Suggestion for an infantry AOW map - Pearl Market 2.0
I played a little BF4 over the weekend to, y'know, reminisce about a REAL Battlefield game...cough...anyway. One of the maps I got in the rotation was Pearl Market. And one round on that map reminded me while it was one of my all-time favorite BF4 maps. And I happen to think that an updated version of Pearl Market, or a map using the same concepts, could be a really good infantry-centered map for BF2042 AOW.
If you're one of the six people in here who never played BF4 (and if you are, GO BUY IT NOW AND PLAY IT), Pearl Market was I think a DLC map. It was a 64-player map, basically a square area situated in what looked like a densely built-up low-rise area in China or Hong Kong or Macau. Most of the buildings were no more than four stories. The streets were cramped and narrow. There were vehicles--I think each side got an AAV-7 and maybe there was a motorcycle here and there?--but no air at all, and for the most part it was an infantry map.
What makes it so good as an infantry map and what makes it superior to the current AOW maps for infantry play? Well, first of all, Pearl Market is not a linear meatgrinder like Metro or Locker. There are lots of different ways to get from place to place. The garden/patio areas on the rooftops are plentiful and there are improvised bridges between a lot of them, even spots where you can jump on a sign and run across over the street four stories below. Some flags are at ground level and some are at rooftop level, but the rooftop points always have more than one way to get to them, so air is not necessary. It's frenetic and heavily slanted toward run-and-gun, but there are still points where snipers can do some serious work. Also, the amphtracs are powerful on this map because of their 40mm automatic grenade launchers. But...there are some places they can't get to, and other places where the streets are so narrow that they can't turn around. So the vehicle drivers have to make decisions...do they want to push down that alleyway that's so tight the passengers could touch the walls on either side if they hung their hands out of the AAV? With anti-tank and C4 possibly waiting at every window? Do you risk it for the biscuit to cap a point that might win the game?
I think Pearl Market would be an awesome AOW map if done properly:
- Expand the map area by 2-2.5x to fit 128 people.
- Make sure that every cap point is no further away than 200m from at least one other cap point. (I think current PM has every cap point no less than 150m from at least one other one.)
- Vehicles: MAV and Polaris ATV only. No more than two per side. NO AIR VEHICLES AT ALL. Map designed so vehicles can primarily stay toward the outside area but they can enter some streets toward the interior of the map, at the risk of close combat with infantry.
- No skyscrapers, no elevators. Buildings no higher than five stories. Access between buildings at street level, and also between rooftops. Make it kind of a maze. Also lots of interior alleys that are too narrow for vehicles.
- MUST keep the gritty, grimy, slummy aspect of the original Pearl Market. We have too many maps right now in surgically-sterile super-clean environments. I want to start seeing maps in grungy areas.
What do you guys think? I think this will let some of the specialists' abilities really shine...Irish's cover and trophy system, Mackay's grapple, Boris's sentry covering stairwells.
We already have AOW maps like Hourglass that is basically this game's version of BF4's Silk Road or Golmud Railway...vehicle-heavy and tough for infantry. Time for us ground-pounders to get our own maps. Pearl Market's concepts are a good place to start.
