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We’ve had plenty of time now – Fracture is just a bad map




No, YOU just lost a game on Fracture.

But this map is just horrible. There’s no getting away from it. It’s not just new and nobody knows it any more – we’ve all played it, and nobody likes it. I mean, I assume. Surely nobody likes it.

Pick a chokepoint, any chokepoint

The concept is fantastic. The CTs spawn in the middle and fight the horde from all sides, like a zombie invasion.

The execution is horrible. The map feels ridiculously claustrophobic on the Attackers side, and the Defenders feel shovelled into one of about two different angles for each position. It feels like you have no choice in how the round plays out, and you play purely on your aim and timing.

It seems to take out all the fundamentals of FPS games in lieu of just hold an angle, try and avoid the Chamber trap on the flank and pray your teammates hold the site.

I realise that that kind of just sounds like the fundamentals of FPS games.

How can a map with no real middle ever be good?

But it really isn’t. Three of the four entrances to the sites include going through a chokepoint as wide as like, two character models. What are you supposed to do? You can’t out-think, out-position or outplay anyone. You can out-aim them, or you can guess which of the two angles they might be holding. Whoop-de-doo.

The map is just too small, and the sites are too inflexible to do much outside of the few state (Riot) endorsed strats – which is why Riot making the maps is such a bad idea. There’s no room to think outside the box, because the box is entirely designed by Riot. They’ve already thought of everything you can do with the characters, there’s nothing original.

The coolest part of the map – the ziplines underneath it – are entirely immaterial once the game starts. Instead it becomes a normal map but with more flanks (that don’t work against any team with a sentinel) and less you can actually… do. You just pick one of four lanes and get smoked off for a bit.

Icebox was hated at first, but at least there’s a bunch of different ways to approach each part of the map. Ascent at least has middle. Bind… alright, you got me. 

This map is just awful, and that’s not just recency talking. Riot need to swallow their pride and admit they screwed up.

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