Your posts for the last 6 months in this thread have basically amounted to: New maps are too confusing, I don't want to learn them. I stop playing. Now I come back and I don't know the maps. Sorry, but I prefer they make the game for people that actually want to play. Do I think it's great that you can't come back and instantly understand a map's layout? No of course not, but there's no easy way around that either beyond making the maps braindead. It's NOT hard to clear a map like Theme Park, for example, which is a HUGE fucking map. Roamers are most easily shut down simply by learning the maps, so if you hate them that's what you have to do. If the map is tiny, then roamers have no counterplay to getting randomly spotted early in a round, they just die. That's fucking stupid. Tiny maps with directly accessible sites lead to gameplay that revolves almost entirely on runouts for the defense. The farthest that should ever go is something like Skyscraper imo - where the runouts are definitely big, but there's enough gameplay inside the site and the usable out of map area is very clear and direct. The layout makes outside play from the attackers risky, unlike most other maps.
Does this mean I like every map? Surely not. I don't really like the new hereford at all, and I agree it's kind of a barf of boxy, same-y feeling rooms, but I think that has a lot more to do with the aesthetics than anything else. For as much as Tower wasn't a great map, it also wasn't hard to learn and it had very distinct looking areas and rooms so it was never confusing to learn imo. Ditto Theme Park. Ditto Villa. Undecided still on Fortress, have only played a few games. But it's like anything else - EVERY map seems huge when you don't know it, and as you learn it the playable area starts to shrink. Yeah, a roamer might be in some random place across the map on Villa, but that doesn't make it any harder to pinch them realistically. Or if you're forced to ignore them, it doesn't mean they have 30 angles of attack, if you think there are roamers up you probably shouldn't risk standing in open ass spots like, say the top of red stairs on Villa, staring into the aviation room, that's just begging to get killed from behind, but that's something you know before you make that decision too. Attack from somewhere more protected in that situation.
Siege works best when there's possibility for skillful play from both sides. Small maps force defenders into either cheese, or just getting their options cut off immediately. On Kanal you don't even have to figure out where I am if I'm roaming, you cna just cut off the bridge and LOL. That's not a good map design, that's fucking stupid. The only 'counterplay' to that is to just not do it. How can you think that is an improvement.
Okay a lot to address here.
Firstly, you're talking in game theory as though everyone who plays the game has learnt all the optimal pathways, sight lines and kill holes, so that their team mates and crucially the enemy all know these routes and will predictable all use the same optimal strategies. And any map that isn't balanced at this level or restricts these strategies is therefore bad (or "stupid"). Which is something you see when a high level streamer gets taken out by someone who isn't playing an optimal strategy - they lose their shit as if this person was an idiot. Of course Ubi have to cater to the Plats and Pros, but from Gold down, especially solo queueing, this just does not apply. Getting recon to know where your opponent is and engaging isn't a guarantee you will walk out of the fire-fight. Kanal is a perfectly viable map at this level.
Secondly, I have been playing Theme Park plenty for 14 months or something now. I STILL don't know my way around that f*ing map. Not because I've not studied it enough or put the work in, but because from playing it organically, the aesthetics and layout of that map are not intuitive. I am happy defending a couple of the bomb sites but there is a ton of space on that map that is just dead air, and it all looks the same. It's too dark. I couldn't tell you how to get upstairs from half the map. I still have games where I can't figure out how to get to where I need to be. It's one of my least favourite maps despite loving the aesthetic of the central train room.
I actually really like Tower. I never had a problem with the attacker routes, always go central and along the gangway. Simple. This map gets such a bad rep. I still struggle visualising how it all slots together, though.
I'd like to get on a Silver/Gold Ranked team, but if you don't know call outs like your aforementioned "red stairs" then you're likely to get shit for letting the squad down if you can't give full support or carry.
FWIW How I would rank the maps based on how much I enjoy playing them:
A-Tier
Kafe Dostoyevsky
Bank
Chalet
Oregon
Kanal
Club House
Consulate
Skyscraper
B-Tier
Border
Tower
Coastline
Plane
C-Tier
Hereford I
House
Yacht
Favela (Would be high, but impossible to defend)
Fortress (Based on initial plays)
D-Tier
Theme Park
Villa
Hereford II
Bartlett U
I'm interested in them improving destruction and adding clever gadgets for defense that encourages the central premise of the game and creates new gameplay opportunities. And maps which feel like real locations.
They've disappointed with weak Y3 operator ideas,and maps which focused too much on pro level viability rather than offering fun but grounded environments to play in. Kaid should've been a Bandit rework. Finka and Lion are write-offs. Alibi is too limited due to memory constraints. Clash is terrible. The game is a constant tug of war between what would be fun in an asymmetric, sandbox shooter, and what would be balanced at e-sports, and the latter is given too much dominance.
I can't imagine anyone wants this game to continue for another 6 years. It needs a sequel or some competition if Y3 is an indicator.
