Hi everybody, The multiplayer match boards currently in the game are a mixture of fairly old and largely experimental layouts we did very early in the project. As the designer of many of them, it has been very interesting watching how people play on them and reading the feedback in the forums. As the next stage of MP board development, we are looking at implementing a small set of layouts (probably 3) that change to a different set every 2-4 weeks. We would announce the board style or show them ahead of the cycle to give people a chance to build accordingly (If they wish). I've spent a lot of time reading about what the community thinks about the current boards, and am currently in the middle of designing the first batch with your feedback in mind (the first set of 3 will be 100% symmetrical for example). Your input would of course be very valuable as we move forward, so I'm making a sticky thread for posting screenshots and sharing your thoughts about MP boards. Looking forward to seeing what you think up!
I'd like to make a tiny weeny suggestion. Aside from the introduction of new MP boards, perhaps it might be possible to make small modifications to existing ones as a variant ? An example would be to take, say, Cave and modify the 3x3 VP terrains into other 3x3 forms. Give it a variant label and insert into ranked. So you could have erm, Cave-H, Cave-T, Cave-Orig etc... Hope it'll spice things up, reduce predictable plays and re-use boards for eco-friendliness...
I am no fan of the victory points where there is terrain like a cross and only points in the edges. It makes games longer cause of all the kite:ing going on in my opinion. I've only played 4 MP games tho, and only with the starter decks/gear. Maybe the kite problem goes away on higher levels? Or maybe it is looked apon as a legit strat? Something like this: O = Victory points, X = terrain. OXO XXX OXO
Personally i would love to see a map with a uneven amount of points with both sides having one point very close to where they start and then having say 3 points in the middle making people pick between holding back a guy or trying to take middle. In a map like that a uneven amount of points in the middle either 1 or 3 would be very important to stop board stalls.
I actually love this kind of games because my two warriors don´t get auto destroyed by mages. But on a serious note, yes, it is actually annoying that this setup doesn´t even allows line of sight. Heck, if the terrain were impassable instead of flat out blocked i could just throw all my stabs at the other guys, but yes, this starts to dissapear slightly on the higher levels because there are only so many ways to favor kiting; people really love their Step Attacks so they can safely move in and out of Victory Points. Me, i just love Bashing them away every time they get close. Also, in the one map that has this config (I think it´s called Temple), you can get pincered really easy while holding the VP due to the narrow chokepoints, so you can´t quite kite forever, so the configuration isn´t that troublesome in that one map - On what i would like to see for multiplayer maps are maps where it isn´t a race to the middle every time. Perhaps a map like the Gladiator Arena where the VPs are scattered (or at least some of them are) to favor speed, positioning, mid-range and Charges ;P. There´s only one map that uses a lot of impassable terrain and i find it really annoying to tussle through at the beggining and makes Whirlwind a rage invoker
