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

[pooty]

Its gone on most of the scorpions anyway. I just made the tyrant the same. We've modified the levi turrets so you don't get killed in those. I think the bender turrets might be open? And I haven't changed any of the Mantas, but not sure if the modded ones have it still..

Either way, I look at it like this -- you're in a 300, 600 or such vehicle, it gets hit for 120 or something boom you're dead but the vehicle isn't. You're dead and you lose the vehicle. The Scorps are generally so weak and easy to hit vs. manta, they don't need that additional weakness.

No plans to change the mantas, or any of the existing benders. The problem becomes at least on Mantas (1.0) (and default for scorps 0.8) was that a certain point say no keg, shield, you die in a Manta at 100 pts whether it has 101 health or 1000. Same with Scorpions, if the scorp has 300 points or 1000 wouldn't matter, the first 125 pts damage kills you -- dead in any scorp from tank or even badger cannon shot... Perhaps is could be lowered to say 0.25 or something.

[pooty]

So I added two maps:

TableTop, this is a DM focused, albeit with some vehicles map that' features the giant breakfast table.

GrendelKeep, a pure DM focused ONS Map in a castle, no vehicles, but lots of passages. I think our Freon players might like it or even be familiar with it?

[Enyo]

So I added two maps:

TableTop, this is a DM focused, albeit with some vehicles map that' features the giant breakfast table.

GrendelKeep, a pure DM focused ONS Map in a castle, no vehicles, but lots of passages. I think our Freon players might like it or even be familiar with it?

Nice! Both are good maps, played TableTop a lot on RMD. And yes, GrendelKeep is a well know DM map, I wouldn’t expect it to get voted a lot after the first few times though.

[captainsnarf]

GrendelKeep is our Junkyard

[Rhamp]

Arctic JY vehicle balancing:

The vehicle balancing seems a bit borked on this map, with op vehicles often spawning in the middle nodes, making games extremely onesided once one team gains control over the middle. I've seen mechs, starbolts, omegas all spawn in the 6 middle nodes while the primaries and core most of the time have absolute dogshit vehicles, making it impossible to recover, especially when one side has both copies of the op vehicle and the other has none.

[captainsnarf]

> making it impossible to recover

They *want* that shit. The mistake is believing our players want good, balanced games. Maybe you do. Maybe I do. But not the players that vote Junkyard-randomizer and Minus-randomizer three times a night. They want a one sided fist fight, as long as they are on the winning side.

Junkyard-Randomizer, Minus-Randomizer, Torlan-LinkerMadness. Once you are down to your primaries you are not coming back, but there is just enough at your core that you don't outright lose either. It's 20 minutes of a retarded stain's boot stomping your face after that. They have minos and mechs, you have a truck. That's what they want. They can't get a frag on you any other way.

I really wish we would remove ALL randomizers. "But they are the most popular maps". Just because they win the vote doesn't mean shit. Biden won the vote. Trump won the vote. It doesn't make them good.

We are outnumbered by stains. As long as everything is left up to a vote the stains have won.

[pooty]

, Torlan-LinkerMadness.

I've seen multiple comebacks on this one...key there is team link!

The vehicle balancing seems a bit borked on this map, with op vehicles often spawning in the middle nodes, making games extremely onesided once one team gains control over the middle. I've seen mechs, starbolts, omegas all spawn in the 6 middle nodes while the primaries and core most of the time have absolute dogshit vehicles, making it impossible to recover, especially when one side has both copies of the op vehicle and the other has none.

Probably true. I tweaked the vehicles and node group points, but really didn't give them deep once over. Happy to tweak them a bit, we can give the cores more points and a higher minimum for sure. Its also probably worthwhile making sure that there's a few fixed spawns beyond Mino, Helix and Tiamat, but that kind of takes away from the "jackpot" of getting a good flyer or sweet tank.

I think Omegas should only ever spawn at the core, starbolt is easily killed. Mechs maybe only at cores, primaries.

The bigger issue is that the JY maps are unbalanced, once side has an advantage, I think distance wise from primaries -- this makes just as much of a difference as vehicles.

And stop picking on the trucks, lol . King HellHound is pretty good, its fast, much faster than tanks, 2nd seat can take out a node in one combo, and 3rd seat turret can really kill flyers. Basic HellHound is well, basic, but twin beams make a good anti-air from a distance. I've updated the fire hound, the primary flamethrower is similar to the firebug, get in on a node close (or tank!) and it does damage quick. The 2nd seat is decent, but not quite KHH. 3rd seat turret is good too. The other thing is they were all updated to be able to climb hills, they can all climb the hills easily in JY maps. The one thing I'd like to do is make the less susceptible to being knocked around. The goal here is for trucks to be very fast ground vehicles with great climbing ability, and use them for mobile anti-air.

I really wish we would remove ALL randomizers. "But they are the most popular maps". Just because they win the vote doesn't mean shit. Biden won the vote. Trump won the vote. It doesn't make them good.

Been that way since before we took over the server. Minus-TMU-Randomizer was by far and away the most popular map. I think that's becuase with fixed spawns, many good players figure out where / how to deploy certain vehicles (think Mino in the Dognuts spot) and dominate the map. Randomizers make that harder, since you often get vehicles to counter, or the opposite you get a key vehicle that dominates that node. I think most folks, including me, like the uniqueness.

And we could go play other maps that aren't randomizers and you'll find many of those turn into " a one sided fist fight" case in point (sorry McLovin) but the original Minus-Badger map was one of the worst. The 1000 pt link badger, Mega, and if you take 8 and 9, the other team is done, since originally the 900 pt ion badgers respawned in 15 or 20 seconds... you'd never get the primaries back... there's many more examples and the maps take careful playtesting and balance... put powerful vehicles at the primaries -- when you lose one say with the missle tank on DJY, core is done very quickly (Nova to the core in DJY does 70+ core points...)

They can't get a frag on you any other way.

80% of our players don't want to DM, and without a vehicle handicap, they won't beat Anon, Cali, Snarf, Enyo, Xexx, GTKU, SubZero and others. Think of how fun it is to play against Anon in the mantis on GunShop, Subzero, Nautikal in Rail tank... the 80% will get sniped ~100% time.

Many of the other maps don't get played because, IMO, its too complicated for that 80%, they want to drive and spam, vs. team up, strategize and work together. Think about MagicIsle which I think is a great map, but the team that uses Grapples at the start get a huge advantage. In fact many of the updated vehicles have really good gunner seats (Wraith, Predator, Helix to name a few) that rarely get used.

But bottom line it comes down to " careful playtesting and balance" of the map, and this somewhat fickle audience will play something a few times decide it sucks and go back to DJY,Dria, Minus rotation after bitching about the hours of work put into newer maps without offering suggestions. Most of the maps in rotation are decent and are fun.

And plus there's the "map snob" crowd, and I am not talking about the occasional "I hate this map", but rather theres a bunch of players that only play the Randos and if those are up, they go play fortnite or GTA.

[McLovin]

...
The one thing I'd like to do is make the less susceptible to being knocked around.
...

I love seeing HellBenders (trucks) go flying sideways. It cracks me up every time I see it.

It's like seeing a visual version of "F you and the horse you rode in on." Haha!

[Enyo]

We are outnumbered by stains. As long as everything is left up to a vote the stains have won.

As you pointed out, true with elections too!

I’ve said this before, I’d rather have a server that’s slightly less populated but with better players, i.e. less stains, than a full server of mostly stains.

So, if we want less stains and more competitive matches on non-randomizer maps, then we should consider the rotating map packs idea. The stains will bail during weeks there’s no “favorite maps,” and they can get their fix when the Randomizer rotation kicks in. If we permanently shed a few stains during that process, is that really all that bad?

Last night’s Hyperblast match is a great example. All of 14 players, but mostly high-skilled, and it was a great 3 round close match.

[Rhamp]

Wouldn't mind the admins "fortifying" the election to force a underplayed, but still fun map every so often. I see a lot of the time, minus/dria/junk has most of the votes, but there is often a good map that gets some votes that never gets played since the sheep keep voting for the same maps. I find that, just like the shitty U.S election system, I can't vote for the map I actually want to play, I have to vote for whatever has the highest chance to win as to not play minus/dria/junk.