I'm curious about which Lockdown maps everybody likes/dislikes. If this thread becomes popular maybe I can even tally the overall rankings or something.
Anyway, my list of preference from most to least favorite:
My preferences are probably opposite those of most people: I like downtown, but Mines is annoying. Comments in no particular order:
- Mines has a fast healing pad in a central, defensible location- this favors highly mobile strikers by allowing them to heal and return to the fight very quickly. The net result is that it becomes harder to defend capture points near your base, because damaged enemy strikers only have to go half as far to get a full heal. Most players probably love the extra melee action- this map is great for strikers. But as a guardian, it's kind of a pain. Throwable items can be fun in principle, but missiles deal low damage and no status effects. Not very useful.
- Furnace is iffy: the lava around the top control point really favors whoever controls the hallways/ water pads, but most strikers neutralize that advantage by opening up the path near the opponent's locker room in search of people to hit.
- Reactor has a "soft" barrier to the top CP, and the floor traps turn on and off faster than lava. There's a lot more tactical flexibility to hitting the top CP in this map vs Furnace.
- Downtown and Stadium: both force teams to spread out, but for some reason this is more pronounced when I play stadium. I love the heart pads in corners in the latter map (high risk!), but there's a lot of spots with one-way barriers that don't work as expected. Downtown offers more areas that can be reached via multiple routes, which I think helps to encourage teamwork.
- Frostbite: snowball fights are completely insane and lots of fun; I'd like this map even more if I didn't keep facing light blue teams full of skolvers. (it's natural camouflage) Also, if you get frozen by a floor trap, you're basically screwed.
- Gardens: would be fun, except that the narrow entrance (and sheltered nook/hallway to the south) is a spawn camper's dream. Slightly imbalanced matches quickly devolve into one-sided nightmares. (I'm referring to a 3 CP map; this may be the wrong name)
Favorites:
Gardens, Facility, Ramparts, Ruins, Necropolis
Good:
Forest, Mines, Reactor
Acceptable but not great:
Frostbite, Furnace
Strongly dislike:
Stadium, Downtown
I play gun-recon, so I enjoy maps that are not too large and provide a variety of easily recognized paths, both of which are present in Gardens. Mines would be better without the heal point in the middle, but I've had lots of fun ambushing people trying to heal too. The 3-point maps Furnace, Reactor and Forest are a bit too simplistic, but this does yield good fights. Frostbite would be a pretty good map were it not so prone to lag, and the deadliness of the freeze vents. Stadium and Downtown are just big messes- the maps are huge and a hassle to navigate, which just makes it a chore to get any action while trying to cap.
From most favorite to least.
Reactor: Lotsa shock = fun.
Mines: Recon camping by the spawn panel is SO fun.
Furnace: Just spam shock bombs on the bottom 2 points. Enemy strikers just zoom right into them. Easy kill.
Frostbite: Snowballs FTW.
Gardens: Big wide spaces, lots of cover 9wait, those two things contradict each other. ._.), perfect for a recon.
Facility: BIG
Ramparts: Fire pots. :3
Necropolis: top middle point is perfect for bombing wit the rocks as cover. they also prevent enemies from leaving after being shock-locked. >:D
Forest: Meh.
Downtown: meh.
Ruins: Meh
Stadium: Meh
BTW, sort of off topic, but anyone else noticing the fact that Rock Jellies are appearing a lot more now in LD? Seen like 30 of them in the past 2 weeks.
Ranking of (+) for good, (~) for "eh," (-) for bad
As a recon, here are my opinions:
~ Gardens: Eh, it's alright but the winding paths to the middle make the middle a constant brawl, and getting to the other side a long process
+ Ruins: Points connected in several places, easy to stay in the action
+ Mines: Same as above, and health pad allows you to stay in the game longer
~ Ramparts: Not a bad map, it's just a bit big, so going around the entire map takes a while (say if you need to go defend a point)
+ Reactor: Easy to get around, I <3 three point maps
~ Facility: It's biiig, and recons walk sloow. Otherwise, it's fine.
- Frostbite: It's completely straight, it takes a long time to walk from point to point, it lags, and getting killed as you FINALLY reach the other side sucks.
~ Necropolis: Same as facility
+ Forest: Same as Reactor
+ Furnace: Same as Reactor
- Stadium: It's way to big. Several points are quite isolated, and I've played a game where half the time, I couldn't see anyone else. It's also hard to make a compete comeback as the points are too spread out.
- Downtown: I don't hate downtown as much, but it's bad for the same reasons as Stadium (it's just not as huge, and not as isolated)
Here's my list of most (top) to least (bottom) based on design (I am disregarding the lag):
Forest
Reactor
Gardens
Ruins
Necropolis
Facility
Ramparts
Downtown
Stadium
Frostbite
Furnace
Mines