Dear Straits .map

[aether_tech]

I hate you, go away.

You are literally 90% of the games I get in my tier 4 and 5 ships.

 

Stop, please.

[Nuk_]

I don't know why so many dislike Strait. It's so fun for me when I'm in a cruiser.

[Amogussy]

I don't know why so many dislike Strait. It's so fun for me when I'm in a cruiser.

 

There are three other classes in the game as well, and people at that tier generally don't know what class they want to be their main yet

[Crucis]

I don't know why so many dislike Strait. It's so fun for me when I'm in a cruiser.

 

 

Nuk, I hate that map because I hate when so many teams abandon one side of the map to try to form up on the other side.  It SERIOUSLY bites when you're in a slow BB (and pretty much all US BB's that will see that map are slow) and you feel forced to follow the idiot lemmings or be left alone, because you'll often find yourself out any action for large portions of the battle.

 

This is why I HATE HATE HATE this map.

 

 

[Estimated_Prophet]

I hate Strait because of the lemming-train, fail-plan, attempted join-ups I see so often, and because as a CV driver you're pretty much either screwed totally and trapped where you start, or are restricted to moving up and down the first line or two of your start area; either until you get sunk, or your team pushes the enemy away.

 

Yep, sure is so hard to guess where an enemy CV will be when you're on Strait...

 

Neighbors is pretty much the same thing; no real place to go as a CV were the enemy won't easily find you, or where you won't get spotted.

[Stauffenberg44]

I don't know why so many dislike Strait. It's so fun for me when I'm in a cruiser.

 

1) Because 2 maps for the price of 1 is a bad idea

 

2) Because you get lemming stampedes heading north or south

 

3) Because you feel like an orca at SeaWorld on STRAITS

[aether_tech]

 

 

Nuk, I hate that map because I hate when so many teams abandon one side of the map to try to form up on the other side.  It SERIOUSLY bites when you're in a slow BB (and pretty much all US BB's that will see that map are slow) and you feel forced to follow the idiot lemmings or be left alone, because you'll often find yourself out any action for large portions of the battle.

 

This is why I HATE HATE HATE this map.

 

 

Which is my exact experience every single time I try to play the Nikolai, or Arkansas - and why I haven't even bothered to pick up a tech-tree tier 3, 4, or 5 BB in the last several months. Straights. BOOO. And the lemmings, and the abandoning of caps, and just the general idiocy of the imbalanced map with a channel on one side and not on the other with one side getting that advantage.

[MidnightShamalan]

i hate straight for all the reasons.

 

east side has better island cover in the middle, makes for unbalanced games

 

the splits are often uneven, even before accounting for divisions.

 

the spawns are so close, that the BBs can pretty much blind fire and hit each other at the start of the match if they wanted to.

 

lemming trains.

half the time, it's a standard battle. and the half of the team that was supposed to defend is running away and just letting the enemy DDs take the base.

 

there's no room to break off. BBs are stuck engaging once they engage.

 

defenders of this map say things like "oh, you have to use teamwork to win, that's why it's good." no. that's why it's bad. these are random battles. you ask for teamwork, and many people respond like you just asked them to name their fist born after you.

you can try all you want, but the tactics just aren't there at that tier. the map needs to burn.

[Khafni]

I hate Strait because of the lemming-train, fail-plan, attempted join-ups I see so often, and because as a CV driver you're pretty much either screwed totally and trapped where you start, or are restricted to moving up and down the first line or two of your start area; either until you get sunk, or your team pushes the enemy away.

 

Yep, sure is so hard to guess where an enemy CV will be when you're on Strait...

 

Neighbors is pretty much the same thing; no real place to go as a CV were the enemy won't easily find you, or where you won't get spotted.

 

I agree in part. I don't like the link up plans on this map as they never work well. But the map overall isn't bad. Once you get engaged it tends to be a "free for all" constant engagement/kill fest. That's lots of fun in my book.

 

Even though you know where the CV might be it is hard for any DD to close with it because the map scale makes "sneaking" around tough - until late game.

 

I've heard many say it is always a blowout but I have had my fair share of squeakers on this map. It is a good map for learning WASD and at the right tier for that as well. 

[poeticmotion]

Straits is fantastic for ranked/team battles. It's terrible for randoms. Because teamwork is fail in randoms. 

[Crucis]

Straits is fantastic for ranked/team battles. It's terrible for randoms. Because teamwork is fail in randoms. 

 

 

I can agree with this, Poetic.  It's not a bad map in team battles.  But also, in team battles, the teams spawn together, in a single location, which helps a lot.  Don't remember if this is true for Ranked Battles.  I think it is, but don't remember because I spent so little time in the tier 5-6 ranks.

 

Arguably, if random teams were smaller, and teams spawned together similar to in team battles, this map might not be nearly as bad as it is now in randoms.

 

 

[Crucis]

I hate Strait because of the lemming-train, fail-plan, attempted join-ups I see so often, and because as a CV driver you're pretty much either screwed totally and trapped where you start, or are restricted to moving up and down the first line or two of your start area; either until you get sunk, or your team pushes the enemy away.

 

Yep, sure is so hard to guess where an enemy CV will be when you're on Strait...

 

Neighbors is pretty much the same thing; no real place to go as a CV were the enemy won't easily find you, or where you won't get spotted.

 

I agree in part. I don't like the link up plans on this map as they never work well. But the map overall isn't bad. Once you get engaged it tends to be a "free for all" constant engagement/kill fest. That's lots of fun in my book.

 

Even though you know where the CV might be it is hard for any DD to close with it because the map scale makes "sneaking" around tough - until late game.

 

I've heard many say it is always a blowout but I have had my fair share of squeakers on this map. It is a good map for learning WASD and at the right tier for that as well. 

 

 

Actually, in Standard mode, if you're the west spawning team, and you're in a DD on the south side, what you can do is head NE between that gap between the large island and the small island in the SW corner of the middle channel, then cut across the middle channel to the "middle channel to east channel" gap.  Then you may have a clean path to the enemy CV, IF you don't encounter an enemy DD in the middle channel (a big IF, of course) and if there are no south spawn ships heading north up the east channel.

 

This doesn't work as well in Domination mode because the presence of the B cap in the center channel will almost always draw some attention from enemy DD's, making an unspotted quick sprint across the middle channel to the gap extremely unlikely.  It's much more likely to be possible in Standard mode since the absence of a cap in the mid channel means that there's less reason to go there early in the battle (unless you're doing it to prevent this kind of maneuver).

 

 

 

The only real map related flaw on Strait IMO is the lack of a gap between the west and middle channels to mirror the one between the mid and east channels.  Aside from that, the MAP itself is decent enough.  The real source of its problems is nearly entirely related to the way the players insist on playing it.  And IMO, about the only way to fix that is to change the locations of the spawns and the caps to change how the players see the map and how it's played.

 

 

 

 

[aethervox]

How about no one complains about Straits (or any other map for that matter).

I play the map given to me and make the best of it.

Think about where too much complaining will take us - removals just like in WoT.

 

[Stauffenberg44]

How about no one complains about Straits (or any other map for that matter).

I play the map given to me and make the best of it.

Think about where too much complaining will take us - removals just like in WoT.

 

 

Actually constructive criticism is something WG listens to and can result in positive change.

[Seraphil]

How about no one complains about Straits (or any other map for that matter).

I play the map given to me and make the best of it.

Think about where too much complaining will take us - removals just like in WoT.

 

 

 

A removal of Strait can only be a good thing.

[Eisennagel]

 

 

The other alternative is modification of the map.

 

Remove the far left and far right border islands. Or remove one of them at least.  

 

Make one team spawn all south, and another team spawn all north.  

 

The concept is to make them fight at the center, but ships can choose to sneak up through the flanks.

 

Basically what every map is all about.

 

This is going to make the map, an average and ordinary map.  But that's a big improvement over the crappy map it is now.  At least WG can preserve their investment in making the map.

 

 

[aether_tech]

 

 

The other alternative is modification of the map.

 

Remove the far left and far right border islands. Or remove one of them at least.  

 

Make one team spawn all south, and another team spawn all north.  

 

The concept is to make them fight at the center, but ships can choose to sneak up through the flanks.

 

Basically what every map is all about.

 

This is going to make the map, an average and ordinary map.  But that's a big improvement over the crappy map it is now.  At least WG can preserve their investment in making the map.

 

 

I don't think splitting the spawns north and south is going to do anything more then create a set of three channels for each team's destroyers to camp around, while creating a sail-back-and-forth environment for cruisers and bb's in their respective side of the map.

 

That, frankly, sounds AWFUL.

 

The map just needs to go.

[Quaffer]

or you could attempt to master adversity.

 

Naw,  That would be expecting to much.  My apologies.

[4wilds]

or you could attempt to master adversity.

 

Naw,  That would be expecting to much.  My apologies.

 

Who put this logical thought here?

[aethervox]

Learn to spell properly, it's 'Straits'.

Too bad if you get it 90% of the time for tier 4 & 5 ships although I don't believe that assertion.

[aethervox]

or you could attempt to master adversity.

 

Naw,  That would be expecting to much.  My apologies.

 

 

Who put this logical thought here?

 

The complainers don't have much intelligence or they would alter their tactics to fit the situation.

Since they only advocate removal this proves they have little intelligence.

It has to be the maps fault (never theirs).

[aether_tech]

 

 

The complainers don't have much intelligence or they would alter their tactics to fit the situation.

Since they only advocate removal this proves they have little intelligence.

It has to be the maps fault (never theirs).

 

Spoken like a true self-entitled old man that likes to pay homage to his own misguided sense of [greater] intelligence.

 

Seriously, that's what 65-years of life has taught you to say to people? And I thought my dad was bad when it came to blaming the fault on people when they complain about something that is obviously broken in a way that is not their fault.

 

*rolling my eyes so hard.*

[Canadatron]

 

Spoken like a true self-entitled old man that likes to pay homage to his own misguided sense of [greater] intelligence.

 

Seriously, that's what 65-years of life has taught you to say to people? And I thought my dad was bad when it came to blaming the fault on people when they complain about something that is obviously broken in a way that is not their fault.

 

*rolling my eyes so hard.*

 

Dude, aethervox is Straight up rude. I had the pleasure of him flipping out on me in game for asking why our team hadn't capped a point and he went full roidfreak in chat as though I'd blamed him or accused him of playing improperly. He then proceeds to claim I'm a POS and I did nothing to help the team, so on and so forth. Juvenile to say the least. We won, I capped some, did 60+k damage in a T3 and he was typing in chat that "I did more than you and I'm in a T3..." Uh, yeah we are ALL in T3s buddy.... Really cool dude to play with.

[dust340man]

I like it and find it very challenging no matter what ship I use. I really like the way you can go north to south thru the east and west gaps sneaking up on enemy ships and carriers. I had one of my best games on that map when 3 enemy destroyers trapped me in the southwest area of the map late in the battle. I tight circled in my Omaha cruiser sinking two and heavily damaging the 3rd DD until he ran off. I had 4 kills total that game. I agree in staying out of the middle till late in the battle.

[Crucis]

or you could attempt to master adversity.

 

Naw,  That would be expecting to much.  My apologies.

 

 

Who put this logical thought here?

 

The complainers don't have much intelligence or they would alter their tactics to fit the situation.

Since they only advocate removal this proves they have little intelligence.

It has to be the maps fault (never theirs).

 

 

This is utter nonsense.

 

The problem with Strait is similar to problem with some maps in WoT.  That is, the problem's not actually with the map itself but with the way that the players play it. 

 

And after a certain point, the player base gets completely stuck in a TERRIBLE gameplay paradigm that makes playing the map pure torture.  When it reaches that point, there's really only 2 things you can do:  1. Remove the map, or 2. Make a MAJOR change to the map, a change so great that the players have no choice but to play it differently.

 

In WoT, think of the Swamp map.  A lot of people hated the Swamp map when the spawns were in the NE and SW.  (I wasn't one of them, but may did.)  So the devs significantly changed the map, and moved the spawns and caps to the NW and SE.  Now the map plays vastly differently.

 

In WoWS, think of the Ocean map when it was a Standard mode map.  About 90+% of the time, the two teams simply circled the center of the map counter-clockwise with all non-DD ships, with each team making a mad, looping dash to the enemy cap where it then became a race to see who could out-cap the other.  It was boring as all get-out.  Hardly anyone ever considered trying to intercept the enemy team, instead of lust going on the mad looping course to the enemy cap.  Hell, even camping your own base would have been a change of pace, that's how bad it was.  So the devs changed Ocean to being a 3 cap domination mode map, and the game play on it is much better and less predictable now.

 

 

 

The problem with Strait is that you get these fools who won't stay on their side of the map and race for the other side.  This then reduces the number of ships on that first side and you end up being forced to run for the other side, because ONE gutless player made the decision for you.  And as I said before, heaven forbid that you're in a slow BB or a tier 4-5 (i.e. super slow) CV. 

 

 

This map could be made more idiot proof with some changes to the spawns and possibly cap locations.  The problem isn't the map itself.  It's entirely due to player behavior, which quite frankly is the cause of most of the worst "bad map" issues.