It feels like you could save a lot of work and trouble in both map balancing and the overall feel of the game if you started using soft-cover.
With soft-cover I mainly mean Smoke, Take the civilian cars as an example.
And they are destructible (attached pictures), just load them into the maps at strategic positions in the destroyed state with fire and smoke for the duration of the match.
If you do this you wouldn't necessarily need to add props or change the topography which otherwise would have been a necessity to secure that there isn't LoS for one of our beloved "transport" vehicles. The added bonus would be that it added immersion and grit to what otherwise are mostly pristine environments in the middle of a warzone.
Talking about the environment, the new environmental DOTs that we have in the game, freezing, and electricity.
Is there a specific reason why these are reoccurring over and over again?
Take the first sector (A2) on Renewal BT as an example, the only infantry cover you have on that point is electricity boxes. (BTW defenders have LoS to the attackers first spawn, big oof)
The only cover we have on that point is giving us a DOT over and over and over again, why? It feels like a direct deterrent to PTFO.
It just seems like a better design choice to have them go off once and then leave them as a regular static cover.
Or is there an actual benefit to this mechanic? As of now I just find them to be an annoyance at best.
Regarding the spawn points for the defenders/attackers I like your suggestions, there are plenty of examples in these maps which makes no sense atm,
Take Discarded as an example. I can't remember which A/B/C1/2 it is but the spawn location for attackers is like 300m away from the point.
If the reasoning is LoS for the defenders then might I suggest the soft-cover again, alternatively drop us in with a parachute after the parachute opening bug is fixed that is.
Chute drop-inn would also help with traversing longer distances.
Now I am no map designer by any stretch of the imagination but I have competed in FPS games for nearly a decade and then played it casual for another decade so I feel like I have some understanding of which maps play good and why they play good. With that said, the following are bigger changes which I frankly don't expect to see changed in the existing maps but maybe one or two ideas could be taken into consideration for the coming maps. On BT maps with two points per sector, can we always make one of them infantry only?
Take Breakaway as an example, A1 is on top of the plateau while A2 is in a crevasse, it was really close to be fine for me here, all that was needed was to make the crevasse into an ice-cave so that you have cover from again, our "transport" vehicles above, keep the three entrances but make them smaller so only infantry can get in. Then you have a play zone for infantry and a play zone for vehicles. The same with Sector B, move B1 100m south and make it a frozen icebreaker (the asset from BFV Norway SP), then the vehicle onslaught won't be as terrible, remember, again, this also feels like a deterrent to PTFO as infantry, all you are doing is getting farmed. B2 can stay as it is, i.e. vehicle point.
C1 and C2 need soft-cover (crashed helis?) to the east so that people can both retreat from Sector B but also as attackers advance from the plateau without having 300m LoS.
D1 could have parachutes as a spawn location for the defenders because you more often than not find yourself cut off after a while.
It just feels like we need to keep areas of the maps away from vehicles.
Think Rotterdam BFV or Amiens BF1, Infantry players simply need areas where they can fight each other without being interrupted by transport vehicles.
I said that tongue in cheek four times now for a reason, vehicles that have a caliber more than 10times the capacity to carry troops is not a transport.
Why do I mention that in a map suggestion thread? The reason is that it is one of the main culprits to why the maps don't work, A Bolte aiming backward with LoS over large areas of the maps is pure pain, it simply ruins the enjoyment for the majority of people on that server. So my suggestion is to either move it to the tank bracket or heavily limit the spawn pool for it.
Good luck!
Looking forward to the upcoming patches/updates and the increased communication going forwards.
DICE Team
