A Path Beyond Siege and Hostile Waters Check-Up

[FRAYDO]

20 minutes ago, NodGuy said:

I just wanted to say that seeing those missiles track like that gives me an erection.

I would hope your erection doesn't move like those tracked missiles do.

While I'm here, I respect your work and contributions Raap. I can't offer much in criticism for you see, I'm a simple man who is easily pleased, and I like what you're putting out. In the wave of !skip I just want to say keep up the good work.

[Pushwall]

2 hours ago, NodGuy said:

I just wanted to say that seeing those missiles track like that gives me an erection.

So what does seeing this give you?

(Please note that this is purely a test of something one of the mad scientists in scripts came up with and is not guaranteed to show up in APB because tracking mortar-rockets are probably insanely OP given the current statistics that the LAW boasts)

[Raap]

Mortar-rockets sounds like a neat weapon system for a Soviet vehicle to replace the "Soviet Ranger" with . Although... I guess they would need a default function where if they got no lock-on target, they dumb-fire downwards instead of going into the sky until they expire.

@FRAYDO appreciate it. My "problem" is that I try to break away from traditions within the standard gameplay, and HW is likely the biggest departure from it. This isn't always equally well received but it does serve as a testing ground for figuring out what people enjoy.

So for my upcoming project (which is an asset salvage project originally), the core gameplay will involve protecting and attacking structures.

This was the other purpose of this thread. Helping highlight what to avoid doing.

[Blujet]

11 hours ago, Pushwall said:

 

(Please note that this is purely a test of something one of the mad scientists in scripts came up with and is not guaranteed to show up in APB because tracking mortar-rockets are probably insanely OP given the current statistics that the LAW boasts)

This immediately reminded me of a similar trick in BFBC2

You could even lock on behind a rock or building, however, you needed to hit the target with a tracer dart gun first before locking on (this dart gun replaced your side arm.)

[Pushwall]

Siege: So with regard to shortening the range of the cannons: I found that I could add a crag in front of the Allied barracks that would render it unhittable by the cannon, that way with the cannons toned down to 240m range, the Allied-side cannon can only hit the front pillbox, turret, SD and dome, while the Soviet-side cannon can only hit the coil, SD and CY. So just some defenses and a minor "main" building. So this way, the cannons retain their original purpose but aren't too absurd at it and the range of stuff they can hit is roughly equal for both teams. I think I'll stick with this approach for the time being. And of course, Alstar's suggestion to tweak the side pillbox position. Maybe I should also move the Gap Generator so that it's in front of the Service Depot and therefore all the frontal base defenses will continue to be in range of the cannon.

Hostile Waters: How novel would it be if the crates contained something that gives you a reason to attack instead of camping more crates? Cause here's the thing: if Engineers get removed to stop golden wrench spam that can't be stopped due to the difficulty of getting into the building, what does that mean for the enterprising Engineer LST rear sneaks, a tactic I saw quite a bit on HW in order to take out SAM sites (and other things if flame/pill are gone) before the map got shut down? So I was thinking of adding C4 to the crates with a higher chance of appearing than anything else, to prop up the infantry attack force, cause it's certainly not helping you out if you just sit on the icebergs. Only issue is this would mean that C4 would have to not inflict massive damage on naval units anymore.

[Raap]

I kinda wish we had a few more crate-unique toys for such purposes, such as various "short-fuse flare/device" types that did "things" like dropping bombs. Completely useless against anything that isn't a static target.

Maybe some weaponry that uses proximity or remote logic (not C4), as those have been unused in APB outside of Minelayers. All of the actual effects could be non-lethal to players and be more orientated towards other tasks.

Just tossing some thoughts. Think of power-up crates as a potential testbed. If certain mechanics end up extremely popular, you could promote them to a class ability/weapon. Otherwise, no real harm done since they are crate power-ups which inherently come with the benefit of being non-spammable.

Edited July 19, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

@Alstar What's all this "no FT blind spot" malarkey, I can get close enough to hit it with a grenadier (though I wouldn't recommend it due to being just at the right range, and I would imagine the same holds true for trying to aim around cover vs the pillbox) so I'm sure rifle soldiers can handle it.

[Raptor29aa]

1 hour ago, Pushwall said:

@Alstar What's all this "no FT blind spot" malarkey, I can get close enough to hit it with a grenadier (though I wouldn't recommend it due to being just at the right range, and I would imagine the same holds true for trying to aim around cover vs the pillbox) so I'm sure rifle soldiers can handle it.

I think the issue is not plausibility but utility. It is possible but like you said just right distance. How many people can share that distance? Will one shot splash kill a team? Also seeing your armor down it looks like you already got splash burned.

As far was utility goes can you squeeze multiple captains in so that when the FT goes down and the base buildings can be stormed? I’ve seen 3 Kaptains + a few riflemen run and squeeze into place to shoot the pillbox then advance into the allied base. (With RS it’s harder to storm the inside of a building.) Anyways, whether it changes or not I just want that point taken into consideration.

And as for Seige it would be cool to see the mobile AA gun make an appearance. If not maybe a neutral AA or SAM turret would be cool too. Anyone have any thoughts about a neutral silo on the backside of the castle? (Since it is seldom used?)

Hostile Waters:

Fun map! When there are more than 12 or 14 players. I agree on chinooks as long as allies get them. Why, because when soviets own the waters and have a hind with an Uber engi/techie or worse (future) kovs. It would be nice to be able to fly a two man team (techie & Tanya) over the blockade rapidly to take back the island. NTs are easily and completely blocked late game. Lastly it would be nice not to get stuck on an island (as in chinook taxi) Just a few thoughts. 

[Pushwall]

You know what, I'll enable Chinooks just as an experiment. Let's see how things really go with them. If it ends up being a bad idea, hey, it's already a hated map and it's not like it's hard to reverse. I was going to go with enabling Tanya/Volkov instead but this seems like it'll be less controversial than icebergkovs. (And obviously having both of these enabled is just a bit too much.)

[OrangeP47]

16 minutes ago, Raptor29aa said:

And as for Seige it would be cool to see the mobile AA gun make an appearance. If not maybe a neutral AA or SAM turret would be cool too. Anyone have any thoughts about a neutral silo on the backside of the castle? (Since it is seldom used?)

I like this kind of outside the box thinking.

[Pushwall]

5 hours ago, Raptor29aa said:

I think the issue is not plausibility but utility. It is possible but like you said just right distance. How many people can share that distance? Will one shot splash kill a team? Also seeing your armor down it looks like you already got splash burned.

This is with a grenadier though. The point was that the blind spot extends over such a long distance that even the shortest-ranged unit (grenadier) can use it - but people saving their money or driving the truck are going to be using rifle soldiers instead, which have 30m more range and would easily be able to avoid having to enter the positions where they can get splash burned, and don't all have to clump up at the edge of that ridge.

[Raap]

I think it can safely be said that Tanya does not work on HW unless there was a Flame Tower inside the ASP.

Beyond that, still not getting a whole lot of feedback. If people keep disliking both maps without saying why, then just pull them out of the game permanently. I'll just write it off as a loss.

Edit: Soviet SAM Sites should be placed ON the walls, they are far too easy to C4 via unlimited refils provided by Naval Transports. Allied AA Guns are already more protected from this.

Edited July 23, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

51 minutes ago, Raap said:

I think it can safely be said that Tanya does not work on HW unless there was a Flame Tower inside the ASP.

Is this based on yet another imbalanced low-player match?

looks back at havoc's stream

So it was a 5 allies vs 4 soviets, where Soviets had one afk and Allies had Totd. That's 5v3 or 6v3 depending on how much you think one really good player can accomplish. The map isn't even supposed to show up below 7v7 but apparently everyone left when it came up. Maybe we should wait for an actual balanced game before writing it off... but then again that'll never happen if the mere mention of the map scares everyone off.

[Raap]

10 hours ago, Pushwall said:

Is this based on yet another imbalanced low-player match?

looks back at havoc's stream

So it was a 5 allies vs 4 soviets, where Soviets had one afk and Allies had Totd. That's 5v3 or 6v3 depending on how much you think one really good player can accomplish. The map isn't even supposed to show up below 7v7 but apparently everyone left when it came up. Maybe we should wait for an actual balanced game before writing it off... but then again that'll never happen if the mere mention of the map scares everyone off.

Same outcome would happen in any population, I'd wager. It takes very little effort to suicide a Longbow into the ASP and all it takes for it to work is a ~40 second time window where coincidentally no one looks or not enough players can deal with a Tanya unit (a single Soviet infantry unit typically dies in this scenario). Which just doesn't leave enough response time.

That said, more runs will give a more clear picture. I also think people left because it was getting late, each round saw players leaving prior to that point last night.

I just cannot always be around to observe it myself. I only happened to play so long because it is insanely hot in my country and even sleeping is a challenge!

Edited July 23, 2018 by Raap

[gammae102]

Having been in the same match that Raap is talking about, I have to agree with him that Tanya is not a good fit for HW.  I know that that was one particular game with a relatively low player count, but with the ease of suicide rushing with a Longbow or even landing a transport on the Soviet's island, I think it will make it too easy for the Allies to win.  The Soviets can't lay mines to stop her, and they'd basically need to have at least one player on dedicated Tanya defense for the whole game to have any chance.

[Blujet]

3 hours ago, gammae102 said:

Having been in the same match that Raap is talking about, I have to agree with him that Tanya is not a good fit for HW.  I know that that was one particular game with a relatively low player count, but with the ease of suicide rushing with a Longbow or even landing a transport on the Soviet's island, I think it will make it too easy for the Allies to win.  The Soviets can't lay mines to stop her, and they'd basically need to have at least one player on dedicated Tanya defense for the whole game to have any chance.

I was in that match, and I would say that this is my opinion as well, hell, I didn't know that the ASP got Tanya'd until all the Soviet buildings started blowing up, and I was on the Allied team.

[Pushwall]

Noted, may look at it a little more before axing it - but then what will replace it?

Another minor thing that might be contributing to the stigma around naval combat - particularly on HW - is the fact that it is basically impossible to score kills. When a naval vessel is destroyed the occupant just falls to the bottom of the ocean and dies of natural causes. It's not just the naval vessels that can't kill naval vessel pilots - nobody can, unless a naval unit happens to be positioned just right to crush the pilot when they get ejected, or if the pilot is able to swim to shore. So naval maps can hold back your kills and KD stats because of this. The effect isn't very significant on CI/Pacific/Under since naval combat is only a small part of the total combat, but on Hostile Waters almost all combat is naval combat. Teams' scores near the end of a match can show them with a total of like 10 kills and 100 deaths and that's just on the winning team.

Well that's another thing I'm solving.

The logic for this has been kicking around for a while courtesy of moonsense715, but I had no clue how to handle it before. Of course, this will not happen if the destroyed naval unit is near a shoreline (same logic that subs/LSTs use for allowing ejection).

This also means that Gunboats/Destroyers will finally be getting the same feature as LSTs/subs where being in open waters prevents you from accidentally ejecting (or deliberately, since doing so in subs led to a minor exploit) and you die instantly when your vehicle does (so no waiting to fall and no extra rocket shots in your death throes).

No kills is also a much smaller issue with air units - smaller because aircraft tend to fly low enough when near death that the occupant survives (unless they're over water - again, mainly a HW problem) and can then be killed by someone else anyway. But this is harder to solve for those, since you can land them and this script doesn't care if you're Volkov who part of his deal is that he can survive falling from aircraft. You will be getting credit for killing Yak pilots though since they are subject to instant death.

[Raap]

Yeah the lack of kills always bothered me as well, it made naval combat very unsatisfying. Will be good to see this resolved! As for helicopters, I think it might be too much work to apply the "shore" logic based on elevation from terrain (it would require a messy script zone mesh on each air-enabled map). 

By the way, is there a way to stop a dead infantry player from falling? Because if you lose your naval unit or helicopter at the moment you go into a free-fall through "water" which just looks really weird.

I also think that if you blow up while in a helicopter you should probably just die instantly regardless unless you eject manually before that.

Lastly, any chance we can get the blue screen tint back on infantry that enter the water zone?

Edited July 25, 2018 by Raap

[Pushwall]

10 hours ago, Raap said:

By the way, is there a way to stop a dead infantry player from falling? Because if you lose your naval unit or helicopter at the moment you go into a free-fall through "water" which just looks really weird.

Right now with the "pilot instadeath" logic there is a flag to make the vehicle occupants invisible when they die, and once next build is out you'll see that applied to every vehicle that has instadeath. You can see that in the clip I posted from the point of view of the dead submarine, there's no visible soldier falling out, giving the impression that they just perish inside the sub or boat or plane or whatever.

That would be more difficult for helis though since we don't want pilot instadeath for them in most situations and you already pointed out the difficulty of doing a safety zone mesh for the places helis can safely land compared to where boats can safely land. I want to try out characters getting parachutes when they eject from a high-flying heli (most likely for free since trying to save yourself in this way makes you massive bait for hinds/snipers or pretty much any anti-infantry unit that happens to be underneath you, and as far as I know people feel air units are underwhelming anyway) and then applying Yak-style crashland logic to the helis where failing to eject before it hits the ground causes you to die. But that's not going to solve the specific problems you mention, just create more situations in which the pilot's life is up for grabs.

10 hours ago, Raap said:

Lastly, any chance we can get the blue screen tint back on infantry that enter the water zone?

Difficult. The "water zone" is not 100% aligned with the surface of the water; it's about 1m-2m below it. If it was perfectly aligned with the surface, then subs would always be "submerged". On top of that, crouching doesn't change the position that your character is considered to be at. I could probably ask jonwil to enable the tint for everything that goes into the water zone and not just subs, but that would not solve the issue of people crouching under the water plane to spot subs because they're still higher than surfaced subs.

[Threve]

I’d like to first off say that your work is amazing and do not get discouraged. Ty for making maps for this game and putting the time in. That being said it’s no secret now that people don’t enjoy playing siege and hostile waters. It is what it is.

 

Seige: I have not played this map very very often for obvious reasons but when I did I found a couple flaws with it that may have been overlooked. The first being that I have actually never ever seen anyone use the cannons. I’m serious, I don’t know where these games are that people are knocking each others bases silly withthe cannonsbut I have never been in one where it happened. It could be contributed to the fact that new players (which there are a lot of now and days for better/worse) don’t realize or care about using them. 

The map is huge to an unapologetic level. But what happens is if you don’t get your ass whooped on your way to the enemy base during your attack, you attack the defenses then get rammed by the defenders and die. But when you die you have to spend a good while getting your next attack cornated to do the same thing. So.. instead of attacking people will sit defending the base from the situation I just mentioned. And then it becomes a point battle and stale mate. 

The map requires a 20 player count. Plain and simple. Then one of the regulars kills a building through some crazy ass way and it gets interesting. Usually however the team that lists the building gets killed with no chance of winning. The WHOLE team defends because if you lose your helipad or barracks or War Factory it’s just one more disadvantage on a map that discourages very heavily to mount any attacks.

its very hard to convince a player base (unless they are a regular and know the stigma and purpose of this map) that is use to playing a game where you must attack, create different plans and play a bunch of maps like that... to this map which is more specialized and foreign comparatively. 

I’m just going to leave this here. There are 3 AA guns next to the allied War Factory next to each other. 

Mounting a rush in the middle is pointless and will always be noticed by a helicopter, then attacked. Once the rush gets to the base they will have to deal with all players alerted kicking their ass and defenses. Which discourages rushes or attacks. There is no way one unit can go in front of the base and attack. It is also very very hard to sneak units in with a lack of entrances and places to hide.

Tanya helicopter is pointless with mines in place and defenses everywhere that are hard to kill single handily. You can’t sneak into the base quickly with a helicopter due to defenses and if you do then you have to attack a flame tower, then get the mines out, then deal with everyone defending the base.

Hostile Waters.MIX

I love the ambience of this map a lot actually. It is very beautiful and pretty. But

There are only 2 ways of attacking slowing down game play.

No one is going to capture the middle for upgrades unless it’s a seasoned player and i’m Not fighting Prylye/Totd with a 1v1 pistol match. 

The map is very big and driving your unit to the enemy base to die then doing the same thing gets frustrating because it’s not just dying but time spent. A lot of time.

 

The thing with ship battles is that the winner can be calculated very easily due to how slow ships are, the range of the attacks and dynamics of them. Just use this knowledge and you will always walk away in a 1v1 ship battle I guarantee you. Allow me to explain. If a sub and a boat meet then whoever gets off the first shot will usually win even if they keep firing at each other. If you get off two shots on your opponent and you both keep hitting each other then the opponent is dead. There is no cover like on land. What’s the sub going to do? Dive and get killed by depth charges? The damage is almost the same and when your opponent dies on a 1v1 there is no chance for a infantry killing you. Same kinda goes with helicopters but not as prolific. This means if you have a map like coastal influence it’s great because the sea is short, the ships can repair quickly and hit units on shore so they arn’t useless. But getting a boat, going all the way to the enemy base in Hostile waters then dying in a unavoidable calculated manner is very frustrating. Even if you kill a enemy sub you are still very damamged and will die to a RPG easily or anouther sub with zero chance. And I mean absolute 0 chance of doing anything meaningful. Attacking is pointless because the gunboat damage isn’t good enough , the CY is repairing the enemy base and your gunboat will be finished off easily if the enemy hasn’t bought a sub already.

The bases have land defenses. Like wtf kinda chinook rush you going to do on a CY or Barracks with that.. it’s hard enough to coordinate with teamwork let alone sneak into the base that is very populated and small.

Due to SAM defenses (correct me if I am wrong but I believe this map has them) there is zero point of getting a helicopter except to defend or kill/harm ships out in sea. Which goes back to the sea battle equation earlier. If you 1v1 a sub and you have lower health you will loose. There is no escaping from a competent player that is shooting you. So you have to go Alllllll the way back to base and repair your ship. 

Tanya

This map like siege stems very different from the gameplay of the game. In the Sence that if you’re getting a boat that is what you’re getting. No infantry battle or anything. Your other choice is if you’re getting a helicopter then that’s what you’re doing and you can’t do a lot with Aa’s. If you’re getting an infantry then you’re going to get an infantry and spend a while to rush the base. Directly directly into a heavily defended area. Better win or you wasted a lot of time. The teams couldn’t care less if you hit the CY or radar dome. 

A typical game like on KOTG has a lot of different factors going on. Infantry hiding in mountains attacking the base, spys  disabling power plants while the main rush or tanks on the field may get blown up but then have an infantry battle making game play more exciting and in depth. 

Edited July 25, 2018 by Threve

[Pushwall]

Yeah one of my biggest pet peeves with HW is the size, but it's one of those things that's hard to bring up in a thread like this because you know that it's not easy to fix - you basically have to remake the whole map when resizing it  This was easy enough with Pipeline and North By Northwest as those weren't even ingame at the time I shrunk them down, and Rock Trap is a really simple map compared to these others. But HW has a metric whateverload of special logic and neat assets that would need to be redone from scratch. There are 715 metres between the two Advanced Naval buildings. And that's just assuming a straight line between the two closest buildings. Considering all the bobbing and weaving through icebergs you have to do even when undisturbed I'd put that closer to 800m. And even then, you have to avoid certain parts of the middle if they're controlled by enemy infantry, and you may want to sneak attack something much further back than the navy to get a points advantage, so it's not too likely to be that short either. If you're going around the outside of the map? 1100 metres from naval building to naval building, and 1500 metres from naval building to rear. Considering that missile subs are about the same speed as heavy/V2/TT, and destroyers are halfway between that and mammoth tanks, and LSTs are about the same speed as supply trucks - that distance is pretty damn painful. Now, compare these to other maps that are known for being painfully huge.

• Conveniently enough, the other controversial map in Siege makes you travel about the same distance of 715m from WF to base defenses - assuming a straight line to the castle and then another straight line to the defenses, since a straight line from base to base does not work unless you are aircraft. In that case, it's a 630m line. Haven't run extensive tests here but it's probably an extra 200m or so for going the rear of the castle.
• Ridge War: 550m from WF to base defenses. Probably about 800-850m for flanks.
• KOTG: 620m from WF to base defenses on either side.
• TTC: 530m from WF to base defenses via middle. Probably about 150m more for the far village flank, and 250m more for the ocean flank.
• Stormy: 430m from WF to base defenses when going through middle. Up to 800m on the MCV flank.

And to compare to the other naval maps:

• Coastal Influence makes boats travel 500m to get from one naval building to the other. Maybe add an extra 50-100m if hugging the outer cliff to avoid ground units.
• Under makes boats travel 600m to get from one naval building to the other. Maybe add an extra 50-75m if taking an outer route to avoid ground untis.
• Pacific Threat makes boats travel 620m navy-to-navy on the short route. Maybe add an extra 50-75m if avoiding ground units. On the long route it's 850m (900m) from navy to the first thing you can hit. But despite having a surprisingly long travel time, naval maneuvers are more likely to work here than they are on HW due to the map layout essentially filtering naval traffic into two "lanes" that take very long to move between (unlike the icebergs) and making it possible to hit certain non-naval buildings before you can hit naval buildings. You can't really have boats in the "middle" that can easily react to rushes from either side (okay, you can, but they'll die really fast to rocket soldiers that can hit the middle from pretty much anywhere on the map). It probably also helps that the 4 credit/sec economy (slower than what Raap insists on for HW, and also easier to disrupt) and greater focus on central infantry combat makes it harder to get counter boats or scout helis at every opportunity that they're required.

Navy just doesn't work when you have to cross such a long distance in such slow units and we certainly can't make destroyers any faster than they already are without breaking Pacific Threat. Ideally I think that maybe with 2-3x as much open space between each iceberg (so they can actually be used as cover instead of just being funnels that make boat traffic even slower than it already is and make you exceptionally vulnerable to rear attack) and about 2/3rds the current distance between bases, naval combat could work better on it, but then that leaves the question of how do the icebergs work when it comes to landing infantry on them and capturing stuff. :/ But this rant doesn't really mean anything because I'm sure Raap doesn't want to spend another year redesigning the map only to find out that all along this was not a good solution. I certainly don't - though I may do a greyboxing mockup of a "classic" HW - i.e. no capturables. Kinda hard to devalue air units when you have capturable facilities for them, and kinda hard to make it feel worthwhile to contest money buildings past the first 5 minutes when you have to spend $500 just to be able to reach the part of the map that they reside in and another $500 to be less likely to get insta-blicked by someone sitting around with an anti-bare-flesh weapon like a sniper or pistol. (Or in the event of last Hostile waters version, contesting money buildings is pointless when just your gem silo income leaves you with credits coming out of your ears.)

So with regards to the 1v1 ship battles thing. Maybe gunboat/sub need to go back down to having slower projectiles so that it's more feasible for them to dodge one another at long range? Maybe some more range too so that engagements start from further away and thus hitting is harder? Of course then gunboats would outrange flame towers, but on Under it's not hard to defend against that, their anti-building damage is kinda meh anyway, and on HW gunboats doing this want to make use of their speed and thus not be under the umbrella of a Dest and therefore they are easy Hind bait. I guess for Under I could flip the position of the silo/FT so gunboats have to go through the FT before they can touch the silo.

[Raap]

8 hours ago, Pushwall said:

Difficult. The "water zone" is not 100% aligned with the surface of the water; it's about 1m-2m below it. If it was perfectly aligned with the surface, then subs would always be "submerged". On top of that, crouching doesn't change the position that your character is considered to be at. I could probably ask jonwil to enable the tint for everything that goes into the water zone and not infantry but that would not solve the issue of people crouching under the water plane to spot subs because they're still higher than surfaced subs.

I'd take any form of tinting - even if it is several meters below the water surfaces - over no tinting at all. 

I mainly look at HW for this one as it is one of the few maps where one can relatively commonly die to a big fall, such as when jumping off the icebergs. The game looks very silly when you die down there with clear vision. Speaking of clear vision, any such tinting effect should perhaps be paired with temporarily fog adjustments to limit vision further? No idea how hard that is to add especially when I will personally be applying ini based settings from here onward due to the greater flexibility there, and I don't think scripts can copy ini settings at the moment.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Raap
herps

[Threve]

I’d just get rid of them or implement other ways of winning the game. The main problem with both these map as I said before is the ease of seeing attacks, and then getting attacked with no hope of survival. And when you attack it’s always the enemy base that is being camped. Also these attacks that you set out to do take a very long time with little action in between due to bases being camped. 

Feel free to mix and match ideas as you see fit. If you must keep the maps these are some recommendations.

For HW take away the defenses to encourage more fast paced game play, take away Tanya and add a nuke silo. Then maybe a iceberg that has some vehicles leading to the enemy base?

For seige, maybe add a capture the flag mode instead where there is an objective in the middle you have to hold for 10 minutes and the team that holds it the most wins. 

 

As you can see these are both a bit radical but encourage gameplay without making the map smaller which is something that you don’t want to be done. If neither of these work your fancy then I’d just delete it.

As for 1v1 ship combat pushwall. I don’t think it’s a bad think. It just is what it is. If you increased the distance of combat then I at least would charge and start following submarines ensuring my kill. If they dived and tried to escape I would simply kill them with depth charges.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Threve

[Pushwall]

8 minutes ago, Threve said:

For seige, maybe add a capture the flag mode instead where there is an objective in the middle you have to hold for 10 minutes and the team that holds it the most wins. 

Ah yes, the thing that made RockTrap and FoI boring. Let's not.

8 minutes ago, Threve said:

For HW ... add a nuke silo.

Raap has made it incredibly difficult to add/remove buildings from the map with his incredibly convoluted gameover scripts.

8 minutes ago, Threve said:

Then maybe a iceberg that has some vehicles leading to the enemy base?

If I'm going to mess with these iceberg meshes that are very annoying to edit I might as well just remake and shrink the map.

[Threve]

Just now, Pushwall said:

Ah yes, the thing that made RockTrap and FoI boring. Let's not.

Raap has made it incredibly difficult to add/remove buildings from the map with his incredibly convoluted gameover scripts.

 I see no other way then. The combat on both these maps (HW especially) does not fit normal combat like other maps. And all attacks take to long with high risk and little reward along with teamwork required which is hard enough to do. There is little places to hide and defenses also need to be taken out which is difficult because both maps encourage camping. 

[Raap]

4 minutes ago, Pushwall said:

 

Raap has made it incredibly difficult to add/remove buildings from the map with his incredibly convoluted gameover scripts.

Could easily replace the Construction Yards (noting the controller ID's before doing so), and updating the scripts referring to a Construction Yard controller ID.

It would speed up the game in the sense that automated repairs are gone.

However... I do not know if a Missile Silo is going to add a lot to the game, it'd be like "Tanya for EVERYBODY!!!", and it will just increase the problematic suicide helicopter drops. In fact, there are a lot of spots on the naval buildings where a flare would be incredibly difficult to disarm.

 

@Threve Note that both maps intentionally deviate from core gameplay as there was requests for gameplay diversity dating back ti pre-Beta. HW specifically was actually brought back to Delta based on a LOT of requests.

It would seem that, put simply, the people who originally liked deviating gameplay per map, are no longer playing the game.

Edited July 25, 2018 by Raap

[Threve]

3 minutes ago, Raap said:

Could easily replace the Construction Yards (noting the controller ID's before doing so), and updating the scripts referring to a Construction Yard controller ID.

It would speed up the game in the sense that automated repairs are gone.

However... I do not know if a Missile Silo is going to add a lot to the game, it'd be like "Tanya for EVERYBODY!!!", and it will just increase the problematic suicide helicopter drops. In fact, there are a lot of spots on the naval buildings where a flare would be incredibly difficult to disarm.

Can you get rid of Tanya with no problems? Also though I don’t think the CY will fully solve the problem entirely I do think that it would help. 

Also, is it possible to add a abandoned vehicles leading to an enemy base for more gameplay possibilities and no defenses? The defenses I really do not understand because there is zero hope for mounting an assault on an enemy base through infantry, unless you have Tanya which also just brings to the light how much of a problem she is on this map

HW style of gameplay is to calculated with the ships and to long to recover or heal your ship/attack. There is no motivation for me to go out and attack

Edited July 25, 2018 by Threve

[Raap]

7 minutes ago, Threve said:

Can you get rid of Tanya with no problems? Also though I don’t think the CY will fully solve the problem entirely I do think that it would help. 

Tanya was an experiment from the very latest patch, it didn't exist prior (the map was T4 prior to this). Suffice it to say I've heard no positive commentary on her inclusion and I share that sentiment. However this doesn't really handle the rest of the criticism. 

If core gameplay deviation is no longer appreciated by the CURRENT player base then for HW there is no real redemption, save perhaps for hoping smart people like @jonwil can improve network play interaction when it comes to horizontal elevator mechanics, because then I could include the cart rail network that was going to connect the two islands via underground caves.

Siege, I've seen the last two matches end in decisive victories for both teams, one was a minute away from victory by base destruction. Perhaps we're overthinking Siege, and maybe we need to lose a building or two per base. It is evident that big bases do not work.

Up on the chopping block would likely be the Power Plant and/or Construction Yard, I'm leaning towards Power Plants as there are still a lot of defenses and support buildings, and manually repairing all of them is a pain in the arse.

 

Edit: These things:

Edited July 25, 2018 by Raap

[OrangeP47]

Isn't longbow to the pp a key strategy for the allies though? (I've only been allied once on the map).  That might make things a bit unbalanced.

[Pushwall]

Just now, Raap said:

Up on the chopping block would likely be the Power Plant and/or Construction Yard, I'm leaning towards Power Plants as there are still a lot of defenses and support buildings, and manually repairing all of them is a pain in the arse.

Removing the PP is counterproductive if you want to make base destruction more feasible.

1. You eliminate an alternative method of bringing down the coil/gap, therefore making frontal assault even more difficult than it already is
2. The PP does not have to be destroyed to win the game
3. Destroying the PP causes all damage to other main buildings to be multiplied by 7/6