Harper's Ferry Thoughts, Suggestions, and Prayers

[LaBelle]

Update 100

With the release of update 100 and the new map "Harper's Ferry," we got our first taste of urban combat within War of Rights. What follows is my thoughts, suggestions, and concerns about the map and Update 100 as a whole.

• The placement of the capture point should be set further into town.(Perhaps at the end of the street before it splits off towards the bridges?)
• The Confederate Spawns need to be moved. Either set it to one spawn between both bridges, or set it to one spawn between the bridges and another at the US side of the pontoon to represent a foothold. This second option would create tension as the foothold needs to hold their line until reinforcements arrive to continue the push.
• Stop the Union from camping the bridges. Much like Burnside when the Confederacy was able to sit at the end of the bridge, the Union should be kept a distance from the bridges themselves.
• (If the cap point is moved...)Give the Union more cover along the road. The Union can be shot to pieces by a Confederate line waiting for them as it stands.
• As this is an alternate history map, perhaps give the Confederates two regiments loaded with minie balls instead of the buck and ball to allow a Confederate team to fire across the river and thin out the Union defenses.
• Perhaps place some cover on the bridges themselves, either in the form of a roofed segment on the pontoon, or place open and hollowed train cars on the rail bridge and place the walking bridge on the opposite side of the rail bridge.

Thoughts

This is Burnside 1.2. Graphically, it's a superior map and is absolutely gorgeous. In terms of gameplay, this took every problem with Burnside and exasperated it by a factor of 3. Burnside's Bridge is no more than twenty meters and still presents a horrendous challenge for the Union. They are correct and justified in their hatred for that map. Harper's Ferry's bridges are nearly 150 meters with no cover and are in fact thinner than Burnside. It doesn't take much to see where this path is going to lead. We already skip Burnside as it is for events, I don't want to see Harper's Ferry go the same route.

Prayers

Please don't schedule any events on Harper's Ferry.

Now, for a final concern.



This doesn't look good. This makes it feel as though any valid concern about the map is going to be laughed off by the dev team. Not only that, but you're splitting this community with that kind of "teasing," and invalidating any future criticism from a Confederate play tester. In the future, as a developer, maybe take a silent side seat for the first day of testing something new. Observe, don't tease. This comes a day after the entire community came together to film a promotional video for the dev team. We want to bury that bad blood, not continue it.

[Fancy Sweetroll]

I dont see how this makes it seem like the dev team is laughing at the confederates. I was writing this in the Union team chat to the union players. I did make a typo in the thing about holding their fire and get across. I meant. Maybe the Union team could try and hold their fire for a bit and let the confederates get across.

I totally agree that the skirmish area is too tough for the confederates and I also wrote in the confederate chat that we will look into making it more balanced for the next update.

[LaBelle]

I did make a typo in the thing about holding their fire and get across. I meant. Maybe the Union team could try and hold their fire for a bit and let the confederates get across.

I knew what you meant, and it looks extremely patronizing. "Hold fire?" Come on now.

Was the typo "I almost feel bad for them" or the faces or the hehe?

[Fancy Sweetroll]

As a developer, I was merely interested in seeing how the rest of the map worked out. Assuming the confeds managed to get across with decent numbers.

Without knowing which team I wrote this to "Maybe you should try and hold your fire and get across". One might think I was saying this to the confederates that they should stop shooting from the river bank and just get across the bridge.

Smileys is simply just something I often use when I type.

[Fancy Sweetroll]

But I appreciate your suggestions and I did come up with some of the same ones myself as well.

[Redleader]

II corps has also been talking the map over about balancing, since where are the testers ... :

• The placement of the capture point should be set further into town.(Perhaps at the end of the street before it splits off towards the bridges?) -> since we have the city nicely modelled it would be great to have some fighting going on in town
• The Confederate Spawns need to be moved. -> The two spawns are a feature that needs more exploring, the only thing is it's a long walk (so even if we get a foothold as confeds, reinforcements will come to late), I would also be nice getting from one brigde to another faster (call it a shortcut) -> Union can shift pretty fast.
• Stop the Union from camping the bridges. Much like Burnside when the Confederacy was able to sit at the end of the bridge ... like stated here (like in old burnside CSA could even cross or make a chokepoint at the bridge, making it even virtually impossible of USA getting over in numbers)
• As this is an alternate history map, perhaps give the Confederates two regiments loaded with minie balls .. -> yes some of us got the 1842 which is pretty bad in laying covering fire (one unit with good rifles would be a great asset)
• Perhaps place some cover on the bridges themselves, either in the form of a roofed segment on the pontoon, or place open and hollowed train cars on the rail bridge and place the walking bridge on the opposite side of the rail bridge. -> great idea, or a point to gather at the end of the bridge to form up, now USA can just "camp" the end of bridges

Thoughts (my personal)

I agree it's a great map (it has some fresh ideas going), certainly in terms of graphics are details. The funny thing is unlike on burnsides you can actually can fall or get shot of the bridge

The two bridges (and two spawns) make it kinda of unique atm ingame, the weather/day&night system is a great feature.
We are very happy that the map is out , it just need a bit of tweaking ... would be great if there was moving spawnpoints (cap a point a move up)

[Redleader]

You don't have to worry about that. Server population dropped from 150 to 30 in less than an hour for the obvious reason that however beautiful it is, it is unwinnable for the Confederates whatever the time of day. Looking forward to playing it when the spawn points are adjusted.

We agreed with the 5th New York to do one round (first there was talk on alternating factions, but not going to happen) for the 20EST NA event.

That way new people get to see the new map and see some new features, some people are really hyped

It did drop cause some regiments (like ours) switched server after a few rounds and cause people just connect when there's a new update just to see what's new

Afterwards it's the normal maps, and that's a whole lot as it is already !

[Timo420]

The map seems pretty unbalanced, more tickets for the confederates would be a good start as the only thing to do is charge, but it pretty much like Thermopylae.

[Sir_Squiggles]

A developer of the game said that...then tried to brush it under the rug like it meant something else....i'm not sure how much different of a meaning could be there...Not great for public relations...we "the confederates" the people who you were laughing at. Put our differences aside with the union and hopped into the drill and made them look fancy with some more numbers just to make a video trailer for you and your team or at least attempted to with how much we had to work around without having locked servers. If you've wanted to alienate some of your player base you're doing a good job so far...

[PAIOLETTI]

I agree 100% with Major LaBelle's suggestions for the Harpers Ferry Map. The CSA respawn should be closer to or right at the bridges. The Union respawn should be much further into town. The way this map is set now it misses its full potential. This will be a great Urban Warfare map once its all hashed out. I look forward to seeing what the dev team has planned for the future of this map.