All Activity
This stream auto-updates
- Today
-
some good info
-
partsslinger1967 joined the community
-
Hello, I am here to learn and become a better player. I will put in the work to do so . I want to become the team member that other members know I got their back. I want to be able to be aggressive in battle and not get left with no support. Tired of running lone wolf. By belonging to the battalion I know at the time of battle my brothers and sisters are there for me as I am for them to punish those that oppose us and to lift in victory our name. v
- Yesterday
-
Yep, may shorten queue times especially when total numbers of players are sparse. Kind of sharpens the transition between T3 and T4. On the other hand, lack of a hardcore option for T3 will make grinding any T3 longer since there won't be a hardcore credit/XP bonus available ... so it will be harder to start a new line from scratch unless you can cross over from a different dealer at a higher tier, or burn boosts/insignia to make up for the loss of bonus. Maybe you could "unlock" the hardcore option for T3's if you have at least one T5 or something like that?? I agree there's not much utility to doing Standard at T7-10.
-
SS has an update on the T-72M1's obtention in relation to upcoming Desert Storm Raid: Source on official Discord server
-
Agreed, but this does make a more logical progress. Tiers 1-3 are "easy" only, Tiers 4-6 are the transition from "easy" to "hard" and you can play both to get used to "hard" while you grind, and Tiers 7-10 are "hard" only. I do think that reducing the number of queues overall is a good thing. There were still people playing Standard at Tiers 7-10, and now they'll be added to the Hardcore queue which should help queue times. Same for Tiers 1-3, where people played both difficulties. Not that much of anyone plays Tiers 1-3 these days.
-
https://aw.my.games/en/news/general/maintenance-april-15 PvE changes look a bit irrelevant, I'm struggling to see who would actually play standard difficulty above tier 2.
-
Thanks! This is really helpful, especially because a lot of the builds posted outside this forum are obsolete.
- Last week
-
TheLewdHistorian joined the community
-
Ace-Archer joined the community
-
Hello, I am fairly new to AW, have managed to get up to tier 6, and just recently picked up a few Mid Tier premium vehicles to help with the credit grinding. Played WoT and WT for many years, but enjoy the modern aspect of AW. I saw your posting in the battalions section of the official discord server. Am looking to join up with other like minded AW nerds for both PVP and PVE good times. In game name is Ace-Archer
-
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
MK_Regular replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
THIS IS NOT COMPLETE YET I'm using Kuntliott's map rating system for this Albatross - 8 A solid map that provides many options to the players, both in vehicle choice and in locations that they can go. These choices are further amplified by the fact that the order of the first and second objectives are semi-randomly chosen along with the spawn location and the objective locations so that the are technically half a dozen or so ways that the mission could be set up. The secondary objectives are easily accessible, and can be used to lead more mobile vehicles to positions that could be advantageous for the final objective. The only real problem with this map is that the "destroy the base" objective can be completed far too quickly by single trigger-happy player and result in the team being up to their necks in enemies and dangerously out of position for the final objective. Anvil - 6 A decent map, but fairly straight forward and lacking complexity. Engagements mostly occur at short range, so light vehicles struggle to remain relevant until the team gets close to the final objective at which point a single player (there really isn't enough space or targets for two players) can drive out onto the pier to put some range between themselves and the enemies. The secondary objectives are relatively easy to obtain, but are entirely meaningless outside of a small increase to the post-battle rewards. Banshee - 6 ... Basilisk - 8 While the single primary objective is not particularly complex, the amount of time it takes to reach the objective area partially makes up for this. There are many good opportunities for vehicles of all types to find advantageous positions that they can make use of, allowing players to use whatever vehicle they want without any major issues. The secondary objectives can be a little bit out of the way depending on which version of them you get, but completing them gives you an extra 3 minutes to complete the primary objective (which can be very useful if your team is struggling to put out the DPM needed). Cavalry - 6 The primary objective is very straightforward, although the map design provides near-constant opportunities for long range support fire. The secondary objectives don't provide any in-match bonus, but are almost trivial to take out. It almost feels like this map needs to have a second objective that occurs after the players have killed off all of the enemies or secured the capture point. Cerberus - 9 One of the more unique maps in that it requires players to kill off specific enemies instead of capturing or defending locations. This change of pace is very refreshing compared to other PvE missions, although it seems to prove challenging for players who are not used to the lieutenants. There are plenty of opportunities for players to find locations to work to the strengths of whatever vehicle they are driving, allowing any vehicle to perform well. Two of the three possible variations of the secondary objectives (namely the "destroy the trucks" and the "destroy the ammo" variations) do not require players to go out of their way to complete them, while the third (the "satcom trace" variation) is worse than the others because it does. My only recommendation for this map would be to get rid of the "satcom trace" secondary objective. Dire Wolf - 4 ... Erebos - 8 ... Frostbite - 8 ... Ghost Hunter - 9 ... Harbinger - 10 An excellent map that provides good opportunities for all playstyles. No mater which vehicle a player is driving, they can always pick a suitable position that will allow them to play to the strengths of their vehicle. While the objectives are not overly complex, the players can choose between one of several routes to complete the first objective. While the secondary objectives don't provide anything outside of the reward bonus and can be a bit out of the way, the fact that the player only needs to shoot them means that they are easy to collect. Hydra - 5 ... Kodiak - 6 ... Leviathan - 9 While I like the complexity of this map, the objectives tend to vary wildly between being too hard and too easy. The randomized locations of the "defend the radio tower" objectives can lead to situations where nobody on the team has enough mobility to reach the new objective on time, causing the objective to fail. Conversely, the final objective is far too easy as the sole requirement for completing it is that at least one player survives until the end of the match. The random locations of the secondary objectives are often too far out of the way for players to reach them before they expire, and do not provide anything outside of the typical bonus rewards. That said, there are plenty of opportunities for vehicles of all types to find suitable positions for their intended playstyles, meaning that any vehicle can be comfortably used for this mission. Life Jacket - 5 ... Meltdown - 8 ... Onyx - 6 ... Perseus - 10 Provides excellent opportunities for squishy vehicles to spot and provide long range supporting fire. The series of objectives give the map the dynamic feel that is usually associated with complexity, and the second and third objectives can both be approached from several different directions if the player so chooses. While the secondary objectives can be a bit out of the way, the one that is the most out of the way spawns several additional enemies that players can choose to engage for additional rewards at the end of the match (helpful if your team is hyper-competent and everyone is trying to maximize their earnings) or ignore completely (although they will occasionally send a few shots at any players that get spotted). Phalanx - 6 ... Prometheus - 6 ... Quarterback - 6 ... Raiding Party - 9 Has the potential to be my hands-down favourite map, but the current mission timer is about 60 seconds too short. Objectives are complex without being confusing, and give players the opportunity to complete them in a variety of ways. Engagements can consistently take place at any range, allowing all vehicles to play to their strengths. The secondary objectives are a little bit out of the way, but generally not that hard to pick up when traveling between objectives. The only thing that prevents me from giving this map a 10 is the mission timer, which is just a little bit too short for an average team of random players to consistently complete the mission (outside of tier 9-10, which seem to do fine). Red Opossum - 6 This map suffers from many of the same problems as Anvil. Most of the engagements take place at very close range, so the effectiveness of various vehicles is heavily weighted in favour of heavily armoured vehicles. While the multiple primary objectives make it more complex than Anvil, the randomized secondary objectives are now harder to obtain while still not providing anything outside of a small boost to the post-battle rewards. Ricochet - 1 This map is a good example of everything that should not be done when making a PvE mission. The engagements all take place at relatively close range (due to a combination of AI spawn locations and urban/hilly terrain) and massively favour vehicles with armour. The map layout is extremely linear for the first half the match, but then branches out to give the players a grand total of 2 routes that they can take in order to continue the engagement - one that will allow players to attempt to get the secondary objective, and one that doesn't expose the players' flanks to a swarm of enemies. The secondary objectives are spaced far apart, and take so long to get to that the match is often over before the team can finish it. Additionally, while the average map time for Ricochet is significantly shorter than the other maps, the rewards from the map are so disproportionately low that a player looking to generate as much income as then can in a given period of time is probably better off skipping Ricochet entirely. The end result is a map that is neither fun nor rewarding to play. Rolling Thunder - 7 A decent map that provides a reasonable level of complexity and good options for different vehicles. Engagements can occur at comfortable ranges for any vehicle on the first and last objective, but only at medium or close range for the second objective. Secondary objective locations are randomized, and are often in locations that are out of the way of the normal paths players would otherwise follow, but are being meaningless outside of increased rewards. Sapphire - 4 Another example of a map that could be done better. The primary objective is very straightforward, which means that matches are usually pretty short. While nowhere near as constrained as ricochet, there are no particularly good spots that players can use to take advantage of the open fields of fire to provide flanking fire without getting spotted. The secondary objectives are well out of the way and require the player be right next to them in order to pick them up without providing any advantage in the match. Scorpio - 6 ... Snakebite - 8 ... Spearhead - 3 ... Starry Night - 6 .. Stormy Winter - 6 ... Tsunami - 7 What would otherwise be a excellent map is hampered by the fact that any players that remain near the spawn for a few minutes after the match starts face certain death. Several enemies rush the spawn within the first few minutes of the match and spot anyone in the spawn for the lieutenant sitting at the end of the road with a clear line of sight into the players' spawn point. The single primary objective is straightforward, but the amount of time it takes to get there mitigates most of this as it gives players the opportunity to explore the map and choose from a wide variety of possible routes. The open area at the start of the mission gives plenty of opportunities for squishies to spot and give support fire, as does the relatively clear trainyard and dockside near the end of the mission. The secondary objectives are spaced far apart, but are not that much of an issue to get since players will need to go there anyways to deal with enemies that would otherwise hit the players with flanking fire from across the map. Umbrella - 4 While this map provides reasonable opportunities for players to use their vehicles to their strengths, it is hampered by being the quickest PvE mission in the game (this is the only mission I have ever completed in under 3 minutes, and I have done so multiple times). The secondary objectives are randomly placed, and could either be well out of the way or in very convenient locations, and are meaningless outside of the post-match rewards. This mission is better suited to being a single objective of a longer mission rather than a whole mission in itself. Watchdog - 8 A good map with varied objectives and decent variation in gameplay opportunities. While it is possible for squishy vehicles to support the objectives from longer ranges, the positions that they need to be in to do this are either not obvious and/or a bit awkward. Secondary objectives are easy to complete and provide decent rewards, but are otherwise useless. Wildfire - 7 While this map has some opportunities for squishies to give spotting and long-range support fire, these locations tend to be a bit awkward. The multiple objectives are relatively open, and offer players multiple ways to approach each objective. Some of the secondary objectives are a bit far out of the way, and collecting them does not provide any in-match advantage. Zero Hour - 10 One of my favourite maps, it is complex while still offering varied gameplay opportunities. Objectives are generally good and, with the exception of the latter half of the first objective, provide opportunities for squishies to spot and give long range support. While the secondary objectives give decent rewards they are quite far out of the way, although going after them does not take a player entirely out of the fight due to the fact that the enemies that spawn with them would otherwise flank the team. While not entirely necessary, increasing the timer for the second objective by 30-60 seconds or reducing the amount of time needed to capture it would make this map slightly easier to complete. What's the most important thing to you in a PvE mission? - gameplay While it is undeniable that all of the choices that were given for this question are important factors, I'm going to go with Gameplay. I have reached a point close to the "endgame" where I have most of the progression tanks and can afford to buy and upgrade the ones I don't have once I research them, so I'm not particularly worried about being sufficiently rewarded unless the earnings from PvE missions were to receive a massive nerf. Similarly, while certain enemy vehicles can be really annoying to play against (the old Swingfire in particular), I have enough experience in dealing with them that I generally just consider them to be "slightly more dangerous" or "mildly annoying". Instead, I'll focus on gameplay since this has the widest scope of things that can potentially be changed: map layouts and objective types (less corridor maps, less linear maps, no escort objectives) AI behaviors game mechanics (vision and spotting, shell damage and penetration mechanics, mobility mechanics, etc...) vehicle balance etc... What's your favorite mission objective preference in PvE? - capturing a location this is really just a placeholder answer, because I don't have the option to select the mission objective types that I actively despise: The escort objectives where you need to escort a vehicle with a limited HP pool and possibly preset pathing are terrible because they remove all of the potential creative solutions in favour of boatloads of DPM. There is no thinking involved with this type of objective, just driving around and holding down LMB and hoping that you can kill everything fast enough. This type of objective should be avoided for all future PvE missions. The fetch objectives where you need to pick up and carry an object have potential, but their expectation in the Moscow Calling season were less than ideal and prone to abuse. This was particularly noticeable in cases where the death of the player carrying the object would result in mission failure, as this turned the objective into a variation of the escort objective where the vehicle that needed to be escorted was marginally more competent than the AI at best or actively and deliberately suicidal at worst. While the other variation of the fetch objective did not have this particular problem, it was still prone to abuse by players grabbing one of the limited number of objects available for pickup and then deliberately not delivering it to force a mission failure. This type of objective could be used in future PvE missions with 2 major restrictions to prevent griefing: the death of the player carrying the objective should not result in mission failure there should be multiple redundant copies of the objective available The "kill the enemy boss" objectives range from being OK to exceptionally boring/annoying depending on what the boss is. An example of this type of objective done well is Cerberus, where the bosses are strong but not overwhelmingly powerful or hard to kill. An example of this type of objective done poorly is the gunship in BSI 3 (particularly in Heroics) where remaining stationary for too long means certain death and the boss takes several minutes of sustained fire (RMB, hold LMB) from the entire team to kill. All of the other objective types are generally fine, and I have no real complaints about them How difficult do you like your PvE? - challenging but doable with random players ... -
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
TheGreenFellow replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
I put 'gameplay'. I forget what the other options were, but none of them were *most* important. While enjoying blowing tanks up and fulfilling various objectives under the patina of modern armored warfare, I want to be *challenged*, not *frustrated*. And I want my time and effort invested to be rewarded, not potentially wasted. I put "capture". The other styles of mission objectives present in current PvE missions have a variety of frustrating issues - AI "cap zerging", objective locations on the map (Ghost Hunter being the worst offender of both), spawn locations & triggers (problematic on ALL missions, Frostbite is a prime example), AI 'aggro' priority, the AI's primitive aimbot and movement behavior (making escort objectives excessively frustrating...where the best solution is to physically block the escort until everything is dead)...I'd expand more if I could remember what the options for this question were. Basically speaking, I prefer killing things and capturing things because it means not being frustrated by potentially ill-timed or ill-placed game mechanics. Chapter 3 of this weekend's Spec Op - Moscow Calling - is what I'd call a good example of map size, objectives, spawn location, terrain, and so on coming together in a way that's more challenging than frustrating. I picked "Challenging, but still doable with random players". Shooting fish in a barrel is neat and all but isn't very fulfilling. But at the same time, Destiny-like "raid" style mechanics where everyone on the team MUST know what they're doing ahead of time, because of obscure hurdles (like unforgivingly short timers) or unusual gimmicks (or bad spawn/map layout, usually due to being too small), really isn't fun either. Currently I would describe the PvE experience as a mixture between "challenging" and "frustrating, often not doable with random players". Without being able to view my responses, I'm going to have to make up a new rating per map, but I'll forge ahead with trying to explain more of how I view each mission. Albatross - 7 - Great map size, no artificial boundaries or closed-off routes, that's ideal. - Decently challenging (as opposed to frustrating) and varied objectives, with timers and locations in mind. - Completing secondaries successfully is a bit of being at the mercy of AI spawns, and also can be cut off by defeating all AI enemies too soon. - AI spawns are OK on this mission but there's still many instances of "suddenly, you take heavy damage from unspotted vehicles in the rear/side of your tank!", particularly when you get to the last objective or if you try to focus the secondary objective early on. Careful positioning and pre-existing knowledge of the spawn locations and triggers can alleviate this on the player end, but that's an issue that should be solved on the designer side of things. Anvil - 5 - OK map size, technically not small but feels small. Heavily cluttered and the rubble in the middle of the map combined with narrowness limits potential routes considerably. - Exceedingly straightforward objectives; destroy some AA and a singular capture zone on the far end of the map, simple as it gets. - Most of the mission's struggle is simply knowing and dealing with the spawns, which are frustrating in terms of appearing behind or to the side of where players are when the spawns are triggered. If not for the simple map objectives, this would get a much lower rating - but because the simplicity makes it forgiving to deal with all the "spawns up your ass" combat and very rarely results in a defeat, it's passable. But not a great example to replicate. Banshee - 3 - Poor map size - technically not small, similar to Anvil, but all the clutter makes it feel tiny, especially the impassable north-to-south train to the right as you spawn in. And once past that, it's just a series of streets and alleys, with limited options to maneuver or vary in route choice. - Straightforward singular main objective. So long as the team can survive killing all enemies, you pretty much win this mission. - Frustrating secondary objectives - while straightforward, one of the secondaries very often gets placed *behind* the main singular capture objective, making it exceedingly frustrating to complete before defeating all enemies or capturing the main objective. - Supremely frustrating AI spawns and triggers. Driving down the wrong route, like following the train tracks, or following the secondary objectives, will very often spawn a horde of enemy tanks in close proximity to other players with no warning whatsoever, very often in their rear or sides as they attempt to move forward through the map. Being faced with a Lieutenant spawn right off the bat is punishing as well. Some of these AI can spawn up in the hilly area to the north of the map, or will move to it, getting unfair positioning on players that will be engaged in the buildings with other sets of AI spawns. Experienced players can learn these spawns/triggers and act accordingly to mitigate the issue, but it's still a problem caused primarily by spawn locations, trigger behavior, and AI behavior overall. If the main objective were not so simple, this would get an even lower rating. Basilisk - 5 - OK map size, technically large but made quite narrow and linear by artificial boundaries and terrain. - The 'power station' area is exceedingly annoying, because the vertical metal frames are weirdly indestructible and have buggy collision behavior. - Straightforward singular main objective, sometimes the timer will punish teams that take too long to push overcome enemies. - Slightly annoying secondary objectives, just due to out-of-the-way locations. - AI spawns are OK on this mission up until the final area. Managing sight lines becomes very crucial with this mission, and due to the layout of the final area combined with the Lieutenant spawn's view range, it can be very frustrating to play this mission in a lightly armored vehicle, because it's very difficult to avoid being spotted. The final area has AI spawns appear from 3 different directions if you approach too closely to the final cap area, making slow and careful progress a necessity. Also, the AI often gets stuck on out-of-bounds rocks, which is annoying. Cavalry - 8 - Good map size, a bit more narrow than strictly necessary, but terrain allows for good amount of route variety and clever positioning, and no closed-off routes; there is a lot of city clutter, but it's almost entirely all destructible, opening a lot of opportunities for productive demolition. - Straightforward and plane objectives, not much potential for frustration there. - AI spawns are OK. The 2 light tanks that spawn off to the left of the spawn can be frustrating if you move too far up out of spawn at the start, and there's little terrain/cover to mitigate that issue. The Lieutenant spawn's buffed view range and appearance midway through the mission is frustrating, because you often are put at the whim of the AI's seemingly random movements, and it's annoying if the Lieutenant decides to stay on top of the dunes as well. Once the Lieutenant is down, things go back to being OK, except that some spawns seem to sit outside the playable borders of the map and can sometimes unfairly appear in close proximity to the flank/sides of a player if they push too deep too early. Vision control (and building demolition) often becomes very important to clear the last parts of the mission. Cerberus - 4 - Mediocre map size - technically large but artificially narrow, with a long train and rocky terrain blocking much of it and a central bridge that's impassable to vehicles, and the last third of the map rarely sees use. Despite all the rocky terrain, there are multiple places where there is no effective terrain/cover for the players to use if the AI appears in the wrong location. - Somewhat frustrating objectives. Main objective is to kill a series of Lieutenants, which would be fine, except they do not appear in a physically linear order and also can roam quite widely across the map. The secondary objectives are random, and always involve doubling back and forth along the length of the train, which can take you out of the action or be prohibitive to survival depending on what's going on. The saving 'grace' here is it's hard to lose this mission. - AI & player spawns are horrendously bad on this map once you get past the first Lieutenant wave. Some of this is thanks to the player respawn locations often dumping you right into the middle of the second wave of enemies with your side exposed to multiple Lieutenant tanks. Some of this is due to AI roaming behavior seeming to be above-normal on this particular mission. Some of it is thanks to the prohibitive map layout. Most of it is simply spawn location and timing relative to player location. If not for the 'easy' win condition of this mission, it would get a much lower rating. Dire Wolf - 5 - Decent map size, hampered by the central mostly-impassable hill in the middle and artificial boundaries making the map smaller than really necessary. There are potential alternate routes on this mission, but the objective location layout necessitates a more-or-less linear approach. - Main defense objectives can be frustrating without proactive players. The first and second objectives in particular have non-destructible objects that the AI often gets stuck behind, making defending the objective in a timely fashion annoying without sufficient mobility or planned positioning. If those initial hurdles are dealt with, usually not too frustrating. - Secondary objectives are frustrating because they spawn target enemy tanks in one of three far-off corners of the map, and the tanks seem to spawn in all 3 locations regardless of where the objective actually winds up, making the second main objective in particular very frustrating as the northwest corner's tanks have a direct line of sight onto the players. Having players with high control of sight range and pre-existing map knowledge can mitigate the issue, but that should be resolved at the design level. Also, because of the flat alley no-cover nature of the southwest and northeast locations, attempting to clear these secondaries in a lightly armored vehicle is frustratingly risky. - AI spawns are bad but manageable with some pre-existing knowledge, some of which is due to aforementioned secondary objective spawn behavior. The first objective can sometimes have spawns appear to side/rear of players. No Lieutenant spawns on this map means that sight range issue doesn't appear, but during the second objective AI very often appear smack dab in the middle of the fields in close proximity to expected player positions, which again is made worse by the secondary objective spawns. If players advance past the third objective, they can often find spawns appearing in their sides/rear. Erebos - 3 - Good map size, hampered by excessively cluttered terrain and artificial boundaries. Playing artillery 'normally' in this mission is effectively impossible, direct-fire "TD-mode" play is necessary, albeit there are situationally-useful positions on the mountain to the right of spawn. - Main objectives are annoying. There's a lot of doubling back-and-forth, sometimes the objective is to kill randomly roaming Lieutenants, and the doubling back-and-forth means being at the mercy of seemingly random AI spawns, which can often frustratingly catch players by surprise. - Secondary objectives are OK, given you have to go all over the map for the main objective anyway, but would need adjustment if the main objectives were changed to require less doubling back-and-forth. - AI & player spawns are anywhere from manageable to downright horrible on this mission. They can appear in quite different places at different times depending on which trigger is reached first by unsuspecting players. There's quite a number of potential AI enemies on this mission, which seem to roam more than normal, and given the multitude of excessive cluttered routes, lends to a high amount of frustrating "surprise" encounters with players trying to double back-and-forth to complete the main objectives. The last objective in particular is frustrating because the player respawn location is placed right on top of it, which can result in early mission completion before secondaries can be completed or damage/kills are farmed, *or* can result in players being dumped right in the middle of a horde of enemy tanks because the AI always zergs towards that location once the last main objective is started. The AI also has a high chance of getting stuck on rocks or falling into the water areas on this map. Frostbite - 2 - Great map size, no artificial boundaries or route blockage. The only reason I don't give this mission a 1 score is the map's size and openness allowing player route flexibility. - Main objectives are EXCESSIVELY frustrating on this mission. The first capture objective has an unforgivingly short timer, the second defense objective has a 50/50 chance of appearing on the very far side of the map (which is exacerbated by the aforementioned short timer on the first objective) and very often is captured by AI before player tanks have any chance of reaching it (unless a player purposefully ignores the first objective to head to it first), and the third objectives are placed in locations that give all the AI hard cover from approaching players until the last possible moment. This is the primary reason this map is widely unpopular and avoided when possible, as it very often results in defeat and wasted time and effort. - Secondary objectives, in turn, are also unnecessarily frustrating. AI spawns seem to semi-randomly be triggered by touching the objectives, and due to the terrain and AI tank pool, can often result in the instant obliteration of the player that completed it (Hunter AFV in particular is a major frustration here). If not for the main objectives, this might be a lesser concern, but in tandem it becomes even worse. - AI spawns on this map are awful primarily because of the objectives' locations and timers involved. With proactive positioning and vision control by the players, they can be mitigated, but they still have a high consistency of appearing behind/to the sides of the players with no cover or protection of any kind in between. The Lieutenant spawn on the second objective in particular is very frustrating, because the buffed sight range makes it very risky to quickly approach that far end of the map if the objective spawns there, and also makes it difficult to take up a position as a lightly armored vehicle even if you do get the closer second objective spawn - which, in turn, is *also* made worse by the secondary objective spawns. Ghost Hunter - 1 - Technically great map size, but easily 8/10ths of it goes entirely unused, and the parts that do get used have high amounts of cover and protection that favor the AI spawns. - Main objectives are the worst in the game. Three back to back defense objectives with high numbers of rapidly spawning and fast-moving AI that demand immediate player response or else results in mission failure, with high amounts of solid cover and protection for the AI on each objective. The second objective is the particularly worst offender of the three, because it's out in a corner past two narrow chokepoints, and the stream of AI spawns all appear between or behind those chokepoints, in *addition* to at least 8 Lieutenant spawns that can appear all over that area of the map. It's simply a clusterfuck every time, and the only way to mitigate it is to have an artillery player that knows where to position to get a line of sight on the objectives or have an MBT player that either risks high amounts of damage or has an active APS ability to get onto each objective in turn to stop the initial AI capture countdown, and then get into very specific positions to defend each objective. If even one player fails to survive or respawn, that can result in a mission failure. If nobody can reach the objectives in time, that's mission failure. If nobody can hit the capturing AI tanks because of dead ones in the way and also can't drive onto the capture zones, that's a failure. This mission has an abnormally, frustratingly high incidence of failure and thus wasted time and effort on the part of the players. - Secondary objectives, which normally would not be so bad, often have to be ignored because of the aforementioned clusterfuck. - AI spawns are the worst in the game. They appear in close proximity to expected player positions, specifically in the rear/sides of the players during the second and third objectives, and immediately rush to capture objectives, leaving little to no time for unknowing players to react. That would be manageable if not for the unprecedented 8 or more Lieutenant spawns that also contribute to capturing each objective (I've tried counting them all on the few occasions I get a team capable of defeating enough enemies fast enough to make all them all spawn). If it were up to me, I would make it a priority to remove this mission from the PvE pool for the forseeable future until it can be completely reworked - objectives, spawns, timers, everything, in every way. It really is that bad. Harbinger - 4 - Good map size, some artificial boundaries on the right side, the terrain has nuances and sight lines that are not friendly to inexperienced players. - Objectives are straightforward. There is a potential issue with overlapping timers if you capture the first objective at the last second, resulting in an unfair mission defeat despite all objectives technically being fulfilled (unless all enemy vehicles can be located and destroyed before the end of mission timer, which is also frustrating because AI will often get stuck out-of-bounds). - AI spawns are anywhere from horrible to OK depending on the experience of the players. Vision control and pre-existing knowledge are crucial. If you can get an MBT player who immediately goes to B4 in the field dip at the start of the mission, the first waves of enemies and approach to the first main objective becomes very easy - but that player also needs to bear in mind one of those waves appears to the north, meaning they need to position their tank accordingly up against the terrain to avoid being shot in the rear either by that wave or the AI enemies that will continually appear in the town. Players can also take alternate routes due south, which can potentially trigger the AI waves in different locations, but this is very risky without high amounts of view range and camo, as there is little to no solid protection available (except height advantage). Once in town, the players can be subject to side/rear flanking by nature of the close circular alley layout, but here again pre-existing map knowledge can provide a few safe spots to position to defend against the spawns and also cover the capture/defense objective. The number of enemies is on the excessive side, meaning if you have a couple players fail to survive throughout the mission, it can be difficult to succeed - especially if all your team members located in the town are killed around the same time, as the player spawn location is usually quite far away. Hydra - 3 - Mediocre map size, technically large but made very narrow and linear by artificial boundaries. - Straightforward singular main objective. - Secondary objectives are placed in frustrating locations, particularly the two on the bottom portion of the map, requiring either a proactive artillery player or someone to rush past most AI spawns to reach them before the main objective is complete or all enemies are defeated. - AI spawns on this map appear in excessively high amounts, making defeat likely if any players fail to survive/respawn/deal damage. The initial wave of enemies appear right in front of the player spawn and offer little time for players to react, particularly putting those that load slowly at an unfair disadvantage. The spawns further down the map can appear to the sides/rear of players, especially once players reach the main road crossing east to west. A Lieutenant spawn combined with high amounts of clutter towards the end of the mission makes playing lightly armored vehicles difficult. - This map gets a lower score than would be the case otherwise, because of the exceedingly annoying audio bug persisting from the mission 'intro' (AA shooting down aircraft), causing an infinitely looping explosion sound to be heard throughout the mission duration. Kodiak - 6 - Smallish map size, technically mid-sized but made smaller by artificial boundaries and high amounts of large buildings, holds back my rating a bit. - Straightforward series of defense main objectives in sensibly placed locations. - 3 basic capture secondary objectives, sensibly placed not too far from main objectives, with a timer generous enough to allow player action but short enough to punish a team that is too lax about pursuing them. - AI spawns are primarily what holds the score back for this mission. Most of the spawns seem to be OK, there aren't an excessive number of them and they don't unfairly rush each defense objective in a way that demands immediate player vigilance - but randomly AI spawns will rush straight across the dune area, which is particularly frustrating towards the start of the mission for any lightly armored vehicle or for using troops, and is made more of an issue by the restricted map area. Some of the spawns towards the end of the mission appear behind/to the sides of players, but usually are far enough away to not cause undue frustration. Rarely the spawns will stay sitting outside the playable borders of the map. Leviathan - 4 - Mediocre map size, technically large but lots of large clutter, hampered by artificial boundaries making it even smaller. There are a couple interest hilltop locations that are reachable, but due to the objective design, are often detrimental for players to go to, and do not offer artillery much utility. - Main objectives are frustrating to defend. They are located a challenging distance away from the initial player spawn and from each other, and usually have AI spawning in close proximity to them. Weirdly, the main objectives can all be failed except 1 and the mission will still proceed without much penalty, if any. - Secondary objectives are very frustrating on this map. They often appear on the opposite end of the map from where the action is, with a short timer that demands immediate response in all but the fastest vehicles. I've been told many times that they don't offer much reward if any at all, as well. - AI spawns are pretty bad on this mission. They rush the objectives too quickly, and the initial Lieutenant spawn that rushes the runway together with two regular AI is pretty bullshit. There's not an excessive number of them, but they often appear from 3 different directions per each defense objective, and can appear rather randomly from just about every direction for the final objective by the Aurora missile. This can be mitigated by player prepositioning, but is still frustrating. - This mission would get a lower score if not for the fact that it weirdly can be 'failed' in almost all objectives and still results in success. Life Jacket - 5 - Map size is small, technically average but made smaller and semi-linear by narrow artificial boundaries and the presence of many large impassable structures. - Decent main objectives, 3 sensibly placed defense objectives in orderly fashion, rarely ever a cause for frustration there. - Secondary objectives can be sometimes annoying, mostly due to the easternmost one being located behind most of the AI spawns and can also be cut short by destruction of all enemies. - AI spawns are frustrating for the second and third objectives, and the first objective can be frustrating without an MBT player or player with good vision control. Weirdly, the AI seem to prioritize clustering against the middle building instead of the actual objective area for the second objective, which often creates a large number of vehicle wrecks that can make elimination of the AI actually difficult to accomplish. Generally, the spawns appear from too many directions and from the narrow edges of the map, which makes for a lot of rear/side shots on players unless the players know to pre-position in specific locations. Thankfully there's not an excessive number of these spawns, helping the score a bit here. Meltdown - 5 - Map size is average, technically large but hampered by artificial boundaries and terrain, with large areas blocked by massive buildings and inaccessible hills. Despite this, there are multiple routes present for players to pursue. - Main objectives are randomly frustrating - sometimes the AI will inexplicably focus destruction of the dam or cooling towers, even if players are actively engaged with them, and depending on the varying amounts of DPM available to the AI, rarely this will result in mission defeat to no fault of the players. This is bad objective design. - Secondary objectives are mildly annoying sometimes to reach, but the mission usually has enough time to complete them without much issue. - AI spawns are predictable but frustrating during the second defense objective and final objective. They appear too closely to players and from too many side/rear locations to expected player positions, they often will shoot at players but hit the cooling towers instead (which means unsuspecting players trying to defend will, by getting shot at, cause a mission failure), and the AI will often get stuck outside the southern map boundary. Onyx - 4 - Map size is small, technically large, but made excessively linear and narrow by artificial boundaries, route blockage, the indestructible train on an impassable bridge, and heavy clusters of rock. - The first two main objectives are OK, the last one is placed in a very frustrating location, which is exacerbated with an abnormally high number of spawns and also combined with Lieutenant spawns (I've sometimes seen as many as 3). - The first few secondary objectives are OK, but often the last one can be frustrating as it's located in a position that usually means exposing yourself to a high number of enemy AI, and if the main objective is completed or all enemies defeated, that can cut off completion of the secondary objective. - AI spawns are somewhat frustrating on the first objective if players go too far, ditto for the second objective. Sometimes the AI will get 'stuck' in one or two positions. The AI spawns become *heavily* frustrating on the final objective, where there is hard cover that prevents a line of sight onto the objective without exposing yourself to most of the continual AI spawns for the duration of the objective, meaning the AI can safely swarm out of sight unless the players can take some *very* specific positions without dying. Lightly armored vehicles in particular will have a hard time finding anywhere to safely defend the objective. This problem can be mitigated all at once by an aggressive MBT player that knows how to rush and safely hug the rock located on the last objective while engaging all the AI in close proximity, but without that this mission often can result in defeat, especially for newer players. This particular issue of the last objective drops the score considerably. Perseus - 4 - Map size is large-ish, hampered by artificial boundaries, the central impassable mountain, and artificial blockage on the river. Some route flexibility is presented to the players, but the mission winds up being pretty linear due to spawn & objective locations. - Each of the objectives are frustrating without specific positioning in the bushes or an aggressive MBT player. Some of this is due to high numbers of enemies. - Secondary objectives are mostly OK, except for the one that exists on the southwest corner of the mountain, which is due almost entirely to the AI spawns. - Speaking of which, the AI spawns (sensing a theme yet?) are frustrating on this mission. They appear in close proximity to the players for the first objective and can appear in rear/sides of an aggressive MBT player. The second objective spawns are OK, but if any player strays too far west, that can become a serious side/rear issue for players. The third objective spawns are sporatic and come from many directions of the compass all at once, which is highly frustrating, but that can be mitigated some by good positioning. The biggest reason for AI spawn frustration on this mission is actually not thanks to the missions, but due to the 2-3 Lieutenant spawns in the southwest area, which also spawn with an accompaniment of regular AI, amounting to a massive pool of hitpoints (and damage) to overcome that usually appears after the secondary objective, and directly in the southern path to the last objective. Players often elect to bypass this entirely by going back north across the river, and anyone who decides to engage these spawns is in for a tough fight (and one made nigh-impossible for lightly armored tanks, thanks to Lieutenant's buffed view range) that ultimately serves no purpose for the main objective (and can even hamper it, because Lieutenants that are spawned but not engaged will show up late on the last objective). Phalanx - 5 - Map size is large, somewhat hampered by artificial boundaries and some impassable sections of terrain, as well as the train. - Straightforward single main objective, with a timer that will punish teams that aren't aggressive enough. - Secondary objectives are frustrating, but mostly because of the AI spawn trigger behavior present on this mission. - AI spawns can vary from frustrating to OK depending on the location of secondary objectives and which spawn triggers are hit by the players, and how much pre-existing knowledge the players have of said triggers, which are spread out across the varying parts of the map. Vision control and/or a clever MBT player are somewhat necessary to mitigate the issue. Unknowing players or those without sufficient memorization of trigger locations will very often be hit from the sides/behind on this mission, which as mentioned is the main source of frustration. Prometheus - 5 - Map size is medium, technically large but most of it is empty water and the island parts are mostly impassable rocky terrain. There are several avenues players can move on, but the location of objectives and spawns forces the mission to be pretty linear. Using artillery is very frustrating after the first objective. - The main objectives are decently straightforward. The second objective can be frustrating if an enemy AI gets stuck somewhere and nobody completes the capture objective. The third objective is annoying for an unusual reason - weirdly, destruction of a specific AI spawn (not marked in any way to the players) will result in early mission success, preventing the defeat of all enemy AI and farming of extra damage/xp. - The secondary objectives are easy but frustrating in that whoever runs around completing them will largely be taken out of the action, because these objectives are located too far off the beaten path, meaning less damage/xp farmed. - The AI spawns are OK on the first objective, sometimes punishing to players that go too far forward. The second objective spawns can sometimes be frustrating by appearing directly behind players on one of the routes from the first objective to the second objective, and by the aforementioned getting-stuck problem. The final objective spawns are frustrating to any player that does not position themselves in just a few specific locations, and will often have brief side shots on most of said locations. Quarterback - 8 - Map size is medium, technically large but cut off by artificial boundaries and impassable structures. - Straightforward singular objective, rarely results in mission failure presuming all players can survive combat. - Secondary objectives are quite easy and usually cleared within the first minute off spawn. - AI spawns on this map tend to exhibit a peculiar "fish in a barrel" behavior. There's some potential frustration with a few of the early spawns, or the small group of AI that appear in the west and drive towards the east along the road partway through the mission, but otherwise the mission is straightforward knuckle-dusting head to head combat. Rarely, the last wave of AI behind the main structure can get stuck out of bounds or on rocks, or one of the western spawn group will get stuck behind one of the concrete pipe supports. - There's not a whole lot to this mission, which doesn't leave any potential room for frustration, so it gets a higher rating from me than might be the case for other players seeking more nuance or variety in terms of mission objectives and advancing along the map. Raiding Party - 8 - Map size is large, technically huge but a lot of it is impassable canyon stuff. Still a lot of potential routes for players to explore. - Main objectives are fun, since they involve blowing things up. The final objective to escape is sometimes frustrating, but only when teams aren't aware of the timer or fail to survive the extensive amounts of combat available in the mission. - Secondary objectives can usually be picked up in the course of the main objectives. Rarely, can be cut off by enemy destruction or completion of escape objective. - AI spawns on this map are usually predictable. There is an excessive amount of AI potentially present on the map, but that depends on how many of them are triggered by the players. Can be extremely frustrating when they pile up on the canyon terrain and a lightly armored player vehicle rounds the corner only to be instantly obliterated. The number of potential AI could be reduced a bit to prevent overwhelming players before they can make it to the final objective. - P.S. The glare lighting on this mission single-handedly causes many players to disable post-processing effects in Armored Warfare...you may want to look into that. Red Opossum - 4 - Map size is tiny. Technically already a small map, it's got artificial boundaries, lots of large buildings, a good portion of it is inaccessible water...this is a very small mission. - Main objectives are straightforward in type, 3 defenses, but are not laid out in sensibly progressive fashion. - Secondary objectives are annoying, requiring a lot of doubling back across the admittedly tiny map. Not being careful about spawns can elevate this to frustrating. - AI spawns on this map are frustrating, partly due to the restricted size of the map combined with sheer amount of AI spawns, but also partly due to the locations. Two AI enemies spawn behind players at the start of the mission, which is just plain bullshit. The majority of the rest of the AI spawns appear from just 2 locations, but these locations are diametrically opposed from the second and third main objectives, which results in a lot of side/rear ambush engagements against the players, again exacerbated by the close proximity of everything. Ricochet - 3 - Map size is small, technically large, but excessively restricted by artificial boundaries, impassable terrain, large buildings, a blown-up train, etc., all making the mission very linear except for the last area, which is only non-linear if seeking to complete secondary objectives. - Straightforward singular main objective, has a short timer that will punish player teams unable to do enough damage in time. - Secondary objectives are exceedingly frustrating, all located *past* the singular main objective, all requiring bypassing of AI enemy spawns, and most of the time will be cut off either by defeating all enemy spawns or by completing the main objective, and very often will fail simply due to players that don't know any better about prolonging survival of the last few enemy AI so the secondaries can be completed. - AI spawns on this map are awfully frustrating. Up to 4 enemies that spawn directly to the side/behind of players immediately as the mission starts, then more that will start swarming over the dunes to the other side of the players' spawn, and most of these enemies draw from an ATGM pool which only makes this instant-swarming bullshit worse. From there, many spawns will appear outside the border of the map and require spotting by a high-view range vehicle in order to be engaged, and once these are finally cleared out and players can finally leave the spawn area to progress along the map, half the time players will encounter 2 or 3 Lieutenants on the main road, preventing easy bypass to get the secondary objectives. If they don't appear there, they will appear further in the buildings and shipping containers, and the additional spawns makes being shot in the rear/sides a common problem towards the end of the mission. Overall a very unsatisfactory experience. Rolling Thunder - 4 - Map size is small, technically large but excessively restricted by artificial boundaries, large impassable blocks of buildings, blocked-off streets, making the map very linear with some short alley off-shoots. - Straightforward series of defense objectives, not too frustrating in and of themselves. - Secondary objectives are sometimes annoying, because they are placed on off-shoot streets that aren't on the linear path. - AI spawns are the main source of frustration for this mission. While predictable, they can appear from multiple locations at once, punishing players who don't position themselves in specific spots. Particularly during the final objective, they can appear on the main road behind the players...you know, the one the players spent the whole mission clearing on their way to that final objective. Thankfully they aren't excessive in number. Sapphire - 6 - Map size is good, a little restricted by outer artificial boundaries, but largely doesn't restrict the players, which is great. - Straightforward singular main objective. - Secondary objectives are slightly frustrating, they can be put in locations made difficult to reach because of the spawns and are also significantly out-of-the-way of the main action. - AI spawns are the main source of frustration on this mission. A swarm of them rush players on the initial spawn, making it difficult to position safely in a lightly armored vehicle, and continual spawns appear haphazardly throughout the rest of the mission across the eastern half of the map, albeit mainly along the southern road. Players are forced to take very specific positions, usually, in order to withstand the haphazard spawn assault and avoid constantly being hit from behind/in the sides. Scorpio - 5 - Map size is small, technically large-to-mid-sized, but made linear and heavily restricted by artificial boundaries, impassable sections of terrain, large blocks of buildings, and terrain shaping safe places for engagement. - Straightforward singular main objective. Very rarely can punish teams that are too cautious or can't survive combat successfully. - Secondary objectives would be potentially frustrating by being out of the way and also next to several AI spawns, but oddly (I think uniquely?) the mission will not auto-complete upon destruction of all enemies, making it possible to pick these up at the very end of the mission without much fuss. - AI spawns, alongside the narrow structure of this map, make this mission frustrating. Without very specific routing, timing, and positioning from the players, the players will find themselves swarmed, shot in the side from unseen tanks, and instantly obliterated from the sheer number of AI vehicles that appear around the main objective. On the other hand, this allows experienced players that position properly - I-5 to J-6 for MBTs, J4 or carefully along the G row for lightly armored vehicles with good camo - to light up the whole enemy AI horde and allow the rest of the team to pump out damage as fast as reload times and good aim will allow. However, these players must also wait until the AI spawns appear and cross the central bridge, otherwise they'll find themselves exposed and destroyed by said enemy horde. This excessively punishing nature is what hurts the score of this mission so much compared to Quarterback, despite the similar characteristics. Snake Bite - 7 - Map size is large, despite many impassable terrain sections and artificial map boundaries, leaving room for player route choice. - Straightforward main objectives, but spawn location/triggers require a somewhat roundabout approach. - Secondary objectives, strangely, drive the main flow of this mission, appearing in a clockwise spread around the main objective, each with their own set of spawns. Clearing these spawns out to capture the main objective is part of the purpose, which all in all is clever design. The timers involved leave plenty room for players to engage without undue pressure. - AI spawns are the only thing that drag this mission down, really. Players have to ignore the main road they appear on and head left instead, lest they trigger a series of spawns across the runway that quickly will spot and hit players from the sides. If they do so, the spawns will appear in fairly predictable and linear encounters, with a somewhat random factor of the Lieutenant spawn (I've seen it appear in a few different spots). Some of the spawn locations are unduly annoying and result in rear/side hit frustration. After the main objective is captured, the swarm of AI tend to appear and rush along the runway almost immediately, which can be frustrating for unsuspecting players. Sometimes part of the AI swarm appears to the east of the runway, which always makes things frustrating for players when it happens, and often there will be 1-3 AI 'stuck' behind buildings at the far southern end of the runway. Spearhead - 5 - Map size is tiny. Already small, the map is largely occupied by massive structures, greatly limiting player routes to just 3 main approaches to a short objective. - Straightforward singular objective. Annoying in that it cannot ever be completed by defeating all AI enemies - either an AI gets stuck in a location that is entirely not visible to players no matter where players go on the map (I've never found it, if it exists), or you simply are *required* to complete the capture to finish the mission. - Secondary objectives are fairly easy to pick up, given the small size of the map, but can cause frustrating AI spawn triggers. - AI spawns are frustrating on this mission. A fair number will assault the player spawn right at the start - unfairly frustrating for anyone still loading in - and then gradual waves of AI will more or less repeat that from further and further back on the map, and gradually shift their focus from the player spawn to the capture objective. They spawn haphazardly all over the map, and there's a Lieutenant as well that will roam all over the western half of the map if left unchecked (or will eventually go to the main objective.) Careful positioning and gradual assault by the players can mitigate the spawn issue, but aggressive play will quickly be punished by rear/side spawning problems. Starry Night - 3 - Map size is large, allows some routing variety, but demands linear behavior from MBTs or a passive spotter due to the unique 'nighttime' spotting mechanics affecting this particular mission (camo effects are greatly increased while not firing, while firing exposes your position no matter how good your camo/skills are, unless you are at a long distance away). While it's novel, it's NOT explained to the players at all and that makes it frustrating. - The main objectives on this map are frustrating. The first one requires rushing into town nearly immediately, which puts any non-MBTs at risk; the second one, requires either an MBT to rush very close to it and either use a farm-house or a dirt berm as hull-down cover while being shot at by a Lieutenant and full horde of AI *or* for a willing participant to park a decent camo/view range vehicle in a bush close by the objective and specifically *not* shoot at anything while the rest of the team takes care of all the damage; and the third objective is placed in a location that is far enough away that AI are always on it by the time players can arrive, is located on higher terrain giving AI hulldown cover, and forces players to expose themselves to further spawns in order to properly protect the objective. The first two are manageable, the third objective is the primary frustration here. - The secondary objectives can be picked up on the way usually, not much to comment on there. - The AI spawns are horrible on this mission for appearing in the rear/sides of player positions, especially for the final objective. This mission is very often a failure for newer players unfamiliar with the unique visibility mechanics, and don't know about the positions necessary to take to keep the Lieutenant et. al spotted between the Lieutenant's smokes, or to engage the third cap without getting shredded by the continual stream of AI appearing to the south. Stormy Winter - 5 - Map size is small, technically medium, but has artificial boundaries and large buildings that combined with spawn locations, restrict what players can do, with 2 exceptions for players using quick high-camo vehicles. - Straightforward singular main objective, secondary objectives can usually be picked up on the way to mission completion without much fuss. - AI spawns, typically, are the frustrating trouble with this mission. Thankfully, they don't immediately swarm the player spawn area, but once players start reaching the main facility area, they can appear in the sides/rear with alarming frequency. Once players make their way near the main objective, two or three large waves of AI will be triggered that come in from many directions on the north part of the map, which can be frustrating for players that don't expect that. Clever/experienced players in a high-camo vehicle can race ahead of the main conflict to either the slight dip on the hill in the very corner of B0 or at the head of the bridge in B6 and effectively get rear/side shots on all enemy AI spawns as they engage the rest of the team, but being spotted can cause instant death, so opening fire can be risky. One or two AI have a consistent habit of getting stuck outside the map boundaries on train-car collision mapping. Tsunami - 2 - Map size is tiny, technically small already, but exacerbated by spawn locations, sight lines, artificial boundaries, and some large buildings on the eastern part of the map. - Seemingly straightfoward singular objective...made complicated by AI spawn locations. - Secondary objectives seem to be frustratingly out-of-the-way...but kind of aren't, because of the AI spawn locations. - AI spawn locations are second-worst on this map, only beaten by Ghost Hunter in atrocity. Instantly the players are spawned in direct line of sight of a Lieutenant with spawns in close sight around all around the two buildings next to them, and most typically the strategy is to immediately attack north across the river to escape - only to immediately have to deal with 2 AI spawns, one of which will typically camp behind the rock forcing further engagement out of the river, in full view of the aforementioned horde of AI (but at least out of view of the Lieutenant). Then, you have AI that are spawned from the very beginning of the match in J2 with oversight lines across the entire western part of the map, as well as additional AI spawns to the south of the main road players spawned on, and you have to deal with the Lieutenant that sits in D4 while carefully cresting around dunes. This map is an absolute nightmare in any lightly armored vehicle, and is still a massive frustration in most MBTs. If players can make it past all that initial bullshit in the dunes, however, the engagements on the train tracks are generally fun and straightforward...but can also catch players in a rear/side crossfire if they push along the southernmost part first. The AI also has a habit of multiple tanks parking out of bounds, both north and south ends of the rail tracks, and one of them tends to be behind a giant warehouse with no way for players to directly damage them...which just makes things that much more frustrating at the end of this mission. Umbrella - 4 - Map size is small, technically large, but objective/spawn location combined with massive inaccessible mountains greatly limit player positioning, though some possibilities exist. - Straightforward singular main objective. - Secondary objectives are usually easy, sometimes can spawn in annoying locations. - AI spawns are quite frustrating, if predictable, on this map. There are two different sets of spawn triggers, depending on whether players reach an invisible line going north or south from the spawn first, that changes where the first highly aggressive wave of AI will appear, but ultimately the result will be the same - a horde of AI doing donuts out on the runway, all ready to instantly obliterate the first player that gets spotted in direct line of sight with this horde. There are 2 AI that trigger upon going on the southernmost road, that will either get 'stuck' in the dip on the ridge there or drive at full speed to join the main swarm. If going north, there's almost always an AI that gets 'stuck' next to the north-easternmost hangar, just under the lip of the ridge, but just close enough to proximity-spot any player that tries to use that spot without knowing about it. And sometimes there's a couple AI spawns that randomly appear from the northeast corner, just to mess with players' heads. A couple AI can also be caught spawning on the southwestern hangars, depending how quickly players decide to push the southernmost road. Generally, this map is decided by the view range and clever positioning of MBTs going down the 'center' path and finding a safe place to hunker down and endure the horde of donut-driving aimbot AI while the rest of the team picks them off one by one. Without that factor, this mission can very quickly become frustrating without some proactive and careful positioning of a high-camo spotter around the D4 ridgeline, being conscious that further AI spawns will appear around E2 and move towards the main objective. If the spawns weren't so predictable, this mission would score lower. Watchdog - 6 - Map size is medium; technically large, but all the action happens around the central harbor, none of the exterior areas are used, and some routes are physically blocked off, with large buildings present in many portions of the mission area. - Somewhat interesting set of objectives, though it's silly to blow up a bridge that you just...drive past anyway. The double pair of defense objectives at the end can be frustrating. - Secondary objectives on this mission are to shoot down helicopters, which can be neat or annoying, and it took me an embarrassing number of plays on this mission to even understand the helicopters were there, let alone when or where they spawn. - AI spawns can be frustrating all over this mission. The initial set seem to be a straightforward 'assault the bridge' sort of location, but some can start showing up from the rear and sides, and once players go far enough up that street all hell seems to break loose with the AI spawn aggression to go protect the foot of that bridge, including a pair of Lieutenants. Then that pair or a new pair of Lieutenants will head to the north of the bridge area, which can fuck over players that try to cross the bridge in anticipation of the second defense objective. The AI starts getting onto that second objective rather quickly, which can frustrate unknowing players, and there's no hulldown position for an MBT to safely take to spot it - one has to just roll up and hope the AI doesn't spawn any auto-penning guns while your team kills them quickly. If there's no MBT, there are some positions a lightly armored tank can try, but it's risky. The final objective's pair of defense objectives can be frustrating as well if the team doesn't adequately split attention between both, and I've seen players defend one, and then the other, only to forget/ignore further spawns on the former and nearly lose the mission without my attentiveness. And in general, the AI spawns on the sides/rear of any player that advances too far to any of the objectives on this map. Wildfire - 8 - Map size is largeish, some inaccessible terrain and buildings but no artificial barriers of other sorts, leaving players largely free to roam. - Primary objectives are a decently straightforward set of 3 defenses, with a reasonable location for each. - Secondary objectives are OK, with the A1 location that sometimes appears being the one frustrating exception, as AI tanks like to spawn there continuously throughout the mission. Always fun to blow things up. - AI spawns are mainly what holds this good mission from being greater; and really, that's just how punishing they can be to unsuspecting players that try taking up any position near the main road at any point of the mission. Otherwise, they aren't too numerous, they don't tend to appear in the rear/side of players (until the third objective, and that depends on where players set up to cover the third objective), and the pair of Lieutenants that appear on the second objective don't cause too much trouble unless you got too close in a lightly armored vehicle. Sometimes it can be annoying trying to find the last remaining AI, as sometimes it will hang out in one corner of the map or another. Zero Hour - 5 - Map size is large - technically huge, but closed off by artificial boundaries, inaccessible terrain, large buildings, and such. - Primary objectives are OK, if involving a bit of doubling back-and-forth; the timers are pretty short and will punish an inattentive or passive team. This can be quite frustrating if many of your teammates are the 'hang back and overwatch' variety of player. - Secondary objectives are frustrating, as they appear in obscure parts of the map away from the main action, albeit each comes with their own sets of spawns - which can provide xp and damage to farm, or be further frustration depending on what tank gets spawned and what vehicle you happen to be in. The timers are unforgiving, as well. - AI spawns on this map are haphazard and trigger-dependent, and so are frustrating in that they can't be memorized per se and often can appear in the rear/sides of players doubling back and forth for the main objectives. There are a high amount of them as well, and it can take awhile to grind through them all by unsupported MBTs pushing across the F-row. Another high count of spawns swarm the second and third objectives, which can be frustrating to unprepared players. Also, there's a Lieutenant that likes to spawn in the valley in D5 with direct line of sight on all players that try to rush back to protect to the third objective, which is straight bullshit. -
Returning Player After Many Years
Tigger replied to Havok1o1's topic in Newbie Palace and New Users Introductions
There is this and you have the Steam forum for the game, both are a lot quieter and better behaved than the old forum degenerated into. Welcome back, always happy to help out where I can -
NOT COMPLETE. I'll finish this up when I have the time. The general pattern here is that secondary objectives simply don't matter at all either by poor placement or lack of gameplay relevancy. What's the most important thing to you in a PvE mission? Will anybody be surprised if I say good gameplay is the most important thing to me? Having two dozen different variety of bot vehicles to fight against isn't relevant at all when they all follow the same pathings and behave exactly the same way, the variety is flat out unnoticeable when the gameplay is simply about getting from point A to point B and shooting at everything in my way. Achievements are pointless when they have zero effect on gameplay and don't make it any more fun (challenge runs are far more fun while not having any actual achievements tied to them). None of that pride and accomplishment garbage work on me, don't even try. What's your favorite mission objective preference in PvE? The more complex the objectives, the better. Objectives that require people to split up and operate independently (ie. multiple attack/defense areas) are among my favorites, throw them all in. More experienced players will have noticed that challenging content such as spec ops and heroics already require such strategies such as rushing to advanced positions far away from the immediate primary objectives, even though there are no scripted objectives requiring players to split up. Just leave all the escort stuff out of it. AI in the game is dumb, the two best ways to handle escort objectives is to either get the AI stuck so they can't move or rush far ahead of them to remove all possible threats. One is flat out intentionally breaking the game, the other is just a speed and DPM race. Not. Fun. How difficult do you like your PvE? Because normal PvE is the most played mode in the game, it has to appeal to the widest audience (read: terrible unskilled players) while not being boring to more skilled and experienced players. A good difficulty point would be "barely soloable" where one player can just barely carry the match alone with great difficulty, the addition of other players will naturally make it easier. Players have been long begging for the option to play PvE missions without the requirement for a full team (random or not). Give players the option to play missions with incomplete teams, such as undersized platoons or even solo. This will solve the majority of difficulty issues almost instantly, by allowing players to choose how challenging they want their PvE experience to be. Map thoughts: Albatross A decently designed map actually, but fairly sensitive to inexperienced players who don't know the objectives and positioning. -decent usefulness for both squishy and non-squishy vehicles. -good use of map size, objectives are sufficiently far away from each other to encourage movement. -limited randomization of objective sequence keeps the mission mildly interesting for replayability. -"Destroy the Command Center" objective is very vulnerable to inexperienced players completing it too early, leading to insufficient time to prepare for the final defense objective. -good placement for secondary objectives on the runway, further encouraging movement into meaningful map areas. Otherwise meaningless. Anvil Extremely simple straightforward mission, nothing much to say about it. Boring I suppose. -favors non-squishy vehicles more due to generally short range engagements, insufficient open sight lines. -single primary objective to capture, no thinking required. -poor secondary objectives placement, encourages movement to irrelevant map locations. Banshee Also straightforward, with the twist that delayed northern bot spawns will catch anybody in that part of the map off-guard. -favors non-squishy vehicles due to the corridor map design, but has some map positions viable for squishies. -bot spawns in the northern part of the map (in the railyard) can and do spawn on top of inexperienced players, with no indication or warning for players to avoid the areas. -single capture-type primary objective, meh. -inconveniently placed secondary objectives. Basilisk Straightforward, but offers viability to both squishy and non-squishy vehicles alike. -good map positions for both squishies and non-squishies, though some skill is required to make most positions work due to the semi-corridor map layout. -single capture-type primary objective, but takes sufficient time and effort to travel there. Decently challenging. -secondary objective THAT ACTUALLY MATTERS, completing the objective will extend the game timer by 3 minutes. This is very useful if the team is lacking in damage output and requires extra time to complete the primary objective. Cavalry Short and boring map, but viable to both squishies and non-squishies nonetheless. -wide open map suitable for both vision control and brawling. -single capture-type primary objective, boring. I'm seeing a trend here. -irrelevant secondary objectives.
-
Returning Player After Many Years
TeyKey1 replied to Havok1o1's topic in Newbie Palace and New Users Introductions
Hello and welcome -
Well, since there is no place where all commander builds are compiled together, I decided to make a thread for this... Do note you might be using a different build, which you prefer and feel free to add your own build! Ophelia "shield bitch" kitescu Well let's start with the most hated commander in the game, shield bitch. First a regular build: (Yes, you have one skill point to do whatever the fuck you want) Then the meme retarded build with less hitpoints: Erin "miss ireland" O'connel: The good build: (Thanks hassie) The I am stupid, I should use taco instead build: Alisa: ammo build: Ramming build: Juan Carlos "taco" Miramon: To get quicker to the useful skills: The other build: Some stupid build cursed guy gave me: Douglas O'Reilly Dpm build: View range build: Slightly different: Some combined build: (Thanks seb mon Amour) Sabrina Washington: (got these two from Stratzi, thx) (thx Charlie) Viktor Kirsanov: Got this one from Seb (thx mon amour), should be for module damage, so "sabrina" like module damage build: (thx again). Freja: (idk whatever this is, Tey gave me) Min spread build: combined module damage build: Aim time build: (thx seb) Vincent "frenchie" Girard: Ioannis "fire guy" Sanna Fire memes: (thx Yxlouvia) Balanced build: Spotting: (Thx again) Rachel "I want to taste my enemy" Kramer: (Thx mon amour) Rashid "atgm boy" whatever the fuck that surname is: (thx) Viktor "I like my troops" Kirsanov: I like my troops build: Aleksandr "I am lucky" Cortez (Yes, I will shame you if you use this) Andrey Zaitsev
- 1 reply
-
- 5
-
-
Returning Player After Many Years
JintoLin replied to Havok1o1's topic in Newbie Palace and New Users Introductions
Welcome. We don't bite..much. -
Wow, that is actually a very nice render!! It really seems like the level of details in the models is steadily increasing.
-
Hello all! Like most I played the "other tank game" for many years and the aircraft game that turning into "other tank game" among other things. I bought into AW early on and played for a bit at release than stopped at some point and forgot about the game until recently. These days I find myself as PvE player in most games I play and have enjoyed my time greatly since returning a couple months ago. I was disappointed to see that there was no forum for AW anymore and they had move to Discord (which imo cannot fulfil the same role as a good forum). I am quite happy to have found this forum and have started diving into the guides (which there is a major lack of anywhere else) and have learned a few things already. I look forward to meeting people on the battlefield! -
Havok1o1 joined the community
-
Bots also need to not have global shared vision. The bots should only be able to share their vision with a couple of other bots that are say within 20m of them. Do not allow chained shared vision. Only the bot that has spotted the tank can share, a bot cannot share what has been shared to it. They also need to bring the bot vision down to the player's vision range. The bot vision nerf is not as bad as the player's nerf. An AI Leo can out spot a player controlled Leo, even with vision upgrades. They need to also change the way the normal, superior, and lieutenant class bot's stats. Your "normal" bot should be only progression vehicles with no upgrades installed and no commander bonuses. For the "superior" class bots you can have most of not all of the upgrades installed and have premium vehicles with around a sgt. level commander. On the "lieutenant" class bot you can have a Lt commander and a fully upgraded tank either progression or premium, however the stats cannot exceed what is available to the player. No enhanced damage, penetration, vision, or accuracy. The way the game does bot ATGM's needs to be addressed also. None of the maps got over a 5 for me, any night time maps is automatically a 0 due to the bogus vision changes.
-
Hello everyone! This time I managed to assemble the T-90A Burlak - it was a very complex model in terms of details. I hope you like it :)
-
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
knutliott replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
It took me probably 8-10 passes through the list to get them ordered roughly correctly because their input method, which requires one to rate each map on a scale of 1-10, takes up too much space. Just give us a list of all the missions and have us drag-and-drop them into ranked order from best to worst. Or something like that. Having to rate each map individually means you're going to get a lot of meaningless input as people just click randomly to get it done. I used the entire range of numbers and mentally labeled them along these lines: 1 = never play (Ghost Hunter only) 2 = deeply dislike this mission, likely autoskip 3 = will skip unless I've already waited to skip something else, then might grudgingly play 4 = I'll play it if I have to, but will skip it if the wait for the next mission is short 5 = I'll play it but I won't be enthusiastic about it 6 = Meh. These usually have something wrong with them that forces me to pay attention for at least part of the mission, but I don't mind playing them. 7 = These are good, solid missions. Happy to play them. 8 = I like this mission 9 = I love this mission, likely autoplay 10 = always play (Harbinger and Perseus only) Note that I didn't factor rewards into my rankings, as those are fairly meaningless to me at this point. I know I'm not the richest person playing AW, but I have over 1B credits so who cares if a mission earns 80k or 60k? (I rarely use any kind of Premium or boost.) The one map I had a hard time rating was Raiding Party. I ended up rating it a 5, but that's only because it is too short. Given another 60-90 seconds on the timer I'd probably have Raiding Party as an 8 because it's actually a great mission. Everyone has a job to do - and can do it - and there are multiple ways to go about completing the mission. But as it is currently set up, unless everyone knows the mission and understands how to work together, you're going to run out of time and lose. A mission that requires randumbs to pay attention and work together to be successful is too hard - that's what SpecOps is for. -
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
knutliott replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
This goes back to a suggestion that I made long ago where VR shouldn't be a "universal constant". Vision should behave differently for different classes, and I don't just mean varying ranges. For example, MBTs should be able to return fire when something shoots them. They should get reciprocal targeting that they cannot share with others on their team. The specialness of TDs could then be that the effectiveness of an MBTs "return fire" ability is diminished against TDs. Other tweaks could be done. Maybe AFVs are particularly good at spotting vehicles that are just sitting there (i.e. "anti-camo"), while LTs are particularly good at spotting vehicles when they shoot (i.e. "anti-aggression"). Or maybe "spotting" itself is interrupted if you shoot - i.e. you can spot, or you can shoot, but you can't do both at the same time. (In which case "spotting" itself would be an extended-VR ability similar to the "better VR when not moving" abilities that some vehicles already have.) VR as implemented is pretty boring and causes all kinds of strange behavior as you've noted. But it seems like it would be easy to fix. -
gringo changed their profile photo
-
Balesfiend joined the community
-
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
Katsumoto replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
One thing that needs to be worked is that each map has a vision range scale factor built in. With the nerf to the vision on MBT's, certain maps used to be a pain to do to a complete and utter impossible without being wiped out like Harbinger. The whole not being able to shoot at something that is shooting me because you can't see it gets old. If you make it so that things could be spotted by an LT or AFV with vision without them being deleted would be nice. -
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
knutliott replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
You may be the only person in the entire world to think that. As currently implemented, Leviathan is too easy. Yes, you read that correctly. You literally do not have to do much of anything to win - the bots don't bother to shoot the rocket except for... I think 3 of them? As long as you kill those 3 bots, you can just sit there out of sight and win. Beyond that technicality, Leviathan is too hard. (Meaning that if you actually had to defend the rocket, a group of randumbs is not going to get it done.) A lot of MBTs are too slow and unmaneuverable to traipse back and forth across the very hilly island multiple times trying to get to the random cap points. Then on top of that you're supposed to get - also randomly assigned - secondaries that can be basically anywhere on the island, too? Way too much driving around and not enough fighting. Oh, and that fighting is almost always at point blank range because as previously noted the island is very hilly so line of sight is almost as constrained as it would be on a city map. The only advantage of the island is that you can usually sit hull down to fire at the bots from somewhere. I do actually like Raiding Party, but I wouldn't call it one of the best. The common complaint is true - the game timer needs to be about 60 seconds longer than it is. Even with good players who know the map, this mission often comes down to under 60 seconds left. If you don't have good players, there's simply not enough time. The open world feel of it is great, but there's a lot of driving around in this mission as well and that takes time for MBTs. Harbinger and Perseus are 2 of my candidates for best map. Both are great for snipers, brawlers, and "heavy" tanks... you just have to know how to play them. They're even good for Arty! But even if your teammates don't know their roles, these are still fantastic maps that can be won with 1-2 good players carrying the rest of the team. I admit that Cavalry is a little straightforward and simple, but that doesn't make it mediocre to me. I've won this map with no MBTs and with all MBTs - it's very flexible in that respect. The team does need a spotter, and the spotter needs to understand that they may have to only spot and not also shoot, but it's a good mission. The only mission that I always skip is Ghost Hunter. The old Ghost Hunter was great, but they wrecked it when they reworked it. Too many randumbs will waste time killing all of the phase 2 lieutenants and end up costing your team the victory, and phase 3 is difficult enough that one good player can't really solo it without getting surrounded, or without losing the cap while trying to avoid getting surrounded. I just don't bother anymore, it's not worth it. I'm not fond of Tsunami, but now that people have learned that they have to immediately retreat from the spawn it's not as bad as it used to be. Still... you can end up losing Tsunami because a couple of people charged forward without thinking. Ricochet isn't terrible, but it's boring and its earnings are pathetic. If its earnings were better people probably wouldn't hate it nearly as much as they do, but it's not a very interesting map in general. Another map that was much better before they reworked it. Umbrella has the same problem - it's short, boring, and its earnings are bad. There's an excellent spot for MBTs to use to cover the runway for the end game, but most players don't seem to know it's there and so the end game ends up being a crap shoot. (You have to get down off of the hill and behind the last little bumps before the side road where you can sit, hull down, and spot just about everything on the runway. But you have to get there fast or you'll get shot to pieces on your way down. I generally blow smoke as I drop over the edge of the hill and that seems to work pretty well.) -
(Official) Community Survey: PvE
Bitter_Clinger replied to Haswell's topic in General Metagame Discussion
I like missions like Prometheus where you have simultaneous objectives in close proximity. You basically have to take a capture point while defending a nearby capture point at the same time. My problem with missions, like Prometheus, is there is not enough direction for a PUG group. Too many players have no idea that you have to get to that capture point and take it before the timer counts down. They just get bogged down defending the one capture circle. It's the same problem with Leviathan and Starry Night. Good missions, but the objectives aren't clear to a typical PUG. -
Welcome!
- 1 reply
-
- 1
-
