94 replies to this topic

[TheCaptainJZ]

Map voting gives the player some measure of agency and players generally like having some sense of control, even if it's loose. The system we have is generally fine. If it's all RNG you better believe there'd be just as much complaining if not more.

[foamyesque]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 21 December 2023 - 09:39 AM, said:

Hellebore being awful has nothing to do with TTK, it has everything to do with it pretty much being two trains smashing together and no really good ways to rotate.

See, that's the good thing about Hellebore. Best new map they've made.


My general evaluation:

Solaris and River City are fine maps, if with too much ground clutter. Alpine Peaks is the absolutely standout trash map. New Highlands is okay but needs to be at least one grid square smaller in radii, Bearclaw has been interesting though prone to geometry issues, Viridian is good, Caustic suffers from being incredibly easy to see people on in thermal, classic Terra Therma is a good map that people hate on for superstitious reasons, new HPG is a bit of a sniper fishbowl but it's biggest issue is that it just get played way too much, Mining Collective is a standout except for the ability to hide up on the dark walls surrounding the installation, Coliseum needs to have the mushrooms removed completely, Crimson Strait is fine, Emerald Vale is prone to sniper disease and one side has much cleaner access to the ridges than the other, you can't see crap on Ceres but the map layout is fine. Forest Colony is a bit big but offers lots of interesting places to fight and the trees interfering with sightlanes and projectiles allow for interesting engagements to develop, Forest Colony Classic and Snow Classic are usually fun, generally high-intensity fights that develop quickly, Tourmaline needs a LOD or terrain geo pass *badly* and either smaller mountains or more cover across the middle, since it's a map you can literally shoot one spawn point from another spawn point, Frozen City Assault is a travesty because of the death valley and FC's Dom bowl is a deathtrap. Conquest and Skirmish are okay. Frozen City Classic is mostly good but needs a spawn pass to resolve asymmetry issues. Canyon Network is okay, but has some asymmetries that favour certain spawns and also the layout hugely encourages rotations. Hibernal's mostly the same but it's even worse because Hibernal has fewer / less obvious ways to move between the levels.

TTC gets played so little I still don't understand the map layout well enough to comment :v

Edited by foamyesque, 21 December 2023 - 05:47 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

foamyesque, on 21 December 2023 - 05:46 PM, said:

See, that's the good thing about Hellebore. Best new map they've made.

It really isn't, not being able to rotate is more than just no nascar, it's also about just limited avenues of approach. If you want trains smashing into each other, honestly just put us on one of the solaris maps, that would still probably be better than the waste of space that is hellebore.

Hellebore is a lot like all the worst parts of Canyon, but dialed up several notches.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 21 December 2023 - 06:24 PM.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

the check engine light, on 21 December 2023 - 06:43 PM, said:

Disagree. Worst part of Canyon is "let's all rotate OOPS THEY ROTATED BETTER." That and "hey let's go stall out in D3 and get farmed."

I mean the whole stalling part is due to one of the issues with Canyon, specifically the C3/D3/C4 area being a bunch of no man's lands that are where rotations go to die either from rotating to an inferior position or to getting shot from D4 and/or C5 while you rotate. It's one of the problems I would've expected them to fix when they added more ramps. Nascar is just a by-product of PUGs being PUGs.

[ScrapIron Prime]

the check engine light, on 21 December 2023 - 06:43 PM, said:

Disagree. Worst part of Canyon is "let's all rotate OOPS THEY ROTATED BETTER." That and "hey let's go stall out in D3 and get farmed."

Had one of those earlier today. The team kept rotating until they’d lost all the slower mechs and then stalled and died. 12-1, because I killed one before I died in my big slower mech.

[W4R GOD]

Solaris sucks but if you get rid of it there is no map the tryhards with range cant own every drop.

[Ilostmycactus]

HPG is my favorite map ;_; maybe because of the moon sounds. I like that the center is accessible without nascaring, but you can get some cover too.

Solaris is my least favorite because it has the worst performance and how it punishes long range builds. I also don't think it really feels in scale like you're a massive mech stomping through a city.

[kalashnikity]

It might be cool to have a drop deck to choose from, maybe in ~10 seconds before drop loading screen, right after map selection but before you get to see your team -so people can't game it.

Be able to switch within a one weight class, or maybe +/- ~15 tons, something like that.

On the other hand, I do enjoy the challenge of dropping on Solaris in a LRM boat.

I did ~500dmg in a Mean Baby yesterday, LRM80 LPPC3, we won. I almost survived too, but died at the end.

[kalashnikity]

In a way it also adds realism, in a real fight you might not have a choice what you bring, "you fight with what you have", as it were.

Being able to switch between highly customized mechs isn't a luxury most mechwarriors would have "in real life".

[VeeOt Dragon]

yeah i hate Solaris as well, it is my least favorite map of all of them.

honestly there are ways around the map generation without making it fully random. just have the game keep track of what maps are selected (something i am pretty sure it already does) then every hour or so remove the 2 most selected maps from the rotation for the next hour and then repeat.

[ScrapIron Prime]

kalashnikity, on 22 December 2023 - 11:25 PM, said:

In a way it also adds realism, in a real fight you might not have a choice what you bring, "you fight with what you have", as it were.

Being able to switch between highly customized mechs isn't a luxury most mechwarriors would have "in real life".

Very exactly true. But, as folks are fond of pointing out, that is Lore while this is a first person shooter. That's kind of reserved for campaign style play where you only have a limited number of mechs, like MW5 or Battletech (HBS).

[MechB Kotare]

I'd be ok, if they just redesigned Solaris to be more versatile. Its a bad and unbalanced map, full of useless objects to get stuck on. Too many skyscrappers in center arena, while outskirts have nice places where you can utilize JJs.

Those train/metro tracks look so clunky and unrealistic, some of the building passages are not adjusted accordingly for all mech classes. It is also a very badly optimised map, with huge frame drops (which .cfg file Geeram provided fixes thank Kerensky...). Objects clipping, buldings disappearing and reappearing... Very buggy map.

Im fine with vote and vote multiplier system thought. I remembers times before it, and the rng made the map selection more repetitive. Vote system was implemented, because people would often get dropped 3 times in a row on one map, without any way, to influence it, for different outcome. With the current amount of active players, history would just repeat itself.

Just redesign Solaris and Alpine, these maps make one style of play dominant over the others.

Edited by MechB Kotare, 23 December 2023 - 10:29 AM.

[RickySpanish]

Surprised to see the dislike for Hellbore and new HPG. They are both good maps. NASCAR is awful, and when a team attempts to start it, they deserve to smash into the awaiting firing line. Both Hellbore and HPG provide good ways to stop rotation from developing, so they are a win in my books. The no man's land areas are not really the fault of designers, moreso players who don't want anything more than to spin about a landmark.

[Quicksilver Aberration]

RickySpanish, on 23 December 2023 - 12:44 PM, said:

The no man's land areas are not really the fault of designers, moreso players who don't want anything more than to spin about a landmark.

They are by definition the fault of bad design. If we really just want to dispense with the illusion of choice though be my guest, just give us a rectangular flat map. Sorry, but NASCAR is typically an artifact of maps that allow options, being able to rotate is important for maps to provide variety of play even if it does cause some people to potato and NASCAR.

Edited by Quicksilver Kalasa, 23 December 2023 - 05:21 PM.

[martian]

the check engine light, on 23 December 2023 - 02:19 PM, said:

I like Hellebore, hate HPG.

One half of the Hellebore Outpost map is passable, but the other half of the map - that pointless network of canyons where anybody rarely goes - is absolutely unused in 99% of my games.

[MrMadguy]

RickySpanish, on 23 December 2023 - 12:44 PM, said:

Surprised to see the dislike for Hellbore and new HPG. They are both good maps. NASCAR is awful, and when a team attempts to start it, they deserve to smash into the awaiting firing line. Both Hellbore and HPG provide good ways to stop rotation from developing, so they are a win in my books. The no man's land areas are not really the fault of designers, moreso players who don't want anything more than to spin about a landmark.

New HPG is worse because of sniping from walls. Hellbore? Just too big and too hard navigation. What players also hate - is when fight is already happens at some spot on a map, but it's way too hard to get there, if you don't have JJs. Players like to able able to support their teammates, when it's needed. They don't like to be forced to always use deathball tactic.

It's very simple. Canyon network is just perfect. It's MWO's version of de_dust. Players just don't need anything else.

[MechB Kotare]

MrMadguy, on 24 December 2023 - 04:04 AM, said:

It's very simple. Canyon network is just perfect. It's MWO's version of de_dust. Players just don't need anything else.

Yes. Canyon Network is the best map in the game.

[martian]

MrMadguy, on 24 December 2023 - 04:04 AM, said:

It's very simple. Canyon network is just perfect. It's MWO's version of de_dust. Players just don't need anything else.

It gets old after a while (about three times in a row).

[East Indy]

If map selection went back to random, a useful feature would be tracking map activity to increase variety.

Each time a player or their group plays a map, the map gets a point on the backend. A map's tally for a given player is reset every 5 matches that player completes. When the matchmaker selects its solos and groups, it checks tallies and selects from a set number of maps with the lowest totals, and the random winner is the map of the match.

[RickySpanish]

Quicksilver Kalasa, on 23 December 2023 - 05:19 PM, said:

They are by definition the fault of bad design. If we really just want to dispense with the illusion of choice though be my guest, just give us a rectangular flat map. Sorry, but NASCAR is typically an artifact of maps that allow options, being able to rotate is important for maps to provide variety of play even if it does cause some people to potato and NASCAR.

Rotato potato is entirely the choice of players to be fools, there's no need to design maps to further encourage the blind stupidity. You have movement options on HPG and Hellbore, and on all maps. You just get punished for obviously dumb choices on some maps harder than others. E.g. Rotato potato on HPG? Enjoy turning into the wall snipers. Spin to win on Hellbore? Down you go then.

MrMadguy, on 24 December 2023 - 04:04 AM, said:

New HPG is worse because of sniping from walls. Hellbore? Just too big and too hard navigation. What players also hate - is when fight is already happens at some spot on a map, but it's way too hard to get there, if you don't have JJs. Players like to able able to support their teammates, when it's needed. They don't like to be forced to always use deathball tactic.

It's very simple. Canyon network is just perfect. It's MWO's version of de_dust. Players just don't need anything else.

You know what works though? Learning the layout of the map! It's available in training grounds... Though I do wish spawn points would mirror game mode there, and that the mode was selectable.

Canyon is OK, but best map? No, Rubelite is the best map.