Those new maps are horrible. Why the hell you even put the scoring tiles on whole map. Scoring tiles should be in the center, so the game would be about battling for the middle of the map. Or at least it is what I would want. Anyway, new maps sucks hard, guess I'll stop playing for a while and wait for new ones.
Man guys, calm down. Feedback is good, but "I'm going to quit if you don't change these horrible maps" is a bit over the top. One of the most important aspects of combat is the ability to adjust to shifting terrain.
I'm not going to quit "if", I'm going to quit "till". And really, **** those frustrating new maps. They seriously suck all the fun from this preety good game. Oh, and **** the guy who designed them. I could come with a better maps while riding a bike. Seriously.
Hmm, you could play the game on ipad with some flash app now, so I think this scenario is possible. Though I would rather not driving and designing map at the same time, could results in serious damage to both my bike and my ipad.
I personally like the Koi map (and I only play 1 wiz), though I understand why some people don't like it. I wouldn't like it if I ran into the 3 wiz grief team either. I think old maps should be added to the rotation with the new. Also, I'd love to see some new maps that don't have victory areas.
After having quite a few matches on the new maps I guess it's time to share my Unholy Feedback. Celestial Koi I really think this map sucks, honestly. I can see the wish to experiment with trying different map layouts, but in my mind this really is "map design going wrong". That's a whooping 10~12 tiles to the Victory Square. Almost nonexistent connectivity there. The poor-cover issue wouldn't be as problematic if you didn't have to walk a mile to get anywhere you're supposed to be. Too easy for a wizard (let alone 2 or 3) to just kite your party to death. Frustration and rage are assured if you happen to fight someone using a deck heavily packed with Winds Of War, Whirlwind Enemies or other control cards in general. I do agree with progammer it's cool we get some map promoting the use of specific cards. But still... The topology is way too extreme if you ask me. I don't think a map should allow for build-loss scenarios this prominently. I would suggest adding two more sets of bridges to the outer rim, on the NE and SW edges, while rotating the two bridges in the inner rim by 90° degrees. That way you would get significantly increased connectivity without making the walk distance to the VS too much shorter. Most important of all, you wouldn't need to take the road to the side in the open every single time, which would contribute mitigating the long range spells advantage. Celestial Lions Contrary to most, I really enjoy this map. I don't think it encourages turtling overly too much. It simply allows for more defensive positioning to actually be a viable strategy, which is something hardly seen in most MP maps to date. There's a big difference there. That being said, I do think the map does feature lights as well as shadows. I 100% love the VSs positioning. It's brilliant. You do get an easily holdable VS right next to your spawning area, but the other 2 other easily contested VSs are all in very precarious positions. This is a map where the equilibrium can swiftly shift from one team to the other. The center is an execution chamber, really. You leave your character in there too long and he's pretty much done, as an enemy wizard can easily get out of his cover onto the bushes while a warrior jumps on the prey from the side. You better know what you're doing if you ever step in there. And this is where, I feel, the maps has a bit of a problem. It's not that the map favors turtling. It discourages attacking. As I said, I do like the idea of a map allowing you to plan a solid defense. But, this way, an attacker really has little possibilities: you either take the long all-around route or risk the murderous middle. Cantrip movement-cards and more mobility in general do help, obviously. I do feel this clearly shows how a new kind of map-feature would really shine in this sort of maps. Specifically thinking about a tile which, just like the smoke from Smoke Bomb, only blocks LoS but otherwise doesn't impede movement at all. That might be represented by a tall grass tile, or things like portable room dividers or shoji screens (both of which would go well together with the Celestial theme). If you replace the bushes in Lions with such a LoS-blocker, the middle suddenly becomes less scary (you can easily go behind the LoS-blocker, your movement not being interrupted by difficult terrain, to evade wizards' fire). At the same time, the defender still is safe from long range spells thanks to the screens, but an melee assault still is a viable option to attack an enemy which is entrenched in a defensive position. Celestial Temple This feels a lot like the most balanced map of the lot. It coincidentally resembles Temple Tussle in a few ways (although this one allows for wizards to threaten vast portions of the map far more easily). I appreciate the fact you can retreat a badly wounded character to a safer position if need be, and cover is abundant enough for you to negate a wizard's offensive position. The Victory squares are very dangerous too, as the enemy can flank you pretty easily blocking most hopes for retreat. The side hallways are an interesting feature too. I had a couple games which developed in fairly interesting ways thanks to those. Celestial Dojo Another map favoring wizards slightly, as a single caster can very easily threaten all 3 VSs, and getting an enemy into your LoS is only a matter of moving a few tiles. The Lions at the corners are an incredibly dangerous way. You go in there looking for some cover and the you realize you've put yourself in a trap almost always is too late. Pushing your enemy in the corner, if you can, is a very effective tactic in this map. The pillars all around the place offer some decent cover, but it often feels like a very precarious position. This map is all about in-your-face aggression. You do jump from cover to cover if the opponent has a wiz in his party, but otherwise you really can't be offensive without exposing yourself. A character holding one of the VSs to the side can still jump into the middle to join the fray with relative ease. The central VS usually is covered in liters of assorted blood As soon as one player is short of a man though, things can very easily go crazy in more than a way. I've played matches where my opponent went for holding two VSs instead on inflicting the killing blow strong of his numerical advantage, which on the other hand allowed me to attempt a desperate (and successful) retaliation. I think control wizards have somewhat of an advantage on this map. Things are not as bad as on Koi though, luckily. The pool as a whole The Celestial maps progressively grew on me the more I played. Koi irremediably sucks, I can't be helped but hate that map. This was far worse during the first few days when almost everyone but my grandmother rolled with a 2+ wiz team though. I sympathize with those who don't like Lions. It's a far better map than some think, in my modest opinion, but I can see how one might prefer maps which are all about fierce aggression rather than tactical positioning. As most of us expected though, people are rapidly getting used to the new maps and the meta game is changing accordingly. As a result, cheesy 3wiz shenanigans are not as effective or frequent as a few days ago. These maps have potential. I only hope Blue Manchu considers changing things around some (namely: fix koi please ). Also, the pool seems to small. This is also why, I think, most people hate the Celestial maps this much. With these few maps only, you'll hand up playing on the map you really hate quite often. A 5th map could really help with bringing more variety to MP matches, hence promoting more build variety too.
These are the maps that made me quit CH. They punish anyone who hasn't collected enough of the rare-grade cards and items with repeated losses against those that have been showered with them in abundance. I won't post which cards/items I'm thinking of specifically since the that will only result in people inevitably copy/pasting their page-long essays explaining why everything is perfectly balanced... Sure, they might be balanced in some ideal MP scenario where card rarity isn't a factor, but that only occurs in top-level play where everyone literally does have access to nearly every item (even several duplicates!), which is only doable if you spend a lot more time and/or money on CH than most. Some of us have lives, and/or other games in our libraries, and can't/don't want to spend tons of time/money tracking down each and every item they need to remain competitive in MP. /tryingmybestnottolaunchintoafullonsenselessrant ...On the flipside of the same coin I probably will be returning for any singleplayer/co-op expansion. Each scenario offered a fresh gameplay twist that, while tricky, could still be overcome with a bit of thought devoted to the problem and a few different tries at deckbuilding, and the storyline kept me smiling throughout.
Lions can just go straight to hell. It favors melee as much as Koi favors ranged and is a huge turtlefest on top of that. So sick of getting that map.
I, for one, consider the new maps difficult, but in no way detrimental to the game. I have had to adapt my strategy and I suspect others have done the same. Honestly, as long as the maps are varied and internally balanced, I'm okay with anything. It's all about adapting and setup.
Ok, that's more then reasonable. a general question however for you and anyone else who would like to chime in - should the game just rotate these themed maps one theme at a time on a periodic basis or do we wanna eventually see a combination of themes? most of us who played the beta have seen alot of the themes so far and although they are all intersting in their own way I would like to see a combination though I suspect if such a thing will happen it will probably be after they first introduced all of the maps. would we like to see ALL of the maps in rotation as a whole after that introduction is done? two themes at a time? or just restart the rotation? would love to hear what jon or any of the other devs have to say if a decision has been made on this subject.
I've been playing the game for little more than 2 weeks and, sadly, wasn't in the beta. I did check older maps on the wiki, although I'm perfectly aware watching a map's layout and experiencing it via gameplay are two very different things. I'm unsure about your inquiry. On the one hand, I would like to answer the map pool should stay more stable over time, maybe swapping in/out one or two maps every few weeks/months. On the other, I'm not completely against changing the whole map pool every time either. I can definitely see how the devs might be interested into experimenting with different map layouts and keeping the MP game fresh by periodically resetting the pool in it's entirety, introducing 100% new maps. And, to be honest, I find the process of adapting to new arenas a fun activity. It also makes for an always fresh MP experience, characterized by an often shifting meta. What I'm more interested into, however, is the size of the pool itself. The experience with the Celestial Set definitely tells me 4 maps is too tiny a pool. I think a larger pool (5 or 6 maps) would allow for more variety. If you have many maps which present enough differences, fine-tuning your deck for a specific subset of the pool also proves more difficult a task, otherwise promoting the emergence of a more organic metagame. And you also minimize the chance of players too often ending up playing on a map they specifically dislike. Ideally, BM might alternate different approaches to how the map pool shall be populated. At times when they are pushing some peculiar flavor of new content (i.e. the Celestial theme or, say, in case of a new expansion. *hint*hint*) the pool would share the same theme. Other times, inbetween significant new content releases, they could reintroduce very good and fan-favorite maps of old.
For me, 4 maps is more than enough. Gotten to temple once, at this rate I'll take month or two to get decent "feel" of it. But well, I usually only play for 3 wins, so not that many matches in a day.
I am cool with the current way it is set up. Perhaps it can be improved upon, but I would not suggest changing it without being very sure it was for the better. If it works, don't fix it. --My personal creed
The old maps were better in nearly every way. All of them allowed for actual maneuvering before contacting the enemy. Cave was particularly interesting because while the victory tiles were split they were attackable from each other. New maps are even worse at requiring 2 warrior +x (x usually being a mass frenzy cleric). And a good mass frenzy cleric build really relies on mostly rare or scarcer items making it difficult for more casual players to pull off. If I had the gear I would make a trip human mass frenzy team to abuse these maps. Verdict 1. koi -- rating: horrible, encourages degenerate wizard pew pew teams to just sit at the start and bombard the vp, why should they ever move? Boring for non-wizards because they tend to meet facing each other in one of the lanes, no positioning is possible in that situation. 2. temple -- rating: horrible, depends too much on who goes first and the position of the team members step attacks, the more powerful/buffed the better, decide the outcome at the center. Nimble strike is particularly unfair there. 3. lions -- rating: horrible, encourages turtling, again depends on starting position and races, elves can control the side lanes on turn 1, other races can't 4. dojo -- rating: horrible, like temple success depends mostly on number and quality of step attacks, split victory points that can't attack each other make the game unfun for non-elves on this map Every one of these maps is worse than the worst of last month's maps (cave imo). There is no equivalent of the old temple or river where you had to make actual strategic decisions. On these maps its all clash and hope you pull more attacks than your opponent.
Sick to death of these maps. The LoS and victory point issues are just killing my enjoyment. Edit: Also sick to death of fighting Double Warrior.
I think some of the frustration with these maps would be mitigated if there was some way to know when the next set of maps would come in. Dealing with them for 1 week is whatever. Dealing with them for some unknown amount of time between 1-4 weeks is much harder to deal with.
meh my subscription is up in 2 days, I'm letting it lapse and not coming back until the maps are changed or until there is more campaign content. I had fun playing on the old maps, I don't have fun playing on these maps.
I'm a newer player, but have found that the new maps compared to the other maps I was able to play the first week are much more imbalanced. They really de-emphasize solid positioning and tough choices, and just make you run mass wizards, draw deck firestorm spam, or high mobility team sprint gimmick teams. I think the playerbase, at least the people posting in the MP chat daily, really do not enjoy the design direction of the current set of maps due to how easily exploitable the map is for ranged, and Koi specifically because its almost 100% a win if you run multiwizard comp, and 100% a loss if you run melee heavy vs aforementioned comp.
I agree with this. These maps forced me to try new tactics which is what a map rotation should do. I think if a new map rotation doesn't make you uncomfortable with your current party, the new maps aren't doing their job.
I think that maps should be rotated every week (even if we revisit some of the old maps). Then it's enough time to make an effective build for the mapset, but short enough that if people don't like the maps (this set isn't my favorite but I'm ok with the ones that aren't lions/dojo) then they can take a short break. Maybe cycle the maps at the same time randimar's is reset regularly. Then we can buy rares that fit the new maps!
