Tournament Map Feedback Thread

[Shurrig]

Hey all, catching up on map feedback here. Here are my reviews of all the maps I've played on in tournament over the past couple months or so (not including OST, waiting for that season to wrap up before posting).

OHS S55 Delta Control Points (Delta)

Spoiler Alert!

- VULCAN RIDGE by @Chris Perkins : I’ll start off by noting that the aesthetics of this map are not my favorite. I just think BftU, VW, M:tCB is one of the least pretty set combinations, but it’s not a deal breaker for me. I’m also not a fan of the single line of asphalt forming those “<” shapes, I probably would’ve tried to find a way to break up those colors if everything on this map stayed the same. Subjectivity aside, the map actually played okay. Development wasn’t the best, but I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing on here. The map sort of forces you to develop your front line left or right out of the start zone, which I found neat. Things I noted in my game were that armies tended to shift right since there is immediate access to shadow and level 3, but I felt that the level 2 run of asphalt on the left side was pretty good for range. In fact, a lot of play centered around the asphalt perches scattered around the map. I don’t think this is bad, though ideally I’d like to see more figures risking height on a lava map. The only level 4 is right in the center and that part of the map didn’t see play until the very end. In all, I think Vulcan Ridge has some flaws, but none that are game breaking. I’d be happy to play on it again, but I’d be curious to see what Chris could do to incentivize getting onto lava more as well as create a little more level 4.

- GUTS by me: I agree with @Foudzing here, I think this map is a bit too wide. There wasn’t much incentive to move over to the glyphs in my recent tournament games, and while I didn’t see much abuse of that level 2 swamp peninsula, I saw many WTF armies just never move Raelin and hardly develop at all out the start zone. Not a big fan of that, even if that army didn’t win every time. I think it’s fine as is, but don’t be surprised if an update comes out for this one soon.


- DESOLATION by @Flash_19 : This is a rare Flash map that doesn’t feel like a Flash map. It’s very good, as most Flash maps are, and I’m glad I got to play this game in person because the Virtualscape render does not do it justice. I just didn’t expect it to be as good as it was for a map this big and with split start zones, and I was pleasantly surprised by how my games went in practice and in tournament. I will say, if I played this map in tournament again, I would hope less powerful glyphs be used. Valda on this map decided where a lot of the action happened, and with a map that has split start zones I could see other powerful glyphs becoming a problem.

- ALTA by @Flash_19 : I was looking forward to playing on Alta the most out of all the maps in this OHS season, I just really liked the aesthetics of the grass peeking out of the concrete. It didn’t disappoint either; shadow was interesting, the level 3 run out the left is a cool feature and far out enough to not be abusable, and the interactions between road and height seemed well considered even if I was sort of wishing for more level 4 here. Enjoyed my games and can’t wait to play on it again.

MARS D.C. Winter Classic

Spoiler Alert!

- FENRIS: Development on this map is maddening, and intentionally so. No sane human would have put a water hex in between those two glaciers/outcrops out the right side of the start zone; no, only a mad wookiee could have come up with something like this. In all seriousness though, development hurts for a lot of army builds, and if you beat your opponent to the other side of the middle then you can easily make them take lava damage at the end of every round. A cool experiment of a map for sure, but creates too many unsafe/awkward development choices for me to want to play on it in tournament again.

- FULCRUM (update) by @Vydar_XLIII and me (original by Dignan): I don’t think this version fixes all my gripes with Fulcrum, but it has just a couple tweaks that correct things while keeping the spirit of the original map.

- ORIGIN by @Flash_19 : Origin is a modern classic. Yes, it is big, but pathing is easy enough to where I don’t always feel the true footprint when playing. Very good map and my favorite single RotV for sure.

- KING IN THE NORTH by @AndreThaGiant : The one game I played on I couldn’t glean much from; it was, unfortunately, quite a one-sided match due to my drones failing to roll below a 13 for most of the game. However, I did notice that the dungeon side saw zero play in my game save for the one drone I put on that side’s glyph. This unfortunately a common issue for a lot bilaterally symmetric maps and is hard to balance, but right now its not doubt the snow and grass side is where armies want to go.

- MIST AND SHADOW by @Flash_19 : I quite liked Mist and Shadow. At times I felt the length of the map more than I would’ve liked to, but the shadow hexes on level one help with moving up the back line. Once you get to the middle of the map, games get very interesting and I love the way the height is dispersed amidst (a mist?) the shadow. Still, I think six movers have a better time on this map due to how much easier it is to get to that level 2, especially on the sides. Overall, very solid, I just wish it was about 2 hexes shorter in length.

Classic League XI- Random Draft (Delta)

Spoiler Alert!

- SUBDUCTION by @Ulysses : It was noted by myself and others on the discord the other week, but development on the right side of subduction is pretty rough. There are chokepoints and lots of lava you must contest, all of which the left side doesn’t really have to worry about. Also, while I do enjoy the subtle asymmetry, I’m not so sure it’s working for me. The left/top side of the map seems a lot easier to navigate with how the level 4 is dispersed, So if I’m starting on the red side I feel like I have a significant advantage. If the glyph on the left/top is good, I worry that games will just snowball more and more from there.

- BLACKFOOT by @Ulysses : I think Blackfoot was one of, if not the prettiest map to come out of the BoV Redux contest. Before playing it I had high expectations, and unfortunately it fell short of what I had hoped to see. I do think the shadow is well placed, but the center is very fast and also suffers from the “two hills’ issue. I think this issue could be alleviated if it were at all possible to lift some of that center up a level; however, I know that the terrain requirements here are limited and therefore may be impossible.

- NIGHTFALL by @Typhon2222 : Nightfall is very good, but I noticed a couple issues in the games I played/watched recently that I wanted to note. One, the sides, while dynamic, feel a bit far away from the action. It can feel quite bumpy trying to get there and makes it pretty easy for range to camp on the furthest edge of the map. Two, I didn’t feel that the road did that much. Sure, it helps taxi figures between hill, but otherwise it’s doing less than I would like to. It’s a map I would be more than happy to play on, but with just some minor knob turning could make it very good.

- JULY by @BiggaBullfrog : I like this map a lot, It’s probably my favorite RotV/VV combo map I’ve played on. Sometimes the middle feels a tad bumpier than I would like but it’s never terribly in my way. I’d be interested to see how using same sized-ruins affects gameplay but I really have no complaints. Very solid job by Bigga here.

- BETELGUESE by @Sir Heroscape : I don’t love how wide this map feels. The canyon in the middle, while a neat feature, can create situations where opponents can kite their way around the map without much trouble. That, and the added fact that the glyphs are on the very edge and on shadow, I worry they become too hard to contest if they’re too good. I think flipping the shadow and lava seven-hex to where the lava is on the edge and the shadow is adjacent to the road might actually fix some of the issues here, but the map may still be too wide even still. Still, a fine (and pretty) map as is, just barely doesn’t quite do it for me.

- RECEDING WATERS by @GameBear : So, while I dislike the aesthetics of Receding Waters (I’m looking at you, start zone), I can’t deny that my game on it was very enjoyable. It’s very much a function over form kind of map, and I don’t have much to say other than it was a pleasure to play on. Height’s well distributed, easy to develop, and the entirety of the map saw gameplay. Out of all the new maps I’ve played these past couple of months, Receding Waters has to be one of my favorites.