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What is your favorite map? Write below with why
First off: Why did I write this? Because we play these maps all the time. I want to give feedback to the developers and I hope people would write their own opinions here as well, so that the devs can see what we want and perhaps give them some ideas. DM maps are inside the normal maps, so making a good DM map means extra effort when designing them, but just start with the DM map and build around it (actually think they did this in AC3 as opposed to AC:R)
AC3 maps were a lot better then AC:R. This is due to fewer choke points into the popular areas, fewer tall buildings and reduced areal/acro range. I mean, Mt. St. Michel? roofed all the time.
In short, DM maps should:
- Offer ways to be creative. Possible to get a grab kill? Possible to do an acro over opponents smoke? Possible to enter a blendgroup for a hidden kill? etc.
- Support stealth gameplay, on some maps at least. I mean, you cant stealth on Virginia Plantation, its just to **** big and open.
- Not be wide, but be compact with 2 - 2 1/2 floors (this does not mean they should look like a car park building where the floors are directly above each other, but look at Animus Core and Brewery)
- Have many obstacles (venice/boston harbor boxes or short brewery walls)
- Have short fences or other objects for grab kills (but the path beside should be wide enough to avoid it, unless target is on a roof or a box)
- Offer decent stationary blendgroups
- Offer decent escape routes
- Absolutely not have any choke points into the popular areas (not an issue in AC3, but was an issue in AC:R)
- Have 1 slightly wider open area that is NOT towards the edge of the map. Beeing able to approach the open area from many angles is nice. Also escape routes diminish when the ground level just goes straight to the edge of the map. (think corner of Venice main area where there is a chasebraker to get you up top, only its not usable in the DM vertion. Getting out of there is not possible without CDs. If it was some boxes there your pursuers would stealth to you instead of rush since you could climb the box and make a decent escape)
- Not have tall buildings (especially not over the popular areas) that makes roofing the best strat.
IF you want bigger, wider maps, where stealth is not as important and tall buildings everywhere; you have wanted or assassinate (for FFA).
My breakdown for current AC3 maps.
Bad DM maps:
Virginia plantation:
-WAY to open and WAY to big. This map is basically 1 floor with a few places to get acro/areals and no decent obstacles (if you shrunk the map while keeping the obstacles this map may have been decent).
-This is DM, but playing here feels more like Brootherhood wanted some times. People run like in wanted, and it works. Also hard to get grab kills and be creative.
Boston North end:
-Just to open, especially the main area, and to few decent blendgroups. Yes, its got the "main blendgroup", but anyone with 2-3 pursuers and a brain stays away from it unless they have CDs. There are a lot of tall roofs and many people run around like chickens (one dude on the roof, his pursuer goes after him, then HIS pursuer goes after him etc etc).
-Atleast the buildings arent towering over the main area.
Decent DM map:
Fort Wolcott:
-WAY to smal lol. Here we have 1 floor, but with a few decent places to get acro/areal and sometimes a grab kill. There are few to none good line of sight obstacles and few escape routes (you can be cornered).
-Try playing competitive on this map, feels like fighting 6 men in a buss, sure, if you are Cain Velasquez and your against 6-7 skinny dudes; Your gonna win, but against decent opponents its gonna be mayham and sometimes the winner is random. Plus, on a map this size, lucky contracts means way to much.
North Passage:
-To open, and the roofs are just ice hills that are to low for decent areal/acro and offers only half-assed cover. Even most nubs stay away from the icehills because your seen by the entire map. This map has a few decent stationary blendgroups and snowstorm can make it a little harder to spot white targets.
-Not sure why I dont jump on the hate-wagon for this map, perhaps I just like that the visuals are so different.
Good map:
Animus Core:
-Pretty good map. Many ways to get into the popular places from spawn. Many good stationary blend groups. Many ways to get grab kills, acro and areal. Easy to be creative. Pretty good size, the path on the side without stairs that face the edge of map could be a bit wider with some boxes beyond that and a tiny ground level beyond that, perhaps with some stairs there as well.
Really good DM maps:
-IMO these 2 maps are perfect and whoever made them did a really good job. Choosing a favorite is like choosing pizza over cola, they are so different, but they are both f nice.
Brewery:
-Many people dont like this map because its to hard to find your target, especially if you play against newer players that just hide the entire game. But in a decent lobby, after having played the map many times, you realize; there arent that many places to hide. Yes your indicator may lighten up and you have no idea in what direction your target is, but this map offers so many "line of sight" brakers that if you use them, pinpointing your targets direction gets pretty easy.
-Why do I put this under "really good DM maps":
Like Boston harbor this map enables you to be creative, there are often many ways to trick and kill your target, as well as trick your pursuer. It also has really good stationary blendgroups, also really good moving blendgroups. Extremely easy to get grab kills. Many escape routes. A lot of cover. The open middle is just sexy, it makes you see players, but you cant approach them/or be approached from every angle without an arrow above you, so people actually stealth a lot on this map, and its pretty easy to stay alive. Compact map, so compact that there are no choke points into the main areas, since the whole map is the main area.
Boston Harbor:
I think most people would agree that this is a good map, unlike Brewery. They are very different in layout, but similar in what they have to offer.
Some may think the map is to long, I kinda agree, but then again I dont because no one really uses the xxx side a lot (you know wich side). Without that xxx side the map may have felt to short.
Like Brewery this map offers many ways to be creative and you dont find yourselves getting cornered a lot.
Other nice things about this map:
The map is wide enough for 3 paths, although most people tend to use one path most of the time, the 2. path some times and the third patch just a few times. This is (at least my reason) because you can only be suprice areal'ed from 2 sides, but you wanna mix it up a little to stay unpredictable.
Boston Harbor offers many venice boxes <3 where you can areal, acro and sometimes even grab kill.
There are many good stationary blendgroups, and decent moving blendgroups.
Unlike many maps in AC:R, and some in AC3, the main open area is not walled in from 1 or 2 sides, but has boxes behind them, giving many good escape routes and many good ways to silently approach your opponent.
What maps would I like to see in the future?
I think the Carnival map style we saw in AC:B would be a good DM map.
Also, I hope we get a brewery ish map from inside/inside+topside a big ship in AC4 Judging by the nature of AC4 I hope we will.