Early impressions on the new version of Wake map.

Still have the trees and the snow inside the dock, but some very necessary changes were made.  

The PAC assets have been moved to the mainlaind making them vulnerable to EU attack.  

A gap in the building was widened to allow access to the Walker at DOCKS.

Titan pods now have short range movement allowances that increase the amount of options they have to podding outward.  Some people still maintain that easy access to the gunship is not possible.

Titan consoles in EU titan are not normal strength.

Another change was the addition of some small obstacles to provide limited coverage on the titan deck.  However, such coverage probably remains insufficient.

Here is a photograph of the new coverage:

Deck Coverage

Here is another view:

coverage2

Here I have landed a transport on the titan deck.  It appears I could camp the deck with ease:

transportlos

I was not able to play test the new map because owing to its quasi-public status (you have to install a special map), there were no other players in the server.

titanview

In this photo, you do not see the exploding barrels, I'm not sure how often they respawn but they seemed to disappear for ever.  In general, I took damage landing the transport on the deck each time.  

However, I think it will still be possible to score tank zoom's into the map.

tankzoom

I do not think the new coverage offers much protection from tank fire.

There is still snow in the Docks and the trees are still triangular with AA off.  These are minor issues.

This pedestal at beach seems to have very limited EU access.  A PAC transport can easily land on top of it, but only the EU gunship can access this area.  That means this pedestal leans PAC.  You could lower the pedestal so that APC's access it.

pedestal

I was still able to blow the consoles using the RDX console glitch and gain access to the PAC core.

opencore

The assets have been moved to the mainland.  Currently, UAV is at Village end prong.  Sat Track, EMP, and Orbital are all at Office end.

assets

Finally, the gunship remains exposed to AA fire.  If PAC takes the titan, the gunship is in direct LOS of titan AA which effectively makes it impossible to use.

gunshiplos

I took a look at the gunship spawn from the Dock's AA gun.

dockaa

Assessment of current changes:

PROBLEM TITAN BAY VULNERABILITIES

I do not think the coverage that is provided in the titan bay will provide sufficient to avoid tank camping and other criticism that currently exists in the map.  The coverage of the map is very small and it is still easy to fire tank shells into the titan bay.  

OPTIONS

I have stated time and time again that the EU DOCK area could be reversed and face the ocean to eliminate this problem.  That is a major change and it would disrupt the ability of the EU to effectively use titan AA to protect some of the island points from troop transports.

Another option is to eliminate the tanks from the map and replace them with walkers.  This would eliminate the ability to fire tanks into the titan bay.  Walkers have more flexibility in moving across the open bay which would change the play style a bit.  People would routinely walk across the map to capture flag points and the center of the map would be drawn more into play.

A third option would be to add cargo cannisters to block the shots.  Stacked cargo canisters, full of equipment to repair the titan, might effectively reduce the los and block tank or transport fire into the bay (particularly if placed to provide coverage to the AA gunners.  

It has been suggested that the titan spawn points be more randomized.

Some people advocate shields.

PROBLEM TITAN CORE DESTRUCT EXPLOIT

You can still blow the titan consoles using the RDX kit switching exploit and gain access to the titan core.

Assuming you do not want people to destroy the PAC titan, you would need to physically obstruct access to the titan consoles.  I would suggest a barrage of crates and barrells in corridors 1, 4 which restricted the player ability to get at the consoles.  

PROBLEM MAP IMBALANCE

Problem #1

The present map allows PAC to approach in a circular attack route.  EU is limited to U shaped attack and defense pattern owing to its inability to easily cross the map in the middle.  You can hit the tips of the island by using the titan pods.  This gives the PAC a bridge between the two points and effectively closes the island.  The EU cannot effectively bridge the map at the outer ends of the island.  At present, only the walker can move from one end of the island to the other.  A running walker takes about 30 seconds to cross the points and in my experience took 60-80 points of damage doing so.  The closest walker spawn is at Checkpoint.

CRUDE Map of PAC OPTIONS (old Wake map used):

checkers

CRUDE EU OPTIONS (old wake map used):

eu u

Possible Solution #1:

Create a partial bridge at the end of the island for passage by FAV's.  There are FAV's in the vicinity which could traverse a broken bridge and thus allow the EU EASIER access to both sides of the map.  This would allow EU to possibly take back the OFFICE and VILLAGE CHECKPOINTS with greater ease.

bridge

Possible Solution #2:

Add a transport to the EU's options.  A transport would open the island up to the EU and put the outer points back into play.   Boats and jetskis would also be a welcome addition.

Possible Solution #3:

Move walker spawns closer to the end of the island or at Office and Village so that EU has a chance to move across the bay with control of those areas.  You may also want to consider reducing the amount of damage that the walker takes while crossing the gap.

Problem #2

The present map allows PAC a chinese checkers advantage.  PAC can leapfrog control points.  Take beach or checkpoint, and then mount a two front campaign back towards Office or Village.  Thus, they can cut-off the outer capture points.  Once they cut off the outer capture points, it is very hard for EU to regain control of the outer points.

Possible solution #1:

Partial bridge.  Already discussed.

Possible solution #2:

Eu transport.  Adding a transport to the EU arsenal would allow broader map access and level some of the playing field.

Possible solution #3:

Add eu spawn point at little Island with control of Titan.  The little island is pretty farout there and the EU would still have to engage in a lengthy swim.  Avoids chinese checkers problem by making sure both sides have dedicated access to the island ends, but seems a bit contrived.

Possible solution #4:

Let the teams figure out how to use BEACONS to try to retain some presence in the backfield.  I don't know, it might just be TOO CRAZY to assume that players might work together to overcome this obvious problem.

Possible solution #5:

Move the titan even further back from its new map location or shorten pod range on PAC titan.  If the PAC titan cannot reach the tips of the island easier, you at least force them to rely on transports and eliminate the "titan bridge".  Such a step seems somewhat modest as it hinders PAC slightly but does not assist EU.  This would be the absolute least that could be done.  

PROBLEM EU GUNSHIP IN TITAN AA LOS/LOF

If the PAC takes control of the EU titan, the gunship is easily in LOS/LOF and can simply be camped.  This effectively takes out the only air vehicle that EU has and can create an enormous disadvantage for EU.

Option #1

Move the gunship pad to a location where it is not in direct LOF of titan AA gun.  It's a simple solution, but then no one will probably access Dock roof anymore.

Option #2

Provide cover.  Stacked cargo cannisters might provide coverage next to gunship might provide coverage.  Why would such cannisters be there?  Because it was a hastily constructed defense to an imminent PAC attack.  (They made do in light of the threat knocking on their door).   Or perhaps the cannisters are full of rockets which resupply the gunship.  Or go with a billboard next to the gunship..  A small billboard might block fire and we all know, DICE loves billboards.  Look at the placement of the billboard near the AA gun at silo 2 on Hwy Tampa.  Talk about reducing LOF.  Still the goal is to allow the titan aa gun to function so we want to place the billboard next to the gunship.

MISC. ISSUES

PAC ASSETS

Currently the PAC assets are divided with 3 on one side of the island and 1 on the other.  Because PAC can pod out, it should be relatively easy to fix the assets if they are blown.  EU will have to travel a short distance, but might be able to reach it.  

The strategic value of assets is as follows:  1. UAV 2. SAT TRACK 3. ORBITAL 4. EMP STRIKE.

If you want to make life as miserable as possible for the PAC, place 1. UAV 2. SAT TRACK 3. ORBITAL at one prong (OFFICE SIDE).  The village side offers a relatively close FAV and a shorter transport time for anyone going from the tip of the island to the next stop (village).   The FAV is placed further down on the office side, meaning a longer walk.

Less cruel, but equally problematic is to couple the 1. UAV and 2. Sat track points together on Office Side.  Although it might arguably take an engineer less time to repair the crucial assets if they were both on one side of the island prong (one pod).

A finally, and humorous option is to place the EMP strike asset on the little island.  

BEACH

Currently BEACH provides most of its cover in the water rather than at the flag spawn.  The only anomoly is the super tall pedestal which seems to have access to PAC more readily than EU.  I've landed a PAC transport on top of it and you are safe from the defenders below.  AA might be a different issue.

Beach also seems to have very little in the way of transportation.  Might be nice to have a simple FAV or even a walker spawn there.

As EU moves towards Office it is hindered by the fact that it must move out of DOCKS to gain access to any kind of vehicles.  At checkpoint and at vilage both EU and PAC have avaliable options.  Most of the time, if PAC controls OFFICE they can control the area between OFFICE AND BEACH.  The good news is that BEACH, while accessible to vehicle capture, at least puts vehicles in a bad spot while they do it.  But likewise, vehicles trying to RECAP BEACH from Docks are also limited.  So again, at present, there is no quick way to get between BEACH and OFFICE (FAV) or counterpoint to Office Tank.

TITAN SPAWN POINT ISSUE

In the early map, the titan spawn point allowed for Docks access as well as titan access.  This helped EU defend if Docks was taken, but hurt EU if Titan was taken.

Suggested options:

Some people suggested making this spawn point limited to EU only.

Another option:

Give DOCKS the two control points.

Third option:

Flip Titan location facing titan to make it more adjacent to docks and leave spawn points as they were.

There are also different gameplay elements which could be tested.

* * *

Allright, since I'm totally insane, I started dreaming up new ways to play this map.

For off the wall gameplay variations suggestions, click this link.  Warning:  these ideas might be crude and impractical and would require some significant play testing.