Presently, Dirty Bomb maps are designed to focus the gameplay into chokes and corridors. The closest thing to a proper arena in the game is terminal 1st obj, and its still full of chokepoints that cannot be reasonably flanked.
This works in terms of making 5v5 an intense shootout experience, but does little to promote tactical play. Outside of the chokes, it doesn’t matter where enemies are, just run&gun them down. Very rarely would I encounter enemies at a spot that would make me reconsider my approach, unless of course they are holding down a choke. See enemies - shoot enemies - gib them. Rinse&repeat. Esp. casual servers are complete madness of people running around like headless chickens.
Lack of friendly fire can be blamed as part of the cause, but I’ve been ranting about that for ages, so lets talk about other elements.
The main problem is indeed the intended focus of the maps. Each map is a linear frontline, with attackers coming from 3 possible corridor, and defense trying to hold them off. This is great when you want to hop onto server and just shoot&move, but gets very repetitive and makes maps considerably tedious. There is no consideration to what is the current state of map, positions and types of players, its this formula:
You spawn - you pick one of 3 chokes you want to contest - you fight&die.
There is a great amount of novelty when it comes to the abilities & merc combinations; and gunplay itself + teamplay mechanics are truly at their peak when it comes to objective-based FPS games.
There is VERY little novelty to how a map should be played, and what are the optimal strategies. Its all about finding the right chokes, and a few crossfire spots. At least on pubs.
Above that we have godawful map-flow mechanics. Glottis mentioned it recently but I witnessed the true pinnacle of what is wrong with the spawns as they are:
My team blew up 1st obj on undeground and started going for the second. However, a very well placed Aura’s with FOP supports were able to hold 2 waves of our attack in the area of defense 1st obj spawn.
Excitement rose as we are finally fighting in a non-conventional area of the map, with people learning on the spot new approaches to engaging the enemy: what are good spots to setup crossfires, where to put the HP station, etc.
After 2 waves our new wave spawned behind the enemy at the mid-level elevator, proceeded down to the final obj and blew it up before defense could regroup.
I consider this a perfect example of what is wrong with the present system. Why would the defense ever bother to try to contest a non-conventional area of the map, if after a fixed amount of time the spawns will be shifted anyways? It basically makes specific parts of the map completely useless, as there is no point in trying to pushout as defense, and very little sense of victory is had when clearing out some areas, since we will spawn further down the line regardless.
Similarly, after terminal 1st obj is blown, defense can setup around the blown wall and hold down the enemy. Great: new position to fight over! Oh wait, after a moment we will spawn right on top of enemy, and can literally ran past them on zombie time, laughing at their chokepoint setup.
This will give you great stats on the Echo heatmaps, as few deaths will be had here or there as the map auto-progresses to the next stage. But if the maps progress happens automatically, there is no sense of accomplishment.
Similarly, EV objectives have dynamic spawns based on the EV’s position. But what accomplishment is it to push the EV 5 more meters to get a more forward spawn? The barricade on Bridge is a very good example of an EV stage that matters. EV can be escorted easily enough to the barricade, to be heavily fought over; blown and pushed further in. Why not tie the spawn situation precisely to the moment EV gets past the barricade?
Chapel EV stage is just a grind. Fight around the EV - repair - push 5 metres - get disabled. Rinse&repeat. There again is no sense of accomplishment when managing to push the EV past the first street, past the chapel; and down the last street.
I’d much rather see easy to build - easy to destroy barricades, past which spawns are switched.
I understand that at this point, the maps we have are too far into development too try to switch them around from linear frontline pushes to open areas with multiple points to contest. Lets hope that Dome tries to go for the latter, with 2 possible objectives to blow at the 2nd stage. I’d welcome more maps trying to incorporate such ideas, esp. delivery objectives allow for exciting intercepts, flanking and setting up firebases. Atm delivery objectives are either: take from A spawn and deliver to B spawn, or take from B spawn and deliver to A spawn.