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What am I saying? I can just make the event destroyers reskinned reteamed SAM sites with new weapons. I can totally do this.

If I could make the AI preferentially target a specific kind of unit, I'd probably go "full asshole dungeon master" mode and back up the cheat-mode cruisers with cheat-mode destroyers with rockets that seek out Chinooks all the way across the map. Just to drive home the idea that yes, the Soviets have done fucked up and retreating will not help. (They'd probably get sent to the gulags anyway, AA destroyers would do them a favour.) Air units would require the visibility system to be rewritten. Under normal circumstances I really hate doing that. Doing that on the most detailed map in the game which already crashes a lot in the editor when writing the vis system just for areas that only ground units can be present in is hellish enough. I'd rather not spend several weeks trying to get a workable vis result from adding air sectors into the mix. Especially since that also means having to manually reapply all the manual fixes that have had to be done to this map's visibility system over the months. So make the water behind the island too deep to stand in, gotcha. Granted, it can't be difficult for an Allied player to get onto that island and kill rocket guys either. Medics do wonders in close quarters and have the easiest time of getting to that island with enough health to not die to an RS pistol, due to having a combination of Captain health and Sergeant speed. Fair enough. That's why I'm really only looking at the maps where the imbalance is more than 20%, where it's hard to attribute the discrepancy to random chance.

I have a fancy new color

Recently we've actually had an easier way to track map balance than scrounging through server logs. It's been 2 weeks since then so we have a fair bit of data to work with so I figured I'd share it and get some discussion going on how the maps are balanced and how they should change. This could easily have gone in the patch balance thread but this is a big post that will probably get drowned out in a page or two so I figured it should be put in a new topic. Unfortunately I haven't had much time to play recently so I don't have many insights on how the maps are balanced myself. So feel free to speak if you have something to say about certain maps or disagree with my assessments, especially if you actually have been playing a lot! So, ever since the map balance tracker was put into play on the 11th February, here's the rundown of games: Allied victories: 241 (51.39%) Soviet victories: 228 (48.61%) We have to look a little deeper than that though: There's been a lot of games played that are smaller than 3v3 - in that case the matches become much more about player skill than how Allies/Soviets/the map is actually balanced, and is very prone to imbalances from one team having one more player than the other. Every game of Seamist that lasts the full 20 minutes actually gets counted by the system even if no players are ingame, so that's a lot of faux Allied victories right there! There's a couple of games that ended by "server shutdown" - a bit of a misnomer, this is when a map ends early due to a vote or moderator skipping it. This typically happens too early for a match to be considered favourable to either team. Games on Rock Trap and Forest of Illusion are not indicative of normal gameplay in the slightest. On RT the only difference between the teams is what rifle you get and on FoI there's no difference at all, victory just comes down to whose team has the better players, which is not what we're looking at. It's possible spawn locations might be off so those maps actually are imbalanced but again they are not part of normal gameplay so I don't really care. There were a handful of games on Hostile Waters which I'm discounting as it was in a beta state at the time. So I've chosen to ignore all games with less than 6 total players, games that ended by shutdown, and games on RT/FoI/HW. 4v2 games and the like are still counted, as this is usually indicative of endgame ragequitters (you can't have 4 people on one team without there having been 3 or 4 people on the OTHER team at some point) or spies. Narrowing the games down as such, we're left with: Allied victories: 101 (45.91%) Soviet victories: 119 (54.09%) Base Destruction victories: 109 (49.55%) High Score on Timeout victories: 111 (50.45%) If we're being even more stringent and discounting Fissure/Wasteland due to not being AOW maps, that's 89 Allied (45.88%) and 105 Soviet (54.12%) which is almost the same ratio so who cares. And a bit more of an in-depth look at each map: RA_AS_Seamist 10 Allied (71.43%) 4 Soviet (28.57%) 14 Base Destruction 0 High Score This map kinda has an Allied bias built into it from the nature of the objectives so I'm not sure what can really be done here - maybe Allies need less reinforcements? RA_Bonsai 5 Allied (35.71%) 9 Soviet (64.29%) 8 Base Destruction 6 High Score Oh no spy roof flares are such a big problem on this map where Soviets win noticeably more??? There's definitely the known issue of the Radar Dome spy zone not working - this is fixed next build (until then, just jump in the basement, cause the spy zone is actually floating an inch off the ground). I think I'll also deepen the water around the Allied dome hill as that is definitely not an intended base entrance. RA_CamosCanyon 14 Allied (70%) 6 Soviet (30%) 9 Base Destruction 11 High Score You know what's funny is that if you go through this whole list you'll notice that most of the maps are Soviet-biased to some degree, be it marginally or significantly. But one Allied-biased map comes along and suddenly there's a furore about it. Hmm. This map at least has already had a discussion about its imbalance though, and I'm kinda leaning towards the idea of adding a pillbox/flametower on the ore hill, because it would discourage early rocket attacks for both teams, and when vehicles come into play that one defense would pose much more of a problem for the Allies than it would the Soviets. RA_CoastalInfluence 5 Allied (29.41%) 12 Soviet (70.59%) 8 Base Destruction 9 High Score Oh no arty spam is such a big problem on this map where Allies rarely win??? Of course, flooding vehicles across that bridge is also pivotal to most of the Soviet victories too. The coast is barely even a concern. This map needs a considerable reworking to be honest. Something I was thinking of doing was turning the arty spam peninsula into an island with two bridges leading to it, so you can stop vehicles from getting onto it period. Kind of like this area on Red Alert's original Coastal Influence: Problem then is that Volktillery can still be a thing. I'd probably get rid of the dock too and make it hard for (Soviet) infantry to actually get onto the island, stick a bunch of destructible hedgehogs around the ends of the bridges on the island so you can't just flood arties/v2s across it before anyone has the means to destroy the bridges, and downgrade the coil to 2-3 flame towers. In the upcoming version Destroyers/Missile Subs will destroy bridges a fair bit faster and I'm thinking of decreasing the bridge's hitpoints period so they will go down faster. RA_Complex 6 Allied (42.86%) 8 Soviet (57.14%) 10 Base Destruction 4 High Score Not sure this warrants an in-depth look really, more games will have to be played here to determine if there's any real imbalance. This one surprised me a bit though due to the intentionally bad Soviet ore silo placement. RA_Fissure 2 Allied (18.18%) 9 Soviet (81.82%) 1 Base Destruction 10 High Score Given how many of these victories are high-score based, I feel like a big factor in the Soviet bias here is because flamethrowers actually do sort-of noteworthy damage to building exteriors, and thus can rack up more points than the Allies, who have to use rocket soldiers for this which are useless against infantry. And I'd rather not decrease flamethrower building damage any further than I already have because then they'd see even less use on normal maps. They are getting a splash nerf next version though. RA_GuardDuty 5 Allied (33.33%) 10 Soviet (66.67%) 11 Base Destruction 4 High Score This surprised me quite a bit too, I often see the Soviet base getting overrun and Artilleries spamming the Refinery across the river. But I can see how Soviets can be favoured here too, what with V2s doing pretty much the same thing as Artillery but without the need to figure out a trajectory, and Flamermobiles sneaking around doing the combined work of both rocket soldiers and grenadiers. Maybe Flamethrowers should go up to Tech Level 3 (removing them from this map) or Soviet rangers should be dropped entirely? What do you guys think? RA_KeepOffTheGrass 5 Allied (41.67%) 7 Soviet (58.33%) 3 Base Destruction 9 High Score Taking a look at the victories list over time this has evened out a bit recently (it was more Soviet-biased a week back) possibly due to the MAD nerf. Aside from that, obviously base destruction is at a low due to the huge size of the bases, that's just how it is. RA_PacificThreat 4 Allied (33.33%) 8 Soviet (66.67%) 6 Base Destruction 6 High Score Oh no thieves are such a big problem on this map where the Allies rarely win??? No seriously I'm pretty confused by this too. Granted, over a week ago, naval was heavily biased in the Soviets' favour, but that's not as much the case now. Maybe air's also a problem and longbows should be stronger against subs? Cause now that I think about it, there's not much point in actually getting a longbow on this map. Though in the upcoming version they'll hit buildings a little harder. RA_Pipeline 9 Allied (60%) 6 Soviet (40%) 8 Base Destruction 7 High Score Not as imbalanced as I'd expected honestly. It's actually teetering on my cutoff point for "this should be played more because it's not clear if there's really an actual imbalance yet". A few people have asked for Soviet rangers on this map so that Soviets are on equal ground with regards to the vital task of fielding engineers, but that would just create even more problems, as all of the oil pumps (except the one by the allied base obviously) are actually a little closer to the Soviet base than the Allied base to compensate for their lack of a fast transport, and once Shock/Volkov rangers get onto the field the Allies might as well just give up - this is why the only AOW map with Sov rangers happens to also be the only one where top-tier infantry aren't available. RA_RidgeWar 7 Allied (53.85%) 6 Soviet (46.15%) 6 Base Destruction 7 High Score Looks like the recent changes have evened things out a bit maybe? Don't really know what else to say here. RA_StormyValley 9 Allied (56.25%) 7 Soviet (43.75%) 8 Base Destruction 8 High Score Not sure this warrants an in-depth look really, more games will have to be played here to determine if there's any real imbalance. RA_Under 3 Allied (20%) 12 Soviet (80%) 3 Base Destruction 12 High Score So wait, who was it who said Phase Tanks should go up to Tech Level 4 because they're soooo good on this map, the most Soviet-biased AOW map thus far? In the upcoming version I've removed the flame tower overlooking the dock (not the one next to the silo, the one behind that) which should make Allied navy a bit more fearsome. Aside from that, idk, maybe the recent naval rebalances should swing things in the Allies' favour a bit too (of those 3 Allied victories, 2 of them were very recent). Maybe the coil also needs to go but then what to do with the PP? Surely getting rid of the Gap as well would just help the Sovs even more. And I'm pretty anxious about doing anything that would involve rewriting the visibility system (i.e. removing/adding main buildings). RA_Wasteland 10 Allied (66.67%) 5 Soviet (33.33%) 5 Base Destruction 10 High Score Another funny one because normally I see Soviet victories due to Allies getting a mech for their medium tank and proceeding to feed a massive point advantage to the Soviets. Maybe the money crates should go so there's no early Tanyas? RA_Zama 7 Allied (41.18%) 10 Soviet (58.82%) 9 Base Destruction 8 High Score Oh no spy roof flares are such a big problem on this map where Soviets win slightly more??? Not sure if any changes are needed here tbh. Maybe bring the Gap Generator forward a bit? Again, feel free to say how you feel about this, share your experiences, what you feel could be done about each map, or if you think I'm wrong about something.

Yeah I can just give them a custom building controller with 0 points for damaging/repairing. Could even jack up the kill points from 250 to 500 to compensate too.

Believe it or not but I was planning on a Fjord remake instead of Hostile Waters, but I was asked not to, for... reasons. Maps that play differently is one of my main focuses, and always has been. You will never see me make a very traditional map unless it was a remake of a classic map that didn't depart from core gameplay. Exactly how far we can go, depends on how much people will actually enjoy Hostile Waters when it is added to the live rotation. It's not a limitation on my part, more so one coming from the player base. Trust me, I can make some pretty "exotic" map gameplay... But a challenge does come from maintaining gameplay consistency. What you do want to avoid is creating too big of a departure from APB that it almost feels like a different game... That would be bad.

Lets continue. Fissure: Flamethrower OP. That's tl;dr of this map. Guard Duty: Soviets + flamers/any infantry + rangers + unfortunate defense placement for allies = allied ore silo destroyed whenever soviets gain first dump. Unlike allied side, soviet flamethrowers protects all entrances quite well from those kinds of attacks. KOTG: No opinion, i barely play on this map. Pacific Threat: Longbows are useless on this map, unlike hinds. They cant do much right now there - unlike hinds which can not only attack but also prtect the base from ground forces. Pipeline: IMHO balanced map. Fact of soviets losing is mostly caused by people whining that its not. Allies have just easier job at ambushing and derrick control but nothing more. Ridge War: Another map i rarely play, so no opinion. Stormy Valley: I hated that map back in the days of gamma, now i feel its way better. Both teams have a chance to attack bases from behind, both teams can attack and defend well in later stages of game. Balance Approved. Under (soviet control) Main factor of soviets winning on this map were 2 things: flame thrower at docks and soviets being able to place mines everywhere. No jokes. Soviet mines > allied mines even on field, because that completely denies allied infantry support in field. Adding shocks, soviets have control in field 24/7. Note how rarely game is ended by building destruction just because soviets dont need to do that. They can just camp. Wasteland: There are money crates on this map? Whaaaaaaaaaaa? Allied infantry is ruling this map mostly because of medics, thats my opinion. Tanya + bunch of medics is a hell to deal with without at least couple of flamers. Zama: Only negative experience from this map i had so far were because of... demonoobs. Nothing else, this map is well done. PS. Push, I like how you pointed out everything that Master of Preaching, Raging and Anger said that is imbalanced

Seamist could do with an excuse for the allies to do something besides sit in the safety of their base or dead outside it, not really having to risk their vehicles at all since a friendly mech or the SD is so close. Maybe some sort of side objective to protect that buys the soviets more time if not protected?

Seamist: While I love grabbing a chinook at the end as the soviets to make a “daring” escape, I also feel like the allies getting as many reinforcements as they do is a bit overkill. Bonsai: I personally haven’t felt any imbalance on this map aside from that stupid turret placement by the Radar dome. I feel it should be a pillbox. Camos Canyon: I like the idea of the deterrent to Rocket rushes in mid-field. However, I’ve noticed that the sides also tend to have heavy activity early game as well. This tends to work in the Allied favor as the soviet base has worse visibility overall. Costal Influence: This map doesn’t come on as much when I play, and when I do play it, I always seem to join late-game. Complex: This is my least favorite map to play on as the Allies. MAD tanks are ordinance sponges when deployed and when you can deploy a crap-ton in an area that ordinance can’t be effectively deployed (the tunnels), you get recoverable games that die really quickly. Fissure: Maybe a slight increase to M72 splash as well? Just a thought. Guard Duty: The V2 spam is real. That’s all I can say about this one. Keep of the Grass: My favorite map thus far. Potentially could benefit from some scripted Air reinforcements? (don’t hate me for liking my hinds) Pipeline: This is one of the more fun maps, though I do notice a bit of a difficult grind for the soviets. Definitely could use some more plays before action should be taken though. Ridge War: Nice map balance from what I’ve seen. Though I rarely play as soviets on this map. Under: This map needs some sort of infantry blockers for the island, or an easier way to get there anyway. After the rocks come down I sit on the backside of it and snipe gunboats for days. Regenerating health makes sure I can stay back there and make it back to re-fill my armor when the need arises. Wasteland: I’m not a huge fan of this map, I always seem to get stuck on the wrong side of bullshit so I won’t comment on this one. Zama: Spy roof flares would be a much larger problem if it didn’t take so long to get from one base to another (and not get spotted, spies are bad at spying apparently). General note: I feel like most of these maps should be played a bit further. On average each map has been played just under 15 times. 15 is a relatively small sample size. It’s good enough to say “ok, there may be something to this” but not enough to say “this is how it is”.

Pfft, that's easy to do in a 1v1. The other day on Pipeline, I think it was at least a 4v4, I grabbed an engi to capture oil pumps...I think a teammate got to them before I did, so I ended up just taking the supply truck on the hill and driving it into Allied base. The dome-side turret had been destroyed earlier, and nobody really noticed me as I planted C4 after C4 after C4 on their silo and service depot. Got off at least 5-6 of 'em

Some small changes have been made to the forum that will make it easier to find people! Read more to find out! Hi everyone. You may have noticed some usergroup colours changing around the forum along with some shiny new icons appearing below members in special usergroups. This is part of a small usergroup overhaul that we decided to do recently. Here are a list of the main changes: Colours swapped around on some of the usergroups. New icons for most of the usergroups (more coming soon maybe!). The "Advanced Moderator" group has been renamed to "Staff Moderator". Staff Moderators are Staff members with Moderation Powers on the forum/server etc. Server Moderator and TeamSpeak moderator groups have been made. This should make it easier to find moderators in general. Imperial Age Staff have their own usergroup. A couple of redundant usergroups have been removed. The Rehab group has surfaced. If you misbehave, you may wind up here with no signature and avatar. Beware of Rehab! A few extra post prefixes have been added. Extra bits and bobs to support these will be set up soon! Next on my list is to add more topic prefixes and roll out the system properly across the whole forum. Stay tuned for that one! If you have any questions, please feel free to let us know!

Let's remake treetop where the battle is played on Pandora (Avatar) and replace ore mining with the planet's resources' collection. And be on huge treetops still.

Nerf supply trucks?

I see your Super Engio Bros and raise you the Tanya Twins. Also have a truck full of people who aren't clones for once!