April map rotation is awful!

I am genuinely disapointed in the developers and the community at large here, the maps that were selected to be used this month are downright atrocious, I cannot see how they were accepted into the rotation with that much imbalance. I would like to see an early map rotation because multiplayer is unplayable at the moment. We need to stop having such awful maps and go back to the really good maps like crundyups bridge. Please john and flaxative and whoever else, don't ruin your game with untested rubbish, I don't want cardhunter to die off.

 

As someone who doesn't play MP very much, I'm curious what about the maps is bad? Saying the maps are bad but not saying why wouldn't help the developers when making/selecting new maps.

 

@Maniafig: Allow me.

@Fanturluche's Fool's Trap.
This is just ludicrous right here. I'm almost positive this breaks the "Round 1 Flash Flood" rule in the PvP Board Contest thread. I already have more experience with this than I care to ever have again; This weekend, I had matchmaking pick this board for 8 straight Ranked matches, winning 4, and losing 4. 5 of the 8 teams I faced had at least 2 wizards in them, and 4 of them, predictably, were extremely predictable--either they Flash Flooded/Illusion Barrier'd the heck out of the map, or they'd Winds Of War/Gusts of War you out of the V-squares, in which case, without Teleportation, nothing short of a Sprint is getting you anywhere near there again, that turn. Doesn't take a 1500+ to see that this is geared towards Wizards.

@Steinhauser's Frozen Tenement.
Oh, yaaaay, more V-squares in the middle of the map with no major form of protection at all. We've never seen this before, ever. My first fight here, considering my AWESOME luck, was against someone with a rating of PRECISELY 1500, who proceeded to utilize a team with 2 Wizards in it to Cone of Cold my whole team in one shot, then, Lava Pool'd all the V-squares, then, used Bless'd, and, you know what came next; spamming Accelerate Time, of course. You know what happened after that. Doesn't take a 1500+ to see that this is geared towards Wizards, either.

@uhlik's Mushroom Glade.
EASILY the worst of the bunch. In my first [and only] 2 matches here, I actually got Savage Curse'd into oblivion, both times, which is extremely easy in a board with no fewer than 10 places to snipe from, and where the 10 V-squares available have near-zero protection from any form of sniping at all. DEFINITELY doesn't take a 1500+ to see that this is geared towards Wizards.

@Juxtapostion's Oasis
It's basically Mushroom Glade with less V-squares that are closer together, and separated by a difficult-to-wade-through pool of water than by wide-oven spa--oh, wait. You can snipe the pool. And the V-squares. In fact, you can Flash Flood the Pool and then, go crazy with a pair of Mass Frenzy'd Wizards like in what happened in my 1st match, here. Doesn't take a 1500+ to.....you know.

No disrespect personally to the 4 people who made these maps, but, I've already seen the same kinds of maps over and over again in Ranked since late LAST year. It wouldn't be so annoying if there were diversity; if, in a 4-map Ranked rotation, there was 1 map that encouraged melee attacks more than ranged, and 1 map that encouraged ranged over melee, with the 2 other maps encouraging both equally [kinda like Halloween 2015's rotation], I wouldn't hate MP as much as I do.

As it stands, however, lately, it's been Ranked rotations made up either ALMOST entirely, or--in the case of this month, ENTIRELY--of boards geared towards pelting enemies with ranged attacks. There's no form of balance or diversity in this rotation AT ALL, really, and if you don't believe me, fight Cardotron2000 on them. Any of them. You won't have to worry about the Clerical Unit's Super Team Heals or the Fighter Unit's Almighty Hacks, 'cause the Magic Using Unit will Punishing Beam you to death before either of it's buddies get the chance, and most of you reading this that have ever fought him, before knows how fun THAT is.

[If it makes the reader feel any better, I am slowly learning how to make my own maps so that I can try to do my part to remedy this mess, but, there has to be better maps to choose from than.....THESE.]

 

Im glad I wasn't the only one who felt that these maps were poorly made, no disrespect to the makers, just that they would be fine if they weren't stuck together, it would be more bearable. I really think we should rotate the maps since these ones are a mess. I don't want to waste my thirty day membership on SP only and I kind of feel like I am being unfairly punished for not having the right legendaries or items to play/beat all wizard teams. If this is what they are going to be doing, I want a refund on my beginners box purchase.

 

I moved the thread into Feedback and Suggestions subforum.

Generally, feedback is appreciated, but remember to be respectful and constructive. Calling these maps awful and untested rubbish is not that! I suggest everyone reading (again) Card Hunter Forum rules.

@snickersimba: If such negative and disrespectful tone continues, you're going to be warned. I suggest you vent your frustration in nicer and more constructive way. For example what makes Crundyup's Bridge so much better that these current maps? I don't really play ranked MP, but to me Crundyup's Bridge seems similar wizard-friendly map as you and mikey said these current are.

@mikey76500: That constant bold typeface really hurts my eyes, so I edited it out. No need to type your whole message with bold typeface.

 

Its hard to describe what makes crundyups bridge better, though I may just be thinking of the wrong map. Maps should not be focused on supporting wizard damage, maps should be balanced to give wizards the ability to do something, but not allowing them to dominate, lots of cover and tight areas, things that favor melee as well. I also just noticed that uhilik has had two maps win in a row, that doesn't seem totally unbiased to me, not sure if it was luck or what though. I also was intending that to be more respectful than it sounded, since I never really said anything horrible about anyone or the maps, apologies.

Anyways, the main thing is that we need an early map rotation and better map testing soon, as I doubt many people want to play MP this month, perhaps a voting system in case the maps end up like this? Its one of many things mulitplayer needs, including the ability to look at other users builds since many people are extremely unhelpful when it comes to sharing builds. The voting system would have to be able to determine if people are just trying to exploit it to get a favorable map rotation or are genuinely unhappy with the map rotation, might be tricky to pull that off. I wish I wasn't in such bad standing with the community since I really do love the game, it just comes off as whining/trolling when in reality, I want cardhunter to seriously thrive.

 

Back in December we had maps Kitchen, Ballroom, Sanctuary and Parlor. The general feedback was that these favoured heavy hitting warriors, http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/new-maps-what-do-you-think.6934/. I switched to a triple warrior team and sure enough I got to 1700 for the first time. I imagine if most voters run heavy hitting warriors then we would get the December maps over and over again. Voting on maps is subjective and prone to result in the same issue only more so.

I don't think there is an issue with the current system. But if it were to be improved, I would suggest an approach that uses statistics. I suspect worthwhile statistics are the win ratios for any given race/class. Maybe the API and Scenarios tracker (http://cardhuntermeta.farbs.org/scenarios.php) could be revised to include these statistics? And perhaps these statistics could show that there is no bias at all.

 

@rinco69: This is why I'm suggesting balance and diversity, instead. 2 maps that encourage both ranged and melee attacks, as well as one that encourages melee>ranged, and a 4th that encourages ranged>melee--all in the same rotation--would be A-OK in my book. I haven't seen any rotations like that lately, though; have you?

 

Making effective wizard teams - burfft or otherwise- generally requires quite a few legendary and epic items. So maps which favor wizards also favor those who have spent a lot of time of their life already playing the game, so this to me is actually the biggest problem. What about who are too busy working/studying to collect all these items so fast?!

Not to mention some people don't actually enjoy playing wizard-heavy teams. I for one can't stand ember burst/fireball, I prefer to win with more subtlety and strategy.

I agree, the map system can't be always balanced, but it would be nice to see some maps favor different builds over others, to keep things interesting and more importantly, keep the meta fresh and interesting.

 

Just three little points I wanted to add my 0.02 USD on:

Wait. So... You knowingly opted to group your whole party in the center of unprotected terrain against a team of wizards?

Glad to know you seek to contribute especially where you feel there is deficiency. $:^ ]

I expect the answer is skill.

(Unless I simply missed the core of how player maps are chosen for ranked rotations. I thought it was careful deliberation as opposed to, say, drawing names out of a hat.)

Regards, $:^ J

 

@ParodyKnaveBob; That's the thing, 2 of my team had Stone Feet on, I hadn't drawn any attack cards AT ALL [just healing, Moving, Armor, the aforementioned Stone Feets and Blocks] so, I was thinking of forcing a VP after the 1st turn by having 2 of my team in the V-square area--better me than a 1500.

I admit, it was one of those plans that seemed like a good idea at the time, like every plan against most 1500+ers.

 

Well, that still means we need an early map rotation and a new map culling system to prevent veteran players from always making wizard friendly maps. I genuinely would help the game grow if they wanted my help and they really don't, so I can't do much other than say to the developers to rotate the maps early before the elite wizard players kill cardhunter.

 

These maps have been pretty horrible for my wizards, so I'm not sure what the problem is. I earned a majority of my wins and gelo with my April Fools party of 3 maneuvering elves. I'm pretty sure I'd end the month pretty well if I actually wanted to use them all month.

I've actually found these maps to be very friendly to warriors, to be honest.

 

As always when a new series of maps comes out, it takes time for things to shake out. The CH environment isn't static. People are still optimizing their play and learning new strategies on rotations that are almost 3 years old. Good luck

 

Okay, I admit my reaction was a bit overdone, I am not actually having any trouble with the maps, aside from my first day. I apologise for my overblown reaction, now excuse me while I go work on mundanehunter

 

Good man, good man. $:^ ]

 

Wondering why nobody suggested Smoke Bomb.
I have yet to play this rotation (darn CoC keeps me busy). But still, if I'm fighting too many wiz, I go for my Smoker, along with 2 step warriors to make kills.
But, to each their own. ;p

 

@seth arue: Volcano and Accelerate Time doesn't know what a Smoke Bomb IS. Mind you, my rating is 1277, so, it's not like I'm at a level where the strategy is NEVER used.

 

Admittedly, I don't play much MP, but isn't smoke bomb one of the things that work against volcano? You know, I mean smokebombing your party in order to remove the lava attachments.

 

@Krunail: The reverse can also happen: All field effects > All field effects, so, if you Smoke Bomb a Volcano, you can also Volcano a Smoke Bomb. I should know; I had it happen to me, once. This is why I don't run Smoke Bomb, anymore, anyway.