations on Tourm would be godmode for my jumpers - while they are handy for harassing enemy mechs behind the ridges at center and spotting enemy movement, they have not proved inordinately oppressive to my opponents. Same with opponents getting into those rock formations on the perimeter of that same map, or the ones around the edge of Grim. Shadowcats with Gauss or ERPPC or ERLL can be very annoying in those positions but I have yet to see them consistently dominate enemy teams from those static positions.

As for ground clutter bothering assaults, I will repeat that ground clutter kills me in lights more often than other weight classes. Lights need to be able to scurry around and having your momentum broken by an HPG floorboob or a low building in Solaris gets you dead in a hurry when one salvo from an assault is potential death.

They already use the points you mentioned in the game, yes, small lasers do not determine the fate of the match. But if you consider that there are many players like that, you will be confused about where to look. You rotate your torso to the right and left. And you die in the same place.
Remember, not everyone likes to run. Not everyone likes to make sudden maneuvers. And heavy mechs are designed for that purpose.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

TAMTAMBABY, on 07 May 2023 - 07:45 AM, said:

They already use the points you mentioned in the game, yes, small lasers do not determine the fate of the match. But if you consider that there are many players like that, you will be confused about where to look. You rotate your torso to the right and left. And you die in the same place.
Remember, not everyone likes to run. Not everyone likes to make sudden maneuvers. And heavy mechs are designed for that purpose.

A stationary mech of any weight class without suitable cover or range advantage is a dead mech. Learning to move, when and where to move, and how to shoot on the move is an important skill in MWO. Still getting the hang of not falling off Vitric top on accident myself, but the point still stands.

[BLACKR0SE]

the check engine light, on 07 May 2023 - 08:11 AM, said:

A stationary mech of any weight class without suitable cover or range advantage is a dead mech. Learning to move, when and where to move, and how to shoot on the move is an important skill in MWO. Still getting the hang of not falling off Vitric top on accident myself, but the point still stands.

In my opinion, the factors that influence success in the game are 40% maps, 40% your team, and 20% your own performance.

If you eliminate these two factors, you will see your own success. I hope to see it one day.

Edited by TAMTAMBABY, 07 May 2023 - 09:10 AM.

[KursedVixen]

Fu Sun, on 30 April 2023 - 03:42 AM, said:

First Polar Highlands, now this new map. What is Piranha's problem with maps with flat or just mildly hilly terrain and nothing else? Is having a map free from crap on it a nuisance? A lot of people prefer having something less of a headache sometimes, if you haven't noticed there are a lot of complaints about getting stuck in badly designed terrain.

If Piranha Games Inc. wants to be brave, like many of the mechwarriors that don't mind playing in its POS creation, just make nice maps with variety, LET PEOPLE PLAY ON ALMOST FLAT, FEATURELESS TERRAIN SOMETIMES.

having like 20 maps requiring people to maneuver more than fight is absolutely miserable. Sometimes when battles in real life happen, they happen on completely open fields. I get the impression some of these map designers just think of something to block mechs from walking around, duplicate it 100x and scatter it around the map.

Bring back the old New Worlds Coliseum.

Fu Sun
MU* Battletech player since 1995

Oh your talking about little bits on the ground you can get stuck on okay i thought you meant have a map like polar highlands orgiinally or how marik collsiume was originally.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

TAMTAMBABY, on 07 May 2023 - 09:06 AM, said:

In my opinion, the factors that influence success in the game are 40% maps, 40% your team, and 20% your own performance.

If you eliminate these two factors, you will see your own success. I hope to see it one day.

You can only realistically control one of those. That's what you should allocate mental resources to. Everything else is a waste of energy.

[BLACKR0SE]

the check engine light, on 07 May 2023 - 11:47 AM, said:

You can only realistically control one of those. That's what you should allocate mental resources to. Everything else is a waste of energy.

Amongst 10 light machines on a small map, I'll consider your suggestions with an LRM build.

[Mechwarrior2342356]

TAMTAMBABY, on 07 May 2023 - 03:00 PM, said:

Amongst 10 light machines on a small map, I'll consider your suggestions with an LRM build.

Do it however you choose, just remember that it's your choice.