Clan Battles, their maps and how to improve them.

[Grevester]

After the CB season I noticed a notification for a survey. I kinda ignored it at first but after it kept popping up I decided to just do the thing.

In the survey, WG asks questions about their maps, such as which spawn sides did you prefer and which you didn't, which ones you liked most overall and whether the 4 maps were too few, sufficient or too many.

It strikes me that WG, by asking what your preferred spawn sides are, recognizes certain sides are simply favorable. I will give examples:

Spoiler

Greens Island here is poor, it can be easily spotted by a DD and shot at by cruisers from stealth. This isn't necessarily a problem, but it's not very fair as south side doesn't get this disadvantage.

Spoiler

Notice how the cap here is in significant favor of the north side. 1A can easily contest/cap it from it's location, and 1B can move to the very east island in the circle and sit behind it. None of these are even a possibility for south side as the circle is much farther away from them and their island option is trash.

Spoiler

A: Island is much larger in the north, and so small in the south that it can't really be used well.

B: The large island in the south here isn't shell safe, but reduces a lot of firing angles from south mid into C while north does not have this problem.

C: The cap extends much further down south, allowing easier capture.

D: The island in the south causes problems for ship movement and attack angles when operating in this portion of the map.

 

While one could argue that either side of both maps comes with it's own set of advantages and disadvantages, it's hard to quantify whether the spawns are equal or not. You could also argue that the differences add flavor, and you're right. That doesn't mean the flavor always tastes good.

 

So, the obvious solution would be to just make maps symmetrical. This is improve the equal starting positions of both teams while keeping the map relatively the same. Copy one half of the map, and mirror it to the other half. But WG could go a step further and make the mode truly unique.

Imagine in your mind a map that is simply 1/4 of a map rotated and placed in a box. This way, no matter what corner you are in, you're looking at the same map. Basically, if you used the rotate minimap feature, there would be no difference no matter how many times it rotated in regards to the locations of land masses.

You might be saying that the maps would get stale really quickly, which is true. But they are only building 1/4 of a normal map. They could easily build up a stockpile and rotate them in and out of clan battles, or even randoms. And you can go further, instead of having rigid spawn points, why not spawn them like a clock? If team 1 spawns at 2 oclock on the map, team 2 spawns at 8 oclock etc. And since the maps would be much more equal, what about team 3 and 4? Wouldn't that be exciting?

 

Just my thoughts. 

[Iris_]

Noot Noot

[AphelionMarauder]

The maps should have been harder as you rise in league IMO. However, what you wrote up here is pretty on point.

10/10

[DingBat]

I was gonna ask: Why not simply make the maps symmetrical for clam worts, but you said it already. :)

[Edgecase]

1 hour ago, Battleship_MaineMk1 said:

The maps should have been harder as you rise in league IMO. However, what you wrote up here is pretty on point.

10/10

Prior to the CB season, I would have said it's your opponents that get harder, not the maps. But then I realized that that is in fact the wrong thinking. The maps do get harder, because utilizing line of sight and coordinated lines of fire become more important at higher levels of play. Safe spots cease to be safe, and coordinated team movements transfer threat around the map in ways that can be read, but not seen. Little things like these island asymmetries start to matter a lot.

I'd love asymmetry if they could balance it, but if that's not achieveable, then I'd agree with going symmetrical over continuing to have "favored" sides.

[Hyyena]

fun fact, that works in first 3 leagues, but in last one game change to a lot indies sniping and burning and the game become more dynamic.

[HMS_Calgary]

From a destoyer point of view, some caps are only safe from certain spawns. The C cap of hotspot and islands of ice are good examples of 1 island granting full cover while the other will allow easy reseting/killing dd from afar. 

I don't like symetrical, but it's too far out as it stands.