VCTF-Stranded, Balanced?

[Rawrster]

Seeing as how Stranded is an asymmetrical map, I am curious whether people find it to be balanced or not? And what are the main reasons you feel the way you do?

[Benfica]

Seeing as how Stranded is an asymmetrical map, I am curious whether people find it to be balanced or not? And what are the main reasons you feel the way you do?

imho it's balanced if the team knows how to take out the Eradicator

[Gameslaya]

imho it's balanced if the team knows how to take out the Eradicator

Oh, man. That **** Eradicator.

It all pretty much comes down to that.

[Cr4zy]

Just like Islander. It's balanced fine, imo, The vehicles help the balance.

[«MechikTåj»]

A clanmate pointed out the main flaw of Stranded that makes it unbalanced. It being that the red side can camp vehicles all they want (such as the Hellbender on the flag) while the blue team can't because any type of defense directly on or near the base can be destroyed by the Eradicator.

Red side also has the high ground advantage; though there are one or two good areas where a good Goliath driver, with the help of the Link Station can harass the red base. Good luck getting it there if the Eradicator is on you though.

Blue may be closer to the Redeemer spawn but they only get it every two minutes; whereas the Eradicator respawns every what, 20 or 30 seconds? Also, many players don't know about the stupid invisible blocking volumes on some of the rock formations... bye bye deemer. :/

In my honest opinion, if both teams are of equal skill, red side will always win.

[Fijut]

In my honest opinion, if both teams are of equal skill, red side will always win.

I disagree with this in a certain sense, if everyone playing is reasonably good at the game, it's balanced.

[Pemphigus]

Eradicator is easy to take down with the deemer then with the chaos of the explosion you take the flag then you re under the cover of tank and you score

[Gameslaya]

Eradicator is easy to take down with the deemer then with the chaos of the explosion you take the flag then you re under the cover of tank and you score

It'd be pretty hard to orchestrate that.

[SilentSounds]

The map is not balanced at all.


Blue has an advantage of heavier vehicles, and a deemer next to their spawn. The red's turret can be made useless just by 1 person, sitting there and shooting the camera as it comes up.

It's also harder to take a flag uphill, rather than downhill.

[Rawrster]

I appreciate this discussion guys. I am doing a research project on asymmetrical map design and hearing your opinions on this map is definitely helpful.

[Benfica]

From other post, how to take out the Eradicator:

The manta can jump over on the 1st location or get LoS moving a bit to the left
[shot]http://turtlegt.planetaclix.pt/ut3/erad2.jpg[/shot][shot]http://turtlegt.planetaclix.pt/ut3/erad5.jpg[/shot]

Here the manta over a rock. Then from there it can jump to the roof if needed.
[shot]http://turtlegt.planetaclix.pt/ut3/erad3.jpg[/shot][shot]http://turtlegt.planetaclix.pt/ut3/erad4.jpg[/shot]

If you are on foot, get the same LoS like the manta on the 2nd shot. Or just place yourself below the eradicator and fire flak shards up there
[shot]http://turtlegt.planetaclix.pt/ut3/erad6.jpg[/shot][shot]http://turtlegt.planetaclix.pt/ut3/erad7.jpg[/shot]

[Pemphigus]

It'd be pretty hard to orchestrate that.

That's why team speack/mumble/ventrilo... exist

[Sly.]

It's more or less balanced when you play as a team. When you're on the blue side you lost if you don't play as a team and when you're on the red side... Doesn't matter, you've a big +. The blue team can only win with good tactics and teamwork. But even then it's really hard to win when you're on blue. If there wouldn't be the Eradicator it would be more balanced. I don't say that it's impossible to win when you're on the blue side but it's a lot harder than on the red side. :/

[RPGWiZaRD]

Honestly the Eradicator is no issue, it is easily taken down like shown in the pictures above especially from the left side but you don't even have to kill it most of the time, just pretend to cap the flag and when you are about to jump on the flag from the platform, simply take some steps backwards instead, BAM the Eradicator is fooled and misses and you quickly take flag, hoverboard jump back onto the platform and hoverboard jump over the fence...

BUT camping Hellbender is really annoying though, either it takes a deemer or a few attempts trying to kill it slowly (even if several blue guys are attacking cuz the base is like always occupied by other players as well) meanwhile you give red team bigger chance of capping flag. You can shoot it quite safely with sniper and shock rifle from long distance but it takes quite a while and if red guys keeps healing the bender it won't help much either and again you're in middle of nowhere as far away from being able to defend own flag if need be, so it gives higher chance of cap possibilities for Red team.

However, blue have the same annoying camp laming possibilities, take the invisible hellbender onto the ship, put X-ray field on the flag, BBQ the passing by red fellas. But then Eradicator usually takes out your Bender sooner or later.

It's really those things that annoys me on this map. It's quite balanced tho, even tho that may require the use of above mentioned lame tactics but I'd say slight advantage for Red team with Eradicator + Bender. Only a slight advantage tho because Eradicator can easily be taken out (1 guy could constantly focus on it for example to "disable" it from the game VS increased flag cap risk for opponent team) and blue has tank + invisible bender for good healing possibilities which also makes Tank harder to kill the fewer players are on the map. A lot more fun to play if both Benders doesn't camp flag though, then I concider it balanced. Red has shield belt a bit closer to their base but Blue has deemer and both are about of equal importance on that map, the shield belt seriously increases cap chance for a blue player if doing the "jump over fence move" against shock rifle and flak gun. The uphill factor is against red side so in the end it's probably quite balanced when I think about it.