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Thread: LV Needs to Change

  1. #1
    Senior Member Outcast Seer's Avatar
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    LV Needs to Change

    Despite being one of the most popular maps, LV has a number of flaws that limit gameplay variety and encourages stalemates. The fact that "fog" needs to exist at all is a direct admission by mappers of LV's failings. Change is needed, and here are some ways I think it could be done.

    Remove the North Lake
    Its a giant tumor at the heart of the cave system that is worse than useless for xenos and only marginally useful for marines who have already won the match. Pave it with rock. Make it all weedable. Replace it with a giant predator pyramid. Just make it something that isn't a giant middle finger to the hive or an unlucky survivor.

    Fix Western Caves
    No, not the cave section with the water pool. I'm talking about that one cave just south that is nine times out of ten a dead end for new xenos to get cornered in. The cave section that is so unless people don't even think about it. Make it permanently connected to the rest of the cave system, or get rid of it. Otherwise it is wasted space that has no value to either side.

    Remove the Two-Tile Chokes
    Two tile wide choke-points are bad for either side when you have 100+ players. Xenos can't push because their numbers get bottled up and picked apart by marine gunfire, and marines can't push because only two or three of the 20+ marines can actually fire at any given time. Eastern caves is a particularly egregious example. This leads to ridiculous stalemates that no one enjoys, especially when the other "flanks" can be easily held by a tier three and a few other xenos because most of them are ALSO two-tile chokes. Choke-points are important for xenos, but this is ridiculous.

    Move the LZ Tunnels
    Tunnels shouldn't exist where burrowers can't dig pre-drop. Plain and simple. That tunnel by cargo dome? Remove it. The tunnels south of secure dome? Gone. You don't see tunnels pre-built in the kitchen on Prison, or in Marshals on Big Red, but for some reason that's the situation on LV. Move those tunnels to useful locations that DON'T get blown up the moment marines land.

    Reduce the Amount of Windows
    I swear whoever originally designed the buildings of LV must have been a voyeur, because the number of windows is absurd. Most buildings have more window frames than actual walls. They are ugly, amateurish in design, and are useless to all factions. Xenos can't use most of them for cover to rest or ambush marines. Survivors can't hold in any of them. Marines can't realistically fortify them. They are nothing more than circles of waist-high cover. Change them.

    Not everyone will agree with me. I'm fine with that, go ahead and tell me why I am wrong. But no one can realistically deny that LV is showing its age as a CM map. I personally despise it and could go the rest of my life never playing on that map again. However, the simple majority of players consistently disagree. If we can't get rid of it, could we at least make LV more fun to play on?
    Last edited by Outcast Seer; 09-17-2020 at 01:47 PM.
    Luca Jagemann, the cynical colonial with the prescription glasses.

    Ancient Synth Williams, on another rescue mission in Brazil.

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    Honestly I always thought of re-hauling the whole map. The southern portion would stay the same and the north would be made into a vast jungle. This jungle would encompass what was once the beach and caves, while what was once the lake would become some hidden pyramid or facility where queen usually spawns. The jungle would be a maze and harsh transverses but there would be a road or 3 that leads to the primary alien spawn point so marines have their funnel routes.

    Point of changing the caves and beach to jungle; aliens cant hold or push beach and marines cant push caves leading to stalemate hell. By making it a vast jungle fire support wouldn't be as sidelined and wouldnt be as easy to stalemate while killing the beach would make it easier for aliens to push back the marines as they wont have to deal with the vast open ground.

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    LV should've been removed instead of ICE

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    Senior Member Outcast Seer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pigeon View Post
    Honestly I always thought of re-hauling the whole map.
    I wish, and what you describe sounds a lot more fun than LV is right now. But I wanted to keep my suggestions limited for now since there are several "big" map projects going on right now.
    Luca Jagemann, the cynical colonial with the prescription glasses.

    Ancient Synth Williams, on another rescue mission in Brazil.

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    Whitelisted Captain 50RemAndCounting's Avatar
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    None of that needs to change, just remove the fog and LV will be awesome.
    Sheeesh this boy LRP as hell!

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    Senior Member AlbertBlackwell's Avatar
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    fog exists just so that marines and xenos dont rush eachother, personally i'm fine with the fog.
    Chaotic puppet-master from hell

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Outcast Seer View Post
    Replace it with a giant predator pyramid.
    That's actually a great idea, it fits with the map's lore about being an archeological colony.

  8. #8
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    I say bring back old tcomms LZ2, LV's problem is that LZ2 is very shit, so everyone is stuck in the same LZ1 loop, a viable LZ2 would bring back some variety.

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    LV may not be ideal, but it’s not the hell that some of the other maps bring. It’d be difficult to improve LV without a total rework, though. Fixing just one of the aforementioned issues will just exacerbate the others. You’d really need to do a comprehensive overhaul to avoid making meta rushes or permanent stalemates even more of a thing.

    The whole setup in the center of the map is definitely geared towards making stalemates IMO. The chokepoints on the xeno side, and the wide open unweedable river on the marine side both make for a giant swath of area that is extremely easy to defend, and extremely high risk to capture. Replacing it with jungle... could be good or bad. If most of it is unweedable, and there is a lot of variance in LOS distance, with occasional bare patches for weeds and fair distance between but liberal placing of those unobtanium (read: indestructible) shrubs, then it would be a dynamic skirmish area. But making it all weedable or unweedable jungle, or all tightly-packed unobtanium shrubs would benefit one side or the other disproportionately.

    The other option to change the center of map dynamic, would be a combination things to kill the JTAC vs Boiler standoff.
    - First, narrow the river to more of a stream, like 3-4 tiles wide, so both sides can easily see the other. This means xenos can build close enough to the marine side that a CAS or mortar bombardment that takes out the front of the xeno fortifications has the chance to hit marine stuff as well, ie no more spamming JTAC with impunity.
    - Second, change the cave entrances in one of two ways:
    - Either make the three entrances to the caves into many more entrances, narrow single tile hallways, but with a multitude of them, all intersecting and leading to progressively larger chambers. The end result would look like a proper ant farm. There would be no real chokepoints since it’d be easy for marines to just go to the next tunnel over if a boiler is gas spamming one entrance, and the close quarters makes it so marines are easily put in 1 v 1 or 2 v 1 marine against xeno scenarios, but that allow both sides to flank and surround overzealous pushers.
    - Or, keep the current setup, but make all of the cave walls one tile deep destructible. So if the xenos are just camping the chokes, the marines have to ability to widen the entrances. This option might be less ideal for balance since it might allow a GL tank to effectively steamroll through the chokepoints. But hell, it’s a tank; they’re meant for breaking through chokepoints.

    The lake and back caves really seem like an afterthought, kind of like “we made this nice lake asset, but have nowhere to place it.” Easy solution there is to either replace it with another set of anthive tunnels and nest site, or just make it a single tunnel wide enough to allow a hive to relocate from west to east tunnels, or for a sizable marine flank if the xenos aren’t paying attention. Or, that predator pyramid thing. It would explain why the hell they're always there, and provide a better version of thunderdome than what they have on the map currently.

    That’s just my thoughts on what parts could change. Overall, I think LV in its current incarnation is a pretty decent map. It isn’t insanely large, so it’s hard to get lost (until you’re in the back caves). There are areas of interest that are more or less defensible, depending on who’s in charge of defenses. It’s just that the meat grinder in the center of the map, and the back caves for the endgame are very tedious. With most other maps, breaking chokepoints is as easy as a few well placed grenades or C4 to a wall for marines, or a gas cloud or acid to cades and acid or slashing walls for xenos. Places are defensible, without being impenetrable. Anyways, I wouldn’t mind seeing a change, but I’m not on the “LV is total cancer” train... yet.

  10. #10
    Senior Member Outcast Seer's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Moosetasm View Post
    I wouldn’t mind seeing a change, but I’m not on the “LV is total cancer” train... yet.
    I agree that the meatgrinder is tedious, and perhaps my biggest gripe with LV. I've spent too many hours fighting in the exact same tunnels at the exact same chokes to ever like LV again. Its always either a meta rush, or a soul-crushing grind full of uncounterable stun spams.
    Luca Jagemann, the cynical colonial with the prescription glasses.

    Ancient Synth Williams, on another rescue mission in Brazil.

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