TL;dr - NC starting location on Indar need to be moved. NC is constantly losing on Indar, crammed up in a corner of the map across the majority of servers. Sure, some will have screenshots from 8am where NC spent entire night taking Indar (probably out of spite), but everyone who played NC on Indar knows it's a losing battle everyday. Why is this ? It's pretty simple. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_ground The NC spawn location in Indar is nothing but uphill fighting in every direction. To the west you have to fight up a steep bottlenecks, having all hell rained down on you from VS Heavy Assaults and tanks. It's extremely difficult, except when you have massive zerg numbers, to push out of the death valley and into VS territory. On the north end towards TR you have to fight your way uphill, yet again. If you manage to push across the mountain range, the desert below is wide open and easily recaptured by TR since they can move quickly from capture point to capture point while NC has to funnel tanks down the mountain roads to even get into the fight. I absolutely love the desert map. I like the rugged terrain in the north, the valleys in the south-east and the grassland on the south-west. However, I don't like to log on and constantly fight uphill in every direction. Offtopic, but NC having subpar rifles with the worst accuracy doesn't really help either when trying to fire at enemies shooting down at you from range. Maybe it's too late to really fix the issue since it would mean map redesign. But in my head (call me crazy) the whole pit that NC are currently positioned in should be at the center of the map (like the Tech Plant on Esamir) where all 3 empires face-off to battle, rather than putting one empire at a huge disadvantage by making the death valley their starting location on a map. And if someone disagrees, then look back at beta when they were still rotating empires around to figure out if it was location or empire unbalance that made one empire win more than others. None of the empires that were spawned in the south-east in that valley did well.... because they are fighting uphill at every front. Please look into the NC warpgate on Indar and come up with a better solution. For now, I CBA playing on Indar since it's a deathtrap at an uphill bottleneck everyday.
Bottom right is a bad spot. It wasn't any better for the VS when they started there around mid closed beta. Indar needs to be jiggered a bit still. The new paths added across the central ridge at the end of beta helped but it still needs some touching. Starter gates are supposed to rotate now and again but the why and when is unknown. I'd like to see them dynamically shuffle based on continent locks.
I actually like playing on Indar. The southeast region is the most unique of any of the continents. Really mixes up the gameplay compared to Easmir and Amerish. Vanu and TRs warpgates on Indar on the otherhand are a big snorefest IMO. TRs feel especially toilet. Not worth living in a toilet just for a little tactical advantage. There are also some nice defensive positions for NC once they push out a little bit. Right before you hit TR's desert there is a nasty very narrow road that is easy for NC to defend. Stack AA up on the cliff and good times. Plus, when the action is a little slow plenty of nooks and crannys in the southeast to test those piloting skills on.
if the warp gates where to change what would happen if you where in a warp gate when they all switched? would there be a warning "the warp gates will switch in 5 mins" or would the server have to be offline?
Rotating the warpgates doesn't really solve anything. Sure, from NC point of view it will be awesome... it means alot less difficult battles and no more uphill fighting nomatter where you turn around. However, you would then just push the problem over onto another empire (VS or TR), and eventually rotate back to NC again. The map design needs a hard look at and making better access routes for whoever is forced to have their warpgate in the South-east corner so you can advance and attack out of that pit.
Noticed how the TR start at the top but in the middle. And the rest start in the corners... Well.. Think about that. TR own a bigger portion of the hexes, Period.
I remember trying to advance out of Howling Pass Checkpoint towards points south. Did nothing but eat rockets and sniper fire from the canyone walls. We had two sunderers,a prowler, and like 14 guys. We basically had to leapfrog while repairing and trying to suppress with snipers. Might have been better off just going for broke, but had to deploy initially because of the vanguard. Attacking Tawrich Tech Plant is a pain too. Wonderful area to fight in, but it's got extremely defensible approaches. A vehicle gate backed by a full tower ahrghrgrhgrhg.
At one point in beta I remember some people complaining that the South-West warpgate was the worst one on Indar. I think it was the NC that had it at that time... But yes, the gates need a bit of adjusting. But I'm hoping that this is a temporary problem that will be alleviated by the addition of new continents and possible sanctuaries/other things.
VS warpgates arent good either, they are pretty much the same as NC´s with very minor differences, when in some continent they get a minor advantage to NC, they get a minor disadvantage in another the only constant is that TR locations are, handsdown, absolutly advantageous in all continents I mean, if I designed the game and for some reason I decided to purposedly give a faction a clear advantage regarding its warpgate locations, I´d put them exactly where TR ones are
The terrain was set up so that NC has the bottom right area, 25% of the total map usually. VS is in the left bottom area, usually also 25%, and TR is at the top with a massive 50% area. This is enforced by mountains with narrow bottleneck roads which make defending way more easier. At the intersection of these mountains is The Crown, which is why it's always the most contested area in Indar. Pushing inside an empires mountain range will eventually fail since it's so much easier to defend those border areas than it is to attack them.
The South East warpgate is a pain to defend because of the high canyon walls. Damn Magriders can get up there and snipe. It would make it feel better if the SE Gate was up at a higher altitude, as if it were ontop of the canyon walls in not in it. The South West warpgate is second worst, aside from Vanu Archives, as soon as an empire get's a foot hold on that green pastures you can roll right through. The worst feeling on both locations, is that as soon as they attack a single facility, the enemy is knocking on your door. If you lose Tawrich, NC are gated. If you take Peris, VS get gated (essentially). Northern seabed, you can take Mao and be knocking on TR doors, but they still have another 1/4 of the map to demolish.
