Stonehammer Keep - Siege Scene

[Seabhac]

Mylet did you get that pm I sent out about Stonehammer being added?

[Punisher]

Added Stonehammer to the EU servers 2 days ago. Let it play for a while so people get used to it before asking for any changes. Currently it is simply too big, I played it 4 times and not once did the attackers even get into the flag courtyard.

The only way to balance it without major changes that would alter the map design (which is great btw) would be moving attacker spawns inside the first courtyard, around the gate area (the gate should be removed or if possible replaced with a destroyed gate texture). Defender spawns should all be inside the 2nd courtyard, and the flag should be moved inside the large house. This will significantly reduce the time for attackers to reach the flag and with 1 less gate to breach it should be balanced.

[Draggon]

Wow that's amazing how much the dynamic changes when you add alot more players.  We tested the crap out of it but with only 10-12 players.  With that many, the Attackers actually won alot more than Defense.

Good feedback though Punisher.  I'm sure Seabhac will be taking a look at your suggestions and working on some changes, plus we have some more feedback to look at on our forums as well.

One of the main things we want to avoid is making it too easy for the Offense, as alot of maps are currently.  And that's really the opposite of how a Siege should be.  Obviously in IRL sieges the advantage for the defenders was huge; however, this being just a game, that advantage should be toned down to being very minimal. 

[Seabhac]

Added Stonehammer to the EU servers 2 days ago. Let it play for a while so people get used to it before asking for any changes. Currently it is simply too big, I played it 4 times and not once did the attackers even get into the flag courtyard.

The only way to balance it without major changes that would alter the map design (which is great btw) would be moving attacker spawns inside the first courtyard, around the gate area (the gate should be removed or if possible replaced with a destroyed gate texture). Defender spawns should all be inside the 2nd courtyard, and the flag should be moved inside the large house. This will significantly reduce the time for attackers to reach the flag and with 1 less gate to breach it should be balanced.

Thanks a lot for the feedback punisher, haven't had any time to post here or work on the map. Really seconding what draggon says also, a lot of the maps in the rotation are really easily won. Through ladder usage and design etc. I never got to play on the map while it was up so can't really say in the first person.

Really thought players would be enjoy it as is, since the map is so ladder friendly. I will update it though and move the spawns around for the offense and defense. Probably change the siege tower also. Man really wish I could have played on it lol

[Seabhac]

Welll sorry for the delay on re-balancing the map been real busy, have had some time recently and its come up in some discussions.

You can dl the .rar package here which is the 1.4 version of Stonehammer

The main changes to the map are,

Changes
•Added a Ladder to the Trade Post upper floor, the attackers can now use this ladder as a secondary way over the inner wall.

•Removed the Ladder on the outer south east Gaurd Tower.

•Removed the front pair of doors on the outer gate.

•Removed inner gate

•Re-worked inner gate area and archers nest to make it more fun.

•Re-arranged the defensive spawns; moved spawns to the inner rampart and back rocks and north outer wall guard tower.

•Re-arranged offensive spawns; Split the spawns into two groups and placed them much closer to the front gate and siege tower.

•Re-pathed the Siege tower so that it now will land on the frontal southeast outer wall near the rocks. Also shortened the length of the tower's path.

•Moved the flag to a new position.

[Seabhac]

anyone can also now play the latest version on the SHC server

[Jacko]

I ran around on it, and it looks good. Might be too big, but I'll put it up on EU2 sometimes this week.

[Seabhac]

Thanks Jacko, I updated the file again due to some more minor rock fixing. Swapped the urls so you can still dl the proper rar filed from the 1.4 post or the op.

[Seabhac]

So heard from a little bird that Stonehammer was added, looking forward to the need round of feedback and also hopefully will get a shot at playing on it before anything happens. lol

[Digglez]

played 4 rounds today on NA siege and one of the rounds the flag would not come down at all even though defenders were well past 5ft away from flag.

also one of my friends got stuck between the siege ramp and wall

[Seabhac]

played 4 rounds today on NA siege and one of the rounds the flag would not come down at all even though defenders were well past 5ft away from flag.

also one of my friends got stuck between the siege ramp and wall

Weird have not seen that happen, I wonder if the positioning of the flag is doing it. The flag was being moved to a different location anyways so hopefully that will fix it. Seen the stuck issue in game also, that has already been fixed for the next release.

Thanks for feedback.

[Mustikki]

This map seems to favour defenders too much. Maybe a little tweaking the flag position, could turn this more balanced.

As the flag is now at the red area, i would suggest move it to green area. The pink place is the last bottleneck for attacks atm, which makes it a really hard to break as the defenders archers are mainly positioned themself on the yellow marked area and infantry at the stairs (pink).
Making the change would still let defender archers camp at the yellow area if there is not other than 2 ways to them, but the attackers would be able to reach the flag.
You can see the attackers has been stopped at the second gate at this round.

(click to show/hide)

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[Digglez]

map is simply not fun or well designed without deployable ladders.

Attackers have 1 realistic path to get the to flag that goes thru 3 choke points...although defenders have no reason to do anything other than camp the flag.  Since it takes attackers a good minute or more to get there, its not fun to play.


I like the style, theme and energy you put in, just too big and not working ATM

[Draggon]

There's actually a 2nd route to the flag that's just very commonly known yet.
If you go into the Tradehouse just along the outside corner of the inner wall, there's a deployable ladder that goes up to that left inner tower (left for attackers).  Once you take the tower (which is hardly ever defended) you can clear the walls of archers, and/or proceed to the left side door of the keep.  Bring 2-3 guys with you, break down a couple of doors and you have a secondary route to the flag.  Even by myself I've managed to surprise attack the flag from the left side 2-3 times in one round.

However, this being said - it is still heavily in favor of defenders although we've seen it go 3-0 in favor of attackers before on NA.  Only once though did this happen as far as I know.  Most other times it's 0-3, 1-3, defenders.

Seabhac's currently working on some changes that'll even it out just a tad more.  One of which will be moving the flag to a more accessible location for attackers.  The hard part is, to not make yet another map that's too easy for offense.  So just another 1 or 2 tweaks and it oughta be very well balanced.

Nice work Seab!  Didn't mean to steal your thunder. =P

[Jacko]

I have no problem with the map. Having a map that is easy for defenders is not a problem. That being said, I do think the map as a whole is too big, but there is nothing to do about that short of making a new map (some tweaks, as Mustikki pointed out, will improve it). It is actually one of the better siege maps we have.