Maps need to be open with a lot of alternative routes

[retardedarcher]

The only thing you need to agree with this statement is to look at Fields. That map is god awful. You run into a choke with the base defense RIGHT THERE ready to kick your ass along with whatever asshole is parking on top the hill with.

Lakeside and Island are semi-good comparisons for what maps should be like, but maybe 1 or 2 extra routes that people can take to the enemy base.

Also, base defenses add nothing positive to the game. Why? It basically says "if you are losing, you cannot come back." Because you can't sneak into the enemy base because it will obliterate you.

More ways to the enemy base means losing teams can send engineer squads to ease enemy pressure and maybe even the odds. People can play defense or offense and adds much more variety than the usual "okay everyone pussy foot in front of their base."

The best maps have the most alternative paths and no base defenses.Changes to existing maps should be made; regardless of "nostalgia".

[Unit]

No.

Otherwise nod will win every game. as has been proven for years on all the hundreds of crap fanmaps that did the same thing in the original game.

Good renegade maps are pretty standardised in their layout, field doesnt work in renegade x because of airstrikes. that is all.

[BlackHand1337]

Otherwise nod will win every game. as has been proven for years on all the hundreds of crap fanmaps that did the same thing in the original game.

As harsh as it sounds, but pretty much sums it up.

The maps(well, most of them) are not new and just remakes.

There is a lot of information about the maps working or not.

[Aircraftkiller]

There's too much linear thinking in "but lol if maps are bigger then Nod always wins lolz" - the issue with Nod winning consistently comes down to a few different issues.

1. Terrible design. Terrace was a great example of this problem. A map entirely devoted to barren terrain with nothing in-between two bases but mountainous dirt. I'm pretty sure there was a version without base defenses, but having an AGT made no difference at all. Stealth Tanks could easily maneuver around anything that tried finding them and they almost always destroyed the AGT in moments flat with little or no warning.

2. Wide open spaces with no warning systems. If you're going to make big maps, you need something that will make them at least somewhat defendable. I always added regular Guard Towers to my maps for a few reasons, primarily being an obstacle against "lol stealth" that always permeated Renegade and made it play terribly. If you're going to lol stealth around in many of the maps I made, you had to earn the right to do it first - that meant disabling defenses that could automatically spot you.

3. Regular players always kind of... suck. That's just the nature of the beast in any game, and that doesn't help keep win/loss ratios for GDI/Nod consistently equal.

I made some pretty big maps that had what I consider to be pretty great gameplay, like Fjord, which came out a good 10 years after Renegade's 2001 release:

It's big, yet Stealth Tanks aren't "I win" buttons. The map is purposely designed with two AGTs set up with TD-style defenses (two missiles, no guns) while Guard Towers back up the AGTs with machine gun fire. If you lost to Stealth Tanks, your enemy was better than you. Big isn't bad. It just has to be done properly, and that requires thinking on multiple levels when you make a map - instead of the simplistic "LOL I MAED MAEP 4 GAEM" stuff we saw over the years.

[iovandrake]

No.

Otherwise nod will win every game. as has been proven for years on all the hundreds of crap fanmaps that did the same thing in the original game.

Good renegade maps are pretty standardised in their layout, field doesnt work in renegade x because of airstrikes. that is all.

While I agree in principle about not stacking games in Nod's favor I find it funny how you worked airstrikes into this topic. Lool

Now about maps. Field is a mediocre map and always has been. I'd rather play non-defense maps as GDI forever than play Field and Under more than once and a while. Both those maps are just plainly boring maps. They have one entrance for vehicles and two tunnel openings for infantry. The infantry tunnels are not an issue, but only one entrance for vehicles is just braindead. There should always be at least two vehicle entrances to a base. With just a single entrance it always devolves into siege/block/rush/counter-rush back and forth until a team wins. This is boring and you are a terrible player if you favor this kind of gameplay.

Maps like Glacier are the best. Anyone with any taste for skill and variety knows this. Only braindead tools favor maps with a single vehicle entrance so they can hump tanks against the enemy's single entrance for half the match before they have a good rush ready. Then if the defending team is any good you get to hump their entrance for the other half of the match too. What fun.

[SFJake]

Why I like Walls (without the bugs): Even though it has only one entrance, there's plenty of ways out for your team, the chokepoint is big enough, and tunnels that are too hard for the enemy to keep control serves as a back entry. The map never "chokes" in one spot.

Anything like that is great for me, so I definitely agree: Just 1 way in and out total for vehicles is just -not- a good thing (neither do I like Mesa which is an instant siege map, at least it has a few twists around the chokepoint)

Its my hope as well that Under gets changed slightly to not be just another chokepoint map.

[Prof.Koni]

My favourite Map is Goldrush because it has really epic fights on the main path. With luck you can sneak in with SBH or rush in with an apc. Even if you get to the enemy base, there is still the Obelisk or the AGT. My favourite Maps are these with 1 main path and maximum 2 sidepaths (e.g. for infantry).

@Aircraftkiller:

That map looks awesome. Would be nice to play on it

Greetings, Koni

[iovandrake]

I like Walls too (with balanced beacon placements and some tweaks to mine explosion visibility). There can be only one entrance for enemy vehicles if the defending team at least has other ways out (to flank or attempt a apc rush).

On the topic of Field and Under style maps I forgot to mention that their fields are a problem for me as well. Not so much Under (since it has the upper area), but Field definitely suffers from it more. What am I talking about? Any tanks from either team can see most of the tanks on that field soon as you enter the field (and probably fire on them). This makes the field boring to me. I like the ability to set up good ambushes or to retreat. Renegade X's version of Field is slightly better about this (due to foliage and the tech building) but it's not really that great.

[Unit]

There's too much linear thinking in "but lol if maps are bigger then Nod always wins lolz" - the issue with Nod winning consistently comes down to a few different issues.

1. Terrible design. Terrace was a great example of this problem. A map entirely devoted to barren terrain with nothing in-between two bases but mountainous dirt. I'm pretty sure there was a version without base defenses, but having an AGT made no difference at all. Stealth Tanks could easily maneuver around anything that tried finding them and they almost always destroyed the AGT in moments flat with little or no warning.

2. Wide open spaces with no warning systems. If you're going to make big maps, you need something that will make them at least somewhat defendable. I always added regular Guard Towers to my maps for a few reasons, primarily being an obstacle against "lol stealth" that always permeated Renegade and made it play terribly. If you're going to lol stealth around in many of the maps I made, you had to earn the right to do it first - that meant disabling defenses that could automatically spot you.

3. Regular players always kind of... suck. That's just the nature of the beast in any game, and that doesn't help keep win/loss ratios for GDI/Nod consistently equal.

I made some pretty big maps that had what I consider to be pretty great gameplay, like Fjord, which came out a good 10 years after Renegade's 2001 release:

It's big, yet Stealth Tanks aren't "I win" buttons. The map is purposely designed with two AGTs set up with TD-style defenses (two missiles, no guns) while Guard Towers back up the AGTs with machine gun fire. If you lost to Stealth Tanks, your enemy was better than you. Big isn't bad. It just has to be done properly, and that requires thinking on multiple levels when you make a map - instead of the simplistic "LOL I MAED MAEP 4 GAEM" stuff we saw over the years.

99% of fan maps were exactly covered in points 1 and 2.

also, I really like fjords, but still in all the full server games (25vs25) ive had on that map on jelly marathon i never, not even once saw nod lose. GDI -always- lost. big map = nod map. seemingly by default

[Aircraftkiller]

I played it many times and had no issue winning as GDI. I actually found it easier because Nod has no air defenses once the SAM Sites are down, and GDI can rush past the Obelisk and take out several SAM Sites without too much trouble.