Maps should cater to *all* playing styles, including GV “furballing”, which has grown in popularity recently. Below are some MA map design elements which support the above. Many existing and under-construction maps don’t consider these design elements as much as they should (if at all).
1) “I’m here”: GV furballs start when someone approaches a vBase from a spawn point. The flashing base automatically attracts other players, and a GV battle ensues. One of the reasons why the traditional Tank Towns can be empty is that some of them lack this trigger mechanism. The first player shows up, and nobody else is there. Opposing vBases are too far away to make it worth while to drive to them, so the first player leaves.
2) “Rinse and repeat”: GV battles need spawn points as close as possible to the anticipated battle area. This means that the spawn point must be close to the vBase, or close to an opposing spawn point. Players generally like fighting rather than driving. So you die; no big deal; up another GV and you are back in combat in a few minutes.
3) “The world is not flat”: Dead flat terrain, even if heavily forested, is less interesting than terrain with higher elevations, including mountains. The former tends to limit tactics to stationary ambushes. It is not necessarily unbalancing to have high elevations within several thousand yards of a vBase.
4) “No bullying”: Although air-to-ground is an important part of the game, GV “furballing” is difficult to impossible if the air-to-ground presence is constant. Planes have too much of an advantage over GVs, and rightfully so. Therefore, the map should encourage survival of vBase groups remote from air bases. (This should be do-able *without* hurting the “win-the-war” players, as they don’t need to capture everything to win; just make sure sufficient such vBase groupings or chains survive somewhere until the win). One way to do this is to have separate chains of vBases, separated from air bases by space or mountains, as on a few of the existing MA maps. A vBase spawning to an air base does not cater to GV furballing, but instead to base capture and air-to-ground.
5) Here is a pattern incorporating some of the above design elements. Among other things, note that the 2 spawn points (from 2 other vBases) are adjacent instead of on opposite sides of the vBase. Based on experience, this *greatly* adds to the fun, as it allows GVs to spawn directly into battle, without necessarily approaching or having to drive the long way around the vBase. Whoever owns the vBase can also spawn from there, so that adds the variable of opponents approaching from 2 directions. I would hope that future maps or map mods will take this pattern into account.
