30 replies to this topic

[Private_Miros]

This is a follow up thread on LordMuffin's excellent thread and poll How good is WG at making maps, which was undoubtedly completely correctly deemed to be a map guide and moved to the appropriate map guide discussion section of the forum. Since at least certain aspects of maps have their effect on gameplay, it only seems appropriate to also have a gameplay related discussion thread here.

 

General tendencies from that poll of LordMuffin seem to show that WoT hasn't been going the right way with map design lately in the eyes of the community.

 

On the other hand there seems to be a division in the perception if all tank classes can be relevant on all maps. Maybe that is skill related (some people need obvious spots, some people can adapt better organically) or might be due to focus on a few maps in particular (I'm useless of Himmelsdorf in my clicker!).

 

I've added a poll with some questions inspired by Muffin's to get things on their way here as well.

 

I wish we had more data, since mine is still number, but below is a breakdown of maps I played recently - all is relatively low number (most 30-40) still but should give an idea on average duration and frequency of blow outs in favour of one team or the other.

 

17:13 Added after 0 minute

Maps and average game duration

Spoiler

 

Map	Duration
Ensk	04:26:00
Widepark	04:48:00
Himmelsdorf	05:46:00
Tundra	06:03:00
Paris	06:27:00
Serene Coast	06:27:00
Ruinberg	06:28:00
Pearl River	06:29:00
Fjords	06:39:00
Empire's Border	06:40:00
Murovanka	06:43:00
Westfield	06:46:00
Abbey	06:48:00
Mines	06:48:00
Highway	06:53:00
Lakeville	06:55:00
Mountain Pass	06:55:00
Ghost Town	07:00:00
Pilsen	07:00:00
Berlin	07:02:00
Siegfried Line	07:02:00
Redshire	07:11:00
Live Oaks	07:16:00
Steppes	07:17:00
El Halluf	07:19:00
Sand River	07:19:00
Erlenberg	07:21:00
Fisherman's Bay	07:34:00
Overlord	07:41:00
Minsk	07:43:00
Glacier	07:54:00
Karelia	07:56:00
Mannerheim Line	07:57:00
Studzianki	08:01:00
Airfield	08:02:00
Prokhorovka	08:03:00
Cliff	08:10:00
Province	08:37:00
Kharkov	08:38:00
Malinovka	08:39:00

17:14 Added after 2 minute

Maps and blow out frequency chance

Spoiler

 

Map		Steamroll frequency
Widepark		0,6
Airfield		0,36
Berlin		0,33
Himmelsdorf		0,33
Mannerheim Line		0,33
Redshire		0,33
Pilsen		0,29
Prokhorovka		0,28
Murovanka		0,27
Tundra		0,27
Empire's Border		0,26
Ghost Town		0,26
Malinovka		0,26
Pearl River		0,25
Province		0,25
Sand River		0,25
Abbey		0,24
Highway		0,24
Ensk		0,23
Lakeville		0,23
Minsk		0,23
Fisherman's Bay		0,21
Mountain Pass		0,21
Ruinberg		0,21
El Halluf		0,2
Westfield		0,19
Glacier		0,18
Karelia		0,17
Erlenberg		0,16
Kharkov		0,16
Paris		0,16
Serene Coast		0,16
Siegfried Line		0,16
Live Oaks		0,15
Overlord		0,15
Mines		0,13
Fjords		0,12
Steppes		0,12
Cliff		0,1
Studzianki		0,1

 

Edited by Private_Miros, 05 December 2020 - 06:15 PM.

[Sjiebert]

In my eyes it is always important to make the spawns balanced. Nothing worse than loading into battle and knowing you'll lose regardless of what you do.

My second vote was for 'Decrease obvious class based positions and areas on map.' I feel like the more Wargaming thinks about 'this area is for heavies and this area for mediums', the worse battles get. This design mentality tends to cause little interaction between classes and it results in too little possibilities to play. This makes battles more boring over time due to little variety.

[Chuwt]

Personally, I like a less frenetic style of gameplay...I realise that on average this is not the way that the game is going, but I can always hope.

IMO some maps are much too small, especially for higher tiers..obviously Mines is the classic example of this (among other things, higher tier tanks are simply larger), but others are almost as bad.
I realise this may be a minority view, but I think I would prefer smaller teams on the current map selection.

[Marco_Is_Legend2019]

Private_Miros, on 05 December 2020 - 06:12 PM, said:

I wish we had more data, since mine is still number, but below is a breakdown of maps I played recently - all is relatively low number (most 30-40) still but should give an idea on average duration and frequency of blow outs in favour of one team or the other.

 

We do. I posted that link also in Muffin's topic.

[NekoPuffer_PPP]

"A certain degree of procedural map generation" has piqued my interest despite not voting for it.

 

Restricting/opening up areas of the map oppa Steel Hunter style doesn't really seem like something that would work well, however...events of war; planes/zeppelins crashing, bombs dropping (bot warfare arty strikes, forgot the gamemode's name), buildings/bridges collapsing, heck maybe even rock/landslides, all affecting the geography of the terrain as the battle goes on, would certainly create some interesting attack/defense opportunities. Such a shame they dropped the advanced object/particle physics engine so many years ago. I even forgot what it was called...

[Strapps]

I voted for decreasing impassable terrain; it annoys the bejabbers out of me when a map states that it's 1000x1000m only for half the available area to be mountains around the borders or a damn great lake in the middle (yes, Lakeville, I'm looking at you). There wouldn't be so many calls for larger maps if we actually had the space stated in the first place.

 

Secondly, and a personal bugbear, decrease obvious class-based positions. This is my biggest annoyance with maps, the ridiculous area for each type maps. Fine for beginning players but once you've played a few battles, finding new ways to exploit terrain or your tank is part of the learning process so getting dropped into a map that's quite clearly Paris set up for specific gameplay removes much of the enjoyment. I want to play tanks, not turret defence.

[BR33K1_PAWAH]

NekoPuffer_PPP, on 05 December 2020 - 09:07 PM, said:

"A certain degree of procedural map generation" has piqued my interest despite not voting for it.

 

Restricting/opening up areas of the map oppa Steel Hunter style doesn't really seem like something that would work well, however...events of war; planes/zeppelins crashing, bombs dropping (bot warfare arty strikes, forgot the gamemode's name), buildings/bridges collapsing, heck maybe even rock/landslides, all affecting the geography of the terrain as the battle goes on, would certainly create some interesting attack/defense opportunities. Such a shame they dropped the advanced object/particle physics engine so many years ago. I even forgot what it was called...

 

Cool idea, but imagine a 500wn8 player having to adapt to procedurally generated map changes for each battle...

 

20:13 Added after 0 minute

Nice topic btw.

[Bordhaw]

Maps need to be made bigger to compensate for the ever increasing speed of "tanks", view range, crews and especially since Equipment 2.0

[frange]

Strapps, on 05 December 2020 - 06:10 PM, said:

I voted for decreasing impassable terrain; it annoys the bejabbers out of me when a map states that it's 1000x1000m only for half the available area to be mountains around the borders or a damn great lake in the middle (yes, Lakeville, I'm looking at you). There wouldn't be so many calls for larger maps if we actually had the space stated in the first place.

 

So much of this. Fjords, Abbey. Cliff, Empires Border, Mountain Pass & Serene Coast are some of the maps stated to be 850-1000 x 850-1000m but just looking at it you can see about 50% (or more) of the entire map is unreachble mountains and/or water. 

Prime example of this used to be Hidden Village where at least 40% of the 1000x1000m was the southern mountains covering the entire southern and southwest side of the map. Add the occational scattered rocks and the northeast corner of mountains along with the river and you are beoynd 65-70% of those "1000x1000meters" unusable and unreachable terrain.

Edited by frange, 05 December 2020 - 11:02 PM.

[Tommy_Atkins_Teapot]

Dear Private_Miros

I voted for a decrease in impassable terrain, and decrease class based positions.

The map builds preordain how the battles will be fought, generally resulting in a formulaic pattern of events where one side will persevere.

There are many skilled mavericks within the game that would enjoy the freedoms of increased useable terrain, and  freedom of tanks to use more of the landscape.

Variety and options, space, for all tank types, would in my opinion open up the current gameplay norms.

Regards

Tommy.

 

 

[Carpaccio_]

Unbalanced spawns are the biggest and worse issue, that sometimes (not necesarily always) also comes with balance of teams in terms of tanks. Don't wanna go to offtopic, so I'll put it briefy. Imagine you get random battle on map that has already unbalanced spawns, you spawn on the "loosing spawn", and you also get worse tanks, like tier X top tier battle with average player in 50B, and standart LT, vs enemy in actually strong and well armored heavy and with EBR, and you have easily 70 % chance to loose - lets say teams are pretty balanced in terms of players skills. The worst example I can think of would be probably the Mines on tier X.

 

As second option I picked late game camping position, by which I also mean just lazy sniper nests, created pretty much near the base spawn. Late game camping OP positions are for example that one on Minsk, where sometimes just one tank, with enough firepower and camo not to get spoted, can obliterate enemies and destroy their push. Spawn camper zones are ones on Kharkov, Ghost town for example.

 

That, and I quess I'd also add [censored] hulldown positions, for OP or just strong hulldowns tanks, that create gameplay of "sitting hulldown and spamming gold at enemies hulldown", which is completely ..... [censored].

 

Another problem that could easily have its own category in voting is EBR 105 that can still easily just break some maps, get you spoted in first 5-10 seconds of the game, keep you spoted all the time.

 

I think that high tiers suffer from all his unbalance more than some mid-tiers or something, and that tier X is now in pretty bad "meta" situation, which is made even worse by the unbalanced or absolutely bad maps.

 

edit: quite a lot of OT in the end, but I think that all I said goes with the maps, and maps unbalance to the point of general unbalance of this game.

Edited by Carpaccio_, 06 December 2020 - 06:06 AM.

[Private_Miros]

Well, the result so far seem to focus on only 4 issues. That's a more marked result than I had expected to be honest.

[NekoPuffer_PPP]

BR33K1_PAWAH, on 05 December 2020 - 09:12 PM, said:

Cool idea, but imagine a 500wn8 player having to adapt to procedurally generated map changes for each battle...

 

 

Good. Easy farming.

[Kasseibijter]

Decrease funnels would be nice. 

[Mr_Burrows]

Great topic! 
My votes went to decrease impassable terrain, and decrease player density (but only if this makes maps bigger, smaller teams is perhaps not what I am looking for). 
Since I play lights mainly, I feel those would benefit my play style. However, I do also think that with bigger maps (my second vote), many of the other points could or would naturally be implemented due to map size and the possibility to put different kinds of terrain onto the same map. 
Imagine a slightly bigger Malinovka, and a half decent size town topside hill and the south side water to be traversable. 



 

[WingedArchon]

Personally I feel the first point is moot. Spawns SHOULD be balanced. This should not be a debate in a comparative sense. Each spawn should provide the same equalized oppertunities. 

So I concertrated my answers of the poll to:

* Greatly reduce impassable terrain parts. Spefically maps such as Empires Border or Fjords are rediculous. 

* Make the maps/teams ratio smaller. And I prefer to see this in keep the teamsize, enlarge the maps. Also make Grand Battle type maps for the other tiers.

[Richthoffen]

map should be bigger, have less impassable terrain and remove the side protection from heavy brawling areas partly as now there are parts where heavies can go head to head without any chance to get flanked or shot in the side.

[_Maginot40]

Of the two options i selected they are a bit contradictory to each other, but i think atleast one of them would make the games more fun.

Map balance and random generation. I feel that the balance betveen the teams starting positions and map design is just bad so either fix that or make maps a tiny bit different each time you spawn on them.

09:25 Added after 4 minute

Marco_Is_Legend2019, on 05 December 2020 - 07:03 PM, said:

 

We do. I posted that link also in Muffin's topic.

Interesting that Mannerheim Line is the most balanced map in the game.

[Marco_Is_Legend2019]

_Maginot40, on 08 December 2020 - 10:20 AM, said:

Interesting that Mannerheim Line is the most balanced map in the game.

 

It's pretty balanced with 1.02% difference between the spawns but there are better. Mountain Pass and El Hallouf have 0.16% and 0.04% respectively.

[qpranger]

Nothing about capture points?