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My personal review of Sanctum map
Manthro
Posts: 2,752
After running two days of this map, there are some serious issues that have nothing to do with bugs.
First and foremost, the singular biggest problem with this map is the complete elimination of any team based play.
The reason this is an issue is because of the bot/mod combinations and the class matchups placed on the lanes for each theme.
It is literally impossible to bring a 3 bot team to cover 3 different themed lanes with the bot classes in those lanes.
Since other players in the BG can't double up or cross into alternate lanes midway through to support with their team on a bad matchup, individuals are stuck having to revive repeatedly.
Next up, the mods themselves. I can go on for days with these... Hemophilia lane in particular is absolutely heinous. DoT effects should never be the standard to deactivate buffs. They do not trigger reliably. I bring r4 WB and BC to that lane, and I have had rounds where I can't trigger a bleed to save my life, literally.
It's absolutely ridiculous to have a power gain mod that is shut off by DOT effects. You need to rethink what is happening here, and severely reduce the power gain bestowed by any power mod if you insist on retaining that mechanic. The nature of AM is extremely high level bot AI, they gain power way too fast, and it turns back on far too quickly for what it does.
You are giving players zero recourse for a strategic fight, and they have to charge mindlessly into the enemy. Not fun whatsoever.
At least on the SL map you had lanes designed where players could pick 3 bots reasonably suited for the classes occupying those lanes.. sharks were the wildcards.. but now, you have themed mods and counter class bots residing on them that eliminate all possibility of class advantage or direct counters. In some cases you have no choice but to fight at class disadvantage to counter the mod.
Go back to the drawing board on the bots you've put in these lanes and put some effort into making it logical instead of an obvious middle finger to the players.
First and foremost, the singular biggest problem with this map is the complete elimination of any team based play.
The reason this is an issue is because of the bot/mod combinations and the class matchups placed on the lanes for each theme.
It is literally impossible to bring a 3 bot team to cover 3 different themed lanes with the bot classes in those lanes.
Since other players in the BG can't double up or cross into alternate lanes midway through to support with their team on a bad matchup, individuals are stuck having to revive repeatedly.
Next up, the mods themselves. I can go on for days with these... Hemophilia lane in particular is absolutely heinous. DoT effects should never be the standard to deactivate buffs. They do not trigger reliably. I bring r4 WB and BC to that lane, and I have had rounds where I can't trigger a bleed to save my life, literally.
It's absolutely ridiculous to have a power gain mod that is shut off by DOT effects. You need to rethink what is happening here, and severely reduce the power gain bestowed by any power mod if you insist on retaining that mechanic. The nature of AM is extremely high level bot AI, they gain power way too fast, and it turns back on far too quickly for what it does.
You are giving players zero recourse for a strategic fight, and they have to charge mindlessly into the enemy. Not fun whatsoever.
At least on the SL map you had lanes designed where players could pick 3 bots reasonably suited for the classes occupying those lanes.. sharks were the wildcards.. but now, you have themed mods and counter class bots residing on them that eliminate all possibility of class advantage or direct counters. In some cases you have no choice but to fight at class disadvantage to counter the mod.
Go back to the drawing board on the bots you've put in these lanes and put some effort into making it logical instead of an obvious middle finger to the players.
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Im not even on a high level of Sanctum and know if anyone decided not to do sanctum that we are gonna rank lower than someone that stayed doing SL. Pretty demorilizing to think your doing a higher map, but getting less points and will therefore rank less?
Manthro hit it on the head. The only thing this map helps with teamwork is at the miniboss. If someone has a bad day, or accidentally goes down wrong path. Its a failure and waste of everyones time. There is no team work and the only thing that is team is “hey, link to mini-boss is down”, which doesn't even have to be said.
Now the other thing is mixed time zone bg’s can no longer function correctly. I use to be able to field all sorts of time zones in a single bg and through talking and teamwork we could accomplish defeating the map. Now im having to look at switching players with other alliances so everyones time zones work together and in sync. The rest I may have to let go so we all match up. I feel that this is the most damaging as I like playing and learning other peoples cultures, etc. Kinda defeats the purpose of a global game and teamwork.
Anyhow, im done rambling and those are rhe biggest things I have an issue with
I did the math, and I'm better off joining a reasonably active alliance for daily/weekly alliance quest rewards, and just buying resources from the store while doing low level AM maps. The number of shards you give out for this map, and the contents within them are not equivalent for the challenge.
There is no motivation to push boundaries right now.
When alliances were fighting 7500pi bots on SL map and getting through it within reason, then drop to almost half that on Sanctum map and are getting owned, it's pretty apparent the mods are OP.
Manthro is a high lvl player. If he is suffering and disagree with the current AM system, what more those below him are feeling.
Just because map 3 is 'too hard' for you, it doesn't mean Kabam should rework their whole map.
Do a lower level first, one that allows you to make plenty of mistakes as you learn your way through the mods. Then you won’t need to spend.
No, it is not that simple because they now restricted map2 to level 65
So you are left between a teamwork-map2 limited to level 65
Or a sololaned map3, relying on 18 individual to take a lane on their own, without any possibility of any teamwork on a mission that I thought was supposed to be teambased play.
Guys stop with the flagging nonsense on this post, it's not intended to be used that way. He is entitled to his opinion even though I'm in OVA and know what high difficulty is like. I have an r4 bot of every class, highly diversified to handle encounters and even with the right team, some of these mods are way overpowered.
The bot/mod combos are tough but it's a nice challenge. We run what I would think is decently high levels for this new map (especially in the 1st week) and it's manageable for now without much items. However, push it up some more where you can't just count on skill but have to hope bots will cooperate with baiting before their power gain mod gives them sp3 or something else like the previously mentioned application of DOT effects that may not always trigger, it's going to be extremely rough on the players.
Did your one bot KO? Oh, I have two full health bots but I can't use them because they can't handle this mod. Let me see here, oh, only team revives available. Perfect.
Missions, Arenas, raids are all individual events and AMs was the only place with actual teamwork. Previously, you could plan during the AM how to attack the next section based on how everyone was doing or who was available. Now the only "teamwork" in AMs is everyone looking at maybe the one person who is having a bad day or struggling and waiting for them to burn some items and finish their lane. You can't help them, there's only tough it out and do your lane.
Excactly. Every player is constantly pressure to finish their own lane, there is no help to get from your team, which is a problem. You are basically forced to choose members who can afford to clear a lane even on the days they make just one mistake. The same if someone quits mid-AM, something I think most alliances have experienced. Previously you could just take a lower level, now you will be forced to take map2 no matter what if just one person is unavailable a single day.
But looking at the entire game, it doesn't really seem out of place and we allowed them to do equally bad things in other areas. We're not united about issues, we can't really expect anything better than what we're getting now. For example, arena 8-12%+ got a whopping 60% nerf to rewards while 1-7% got a buff and somehow we weren't unanimous in that being bad, instead we got posts mocking the issue trying to undermine it. Rewards are a joke throughout the game. We give an inch, they take a mile and we're too busy fighting amongst ourselves.
Did anyone not expect a significant cost increase for the new map? Map 2 diff killed forcing in to map 3. 6 lanes, prime challenge style mods, of course it was going to be like this. No way alliances would be able to keep their ranks without spending more than before.
This is at least possible on iPad and iPhones by going to your mail inbox, find the purchase and Press “report a problem”
I never did this before but the newest update simply is not a workable app currently
We got steamrolled.
Part of that was due to bugs, yes. I ran into the infamous Rhinox and lost Grindor to a level of shock damage that makes the Green Mile look cozy. But most of it was due to bot/mod combos that strip out all of your options but "rush headlong into the fray and hope you get lucky". It was fun in its own way, I suppose, but it felt like i was all on my own running the Prime Challenge with half a team instead of battling alongside my alliance.
I'm a little frustrated, but at least we've got breathing room to keep advancing on map 2, not sure how I'd feel if I was already running diff 100.
Think this map is doing more harm than good. "More TeamWork" doesn't exist this map creates issues like finger pointing now because guys get wasted and have to spend. It also makes weaker links glaringly obvious. What does that do? Tears teams apart!
Lets break this down: Map 3 caters to ninjas, people that love a challenge, and people who spend.
Positives:
Its a challenge and its fun which I like. The glitches sucks but not like I am not used to it
Negatives:
Map 3 has nerfed rewards for the time you put in, less time yes but not worth the headache of rewards garbage rewards. (AGAIN)
Map 3 puts people on an island and has them all alone. With 18 active guys some are still not able to get through all the fights. No amount of planning can help that. YOU HAVE NO BACKUP! (this actually discourages guys from playing)
Map 3 has glitches (fixed or not)
Map 3 has no possible way to make up for a mistake. If you miss your path your whole BG is screwed, not getting 100%.
At this point I have an R4 of every class and an R5 MV1 why should I push the envelope for level 41? To get what a Tier 3 class crystal in maybe 2 years? Even if I want to who the heck is going to push it with me if you run all the players off.
I think some of the mods probably need tuning so they aren't so pay wall and allow for more strategy and countering the mod, and not RNG to hope that you get what you need to get through cleanly...
BUT the biggest issue of this map to me is that it takes the fun out of it because we are no longer working together.
For a game that already lacks much true "connection" with other players, this map makes it feel like rats in a maze, all on different lanes of the maze.
I don't think the entire map is awful by design, but I think a lot of work needs to be done to make it more fun, a bit more accessible for alliances who were in the 65-75 level on map 2, and more compelling rewards.
The very stupid thing about this map is having 6 lanes all the time from the start to the end if we do not count the mini bosses. 6 paths in 1 room and 4 paths all the time sounds better that way you get 2 persons on a side with 1 backup to help them if they fail or do not have the bots for the lane.
Having proper bots is very hard because its all about luck and great amount of energon. Not everyone is able to have high ranked bot with shock , burn or bleed. For this we need to be able to have 1 backup player for 2 lanes.
And the AM is not that fast . Even if one member need to work , get sick or have problems and can not login to kill 1 node its very hard to finish the map...
Give some love to the 4* Mixmaster that you never levelled or placed on base defense purgatory.
IIRC you can technically complete the mod without fighting through a linked node with 12 players. You won't get exploration rewards, but you can get completing rewards.
Whether those rewards are commensurate with time and effort is another story.
THIS.
No one is cool with this new AM map.
Right now I’m sitting at the end and one member has a full lane to take down with almost dead bots.
Now he has two choices, he can spend Energon or let down 19 other people.
Where is the team work? The other map thrived because as the lanes whittled down we could work as a team.
They are trying to hide the fact that they removed teamwork from the AM by saying “ohhh megatron has phases” but in my mind essentially they have changed AM from a working group event to a single person event with very very underhanded guilt factor for getting people to pay more Energon.
Here is the issue with these games. And this is why I bet on the company not the game.
You invest thousands of hours or dollars or both into a game and you are at the mercy of the decisions the company makes.
Please don’t let us down.
Please know that WE know what’s going on here. That maybe the bottom line is not great so you were forced to make a new map that squeezes every dollar out of its CORE Money Spending players.
Please do not insult our intelligence by saying “ohhh phases is teamwork” and “we are just trying to give you a challenge”
You had the recipe for a great team base mobile event that I enjoyed spending money on to HELP my team members. Now it feels like I am being FORCED to do so. Where’s the fun on that?
I think some of the mods/bots need some tweaking as well, but people will learn to adjust to those. Maybe it's a lot of people just using luck and brute force at the moment, but with experience, that part will get easier.
It's not as simple as saying go back to map 2 if we don't like it. They took away the 66+ maps. There isn't anything of interest for some alliances to go back to.
Another good point made: The effort and items used don't balance with rewards given.
I think many of us want the challenge! But we can just go do spotlight missions if we want to do that solo. The fun of AMs is working together on the map.
Y'all who? There were only 2 or 3 alliances doing d100 at any point, and I don't see any of them here complaining about the difficulty of map 3.
Perhaps not d100, but a select few alliances were in the 90's, including my own.