Hellas Basin Feedback

[trim ibex]

Top sea maybe you can justify two man? But bottom sea just takes too long to cash out.

[tired nebula]

How long does it take to get t2 ship over? And amphib is reasonable to defend with ramp to geo

[trim ibex]

I'm not a sea guy at all so I would defer to Chrono and others on any matter regarding precise sea metas or openings

[tired nebula]

Top sea cause top island and even more so killing pond is attractive (pond drops metal in ships/base/com)

[trim ibex]

If bottom sea wins, they can flagship or raid geo, but that doesn't happen for what, twenty minutes?

[tired nebula]

You can t2 the island and do land push and only go t2 ships if situation calls for it

[trim ibex]

Even if you two man a literally uncontested south sea, can you even pivot to influence land before the major t2 mid clash happens?

Maybe with seaplanes or something idk

[tired nebula]

Not with 4.2 mexes, maybe 3.6 is better. Should be much closer.

[trim ibex]

I'm going to try midwalking with the new patch, see how it feels with the nerf

[tired nebula]

4 land mex is a blessing in disguise for South sea as long as they get t2 fast

[trim ibex]

Ngl as geo, south sea is often near the bottom of my priority list

[tired nebula]

You cap land 4 mex faster, and 1 vulnerable mex is not guaranteed to stay alive

[pallid trout]

yeah i guess we will see how it goes with the new metals

i want to check pond/south sea nd mid in the first place, i will revernt some of them back to 1.2 values if new layout will be worse

[tired nebula]

Pond could maybe use a small ledge with room for a few safe Nanos only and some land eco

[trim ibex]

Cliff mk2

[pallid trout]

i think its interesting to try a real 3rd mid spot instead one back spot which is currently mostly obsolete

[trim ibex]

The battery meta kinda sucks, but I genuinely don't know what you can do about it, short of making energy basically free.

[tired nebula]

Or maybe like make the pond cove steeper shore so can use land nanos, shipyard closer to shore = easier to prevent run through

Also very slightly increases rush distance

[trim ibex]

As best as I can tell, if you have a traditional eco, and the other team batteries or does some other midwalk/boost strat, you just lose

[tired nebula]

Yep

[trim ibex]

This is somewhat true on every map, but especially true on relatively energy poor ones

[tired nebula]

Cause ageos and high value mexes

[trim ibex]

I was fine batterying on straits because you didn't need to build that many winds to keep everybody upped, and you were free to do your own thing basically after the first seven minutes after everybody got t2

When batterying on Hellas, I feel like I'm not doing my own thing for like, twelve minutes

Because you gotta go upp the high value mexes and get geo up first

This is a very possible solution and I am very intrigued

[tired nebula]

So 3 front?

[earnest orbit]

What about swapping the geo sea cliff towards pond spot, have people do lab further up north into the sea by having sea mexes more up-top, could move the geo from cliff to ground level or keep it on there doesn't matter that much, distance would be a bit bigger, between labs so rushing would be a bit less of an issue as it is now, just a random thought

[trim ibex]

Even communisming at front is more interesting than batterying from back

[tired nebula]

Ah that leaves an actual amphib opening

Yeah that makes sense make plp travel around to attack, and the cove is more defendable

Not clear who gets what mexes I guess

They should just work together to cap it and geo sea makes sea lab in the op geo cliff

[earnest orbit]

It does add some spice as to available opening strats as well, but yeah biggest issue being labs too close to eachother should be fixed with this and X island geo might actually become more value-able to fight for as well

[lilac jasper]

LOL one mex

This is worst than dedicated sea spots

[rocky cloud]

I really really dislike the change of adding extra mexs to the backline spawns, while also reducing metal of frontline and south sea. If the goal is to make backline stronger they already gain relative strength by reducing metal of frontline, i think rudicing front and buffing back is too much of a swing towards backline eco play.

[wraith hare]

Honestly it was more fun before. We had Straight if we wanted backline to be storng. The fact that this map encouraged eco spot as Support actually made it fun. Also front was least picked in straight. I feel hela had different dynamics which made it a good change of paste. but it seems we are on the way to become like a symetrical straight matchuo

[trim ibex]

What if we just removed the backline

[rocky cloud]

bismuth op

[warm kite]

[idle mantle]

if the intent on moving metal from front to backline was to encourage more afk eco till 20min and not boost front/geo would props required bit more drastic changes

[idle mantle]

if you rly wanted ppl to start with that one mex you props need to make path between redlines

[trim ibex]

Honestly though

What if we just didn't have the air and eco spots

You wanna air, you gotta do it from the geosea spot

I'm not a big fan of the elevation thing that bismuth has, but other than that, reasonably fun lane map

[pallid trout]

yeah ok i see, i probably have to just get back to 1.2 metal layout

i don't like people abusing corner box starts

[rocky cloud]

just reduce front and keep backline on 4 mex spawns to start

[pallid trout]

i think something have to be done to "eco" spot
its currently pretty dumb and useless (in 1.2)

its only boring 3+1 mex, which is not enough to eco before the game ends

[rocky cloud]

front getting weaker makes eco stronger

[pallid trout]

may be i just leave this to the geo spot
and add full mid-support spot
in that place behind two mid players, add extra small mex , so that guy will take 3 mex and go forward with comm
may be even 3rd lane in bridge

[glad hazel]

Eco spot is obsolete in communism meta, you put medium or weak player there. I am not sure if we actually need to have carry player there with low os deciding how long game will be. Usually they have trouble ending game. For eco spot we have supreme isthmus map.

[trim ibex]

eco is inherently cringe

you might as well save time and make the techer spot richer

that is not an actual suggestion, I don't think geo actually needs to be richer

[forest matrix]

Revert south sea changes. IMO its probably the best sea spot in any map for a nice 1v1, but of course that had to change for no reason.

[clear tapir]

What makes the old layout better for the map?

[forest matrix]

it was a very fast paced back and forth matchup with a different style then most sea positions

why make it more stale mate and take that away, also mid can deny a mex from sea now with costal, anyways who asked for south sea to be changed? its the last spot on the map that needed to be worked on

[clear tapir]

Why do you feel losing one sea mex and another being moved to land substantially changes a 1v1 lane which is mirrored? Mid could always deny a mex with arty easily enough, even if few people noticed.

[forest matrix]

you need to change your way of thinking, there should be less land mexes and more sea mexes, less value for an early t2 to win you the matchup and more reward for harassing in sea, which makes sense since its 1v1 sea matchup

but nvm just take aay sea mexes and add even more land mexes because who cares about being logical

[clear tapir]

Nikuksis posted his reasoning here: #1231740282815381667 message

I'd say having the extra land mex helps naval players have a longer 1v1, since snow-balling in the sea is harder with less overall metal coming from it.

[idle mantle]

100% agree with andre that there should be less land mexes cause you get land t2 faster so sea becomes more relied to upgrading land mexes faster than fighting to contest sea mexes

[tired nebula]

Yeah... bottom sea is the honorable sea battle so to have that be land t2 centric goes against that. To plp getting snowballed, just git gud and lose slower. Bottom lane is already a slow lane to impact the game. A comeback is not necessary simply stalling the opponent can give your team enough time to win.

[glad hazel]

I would get old layout on south sea but still kept 3 mexes on land from 1.3 position. Right now seems like sea mexes are bit too spread.

or option b. move that 4th mex closer to sea so con ship can build it so lobster ( like in screenshot) will not grab 4 mexes first before going into sea ( which is bad ). Keep old layout of sea mexes but remove that middle on north so you still have 4 exposed mexes in line and second line with 3 mex.

[tired nebula]

Maybe put it even farther out so there's merit to harassing with surface ships

[trim ibex]

I'm not entirely sure why Nik is concerned about south sea being too hot and snowballing too fast

To my understanding, it is the slowest lane to snowball.

[tired nebula]

Bad sea players go "why am i just losing in 3 minutes?" Bro if this was land you would losing in 3 minutes also

[trim ibex]

The only time I have seen people lose bottom sea that fast is building nothing but con ships and tidals and then getting killed by gunboats

I'm kinda curious if there is any rush build for south sea

Even someone who greeds seems to have more than enough time to put down torp launchers or something

[trim ibex]

oh my god the air start position just feels like the worst thing ever

whhyt

[trim ibex]

why would you disperse all the mexes to make them really annoying to upgrade

[trim ibex]

after playing it a bit, I just hate the new changes

[forest matrix]

its ok back to isthmus

[trim ibex]

maybe yeah, I just hate the changes that much

[pallid trout]

I am judging on replayes i have seen, standard situation:
south sea taken in 10 minutes and then alive to the end of game even if all other team died.

though this is pretty common in other maps , e.g. rosetta crater spot.

ok, i see most of 1.3 changes were a bit ... weird. i guess i'll rollback most of them, wanna see some replayes on new mid first

[pallid trout]

what if...?

[pallid trout]

or

[idle mantle]

like the top one backline but also like bottom front start

[earnest orbit]

From these 2 picks, bottom one would get my vote

Also idk if you saw it but I posted in this idea earlier so pond sea labs wouldn't be as close to eachother, making rushing out sea lab and denying sea a lot harder;
(Swapping the geo sea cliff and have them start in about the middle of the sea, so the X island is also in the way and they have to go around it to fight, solves all the sea rush stuff)

[pallid trout]

thoughts?

[earnest orbit]

I would consider leaving the geo spot geo in place, but moving most of the mexes to the back, since it's going to serve as a tech/eco spot now it'd be ok if their main base is a bit more 'safe' + it can then make an anti that covers both them and the air like in isthmus too to counter nuke rushes more easily etc.

The way it is now, they'd probably just build their base close to the geo instead of in the back

[pallid trout]

im not sure i understand it

[earnest orbit]

I can make a better pic of it, but basically you have where the current pond spot is be the cliff, moving pond spot more towards the middle of the sea

[pallid trout]

i don't want teraform too much

[earnest orbit]

if the sea mexes and start of pond is a bit more to the middle of north sea, they won't get denied by ppl doing rush strats etc. too easily, but if you don't want to change it that's fine too 👌

[earnest orbit]

yeah that's good enough 👌

[pallid trout]

i can add some reefs to the pond sea lane i think
and im not sure whats with single geo mex on shore - its now a bit out of place

[earnest orbit]

u can honestly probably just take that out, 5 mexes + geo is plenty for tech

[pallid trout]

and edge start mid (the corner one) is probably too close to enemy now... its like 5 meters away from enemy

[pallid trout]

or may be move closer to sea or mid-support?
so mid support will be 5mex + geo as well

@tired nebula @forest matrix @idle mantle @clear tapir @rocky cloud @broken rapids @untold stream @regal tartan please your opinion before i start rendering it 🙂

the lastest version

i can add similar reefs to the pond's sea (between bridge and X-land)

[earnest orbit]

This just needs to be seen, the map is big enough and mid having 3 people they should be able to respond to early harass etc. quite nicely

[pallid trout]

may be +1 fat mex in the very middle of bridge?

[earnest orbit]

hmmmh I wouldn't buff mid lane too much to be honest, probably better to just take out that extra mex, 3 people mid (if they work together decently) will decide most games in comparison to seas/air/tech spots, so their value is already really high

[idle mantle]

look good

[earnest orbit]

Overall, this is already a way better change then the last one 👌

[clear tapir]

Are you aiming for these spawns mex use (roughly)?

[earnest orbit]

yes except for the geo/tech spot

that geo mex is for the back spot, not front and the remaining geo spot mex (the one on left of the cliff) he's thinking about, I think it can just be removed cause 5 mex + geo is plenty for back tech

[idle mantle]

props more like this

[clear tapir]

Should be interesting, i'm in 😄

[idle mantle]

that one mex feels bit lonely there 😄 could maybe be removed if wanted to do that

[clear tapir]

the lil' fella off the edge of the cliff could be confusing as to "who gets it"

[rocky cloud]

Yes I think perfi might take personal offense to that mex

[pallid trout]

yeah removed already

anyone tested north reefs for torp laucnhers in 1.3?

[rocky cloud]

I'm having a hard time understanding the proposed changes as much based on the images, but in general I like it because less backline mex

[pallid trout]

the changes mainly to make start pos'es more obvious and less abusable

also we swap one eco spot which is currently a booster boring spot
for 3rd mid pos

[rocky cloud]

I think what will likely happen is eco spot will help fund a tier 2 lab near middle and then do eco things afterwards

But I personally enjoy this gameplay

[pallid trout]

little change to mid, north lane a bit closer to south

[pallid trout]

its ok

[rocky cloud]

One thought I had I'm not sure if you considered is maybe in the middle lane that is close to the corner make it 3 mexs between the spawns instead of 4, this would help discourage corner of box spawn trolls (like me)

On 1.2 spawning edge of box and walking I would get 3/4 of the 4.3mex while my opponent would be on 3 4.3 also (if he was bad or I got support) if there was only 3 mex between the spawns it would be less extreme

Just something to consider if you hadn't

[idle mantle]

seems to work mostly fine some spots torp launchers cant shoot ships but ships seem to be able to shoot torp launchers just fine

[pallid trout]

the corner start is already "normal" start for that lane i think

[earnest orbit]

This will definitely happen, it's just what happens whenever a backline spot is available to boost, can't really get around these types of plays in non lane maps as it is 🤷‍♂️ the up-side is that if 3 decent fronts actually play proper aggro the boosting might actually not pan out as OP as before because mid can get crippled quite early now and a front boosted geo spot is way more vulnerable then the old geo spot 👌 we'll have to see how it all turns out

[rocky cloud]

Yes should be more like the earlier versions that I liked better

[glad hazel]

hmmm, what if you move a 3-rd player in front closer to pond that he can build tidals? He can start cortex so tidals are ok.

because isthmus here is so fat, you can move north mexes bit to north and make 3-rd line in middle, metal ammount like in 1.3 but you add 3.6 and 2.3 mexes in middle. So you will have 3 line in middle.

[broken rapids]

there was somewhere I could be shot by them, but couldn't return fire

there specifically

also the geo issue seems unresolved, but I can't replicate it either

so it's -probably- a game/engine issue rather than map

[pallid trout]

it definitely is, theres nothing special about geos on that map

[pallid trout]

is it a big issue?
what can i do to fix? lower it more?

or make it smaller

[pallid trout]

he can make one beaver for tidals i guess

is it ok in 1.3?

[broken rapids]

probably lowering edges so there's less of a lip to the buildable area

especially on the side facing where the player would dock, as a launcher there is oppressively zoning and I suspect very hard to remove without a rocket hover (which navy basically never has to hand)

[pallid trout]

i'm cooking the new version

[idle mantle]

as far as i know you can shoot the but you have to manual target them to not take damage (somecases)

[subtle tusk]

Color is great in 1.3, my eyes thank you!

[forest matrix]

looks great

[pallid trout]

i hope people would think twice before placing ageo into that front geo spot xD

little nerf to big mexes from 1.2 (4.3 -> 4.0)
moho's there was too op
they still are tho

[pallid trout]

pushed, try updating your game in like 15 minutes

[earnest orbit]

Props to you Nikuksis for the continued active* support and consistent changing of the map and taking in the feedback 💪

[random hill]

im sorry to say this, but this layout of mexes is shit af

put some gap between them so that games dont get automatically resolved in first 3 minutes

[pallid trout]

you have to quickly take your mex, or at least deny it from taking with llts, its default layout for most land lanes on other popular maps
DSD / Bismuth / Koom

[random hill]

most of those maps have significant distance between center mexes

while here its t0 laser turret range AND its a super large mex on top of it

on DSD i think the distance is at least HLT tier or even more

[young jewel]

only thing i hate is with north sea if you lose you are wiped from the game as you have no income at all

north sea is so hard to play as if your front leaks you die, if your se geo has no idea how to play you die

[earnest orbit]

Agreed about the north sea which is why I suggested this a while back, rest of the changes so far have been looking good 👌 sleep time!

[random hill]

to a way, its caused by middle mex placement, but also, i think the cliff being open toward center is kinda bad for general gameplay, either there should be no cliff or it should be open toward back

[glass meadow]

Nikuksis, please watch the two Hella's Basin games I was in within an hour of this message.

The islands need to be majorly reworked. If people open air lab on sea geo, the air player doesn't need to build a lab, and you get to the island that much faster. I think we need to change this lane completely. First, bring the islands closer to the sea geo spot, and the sea geo cliff brought back by that same amount. Next, make a shallows section running down from sea geo into the sea, then back up into the islands. This would encourage the bot play for islands to actually be a thing.

@candid gyro had a good idea for the way it could look.

[candid gyro]

let me make a map.

Like an Impact Crater that is designed to be a ship killing ground, more advantage to KBots.

[broken rapids]

geo sea's impact on game is basically entirely decided at outset by the air player, to the extent the optimal play is 2 airs or communism air. there has to be some kind of method to retake it. also the land mexes being right on the edge mean if sea is lost early (probably due to air play) you have only 2 T2 mexes and no geo

the 'pond' sea spawn below that is basically rush or die, so that's decided by who gets the most slinging

[glass meadow]

I was thinking something like this would be cool.

It provides multiple styles of gameplay. One, the sea geo player can just take and hold the island then go into the sea by where the geo is in that protected cove. It makes retaking much easier, and requires the sea players to fully win their lanes. Also, it allows for some bot related play due to the shallows. Yet still encourages sea players to come over and kill the bots. It could also be some unique bot V ships plays here and there. It also makes the flight distance for sea geo much shorter so much less likely to just rush your own air lab. Finally, it spreads the islands far enough apart where winning once means you don't win both. You actually have to contest them.

If there's a way to make the corner look more like a crater impact, that'd be dope, too.

Expanding further, a quick leak along the beach screws the sea player, so to prevent the immediate loss, theres some cliffs protecting the 3 mexes there a bit.

[glass meadow]

I like Pyro's idea with creating tighter choke points, so I edited further, allowing for some jelly fish to protect from ships coming into the cove.

[candid gyro]

3 cliff choke point, a jellyfish on either 1 should be able to kill ships. t1, or t2 or subs. with a mex in the middle of the crater.

[glass meadow]

Yeah, but the islands need to be further a part still.

[candid gyro]

but if you take all 3 land points, then your reward is able to move your navy through.

[broken rapids]

layout kind of interesting but not enough sea left in sea

[glass meadow]

Yeah, its definitely a rough draft.

OOOO that gives me an idea

[candid gyro]

yeah, could

[glass meadow]

@broken rapids Thoughts?

I guess final thoughts: Islands are way too close together, resulting in easy capturing of both. This results in air and sea geo wanting to communism so the transport is out that much sooner to take the island. If the other team's air player and sea geo player don't do the same, there is no way for them to contest the islands.

[subtle tusk]

I'm not a sea player, but doesn't this proposal risk changing north sea into a slightly-more-cramped version of south sea? I rather liked the middle island sitting in the way, making for a sea battles with less room to maneuver.

[broken rapids]

interesting layout idea but maybe not enough room for it? unsure

[gentle hemlock]

If there isn't enpough room, getting rid of the X island in the middle, and replacing it with a mountain as "void space" might be an idea.

The geo is kind of pointless, both sides have a strong defendable geo position already

[glass meadow]

I think the idea is to create an actual bot battle up there, rather than the easy to fortify islands as is.

[gentle hemlock]

You can still have your bot battle without the X

[candid gyro]

@broken rapids Thoughts on my map?

[broken rapids]

might be too choked with the ramps possibly, so 1 com up there still shuts down all access even with shallows

[wraith hare]

i aggree for the island part. but i feel X island should still be in middle to have that same side flaking feeling

[candid gyro]

maybe 2 ramps in on either side. i kept the x where it was.

[wraith hare]

but i dont play that sea much but i felt it was one of the aspect that made it unique

[candid gyro]

and gave it some more influence at the crossroads

[untold stream]

wtf are you smoking with that drawing

[lilac garnet]

the problem is that bots cant meaningfully fight boats in t1, so you are never going to try and walk bots to those islands, youre still going to want to open air lab, as the distances are just too great, and the 2 mex start means it takes forever to get a land economy rolling

2-3 supporters can fight anything a bot player can make on 2 mexes

[untold stream]

North sea is fine, maybe pond is a touch lacking, not a fan of the pond gameplay of run to sea asap, just looks and feels bad especially walking around a cliff like they do, just feels unfun

[untold stream]

is the middle slope into north sea changed here or

[pallid trout]

pond is suicide spot yea, but you can help your team a lot by dying slowly 🙂
and lacking of upper cliff mexes is due to their rush to sea anyway, and giving it to geosea .

i think we can add some reefs in pondsea middle to make it little more porcable.

i checked the images from Pyro and Bulba , it looks interesting, but im not in a mood of changing that much of terrain yet

[untold stream]

jfc please no he just drew a cartoon character

[pallid trout]

no, i just moved lines little closer to each other

[untold stream]

I'm not seeing a huge issue with north islands tbh at all, I think it's rather interesting gameplay with the geo rush start, slow sea entry vs the island gamers who have 0 e and sacrifice metal/lab 1m + delay
Also I reckon having those island pillar things is kinda cool too as an alternative if the enemy has the islands, now you can secure that place a touch harder

It forces you to have a critical mass of ships before just rushing in, and suffer from your choices to delay lab/go island, which already heavily delays you because of the lack of e

having a couple of those strait mini islands /reef things would be a cool defensive option for pond

If you watch the op matches you should also watch the up matches too for air open where the same build loses to novice sea player

Have you considered making it 3 front instead of two north sea? I reckon that'd be interesting too tbh

I think it's too hard to judge with just the height map

[pallid trout]

we should stop calling this spot pond ,since it is no more.
pond is now mid support and old pond is short north sea i suppose

[rancid mural]

i find the pond on this map is more the geos area for seaplanes and naval e converters lol

[regal tartan]

im so happy you restored south sea gameplay back into more "1v1 hidden inside 8v8" 🙂

there aint such a nice unique naval lane anywhere else

(even if I have to deal with metaslaves in a popular map 😄 )

[atomic torrent]

it would be better if the mexes at the geo spot were not separated. Instead leave the old eco position with zero mexes. Had someone grief me over these mexes at the back. Also there is such a disconnect between front and back, and it looks so awkward. Also if south sea loses, any land assault is magnified as there is no backline to help cover any assault from the shoreline. The 3 front can still stay. Take this feedback as u will.

[subtle tusk]

I had a similar thought for a different reason.

I'd also like to see the "eco/geo" spot's mexes moved closer to the geo (maybe leaving 1 or 2 scattered around in the backline), specifically because with those mexes in their current position, there isn't really an incentive NOT to build an explosive geo. I liked the risk/reward of choosing between explosive/prude on the geo spot, in earlier versions... now it feels like there's no risk.

Then again, 1.4 is quite young -- perhaps the current mex positions will grow on me, as I play with them more.

[pallid trout]

i think this is great:

1. you have to pay attention to the map, help sea if it losing because you'd have hard times if south sea die
2. you already have 3 mex in group covered by nanos, others you'll have to upgrade with mobile units, i hate nanos in BAR and i'd love to not abuse them too much.
3. disconnect between front and back requires at least little investment into some porc against leaks, at least some llts and also opens ways to harrass backline

all these points makes as diverse backline gameplay as possible, instead copium layouts and afk tech for 20 minutes

[pallid trout]

yeah i also like concentrating stuff around geos (mid geo is good example) but i agreed that we can do this one without mexes around because this position is anyway pretty good for lab placement or other stuff from geo-eco spot, also ageo there is pretty exposed and losing it is still pretty serious damage

[rancid mural]

lol i saw the changes to geo today, crazy I immediately hated it but I realise it is definitely better for the gameplay, there still is geospot, its just now at the front instead of not at front so people know they have to go front and not cause upset in games when their geo goes front and your doesn't

[trim ibex]

I line with dark in that I don't see the point in having the eco mexes back

It's not really bad per se, but I am unsure what the awkward distance adds to gameplay other than extra transportation micro

I guess that's point 2 in what nik says, he prefers more micromanagement

[gentle hemlock]

I like the new spots gameplay wise, I do think it feels weird having all this unused void space in the backline tho from a map aesthetic perspective.

Unsure how to fix that, maybe moving that pond to the backline, and replacing pond with a larger mountain range?

[earnest orbit]

Don't worry players like skinner will fill it up with 100 AFUs

[glass meadow]

I mean, that's all well and fine that we don't want to do anything with the island, but I guess I'll just keep taking it, and the x geo, then sending unkillable seaplane bombers to destroy the other sea geo, and all the while sending tons of metal to the opposite sea. Yet to lose with that strategy.

That is, until the the enemy team also coops the air lab.

[earnest orbit]

True, but they'll need to refine the strat due to being new to it while we've already expanded upon it plenty of times, also mid falling early is still kind of a can't do much about it issue

[pallid trout]

communism abuse

[glass meadow]

The map was built to allow it. 🤷‍♂️

I honestly love the weird interaction of bots and boats, especially with choke points for torp launchers mixed in. I think that's kind of the style you had in mind for the islands when built. But there is just far too much metal there too close together. Easy rewards.

To go further with it, even if my air player doesn't join me in sharing a lab, I still open the same way and get to the island far quicker than the enemy team buying a transport.

Mind you, it does require an ok sea player (even an ok one is fine, because I'll feed them so much metal it doesn't matter who they're up against).

But it's absolutely laughable to think a sea geo player can contest, because I have the island fully capped, and boats at their geo by 6 minutes. This idea that you can tech...well just ask hornet how he felt.

[subtle tusk]

Seems like the easy fix would be to make the island mexes vulnerable to destroyers. And we're back to the old Isthmus argument again!

[glass meadow]

That, or my sea player will have won before 6 minutes if they're a good player.

[glass meadow]

How would a Destroyer get made if I've already prevented them from getting on the sea, unless they rush it?

[broken rapids]

indeed, it's impossible to counter. as I said at the time it's not a sea battle, it's an air battle dressed up

[glass meadow]

And if they rush it, we're ahead by a 7 mex setting.

[glass meadow]

Which just brings back the communism being insanely overpowered and zero downsides to it. Usually communism on Isthmus has downsides. Namely, the pond isn't building units for front, the eco player is behind, or the sea geo doesn't contest so suicide dies.

On this map, the communism between air and sea geo is NUTS. The air player ends up with anywhere from 3 to 5 extra mexes AND A GEO, while the sea geo spot ends up with MORE mexes then the enemy sea geo (7 at the island, one of which is a 4.6 mex, so basically 8) versus the 5 at the sea geo? They both have a geo. And guess what? There's another sea player in the sea to prevent an immediate killing of suicide...which can't die anyways as it's too far back.

Nik, I LOVE this map, and I love the pseudo bot battles you can have on the islands. But it is not noob friendly in any regard. The players who communism seageo and air will win.

I know you don't want to do a major map overhaul, but plllleaaassee do so. Make an awesome weird shallows battle with unique defense strats for land to have against the sea by having narrow water choke points. Then we could have an awesome air v sea v bots weird shenanigans thing that isn't so heavily snowbally.

[clear tapir]

seems like this could be a good map to test lowering them on to see what it does 😉

[arctic wigeon]

Main present communism is the whole eco and geo going for t2 rush- which now is meta

[pallid trout]

i cant fit maps into all conditions and keep it unique and interesting.
yes on lane maps like bismuth theres less communism abuse, but it still can happen if noob boosting pro for free.

[pallid trout]

we'll see

[vital crag]

feedback from new basin

reaaally good changes on mid, i really liked them, way better gameplay on mid now where early aggresion works too

[earnest orbit]

Still think the only thing that might need some terraforming changes is around north sea/sea rush spot and islands, rest of the map is currently really nice 👌 also we are not going to get rid of commie strats so we should just embrace it, a big enough portion of the playerbase has caught on to it by now because of how much it was done especially also on isthmus, I think even if you'd try really hard to counter it people will going to just take the risk and still boost tech even with bigger changes like for ex. if you moved back eco/geo to mid and have 4 mid they will just take the risk, also commie boost air lab etc. are here to stay.

As long as the map design works out nicely for both boosted and non boosted plays, I think your in a good spot tbh, so that comes back to the geo sea air lab commie strat being really really OP, the sea rush spot being a bit limited in how they can start off their play because lab distance between them and enemy is really small, I think having a bit more shallows around the islands and in the center towards the big corner mex could go a long way to change up geo sea plays in that area.

The sea rush spot I've suggested this which I still think would go a long way to allow for some other viable openings for that spot, basically just swap the geo sea cliff to face south (where the current sea rush start spot is located) and have them start more up north, move the sea mexes a bit more north so the X island would be in between the 2 sea rush players sea labs.

[pallid trout]

i'll check what can i do

[pallid trout]

[small cave]

this actually looks pretty cool, with the bay like that surrounded by cliffs getting back into sea is much more viable

[pallid trout]

cliff can be also used for lab from sea
to backdoor attacks

but old cove looks a bit lonely here and empty now

[earnest orbit]

Until the raids start coming in, wouldn't worry about it too much if overall it's better for the gameplay of the map, I think this change will go a long way 👌

[lilac garnet]

the problem is, bots cannot fight boats in t1. they just can't, its not even close
what you'll end up with is flying to island to try and get sea lab done faster anyways

what copuld be a possibility, is having a narrow highground path around that top corner, for bots to try and fight along

[lilac garnet]

this looks pretty cool. I suspect high level players will still commie their labs (can't really stop that without going full lane map), but the geo sea position seems much less unintuitive to play, and there would be a variety of openings the two players could do

[pallid trout]

the progress so far

added little ramp on old cove

so leaks from mid can hurt north sea guys

not sure if i should still put geo on one of the "fang" cliffs

or give one north sea extra mex when another north sea geo

[lilac garnet]

do they need to have a geo?

[earnest orbit]

Think it's not necessarily to even have a geo or place them somewhere where they can still be disabled by missile ships or similar

[pallid trout]

yea this is a question, it was inherited from isthmus, but this map is more metal rich and less energy, so may be geo can be just cut from there

[lilac garnet]

i dont mind either way, i just think its a question that should be thought about

[pallid trout]

may be its better to move one mex back to the mid cove
so one north sea is going larger cove, another to the smaller one, closer to mid

[earnest orbit]

I think you want the sea players going into the sea more north (away from mid) to counter the sea rush strats

early sea lab play (especially with commie strats) can just deny enemy sea quite easily from distance between labs near mid section

[pallid trout]

yeah i heard a lot of complaint aboutcurrent cove spot being too suicide/rush/claustrophobic

well in the image above i see twoways for the 1st north sea - he can go safer sea in the large cove along with his mate and thus way more safer
OR
he can try to go shorter path which is way more exposed, but clsoer to the mexes in mid

[earnest orbit]

This is basically ideal, 1 going to islands, 1 going sea in that spot

The short path to mid does allow them to still do close to mid lab though, maybe the cliff should be warped a bit more into the sea to just straight up enclose that space some more?

[pallid trout]

yeah still "commie airlab-> islands rush " strat is op

[clear tapir]

Beyond "can the spot which coops be punished for it" i'm not sure that can be prevented/dealt with

[earnest orbit]

Maybe a bit more like this

[pallid trout]

well sea can rush for AA boat to counter transports
or they both can do that

[earnest orbit]

This will be too slow, tried and tested also on isthmus

[pallid trout]

air trans too strong

there was some idea or tweak or project idk, with med transport, which can carry comms (while current light transport can't)

I also miss ship transports

[earnest orbit]

Yeah it's more of a unit problem then a map problem, people are going to find a way to get those islands secured asap anyway, the things you can fix however have come a long way, now it's just the question if you want sea rush strat near mid being available or not

[pallid trout]

actually, what if both north sea going sea and let enemy take island(s)?
you'll be able to get the entire sea around and surround islands with ships

i think I can nerf islands from 3 mex to 2 mex tbh

[small cave]

im not sure what op start u talking about but on the looks of it seems like you just end up bieng later into the sea as first sea if you commie an airlab, 2 ppl boosting a dock would probably beat the fast airlab strat

[earnest orbit]

It's a play but will need some testing cause the team that takes islands has sea mexes go to 1 sea player while the other 2 would share mexes, so it would probably result in commie on 1 sea lab instead, which is definitely viable

[small cave]

the islands are good longterm but shorterm they require a lot of investment and time so rushing them as sea is not the best option

[vital sun]

does any else get rorschach vides from that now ?

[small cave]

given that this happened on the week i havent played a lot (coz not many games were going on at higher level) im sure its hard to judge any such commie strats without playing them through with good players on both sides

also if you rush a dock first and just send out aa ships, the com on the islands is separated and pretty much dead if air or geo/front geo decides to send com there and fight it

[pallid trout]

is it better to have twins spots in north sea
or different ?

[idle mantle]

islands in north being unreachable with ships t1 doesnt encourage 2 ship lab openings for sure. raiding potential was pretty low with old layout. so it rly depends how its gonna get changed

[idle mantle]

with that i would say its 50/50 migth be 1 sea 1 air and then air boosts sea lab after taking island

[pallid trout]

i'd like to make it more like 2 sea
not sure how to make people play for themselve tho

[idle mantle]

lower islands that sea can contest mexes and that should make it so

[pallid trout]

i will think about it

anyway the map was updated recently
have to give it some time to calm down

[idle mantle]

yea that is just my prediction how it will go

[lilac garnet]

i think it likely that one of them will go air to contest the islands, and the other go sea, but im not sure there's really a way to stop that, other than moving the 'pond' to be another front player. My gut feeling says one of them is air, one sea, and the 2 backlines commie tech, but im not certain about that

basically, there isnt any real incentive for them to both go sea, and plenty for them not to. winning the sea just doesnt have impact soon enough to justify investing that hard in it

you secure lots of mexes yes, but to do any damage beyond that you need to transition out of navy, which slows things down a lot. its better to just invest in mid and let the sea effectively do holding action as an insurance policy.

basically, the routes to winning the game go something like:
the front players kill the front players, spill over into all the other players. <10minutes if that fails, then

geo comes online with something, kills the front players and spills over into everyone else. >7minutes, generally <20minutes if that fails then

one of the sea players has won and makes amphibs/scales on many mexes, due to his boats being unable to hit anything >11 minutes generally, <20 minutes if that fails then

t2 sea hammers front with missiles/flagships, allowing one of the other win cons to occur, this generally wont ever win the game before 20-25 minutes

air will sometimes randomly end the game sometime after about 8 minutes, but generally will have not huge impact, they're a wildcard.

looking at this, you can probably see why investing two players into the sea is probably a bad idea. it takes so much longer for those two players to have an impact than if one of them had just gone front/air/commied geo/taken islands and commied something. all of these things will have impact faster, and probably more strongly, considering that a strong sea player can make 2 sea players take a looong time to kill him.

not to mention that two sea players just share the sea mexes, making them both together not dissimilar in strength to one sea player on the other team

tldr, 2 sea not strong, because the reward for winning it vs the time and resource investment is not good

on isthmus, people sometimes went 2v1 vs beach, because it meant you got to kill the geo player for free, which has massive impact on the game, as well as the map actually rewarding them doing so in other ways, such as geo sea getting to fly to island and pond taking cove, making them both stronger

no one went 2v1 sea as the beach player, because you dont get anything out of it, and if they share sea mexes with the beach player then its really really bad for them both

[clear tapir]

I think if you want north sea to be a 2v2 - you need to slow the front down so they have time to fight and impact the game. You probably need to allow north sea to interact with at least one land player

[pallid trout]

i see, looks like 2v2 in north sea isnt real. maybe ill add shallow from both sides to island, i don't know yet.

[pallid trout]

they can kill mid carry spot pretty easily, and even go the mid geo and other base , also salamanders doing pretty good

[lilac garnet]

they can't do any of those things with t1 boats, meaning that having impact on anythign but your sea lane requires an expensive transition to t2/seaplanes/amphibs

[pallid trout]

not that expensive

[broken rapids]

really is, sea econ is poor and fragile

usually you have to wait for a land T2 con before you have a prayer of doing anything

[subtle tusk]

I think the only way to stop air commies in top sea is to severely reduce the benefit of taking the islands. Its a symptom of how easy they are to take/defend versus how much value they provide. And, the only options I see to change that calculus are:

• Make them harder to take. (This option probably isn't practical; the mexes would probably need to be placed underwater or something.)
• Make them harder to keep. (Stuff like lowering the height of the islands, adding more ramps, making the ramps less steep, etc. Would change the fundamental character of that part of the map, so these options likely not desirable either.)
• Make them less beneficial. (Remove mexes, reduce mex income, or even replace the metal spots with a Geo spot(s) if you want to go extreme.)

Of those options, #3 is the only one that seems practical to me. Or, you could defect, hmm comrade...?

[tired nebula]

The bot battles on the island are fun enough but even with the mexes on land the ship controls the shallow so that having bots there but lost ship control is not worth. So bots are limited to rez, 1 pawn, aa bot

T1 Frigate just anniliates t1 land if it can range, issue with bar ig. (Flip side is that bot lab is way more useful for rest of Map.)

[potent mulch]

I wonder if splitting the big islands into multiple smaller ones each with only one or two low value mexes on them, and spaced out to increase transport time between them will help. So even if you rush transport you'll only be able to secure one or two low value mexes before your naval lane opponents lock down the entire sea with skaters.

[trim ibex]

I line up more with Chrono than with Happi, in that I also think that the islands don't return on investment fast enough to be worth investing two people into

Either you front commie or sea commie, basically

[idle mantle]

the reason why ppl rush the islands is cause they are easy to defend if they could get constested with t1 ships killing porc and com retaking it then it would be fine but as long as you cant kill defences that are preventing recapture of island rushing it is viable strat

[quartz sierra]

Moving the geo player to mid was a critical error. Starting 3 players that close promotes even worse communism and has way to much nuke value among other reasons.

[broken rapids]

is frigate dps too high would you say? thinking also vs hovertanks here

[pallid trout]

yea i think low and accessible islands would make sense
i will probably make something like gods of war in north sea

[gentle hemlock]

Maybe we could speed up commanders by like 10-20%, but block them from entering a transport.

Or... make transport speed dependent on the type of unit being transported. Heavier units give it a speed penalty

[sleek onyx]

This is my new favorite map.

[broken rapids]

a suggestion from left field; what about putting hostile neutral ruins on the top islands?

so they can't be rushed early on

[lilac garnet]

more of a boat balance thing, but if t1 boats arent able to beat t1 cost effectively then sea is even slower to have impact on the game, when most of the time it already is incredibly slow. map design is how you balance sea impact, not by nerfing the boats themselves. they are already hugely gimped by not being able to, well, leave the sea

and it's true of all of the boats, not just frigates. supporters can comfortably fight any t1 bots

[broken rapids]

T1 boats at least, T2 things get weird

noted though, that was a tangent from a conversation elsewhere, trying to work out how to make hovertanks more relevant

[trim ibex]

make hovertanks airdroppable

Bigthink

[pallid trout]

there's already speed penalty for carying comm iirc

[rancid mural]

whats wrong with transporting coms? its incredibly risky and encourages people to pay attention to air space more, if that's removed the game just becomes even more land focused imo

I dont think the map should be trying to eliminate 1/3rd of the gameplay space, air is always an crucial role in pretty much any map it seems

if the islands have good cliffs they will always be strong to defend with maybe put the hover ramp on either side facing spawns instead of at the back corner

[pallid trout]

nothing wrong with comm transporting itself, and it makes many maps much more interesting. The issue is in "race" to the key positions, when you have to abuse share mechanics to be there in time, and any other option lead to the lost lane

[rancid mural]

seems like players are just playing optimal for the map they are on and the way the landscape is designed

[pallid trout]

i have new north layout, and we will try it soon. hopefully sea will be more viable in north now and may be we'll see double sea plays there.

[rancid mural]

positioning is key and commanders are the most value unit early game

[pallid trout]

yes, but firstly its not the way i wanted (i recognize communism lab as abuse share mechanics) and also makes other starts obsolete. I want as much diversity as possible and sea should be the primary "stable" option for the north players

they still can do commie lab and still can fly around the islands, but that start should not be uncounterable

[rancid mural]

making is so sea players can be in the sea quicker can certainly help with countering transports, it sounds like that is some change you are making?

[pallid trout]

yea, also islands will be accessible from sea now, so you can use ships to dominate north as a primary forces

single rich corner mex is still only amphib or fly available

[small cave]

I would recommend to slow down a bit with the changes, there arent that many games going on to test them out fast enough. Lowering island height so ships can reach mexes is a non-starter 100%, it will make things very snowbally as then winning water means u insta win islands too. Bots on islands are fine to fight vs ships, what chrono doesnt take into account is that if you have the island/s and a con there, you can go t2 bots and easily fight the ships. Lowering the island height means no counterplay vs ships hence islands not worth taking.

As ppl said, 1 player goes sea straight, second player needs to take islands and do whatever he needs to, which can be sea planes, hovers, support mid or feed the sea or go as 2nd sea, or just fight for the islands with the other side.

And to make appoint about you not liking communism on sea lab - if you make island mexes accesible for denying with ships, you make it only viable strat to go 1 lab communism

[pallid trout]

yeah i won't do changes right now, just doing some tests

[small cave]

Basically if you take the islands but lose the sea, you can hold the islands for a while and annoy sea with them, then sea has to invest into t2 missile ships to clear them slowly if at all, meaning you delay that snowball effect from winning sea. The starting position change into a cove means theres a chance to come back into sea if you lose it as long as you got the income of the islands. So again, islands being accessible by boats means you lose north sea you likely lose the game as its now 8v6 (both north sea players only got 3 mexes on land each, means they are absolutely useless to the team)

[untold stream]

can we stop fucking with geosea all the time

There are two groups of people, those who want to embrace comunism and those who don't which are quite divided. I don't think you should cater to only one side here

[idle mantle]

looks nice

but as far as i know in rly rare cases island have been fought when sea has been contested. lowering islands should enable them but its also good to see how the changes in geo sea start spot and cove spot are gonna change how its played before lowering islands

[small cave]

I agree here, i just think every communism strat is counterable, you just need to give some time for ppl to figure out how. And making everything depend on single thing fromt the get go, imo just increases the pressure to commie for that thing rather than allow alternative solo plays

[small cave]

not sure what you mean here, I think we would assume the sea is always contested? with lowered islands theres not much point rushing to take them as 1 lab communism will clear anything that you make there with a commander, just win sea with faster and more ships, deny the islands and take them once the sea is won, simple enough i think

i.e. snowball early (1 lab commie) into securing islands (even more snowball) and then win sea (final snowball) and you have 28 mex advantage over the opponent side who by the way likely dont even have a land lab and no coms by this point, so you just make 10 salamanders and drive up the new ramp straight to air and geo into gg

[vital sun]

i'm not sure I'd say the balance is off navy v. land. they cost a lot for what you get.

it's more you get navy at t1.5 power levels and that crushes anything T1.

relatively; navy are fast.
they have a high health pool.
they have a good dps.

bots don't trade well into vehicles even at t1.
stat wise the frigate is definitely between the stout and tiger. More health than stout; not as much dps as tiger.

if the ships got downgraded; we'd see less wrecks which would make the game snowball less.
but it wouldn't be the same navy game; it'd just be "tanks on water"

[idle mantle]

i mean that everthing should be fought for not that who ever gets there first can hold it with almost no efford

[small cave]

what do you mean with almost no effort? you need at least 3 llts, a radar and 2 aa turrets to defend island from simple com walk in, thats 495-510 metal excluding energy worth of investment + the time taken to build all of it and the risk of flying there. There are 2 islands there, if you secure both of them there is no excuse your opponent can make that 'you got there first'. Equally accesible from both sides, each side takes 1 easily. It cost 610-650 for a t1 bot lab and 110-120 for a rocket bot to kill that defence, thats literally only 1.5x the value of defenses and you can reclaim it all afterwards. Im not saying 1 rocket bot will be enough, im saying theoretically it is. The point is you can take it back pretty easily if you want to with t1 bots - the whole point of having all the islands connected by shallows.

[idle mantle]

i never sayed you cant take it back but as you sayed only 495-510 metal to defend it and when the attack to island happens most of the time the sea has already been won or lost. i havent seen single time that someone has builded land/hover lab to attack island while sea fight has been going on (doesnt mean that it hasnt happened) shallow is there to allow it but is not common to use it while sea fight is going on. so lowering islands would allow more fighting for island mexes which i think would be good thing

[ripe creek]

I will say the issue discussed isn't really an opponent taking their island and then you can take your island and push over to fight them, it's more that if they get transport early enough they can land on your island and throw down nettles to prevent you flying right in and landing there yourself.

You can go around and land on their island if there are no figs but then you're sandwiched between the island they control and their sea and it's easy to prevent escaping again via transport with a couple sea whistlers so it could easily result in feeding a com wreck. If you do manage to land and get a ground lab up at best you're both in a bit of an awkward spot but you're also forgoing sea control for attempting to retake the island.

You can also land on the low ground of the island but then you're pushing uphill into a com/likely llts.

Having the islands low enough to be shot from sea allows for much easier response to this tactic. Personally I'm unsure on if I like it or not but I wouldn't mind trying out a version with low islands.

I'm still in the camp that would like a shallow crossing from the mainland to the islands so you can build a force to retake from the relative safety of the mainland in this situation but at this point since I only ocassionaly jump into Hellas instead of maining the map my feedback is probably not that useful as I'm not super familiar with the ever changing metas.

[pallid trout]

i will hold on with lowering islands
probably better take 1 mex from each island first to make them not that delicious

[sharp wren]

idk my take on the lslands is that it creates a lot of stuff for the dual sea players to fight about, and by the time they've hashed it out the game is already over 🙂

so in that sense I am not too bothered by it and really enjoy the dual sea position on the short shore (I do not fight over the islands) and @pallid trout just want to say thanks for making another awesome map it is one of my favs

[small cave]

i mean going to sea costs more than going t1 bots to retake it. The curret map set up as well as the new one will likely focus on the bottom part of the north sea as subs can pass there and most mexes are there. Since you alraedy have 1 person in sea, he should be taking all the mexes anyway, in the new starting layout you will be flying to island without sea lab and the sea player will take the mexes so for you to go sea for the island mexes is not as good as you going for bot lab and fighting it out on land. If im on one of the islands I will fight for the second one with bots as it will force either a bot response or i win island easy, dont forget ur ally is also sea so saying that sea will kill my t1 bots is not a thing (thats assuming both sea players of equal skill)

[small cave]

idk why is this even a problem tbh, north sea never too out of control anyway unless water won in 5 min, I would just leave it as it is with the new starting positions and let it play out for couple of weeks before removing any mexes and any further changes

[small cave]

What you describe there is an equal position, if you take the opposite islands both, you get same situation on both sides as if you took ur own islands. Idk what sea control you are forgoing as there are 2 other sea players that are battling this out from the start. Having islands low enough for ships to interfere means u dont really need to fly to island at all, just coop 1 sea lab for more and faster units and win sea vs someone who goes island (even if they dont make any investemnt into static you just deny the mexes and their com build time is lost) so you have more ships earlier and snowball earlier like i described before

[lilac garnet]

denying mexes early against a comm would be quite hard to do, the comm is very scary for ships that early on.

it would be very easy to deny bots from crossing the shallows. it literally only takes one or two supporters to kill many rocket bots/pawns/grunts, and the depth charge launchers are insanely strong against anything in the water

i could easily see on team playing defensively and securing islands, and the one that takes them funneling metal into the defensive player

sea snowballing starts when you actually kill boats, as long as they are defensive it would be quite possible to prevent it, and the island taker can boost a couple of units out while waiting for transport

i think both would be viable, although admittedly depending on the topography of everything else

[ripe creek]

I was describing what happens with the raised islands which is why I mentioned that lowering the islands would make it much easier to fight it with sea.

And yes, if you get to their island and secure it it's a fairly equal matchup at that point but while you're taking mexes and securing that island they already are moving onto either an earlier lab than you on the island they took earlier or just building sea already themselves in which case your single player building boats will be hard pressed. Many times if they commie the lab to trans there super fast they also have a fig ready so you can't fly to either island in the first place to even try the land on their island and bot contest method.

When I was saying you were forgoing sea control I was referring to deciding to drop a bot lab and fight for the islands. You're not contesting sea in order to produce land forces to take the island. Sure you have a second sea player but that early they're usually fighting the other side of the sea and can't spare anything to help islands without being snowballed over and losing.

For the record I don't mind communism, I think having it as an option is what makes team games fun because it opens up lots of avenues. I was just taking issue with the earlier statement that if they get an island well before you due to communism that it's always easy to just drop on the other island and contest.

[small cave]

I would assume you boost out aa ship first foe radar and shooting down figs/trans, which is pretty fast to do and a com is not at all scary to a destroyer early on since it cant cloack. Also supporters dont do well vs a com and it would be pushing out too. Either case, if you can deny islands with ships it will just make sea win that much stronger as you dont need to invest in anything really to take the island

[tulip ocean]

Love this idea

[pallid trout]

i don't think neutrals on multiplayer map is a good idea

[ripe creek]

I don't like hostile neutrals but I wonder if a neat feature could be a large reclaimable that takes a ton of BP to reclaim but only contains a trivial amount of resources placed over mexes so you need to invest time/bp to clear them before being able to place mexes down. Could also work for Geos too I suppose. Probably not necessary for Hellas but would be an interesting thing to see in the future

[small cave]

Wouldnt you just dgun it if it takes too long to reclaim and dont give enough in return

[tulip ocean]

Just a couple of Neutral anti air on the islands to stop the com drop rush. Sounds cool to me

[broken rapids]

LLTs also, otherwise it's a drop rush slightly lower and comwalking

[ripe creek]

Yeah very true it doesn't harm com expansion too much but could be neat in positions you wouldn't normally put your commander forcing you to go out of your way to d-gun or use rez/con to reclaim it. Probably something more suited for a 1v1 map though not this one.

[trim ibex]

if you really wanted, I guess you could have a custom object that just bounces dguns like a com

I'm not entirely sure how difficult that is to add, and I don't think it's a great solution regardless

[tulip ocean]

Yea, that would be cool too. I can't think of a map that has a feature like this. I dislike how the north sea is pretty much decided in the first 8 minutes of the game. Also how pond sea has no fall back mexes if they lose.

[tired nebula]

The dps more like the range speed and efficiency (very short build time)

The top islands are not a bad balance atm, they are so much you have to contest them, but they are probably not worth letting your pond die to take them. The thing is without sea control it takes a lot of llt to hold both island

[tired nebula]

@broken rapids It could well be good to move pond farther away from each other for later game reasons. since pond has nothing after losing, and so they are constantly stuck in this mutually assured destruction with little potential for eco

[broken rapids]

it's a knife fight in a bathtub

[tired nebula]

yeah. like I don't think that rush is OP, but there's game feel factors and that

on straits you need to air scout turbo skater and drop/cut everything and get to the cove while reclaiming lab
or go beach or suicide lab (you want to go asap or a bold enemy can drop their com there too). if you do all that you should be quite ahead (unless you are getting 2v1'd raided at the same time, gg need actual team support)

@broken rapids ...then buy a bot con to cap the mexes

really good players know how to micro trans and land it while they are doing other stuff, so fighter usually doesn't get a trans unless it's in transit over water

fighter first has a lot of micro potential but imo if you don't know exactly what you are aiming to do fighter first hurts the team decent amount

the jury's still out on whether flying to the island super fast for geo sea or air is a competitive strat

geo sea needs to cap their 3 mex and bulding geo and shipyard fast are important

if you go island and take one island then they arrive later and take their island it's not really an advantage, they get faster geo and sea influence. You have to take 1 island, deny/take the otherone, then get on sea to save your pond player, then its winning

[small cave]

air going island is really good, if you got a good build and take one island you will be just ahead vs the other air. I personally like taking the X island geo as air before my fusion, its a good boost 🙂

[tired nebula]

Honestly against that air player should just suck their air lab and communism seaplane lab. If they go super hard into skater aa ship and you know then you just make regular ships or hit elsewhere

Normally seaplane require some sim city and gauging/ defense but with a good communism it should be pretty simple to defend

After you make trans team don't need a t1 air lab for anything really if you make seaplane lab

[small cave]

sea plane lab requires a lot of e and bp, air player doesnt have the metal to go seaplane without t2 mexes, so the communism dont really work that well for sea lab and takes a very long time. Since you would be vs 2 sea players and an air player it would be very short window to do anything if any and pretty easy to defend as sea players

[rancid mural]

I almost always reclaim my sea plane lab after the first wave and usually are building a t2 lab the moment my seaplanes even start their attack so that when I return I can set up my t2 whilst enemy is preparing for the "next wave" that never comes (if it was an offensive lab/unit production, defensive is different)

[tired nebula]

The geo sea player is the main funder of it

Air player just gives metal and e to make it smoother

After a bit or when any reclaim happen they can upgrade t2 mexes then eventually reclaim seaplane lab and go t2 air at the geo sea spot ig

[small cave]

Im not sure i can see that beating air player with the island mexes, it would be very dependant on the 2 sea players on opposing team for this sea plane lab to work. To win the sea you need gunships and they dont do well vs aa ships or figs and if you are the single air source then you need to make quite a few figs as well to keep them alive to even reach the aa ships. This would also mean air amex are way later and slower as there wont be bp back in base. Would be cool to play vs this strat sometime

[tired nebula]

i already go seaplanes as single player, if I have just any space at all and the enemy isn't metagame massing skaters it's fast (cor is stronger for ship fighting geo top sea)

still working on simcity defense tho

gunships have so many targets. both islands, geo sea cliff, geo sea ramp, pond base, air base, eco base

the secret op sauce is to put your seaplane figs behind your gunships so they don't get 2 shot by ground aa and your gunships tank for your figs

[tulip ocean]

Not seeing this map played as much anymore. Thinking people liked the map better before the changes to pond position and rear support geo spot. I know I did.

[tired nebula]

no idea what other plp dislike, but it feels like there isn't much strategic diversity in what to do. in terms of angles of attack

moving geo to the mid position means the bases are even more clustered = the center is this massive abomination of build power that is hard to attack

you can literally kill the backline and it's not a huge deal

[tired nebula]

i mean part of it unavoidable, since the map set out to make a solo-ISH 1v1 bottom lane. The top sea is pretty interesting though

[tulip ocean]

Yea, that center geo blows 3 players are gone

[tired nebula]

well you shouldn't make ageo there unless u really know what you are doing

honestly you have so much build power there it's feasible to just repair/reclaim on reaction or build prude over it

[tulip ocean]

True, but I liked the flex position before instead of forcing it to mid

[tired nebula]

so much build power means you can put up static defence fast and eat salamanders

[tulip ocean]

and I don't like that pond has only one mex if it looses sea

[tired nebula]

yeah the pond is really a suicide spot. it's symmetrical but like everyone involved needs to ensure pond doesn't die (immediately at least)

the islands are good but not if you trade them for your pond player dying right away

[tulip ocean]

Maybe pull geo sea shore closer to spawn point so it does not take forever to support pond sea

dunno if they fixed it, but tick leaks in the shallow water of north sea were just about a instant kill of all ponds mexes

[tired nebula]

can an llt shoot them?

the beach being so shallow is kinda cringe. very exposed and hard to use land nanos on water and reverse

[tulip ocean]

yea, but when you are late too sea you loose pond, hard to stop to make a ltt

[tired nebula]

the pond walk used to always make llt, but now you are 1 mex so hm

[tulip ocean]

that too

[tired nebula]

you have to come back to make the llt, kinda annoying. but if you can solve that issue pond is stronger now since no cringe walk it comes online faster

probably pay your front player to make an llt there lol

in the longer term pond probably needs to be moved farther away from each other and slightly more defensiable location

pond has a good micro fight early but later on it is rough as you are so exposed. you do have good tidal energy ig

if you can't overpower your opponent right away you hope your geo sea player knows what they are doing

overall it's okay and kinda fresh 2v2

Biggest issue atm I think is the center meta is too stale. when only one gigantic mid base on the map matters its kinda boring

[tulip ocean]

Yea, that is why I liked the Flex position rear geo spot better than the 3rd mid start

[gray kernel]

the front is a massive commie eco center and eco is struggling to get all of its mexes and geo done in time

[earnest orbit]

I think if there's 1 thing I'd change about hellas is actually removing the geo's except for the X island geo (and/or maybe lower the mid section metal income a bit on the mexes), this'll make the seas (that take longer to pay-off then isthmus) come more into line with the mid section (because the mid section currently is the most impactful for the outcome of the game) otherwise I think most of the changes that have been done so far are actually fine and it might also just be that people are too invested/spent a lot of hours on isthmus/glitters so they are less inclined to spent X amount of hours getting good at this particular map (the map is not bad at all, I actually think it might be more interesting then isthmus imo)

[gray kernel]

witht he current amount of mexes in mid the best strategy to use is to feed all the mid players E while they harvest insane amounts of metal

without the wind boost youre going to e stall most likely while on front unless you leave mexes unclaimed

i somewhat like having so much metal on front the issue is just that cheesy boost plays are the most effective because of it

on supreme isthmus all you get for boosting really is 1.5K metal rocks worth of reclaim and maybe 1 or 2 extra mexes compared to the enemy

[tired nebula]

yeah hellas is communism tutorial. but that's a game mechanics feature/issue can't get arround that.

[gray kernel]

i like the rounds where no one boosts and i like them because i have a lot of metal on front

but people dont play optimal in those rounds

[fresh lynx]

+1 in memorial of the lost flex position in the back, i loved that cut-out opportunity for boosting / support play which is rare to find elsewhere. Though I get the point about boosting being unfun to be on the receiving end if your team flex doesn't have a similar early impact.

[gray kernel]

i think its not just unfun if youre on the receiving end its allso unfun to do, because only 1 person will harness the power of whatever the boost is working towards

the others are glorified construction bots

[earnest orbit]

If all u do the entire game is being a battery/boosting then yes that is kind of boring, however if you prep for a play afterwards (because enemy can also be boosting, game might equal out) you still need to know how to adapt afterwards / have less resources then you'd have when not boosting so need to figure out proper play on less resources that can shift the game situation quickly, that kind of play is enjoyable instead of just mindlessly battery-ing

[rancid mural]

i actually really liked hellas v1.2, 1.1 was good as well

[atomic torrent]

Hellas Basin seems to be much less played these days. May I suggest to shake up the meta and remove all the geos on the mainland and see how it rolls? One reason is to differentiate it more from isthmus, and make it more casual friendly in all senses of the word. No more geo boosting, geo carries in T2, longer battles in T1. Also can consider removing some sea mexes in tandem to keep with the poverty theme.

[trim ibex]

What if we replaced all the mexes with geo?

[tired nebula]

would be a funny game mode

[rancid mural]

is that an example of a map changed to accommodate everyone's skill issue and becoming bland?

wouldn't removing all the mainland geos make it even more boring?

[pallid trout]

i have unfinished version with changed north sea

probably i will finish it and we'll try it

[tired nebula]

well b/c the wind is not that strong it is super important to communism the geos for energy
on top of communism the t2 lab and 4.0 mex

not to mention the mid position is already op because tons of resource easy to defend one location, even from amphib attack

can't have 3 bases right next to each other near geo and 4.0 mex

[rancid mural]

theres one map that has 2 bases right next to 6 geos, should that also have the geos removed too?

also what is wrong with people communism and playing differently, why does the map have to change because of these things? I feel like that is sacrificing map design and originality over some ideal way of playing

[tired nebula]

that map is a meme/fun funz only

[tired nebula]

there's basically only one optimal way to play

communism mid geo and t2, mexes, then go for starlight push.

the only plausible way to disrupt the mid base is with some tricky com drop or double com drop

[rancid mural]

is that a consequence of starlights specfically being balanced around the wider map pool?

[broken rapids]

that and them being somewhat OP in general, yes

[tired nebula]

but i mean like putting astarlight side, the whole communism part is still the same

ageo is insanely effecient energy even more so cause the wind is pretty average
4.0 amex pays for itself in 60 seconds

communism is 200% mandatory

that's okay in itself, but iuuno due to center being too rich and the mid base is very nearby / navy can't hit much of the mid, it ends up being pretty same play paterns

[tired nebula]

top sea and bottom sea gameplay are pretty fun but they don't usually matter unless the mid is evenly matched
then seas decide the game

[low thorn]

I mean it's also a terrain thing. If map dimensions/terrain let's a smaller number of players hold an area, it's more effective for the non-front players to boost. DSD South is similar. You don't need all 4 to hold for T1, it's common to see multiple people boost for giga early T2 pushes.

[tired nebula]

no its the economy
4.0 mexes at base and 2 geos on an average energy map

well yeah feeding the techer

[rancid mural]

seems to me like just make the mid mexes normal would help fix it

[rancid mural]

make wind 13 with like 0.666% wind risk 👺

[pallid trout]

this is the BAR meta development diagram

[gray kernel]

i have ecod on basin by building wind and assisting bots with butlers, its still a very good way to reach afus especially since mid is now ecoing pretty much on their own

but mid decides the game by itself eco and sea is not really that important unless you win super fast and do an amphib invasion, but whenever that happens mid usually allready lost.

[broken rapids]

@pallid trout , I can't find the supreme thread so here you go. somehow things seem to stay on fire far too long, in various places on the map

[pallid trout]

?

whats wrong?

[tired nebula]

the shrubs are still burning
prolly an engine/animation bug

[broken rapids]

I've only seen it on that map though
unsure if some setting changed somehow

[broken rapids]

things stay on fire far too long, unsure on upper bounds but I've seen 5 minutes plus

[pallid trout]

oh.. didnt see this. actually this is just regular features, not sure what can cause this

 -- its a table of index: s3oname
local palmettos = {
'palmetto_1',
'palmetto_2',
'palmetto_3',
}
local base = {
    footprintx = 2,
    footprintz = 2,
    blocking = true,
    upright = false,
    energy = 50,
    --reclaimtime = 6000,
    metal = 0,
    hitdensity = 0,
    maxdamage = 100,
    flammable = true,
    autoreclaimable = false,
    reclaimable = true,
    category = "Vegetation",
    crushresistance = 50,
    mass = 200,
}

for i,name in ipairs(palmettos) do
    palmettos[name] = {}
    for k, v in pairs(base) do
        palmettos[name][k] = v
    end

    palmettos[name].description = "Palmetto"
    palmettos[name].name = "Palmetto"
    palmettos[name].object = name .. ".s3o"
    palmettos[name].customparams = {
        model_author = "Beherith",
        treeshader = "yes",
        randomrotate = "true",
        category = "Plants",
        set = "Vegetation",
    }
end
return palmettos
        ```