With Back to Karkand out, I'm sure some of you had some time put into the maps. What do you think of them compared to the originals?

I don't know!

Its the same maps with the new engine and tons of destruction, so bout the same?

Well they look a hell of a lot better I can tell you that much.

Better, I haven't given them enough time to trully get to know the new aspects of them but so far their great, new structures, many more interior buildings, destructability and no more limited view distance :)

Hotel pools never looked better.

They're almost identical, except that they sliced off about 20% of Karkand's right side (so it's a bit smaller), they added a 7th flag to Sharqi (to disallow the TV station from being a little distant, thus making the action and flag capture continuous), and they shrunk the flag area of Gulf of Oman, again, to make the action continuous and disallow any strategical travelling. 
 
So while they visually are superb, and in general design almost true to the source, the level design (playable area, objectives) have been, for the lack of a better word, 'dumbed down', and thus I vote for worse.

@AhmadMetallic: I am no BF2 vet, and I'm not trying to flame you, but why is it that shaving off small portions of the map, would dumb it down? Are there roads, buildings, and tunnels that have been taken out, or is it just some open space? I'm just curious to know, I haven't played the new maps yet, although I'm hoping to tonight. I'm just curious of why you think they aren't as strategic.

They feel smaller, more hectic and at first I felt like the it was mirror universe and things were backwards due to how the action flows. Feels like Karkand lost it's bottle neck design somehow.

My first round at Karkand went 32-0 in a tank, nothings changed there then. My first round at Sharqi went 28-0 as a gunner in the AH-1Z, nothings changed there either. First round at Oman I got steamrolled by 5 tanks going from flag to flag, still the same. I've only tried Wake in SQDM - no comment on that one yet.

On a more serious note, I think it's impossible to say if the map is better or worse. BF2 and BF3 are different games, what worked in BF2 might not work in BF3. Throw these maps into Quake and they would suck. In BF3 they're hella fun. They do seem smaller, but I figure that's because you can see farther than 100 feet. I voted 'I don't know'.

@AhmadMetallic said:

They're almost identical, except that they sliced off about 20% of Karkand's right side (so it's a bit smaller), they added a 7th flag to Sharqi (to disallow the TV station from being a little distant, thus making the action and flag capture continuous), and they shrunk the flag area of Gulf of Oman, again, to make the action continuous and disallow any strategical travelling. So while they visually are superb, and in general design almost true to the source, the level design (playable area, objectives) have been, for the lack of a better word, 'dumbed down', and thus I vote for worse.

Removing flags is dumbing down, adding flags is dumbing down. No pleasing you, is it? BF3 is not the same game as BF2, destruction as well as other things makes it rather different. How do you know the original flag layout would be for the best?

@AhmadMetallic: I am no BF2 vet, and I'm not trying to flame you, but why is it that shaving off small portions of the map, would dumb it down? Are there roads, buildings, and tunnels that have been taken out, or is it just some open space? I'm just curious to know, I haven't played the new maps yet, although I'm hoping to tonight. I'm just curious of why you think they aren't as strategic.

@easthill

@AhmadMetallic said:

They're almost identical, except that they sliced off about 20% of Karkand's right side (so it's a bit smaller), they added a 7th flag to Sharqi (to disallow the TV station from being a little distant, thus making the action and flag capture continuous), and they shrunk the flag area of Gulf of Oman, again, to make the action continuous and disallow any strategical travelling. So while they visually are superb, and in general design almost true to the source, the level design (playable area, objectives) have been, for the lack of a better word, 'dumbed down', and thus I vote for worse.

Removing flags is dumbing down, adding flags is dumbing down. No pleasing you, is it? BF3 is not the same game as BF2, destruction as well as other things makes it rather different. How do you know the original flag layout would be for the best?

How do you know the original flag layout would be for the best?

I totally agree on the flags/the map being 'dumbed down'. Although it could be that more COD-y players are being shoehorned into BF action and are changing how the game is played, I simply feel that there is less importance on holding certain flags. On medium size karkand , there is now 2 flags across the river, which has a similar effect to the flag near the TV station. The isolation of the points makes battle a bit more standoff-ish and is so worth it when you finally DO take the flag.

I personally think that the destruction is fucking retarded and ruins the maps. I wish there was an option to disable the destruction.
 
Obviously Karkand got it the worst since it had a lot of intense close quarters combat areas. Now, these areas with vital cover spots and walls are destroyable, leaving you exposed exposed to random and unfair deaths.
 
If you liked the awful destruction/copy-pasted shacks in BC2, you will absolutely love B2K.

@AhmadMetallic said:

How do you know the original flag layout would be for the best?

I played each one of them about 10 times and I noticed that the flag capture back and forth is almost instant and the maps didn't have that strategical factor anymore, that's how. You know on Sharqi when capturing the TV station was a big threat, since it was a little distant and was considered a key location on the map? Now there's a flag right next to it by the parking lot, so the TV station is no longer a big deal. You know on Karkand when capturing the furthest MEC flag (tank station) proposed a threat since A) the US players would have control of the tanks there and B) they had THREE more flags across the river to fight for and C) you'd now have US fronts on both sides? Not anymore.

The BF2 flag layout on sharqi just wouldn't work. After half a round there would be no cover between Construction Site and TV Station, making it pretty much impossible to advance. Destruction makes the gameplay radically different. Another thing is the view distance. You can see the whole map! The whole map! Rather big difference, no? All you're saying is how the maps worked in BF2, forgetting that BF3 plays differently. Throw these maps into CS and well, hope you get my point.

And about the TV Station not being a big deal? It's the spawn point for the AH-1Z, it's the biggest deal. Every round I've played where RU was able to hold TV Station have been won by RU. And it is harder to hold TV Station now yes, because of the close flag. Why is that a bad thing? I've had some of the best fights in BF3 at TV Station, because both teams want to control it. And while dudes are fighting there, the rest of the map open up.

Bottom line is, these are different games. Identical flag layout wouldn't mean identical gameplay as in BF2. The matches are much more dynamic now, and that is a good thing. Karkand stopped at the river way to often, with 32 players on either side - making it impossible to proceed either way. Wake stopped too often with US never getting of the boat. Sharqi stopped way to often with the Mi-28 completely raping everything. Before you arrest me, I know this didn't happen every round, but I've played way to many rounds with this happening.

The point I'm trying to make is that it's pointless trying to argue if the maps is better or worse than before. Wake changed from 1942 to BF2, because the change was necessary seeing as 1942 and BF2 were really different games. Same thing applies here.

@AhmadMetallic: Ok, yeah, I can see that(I'm looking at the two maps now). Especially for competitive play, I can see how that would be a bit of a bummer.

@easthill said:
And about the TV Station not being a big deal? It's the spawn point for the AH-1Z, it's the biggest deal. Every round I've played where RU was able to hold TV Station have been won by RU. And it is harder to hold TV Station now yes, because of the close flag. Why is that a bad thing? I've had some of the best fights in BF3 at TV Station, because both teams want to control it. And while dudes are fighting there, the rest of the map open up

I, for one, don't like the new 'back and forth' nature of the game. It's lost the strategy. Before, if you wanted to take the game-deciding points - Gatehouse and TV station - you'd need to make a co-ordinated, concerted effort to do so. Taking those points was a major point in winning the game. Now, not only is it easy to take those points (because of new adjacent points), but they're certainly weighted differently tickets-wise. In my eyes, it's a degeneration from strategic, co-ordinated teamwork (what BF has been about for me) to a more CODy, run around the battlefield with no sense of teamwork.

That's not to say I don't have fun on BF3, especially the BTK maps... but it's just not the BF experience that I know and love.

I think back and forth nature probably has more to do with the pub players. It seems like everyone is running around trying to capture flags and almost no-one defends. The difficult strategic concepts of "own the flag nearest your spawn first" or "own a contiguous stretch of flags so you're not fighting a 360 degree battle" seem lost on a lot of people.

I'm really enjoying them. By putting things back in like 1 team having all flags to start with it keeps them interesting. I do feel that a lack of Littlebirds in them is a wasted opportunity. If there are any maps out for BF3 that are vertical enough to get some cool littlebird chopper moment going it would be these especially with the TV stations having roof access. Also love the increase in destruction.

They're really nice. It's kinda like hearing your favorite band cover an old song you really like; but using cutting edge engineering and production equipment, whereas the original was recorded in a garage.
 
The size of the maps make the game feel more like it should. Most of the vanilla maps were obviously designed with 24-32 players in mind, and were just plain terrible in 64 player conquest. These maps don't have this problem. Also, Strike at Karkand always seemed like it was tailor made for Rush, and it plays very well. I just wish they would use the expanded border maps from Rush mode in Conquest for the vanilla maps. They need to be larger.
 
I would gladly buy another pack with some of the Chinese and American maps from BF2 and the boosters. 2142 maps would also be cool, but might feel strange without the Titans or drop pods. Regardless, they need to bring back Double Assault Lines rules for Conquest, where the final base can be captured once your team holds all the normal ones.

@AhmadMetallic said:

How do you know the original flag layout would be for the best?

I played each one of them about 10 times and I noticed that the flag capture back and forth is almost instant and the maps didn't have that strategical factor anymore, that's how. You know on Sharqi when capturing the TV station was a big threat, since it was a little distant and was considered a key location on the map? Now there's a flag right next to it by the parking lot, so the TV station is no longer a big deal. You know on Karkand when capturing the furthest MEC flag (tank station) proposed a threat since A) the US players would have control of the tanks there and B) they had THREE more flags across the river to fight for and C) you'd now have US fronts on both sides? Not anymore.

The BF2 flag layout on sharqi just wouldn't work. After half a round there would be no cover between Construction Site and TV Station, making it pretty much impossible to advance. Destruction makes the gameplay radically different. Another thing is the view distance. You can see the whole map! The whole map! Rather big difference, no? All you're saying is how the maps worked in BF2, forgetting that BF3 plays differently. Throw these maps into CS and well, hope you get my point.

And about the TV Station not being a big deal? It's the spawn point for the AH-1Z, it's the biggest deal. Every round I've played where RU was able to hold TV Station have been won by RU. And it is harder to hold TV Station now yes, because of the close flag. Why is that a bad thing? I've had some of the best fights in BF3 at TV Station, because both teams want to control it. And while dudes are fighting there, the rest of the map open up.

Bottom line is, these are different games. Identical flag layout wouldn't mean identical gameplay as in BF2. The matches are much more dynamic now, and that is a good thing. Karkand stopped at the river way to often, with 32 players on either side - making it impossible to proceed either way. Wake stopped too often with US never getting of the boat. Sharqi stopped way to often with the Mi-28 completely raping everything. Before you arrest me, I know this didn't happen every round, but I've played way to many rounds with this happening.

The point I'm trying to make is that it's pointless trying to argue if the maps is better or worse than before. Wake changed from 1942 to BF2, because the change was necessary seeing as 1942 and BF2 were really different games. Same thing applies here.

Every round I've played where RU was able to hold TV Station have been won by RU. 

@AhmadMetallic said:

@easthill said:

Every round I've played where RU was able to hold TV Station have been won by RU.

You've played rounds where one of the teams actually held a flag? 1 month of gameplay on the game's 13 maps, I haven't had that happen once. The flags are cheap, cheap prostitutes in this game, both teams taking turns on holding them for almost the same amount of time, back and forth. Because none of them, again, are located in hard-to-reach locations. None of them grouped together make for an effective front. They're just there.

I have to agree with easthill here. The TV station is the key Sharqi Peninsula. Specifically the AH-1Z that spawns on top of it. Play it right and you can get both helicopters as RU. Same thing happened in BF2. Flags generally change hands pretty often but this one is worth defending and is usually how I play this map.

To address the OP, I don't know if I'd say the B2K maps are better than in BF2. They're different... evolved?

Sharqi Peninsula plays more or less the same except it's a little easier to shoot down the helicopters now. SOFLAM + Javalins usually does the trick. Of course that's coordinated so you'd need some coordination happening on your team. That said, you can control the map with a good helicopter pilot/gunner team, just like BF2.

Gulf of Oman feels a lot more urban than it did before to me. There's a lot of building to building combat going on now. Also, I miss firing a TV guided missile across the map in BF2 when it had more or less unlimited range (before patch).

As AhmadMetallic mentioned Strike at Karkand is a little smaller. I actually got caught in the out of bounds area in some kind of weird flashback moment, timed out, and died. But the fighting still feels tight and the key to this map is still getting around behind the RU forces at those far flags.

I don't really have much to say about Wake Island. It's not my favorite map. The lack of AA turrets is noticeable, at least to me. They were the first things to shoot when you're in the air and the first thing to run to on the ground.

At this point I'm too drunk to reply to any post, but how ANYBODY like Wake Island is beyond me. That map sucks. The map sucked since 1942, and that's like a long time ago. Good night.

A lot of camping, a lot of new players who don't know what they're doing, and the f35 being a complete frozen maggot ridden piece of shit. Might as well added J10's to wake and a tandem jet to gulf. Sharqi is probably the BEST and truest out of all of the maps released.

I like Karkand but it's karkand, it can get a bit lame since people just want infantry only karkand 24/7 1000 ticket servers. big snooze fest. The amount of solflam, jav whoring to take down air vehicles is just sickning.

At this point I'm too drunk to reply to any post, but how ANYBODY like Wake Island is beyond me. That map sucks. The map sucked since 1942, and that's like a long time ago. Good night.

i think better , i cant explain but it amazing game .