Misc Map Changes Thread..for little glitches and annoyances...

[Enyo]

Rhamp, just be honest... you only want the vehicle counts on popular maps increased to ensure you get a good OP flyer at any time, even when the stains are wasting them at a rapid clip. I get it, I love the flyers too, but I also see how too many of them wreck the way a map plays. I think the better solution is the opposite of what you propose, less OP vehicles in general and more of the lower powered ones.

That mentality of high OP vehicle counts plus short respawn times is what lead to most of your maps being a constant spam-blitz of OP vehicles. Tek is OK, but would prob be better if it wasn't a randomizer. HSH is a shitshow, it has way too many vehicles and the constant deemers/OMFG thru the light ruin it. I think you said you updated it to reduce the deemers, but not sure that's been added to the server.

I think the best maps with the best balance have just a few OP vehicles mixed with what you call "shit-tier" vehicles. Those "shit-tier" vehicles like certain Hellbenders and the Minigun Badgers can be quite potent if you know how to use them effectively. You just don't want to use those.

[Rhamp]

I'm gonna go ahead and disagree with you here. On Tek, there's so many power vehicles that
1. you had to increase the health because 4 or 5 power vehicles obliterate each other fast.
2. Map stalemates in the middle...and team with good aimers sit back and Mino/Hurriance/Mobreaker/FireTank spam.
3. Part of Onslaught is the "reward" node that contains a special vehicle or two, that helps you take the map.

For 1. I did that so the tanks can actually brawl it out instead of being oneshot. I find vehicles oneshotting each other boring and repetitive (remember torlanLM when I camped with the odin). When the big tanks take multiple hits to take out, it allows for players with less skill to actually land a few hits in them before getting taken out. If a good player can just oneshot the entire enemy team before they can get a shot off, then the game is already over (this is why the arbiter got nerfed).
For 2. it is good that a map has some stalemate in the middle that requires teamwork to break. Games that are just core camping for 30 minutes like what usually happens on dria and junk are just plain boring since the outcome of the game is already decided and you are just waiting out the clock with no vehicles to make a comeback with. To break the stalemate on Tek, you can have people dm in the center to take that node and control the stormcallers, use the link nuke and big nuke, grab a flier with dd to go delete a heavy tank camping a node, push your team's levi down a lane with linkers keeping it alive, pull the turtle from the core and park it on a node etc. There are plenty of ways to break the stalemate, but only if your team uses communication.
For 3. the center node does have the ion levi, which I've seen used to anchor a team's lead with some good positioning. I'd say that is a very good reward for taking the middle, plus the advantageous position of being able to spawn on the center platform.

Remind me next time you're in a classic mino and a Wasp completely kills you in <5s. Hydra tank shell does 450 pts. (regular goliath 300), GII is a great medium tank with complete accuracy (some projectile guns like Goliath have built in drift/skew that's why often your regular goliath shots go wide/low etc. GII does not have this, you can pick off flyers with it..its not hitscan but its fast and accurate).

These vehicles are fine when the average power level of the map is low, but are horrible to play in dria and junk. A wasp dies to every single flier or is lasered out of the sky since there is very little cover on these maps, making being able to get on top of a mino near impossible unless that mino is Hectoring it and has shit for map awareness and aim. GII and hydra are free food for any flier and are therefore worthless to spend the time driving them out only to die to any flier. If a map has no op fliers, then these would be useful.

And many of the vehicles have extra gunner/passenger seats.... THAT GET RARELY USED.

The only passenger I've ever preferred having in a vehicle compared to running without passengers was Anon. If I'm driving a truck/tank, I need to be able to quickly swap to the turret to swat a flier, and the average player would likely get me killed due to them either not spotting the flier in time and/or having shit aim. If I'm in something like the wraith, I need to be able to maneuver above the enemy flier and swap to the turret. If taking a passenger wasn't two negatives with no benefit (they could've pulled another vehicle giving the enemy something else to shoot at other than you and making your vehicle's ability to trade efficient worse), then they'd probably get used more.

Exactly. Which is why INCREASING vehicle count is a bad idea. It also shows the respawn times are too short. Its ONS...if you overwhelm the enemy team, wreck all their good vehicles well that's the point... now you get to take their core.

Completely agree, which is why I increased the respawn times on the new versions of HSH and Tek to balance it out. My problem is when a map has only 1-2 good vehicles that carry a map. If a stain gets in one, its auto game over. That is why my maps have a large amount of vehicles, making it so a team has to lose more of their strong vehicles in order to lose the game. It makes games get decided more on teamwork rather than the one carry pilot or tank driver. If I'm stuck at the core with no vehicles, I'd rather it be because our team deserves to lose since we fumbled multiple vehicles in a row rather than the one stain wasted the one op vehicle and now the entire team gets punished for it.

[pooty]

Yeah mostly I think we agree. And its perfectly fine to have different map "styles" heavy DM, light vehicles, OP vehicles, allout Randos etc.

My problem is when a map has only 1-2 good vehicles that carry a map. If a stain gets in one, its auto game over.

Mino on nearly every map. Or any of the OP flyers. I still think many of the flyers are too strong, but no intention of changing them.

Even think of the Omega, when its airborne IT has to be a priority to kill it or you'll lose. Same with any power vehicles. Tek works because there's plenty of counter.

I do think spawn times on many of the maps need adjusting, and I usually tweak them when I edit, but in many falcons often respawn in 15-25s which is way too fast.

The guidelines I typically now use are:
- Core vehicles respawn faster than nodes
- Faster vehicles, most flyers get longer respawn. I think in terms of TTN (Time to Node). A Falcon will race there faster than a tank...so it should get a longer respawn.
- More powerful vehicles get longer times.

I think I can even make a case that the premier OP flyers should get long respawn times like mino and nuke tank. Yes, Enyo you should have to wait a bit longer to grab that falcon and take back the entire map....which often does happen.

[Enyo]

I think I can even make a case that the premier OP flyers should get long respawn times like mino and nuke tank. Yes, Enyo you should have to wait a bit longer to grab that falcon and take back the entire map....which often does happen.

I don't disagree, at least on most maps, especially the ones with a lot of flyers like the randomizers. The respawn times for the Falcon and Predator on Tek are way to fast, same with almost all the flyer spawns on HSH, which could use an overall reduction in flyer spawns IF the nukes and OMFG are removed (or have extremely long respawn times, or much harder to get).

There are exceptions though on some maps where the Falcon respawn needs to be quick, like Red Planet, which also has a fast Mino respawn. Without the Falcon, almost nothing can stop the Mino except the other Mino. Same thing with Kingdom. Or, if the Mino respawn timer was drastically increased you could do the same with the Falcon. All that really does though is slow down the pace of the map.

[Rhamp]

I do think spawn times on many of the maps need adjusting, and I usually tweak them when I edit, but in many falcons often respawn in 15-25s which is way too fast.

Yep. Do we want to make a sheet of all the vehicles and their recommended respawn time? I feel like something like this would be good to help standardize balance across maps. Of course there can be exceptions, but this way we'd have a standard to refer to.It seems like most respawn times have just been slap 15s for fliers and weak ground vehicles and 30s for tanks. 15s (and even 30s) is way too fast for any power vehicle, as all that does is encourage whoring.

I think we all are looking for ways to despamify the game, but I don't want more Nevermore-type maps where if a stain gets in a flier its an auto loss until a good player can whore it. I'd prefer power fliers like falcons to have something like 120s to 180s respawn times, but have 2-3 times more of them. That way, a stain doesn't throw the game by taking one and there still is a reward for killing one since it has such a long respawn time. Sure the start of the game might be a bit hectic if the team pushes with all 3 falcons, but if they do that and lose them, then the other team can push for a good 2-3 minutes before they'd respawn. This would incentivize more conservative plays with the fliers instead of the current zerging that happens on basically every map with fliers. There would also be a more strategic element in driving around in a badger/truck hunting down the enemy power fliers since that would actually be beneficial since they won't just immediately respawn.

[pooty]

I think the times depend on the map, but we should have a recommended minimum time.

But yeah a sheet is a good idea. We could also list out any special features of the vehicles too, as several players were asking...

[Super Sanka]

I'm of the mindset that less power vehicles are a good thing on every map. Maps shouldn't be decided If a lesser skilled player wastes one key vehicle (mino,op flyer).

Also it is much easier to invite players that wouldn't ordinarily play ONS. We've had a few DM homies become regulars. If maps can shift towards more of the classic style ONS maps, more would join!

[pooty]

Also it is much easier to invite players that wouldn't ordinarily play ONS. We've had a few DM homies become regulars. If maps can shift towards more of the classic style ONS maps, more would join!

Personally I try to make sure we have a mix of map styles. That being said the OP fests seem to be the most popular... although lately with some of the DM homies, we have been playing more things like Tyrant, Gunshop etc.

[pooty]

Note to self. Remove UFO from Halloween.

I think the UFO should have a timeout. If you sit in it great, otherwise, maybe 90s and then it booms. That way you can just stuff it in some terrain and leave it there the whole game.

[Rhamp]

Or make it like how it used to be where you had to return it somewhere near the original spawn location or it despawned. I still think a variant would be good that despawns if abandoned too far from the spawn point while keeping the original ufo for maps like hsh since there are limited places to hide it on that map.