Sieze cave spawn

Is it me or does all the good nodes (and nodes in general) spawn here?

Cave team = win team. Yes! No seriously, I don't know if it is most of the time, but it certainly feels like the cave team is blessed with rng.

The cave spawn point feels like it's in a better physical position than the other spawns at a glance. And that may or may not be the actual case. I've not really looked into it in detail, even if it does have some obvious advantages, two of which pop to the forefront of my mind as I type:

• Many of the node points in the cave are elevated and have only 1-2 entrances, where as other bases tend to only have one elevated chokepoint node. Once taken, it can be difficult for enemies to even manage to climb the ramps, let alone successfully take the node.
  
• Easier access to middle, due to a spawn point right next to it where you can leap down a cliff for minimal damage and literally stand atop the point. Said spawn point also allows ranged classes to harass enemies standing at the mid point with virtually no chance of retaliation.

I have seen a strong trend of victories going to the cave team.

In fact, well over half my victories in Seal have come when Immortal Flames (my GC) got the Cave base.

http://i.imgur.com/UXDxVIs.jpg

Cave nodes are a little bit more compact and makes it easier to defend as a choke point for cave team. The one that's closer to the true-center node is incredibly frustrating, too since it's close enough to allow casters (cough SMN) to attack from uphill.

North team has the short end of the stick with having the least amount of nodes closest to them, and their spawn point is practically bottle necked toward the beach, as well as their nodes having multiple entry ways to get them sandwiched.

RiceisNice is correct. Strategically the caves spawn puts the team that starts there in the best possible placement at the start, and with good team spread, with the ability to control the entire caves.


In terms of terrain, it is the best possible location. The caves only have 4 possible entries into the main network, allowing quick teams to bottleneck or respond to people entering and preventing them from hitting nodes. With the node spawn located in upper mid, it allows access and scouting potential to lower mid as well as quick access to north, south and east areas all while providing defensively favorable conditions. There are two notable downsides to cave spawn location. One is that if enemy forces push in too far, it is easy to get routed and forced back into spawn or pushed out of caves entirely which means you lose easy access to half the map. The second is that three of the five nodes that are easily accessible inside the caves are located on higher ground, so if an enemy team takes those nodes, you end up fighting an uphill battle trying to take it out which puts the attacking team at a disadvantage.

I love getting the caves as my spawn point. There's a couple of spots I like to snipe from, and I was basically freecasting for a couple of minutes yesterday while people were fighting for the node below me and came into range, and when the node was finished the one right behind my snipe point activated so I was able to grab that way before anyone else could get to it (since it's a race with your own GC the way those stupid achievements work).

With how symmetrical and balanced Carteneau Flats was, I like to think there's a little rhyme and reason behind Seal Rock... then again I can't say I've ever measured how many paces it took to get to the Long Defile from every spawn point. >_> Right now it feels like West caves are extremely advantageous to have.

D3 is the devil if you aren't on the cave team. (that's the center cave point with one way in)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gooner_iBluAirJGR

(that's the center cave point with one way in)

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I like to refer to that one as upper mid. But you are correct. D3 is, defensively, the best node in the map.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RiceisNice

http://i.imgur.com/UXDxVIs.jpg
snip

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Yup this, this whole map seems like a joke based on some stupid request some players made a while back:


http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxiv/t...808-11-2014%29

Q: Do you have any plans of making it random where each Grand Company starts in Frontline?

To which they obviously responded:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Pocchory

A: While it's possible to shuffle around starting points, the maps were made to be extremely balanced, so there no significant differences in the layout regardless of where you start. However, there are a fewfeatures which could change things up a bit for players, so we'll try and look into this.

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It's like they went: Oh you think the spawns are imbalanced, do you? I'll give you your imbalanced map, with the rng node spawn cherry on top of the cake, how do you like it now? Mwahahaha

Ugh :confused: