I'm offering my opinion on the map. Plain and simple. When I was playing on RTR server today, plenty of other folks had the same opinion as me. They found it unbalanced, as do I. You have a different opinion, fine and dandy. That's why there's chocolate and vanilla. Your opinion is that the map would be ruined by my changes. My opinion is the map is already in pretty bad shape as far as balance is concerned. Maybe you prefer a map where one team has a sizeable advantage over the other. Maybe you like playing the underdog. Personally, I don't. I like an evenly balanced map, although that can come from something as simple as time and reinforcements, as I've described. Also note how most of the positive "Wow! That was a blast!" reviews are coming from folks describing their experience defending. Defending is indeed fun. It's also very very easy. Dramatic at times, but still easy on the whole. Attacking? Not so much. Today even people on the German side were saying "Yeah, it's pretty unbalanced. It's a little too easy for Germans. I don't even play as Russians on this map anymore."
I think the map could be improved by several things, although not necessarily all together. Probably the easiest way to alter the map is to play around with time and reinforcements as I discussed. But from what I've seen, and I've played the map multiple times at this point, it's a cakewalk for Germans and basically an exercise in target practice for them. I've played as a tanker and died maybe three times. I've played as infantry and I and about four others held the Fortified B position for the entire round. No one got past us.
I've played as a Russian several times and found that mostly, the Russian tankers seem to hang back and shoot. Even when the Russian team tried to rally with myself and several others trying to get a coherent group together to mount an assault, there's just way too much ground to cover in the time allotted and with precious little cover, even with smoke.
Maybe your experiences differed, but maybe you've just played with teams of a much higher calibre. That's actually my point, though. While there's obviously some level of flexibility in the skill levels of various teams, right now I think the map requires a LOT of coordination from the Russian team. More than I usually see on public servers. Like I said, I think the Russians CAN win, but I think it just takes way more than what's usually seen. Now, granted, if you get maybe six clanners from about two or three clans together on the Russian team, sure, you'll see people working together. But if it's just random individuals who don't know each other from Adam, they're toast.
I think that the simple change of adding more time on the clock and playing with reinforcements would pretty much alleviate all the other concerns and give the Russians time to advance. If what you're saying is true, that the Russians can kick a lot of ass anyway, then this won't make any difference because the map will be over before reinforcements for either side are exhausted or the clock has run out. But in those situations where I'm right, where the Russian team is being asked to do way too much, then the time and reinforcement balance will come into play and give them a chance to win -- if they don't all get themselves killed too early by playing dumb.
The time/reinforcement game will still require a team to be coordinated and skilled. You can't simply throw yourself forward pell-mell without regard to your own safety, or you'll just blow your reinforcement cushion early. You also will have to play smart and use cover to get into hull-down positions and be able to spot enemy tanks and call them out to friendlies so that you can be maintaining a high enough kill ratio to let the reinforcements work for you. At the same time, you'll want to be improving your positioning so you have less open ground to cover.
But with a map that's only about 15 minutes long right now, and is set up as it is, the Russians are in bad shape unless they're server regulars who know each other and work together frequently (in which case they might as well be pretty much playing at clan levels of coordination) or you're gonna have a Russian slaughter. At least, that's my experience. I haven't seen the Narva version yet, so maybe it plays differently. But so far, I've seen multiple comments from folks suggesting it's pretty German-friendly.
I think the map could be improved by several things, although not necessarily all together. Probably the easiest way to alter the map is to play around with time and reinforcements as I discussed. But from what I've seen, and I've played the map multiple times at this point, it's a cakewalk for Germans and basically an exercise in target practice for them. I've played as a tanker and died maybe three times. I've played as infantry and I and about four others held the Fortified B position for the entire round. No one got past us.
I've played as a Russian several times and found that mostly, the Russian tankers seem to hang back and shoot. Even when the Russian team tried to rally with myself and several others trying to get a coherent group together to mount an assault, there's just way too much ground to cover in the time allotted and with precious little cover, even with smoke.
Maybe your experiences differed, but maybe you've just played with teams of a much higher calibre. That's actually my point, though. While there's obviously some level of flexibility in the skill levels of various teams, right now I think the map requires a LOT of coordination from the Russian team. More than I usually see on public servers. Like I said, I think the Russians CAN win, but I think it just takes way more than what's usually seen. Now, granted, if you get maybe six clanners from about two or three clans together on the Russian team, sure, you'll see people working together. But if it's just random individuals who don't know each other from Adam, they're toast.
I think that the simple change of adding more time on the clock and playing with reinforcements would pretty much alleviate all the other concerns and give the Russians time to advance. If what you're saying is true, that the Russians can kick a lot of ass anyway, then this won't make any difference because the map will be over before reinforcements for either side are exhausted or the clock has run out. But in those situations where I'm right, where the Russian team is being asked to do way too much, then the time and reinforcement balance will come into play and give them a chance to win -- if they don't all get themselves killed too early by playing dumb.
The time/reinforcement game will still require a team to be coordinated and skilled. You can't simply throw yourself forward pell-mell without regard to your own safety, or you'll just blow your reinforcement cushion early. You also will have to play smart and use cover to get into hull-down positions and be able to spot enemy tanks and call them out to friendlies so that you can be maintaining a high enough kill ratio to let the reinforcements work for you. At the same time, you'll want to be improving your positioning so you have less open ground to cover.
But with a map that's only about 15 minutes long right now, and is set up as it is, the Russians are in bad shape unless they're server regulars who know each other and work together frequently (in which case they might as well be pretty much playing at clan levels of coordination) or you're gonna have a Russian slaughter. At least, that's my experience. I haven't seen the Narva version yet, so maybe it plays differently. But so far, I've seen multiple comments from folks suggesting it's pretty German-friendly.
Upvote
0
