OFFICIAL FAVORITE MAP POLL

[liltiptop]

I enjoy all maps but Ice, the slowdown on marines just makes it flat out not fun to play at all.

[Enceri]

>40 votes big red
what the fuck

[Renomaki]

It is sad to see how everyone rushes right to Big Red, despite the issues it has.

I myself love playing on LV-624. It isn't a perfect map, but it is still a damn good map. It is a nicely split battlefield, with a colony and thick jungle on one side, and a vast barrens and deadly cave-network on the other, each side clearly made for the faction they house.

The fog, while controversial, is useful in that it not only protects xenos from being metarushed by over-eager marines, it also gives marines time to prepare themselves for the coming conflict, instead of having the queen set up her hive right in the middle of the colony and giving the marines a big middle finger to pacing.

And not only is the map's design very friendly for CaS (meaning POs on CaS duty aren't going to be bored for the majority of the round), but it is also NEWBIE friendly. I learned how to play all the classes on that map, because it is a very easy map to play on and thus good to trying new things.

People go on about how great Big Red is, but in my experience, Big Red carries over quite a few flaws that LV-624 once had, and even introduces some new problems that marines keep ignoring (mainly that aliens keep flanking via Tcomms every single time, which makes defending LZ1 nearly impossible unless you, as a CO, can convince them to stop building outside all the damn time.. But you know marines..).

Hell, LV-624 is the best map to play as a predator, not just because of the setting but because of the several locations you can set up a lodge at. On ICE, there is only one place to set up, and on Big Red... Well.. I don't really know.

I swear, if we ever get rid of LV-624, I'll be sad.

[thatguyfromlife]

Everyone seems to hate Ice because its so big, and comms and power are far away, except that they're not at all. LZ 2 is right next to power and comms, but since the meta is to only use DS 2 for CAS, everyone whines about how far they have to walk from LZ 1. Ice doesn't support running of alone to meta hunt the hive, you need to move in groups at a slow pace, and marines hate that. If more people realized that Ice needs a different play style, more people might enjoy it. Its more of a horror than a action movie, unlike Big Red.

[Steelpoint]

Whisky Outpost is so rare a map I'm surprised it's even counted as a voting option.

I personally enjoy Big Red even though I admit it can get a bit repetitive at times.

[manezinho]

Give ice some love.

[NenMaster]

I feel Big red is sorta the best balanced at the moment. Since you'll get fire fights more spread out around the maps. While LV and Ice it sends to be either at LZ1/2 or Hydro type areas.

Whisky; Eh its just a okay. Nothing really special about it besides defence game being three laned.

[immaspaceninja]

boop

As a person whos favorite map is ice, because of that feeling of being seperated from everyone else with a small number of people, when you can only rely on yourself and whoever is around you, i'd say the reason the map gets so much hate isn't because marines are unga-dungas who cant get over 'metahunting' the hive and all that. Its mostly because of comms and multi-z-level system.

LZ 2 is right next to power and comms, but since the meta is to only use DS 2 for CAS, everyone whines about how far they have to walk from LZ 1

You forgot that nothing prevents xenos from slashing the comms whenever they want, and to fully secure the comms you need a pretty solid part of platoon, since you have to watch UNDERGROUND CARGO, SOUTH LZ2 ENTRANCE and TCOMMS RELAY at the same time to both prevent comms getting shredded and keeping the LZ2 safe, which should act as a retreat route in case tcomms warehouse gets overrun.
And building the main FOB at the LZ2 is not a solution, because, well, LZ1 has the dropship console, which lets xenos go straight to the almayer. This whole process becomes even more painfull during lowpop and midpop.
I think blaming people who dislike ice for 'being a tryhard' or 'only wanting to win' isn't right, because its hard to enjoy the game when all the progress of becoming buddies with your squad suddenly gets wiped by a horde of xenos stomping you, while your squad was trying to keep the comms up and running or something like that.

[thatguyfromlife]

As a person whos favorite map is ice, because of that feeling of being seperated from everyone else with a small number of people, when you can only rely on yourself and whoever is around you, i'd say the reason the map gets so much hate isn't because marines are unga-dungas who cant get over 'metahunting' the hive and all that. Its mostly because of comms and multi-z-level system.



You forgot that nothing prevents xenos from slashing the comms whenever they want, and to fully secure the comms you need a pretty solid part of platoon, since you have to watch UNDERGROUND CARGO, SOUTH LZ2 ENTRANCE and TCOMMS RELAY at the same time to both prevent comms getting shredded and keeping the LZ2 safe, which should act as a retreat route in case tcomms warehouse gets overrun.
And building the main FOB at the LZ2 is not a solution, because, well, LZ1 has the dropship console, which lets xenos go straight to the almayer. This whole process becomes even more painfull during lowpop and midpop.
I think blaming people who dislike ice for 'being a tryhard' or 'only wanting to win' isn't right, because its hard to enjoy the game when all the progress of becoming buddies with your squad suddenly gets wiped by a horde of xenos stomping you, while your squad was trying to keep the comms up and running or something like that.

I feel you on the muti z-levels. As much as I like underground, its just too big. Ice rounds have had some of the best RP I've had, with the feeling of getting cut off, comms going down, all that. Its not a perfect map, but it's always fun to play a few rounds, at least. And those winter uniforms are the best thing ever.

[WinterClould]

Ice can ETERNALLY and CONTINUALLY suck my off. That map is aids. Marine movement speed is cancer. Tcomms is aids. Ladder and elevator ambushes are herpes. Xeno hive placement makes me want to kill myself. RP is a lie. Free Will is a myth. On Ice your just a slave to death via bad meme's.

WO needs SOOOOOO much love before its worth ever even running again. From mechanics to layout it needs so much help. I do love its idea and the idea of how its gameplay could go if it was updated and improved. It's just so crippled right now

LV is pretty amazing. Sure it's tired and old and needs a fresh layout update that's more then a new coat of paint, but it's a great map for lower pop rounds. A fun time no doubt about it.

BR has such a good balance to it that its no wonder its everyone's favorite. It's good clean fun. Its big enough for survivors. Its big enough for multiple tactics. Its a damn fine map for CAS and all other powers marines have. Xenos get a few picks of viable hives that don't make people salty when they pick them. It's good shit for everyone.

Prison colony is a new place with some wicked fun times for everyone once we get a better grasp on the layout. Its tight layout is intense and a wonderful thrill. Both LZ-1 and LZ-2 have actually use for the marines. Xeno's have all the ambush points they could ever dream of. It just FEELS fantastic. I already can't wait for it to come back once again. Hopefully before we get stuck with Ice again.

Muh Rankings
1)Prison
2)Big Red
3)LV-624
4)Whiskey Outpost (Plz give massive update)
5)Ice Colony (Aids plz remove)

[Denied_Existence]

I definitely have to echo what others have said.

Big Red has some problems, but a lot of those come down to marine play (Like command not straight up assigning people to build and man Tcomms defenses), but I've had awesome games on it.

Last week I fondly remember a round where we were fighting from research to medical back and forth, to where medical became a blasted hellscape with makeshift defenses as we fought tooth-and-nail for each tile back and forth, slowly crumbling walls from sheer amount of bullets fired. We beat them back towards research several times, and got pushed back again a few times yet. It was frankly awesome.

LV does need a major revamp, and I've liked what I saw in one of the recent dev applications, and ice is probably better relegated to Human Vs Human.

[OatzAndHoes]

LV is balanced and pretty run of the mill, but the fog mechanic really is forced. I get why it got implemented. I was even one of the people advocating for some sort of fog-like system at the time, but now it's made rounds on that map extremely stale and predictable. I'd recommend expanding the cave system over another side of the map at a minimum and removing the fog so that now xenos actually have a choice as to where to put a hive, and making marines have to scout in order to find the hive like on the other maps. I feel like that could really shake things up and make for some very interesting rounds that consist of more than: fortify nexus and hydro or LZ2 and medical, then battle it out at the river until one side wins.

Big Red is probably the best balanced map gameplay wise at the moment. There are 3 major hive locations, with 2 of them being very feasible, and the other being somewhat difficult to pull off a win with. Marines generally like to stick to lz1, but lz2 is still a good FOB location. Also battles can take place anywhere on the map, leading to new and fresh rounds every time. Also a variety of marine strategies are feasible on this map. All out assaults work sometimes, as do cautious battles. You can have your engineers focus on making an impenetrable fob that will result in multi-hour long sieges, or build combat outposts along your supply lines and at the frontlines.

Ice is a map that doesn't get a lot of love, but it has a very special place in my heart. While this map is generally a suicide mission for marines unless you have some top level leaders and engineers, it is probably the most immersive map in the game. Picture this: You're a squad engineer and you get assigned to bar duty. After setting up some barricades you start getting some minor contacts, nothing major, but you take a casualty or two. Then suddenly comms is lit up. It's the LZ2 squads begging to be evacuated. Their mission underground was a shitshow and now their defenses are getting overrun. Suddenly the net goes silent, comms are offline. Your SL is busy coordinating the defenses and trying to get the POs to communicate to command, so he asks you, the squads only engineer, to grab some volunteers and get comms back online. That long cold walk to tcomms is probably one of the tensest moments you will have in game. You all try to keep silent, knowing that if an alien hears you your little 5 man team will be overrun in seconds. You keep going though, you have orders and the fate of the mission rests on your fire team's ability to get comms back online. You just don't get moments like this as often on the other maps, the sheer difficulty of ice colony makes times like these happen a lot. You'll die more often than not, but that makes those times where you actually succeed and pull off something that saves the mission, or even just a few marines lives, a whole lot sweeter.
Also I'd kill to get this set as ambient noise on that map:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FGOe4GwX9oM

[OatzAndHoes]

You forgot that nothing prevents xenos from slashing the comms whenever they want, and to fully secure the comms you need a pretty solid part of platoon, since you have to watch UNDERGROUND CARGO, SOUTH LZ2 ENTRANCE and TCOMMS RELAY at the same time to both prevent comms getting shredded and keeping the LZ2 safe, which should act as a retreat route in case tcomms warehouse gets overrun.

Just build a couple layers of walls in front of the APC. Sure it takes a bit of metal, but sacrificing 18-30 metal sheets and 5 minutes of your time is worth having comms for the majority of the round. Everytime I do this comms generally won't go offline because the aliens who go to tcomms to slash it are runners 9 times outta 10, so they won't have acid. Out of those runners, about only 50% of the them will actually ask for a spitter or sentinel to come melt the walls. An even smaller percentage will bug the sentinel or spitter enough that they will actually do it. If their are multiple layers to the walls, the spitters will generally fuck off after laying down the first layer of acid and have to be bugged to come back again to melt the next layers. All in all if you wall off the APC a large portion of the time xenos won't give a fuck enough to melt through, and the other times it could take them quite a while to be coordinated enough to do it. Not a lot of spitters like leaving the marine salt mines long enough to go fuck off to an obscure corner of the map just to melt some walls.

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.

Bring some coffee in a canteen. 2 filled Canteens in your armour pockets is 4 cups worth of coffee, well enough to get you through any tight spots where you need speed.

[Kesserline]

It was hard to choose between BR and LV but, BR.

Voting : Big Red is more nervous, has wide areas, tight areas, flanking path, pushing path. Only weakness is Tcomms, but it's only a real weakness when marines are on a victim-defensive stance.

Heart-break, but no voting : LV is so great, as a marine, before the fog clears out, because you can hunt down and trap EVERY single xenos on the colony side. Usually, you can have between 3 to 5 kills, with really limited casualties for marines.

But the attrition war in the caves is really too damn boring, marines refusing to push, or sticking to the N-E cave entrance-chokepoint and getting rekt 7/10 times.

CLEARLY NOT VOTING : Ice Colony is cancer. It would be MAYBE enjoyable for marines if you remove the slow-speed. But still :
- Too many fights underground, means no OB, no CAS
- Underground map is 60% made of tight corridors, impossible for marines to push and easily getting rekt by Crushers or trapped with Boilers.


Everytime I don't see Ice Colony in a while, I'm like that :

[immaspaceninja]

Just build a couple layers of walls in front of the APC

I've been playing on ice since it's first version and walling off the APC is the first thing i tried. I've done it countless times, but in 99% of them it ended with xenos melting said walls (up to 3 layers) and slashing the APC within next 20-30 minutes.
I even remember them calling t3s to melt REINFORCED WALLS, when the APC was located in a small warehouse.

[Feweh]

Everyone loves Big Red till they wipe out the aliens at 50 minutes in and then spend the next 30 minutes gearing up, 10 minutes walking around and 10 minutes shooting aliens.

Only to repeat the cycle again and again until eventually someone realizes, maybe we shouldnt be rushing the aliens instantly so we can maximize our fun.

[Imperator_Titan]

I personally prefer WO over all the maps, mainly because it fits my idea of a realistic marine versus aliens gamemode. Xenos actually feel expendable due to the sheer amount of them and marines feel out-numbered every single step of the way. Xenos use wave tactics and marines use just about everything they can while having a heroic last-stand to the final man. The atmosphere and core gameplay of WO is simply put, amazing. Definitely prefer it over all the other maps.

[Blade2000Br]

Everyone loves Big Red till they wipe out the aliens at 50 minutes in and then spend the next 30 minutes gearing up, 10 minutes walking around and 10 minutes shooting aliens.

Only to repeat the cycle again and again until eventually, someone realizes, maybe we shouldn't be rushing the aliens instantly so we can maximize our fun.

I think it's something about dynamism... and also, gonna be a little bias here, Xeno main players are toxic. I mean, not everyone of course, but some of then are just waaay to toxic. Like, those kids from shooter games that everyone wants to kick because he knows he will curse your mom till the end of times.

so marine players kinda of want to make those toxic little kids pay or whatever by killing those ayys. that's a plausible explication.

the other is just because this is a PvP game and "we" need to win to feel satisfied. it doesn't matter if we don't mechanically get any benefits, just for having that satisfaction of end game with you alive and Dchat calling "marine major" despite not even exist any more ties with our mind. marine majors, Xeno majors, despite being removed, are just in the core of the ones that play this game, no matter what.

felt philosophical there for a moment.

[NoahKirchner]

Everyone loves Big Red till they wipe out the aliens at 50 minutes in and then spend the next 30 minutes gearing up, 10 minutes walking around and 10 minutes shooting aliens.

Only to repeat the cycle again and again until eventually someone realizes, maybe we shouldnt be rushing the aliens instantly so we can maximize our fun.

Maybe another fog like system on big red could work, similar to the civilian lockdown on prison station. The research part of the map was locked off in an attempt to stop the spread of the xenos and, after power's turned back on, will open in 30 or so minutes to give the xenos some time to gestate.

[Steelpoint]

Why don't you try something more interesting like powerful automatic gun turrets that fire in full 360 degrees at max range and will shoot anyone and everyone who gets into range, and these turrets are placed at strategic locations to cut off Xeno and Human exploration until either someone takes the effort to destroy them or the Marines shut them off remotely automatically after X minutes.

I hate the Fog mechanic on LV as its clearly a OOC action taken to delay the main combat from occurring until the xenos are more secure.

I'd prefer a far more organic system that felt justifiable in universe but can also be bypassed early if one side really wants to expend the effort or is prepared to take a very long way around.

[Zilenan91]

Maybe another fog like system on big red could work, similar to the civilian lockdown on prison station. The research part of the map was locked off in an attempt to stop the spread of the xenos and, after power's turned back on, will open in 30 or so minutes to give the xenos some time to gestate.

Fuck no

Anyways, the balance on Big Red is fine. Playing the game for longer doesn't mean that you're having more fun, because on LV it's just 50 minutes of sitting around with your thumb up your ass not being able to do anything.

And if xenos keep losing on it, then it's time for them to git gud because it's not hard for them to win on there.

[Feweh]

Fuck no

Anyways, the balance on Big Red is fine. Playing the game for longer doesn't mean that you're having more fun, because on LV it's just 50 minutes of sitting around with your thumb up your ass not being able to do anything.

And if xenos keep losing on it, then it's time for them to git gud because it's not hard for them to win on there.

This is the stupidest comment I've read in awhile.

"Balance is fine"

Spend 30 minutes deploying, 10 minutes setting up FOB and 10 minutes killing the aliens.

Only to restart that all over again the next round.

Your fun to doing nothing ratio is literally 10mins/40mins.

[NoahKirchner]

Why don't you try something more interesting like powerful automatic gun turrets that fire in full 360 degrees at max range and will shoot anyone and everyone who gets into range, and these turrets are placed at strategic locations to cut off Xeno and Human exploration until either someone takes the effort to destroy them or the Marines shut them off remotely automatically after X minutes.

I hate the Fog mechanic on LV as its clearly a OOC action taken to delay the main combat from occurring until the xenos are more secure.

I'd prefer a far more organic system that felt justifiable in universe but can also be bypassed early if one side really wants to expend the effort or is prepared to take a very long way around.

I like this idea a lot better, but only with extremely ample warning. Nothing sucks more than running into a turret on a new map and dying and nobody being able to recover your corpse because you are dead within it's range.

[Zilenan91]

This is the stupidest comment I've read in awhile.

"Balance is fine"

Spend 30 minutes deploying, 10 minutes setting up FOB and 10 minutes killing the aliens.

Only to restart that all over again the next round.

Your fun to doing nothing ratio is literally 10mins/40mins.

I have never seen a round over in 10 minutes after marines drop except in the lowest population

That's also neglecting to mention that most marines will not be at the FOB for 10 minutes, and most marines will not be gearing up for 30 minutes. Besides, gearing up isn't really doing nothing because it involves actual decisions on what you want to do in the round based on your gear. If it was actually worthless to the gameplay then gearing up wouldn't be a thing and we would just have a loadout system when we spawned in.

[Challenger]

LV is extremely linear, no creativity. As an alien you only have the choice of occasionally hiving elsewhere in the caves to throw off the metapush. As a marine you don't have any choice, unless you count cargo/fitness/LZ2 strats as "choices" but those are more, things you can only feasibly do 1% of the time to throw aliens off and otherwise come with massive disadvantages. That said, the line that it takes you through is pretty good: you have a good variation of open fields, dome, jungle, road, cave combat in the average match, overall it feels like a team-deathmatch control point gamemode. The fog isn't terrible but it essentially means only runners and hunters can really have any fun, if at all. Takes the gameplay away from the aliens and almost all the tension and conflict away from the marines.

Big Red's already been praised here for its nonlinearity, but I can agree as someone who doesn't main marine or xeno that it can be very unfairly harsh to xenos especially on lowpop. Especially when there's far too many larva compared to active xenos, overall individual xenos matter the least on this map which doesn't work with the reality of how many people are willing to play as one, I constantly see 1h curbstomps or 3-4h rounds caused by aliens recovering from a curbstomp with massive amounts of dead on both sides. And on the note of round length, Big Red's LZ1 is a bit too defensible resulting in far too many stalemates only broken by constant screeching, gassing, and crushing, which leaves a majority of aliens useless and a majority of marines not really doing much either other than plinking away at the aliens to buy a few seconds.

Ice Colony has even more nonlinearity and the most atmosphere of any map. But it's so fucking annoying to play as a marine if you have bad command or bad engineers, given how reliant the squads are on telecomms being up, fortified fallbacks, doors pried open etc., ESPECIALLY that no one knows how to get anywhere except very few people (in part due to the ladders not even aligning between the above/underground). cold slowdown isn't too big a deal as marines aren't the team that relies so much on mobility anyway, and xenos get slowed down in the snow as well, with most areas on the map being more open to compensate, like the hallways being 4-5 wide instead of the usual 2-3.

So I like Big Red the most here, but if I could combine the best parts of each map I'd put together LV's pacing, especially at the LZ and caves, with Big Red's combat and flanking options in the middle parts, and Ice Colony's atmosphere and look in general.