Ice Map Complaint

[Xurphorus]

This is not a rant, okay well sorta, but please try to consider what I am saying about it. Ice Map is complete and utter trash for many reasons and I will begin to name them off one by one, and even give the reason why.

Reason 1: Ladder Camping

Xenomorphs have the entire underground to navigate at round start, and its easy for them to get around due to being able to see in the dark and all, but they CHOOSE to camp ladders, so as soon as marines attempt to progress through the round boom, Boiler Gas, Huggers, Crusher Stomp all awaits down as soon as they go down, they even go to the lengths of walling other ladders with Resin doors. Its Bullshit and you all know it.


Reason 2: Meta-hiving

For some odd fucking reason, Xenos come to the surface and choose an objective point(Engineering) as a hive so when the first squad that goes there, they get fucking destroyed. Its not fun for none of the marines at all, especially when there are no comms by the time marines get there so no real help is coming until communications have been established.

Reason 3 & 4: The Comms Tower

Alright so this is my BIGGEST problem with the Ice Map, and I am fairly sure it is everyone else's problem too. Xenos Meta slashing the comms APC every time when its either left alone. See Xeno Meta is a fine line between Staff not caring, and it being non-existent, it's fucking dumb. Even the excuses made about it, like one of my favorites, ''Xenomorphs can see the flow of energy and they are intelligent enough to disable it.'' Bull fucking shit, Xenos cannot see energy at all, the most they can see is Pheromones, and Vibrations, thus why they are attracted to noise, and sudden movements, sometimes they can operate like how a snake sees its prey, for them to slash APCs cause fuck lights is really fucking bothersome. Sometimes marines would go as far as WALLING off the APC from the xenos touch and they melt inside, JUST to kill the APC, no host, no anything in there, just the APC that needs to be slashed. Its fucking META, and it should be taken care of.

Now they have moved Telecomms to where the Warehouse is on the Ice Map, a position RARELY fucking explored at all by marines, that goes for Research, and Hydroponics aswell, all locations that would prove nice for a Surface hive for Xenos, but they choose to simply attack marines right away rather than letting the round progress naturally. The distance between the new location from LZ2 and LZ1 is absurd, especially with the snow slowing you down. It was fine where it was before, at least it was manageable. I literally just had a round where Marines were CONFUSED of the new location and even myself for that matter because we didn't really know where the warehouse was until staff showed a copy of a map with it circled. The round went to total shit regardless because the distance of it is way too far.

Reason 5:

Okay this is my Final one, fighting Xenomorphs underground, I'm not gonna say much about this, because I can understand the reasoning behind all the tight tunnels and such, its a Xeno-baised map, and its made to make large numbers of marines seem little due to the tight spaces and such, but its so damn annoying every time, it makes the rounds take forever because the underground is much too big to navigate through.

I hope a Dev see's this and considers the problems, and if I'm not alone on these reasons then comment below.

[Karmac]

It's too big :^(

[Sodah]

The Tcomms issue is the big one, it's incredibly hard to keep people organized, since you're stuck in visual range, and the Sulaco is entirely cut off from the ground other than PO or wounded Marines showing up, and even then it's not like they're going to have the full picture. So you lose initiative, and you can't press out and do anything since nobody can shout orders. It just detracts from the map IMO to even have it be disable-able, especially with the meta issues Xur outlined. Marines are already disorganized enough as-is, it doesn't need to be even worse.

As far as the underground goes, how the entrances are designed just favors Xeno's to a insane extent, even if it's a elevator they can just have a boiler shoot at them and everyone's dead, once you actually get squads INTO the underground it's a lot more fun, the cramped corridors do their job pretty well for atmosphere, and it's hellish to fight in (in a good way) but you rarely get to that point, so it feels most of the maps big feature is wasted.

[shyshadow]

Okay, so everything Xurphorus has said, is realistically true. Also this update must be fairly recent because I don't remember Telecomms changing places, but meh. So, basically, it should fall under the Rule of Powergaming/Metagaming of breaking the T-Comms APC, it happens on Ice Colony AND The Sulaco when ever an alien manages to survive and evolve on The Sulaco, that's fine but the constant struggle of having to keep T-Comms from being meta rushed is far beyond the Marine's Abilities, because as soon as Marines leave T-Comms, they will go through any length to destroy that SINGLE APC, I'm fine when T-Comms is taken over after Marines got assaulted and lost, but when they purposely go out of their way, melt literal WALLS to destroy a APC that they shouldn't know that lets the Marines Communicate. Then that's where we got a problem, giving the BS reason of "Lel, they protect, obviously important, am I right my Sisters, XD XD XD." If that's your IC Logic, how come they don't harass Engineering, or LZ1, they just go straight to T-Comms because they Metagame on what it does.
Also, for how the underground area is, yeah, it's pretty fucking lame, there's SOOO much down there, there's the Security Rooms, Research & Development, Underground Engineering, yet rarely is it even fucking touched because of how lame and how much little Moderators/Admins care for enforcing obvious Tactics that wouldn't be used by actual Xenomorphs, obviously it's a game, and it's fine if they start to spread towards and near the South of the Underground complex, but no they go straight to underground engineering, and it's literally impossible to go anywhere down there without instantly getting destroyed because of how tightly cramped it is. Aliens most of the Time don't have to do anything while underground, because Marines are just gonna Friendly Fire because of how FUCKING cramped it is. 2x2 Length Maintenance corridors, clustered hallways, it's asking for FF because how gosh near impossible is it for Marines to Comprehend running around everywhere is gonna end up in you moving someone into FF or yourself into FF.

[Crab_Spider]

You know, when you guys get your way, everything goes according to plan and actually works out for you, but when the opposition sabotages that, it's out of character behavior because why not? That's the best way to silence this behavior and make it seem wrong. Xenos from the start control the colony, and if you're expecting EVERYTHING to be pitch perfect, you're soily mistaken.

You know how you can SEE someone talking into a headset, and if it's on a general channel, it's relayed to general listening channels? Yeah, that's an observation and sign the comms are back up. Yknow how that problem is solved? Slashing each and every APC there is until that cracking chatter stops. But heyy, we're Marines! We deserve an easy victory! Shut the fuck up!

[shyshadow]

You know, when you guys get your way, everything goes according to plan and actually works out for you, but when the opposition sabotages that, it's out of character behavior because why not? That's the best way to silence this behavior and make it seem wrong. Xenos from the start control the colony, and if you're expecting EVERYTHING to be pitch perfect, you're soily mistaken.

You know how you can SEE someone talking into a headset, and if it's on a general channel, it's relayed to general listening channels? Yeah, that's an observation and sign the comms are back up. Yknow how that problem is solved? Slashing each and every APC there is until that cracking chatter stops. But heyy, we're Marines! We deserve an easy victory! Shut the fuck up!

Okay? Rude, of course they'd have Control over the planet, but ain't it meta to just Rush Engineering even though actual Xeno would just expand their hive over time, why just set up a Hive in one specific area that's Important to marines, before they even land and set up shop?

[Casany]

Okay? Rude, of course they'd have Control over the planet, but ain't it meta to just Rush Engineering even though actual Xeno would just expand their hive over time, why just set up a Hive in one specific area that's Important to marines, before they even land and set up shop?

So, I'm a marine mainly, and I have to say it's a very obvious answer

The colonists need power, so they used power. Aliens saw them use it and deemed it via hivemind as important

They wanna take it over so it can't be used again? That's a great tactical plan a HIVEMIND would use!

Look at Aliens! The queen set up in the reactor because it KNEW it was an important area in which the colonists or anyone else would need to use!

[Keban DaBrowne]

In regards to meta, at some point you have to come to terms with the fact that the server asks people to pretend to be ignorant of things that everyone knows. Enforcement of that principle can only go so far before you're demanding that people deliberately gimp themselves. Marines benefit from having comms up, and xenos lose an edge. Both sides know this, and to ask the xenos to ignore an "objective" like that is unreasonable. Does it bother you that the queen understands how to launch a drop ship when an actual human being can't? If not then I don't see she would observe the humans fiddling around some big tower and then gaining their own marine-mind. Is it immersion-breaking for the aliens to set up a nest at Engineering? I don't think so, the same way that marines know not to fuck with a predator, that they immediately know to blow up holes with explosives, to set up four sentries at Nexus before even meeting the enemy on an automated distress call, and the other myriad actions players take that would be different in "real life".

It goes back to the fact that telling people to play dumb will never truly work, and its a difficult aspect of planning the game experience here. I'm grateful for the intensity of RP that can be reached on the server though, I can't think of any other team-based death match where both sides act in a way to put the experience of playing before trying to win.

[Telegnats]

I'm grateful for the intensity of RP that can be reached on the server though, I can't think of any other team-based death match where both sides act in a way to put the experience of playing before trying to win.

Well the development team certainly seems like it has this mindset; Otherwise I call bullshit.

[Renomaki]

I remember back when I used to not like the old ice map.. But after experiencing the hell of new ice map, it makes me pine for the older version.

The old ice map allowed marines to explore more of the map, to get more creative with FoB placement, comms only required power to get up and then you were done. The only downside was that ladder camping was awful on that map and you only had two elevators to use, which required an awful lot of coordination in order to get the most out of them. Marines got their asses kicked a lot there too, but after awhile, you had fun with it.

New ice map is less fun for marines, and arguably xenos as well. With the way the map is designed, the only good FoB is LZ1 itself, the nearby hanger be damned. Ladders being everywhere didn't help the marines so much as it made building a safe FoB more impossible, what with xenos being able to swarm any building via the ladder, instead of a select few buildings of the old design. All those elevators on the map are rarely, if ever, used due to how the map is designed, comms has become more of a burden than anything, forcing marines to dedicate an entire squad to babysitting it or else command gets the middle finger from the xenos, and most of all, ONLY HALF THE MAP SEES ACTION.

In all my times playing that map, xeno and marinewise, I rarely got to witness areas like hydro and science. The only places I knew of were the bar, the hanger, engineering and where Tcomms used to be (being that I'm not playing as of late, I don't know where it is now, but I assume it is an attempt to get marines to explore deeper into the map).

Honestly, the way Jungle was set up, marines were always bound to explore the majority of the map, as well as across the river and fight on the massive battlefield that is xeno turf. I kinda wish that Ice was made as a single layer map like Jungle, with a main colony and an wilderness where the xenos rule, with their massive cave network or hidden research base or whatever the hell you'd want it to be. At least then ladder camping from both sides wouldn't be a thing and you'd have more free movement and bigger battles.

There are many things I wish I could change about the map, but alas, I'm just a little guy, I don't got the power to decide the maps. I can only hope my words are understood.

[KingKire]

Icemap does need another rework. It still needs to have its flow worked out. Im looking at the map, and although it looks nice, its very, very spread out. Its causing some big problems with where to set up and where to move. I honestly thing it would probably be better to have a more "linear" flow map to help focus both sides. The goal of this map is to show the use of the Z levels, but by having them soooo spread out, it really makes it hard to draw any specific attention on a front for each sides to face. As for the underground, its even in a worse shape, with an even more chaotic displacement of area. It almost reminds me of Modern warfares rust, with pretty much pathing leading in every single direction. Theres too much to choose from.

with not one, but two diffrent z levels having a completely spread out flow, this leads to some intense chaos.

Ill contrast with LV.
LV, although it has some flow problems, generally has some good flow paths that it can rely on, specifically 2-3 paths, with most of the paths all intersecting right at the maps focal points: Hydro, nexus, and crashed ship/table forts. Most of the battles tend to flow up and down those linear paths, giving a good front that players can be drawn to. Its also set up in the classic sense: "Marines" on one side, "aliens" on the other, with a big no mans land in the middle. This is a tried and true map design that you have seen countless times, but it works.

Ice planet though, has its flow really cracked. theres no one "good" path for everyone to get behind. The maps main focal points are spread in literally the 4 corners of the map. LZ2/ warehouse is in the NW, power in in the NE, LZ 1 is in the SE, and research/crashed ship is in the SW. Almost all locations needed to be focused on, which is really splitting the map focus in the wrong way. The map wants to focus on its unique action, the up and down motion of people. instead, were focusing on a compass rose of where you need to go. Omni directional maps can work, but they are some tough stuff to balance. Right now, when looking at both the upper and lower map, it leaves the player completely confused on where to focus.

I probably need to refine my opinion, but i think it might be a good start?

There needs to be a linear path somewhere. Either the upper map or the lower map needs to have a linear flow draw. but not both. Having omni-directional map connected to another omni-directional map is causing some big problems.

[RedsPro]

+1 Tcoms meta slashings a bitch plus the marines that get fucked at engie have zero chance of being saved as the maps to big for any other squad to get to them and thats IF coms havent been slashed yet.

[Diggman88]

Issue with the map is the shear amount of area we have to cover. The placement of tcomms always turns into a slogging match that lasts most of the rounds. The new placements might help but only time will tell. Navigation underground is unpleasant I think. Most of the map goes unused as stated like hydro, R&D, dorms and the bar. These places have no real value right now in the strategy of either side.

[Joe4444]

Look at Aliens! The queen set up in the reactor because it KNEW it was an important area in which the colonists or anyone else would need to use!

wrong, xenos set up there because it was a tad bit hotter than everywhere else, xenos like their hives to be a tad bit hotter for reasons unknown, its the same with the queen in AVP 2010 setting up her hive in the refinery.

[Casany]

wrong, xenos set up there because it was a tad bit hotter than everywhere else, xenos like their hives to be a tad bit hotter for reasons unknown, its the same with the queen in AVP 2010 setting up her hive in the refinery.

I really only consider alien and aliens to be cannon, so I still think the queen set up there because she was smart and realized it's importance.
Queens are supposed to be very smart!

[XenonDragneel]

I completely agree with you..

For my opinion I think T-Communication Relay should be moved to WESTERN point next to Hydro. Barely anybody go to Hydro or the whole western colony. I feel like I'm the only XO(Or Commander) that assigning a squad to scout the whole west side. There's a fucking huge open spot there...

I am tired of this Xenomorph camping at the ***ing ladder. They just wait till they evolved to T2/T3. I think there should just be Elevator for this map. No ladders.

LZ1 always loses fucking defense. It's depending how well the barricades is and the defenses. I think LZ1 need to be moved and stuff they get flanked from every point but South. Or atleast make it able for snow to get on the ground at the LZ1?

This map is fucking FINE! It's just the play style of it. People who said it's to big or it's suck that... they just want to fight and end the rounds faster. I think the whole point of this game is to Role-play. The map is to big and I'm fine with that because this might be helpful map in the future for the playerbase. The fighting tactics always start at one damn spot! Engineering, LZ1, Hanger, and Tcomm(Not anymore).

Underground is... heh.. it's fine because that's where Xenos lives from now on.

I just don't know... I hope they don't remove this map or change ALOT of stuff at once. But I just feel bad when it's up to marine really to fight and meta the f*** out of the game. Sad.

[Reuben Owen]

1) If you have ever bothered to look at other ladders, you'd find they're not all guarded so zealously as you believe. Even in big pop rounds I've seen 4 or more ladders not even present with weeds. Go out and find those ladders instead of the hangar/engineering/powersupply/ garage ones. Those would be the ideal ladders to go down assuming Marines had easymode on. They don't. Other ladders exist. There are 11 ladders on the map. The numbers just don't exist for Xenos to watch them all at the same time, indefinitely. Sometimes there's not even 11 Xenos left and Marines still won't go down. Alternatively use a Elevator, since those are never guarded if you're so worried (if they see in you gathering in it though, you're fucked, so don't wait outside it for 30 mins and then wait another 5 mins for everyone to get on it, be quick and gather not in front of the elevator door like lemmings).

*also remember that xeno strats are based on countermeasures against marine scum, early on when icemap was released marines swarmed down the obvious (by obvious I mean the ones they saw more often + weren't out of the way) ladders and won more, until xenos got smart about which ladders were being utilized more often and shut that down real quick by targeting those ladders

*******If marines stand in front of a ladder and alternatively throw down flares and look down it for half the round, xenos are going to notice and tell everyone, its your own fault they're paying attention to your actions. Really what this translates to is, xenos don't camp, care, or check empty ladders. Again, use those.

2) Please remember that Xenos control the entirety of above/below ground before Marines come (unless the survivors are badass and killed a bunch). Xenos are limited in choice when it comes to above ground areas of control as they can only realistically start work in one of the buildings without clearing vast swathes of snow. They can't start in a too small building (although that is a population dependent thing), one that doesn't have a ladder for easy retreat, or one with only a single entry/exit point (they'll be trapped inside and just have to go down the ladder or fight). They also can't work in one that has too many windows, they'll have to run literally right away as it gets filled with pewpew from all over. That really only leaves 4 options. Engineering, Dorms, Hangar, and Garage. Hangar is not done, because its too close to LZ1 and could be considered camping and would swarm the admins with Marine ahelps. Garage's ladder is in a bad place if they get overran or if Marines open the Garage doors, meaning they won't be able to reach it without getting shot up, they usually do this later in the game if they're pushing. That leaves Dorms and Engineering. This is why, if they're going up early they choose those places as opposed to Power Substation or that one ladder east of it, which are the usual 2 spots that Xenos go up if/when Marines control the other areas. Now, if the Xenos make a hive underground in Engineering, which place do you think they are most likely to go up the ladders and do shit in force?

3) + 4) Yeah, I don't like it either. It's silly and aggravating for a Marine. I dunno the solution to it though. Just put the comms somewhere untouchable? Put it near lz1?

5) Its too big. But if it wasn't, the xenos would be more easily found and more easily destroyed. Bother everyone to get their ass down there yesterday, light the place up like the 4th of July, destroy everything that isn't man-made, and shoot anything that moves. Competence of a teams side as a whole plays a bigger role (for both sides) in big maps. I know you have a SADAR and wanna kill the alien scum, but there are steps between landing at LZ1 and fighting the Xenos in their hive. Those steps cannot be completed alone by any 1 person. i.e. without good hivebuilders on the xeno side, 90% of the underground will be unweeded and it easily points out a likely hive place for marines to group up in front of, target, and eliminate. Or without good marines you let the xenos stay down there forever unmolested except by groups of 2 or 3 compotents actually playing which get raped and no one goes down to help when they sob over comms until they die and generate salt in dchat.

[Xurphorus]

I really only consider alien and aliens to be cannon, so I still think the queen set up there because she was smart and realized it's importance.
Queens are supposed to be very smart!

The reason why the queen set up at the reactor in aliens is because of the heat created by it. Intelligence isn't the reason why. Aliens act with instinct first, intelligence later when they come across an obstruction or have challenged with a situation.

[Sneakyr]

I can almost guarantee that if taking away the two main marine advantages (coordinated ranged attacks and strength in numbers) by slashing the telecomms APC wasn't so pitifully easy and common, then most marine players wouldn't care if it was meta or not. It may even be the case that (in complete speculation only) some marine players only call it meta so that it'll be banned since they don't expect it to be changed so that it would be harder to do.

[caleeb101]

You know, when you guys get your way, everything goes according to plan and actually works out for you, but when the opposition sabotages that, it's out of character behavior because why not? That's the best way to silence this behavior and make it seem wrong. Xenos from the start control the colony, and if you're expecting EVERYTHING to be pitch perfect, you're soily mistaken.

You know how you can SEE someone talking into a headset, and if it's on a general channel, it's relayed to general listening channels? Yeah, that's an observation and sign the comms are back up. Yknow how that problem is solved? Slashing each and every APC there is until that cracking chatter stops. But heyy, we're Marines! We deserve an easy victory! Shut the fuck up!

I main as observer. Are you saying xenos deserve easy victories? Because that is what it is right now to be honest. I can see a lot more scumbag tactics used and abused by xenos than by marines. Not saying every marine should be made robusto mcchusto by game mechanics but skill only takes you so far in this game. Also, it's likely that you main xenos and are subject to bias like everyone else on this forum. Trying to be fair here as a PROFESSIONAL OBSERVERRRRRRR.

[EXOTICISME]

Thing is, if you leave them for even one minute there's always this one alien that pop out from the vent and slash the APC. To avoid that your squad might be chosen to guard that one APC for the whole round, not to mention there's two APC that need to be guarded and one FOB. Leaving you with only one squad to deal with the xenos, ice map need to be smaller

[Simo94]

u can literally SHIFT+DELETE the whole left side of ice map and like 60% of the underground one and it would take a month before anyone notices it

[Snypehunter007]

Such salt from both sides . . .

Let *sigh*

[Karmac]

*
Le *sigh*

[immaspaceninja]

And by 'ignoring everyone' i meant that there was a big fight at tcomms and he just ran past every marine he met to slash that APC.