[Suggestion] Esamir needs a serious rework.

Haven Outpost
Mani Tower
Mani Fortress
Northpoint Station

That's all that stands between the two northern warpgates.

If we assume that neither faction will be comfortable being warpgated that leave 2 bases Mani Tower and Mani Fortress between the two factions minimum acceptable lines.

This is broken AF and while I have no stats to back me up here I'd wager good money that statistically whichever faction owns the Esamir Souther Warpgate stands a much higher chance of winning.

Frankly, with the new continent coming out I'd be happy if they simply removed Esamir from circulation until it got some TLC and balancing.

Agreed. But thats also an area, where the heaviest fights are going on, and normally none of the factions reaches the other Warpgate that way. If a base there is captured, it will be backcapped in 10 minutes. Thats how it is on Emerald, i cant confirm the same for Conner, Miller, Cobalt and Briggs.
But youre right, Esamir needs a rework, but i would like to see a rework in base design and placement. E.g many bases are too easy to shoot with tanks from a hilltop.

But those fights are part of the problem, we just saw that on Cobalt, TR and VS chewed each other up on those two bases and NC swept in to claim half the continent.

If 2/3 TR and 2/3 Vanu are fighting on that boring little strip that leaves 1/3 + 1/3 to face the NCs 3/3. Whichever way you slice that NC gets to at least match enemy pops and can even form zergs against strongpoint facilities.

The fact that there are only one or two areas where battle always happen and they draw in the bulk of the players from the engaged factions is exactly the problem.

Yeah, that's another factor but it's on a different scale, that's a tactical problem which while it can be annoying not every fight at these bases suffers from it. The layout of the Lattice is persistent and every single time I fight there I see the same BS play out.


You know on thinking about it further I think Mani Fortress is probably so popular because it's one of the handful of Esamir bases where tanks are fairly irrelevant. The rough terrain, the jump pads, routers and beacons make it a fairly vehicle free battle.

Turn Eisa into a bio lab.
Turn Mani, Andvari and Ymir into tech plants.

Mass 3 way bio lab fight at start of continent.
Bio lab only players dont ruin the entire continent for everyone else.
No more 1 faction only tech.

Is it wrong if I wished global warming would hit Esamir?

Isn't not like we support the physics for metling ice anyway.

There's a pretty long distance between the northwest warpgate and Haven Outpost. Put a base there, and then the 2 north warpgates both need to cap 3 bases.

Haven Outpost is also one of if not the worst designed base in the game IMO. A triple stack directly overlooking the spawn, what could go wrong? The teleporter room area is also very easy for the attackers to lock down.

Esamir, and more so the "old" Esamir are my fav maps.

Fights for granted, that last quite a time but still are defendable good "zerg blocker" bases like the ones you discribe, and a good amount of open field. Vehicles can actually interfere with infantry (i like that point, esp if you are not a ONLY infatry player).

Good fights, good farms, stupid ppl fighting more "left to right lane" that actual terretory and strategy are not design flaws.

On Esamir the one faction with north-eastern warpgate is basicly screwed. The faction that has Ymir will usually win the alert. It rarely ever happens that the 2 factions that have access to Ymir fight heavily over it so that the one in the north-eastern corner actually got a chance to conquer enough territories.

The OP is correct and how hard is to redraw the lattice lines?

The problem is that it's a little more involved than that. You either need to completely resculpt the North of the map or else relocate the North Eastern Warpgate Southwards which ultimately would require resculpting a significant portion of the North East and East.

Yeah, I've always hated that base, if the enemy takes it off you there's a stupidly long drive from the WG to try and retake it giving them plenty of time to meet you in the open field rather than let you get sunderers around it. Not to mention the turrets on Mani Tower cover it from some angles limiting sunderer placement.

I think the reason they didn't put an extra base there is they didn't want there to be an uneven share of bases between the Biolab. That said a simple Vehicle capture point between Mani Fortress and Northpoint Station could solve that. Put it on or under the bridge and it should be sheltered enough from Mani Fortresses turrets to not be unfair.

I really don't know if I hate Esamir more or Indar. I hope this new map isn't a dud.

I rather DB design their own maps and take a crack at it, they didn’t design the current existing maps. Time to move on and build new ones that will probably be better if they did one. Rather them spend their limited energy on Oshur!

I would like to see Esamir redone but I do enjoy it. The way northpoint and mani are set up make it a great place for a PMB. Had a nice fight there tonight thanks to Yankee and a great group of guys.

But it doesn't really matter if only 1 faction warpgates you? In fact, the closer to the WG another faction is the easier it is to farm certs from because it's safer to fight from a base that is completely shielded so the incentive is to not WG that faction until you've made ground on the rest of the map.

In my experience the real back and forth happens between the southern and north-eastern WG's. The Western north/south front invariably always stalemates at Indvari Bio-lab which results in a heated back and forth between the southern and eastern gates for that distant corner in the bottom right. IE it's less so that the southern gate "always" wins, but that the north western one always gets boxed in.

Surely there are some database figures on the WG win rates?

I wouldn't want Esamir removed because Hossin and Amerish ground battles suck because of the terrain and Indar only has *some* good open ground. Esamir offers something that none of the other continents do, it's just a shame about the gate placements.

What Esamir needs more than anything is for most bases to be raised 50 meters to keep tanks from spamming HE over the entire fight. You're right that it does offer the best armor vs armor combat. But it's also one of the worst maps to fly on due to zero cover for air. But air also wouldn't need cover if we had direct fire AA and real missile behavior. PS3 is the only real solution.

I think most of those grievances work both ways. Little cover is precisely why Liberators have such an easy time tank hunting and for a tank to shoot down into a base usually involves a major level of risk because they cannot shoot down, which means parking on the fore side of a hill, and LoS into a base often results in LoS of the spawn, which means a one way fist fight with rockets. In fact most gameplay videos i see recently are valkeries on Esamir dropping fairies/engi's into tank columns to C4/Tank Mine them from above.

Though i can say the worst case you mention is tanks being able to shoot into the aircraft towers, which doesn't really involve any "shooting down"; but these comprise only a small amount of bases.

Cover for air is just something to equally consider on a map that's open enough for armor. The center and southern of Indar gets that balance just about right (minus the towers). The south east gives no room for vehicles, and the north and south west give no cover for air.

This is why AA weapons need a complete redesign. Direct fire weapons with damage fall-off let air somewhat evade when there's no cover like on Esamir, all while allowing ground the close range dps which is needed when air has too much cover, such as on Hossin.

But with terribly implemented AA, we're stuck chasing a nearly impossible middle ground, and one side or the other is most often boned.

A good example is Hossin.
While Esamir has no cover for either , Hossin has cover for aircraft specifically.
In open fields, and little obstacles obstructing the sky-line, air can be seen for miles, as far as the rendering lets.
Which pretty much means any Air engaged is stuck without opens past engaging the insane boosters if they have them, or straight nuking the AA source, if the AA fire is not at the incredibly fatal level, or the incredibly impotent level.
IE, not fun for either.

While Hossin, every single pilot if they dodge the tree branches of evil, can essentially vanish into nothingness at will, obstructing locks & blocking LOS for any AA unit to even see them coming or track them down.
Tanks have cover from Air, in select places, but more so can't see air until the rockets rain down.
Add in infantry in the thousands of branches, and it's easily a bad bad day for vehicles, in the very linear vehicle paths.

-- IE in Esamir, it's a easily screwed time for either when engaged.
-- And a Perfect example of what that feels like, for air, is Hossin, for Tanks.