Crundyup's Bridge is an asymetrical map: why is the "icy" side better?

http://wiki.cardhuntria.com/wiki/Crundyup's_Bridge_(Ranked)

Why does the "dirt" side of Crundyup's Bridge contain one additional row of squares?

This map favors the player starting on the "icy" side, as those characters start closer to the victory squares and must travel one fewer squares to breach the cover or occupy the bridge.

What the hell?

 

Wow, you are absolutely correct. I cannot believe nobody saw (or posted) that before.

The map is clearly missing one whole row of icy terrain. Ice team has a minimum distance of 5 steps to a victory square, while Grass team has 6 steps. That is one MAJOR design flaw right there.

The good news is that I now have the perfect excuse for losing that one peasant match.

 

I had noticed before but hadn't counted the rows to confirm lol.

 

I had to recount several times to make sure it actually made a difference, but you're absolutely right. For a few (I found at least two) starting positions, it actually does take one additional square to reach the victory point.

 

It would be balanced if the "grass" side would always go first in return for the slightly worse position, but is that the case?

 

While it might not be gamebreaking, but it is definitely a major design flaw that should not happen in MP maps. That one square might not sound like a big deal, but it is if you are able to reach the victory square because of that during round one. Smaller landmass in icy side also means fun things like WW/WWE throwing people in the grass side more often. Tiny thing like that can easily decide an otherwise close match.

 

Yea, looks like a simple human error. The curved shape of the river makes it more difficult to spot it.

 

Definitely a problem that should be fixed. Though I am more concerned about how a single card (Wall Of Stone) ruins this map. Get 3 copies within the first 5 rounds, and it's almost instawin. Get one or two cantrips to secure the first turn too, and it's straight instawin.
While they fix the symmetry they should look into this issue too.

 

So much this. I manage to get the victory point round 1, then I used 2 Wall of Stones to get the next 4 points too. My opponent was pissed.

 

Yes, but the sample size is not big enough, so the margin of error is way too large for any kind of meaningful statistical analysis. We might need several thousands of matches before we start seeing something.

It is impossible for an asymmetrical map like this not have any kind effect. Being on the icy side does not mean an automatic win, but it will give you an advantage because you clearly have a better starting position. How big that advantage is, does not matter imo. Even if it affected less than 1% of match results, the advantage is still there, and MP maps should not have any kind of advantage one way or another.

The good news is that according to initial data, grass side players haven't had any major advantages. But my point is that this doesn't mean nothing bad ever happened and that the map is perfectly fine.

 

Right, but until we start to really see a statistical advantage, taking up time and resources from things that are showing clearer signs of imbalance might not be the best move at the moment. However this thread guarantees that it's not going to be ignored and forgotten

Well, as long as people keep having weird problems with it we can look at the stats and move it up/down the queue.

 

Yes, I agree. What I said was actually related to discussion in this other post about whether or not get rid of the map in the Peasant tournament (which is not game client related and takes less than a second to do). I don't think the map is such a big issue in regular MP that we would need a hotfix for it. New maps are coming soon which will remove the problem.

 

Okay, I'll bite. How would changing one map to not have a single row of tiles take up a significant amount of time and resources? You've already begun performing early statistical analyses on the map, as well as read this thread long enough to give it serious consideration. In that time I could also easily open up the map editor and just delete a single row of tiles. So I'm missing something? It's not something I'd imagine needs an emergency hotfix, but are we leaving it alone specifically because it's this weird anomaly that's not behaving like anyone would have expected yet? This just seems like such a simple task compared to most decisions. :/

 

The map was fixed already but it's not released yet. This is quoted from the Card Hunter developer Twitter account: