Battle Map - Farm By Ruins

[Grumbs]

I'd like to see a general change to the way 1 entrance elevated enclosures are designed. The walls should be lower so if you really want to defend there you need melee shielder support, otherwise other ranged should be able to shoot you in there

Towers should be similar, lower the walls at the top so shooters are more vulnerable. I quite like having some tactically advantagous areas on the map. You can either have your team try to beat the other team in there and then defend, with the other guys trying to take it over. Or teams should be able to fight elsewhere.

[WITCHCRAFT]

^ That would make it easier for ranged to attack from on top of it as well.

As far as that map with the wooden tower, if it gets reverted the gated garden area should still be closed off. There was no reason for that to be there. There's also a barn that used to have a closing door. The door there also served no purpose beyond "lol xp barn" jokes.

[FRANK_THE_TANK]

Just make a flat map covered in small rocks that horses rear on when they hit them. That should fix the game!

[bagge]

Can't crutch camping spots anymore? Poor you. Hope you enjoy the other changes I made to other maps.

It's great we don't have any biased scene managers... oh wait

[DaveUKR]

I really didn't like changes in Native maps, especially changed spawns on Nordic Town, was it even necessary? Now it has parts of the map which are never used. Instead of making such changes I'd rather see maps being actually "fixed" like fixing spots where you can get stuck, fixing that retarded map with a zillion of useless scene props (like 20 objects on each damn table) that leads to drastic fps drop when you look at some certain parts of the map (actually the only map in the rotation where I have fps drop with my powerful PC)

[Carthan]

Dude that was one of my favorite maps until someone plugged up the tower. As a guy who loved that map as it was when I was ranged and melee, it really should be reopened. Was awesome to have last stands in that tower or to surround it and rush it.

It really killed that map for me when it was closed off. Had that map come out with the tower already closed off it might still be ok but once you had the taste of it.. it just doesn't do it for you anymore once its gone.

I always played on regular battle maps, and seeing all those closed buildings and towers never really made me do anything other than walk around in circles hunting random players. Whenever I played on NA_Community however, it would mostly have the exact same maps, but they would have almost all of the buildings open and garrisonable.
The only thought seeing open building maps from those days, and for any day beyond will continue to be "Wow this is awesome, I wish they had these on the regular servers, this is really cool I can do so many things I was never able too."

[Brrrak]

I'm tempted to make a scene called 'M.C. Escher'.

It will be nothing BUT staircases.

Have fun with that.

[Micah]

Balance as a gaming term, doesnt mean "same chances"( it never really did), this is a broadly missunderstood fact - which is why its better to refer to "design" instead ... the balance act is between intended player experiance and the rest of the game .. which includes, the experiance of many other players in an MMO (obviiously), the game engine and other technical limitations among other things to consider.

I do actually appreciate Teeth's intent , to minimize map caused, extensive, boring, round delaying effects, if and only if those are glitches.
On the other hand i can fully understand and agree with voices, who demand their freedom of gameplay - especially in a case like this, where there are aparently, artificial restrictions applied to a map, despite the ability of the game engine to provide a certain instance/grade of freedom.
Imho .. this might be about the worst type of a design mistake i can come up with ... to make a player intentionally experiance an applied restriction in a game mechanic ... especially , when its clear, that the game engine would easily allow the intuitive correct behavior of an object.

My point is .. design-wise : if you want a tower to be not accessable - remove the tower! Rather than just locking up a door ... because  closed doors is not what players want to experiance ; its actually the opposit ... they want to experiance open doors .. accessible things .. explorable environment ... but what do we get most times right now ? Fucking Restrictions ! THATS what the current gaminig experiance is, what the current game design converges to...
Huge mistake , if you ask me ...

edit: Now teeth, eventhough i do really appreciate your work and Fips's for the game, you may want to reorder map balancing priorities .. anyhow .. i think you are the best guys we can have for the job .. and you did alot of good things for the game .. thanks for that =)

[Pollux]

I don't care about stupid shit like this, but please add more props to maps for roleplaying serious businesses.

[Teeth]

Remove this spot, yes or no? One team gets here first, they can parkour up here and have an excellent position overlooking the popular fighting spots. It got used each round by some ranged last time I played the map.

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[Grumbs]

Balance as a gaming term, doesnt mean "same chances"( it never really did), this is a broadly missunderstood fact - which is why its better to refer to "design" instead ... the balance act is between intended player experiance and the rest of the game .. which includes, the experiance of many other players in an MMO (obviiously), the game engine and other technical limitations among other things to consider.

I do actually appreciate Teeth's intent , to minimize map caused, extensive, boring, round delaying effects, if and only if those are glitches.
On the other hand i can fully understand and agree with voices, who demand their freedom of gameplay - especially in a case like this, where there are aparently, artificial restrictions applied to a map, despite the ability of the game engine to provide a certain instance/grade of freedom.
Imho .. this might be about the worst type of a design mistake i can come up with ... to make a player intentionally experiance an applied restriction in a game mechanic ... especially , when its clear, that the game engine would easily allow the intuitive correct behavior of an object.

My point is .. design-wise : if you want a tower to be not accessable - remove the tower! Rather than just locking up a door ... because  closed doors is not what players want to experiance ; its actually the opposit ... they want to experiance open doors .. accessible things .. explorable environment ... but what do we get most times right now ? Fucking Restrictions ! THATS what the current gaminig experiance is, what the current game design converges to...
Huge mistake , if you ask me ...

edit: Now teeth, eventhough i do really appreciate your work and Fips's for the game, you may want to reorder map balancing priorities .. anyhow .. i think you are the best guys we can have for the job .. and you did alot of good things for the game .. thanks for that =)

The map is still better for having an inaccessible tower than having no tower at all imo. It provides players with a choice of how to move through the map, a way to flank quickly and provides cover for players at a choke point. Without it people would take cover away from the action, with it we get a more flowing style to the map with more action. It doesn't need to be a tower now but its nice to have some visual variety too even if you can't go in. As long as theres a reason why you can't go in then its fine (boarded up or locked or something)

Map balance is a thing as well. Its not just about fixing glitches or whatever. That doesn't mean the map needs to be symmetrical, just need to allow each side a decent chance of winning without forcing either side to delay or camp excessively. If one side has access to a really good vantage point then you might find the other side counters by ignoring a whole portion of the map for example. Or opening up the tower might result in boring stand offish gameplay. The doors are exploitable too. If one side wins you can close the door nearest to the enemy and it stays closed for next round. You might say the map is still balanced but it doesn't encourage fun or dynamic gameplay. I'd much rather have inaccessible areas and have my immersion broken (pretty much impossible in cRPG) and have more fun gameplay. Better to talk about how things impact your sense of "fun", map variety, tactical options for teams etc than how realistic or immersion breaking it is

[Dermik]

Remove this spot, yes or no? One team gets here first, they can parkour up here and have an excellent position overlooking the popular fighting spots. It got used each round by some ranged last time I played the map.

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Thanks for the tip. Maybe you saw 1 archer here. Now there'll be 10 on that spot ...

[Teeth]

Thanks for the tip. Maybe you saw 1 archer here. Now there'll be 10 on that spot ...

EU already figured this one out a while a go. I get the impression that the search for and abuse of these kind of spots is stronger in EU.

[Butan]

I too think that maps should have MORE EXPLOITABLE PLACES.
In the sense that exploitable places means => places where people would go, because advantages


Otherwise like many people said, its just "go toward enemy spawn and kill enemies on your way there" rinse and repeat.



Its partly why Siege gamemode is a more "enjoyable" gamemode to many players (this + the respawns). Its because you have a PURPOSE. Mapping should give people purposes, even in battle gamemode.

Teeth I understand you went for the "less tears shedability" mapping path, but as you can see it has a bad effect on people. Those same people that had & will cry rivers everytime a smart player/team exploit those places at 100% efficiency.
Let the people cry, even give them ways to cry... It means the game is alive.

[Grumbs]

It depends on the type of tactical advantage the area gives for whether it improves gameplay or not, and if the advantage is too strong you will find the map tends to play out the same way each round anyway.