Epicenter Poll (take it!)

[Wepps]

Too many people seem to be getting attention with their GET RID OF EPICENTER! posts. I happen to like it, so I was wondering how others felt. Give them a better idea of the % of the player base that likes or doesn't like it.

[RockaholicRaven]

The only ones that hate it are the babies who do not like being forced out of their typical hiding spots (you know in the back of a map or behind an island all game). I played my first game of it today and had an absolute blast. Even with most of my BB's being potatoes I had a ton of fun brawling it out with my fletcher.

 

 

Spoiler

 

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[B4lduR_28]

I love it,

 

It forces a less passive playstyle. Many people think they have to go in and brawl a german torpedo or secondary BB at point blank range or some similar nonsense, while what you actually do is focus on a single target as a whole team or loose. You can comfortably fight at mid ranges on the outer layers of the circles while the Bensons and Gearings do the knife fighting they are meant to do. Charging into the center in your Yammi is a seriously bad idea, but engaing targets at ranges of 10-14 Km instead of 20+ is a great thing.

 

All in all it brings life into the game and changes the long range meta a bit.

[IronWolfV]

I like it also. Forces aggressive risk taking and forces the long craved for major brawling.

 

So yes many of the hiding snipers are going to absolutely abhor it.

[Special_Kay]

I don't like it. I mean, I like it more than zone, but I'd take encounter battles over either of them. Do I like battleships that sit in the back? Of course not. Do I want the ham-fisted standoffs that epicentre seems to create? No, I'd rather have some room for variety in tactics with the 30% chance of potato sniping that brings. Time will tell, but it seems to me that epicentre is to battleships what domination is to destroyers, and neither of those is a good thing. Taking away the interesting choices from one ship type so another gets a leg up in a predictable way does not enrich the experience.

 

Encounter at least made sense to me. You have two groups, both of whom desire control over the area. They make contact, have it out, and once one team is either sunk or pushed back, the other group is able to solidify the advantage into a victory by capping the centre circle. There is no "base," because this is naval combat. There is no three- or four-cap domination, because that's a contrivance. If you can't sink your enemy and you can't assert control over the middle of the map, you don't deserve to win. Draws are a normal outcome of naval encounters, and that should have been fine. The centre circle was enough contrived game mode mechanic to stop late-game matches from devolving into "find the enemy's sole surviving coward."

 

I get that I'm in the minority here though. I think that bad play should result in bad performance, and maps shouldn't try to trick bad players into doing good things. That's how you stop bads from having to learn.

[Aduial]

Epicenter is even worse than Zone in my opinion. There's no room for an engagement in the middle cap. What ends up happening is a destroyer goes in, then pops smoke, and hopes to cap without being interrupted by an enemy destroyer with the same idea. Meanwhile, the larger ships kinda just circle around, trying to find an opening to get it. I actually prefer Zone, because there's more room to maneuver within the cap. Having the outer circles may have looked like a good idea on paper, but in reality, it does nothing, because the outer circles can never be capped without being interrupted by someone in the middle one. 

[PTX_007_03C]

I only had 2 matches, one was great the other not so much. Need to play more.

[USSCurtis]

Good and sometimes great if you're in a destroyer; pathetic if you're in a battleship (unless ALL ships were BBs).

[X15]

I have come to love epicenter but originally disliked it. I was sold when I came to realize it achieved what zone wanted, a central, vital point, able to be effected by all ship types. Unlike zone, you can't have one ship sit behind an island to completely lock down the cap, but sneaking around still has benefits. It makes flanking a very interesting proposition while capping is high risk, high reward, especially at radar tiers. So less campy for all classes, less abuseable, many tactical options, engaging and rewarding system, and every ship class is crucial.

[Gomez_Adams]

I still just don't get it.

 

You can cap the thing and nothing happens. You can hold it forever and never win. I've played that mode 4 times and nobody has ever won it by doing anything other than killing the other teams ships, so I sort of don't see the point.

[4bRbyHSSzZ6pk]

I don't hate it #AllTsunNoDere

[saagri]

Better than Cyclone. 

[Jenska]

Its new, its different. I'll take it for now. we'll see in the long run how it works out.

[LemonadeWarrior]

Only played it once so far

 

[EmperorMaxwell]

It should be tiers 8-10 only as that's where the cancerous meta is at its strongest. From the few times I've played it (tiers 4 mostly) it wasn't that different imo. 

[Swedgin381]

For those who say they love it because it "forces" aggressive play: have you actually experienced it at high tiers on Tears of the Desert yet?

 

Unfortunately, you can't "force" scared, passive players to play in a way that they don't want to.  People argue that "They don't have a choice, cuz otherwise they'll just lose the game."  Yeah... and how is that new?  All those players who were too scared to move up and fight for caps in domination mode are going to be just as scared to move up and fight in this one.  The problem is, players like that DO NOT CARE about artificial "objectives" that the game is trying to force on them.    How often do you see your base getting capped in a standard battle, and more than half your team doesn't even turn around to defend it?  These sorts of players want to A) not get sunk, and B) maybe sink a ship or two.  If they accomplish one or both of those, they consider themselves winners, regardless of what the final scoreboard says.

 

So epicenter isn't going to change those players one bit, and now it's created an environment where DDs are too scared to go in and cap, because everyone on the enemy team knows exactly where they're going to turn up (as opposed to domination, when they might appear in A... but they might be in B or C, too).  And on Tears of the Desert... BBs and cruisers actually do venture out into the north and south toward the A and C caps in dominations.  Not too far, but they do go out there, and fights do take place at ranges under 15km.  Now on the epicenter version of TotD, everyone except the DDs just sit behind the two rows of islands in the outer ring, and nothing happens for 10 minutes apart from the DDs in the center occasionally taking shots at each other when one gets spotted.

 

I appreciate the attempt to find new ones to break the stale meta (especially at high tiers) and encourage players to get closer and actually fight... but this wasn't the way to do it.  This has just made a bad situation even worse.

[Ballistic_Dad]

 

I like it...and I like to BB brawl *insert Big John McCarthy* "LET'S GET IT ON!"

 

 

(seriously A lot of praise to WG developers for adding different gameplay features +1....I do like this mode)

 

[Sethanas]

I think its fantastic, may need a little bit of tweaking but it really does get people off the map borders.

[JervisBay]

..... I had a ton of fun brawling it out with my fletcher.

 

Well, whoop-de-doo for you.

This map is crap, pure and simple.

[the_majestic_eagle]

Don't like it, it doesn't "force people to play aggressively" those people still hide behind islands like cowards and the entire match ends up being decided by the number of destroyers on each team (the more the better), besides you can't force players to do something they don't want to do, it's poor game design, if the devs want to fix the problem then they need to fix the economy (AKA: the problem), people don't seem to understand that the sniping meta at high tiers (where it's a real issue) is a consequence of the bad economy at those tiers. So the solution to the problem isn't to focus on the effect, but rather, focus on the cause of the sniping meta (bad economy)

[pedrovWOW]

I think its fantastic, may need a little bit of tweaking but it really does get people off the map borders.

 

Played it twice and so far I don't like it, because of this ^^^^

 

I'm getting in the rings in a friggn Konigsberg while half my team refuses to leave the map borders.

 

So, maybe I'd like it more if I wasn't getting focus fired while my "team" AOKs (Afraid Of Keyboard) at A1.

[CapnCappy]

It's fun at lower levels where your torpedoes reload pretty quickly but at higher levels it's "everyone pile into the middle, lucky torpedo spreads win the game in the first 5 minutes".

 

It was interesting to do 80k damage, sink one ship, and die, all within about 2 minutes.

[pewpewpew42]

Just add a few of the forts from Bastions around the outside to force play in the middle a bit more.

[SaveMeTomCruise]

I am not sure yet. I definitely don't like the rings being visible on the main display.  I find that this makes that battle map look too crowded especially when multiple ships and islands are near you.  If it was on the mini map only I'd probably like it more.

[Cobraclutch]

Do not like it,  I mentioned in the other thread how divisions disproportionately benefit from epicenter. 

 

I have had another 4-5 games this weekend, all loses. 

 

3 of those games involved us having a tier 8 division vs the enemy having a tier 10 division of DD's.

 

 

Wanna guess who wins those games?

 

Until MM can match up divisions to be equal tier, epicenter should not be in rotation. 

 

*Edited with my Original comments from the other thread. 

No

 

Up to now I have only had negative experiences on it. 

 

Running into coordinated divisions at tier 10 in epicenter is very hard to counter. 

 

When all the ships are concentrated in an area, its much more difficult to outplay your opponents(solo) when they are much more coordinated then you are (divisions)

 

5 times now I have ran into a DD/CA division or DD division that essentially rushes the center point and rotates smokes and radar. 

 

I have been not been very successful in carrying or rallying my team , and when we have worked together, it was just not organized as well, and therefor the war of attrition was lost. 

 

 

The concentration of forces requires you to be agressive yes. But the openness of a 3 cap match, or even standard allows you with much more options as a solo player, The room and caps allow for more strategy and plays. 

 

 Epicenter is about Coordination and organization. And as a solo player who often finds himself matched up against some insane divisions at tier 10 , I can't seem to make the game mode work for me. 

 

 

That is not to say I will not change my mind, or have better experiences in the future. But as of now, I can't repel firepower of that magnitude. 

 

Khab or Gearing division right into the middle of the epicenter. You have equal tier 10 DD's,but no DD division...