Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => Gameplay => Topic started by: Captain Smollett on March 08, 2014, 08:39:07 pm
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Dunes is a sprawling map with little hard cover and a giant dust cloud going through the middle.
The problem with this map design is that the large sand cloud in the middle essentially creates and area in the middle of the map that can't be fought in... that's right, an open map where you can't fight in the middle. This leads to long range combat becoming the optimal strategy, and not the fun type of long range combat, moving in and out of cover, repositioning and looking for lanes to move closer to your enemy but the type of long range combat where people park ships and lob shots across the map at each other without much strategy or positioning.
While some people may like this style of combat, I find it to be too static and limited.
Now inevitably the map will need to be changed with more cover terrain and map elements but in the mean time I'd like to propose a very basic solution.
Instead of having a large sand cloud going through the middle of the map pushing people to fight at the edges and fighting on top of a teams spawn, the map should instead have two dust clouds traveling at the northern and southern edges respectively, essentially forcing people off the edge of the map and into the center to engage each other. The edge of maps can still be used, for stealthy maneuvering however sitting in them will inevitably lead to be hitting by a rolling dust cloud.
Anyways I'm curious to see what you guys think; if you think Dunes needs to be changed at all, whether this will solve anything and any other ideas to improve the map.
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Que the "spawns are broken" brigade.
All seriousness though, I don't think it'll do much. People will just hide behind them instead and use flares.
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Well I'm thinking they'd be at the edge of the map so there wouldn't be a "behind them" to hide in.
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its interesting and I would like to test it before I can give a thumbs up or thumbs down.
Dunes in competitive play for a longer part have become more agressive now. Teams are taking either the ribs or the leviathan. 2 very good places to brawl in.
splitting up vs sniping teams is very risky but also works if its done properly.
However the cloud in the middle contributes so much to the brawling teams, as they can get closer without the enemy seeing them. (the ducks made something like this vs SAC yesterday).
Clouds is also what I use to get to the ribs fast and unspotted, while my ally can keep the illusion of both ships being at the leviathan.
to say the least in my own experience, dunes have become more tactical in competitive play, I cannot say how public games goes as I tend not to vote for dunes.
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Dunes in pub games tend to be fairly boring, but that's not from the cloud issue. Essentially one team or other tend to push forward, and they'll end up fighting on either side of the cloud line. This line allows teams to approach the other without being decimated by sniping. There's better ways of approaching, but most players tend to want to fly straight at the enemy instead of taking a different route.
If you try to push both teams towards the middle, you could be making it easier for sniping teams, since they would no longer have as many clouds blocking their sight. Right now both brawling ships and sniping ships tend to have a pretty easy time depending on how and where they fly.
Obviously if you get two teams trying to pot shot each other from their own spawns while clouds move down the middle, it's going to be a slow and boring game. But you can't blame the map for that, it's a player made decision to do this. Already more interesting and successful strategies are being used, and with the new rules on the competitive scene, those matches aren't as likely to end up as long drawn out sniping matches because of the time limit.
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In competitive play (and often in pub play), players will tend to use the strategy most likely to lead to success and in many ways the map affects the strategy employed.
I agree that there should still be large rolling clouds through the center (in addition to the edge dust clouds), but if they were normal clouds players could choose to move with them or move through them with impunity allowing for more dynamic positioning.
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I want clouds to move in a more random pattern.
I kinda dislike Dunes because of the sole fact that I see the same damn cloud, rolling down the middle, from one side of the screen to the other, every single minute. I just can't handle to look at it for too long.
Scrap is ok though, a cloud in the middle of the point is nice to turn the tides, I guess.
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I would like to see the dunes more prominent in this map.
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I would like to see the dunes more prominent in this map.
Now there would be a map idea. Huge rolling dunes with heavy dust storms rolling over top. You can find your way through the maze of dunes or fly over the dunes and risk getting pelted by the storms.
We have maps that offer open space and mazes, but none that offer an incentive to take either path. >:)
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I would like to see the dunes more prominent in this map.
Now there would be a map idea. Huge rolling dunes with heavy dust storms rolling over top. You can find your way through the maze of dunes or fly over the dunes and risk getting pelted by the storms.
We have maps that offer open space and mazes, but none that offer an incentive to take either path. >:)
Minoutar Madness!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCPhaVvGabw This is immediately what I thought.
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I would like to see the dunes more prominent in this map.
YES, i try so hard to make a bit of use of those tiny dunes, but it would be great if they were bigger. We need more maps in general.
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I feel though that their is a general consensus that Dunes is less fun than other maps. Could a mod please make a poll on this thread with two options.
1) I think Dunes is less fun than the majority of maps in GOI
2) I think Dunes is just as much (if not more) fun than other maps in GOI
Hopefully with enough responses we can get a general idea for the way at least the forum community feels about this.
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The statistician in me didn't go with quite that poll.
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I like dunes as it is. There is enough cover if you look hard enough. The game needs a big sky map for the new captains to learn ship control without bouncing off canyons. There are less opportunities for veteran captains to show off in dunes. The map is more about getting your crew to out perform the other crew.
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High level play aside, I find the central sand cloud to cause undue hardships to newer crews and generally reduce their enjoyment of the game.
I can't recall the thread but about 2 months ago there was a "the environment is op" thread floating around specifically relating to this.
I understand the idea of a more open map to help new players however I don't think Dunes is cutting it currently, being tactically static for vets and generally frustrating for newer players.
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I recall the "the environment is op" thread being about the ship taking too much damage from clouds even those in Fjords. Most of us came to the conclusion that the poster had either wandered into a tar cloud or left his captain tools on then tried to blame the map.
My feeling on the matter is that Dunes shouldn't be modified to cater to high level play because it is one of the most newbie friendly maps. Novice games force the players onto dunes for a reason. There are plenty of other maps in the rotation for high level players to strut their stuff. Also if the servers get choked again (like the weekend of Total Biscut) we will need a simple on the server map to dump players in.
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My suggestions will make the map both more new player friendly as well as more interesting in higher level play. I am of the opinion that both can be accomplished relatively easily and make guns of icarus more fun in general for all players.
The thread is really less about balancing for competitive play as it is making the map more enjoyable in general to play on.
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Using dust storms to discourage players from camping their spawn and drive people to the center of the map would be a good thing. I am just playing devils advocate here. The type of player this would really hurt is the one that flies off the map boundary and thinks the wind effect is hyperdrive. I don't think there is anything that can be done for that type of player.
We have been around long enough that we realize adapting to changes the devs throw at us is part of the game. So I don't much care if the map changes or not. I do care if the game as becomes less noob friendly because that will take us one step closer to the day of no active lobbies I fear so much. Changes to the low skill maps and weapons to make them more interesting to high level players sets off warning bells for me.
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Fjords has a ton of cover but due to its high ceiling, it is considered a very open map. One can have cover and not have people bouncing on everything. Huge dunes on Dunes would be awesome!
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Fjords has a ton of cover but due to its high ceiling, it is considered a very open map. One can have cover and not have people bouncing on everything. Huge dunes on Dunes would be awesome!
I'm not sure I'd actually believe huge dunes on Dunes. Sand just doesn't pile up that way...it would form massive gentle swells, and I don't think the map is large enough to pull that off effectively (at least with anything close to the height we'd need to see a real difference).
I could see turning this into a lore-based map a lot more though. What if Dunes, rather than being just a spot in a desert, became an abandoned Shipyard? The place the Leviathan was built...and the place where if succumbed to its own weight/battle/the weather/whatever force brought it down.
We could have minor building cover at low levels, the shattered remains of the Leviathan, bits of unfinished ships left abandoned by their creators, and large mooring towers that were once used to dock these giant vessels. It would add some cover and some obstacles to the map without clogging it up entirely (as the shipyard would leave the upper skies relatively clear).
Thoughts?
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I do not like it and never did, despite all meta changes and changes to the maps itself.
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It's not my favorite map, but mostly because it's overplayed. It actually has a lot of cover from all the moving clouds and dust storms, but the cover they provide is spotty at best. I've occasionally been spotted through two separate clouds that lay between us and our enemies without being able to see or spot them, and no flares being involved. This happens on other maps with clouds too, but Dunes relies heavily on cloud cover for stealth, while most maps have more reliable hard cover to fall back on.
Then there's also some places the clouds don't move through or move close enough to, making them perfect camping spots that brawling teams can't get close to regardless of how ninja they are.
Overall I'd like to see an improvement to the cloud system, and probably the spawn locations on dunes, rather than drastically changing the map for more hard cover. Increase their cover, add some more directions (maybe have the clouds switch direction once in a while). Maybe some dust devils or something that move in a predictable pattern but don't follow the general cloud movement (such as having 1 or 2 of them appear randomly moving in a slow circle around an area for a while before vanishing? Or just constantly circling an area for the match?)
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High level play aside, I find the central sand cloud to cause undue hardships to newer crews and generally reduce their enjoyment of the game.
I can't recall the thread but about 2 months ago there was a "the environment is op" thread floating around specifically relating to this.
I understand the idea of a more open map to help new players however I don't think Dunes is cutting it currently, being tactically static for vets and generally frustrating for newer players.
The guy who said the "Environment is OP", also said he was pissed at how "frost clouds" in Fjords ended up killing his engines. I don't think it is a matter of Dunes being hard for him, but that he was a new player and the game didn't have a proper tutorial for him
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I would like to see the dunes more prominent in this map.
Now there would be a map idea. Huge rolling dunes with heavy dust storms rolling over top. You can find your way through the maze of dunes or fly over the dunes and risk getting pelted by the storms.
We have maps that offer open space and mazes, but none that offer an incentive to take either path. >:)
I personally quite like this idea, regardless of how unrealistic it would be. I would enjoy being on my toes in the sandy trenches, not knowing if the enemy was around the next bend, or if the captain would try to fly high and get behind the enemy for a surprise attack, all before the sandstorm above hit hard. Also the abandoned shipyard could fit in as well, with ship parts sticking out of the dunes.
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Currently, you can go 'sand surfing' on dunes, and also the map of dunes shows darker areas of sand. Darker = lower, brighter = higher, thus allowing for plotting a route to go and ambush people by hiding low in the dunes.