5 Favorite and 5 Worst. I'll give them ratings based on how much fun they are for technical stuff like looks, layout, experience of how they play, weapon and vehicle loadouts, etc. "Too overplayed" isn't a map complaint, it's a server complaint.
Favorites:
Bastogne
Always a good time, equally fun for tankers and crunchies.
Pros:
- Very good looking
- Reasonably balanced
- Solid amount of pick-up kits
Cons:
- I don't like maps that don't let one team's tanks/vehicles spawn until the other team is dominating
- Making Bastogne cappable as soon as Mont is taken is annoying, there's always some noob German squad just outside Bastogne fausting the American tanks that should've spawned 20 minutes ago, waiting to back cap Bastogne even if 2/3rds of the middle flags are in American hands.
What I'd Change:
Make Bastogne flags cappable when the Germans have every other flag and give the Allies the tanks at the start of the round. I understand it might be more fair for the Germans to have them wait to spawn, but it's not fair for the Americans when half the team is standing around at their main, not wanting to defend the first few flags or they get no tanks.
Goodwood
Still one of the best maps in the mod, a nice open tank map with lots to do and allows for good battles.
Pros:
- Unlike a lot of maps we could mention (Meuse and so on), the city bit of the map is an actual city, with buildings you can go into and out of. A lot of maps just have buildings with no entrance, so you don't so much feel like soldiers clearing the enemy out of town house-by-house, so much as you feel like some alley cats growling at each other. But Goodwood isn't like this, there's often a fight for the town completely independent of the larger tank battle.
Cons:
- Kinda annoying flag layout
- More variety in vehicles might be nice.
What I'd change:
I HATE HATE HATE the flag layout apart from Cagny. Grentheville is too close to the German main, it's impossible for the Brits not to spawn rape and it's impossible for the Germans not to fire from an uncap. Even more frustrating is the way the railway line divides the map: 9 out of every 10 rounds on Goodwood has 2 Panthers and the King Tiger sitting on the German side of the railway underpass, around the corner from 2 Cromwells and a Firefly, each waiting for the other to go first to get an easy 1-shot kill to the side. Fucking annoying on a map that should be fluid tank combat. I think it would be way more fun to make the map bigger, move Grentheville to the far south of the map and make it the German main, and then do away with the Out-of-Bounds lines. So you'd have the whole map as it is now, but no Grentheville bullshit, and both teams' tanks can be both sides of the railway line.
With this would come a change in vehicles. My suggestion, bearing in mind how epic this map is with 100ish people and how scarce tanks become when there's that many people:
Allies
4 x Sherman V
4 x Cromwell
2 x Firefly
2 x Churchill
1 x Cromwell VI
1 x Achilles
Axis
4 x Panther A
2 x Marder I
2 x StuG 40
2 x Panzer III L (the Lebisey one)
1 x Puma
1 x Jagdpanther
1 x King Tiger
Cobra
One of the prettiest maps in the mod now and it's gotten even better since the patch.
Pros:
- Appeals to all kinds of players, tankers and pilots and infantry and all the rest of it.
- Good vehicle loadout.
Cons:
- The map is usually a rape for the Allies. The 88s are useless because of the stupid shields on them,
and all the Flak just bounces off. Normally I think people just moan whenever their favorite weapon doesn't instantly destroy anything they aim at but the flak really is completely useless now, and on a map with 4 rocket/bomb planes it's kinda lame.
What I'd change:
I really like the addition of Sector Push on this map, but it also causes one of the biggest problems: Farmhouse is so close to the German main that any Allied tanks coming through their can barely help themselves spawn raping, since even if they should be going to the city, to do so they have to drive by a giant ravine where they know they can 1-shot all the German tanks miles below them. The German tankers, knowing this, can't help but drive up the hill and attack the uncap Farmhouse, since to be fair it really is the closest flag to their main and logically they should be attacking it.
So, I propose a change to the flags: make the southern American base a German outpost at the beginning of the round. Give it a PaK and a StuG/Marder/Hetzer or something, not a serious flag but something for the Allies to attack before Farmhouse. Make the main Allied base the only Allied base. Keep Watermill as it is, but make this new flag the pair with Watermill for Sector Push (the 2 flags that can't be recapped once lost).
Now, instead of all this bullshit at the middle/bottom of the map, it's the new flag and Watermill for the first line of defense. The Farmhouse flag becomes like the other 4, and can be capped/recapped by both teams throughout the round. Sound like fun? Another thing that shouldn't be too hard to add is trenches for the Germans, and some non-flag defenses and spawnpoints in the forest in the middle of the map, and around the lake.
Invasion of Crete
Still my favorite map in the mod, awesome awesome awesome.
Pros:
- Unique, offers a great challenge to both teams
- Awesome pick-up kits
- Looks mega after the visual updates
Cons:
- Give all the German spawn kits a chute. Most noobs don't realize only 2 spawn kits have chutes, so why bother? It doesn't make that much of a difference, just let them all have chutes so we aren't pissing anyone off.
- I would really like to see some light vehicles added to this map, I really think it would add an interesting dynamic. Other than that, no complaints!
What I'd change:
I would add some vehicles to spice things up a bit:
Allies:
2 x Vickers they have now (spawning at Hill)
1 x Vickers @ Monastery
1 x Matilda @ Suda Bay, like in FH1 (which was never a problem, and remember, no HE shells)
Axis
2 x Panzer II when they take Hill
1 x Panzer II when they take Suda Bay
1 x Sdkfz 222 when they take Suda Bay
..and a few Hanomags sprinkled in.
Falaise Pocket
Another map that got a facelift, and it plays much better now than it used to
Pros:
- Always a tough fight for both sides. Like Ramelle, for whatever reason everyone seems to try twice as hard on Falaise.
Cons:
- Sector Push negated a lot of the fun parts of this map that the changes opened up. On this map it truly is No Counterattack Mode, and that just sucks. I thought the Falaise Pocket was the encirclement of the German forces? So why is it Canada defending anyway?
What I'd change:
Turn St. Lambert into a proper town, like Cagny is on Goodwood. It should be harder to attack and harder to defend, but most of all, the battle for St. Lambert should actually last for a few minutes. Right now it's just "German squad snuck into the city and capped it", then "Oh wait no, Canadian squad snuck back in and recapped it". It's just too small and so many buildings can't be entered.
5 Worst maps for me are Siege of Tobruk, Lebisey, Ramelle, Brest, and Mareth Line. Siege of Tobruk I've already talked about in it's thread on the feedback section, so I won't rehash that. Lebisey could be fun if it wasn't so small and cramped, and the Axis armor didn't literally spawn with about 50 tickets left every time we play it. Ramelle is indeed an epic struggle, but the push system sucks and completely disallows any chance of an American counterattack, which is 90% of the fun of playing American on that map anyway. Brest is boring because there's never any variety, the city isn't big enough. "Where's the Sherman?" "Oh I see it, it's in that corner near Navy HQ where it always is, every round, all the time, forever". Mareth Line is just kinda meh.. I can't really put my finger on it but I never seem to have any fun playing that map.