Straight Outta Supertest: Sand River Reworked

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Hello everyone,

supertesters got their hands on the reworked Sand River, that was modified thus:

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1) the mountain was made easily accessible to ensure comfortable gameplay for the upper base team
2) reduced the slope of this region to fix this OP erea in assault mode
3) reduced the height of this area, which makes the lower base harder to defend in standard mode
4) this area was changed by blocking the shots into the right base, which allowed the attackers to crack the base defense too easily
5) the height of the dune was reduced, a fix of an OP place abused by lower base players
6) the two areas were reworked to become a regular terrain, so they can be now used to attack. The amount of access points to these areas was increased.

71 thoughts on “Straight Outta Supertest: Sand River Reworked”

  1. When does WG decide that a map is perfectly balanced? When people stop complaning or when tis 50%50 win on both sides?..

      • Are you sarcastic? Please tell me you are.

        PS Your band is as masculine as One Direction.

        • If I could express how much do I care about your opinion…

          …but I can’t. Got nothing to say? Then don’t waste our time, plz.

          • I actually logged in to say evanescence is fantastic and to tell the lorraine guy to fuck off and I am extremely lazy so that is actually saying something.

      • Finding good positions instead of camping in the usual spots is called “exploiting”? Well: I would just talk about skill…

      • I have no qualms about exploiting certain areas on the map, as long as the number of such places is equal for both teams

      • Firstly: It is called “skill”.

        Secondly, it would seem Wargaming needs every single drop of water for its WoW(arships). Especialy the reasoning of point 6 is beyond me. There are plenty of alternative options to attack (including driving THROUGH the water) already on this map.

        My veridict:
        1) Needless – was fine
        2) Needless – was fine; was easy to snipe off enemy tank on that position before
        3) see 2)
        4) Ok
        5) Ok
        6) Stupidity – only made to counterbalance changes 2) and 3) i.e. needless

        Conclusion:
        Sand River without a river, Swamp without swamp, etc, etc… why did we get the physics engine to begin with? So that we get taken away everything that had any physical implications to it? Like… falling down a ridge straight into an oasis or getting caught with one’s pants down while being stuck in the swamp. What good is it to get a medal for sniping at over 300 meters when you get taken most map features away that would enable one to do that? Lightly armored tanks and TDs that rely on the accuracy of their guns while keeping their distance are getting shafted with every map patch WG throws at the community. They call it “balancing”. Well, I call it dumbing down the game at the expense of people who had the actual skill of getting behind how the game works – and to the benefit of hollow minded seal clubbers.

        • not to mention WG further anals the TDs by annihilating their view range, camo rating, mobility, accuracy, fire rate, basically anything that allows them to be a fearsome piece on the battlefield has been cut and slashed or is being cut and slashed so whiney heavy drivers don’t have to deal with learning how to play the game properly

        • Actually, I think that the reason for changing #1 hill was to make it easier to get up on it from the west. It’s already fairly easy to get up the hill from the east, which is where east spawning tanks would climb it. But IIRC, the slope on the west side of that hill was extremely steep and only the tanks with the most powerful HP/t ratios could get up it.

          Thus it seems fair to me to make it easier for west spawning teams to climb that hill from the west.

          As for the #6 areas, it doesn’t bother me if they remove the water and make those areas more playable.

          As for the name “Sand River”, it can be metaphorical, ya know. Or it could be a long dry river bed, something not unheard of in desert areas.

    • Win chances doesn’t matter, it’s only important that tomatoes have an easy time brawling in their heavies and don’t get torn apart by invisible tonks when they fail horribly and park in open spaces… Err, I mean they try new tactics!

        • The only problem with the spotting system is the spotting checks that they said numerous times that they will buff

          OK, and MAYBE the part when a tank remaining stationary disappears in open field, due to stationary camo – however, no one is stopping you in putting shot after shot in the bloody thing until they move or die.

    • I facepalmed hard when I got to that point. Another pubbie cry “but I once got there and got stuck!”

    • The point of these chages are so that if you ”dive in” at a bad spot there, you don’t spend one min + to reach the only exit point to get back into the game. That’s what my logic says at any rate.

      Anyway: I don’t really like that they change point 2 because i like to use that spot for early scouting and taking potshots in my light tanks ( i only play standard mode )

      • Point 6 changing will be good for those tomato in ASIA because they won’t stock in the water and do nothing for the team.
        But still, what can you expect from those tomato lol.
        And WG still rework on WRONG MAP and WRONG PLACE.

        • I don’t think there are more tomatoes on the ASIAn server compared to the EU or the RU servers.

          • Yeah EU and RU have more tomatoes than ASIA.
            But ASIA gets more percentage of it, and the server lags makes this even worse.(Damn sea cable broken)

    • There will be A1 u noob!xD
      srsly WG?
      All i see is sand not river.
      It was very fun when u were driving in “river” …u could change the whole game:(

      • indeed.
        nobody expected you to be down there and you could get unnoticed behind enemy lines in attack mode, putting shot after shot in their rears.
        i for my part dont like these mapchanges.

    • They most likely already have… the ridge marked as number 3, was lowered, and that just makes it even easier for players camping up in those mountains on assault, to snipe in on the players trying to defend the ridge…. so, yeah, that spot will probably get you instakilled.

  4. If they reduce the slope in area two it will mean that vehicles that previously couldn’t snipe there because of poor gun depression will now camp there. A heavy camp area for tanks with strong turrets. Wonder what nation that suits?

    • That’s what crossed my mind too, I just could not resist the feeling that this is just another tomato-friendly change. That assault mode should have already been removed from this map earlier and let it be only for standart battle, where it is in my mind perfectly balanced. And also it’s one of few maps, where good tactics can outperform unicum-player teams. I am aware that they will fuck it up.

        • I enjoy it on attack, but not defense. It’s even worse, when you play for example light tank in high tier match. Others’ view range is simply too big to make do at least passive spotting for longer time then first one or two minutes.

          And seriously if the fight comes without arty, it is very hard to defend both sides and whole middle, when half of your team camps on dunes and think they are invisible.

          Anyway, I would rather see special MM for some special cases, like I’ve already seen (more then once) team only with meds and TDs against 3 top tier heavies and no arty. The game was simply lost, because TDs has fewer HP and most of the times not sufficient armor (talking about tier 8), while heavies camping on J0 were simply unkillable with this setup. And russian meds like my Obj 416 are simply useless on the whole middle. Thats why I think that removing the assault mode would work better without making changes on otherwise very well balanced map.

  5. Seems like interesting changes.

    Meanwhile, Prokhorovka…… Oh no Campkhorovka is still waitng for a much needed rework. Absolute joke for slower heavies.

    • QQ more

      The only thing that needs reworked on Prok/FS is to give some advantages to the South team. Right now
      - North team can dominate the 1/2 lines due to the bush from E1 (?) area, which is closer to the North spawn (a south team scout has almost no chances of getting there
      - North team can snipe both the hill and the West half of the map from the railway crossing in the North; South team can only effectively snipe the hill and when they do it they’re extremely easy to spot
      - North team has a much easier time on the hill itself, since they mostly have to defend it while having bush concealment, while South team has to poke quite a lot without any concealment from their hill lip; usually the South tanks that try to push the hill get smashed by arty, TDs & snipers from the mid – basically any hope for the South team to win the hill is to have stronk support from the mid, meanwhile the North team can win the hill by themselves – they only have to pay attention to the South snipers from the mid

      • 1) E1 bush is just as easily accessible from south spawn. If you’re afraid though, go to F1 bush line, works almost as well as E1.
        2) You can only snipe 20m northernmost part of the hill from there only preventing enemies from rushing down from it, plus it’s easily spottable and killable from middle. Respective position on the south is amazing for stopping hill push but has the same flaws. Get arty to shot there and laugh at them.
        3) Nope. Easier to get hit by arty, can easily get shot from the middle if they camp below it, and even easier if they push, pretty hard to actually push anything out of the hill even if middle and rail crossing are empty.

        This map is all about cross flank support and coordination. Something that’s nearly gone in current metagame of isolating huge chunks of the maps and force players to resolve engagement on their own. This leads to situations like on Stalingrad or El Halluf – whoever sends bigger lemming train to the west wins, no buts or ifs.

      • - If you have LT or fast med, you can easily counter and spot LT before he can reach E1 bush. Agree that it might be problem on low/mid tier battles where mediums are relatively slow compared to LTs/T67/E25 etc.
        - Only problem with hill is one bush allowing to spot south rail Xing and middle area for north. Otherwise hill can’t be pushed without clearing middle and the same applies to 1 line.
        - It’s perhaps the last “attrition” map where team that is making less mistakes wins, cause it’s quite hard to kill/spot tanks without being killed and people can play it.

  7. So far, so…. good?

    As how I imagine the changes, they’re making it a bit flatter and not really hindering the long-range firing lanes (except for the 3 area, perhaps – though I have to admit that the defensive positions for the North team are much weaker than what South team has)

  10. Only change that was needed is #1. This is one of the best maps in the game right now. Fortunately those changes seem small enough so it should not be ruined.

    • no man that Position is/was so awesome,you just have to blind shoot that Position and you will for sure get a lot of free dmg:D

  13. Pingback: Supertest: Hluboké změny na mapě Pouštní řeka

    • Mines has never changed and likely never will.

      WG thinks it’s perfect I guess.

    • I can’t think of a single problem with Mines. If I was to pick the best map, Mines would be a strong candidate. Mostly because it is equally playable in every class of vehicle and very well balanced.

      • the North base gets to storm the island and take potshots at the hill in standard mode. Encounter mode they have a straight line dash to the town and have infinitely more building cover than the south base. In any mode, North has a shallower slope up the center hill, doesn’t have to avoid rocks to get into the middle area, and always has advantageous positioning. Essentially if you’re in the North base you have a higher chance of winning than the south base just because of the map

      • Any idea what to do with RU251 or medium as a bottom tier when starting south?
        The most unbalanced map atm.

        • North team has more fast autoloaders?

          GG south team.
          All single shot light tanks become utterly useless till the autoloaders go full retard and get shot by TD’s.

          Sure you can spot the island,but the only thing happening there is 2 tanks camping hard behind solid cover with a line of TD’s behind them.

  15. Make a map totally flat and without any features (well maybe really tiny bushes and rocks), name it “Gobi desert” and lo and behold – totally balanced map!

  17. “6) the two areas were reworked to become a regular terrain, so they can be now used to attack. The amount of access points to these areas was increased.”

    I count 3 areas.

  19. Why WG concentrates on “fixing” perfect maps and doesn’t touch bad maps? Why… oh why?

  20. Typical. One of the few maps where I always felt that victory, whatever the mode, was down to relative team skill….

  21. straight outta supertest: sand river reworked (again)

    - Added 3 distinct corridors, just to make sure glorious Heavy Tanks dont get their gold camo scratched by those obviously OP pesky noskillrequired light tanks, and that the spotting system doesnt get too complicated.

    • Can’t leave out those oh so annoying “campy” TDs that only ever seem to kill those heavies that go for a solo push. Obviously the map that’s the problem. Not at all the players.

  26. They really need to stop fucking around with maps for a while, this one already barely worked, it’s a fuckfest in normal mode and often either impossible to attack or defend in assault depending on team compositions. (td & cancer ratios + presence of strong turrets with gun dep or not )
    And since you get it pretty much all the time if you play assault I guess I’ll have to turn it off for good like encounter. The only thing they need to change is the fake bushes along 2 and 3 which don’t do jack shit.