emp_mvalley

Discussion in 'Mapping' started by D.D.D. Destroyer, Jan 10, 2018.

  1. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    emp_mvalley.jpg

    We have intercepted communications indicating that Brenodi forces are spearheading their assault into our territory - Moorkopf Valley's dam is a critical economic point for us, and if we don't hold it the Imperial forces will essentially sever our production capabilities. As such, holding the dam will provide a healthy amount of income at a minimal cost to human resources. The rest of the Valley is wide open with limited natural cover and a prime stage for our vehicles. We can also use the old ramshackle bridges either to cross the deep rivers or ambush Imperial tanks trying to do just that. Buckle up, this fight is key to our cause.

    Objective: Build refineries to gain resources and build up your army. The dam resource node generates double the amount of resources. Then destroy the Brenodi Command Vehicle, or destroy all barracks (removing any place to spawn) and kill all members of the enemy team.

    Striking deep into enemy territory, our goal on this mission is to secure this area by any means necessary. Doing that will cripple the Jekotian economy and shift the power in Imperial favour. However, it's not only the dam that makes the Valley economically interesting - the open fields to the north contain many natural resource seams and offer excellent visibility, making surprise attacks substantially more difficult than usual. However, the rivers dividing the area are deceitfully deep - attempting a crossing will almost assuredly end in a sunken vehicle. Beware of the small wooden bridges as well - they are easily the best ambush points in the entire Valley.

    Objective: Build refineries to gain resources and build up your army. The dam resource node generates double the amount of resources. Then destroy the Northern Faction Command Vehicle, or destroy all barracks (removing any place to spawn) and kill all members of the enemy team.

    Mvalley is a large classic map, featuring plenty of open space for vehicle combat, a series of small connector bridges between various sections of the map, and a compact infantry-focused fighting zone. Historically, this is one of the best and most played Empires maps. This is an official thread for it.

    Post your feedback below, be it opinions, suggestions, or stories from games played on the map.
     
  2. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    On mvalley the Dam is a strategic location that cannot be ignored. However most of us have come to realise that being the squad that goes to the Dam can be a chore.
    It either results in camping inside for the entire game, or a grinding slow push on the top part similar to what you would experience on an infantry map such as District.

    In order to make the "Dam Experience" more enjoyable changes have to be made, here are my suggestions:

    1. Going for a swim:
    The small reservoir of water at the back of the Dam is walled off by invisible clips, I am proposing to remove those clips and add some stairs or ladders to make it possible to flank through the water. I would also like to see the ability to swim down to the pipes going across the Dam and end up being pushed to the front of the Dam by the water.

    2. Just go in:

    There are a total of six entrances to the Dam, however three of these can be closed off with indestructible doors, and the remaining three are impractical for a proper breach. A simple change would be to make the closable doors destructible, with some effort. Maybe even make some other part of the Dam destructible?
     
  3. Lazybum

    Lazybum :D Staff Member Moderator

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    Mvalley has some odd things that I rarely get to see used, and it makes me think of a suggestion because it's not the only map with that.

    Wasn't there a version of mvalley that flooded the map if dam got destroyed? Honestly I would love that, breaking dam floods the lower level so tanks can only use the top, which also restricts building placements. It helps tighten the end game a bit but still leaves a lot of options for infantry which can cross the water. If that can't happen because lol source I would appreciate being able to go into the water on dam like mr x said.
     
  4. Xyaminou

    Xyaminou Member

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    Yeah, it's something that many of us have wanted to see. But the question remains, how do you destroy the Dam? Which part(s) of it would need to be destroyed?
     
  5. D.D.D. Destroyer

    D.D.D. Destroyer Member Staff Member Moderator

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    I have two modifications to this map I'd like to see happen. I'm not fully sold on the exact implementation just yet, but it's about time I asked for feedback more broadly. Here goes.

    #1: Vehicle-proof cliffs

    As it stands, pushing north as infantry is basically impossible, since infantry is guaranteed to be run over by a vehicle based response to the point of being completely ineffective no matter the angle that gets taken. This means that infantry are forced to sit in already secured locations or fight over dam, with A4/E4 and even moreso north being out of reach once lost. Now, in theory, there are some infantry-only passages (B4 and D4/E4) that would allow infantry to make an attempt at north from a safe-ish spawn point (A3/E3). The defensibility of these approaches aside (tight, very open bridge connectors), most vehicles can climb up the sheer cliffs (which, intuitively, look untraversable) and demolish infantry sitting up there by way of roadkilling or point-blank fire. Most vehicles can get up there with moderate trouble at best, too. IIRC, only NF heavies have serious trouble getting up there, but I haven't seen either arty tank drive up there either.

    On top of that, any vehicles parked up there have an extremely strong firing position. This is particularly evident in B4, where displacements and a prop rock give a beautiful overwatch position, and lots of indestructible natural cover for tanks to exploit to the fullest. Couple that with walls, engineer repairs, and no good way of pressuring that position other than artillery (good luck getting someone to hit that one specific spot, though), those plots of high ground make superior firing platforms that lock down a resource node and the overlooking hill with few possible means of countering them. In light of those two big issues, I'd like to tweak the cliffs and/or add vehicle clips to prevent vehicles from climbing those snippets of high ground, and potentially take this one step further and give the rest of the cliffs the same treatment, so that climbing from low ground can only happen along the gentle approaches (north/north middle/A3/E3) and a few select steeper spots (one near each starting main; A3; E3; possibly one on each side of the north bridge). The intent here is to incentivise infantry play around the north and limit the overwhelming freedom of movement vehicles currently have.

    All things considered, this change should improve the experience of teams that are behind in economy and map control by reducing vehicle dominance and giving another (slightly, but still) viable avenue of attack on foot.

    #2: Remove high ground
    Mvalley has 3 de facto ground levels:
    • Low ground, just above water level
    • Middle ground, where the starting bases are located
    • High ground, particularly prominent in A1/E1 and C5
    High ground is used because of two big reasons. The obvious one being elevation, which gives the usual defensive advantages. and the less obvious one being that projectiles don't explode on skybox brushes, but disappear instead, making it much harder to blanket fire any structures there, as you are required to hit targets directly to deal any damage. Also, greatly limited play area there makes it hard to climb up and remove the advantage from the defending team. This is particularly evident in C5 - the entire round depends heavily on being the first team to get up the speck of high ground there and establishing a barracks. This is all gameplay, but another aspect to consider here is immersion, since you kinda skirt right next to an invisible wall that eats rockets for no reason.

    My intent here is to remove those areas from play completely. What would happen for sure is modifying the displacements to disallow climbing by normal means. Beyond that, I see two options: the super simple one of using clips to prevent glitching and 9mining and similar exploits altogether, and a more demanding one of adding a mine field surrounding the map that would blow up anything getting up there.

    This change should improve the effectivity of any attack launched on the starting bases and north by way of increasing accessibility to defensive positions. It should also allow for less 'all-in' opening strategies, allowing for barrackses to be placed safely near either north refinery without the threat of being under unending siege from a nigh undefeatable position.


    So, yeah. Those two things. Discuss away, I'm not giving any ETA on these just yet.


    EDIT:
    I'm not convinced about what to do about dam, or if anything needs to be done about it at all. The one thing I do know is that I don't want to open up the clipped off water at the top of it. I don't see any gain from letting people swim up there, it'd most likely just make it a bigger mess to securely make it across. The current tug of war style gameplay of the upper portion of the dam is fine as is.
     
  6. bunnyhopper

    bunnyhopper Member

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    Revert it back to the old way. When you could hide the CV in there.
     
  7. Metal Smith

    Metal Smith Member

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    removing the extra high grounds has been discussed for ages. Just clip it off or something. Should be a good outline from the ground displacement blocks.

    Access to the north high grounds can be made more infantry friendly with some sort of cliff to move in from. Abrupt edges makes it more difficult to aim mortars into. Slopes are just too easy to angle mortars in to hit troops with splash damage. The highground should be sufficient and possibly slightly angled towards the south of the map as to provide cover for troops moving up into the north, but not necessarily the other way around.

    Possibly have this be some sort of natural rock archway that forms up narrow on the southern end where infantry can initially run up, but them expand out ward as it comes up to the mid ground at the top of the cliff. Possibly make this entire high ground wrap around the southern face of the north mid ground, providing cover for attacking troops, and creating massive incentive for the middle ground to be constantly contested to prevent troops from gaining a foothold on the cliff above the north refineries area.

    The idea would be to make the combat that happens on the north end currently happen on the south end, in such a way that prevents vehicles from driving up the cliff, or allowing the cliff to be angled such that vehicles cannot aim turrets low enough to actually do anything. While providing direct cover for the northern base from southern attack, if the position is taken by the enemy team, it provides an excellent shelling location to attack the northern base from. If you went with the slope downwards towards mid, you can also make it difficult to defend from the north base itself, forcing the occupants of the north area to exit either to the lowgrounds on the east and west, or to the midgrounds across the bridge in the south middle. The area currently underneath the bridge would be transformed into a sort of tunnel system. If you wanted to make it less useable by vehicles, you could lower the terrain to allow vehicles to stall out in the center of the area, forcing them to awkwardly sit on the edges of the tunnel as they drive through.
     

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