OFFICIAL FAVORITE MAP POLL

[apophis775]

This will ONLY include maps currently in the rotation.

Feel free to expand on WHY one is your favorite and WHY you don't like others. This can help us with mapping in the future.

Poll will run for 7 days.

[Blade2000Br]

Where's prison station apophis?

[NoahKirchner]

LV-624 is a solid map, but not as a staple. It has generally few tactics which primarily consist of psuedo-FOB at Hydro rushing river.

Ice colony, while it has a lot more depth of strategy, also lacks the ability to utilize a lot of the marine benefits where the majority of the fighting happens (underground). As a result, command staff and POs get limited use due to communication blackouts and a lack of available targets for CAS runs.

Big Red, however, appears to be a nice balance between the forces at play here. All marine abilities are available, if limited (which isn't an issue) due to buildings. There is a general strategy of "Meet in the middle", but different routes and plans can be taken to engage and outflank the xenos in the alleyways. Furthermore, comms are easy to keep up so Command stays informed.


It seems that, with each progressive map, more gameplay opportunities and depth of strategy open up, as prison map is just as good (if not better) than big red.

[Cry of Wolves]

Where's prison station apophis?

Prison is far too new for players to have a say on the vote is what I'm guessing.

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

Big Red by far. Quite a few routes to engage and manuever, and the buildings provide both solid ground to hold and ambushes by both teams. I love how roughly half the map is both "outside" in cave systems, with the other half being a series of buildings. As for balance, when the xenos are defending Lamda labs, they have more routes into the building to defend than the marines have at LZ 1, with the marines largely having to focus soley on just the east and south until a small xeno strike team attempts to flank into T-comms; but this I believe is balanced due to Lamda's small hallways and choke points, minimizing the amount of damage the marines can send down range, letting the xenos easily judge how long they can tank before having to retreat and heal.

The fog in LV prevents any real engagements for roughly the first 50 minutes; once marines drop it's far too dangerous for the xenos to hang around, especially on high pop rounds, as marines can safely chase lone xenos and trap them. And I'm not a fan of how incredibly vulnerable I feel moving between marine strong holds. The route to hydro is usually never secure, as well as the walk from hydro to table fort. And speaking of securing areas, LZ1 is too vulnerable I think; later in the game when the fog dies down, marines are no longer defending LZ 1 in any real form other than turrets. You'll only ever really find landing pad west of the actual LZ actually defended, with everything else just kinda barricaded off. Even with the machine gun nest in the back of the DS, I find it's usually better to just weld the damn door shut.

[JennerH]

I like big red because of how much it feels like Hadley's Hope from the movies. It also has plenty of variety with types of engagements ranging from cave pushes, courtyard brawls, intense hallway shootouts, LZ defenses and so on. It also allows the marines to push in whenever they want as long as they're able to find a way into a location (IE blowing through a blast door, ect) so there's no set downtime like with the fog. Survivor is also really fun on big red whereas on LV you either hide in some obscure bush or wooden cade with a body bag or you hope marines land quick enough and one of you are robust enough to shotgun stun the first time everytime.

I wanna love ICE as well, but it's just not a fun map for me as marine, and it's not even the 2 level map design, it's the slow, sluggish movement that the marines have because of their snow gear, and TComms is just too far to hold for any period of time without crippling other fronts.

Prison seems like a good combo, although I wish we didn't have to be so careful around the external windows. Not knowing the layout is also refreshing and stressful as SL

[WinterClould]

Voting Biggest Reddest Rock because I do like it a lot and it's been my favorite since I first played it. It's just so well rounded and good for anything.

But honestly, having played prison maybe 5 times throughout its development I'm 99% sure it would be my new pick if it was a selectable option. I totally love this map and am so happy its been officially added.

[Blade2000Br]

Prison is far too new for players to have a say on the vote is what I'm guessing.

Tbh it had a giant impact in the game. It just takes everything that is great about LV and Big Red and applies to the map... Is just magic.

But if we gonna go with those listed, Big Red wins by far. There's so much you can do with it past the meta (LZ1 FOB) that you simply can't implement on LV due to being game changing/breaking or Ice due it's difficulty with comms.

WO....WO is just a meme. Though with some tweaks could become a fun gamemode.

[TehSpoderman]

LV is a good map, but it has been played so many times that the meta has been fully developed, not allowing really much creativity with FoBs and orders.

Ice Colony is a good map atmosphere-wise, but gameplay wise is horrible for marines. Having to either trudge across the entire top z-level of the map or going to LZ2 and hoping aliens arent camping there and go up the elevator is really not good. Combine that with the cold and you have an unenjoyable map for marines. Its pretty fun for aliens though.

Big Red is a great map. T-Comms is close to the LZ but still vulnerable that a smart alien can easily fuck up comms. It also allows more FoB and tactical opportunities like flanks. It also has a good atmosphere imo. My favorite map.

[Caryl]

The fog is severely limiting the options for survivors to actually scavenge and survive, being stuck in a small area which can be greatly covered by the aliens early on.

Voted for Whiskey Outpost due to wave spawns and awesome weapons that are not available in normal game modes.

P.S. Big Red/Ice Colony/Prison Map are al good maps. LV-624, not so much.

[Monoo]

Big Red is complete ass in my opinion.

Pretty much every game I've played on it results in a boring stalemate - there's no active northern-southern progression in the fighting, like there is on LV, nor is there a clearly defined border into enemy territory like LV's river. As a hive, Lambda is designed a little too well, in that it's absolutely godawful and broken and nearly impossible for marines to assault. The passageways are narrow and bad for pushing, meaning four or five aliens can hold it down and turn a certain defeat for them into a long, grueling victory (as well as extending the round by another two hours).

Even if the marines pull a miracle and secure Lambda, it's even easier to delay by running around in the caves than it is on LV, as they cover more of the map and can't be covered as well by small teams of marines.

The environment sprites are bland and boring too. Personal nitpick, but eh.

I'd rather play on literally any of the other maps given the choice, but LV's the most fun; it's the most well designed for both sides and has had the longest time to be playtested and balanced.

That being said, I really really like Prison Station. It's fun as hell.

[oprayx73]

LV is actually an okay map, very well known. Its flaw is the silly fog that completely breaks momentum/reality/immersion.
It's also a hellhole for survivors.

Big red is possibly the best due to it's layout, no artificial barrier, survivors have chances to go to many places, and randomly get certain rewards.

Ice is not too terrible. It's interesting and has a definite uniqueness with the whole underground part.
The cold part is a bit crippling. Moving at paincrit speeds whilst 100% geared and healthy is a bit silly.

[TehSpoderman]

By the way, if you break a window leading to space in Prison, a shutter goes down.

[Cupcakes_n_Hacksaws]

I'm not sure why whiskey is even an option TBH given that it's almost completely driven by admin intervention, at least from my experiences. It's more of an event than anything. Also we can chop the vines in whiskey, why can't we chop the vines on LV?

[apophis775]

Where's prison station apophis?

Prison map is super new (since the redux) and I didn't think it fair to try and compare it to the others when we've had less than 10 rounds on it.

[TehSpoderman]

Prison map is super new (since the redux) and I didn't think it fair to try and compare it to the others when we've had less than 10 rounds on it.

Why don't we keep playing it then? I think its better to keep a new map up a little longer than others so that people can form an opinion on whether or not they like the map.

[Kerek]

LV is by far my favorite map, I have a lot of nostalgia from it as it was the only map being played when I joined, but the fog has almost ruined it for me. Big reds my second favorite. Ice colony is by far my least favorite, no insult to the mappers but I won't play much if its on Ice colony. The snow is a nice idea, but it just hurts with the speed and getting slow based on RNG. Plus if you get infected, its completely game ending, you get put into pain crit, and can't even give your xeno captors a run for their money.

[Tharinoma]

I hate the fog on LV.

I hate the huge never used cave system on big red.

I hate the ladder mechanics, underground mechanics (no CAS no beacons) on ice colony. Slowdown is ok.

I voted for big red. LV and big red are good. I don't like ice much.

[davidofmk771]

I like big red because of how much it feels like Hadley's Hope from the movies.

I have to echo this a lot. The beginning scenes of Aliens when you see Hadley's Hope in it's normal operations is really cool to me, the idea of small urbanized towns in space. Aside from that, I enjoy the lack of fog in lieu of more space. It makes the game progression feel natural and flowing rather than the meta of "nexus FOB>hydro FOB>wait for fog>cross river" that LV has developed into in it's natural lifespan as a map.

The LV map that Ribbonflex posted in his dev application it pretty much exactly how I want a rural, jungle-like colony. A large, sprawling complex with lots of overgrowth between.

Ice, well, it's Ice. The "two levels" issue has been discussed to death, and i'm sure the cold-slowness has been too. It certainly adds flavor to the server, though, and i'd rather see it get some sort of revamp than ever be removed altogether if that time ever comes.

[Lumdor]

Big red is one of the best as it does not have the problem's that Ice Colony has, and is way bigger than LV.

[Nezara]

I have a preference for big red, so far games Iv played there have been very dynamic with pushes, holds and retreats at every major area of the map.

I enjoyed ice map for the one or two rounds I had there, it felt like an incredibly hostile and dangerous environment but I felt like the underground, while a scary place to be, was just far too easy for aliens to cheese. Ladders and elevators were just meat grinders, dropping 6-10 marines if the aliens pushed. I liked that it forced more coordination between squads...not that they ever successfully coordinated..

I saw prison once, but I only jumped in briefly as spectator to see how close the round was from ending.

LV is good, but I'm growing a little stale of it, every game has played the same for me.

[Zilenan91]

LV is very very restrictive in what the map will allow you to do. The fog enforces FOB building, turtling, and a slower playstyle since marines use up most of their resources in areas that are near their LZs since they can't go anywhere else. This is why it is bad for marines. For aliens, it forces you sit in a small area for 45 minutes and it's boring even if the fog is necessary.

Big Red on the other hand, is the exact opposite, there are so many places that marines can build forward bases at during their assault, and the lack of fog means that their attack can happen at any time. There is rarely a situation on Big Red where marines aren't actively on the map searching for the aliens, and due to a multitude of viable hive spots causes there to be uncertainty, which causes ramboing and other forms of metagaming to be virtually non-existent due to this uncertainty. Due to hives being able to be in a couple of places also makes fighting on it less static; on LV fighting is in a big line from tablefort to the nexus because that's the only place xenos can make a hive, but on Big Red big fights can take place virtually anywhere on the entire map because of how many viable hive spots there are. For xenos it's also far less boring because they aren't restricted to a narrow area and allows for a wider range of castes to be more viable because combat can happen at any stage of a xeno's life-cycle if they start at the beginning of the game. You're not punished for deciding to upgrade as a T1, for example, because that immediate boost in power can come in handy if your hive is going to be fighting marines early on, whereas on LV you are directly punished for upgrading as a T1 at the start because you're going to be Ancient far before the fog even drops, whereas the T2s are Elite just after it drops. This causes a subtle shift in power earlier in the caste tree that I enjoy a lot.

Ice fucking sucks even though I love the sprites. The cold slowdown is a unique mechanic but the map is absolutely not up to par to have these mechanics be a fun addition.

Edit: Oh yeah and Whiskey Outpost is broken. Like legitimately it doesn't work, there's not enough time to prepare at the beginning and it's riddled with bugs that make it unenjoyable for more than a couple rounds.

[Mister Jeether]

I'm going for Big red, Because it has so much FOB Options and Hive Options, along with a Vent system that is actually usefull. Ice slows MAJORLY marines down, along with the fact that the T-comms System is literally the most far local of LZ1.

If Prison was an Option, I'd TOTALLY be down for it. It has a HUGE potentiall to be the best Map CM has ever had.

[Cactos]

I voted for Big Red, but Ice Colony would have had my vote if it wasn't for a few things.

Something I can't stand about Ice Colony is the cold. Even with all our gear on, including a coif, the cold SLOWS US DOWN. Being that slow makes it nearly impossible to even put up a fight against the aliens. The ladder leading to the underground areas isn't as bad as people say it is, but I'll agree the underground is really good for the xenos. I think it makes the map really cool in it's own way, having two floors. The size doesn't affect me personally, I think it's a REALLY fun map to scout on. But for real, I would have voted for Ice Colony if the cold didn't slow people down. Getting that fixed would be amazing.

[dannykz]

I think Ice Colony is only good for PVP.