So what is the general consensus for the new mode?

[Cidel]

Having played this extensively for the past several days, I have mixed feelings about it.

I notice people praising the Seal Rock map, but once you get over how asymmetrical and new the map is, I noticed that the tomelith/terrain is not constructed fairly, and the GC with their spawn in the caves is at an advantage, while the GC starting in the north might even be at a small disadvantage. The caves have noticeably more advantages due to elevated tomeliths and relative distance from the starting point to any given tomelith in the area.

Also, while people cry foul for the heavy RNG factor, for the most part, its also simply being at the right place at the right time and to increase your odds at being the 1st to a tomelith by simply having your GC preempt the respawns. Unfortunately, many people cling to their tomeliths as an entire alliance like its a Secure base; then they moan "RNGesus" when the other tomeliths spawn far away from them.

This mode requires a lot more coordination and communication than the other 2 modes IMO, which makes it much less friendly to casuals who think they're queueing PvP to zerg rush bases/ expecting to kill people.

[RiceisNice]

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Having a node spawn "behind" an already claimed one is advantageous, not the fact that they were covering more ground (because really all three teams should be doing this anyway).

Using my crude drawing example, you have these Nodes A----B----C----D. If you had B claimed and the enemy has C claimed, A is much more accessible to you simply because of the less distance needed to travel. Sure they can run the distance to fight you for it, but the matter of fact is, whoever's at B is going to claim A first, and trying to retake a node that's already been claimed is much much more difficult than defending it, let alone claiming it.

The typical strategy is just to take 2 nodes and hold them both; you don't need a full alliance to be able to sucessfully defend a node even against a full alliance rush, typically because by the time they do overtake it, it's already down to 20% or lower and they were already dispersing to claim the next set of nodes.

[Cidel]

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Don't misunderstand my post, I do acknowledge the RNG involved, but some of the random spawning tomeliths can be contended for rather than people accept that they had no way to get to it first.

The situation you described happens the most for western cave spawns, due to placement and how accessible said tomeliths are to the team spawning in them. This is why I feel that the map is a bit flawed; which brings down my opinion of this mode more than the RNG- which is intended so not one GC is going to dominate every match (not much can be said if one GC is still much more organized to deal with unfavorable tomelith spawns).

And while that is the "typical strategy," often times its just impossible to get to 2 nodes (or not profitable due to deaths in the process). It sounds simple on paper, but the giant unknown, aka the 3rd GC, can often play to into your plans or seemingly "gang up" on you if your controlled tomeliths are close enough.