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Maps for the 2024 Season Options
Caedus
Posted: Tuesday, September 19, 2023 1:57:52 PM
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Now that the dust has settled on GenCon and VassalCon, I would like to hear your suggestions and wishes and "Good Lord, please don't do that again." I'll be putting some things together and will probably start formulating a new maplist within the next 3-4 weeks. I will be looking at number of maps, and WotC maps, new maps, old maps, and trying to keep balance with everything else. Leave 'em here
spryguy1981
Posted: Tuesday, September 19, 2023 2:50:11 PM
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Peaceful City
Mercenary Base
Smuggler's Base

Those are my top 3.
thereisnotry
Posted: Tuesday, September 19, 2023 8:14:07 PM
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Some maps I've always liked and would like to see on the Restricted Maplist (unless someone can point out a severely exploitable problem that I'm not seeing):

-Sinkhole (#82) I've always liked this one since it is very different from just about all other maps. Each side has some worthwhile routes for advancing to the center.
-Knight's Outpost (#151)
-Marooned Starship (#155)
-Frigid Outpost (#165) It's similar to Rhen Var but with some stuff in the center room and some interesting minor changes...if Rhen Var is worth using, then this one is too.


Both the Knight's Outpost and Marooned Starship maps do not have the green/yellow lines drawn on them, but I recently learned how to draw these. I could draw the lines onto these maps if we had a group of people (perhaps some people from the BC?) make some decisions about what lines would go where. It seems to me that most of these decisions would be fairly straight-forward.
DarthMaim
Posted: Wednesday, September 20, 2023 10:29:16 AM
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My fav is Rhen Var ThumpUp
Caedus
Posted: Thursday, September 21, 2023 9:44:15 AM
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thereisnotry wrote:
Some maps I've always liked and would like to see on the Restricted Maplist (unless someone can point out a severely exploitable problem that I'm not seeing):

-Sinkhole (#82) I've always liked this one since it is very different from just about all other maps. Each side has some worthwhile routes for advancing to the center.
-Knight's Outpost (#151)
-Marooned Starship (#155)
-Frigid Outpost (#165) It's similar to Rhen Var but with some stuff in the center room and some interesting minor changes...if Rhen Var is worth using, then this one is too.


Both the Knight's Outpost and Marooned Starship maps do not have the green/yellow lines drawn on them, but I recently learned how to draw these. I could draw the lines onto these maps if we had a group of people (perhaps some people from the BC?) make some decisions about what lines would go where. It seems to me that most of these decisions would be fairly straight-forward.



Thank you for your input. I like Sinkhole, the only thing that makes me pause here is there are some pretty long lines of sight and the threat of a deepstriker getting across the map without any obstruction kinda worries me, but I am taking this one as well as Frigid Outpost into consideration. The only thing about Frigid that I don't like is rigged detonators benefiting greatly with this map, punishing someone that is engaging in the center. However it also punishes a squad that gets to start in the same center, so there is that.


With Knight's Outpost and Marooned Starship, the lack of terrain markings obviously, but the water (river on KO and the Beachfront on MS) are they pits and if you get pushed in them do you die? because with water in a position that you can get pushed out of gambit and not only lose 10 pt, but also a character, is a fierce NPE to me.
thereisnotry
Posted: Thursday, September 21, 2023 3:31:34 PM
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That's why I'm thinking that we'd need some people to have these conversations and make some official decisions about how that would work...would they be pits or difficult terrain? Those kinds of questions would need to be discussed.
Caedus
Posted: Thursday, September 21, 2023 5:31:05 PM
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thereisnotry wrote:
That's why I'm thinking that we'd need some people to have these conversations and make some official decisions about how that would work...would they be pits or difficult terrain? Those kinds of questions would need to be discussed.


Deri would be someone to have that conversation with, if you are able.
thereisnotry
Posted: Friday, September 22, 2023 6:46:24 AM
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Yes, I remember that Deri was a genius when it came to map analysis; if he was up for this then I would love to have his input. As I recall, he was the one who designed the layout of Rhen Var, too. Maybe I could find a couple of people and see if they'd be up for tackling this project. But first I'd need to know that these 2 maps would even be on the shortlist to be considered for the Restricted list.

And I hear you about not wanting pits standing near the center of the map; I had thought of that too, and so I was figuring the river part would be yellow terrain...there's no benefit to standing in it, and it's a pain in the neck to move through. And here's the thing with having us draw the lines on the map (rather than having them pre-drawn): we get to decide! If we don't want a pit running the width of the map, we can make it difficult terrain.
urbanjedi
Posted: Thursday, September 28, 2023 6:56:20 PM
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thereisnotry wrote:


-Sinkhole (#82) I've always liked this one since it is very different from just about all other maps. Each side has some worthwhile routes for advancing to the center.



1 wide hallways combined with the potential for diplomats and cloaked characters make it very abusable by a number of squads against a great variety of squad
urbanjedi
Posted: Thursday, September 28, 2023 7:19:16 PM
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thereisnotry wrote:

-Frigid Outpost (#165) It's similar to Rhen Var but with some stuff in the center room and some interesting minor changes...if Rhen Var is worth using, then this one is too.



This should seems like it should be worth a shot on the restricted list
FlyingArrow
Posted: Friday, September 29, 2023 8:23:08 AM
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thereisnotry wrote:

-Knight's Outpost (#151)


The river on Knight's Outpost is flowing down. So the majority of the river is difficult terrain, including all the water near gambit. The waterfall and the water along the bottom edge of the map is pits.
FlyingArrow
Posted: Friday, September 29, 2023 8:25:02 AM
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thereisnotry wrote:
Both the Knight's Outpost and Marooned Starship maps do not have the green/yellow lines drawn on them, but I recently learned how to draw these. I could draw the lines onto these maps if we had a group of people (perhaps some people from the BC?) make some decisions about what lines would go where. It seems to me that most of these decisions would be fairly straight-forward.


I'm pretty sure those lines are there on the physical maps, even if not on the digital versions. So there shouldn't be any decisions that we have to make. Unless maybe there are some stairs or something that are missing obvious markings.
thereisnotry
Posted: Friday, September 29, 2023 10:20:45 AM
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FlyingArrow wrote:
thereisnotry wrote:
Both the Knight's Outpost and Marooned Starship maps do not have the green/yellow lines drawn on them, but I recently learned how to draw these. I could draw the lines onto these maps if we had a group of people (perhaps some people from the BC?) make some decisions about what lines would go where. It seems to me that most of these decisions would be fairly straight-forward.


I'm pretty sure those lines are there on the physical maps, even if not on the digital versions. So there shouldn't be any decisions that we have to make. Unless maybe there are some stairs or something that are missing obvious markings.
Oh, I didn't know that! Haha, that's funny. I'd like to see a picture of a physical map then. My main concern is how restrictive are the markings in the "Grotto" area (in the center of the map). If the terrain is really restrictive of movement then I'm afraid it would be a major downer...so that's an important factor.
thereisnotry
Posted: Friday, September 29, 2023 10:22:39 AM
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urbanjedi wrote:
thereisnotry wrote:


-Sinkhole (#82) I've always liked this one since it is very different from just about all other maps. Each side has some worthwhile routes for advancing to the center.



1 wide hallways combined with the potential for diplomats and cloaked characters make it very abusable by a number of squads against a great variety of squad
Ok, fair enough. I wonder if there's a way to take some of the design approaches on this map and essentially re-create it with less 1-wide hallways.
FlyingArrow
Posted: Saturday, September 30, 2023 11:01:55 AM
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thereisnotry wrote:
FlyingArrow wrote:
thereisnotry wrote:
Both the Knight's Outpost and Marooned Starship maps do not have the green/yellow lines drawn on them, but I recently learned how to draw these. I could draw the lines onto these maps if we had a group of people (perhaps some people from the BC?) make some decisions about what lines would go where. It seems to me that most of these decisions would be fairly straight-forward.


I'm pretty sure those lines are there on the physical maps, even if not on the digital versions. So there shouldn't be any decisions that we have to make. Unless maybe there are some stairs or something that are missing obvious markings.
Oh, I didn't know that! Haha, that's funny. I'd like to see a picture of a physical map then. My main concern is how restrictive are the markings in the "Grotto" area (in the center of the map). If the terrain is really restrictive of movement then I'm afraid it would be a major downer...so that's an important factor.


Just pulled out the physical maps.

Marooned Starship has "no doors". There are places that clearly look like they should be doors but are missing the blue squares to indicate doors. All the other terrain markings are present. We should decide whether the gray lines actually count as doors or not. Presumably that's a decision for Caedus with input from the map committee, Matt Francella himself, plus the rest of the community. I'm pretty sure (90%) they were supposed to be doors, but I'm not 100% sure.

Knight's Outpost is an outlier in the sense that it doesn't have its name printed on the map, but that's not relevant to a Restricted decision. It has all the markings, but there is one single square of stairs that doesn't have the difficult terrain marking. Likewise, if it's going to restricted, a decision needs to be made about whether the map gets that errata.

A few more details about Knight's Outpost terrain. The whole complex is on the edge of a cliff. The river is difficult terrain until the waterfall, which are the two squares directly north of the Overlook. Those are pit squares. Everything south and east of the Overlook/Skywalk (bottom left corner) is pit squares. The big pit also extends all along the eastern edge of the map, which is actually a good thing. It means that the easternmost edge of the map is NOT legal to place characters, so the right side cannot simply stick some characters back there where they're super-hard to reach. Also a 15x1 pit along the southern edge at the west.

The waterfall is the only pit that could be considered dangerous, and it's far enough from gambit that while you could try to bait someone, they can also avoid it easily enough. The other pits, while large, are at the edges and easy to avoid entirely.

There's quite a bit of low objects in the Grotto's overgrowth, but you can easily make it all the way across (either east-west or north-south) without going through any low objects squares. Looking at the artwork, the "bushes" are low objects, but the tree roots are not. There's enough that, like Cantina, virtually all of gambit is subject to Rigged Detonators.

If either of these make it, I can add the terrain markings for Vassal.
thereisnotry
Posted: Saturday, September 30, 2023 2:17:30 PM
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I can make the markings too, if we end up going with this map. I learned for Mushroom Planet a few months ago, and it's not difficult (though it is time-consuming).

As for what to do with the markings that aren't on the printed maps: I've always been someone who leans toward "Make it the way it should be and change things if necessary" instead of "This is the way it is, so deal with it even if it's not ideal." Therefore my opinion is that...
--Marooned Starship: It's worth it to draw the doors onto the map...whether that means errata or whatever is not a big deal to me.
--Knight's Outpost: It's worth it to fix the stairs. Same deal.


As for the Knight's Outpost map in general:
--I'm not super-excited about having almost the entire Grotto being subject to RD. I was hoping we could make the decisions about those green squares ourselves, and in doing so we could prevent undue RD shenanigans. But if that's not the case then I'm less excited about it.
--From what you describe, the pit squares really shouldn't be a problem.

Really, I think I'll have to see what the actual lines are before I know for sure what I think about it. I'm sorry, I wasn't intending to waste a whole lot of time for something that might not be worth the effort.
FlyingArrow
Posted: Saturday, September 30, 2023 3:28:49 PM
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thereisnotry wrote:
I can make the markings too, if we end up going with this map. I learned for Mushroom Planet a few months ago, and it's not difficult (though it is time-consuming).

As for what to do with the markings that aren't on the printed maps: I've always been someone who leans toward "Make it the way it should be and change things if necessary" instead of "This is the way it is, so deal with it even if it's not ideal." Therefore my opinion is that...
--Marooned Starship: It's worth it to draw the doors onto the map...whether that means errata or whatever is not a big deal to me.
--Knight's Outpost: It's worth it to fix the stairs. Same deal.


I tend to agree regarding the corrections, but if we start making corrections do we look at Asteroid Base? It's been 14 years with no stairs (difficult terrain). The stairs are pretty clearly there (e.g. the north and east gambit doors), but it seems kind of late for that change.

Quote:

As for the Knight's Outpost map in general:
--I'm not super-excited about having almost the entire Grotto being subject to RD. I was hoping we could make the decisions about those green squares ourselves, and in doing so we could prevent undue RD shenanigans. But if that's not the case then I'm less excited about it.
--From what you describe, the pit squares really shouldn't be a problem.

Really, I think I'll have to see what the actual lines are before I know for sure what I think about it. I'm sorry, I wasn't intending to waste a whole lot of time for something that might not be worth the effort.


It's not like Knight's Enclave (#130). The tree in the center there comes with so much low objects that you have to go through I think 5 or 6 green squares to reach the other side. That map got one season on the Restricted list and got a universal thumbs-down. That issue is not present on Knight's Outpost, but there is a potential Rigged Detonators issue.
DarkDracul
Posted: Saturday, September 30, 2023 5:51:38 PM
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My thoughts on the season 22-23 maps. . .

Theed
It’s not the most exciting map to play on, but it isn’t completely dull either. It has a straightforward balance direct access to gambit from both sides. Battles usually happen in center or top center of the map. The map is easy to read and widely owned by most players. Unfortunately, it has many shooty lanes and fly abouts that tend to favor shooters and big movement breakers. I wouldn’t mind seeing it rotate out.

Modular Base
It can be a lot of fun, but can suck against strafers. It’s a direct approach from both sides with some interesting lateral play. Battles happen in the center and almost anywhere on the dounut. It’s mostly easy to read despite being so dark. It can be a nightmare in a bad matchup against Strafers if you don’t have a plan for them. I was begging for it to be removed a few years ago. I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I’d be ok with it sticking around another year.

Desert Palace
Surprisingly a lot of fun to play on. The approach is vanilla and there’s plenty of idiosyncrasy to the map in general. However, there is a fun back and forth between both sides like a tug of war. I think it’s a fairly balanced map as far as melee vs shooters go. I wouldn’t mind seeing it stick around another year.

Crime Lord’s Palace
Fun map with lots of options for everyone. It has a couple interesting options for approach. As Gandalf noted in our game, “huh, I’ve never seen someone start in the Arboretum.” It’s not difficult to read but it is kinda strange in a few places. I think this one could stick around.

Rancor Pit
I appreciate the map boss bringing this out for all the HUGE fanboys but it can go back into retirement.

Mushroom Planet (aka dog water)
This map is about as much fun as trying to shave your retina off your eyeball with a rubber chicken. It appears to offer a couple of different approaches, but the battle always ends up the same, like a rerun of a bad sitcom – you know exactly what's going to happen, and it's not pretty. This map is the secret fantasy of every player who dreams of creating an NPE. It loves super-stealth and cloaked squads so much that it might as well be sponsored by the Czerka Corporation. It's so difficult to read it is like attempting to decipher ancient hieroglyphics while riding a rollercoaster blindfolded. Seriously, I've developed severe bouts of dyslexia just by looking at it. As for the ownership of this map, it's rarer than a unicorn riding a unicycle on a rainbow. The lucky few who do own it probably have it hidden away in a box in some remote storage facility for maps they never thought they'd use. If you hadn't noticed already, I'm not exactly the president of the fan club, and I genuinely hope this map gets flattened by a parade of elephants wearing tap shoes.

To recap . . .
Modular Base: meh, I guess it’s okayish..
Desert Palace: you can stay
Crime Lord’s Palace: you can stay
Theed: meh, leaning towards go away
Rancor Pit: gots to go
Mushroom Planet: get the hell outta here!
DarkDracul
Posted: Saturday, September 30, 2023 6:21:21 PM
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Maps I wouldn't mind seeing in 2024.

Frigid Outpost (2021) 165
Everyone loves Rhen Var and this one is that plus some helpful edits.

Outlaw City (2011) 081
This one can be a lot of fun, the battles are never the same.

Cloud City (2005) 012
If you are looking for an old-timey nearly 20-year-old map then I would suggest this one.

Spicemines of Kessel (2009) 062
If you are looking for a quirky off-the-wall map to spice things up then here's my recommendation.





thereisnotry
Posted: Saturday, September 30, 2023 7:21:54 PM
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DarkDracul wrote:
Maps I wouldn't mind seeing in 2024.

Frigid Outpost (2021) 165
Everyone loves Rhen Var and this one is that plus some helpful edits.

Outlaw City (2011) 081
This one can be a lot of fun, the battles are never the same.

Cloud City (2005) 012
If you are looking for an old-timey nearly 20-year-old map then I would suggest this one.

Spicemines of Kessel (2009) 062
If you are looking for a quirky off-the-wall map to spice things up then here's my recommendation.





I could go with all of these (I even recommended one of them).

But your post above that one...ThumbsUp BlooMilk ThumpUp
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