Just played rhine for a few hours, in stopwatch and objective. Here’s what I think:
<u>My favorite part:</u>
<ul>It’s a map where sniper-vs-sniper combat is really possible. ET’s hitbox bug makes sniping weirder than it should be, but really the only places where scoped combat is really important is as allies on battery. (and a little on fueldump). The range is short enough to allow for a mix of MG42, panzer, and sniper fighting. The MG42 can kill faster than a sniper, but snipers have the advantage of mobility. Suppressing enemy MGs so your engineer can work on the bridge is an important job for a sniper.[/list]
<u>Minor points:</u>
<ul>* Some places are a big framedrop. Occasionally when you’re on the bridge itself is bad. Also the radio room (with all the squeaky doors) has poor FPS. (That whole room could be simplified- you hardly have a reason to go there)
- If you leave axis spawn through the door onto the river, and fall down while hugging the wall to the right, can get stuck on a little triangular bit of rock+wire. Can’t jump from there, or move either.
- As noted by Sock, the cave should be more “organic”. True, that thing is a mine and not a natural cave- but miners are still following veins of mineral that don’t go in straight lines. The cave’s gold is a nice looking (if pointless) touch, but the “blue room” just looks odd.
- Maybe the dirt between the traintracks should be higher up. If there are landmines between them, they’re very hard to see! Also, it seems you can plant mines a little onto the bridge.
- The curly corners on the commandmap are an amusing touch, but poorly rendered (metallic silver??). If you want to emphasize that the battlefield doesn’t take up the whole map, then you can drop some other objects over the sides. Some kind of military paraphenila: A manilla folder, a telegram, a code-book, beret and dog-tags, etc.
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<u>Major endgame problem:</u>
<ul>The endgame is too biased towards Axis. (Hey! Kinda like goldrush is!!!) Like goldrush, there’s an objective far, far from the Allied spawn, which they’ve got to PASS the Axis spawn to reach. Until goldrush, they don’t have the option of spawncamping axis to suppress the defenders. The really critical objective should be fixing the bridge- once the bridge is built, the Axis should have to destroy it immediately, or risk quick defeat.
As it is now, if the door bars are in place, axis barely needs to worry about dynamiting the bridge (which is an easy job for them anyhow). They can just sit back and kil.
To fix this, I suggest primarily moving the Axis spawnpoint. There’s a big empty room in the northeast corner. Give it one more doorway (to prevent blocking + spawncamping), and let the Axis spawn there. This way, when Allies attack the bunker door, they can try to block Axis reinforcements from reaching it (possibly with a nice airstrike). The health + ammo should be left where they are. That’ll make the main building an important place to defend from, but you’d have to run up in there. (And coverts will like to sneak in to steal supplies before backstabbing gunners).
Another part of the fix could be making the door-barricade a 2 part fence (like defenses on fueldump). That way, if it gets double-satcheled, Axis will need longer to fix it.
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<u>Wasted map problem:</u>
<ul>The map has this gorgeous pile of ruins, dirt trenches, and MG towers, but no reason for anyone to fight in them! (Unless 1 or 2 axis feel like spawncamping a bit). All official ET maps use a multi-stage feature to shift the combat focus from one point to another, making them like 2 or 3 maps in one! You should try to do something like that. Create a new spawnpoint in the center (somewhere near the commandpost, but in a new room). Let the Axis spawn there initially to defend their building by firing MG towers at Allies in trenches. Then when that point is conquered, the Allies can begin spawning there, and have a shorter walk to the bridge area.
There are many ways you could achieve that effect- I’d recommend something like Oasis. Make the central spawnpoint contestable, and put a barricade in the middle of the tunnel which can be dynamited to permanently claim the spawn for Allies.
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<u>Random thought</u>
<ul>I wonder what would happen to the gameplay if you added fogginess like on railgun? Ruling out sniping would totally change the map. Something to think about[/list]
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