Interesting comments. I definitely agree with everything eggman said, with (logical) CP Groupings and the possibility of either team winning (it's surprising that has to be said, but it's true).
On further thought I'd also include the criteria that a variety of game types/paths can be played on the map on any given night, i.e. not having a straight linear path through a map every time. That's the biggest improvement of AAS v2 - it opens up the tactical possibilities more with more complex groups. There's obviously still a lot of room for improvement with it, but it's on the right track.
What makes a good PR map?
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|TG|Beatnik
- Posts: 58
- Joined: 2006-11-26 21:21
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Guerra
- Posts: 365
- Joined: 2007-02-15 17:19
I have to say EJOD desert is perhaps the best map.
The layout makes sense, its a nice looking map. The map is BALANCED. Most importantly. It has a mix of awesome dense urban fighting and long range tank and infantry battles.
The need for an commander on this map is a MUST. Teamwork is even more important on this map.
All the rooftops, buildings you can go on top and inside of really adds to the immersion and tactical importance of the map.
Its really the perfect PR map.
For the worst PR map, well, no offense to the map makers, but there are quite a few. The single worst is probably Al Fallujah Region, however. Its the most unbalanced map without a doubt and the US has chance of victory. I've seen the US push MEC all the way back to Mosque and lose. Its just one sided.
While I stress the importance of strategic choke points, I think Fallujah over does it, its just way too linear and does not accurately represent a battlefield. The only thing I like about it is the gate. However, its bad in its context as there is no real way around it.
Balance is most important to a map. It can be asymmetrical while being unbalanced.
Another map I have issue with is Al Basrah. First it has performance issues on the best computers and connections, but my real issue with it is that it lasts far too long. The A10s are seriously out of place in an urban setting. Choppers are more realistic. Taking facility is just absurd.
Anyways, just my opinion.
The layout makes sense, its a nice looking map. The map is BALANCED. Most importantly. It has a mix of awesome dense urban fighting and long range tank and infantry battles.
The need for an commander on this map is a MUST. Teamwork is even more important on this map.
All the rooftops, buildings you can go on top and inside of really adds to the immersion and tactical importance of the map.
Its really the perfect PR map.
For the worst PR map, well, no offense to the map makers, but there are quite a few. The single worst is probably Al Fallujah Region, however. Its the most unbalanced map without a doubt and the US has chance of victory. I've seen the US push MEC all the way back to Mosque and lose. Its just one sided.
While I stress the importance of strategic choke points, I think Fallujah over does it, its just way too linear and does not accurately represent a battlefield. The only thing I like about it is the gate. However, its bad in its context as there is no real way around it.
Balance is most important to a map. It can be asymmetrical while being unbalanced.
Another map I have issue with is Al Basrah. First it has performance issues on the best computers and connections, but my real issue with it is that it lasts far too long. The A10s are seriously out of place in an urban setting. Choppers are more realistic. Taking facility is just absurd.
Anyways, just my opinion.
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ubiquitous
- Posts: 115
- Joined: 2007-03-02 21:53
Here are what I think are some of the best features of the current crop of maps:
Inishail Forrest has a great heightmap. The terrain elevation is quite varied—which makes the map interesting and the combat exciting—but at the same time the terrain isn't really steep so that moving around and shooting remains fairly easy. I mention this first because one of my biggest gripes is either having ridiculously steep hills that you keep sliding down or else ridiculously high hills from which the ememy can hurl grenades with realitive immunity.
Features that carve the map in half seem to make for some cool firefights. The road running through the middle of Inishail forrest has been the scene of some awesome shootouts in games I've been involved in. The saim can be said for the river in Road to Kyongni, or whatever that map is called. When you get one squad from each team on either side of a feature like that, with cover for both, both squads have an incentive to stick around for a good style shooting war. This also creates good opportunites for flanking maneuvers by tactically aware teams.
The best example of such opportunites has to be on Helmand Province, though. Those mud walls between the fields (keep wanting to call them dikes for some reason) give great cover for defending teams, but also create a golden flanking opportunity which I have enjoyed capitalising on on many an occasion.
There are two particular CPs that I love assaulting. One is on Sunset City in the North East (I think it's called lower city or something, but it's just South of the river on the PLA side). Whether you are US coming from the North or PLA from the South, attacks on that place seem to good fun. The same can be said for fishing village on Qwai River. Plenty of good tactical options for attacking that: out of the forrest to the south, the hills to the west, straight along the road to the north or coming in by Chopper. Attacking the CP to the west (think it's called village) on Al Fallujah Region is fun too. The thing these three CPs seem to have in common is that they are all a small, isolated cluster of buildings. That gives plenty of cover for dense, but a good number of varied options for type and direction of assault.
Operation Ghost Train pulls a nice little trick too. The bridge seems to become a real focal point (for obvious reasons) which gives teams a great opportunity to sneak in around the back. Once the enemby has a RP hidden away in that dense jungle somewhere and is attacking from both sides you are in for a real fight and I've had some great intense jungle combat there.
In sum, I think that a good map provides a lot of interesting variety in terms of how players can approach it tactically. It also should have areas intended to create good gameplay i.e. places where two teams can fight it out without either feeling too disadvantaged (if both sides feel the playing field is level then they'll both stick around for the fight, and fighting is basically what this game is about).
Incidentally, I'm not sure that I agree with the contention that balance is the most important feature. If the map is so unbalanced that you die repeatedly without getting a chance to fight then I'd agree that something needs to be done. But if both teams get an honest chance to slog it out, but one usually comes out on top then I don't think it's a big problem (unless the map is being used for some kind of tournament) since it's not the winning but the taking part that holds all of the fun.
Inishail Forrest has a great heightmap. The terrain elevation is quite varied—which makes the map interesting and the combat exciting—but at the same time the terrain isn't really steep so that moving around and shooting remains fairly easy. I mention this first because one of my biggest gripes is either having ridiculously steep hills that you keep sliding down or else ridiculously high hills from which the ememy can hurl grenades with realitive immunity.
Features that carve the map in half seem to make for some cool firefights. The road running through the middle of Inishail forrest has been the scene of some awesome shootouts in games I've been involved in. The saim can be said for the river in Road to Kyongni, or whatever that map is called. When you get one squad from each team on either side of a feature like that, with cover for both, both squads have an incentive to stick around for a good style shooting war. This also creates good opportunites for flanking maneuvers by tactically aware teams.
The best example of such opportunites has to be on Helmand Province, though. Those mud walls between the fields (keep wanting to call them dikes for some reason) give great cover for defending teams, but also create a golden flanking opportunity which I have enjoyed capitalising on on many an occasion.
There are two particular CPs that I love assaulting. One is on Sunset City in the North East (I think it's called lower city or something, but it's just South of the river on the PLA side). Whether you are US coming from the North or PLA from the South, attacks on that place seem to good fun. The same can be said for fishing village on Qwai River. Plenty of good tactical options for attacking that: out of the forrest to the south, the hills to the west, straight along the road to the north or coming in by Chopper. Attacking the CP to the west (think it's called village) on Al Fallujah Region is fun too. The thing these three CPs seem to have in common is that they are all a small, isolated cluster of buildings. That gives plenty of cover for dense, but a good number of varied options for type and direction of assault.
Operation Ghost Train pulls a nice little trick too. The bridge seems to become a real focal point (for obvious reasons) which gives teams a great opportunity to sneak in around the back. Once the enemby has a RP hidden away in that dense jungle somewhere and is attacking from both sides you are in for a real fight and I've had some great intense jungle combat there.
In sum, I think that a good map provides a lot of interesting variety in terms of how players can approach it tactically. It also should have areas intended to create good gameplay i.e. places where two teams can fight it out without either feeling too disadvantaged (if both sides feel the playing field is level then they'll both stick around for the fight, and fighting is basically what this game is about).
Incidentally, I'm not sure that I agree with the contention that balance is the most important feature. If the map is so unbalanced that you die repeatedly without getting a chance to fight then I'd agree that something needs to be done. But if both teams get an honest chance to slog it out, but one usually comes out on top then I don't think it's a big problem (unless the map is being used for some kind of tournament) since it's not the winning but the taking part that holds all of the fun.
