My take on how Shatter could be improved (video)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyaRr9RNan8

In this video I offer my thoughts on how Shatter could be improved. I don't know if SE will ever change the map after they already changed it, but I just wanted to share my opinions.

I mainly talk about how the map could be opened up more and how to diminish the snowballing effect that is plaguing it.

Please let me know what you think.

Forum is making me break this into 2 posts.
[1/2]

Hi Wilford,
I watched your video. I commend you for trying to critically engage with map design, but in short, I don't think what you talk about is what makes shatter broken and bad. In fact I think some of the changes you suggest would make shatter easier to stomp on (if that's your aim to) because it reduces opportunity to utilise line of sight to hide.

My personal opinion is that ffxiv players on average are bad at frontline, and they are very bad on shatter.
The map is best used in a combat style that is unintuitive for players that are used to seal rock & onsal - you need to methodically wait for an opportunity to build BH and not put yourself in unfavourable positions. It punishes mistakes brutally, because as you can see most big ices only have 2 exits (except for mid).

I also think that you are starting to see how the map can be used to effectively, which means you are also able to see how to counter, but maybe haven't made that leap yet.

[2/2]

To break down your video (from memory):

Second ramp to escape is probably the least bad idea. It would definitely make it easier to play with roulette players. Currently, without the change to map design the real solution is just to go from the back or wait on top of the cliff for the team to arrive and sandwich them instead. Basically you have to wait or attack in a way that doesn't put you in a possible sandwich or against a wall - which is what a lot of players are not great at.

Removing walls from mid is a bad idea. Mid is basically the same as mid in onsal. How good you do in mid depends on how well you can read the burst and counter it. You can line of sight around the wall and burst the enemy backline, or just hide behind the wall to make their burst not hit you and counter burst immediately. Mid has always been dangerous in shatter, because it is surrounded by cliffs and makes it very not obvious if you are about to get sandwiched. If you are playing against good players just wait and don't go mid until both teams are there, which is again not very intuitive. Reducing walls will just make it harder to hide.

Increasing widths to ramps/bridges - i don't really know if this would change anything apart from make hiding with line of sight more difficult. At the moment the bridges have an interesting interaction with knockback mechanics for golfing players off the edge, increasing that width reduces opportunities for that skill expression, which is a bit sad. Not to mention how widths of corridors interact with widths of aoe attacks might make them less corridory(if that makes sense?)


To me the real problem of shatter is it's just really boring and formulaic.

Once you decode how it's meant to be played- hitting ice is not fun, there is almost no rng to ice spawn. Ice itself is really boring to hit, and unfortunately discourages pvp for roulette players.There are too few patterns to ice spawn which is again - a bit boring, and which is why it's the most balanced mode - if your team is good - you will win.The ONLY good time i have on shatter is when all the teams have good leads (happens in qsyncs), which makes for interesting gameplay and interesting flanks, but without them - it's dull af.

We could really use various ice spawn times as well as different shapes and sizes like small to medium size ice that popped up around the field (25-75 points) Instead of it being so one dimensional.
I don't know about adding another ramp to the other side. Some alliances still do drop down and dive bomb from the cliff and run out the tunnel, but most teams have sharper senses to see that play these days.
It could even cause a clever alliance to pinch not the team without ice, but the alliance 'with' the ice, allowing them to gain 1.5 worth of large ice.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gunz_Zbestest

We could really use various ice spawn times as well as different shapes and sizes like small to medium size ice that popped up around the field (25-75 points) Instead of it being so one dimensional.
I don't know about adding another ramp to the other side. Some alliances still do drop down and dive bomb from the cliff and run out the tunnel, but most teams have sharper senses to see that play these days.
It could even cause a clever alliance to pinch not the team without ice, but the alliance 'with' the ice, allowing them to gain 1.5 worth of large ice.

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Currently the small ice spawn produces the most dynamic gameplay, but even then it lacks variation temporally and spatially. More RNG and medium ices would be a significant improvement.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Wilford111

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyaRr9RNan8

In this video I offer my thoughts on how Shatter could be improved. I don't know if SE will ever change the map after they already changed it, but I just wanted to share my opinions.

I mainly talk about how the map could be opened up more and how to diminish the snowballing effect that is plaguing it.

Please let me know what you think.

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Thanks for making this video. Although I don't fully agree with your suggestions, you presented them well and I can see how they would change the game's dynamics if put into play.

I actually like the death cliffs. They're a newbie trap at the very start of the match but after that they're not such a detriment because a team will seldom have occasion to jump down them to attack an opponent at their big ice. If we replaced those cliffs with ramps, it would result in each big ice having a distinct route for each individual team and teams pidgeon holing themselves to that one obvious route, instead of coming up with creative ways to get an advantage through positioning.

To that end, I'd like to see each central ramp changed to encourage opposing teams to leverage it for flanking manouvers. Currently it feels like most people think it's taboo to run up an enemy team's ramp. Changing that mentality by making the ramp more inviting would help move the fight around the map a lot more.

Personally I like the verticality of the map but I think it's not sufficiently leveraged. I'd like to see the upper levels expanded upon by encouraging players to go up top and come into conflict, or fight enemies from above without it mainly retiring you to jump down.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mawlzy

Currently the small ice spawn produces the most dynamic gameplay, but even then it lacks variation temporally and spatially. More RNG and medium ices would be a significant improvement.

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Funny how it used to be part of OG shatter and they removed all spawn rng?

I think adding an extra ramp where the large crystals on the sides would go along way with improving the map experience. It's just far too dangerous to attack them unless your team has the ramp as jumping down leaves you trapped, and taking the tunnel leaves you vulnerable to being pinched by the third time. This makes everyone play it safe and only engage other teams when the large middle ice spawns or when smalls are about to spawn. Rarely have I seen a team trying to sneak in from behind via the center ramps actually achieve anything. Usually they end up getting wiped out anyways from players spawning nearby and they inadvertently help the team they didn't attack.

The small crystals often determine who wins, as the team that prepares to capitalize on them will pull ahead and stay ahead. If anything, these also need to crop up more often than just all at once in the middle and end of the game.

Nope, best SE could do is, trash the damn Map and give us the Old Map back.

Who's eager to soak towers like in pve?