Steamy Fog Discussion

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

The fog on LV-624 was a band-aid fix for the issue of meta-rushing. Eventually it was decided that the community could not be trusted with this and make a physical barrier that prevents rushing for approx. 1 hour.

Unfortunately, this fog has become redundant with the increase in size of the LV caves, making almost half the map viable hive locations.

With how LV's fog works currently, it has forced a monotony on the way the rounds pan out which can be described like a line:

Xenos lost - Mopup in caves

Xenos losing - Battle at the Crashed Shuttle

Stalemate/Fog drops - Battle at Tablefort/Hydro

Marines losing - Battle at Nexus

Marines lost - Almayer assaulted.

The fog has made LV rounds repeat the same situations constantly and restricts the freedom of xenos and marines alike. A queen cannot make a Hive in Nexus, or in the jungle or on grass (another issue for snother day), or in any of the domes. Marines only ever build fobs in Nexus, Robotics, Hydro and Tablefort while xenos can only REALLY build in the Barrens and Crashed Shuttle.

Compare LV to any other map in the pool, Ice can let you build a hive literally anywhere on the map. You could build it in the middle of the snow if you wanted, there are zero limits on creative freedom.

Big Red is slightly more limited, but still has massive freedom. A xeno can hive in Viro, Lambda, Medical if they're feeling suicidal, Cargo etc.

LV restricts 2/3s of the map for xenos with the fog blocking the queen. They only have a. The caves and dirt territory (which is bugger all of the Jungle map.) And b. The Domes (which are extremely restricted.

I feel much of LV's freedom could manifest if the fog was removed entirely. The upgrades to hivelords, carriers, defences, pheromones, Praetorians and the cave size buff all make it infinitely harder for marines to metarush.

The fog should go. It is redundant and now only serves as an artificial time waster. Time spent building FOBs and hives are pointless as all combat takes place in the barrens, where the fog protects.

[Liptick]

The fog doesnt stop people from doing the meta mambo

[CeSiumShark]

Pretty sure suggestions are closed btw

But a good way to prevent meta would be to make multiple possible hive spots, so that the aliens spawn in a different place each time.

[Snypehunter007]

The fog on LV-624 was a band-aid fix for the issue of meta-rushing. Eventually it was decided that the community could not be trusted with this and make a physical barrier that prevents rushing for approx. 1 hour.

Unfortunately, this fog has become redundant with the increase in size of the LV caves, making almost half the map viable hive locations.

With how LV's fog works currently, it has forced a monotony on the way the rounds pan out which can be described like a line:

Xenos lost - Mopup in caves

Xenos losing - Battle at the Crashed Shuttle

Stalemate/Fog drops - Battle at Tablefort/Hydro

Marines losing - Battle at Nexus

Marines lost - Almayer assaulted.

The fog has made LV rounds repeat the same situations constantly and restricts the freedom of xenos and marines alike. A queen cannot make a Hive in Nexus, or in the jungle or on grass (another issue for snother day), or in any of the domes. Marines only ever build fobs in Nexus, Robotics, Hydro and Tablefort while xenos can only REALLY build in the Barrens and Crashed Shuttle.

Compare LV to any other map in the pool, Ice can let you build a hive literally anywhere on the map. You could build it in the middle of the snow if you wanted, there are zero limits on creative freedom.

Big Red is slightly more limited, but still has massive freedom. A xeno can hive in Viro, Lambda, Medical if they're feeling suicidal, Cargo etc.

LV restricts 2/3s of the map for xenos with the fog blocking the queen. They only have a. The caves and dirt territory (which is bugger all of the Jungle map.) And b. The Domes (which are extremely restricted.

I feel much of LV's freedom could manifest if the fog was removed entirely. The upgrades to hivelords, carriers, defences, pheromones, Praetorians and the cave size buff all make it infinitely harder for marines to metarush.

The fog should go. It is redundant and now only serves as an artificial time waster. Time spent building FOBs and hives are pointless as all combat takes place in the barrens, where the fog protects.

The Fog implementation really hasn't changed the way that xenos have made hives at all. Even before the idea of the fog wall, xenos were almost always in the caves/predator temple on LV, that hasn't changed because of the fog wall being implemented.

I'll concede the point that it would be a little more daunting to attack xenos now then it was back a year ago but the problem with this was about the timing. Marines would rush down to the planet, look for an excuse to attack xenos (which xenos readily supplied them with by attacking them), marines would cross the river pretty early on in the xeno evolution cycle, and xenos would usually get fucking stomped. Some type of variation of this would happen and it caused a lot of frustration, from players due to arguments in the playerbase, from staff that had to deal with both sides in an event like this and the complaints on the forums afterwards, and it was just a bad time for everyone in general.

The problem with LV won't be solved by the removal of the Fog Wall, it will just make the situation slowly revert back to what it previously was. The problem lies with what the original intentions with the map were. LV was originally intended for CM when pulling 80-ish players was a high watermark for us. Now, considering that our "highpop" is often double that number, being from around 160-170 for normal rounds, LV just begins to tear apart at the seams. Like all things, LV is showing it's age and it just can't cope with the stress of so many players, no matter what we do to it on our end to try to fix the situation.

The only feasible solution for long term benefit, would be the retirement of the LV map from the roster.

[Feweh]

Youre fucking crazy if you think the Fog is redundant suddenly

[Kailey Prevatt]

'The only feasible solution for long term benefit, would be the retirement of the LV map from the roster.'
The best idea ever.

[DadLantern]

Straight up retiring a whole map is not a good idea. The whole concept of a jungle planet with wide and open caves across a small stream is cool, but it HAS to be modified for new CM.
I do agree with the removal of the fog, but for entirely different reasons. Removing the fog, as Feweh eloquently put it, is 'fucking crazy' and won't solve the problems mentioned above.
Use the same sprites. The same building names. But redesign them. Put some things in the caves like robotics. Move them around. Fix the monstrosity that is the cave layout and you have your new LV-624. I'm not a staff member. I don't know how to do it. I just know it has to be done.

[Zilenan91]

Honestly yeah we should retire LV. The map as designed just doesn't work anymore and it's not fun. I personally can't stand being a marine on it because it restricts gameplay so heavily, and xeno isn't much better because of the aforementioned cyclical nature of it in the OP where every round is extremely predictable.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

Honestly yeah we should retire LV. The map as designed just doesn't work anymore and it's not fun. I personally can't stand being a marine on it because it restricts gameplay so heavily, and xeno isn't much better because of the aforementioned cyclical nature of it in the OP where every round is extremely predictable.

Its certainly not that LV isnt a nice looking map. If the assest were reused and the map was redone I think a LV-625 could be good. But with Prison on the way I doubt we could expect something like that anytime soon.

[Robotic Potato]

Perhaps retiring it doesn't need to be the case, but just a remodel of the map, adding more too it to fit the larger population? More ideal hive locations, larger jungle. Something similar to Ice Colony, where it received a large rework while keeping a lot of the good thing.

[contactdenied]

Something similar to Ice Colony, where it received a large rework while keeping a lot of the good thing.

Are you implying that ice colony has a good thing?

[Robotic Potato]

Are you implying that ice colony has a good thing?

Shush, I like Ice Colonies setting, and atmosphere. The point is that maps have been majorly overhalled before LV could be one.

[Renomaki]

I too don't want LV-624 to be retired. I had too many good memories on that map, and it is still a DAMN good map... It just needs to be resized is all.

As for the fog wall, I think it is a good feature for the map. It gives marines time to set up and mentally prepare themselves, instead of landing planetside and suddenly having the entire hive attack you the moment you land. I hated that shit in the past, and I'm glad that it doesn't happen as often as it did in the past. This isn't CoD, we don't need the bug war to start IMMEDIATELY... I like slow, steady buildup.

[apophis775]

The fog is meant to be Steamy and Moist. It's the Moistness which prevents passage.

[LordLoko]

I think the largest problem with LV is that the conflict is mostly concetrated in an area, that begin the river/Hydro/Tablefort and the southern caves. All that eastern jungle is empty almost all rounds.

When we first had those talks about a "Ground Map", I first tought it would be like the movies where it was a huge complex around a land map, and this is the largest problem that LV always had, the fight is not concetrated around the compound. A remake of LV would need to have, IMO, a larger and more connected map, Ice Colony did well in that regard.

[Snypehunter007]

Just leave mapping problems to Uncles Snype and Raving.

[solidfury7]

Expand the map and work on making LZ2 less irrelevant and I'll be a happy chap.

[Gandalf]

Why not just lock the map down to lowpop games?

Having a selection of maps that cycle based on population should be a standard feature anyway with a server this population swingy.

[Tidomann]

Pretty sure suggestions are closed btw

http://cm-ss13.com/viewtop ... 57&t=15001

[Zilenan91]

Even if the actual compound portion of LV was made better it would still be a bad map because of how the river and the northern portion of the compound works. Xenos can't be based in the compound at roundstart so there's no tension or really any reason to give a shit when marines first drop so this makes it very dull. Once the fog goes down, it's usually just a mad bumrush to the other side of the river where the actual game starts because people hadn't even really been playing the game before then, they would have just been waiting around for 45 minutes until the level could tell them they could actually have fun

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

The fog is meant to be Steamy and Moist. It's the Moistness which prevents passage.

But how is Moistness more effective at stopping bullets than a wall?

[OatzAndHoes]

Fog needs to go, but we need a fix for the metarushing that happened prior to the Fog. I think the best solution to this would be a remapping of the outskirts of LV. I think that there should be a second set of caves to the south or west. Ice and Big Red don't have issues with metarushing because there are multiple hive locations that are feasible to use at roundstart. If LV is fixed to allow the xenos more flexibility in where to place their hive beyond northwest or northeast caves, metarushing would stop and actual scout work would begin like it does on the other two maps.

[Snypehunter007]

Fog needs to go, but we need a fix for the metarushing that happened prior to the Fog. I think the best solution to this would be a remapping of the outskirts of LV. I think that there should be a second set of caves to the south or west. Ice and Big Red don't have issues with metarushing because there are multiple hive locations that are feasible to use at roundstart. If LV is fixed to allow the xenos more flexibility in where to place their hive beyond northwest or northeast caves, metarushing would stop and actual scout work would begin like it does on the other two maps.

Wouldn't fix the problem, it would just be more north v south-centric and the map is simply too small to support this. Even if we did expand the map, it would lose the jungle/marsh theme, which would break the maps theme.

[GoliathTheDespoiler]

Wouldn't fix the problem, it would just be more north v south-centric and the map is simply too small to support this. Even if we did expand the map, it would lose the jungle/marsh theme, which would break the maps theme.

What if hives could be made in jungles? Or if there was another z-level which is all a cave network.

[Snypehunter007]

What if hives could be made in jungles? Or if there was another z-level which is all a cave network.

Z-levels on such a level would quickly turn into ice colony.

Making the jungles weedable would turn into a nightmare for marines because that means EVERY tile on LV would weedable.