Clockwork Castletown is a terrible map for casual players

[Gserpent]

And yet, casual players are the overwhelming majority of people participating in both casual and ranked queues.

It's not a mindless straight line from goal to goal, most of the map gimmicks aren't immediately obvious, and they replaced the sprint zones with one-way teleports.

All of these things are *very good* from a competitive standpoint, except for maybe having too many gimmicks going on at once, but they are *awful* from a casual standpoint. Made worse by them trying to force the new map on people.

I can't imagine how much it sucks to be new to CC and trying to learn, while also trying to make sense of the only map that isn't a mindless straight line from side to side. It's clearly way too much for the average player in the "Gold and below" bracket.

Why is Square-Enix so fucking out of touch with their actual playerbase? Who actually thought a map designed like this made sense to be released into a general map pool?

[LilFlowers]

Feel like I have to Google a savage raid mech guide to try the new map just too much going on. Should be easier mechs for casual and harder mechs for ranked mode simple as that just like normal and savage content in PvE.

[Elfidan]

While you're not wrong, I would say give it a little bit. It took people a while to stop standing in bombs and tornadoes I'm sure eventually people will stop running off solo to die or standing on the mats wondering what happened when they flip or stop starring at los attacks and afking in the chopping circle. Right?

[Gserpent]

While you're not wrong, I would say give it a little bit. It took people a while to stop standing in bombs and tornadoes I'm sure eventually people will stop running off solo to die or standing on the mats wondering what happened when they flip or stop starring at los attacks and afking in the chopping circle. Right?

That's optimistic, but hopefully it pans out. I really do like Clockwork Castletown, it's just miserable to get newbies on your team on that map because it's overwhelming for them.

[Elfidan]

Yeah, I agree with that assessment one hundred percent.

[RyanCousland]

the best tactic ive found for dealing with this map is the "everyone group up" before the match and put a dorito on you, side benefit is you get alot of comms

[Reinhardt_Azureheim]

the best tactic ive found for dealing with this map is the "everyone group up" before the match and put a dorito on you, side benefit is you get alot of comms

Pretty much what I do, yeah. I even put waymarks on doorways I want people to group up into as I predict enemies to pick certain routes.

The doorway system is really nice and in my personal opinion the map layout is gorgeous. many said it is not as great for melees, but I disagree - so many corners to use and so many alternate paths make this map really great in my opinion.

*looks at Cloud Nine with severe contempt*

[ThaCa]

As much as there's mechanical jank on the map, I find the visibility due higher walls being one of the biggest offenders. Especially in Casual games you have people all over the map running around lost and taking random fights with people from other team that are equally lost.

[Valence]

It's funny because my experience has been somewhat opposite. Casuals are very scaredy cats and they tend to not try out stupid stuff like running all around like I've seen it literally every time in diam/crystal. Not saying that casuals are always like that though, far from it, but overall while casuals are a lot less receptive in my experience to "Fall back and regroup", which is not a problem inherent to castletown, melees that aren't in diam/crystal seem less inclined to think they're hot shit. How many ranked games the team lost because everybody was fighting in their own little corner of the map?

The hidden doors are nice and all, and they actually help melees a lot in my opinion. It's especially nasty when you're playing ranged and you suddenly have melees coming out of nowhere from behind, which can be extremely lethal. If anything, that and the fact that players don't seem to be able to stick together half of the time on this map (I agree the latter is a skill issue and not a map issue don't get me wrong), it favors melees a lot.

If anything, they could perhaps remove some of the map gimmicks for the casual mode. It's already too much in ranked.

[Myon88]

In my opinion the new map is great and they should go even harder on the gimmicks for future maps. Alexander map with height error going off and magnets, kefka fake aoes, there's a lot they can take from PvE. We need more and way harder gimmicks, as hard as literal savage raids.

The PvP system we have now is so simple that there's basically zero skill expression. It's so boring and the 'no items final destination' maps like Palaistra only exacerbate this. I think they should lean into what makes FFXIV special, and borrow more from the PvE side of the game.

Some purists might balk at this, but it's a fact that this will raise the skill ceiling of the mode. If you're the only one good enough to do savage level mechanics on top of the usual PvP stuff, you'll have a greater chance of being able to measurably carry the match.