From my perspective the people that are worth listening to are all saying we need a bit more time to decide/practice, or have a few changes they want to see go in first.
We played 6 rounds on it tonight, and apart from having become entirely used to no close spawns from ENSL, it was enjoyable from a commander viewpoint. Lots of ways to approach the various choke points and possibilities for safe/aggressive phase gates.
Don't like close spawns, but that's an ENSL-fix I guess. Monorail is still painful for marines, I don't mind monorail but I do mind it as a marine spawn.
also all spawn related issues can simply be fixed by a mod and dont require the mapper to change his map !
this way people can still enjoy close spawns (etc) on public since alot of players like this feature.
@Gadx If monorail is an issue we can simply deacivate it
@Gadx But what about the compromise between keeping a room awesome (in terms of looks and playability) compared to keeping a room balanced for a specific scenario (marines spawn in it)? For Monorail, it feels like you need to go with one or the other.
@Gadx its not always the mappers fault if rooms are not balanced. sometimes certain abilities can change balance and it (obviously) is way too much work for a mapper to change minor stuff with every new build.
So crushak, if the map was free how was the production of it paid for?
I bought the game for $30 or $35 back in july of 2011. I'm an entitled child because I think that I have the right to criticize something I paid for? Gorgeous was not a free update. If they aren't charging for it now, they already charged you for it before. It barely has enough content in it to even be considered an expansion pack.. it's one map, one new weapon, and 2 utility items for the gorge.
Not planning to derail the topic, just trying to get the point across to you:
You technically did not buy anything more than what was included in the release version of the game. That's part of the pre-order deal.
Everything else they do to the game after that (that is not part of fixing gamebreaking bugs) is considered goodwill towards customers. It is UWE's deliberate decision to invest their company's money into further support of the game, rather than spending it instantly on the development of a new title. Again, there is no contract between the customers and them that requires them to ship at least x additional content updates as part of the retail sale after launch, as it would be for games that include a DLC Season Pass. They chose this business plan with the ultimate goal to sell more copies of the game due to the release of the update, which is their good right.
My point was never to get the update across as something unique and awesome. Just that we can be happy that they decided to go this road in the first place and that the "I spent money on this update" argument doesn't really have any solid base to stand on.
As for the update, you seem to forget about the engine upgrades (decals, distortion, performance) that were part of the update, as well as a lot of balance changes to existing mechanics and maps, which all needed playtest time before the release as well. It's easy to complain about the slow update cycles in the weeks before the update if you don't factor in how much crunch time this update actually required.
I am not criticizing anything about your post except the cash argument. I knew what I was buying at release and wouldn't have needed any more than that, but I am glad we got more anyway.
KanehJoin Date: 2012-12-11Member: 174783Members, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow
played quite a few pugs on it, and there are a couple of issues that keep cropping up:
a) plaza node can be shot from crew quarters or club - really hard to defend as aliens
b) energy flow is too close to hydroanalysis or the middle of the map in general, making it really hard to hold as well. It's counterpart rooms are club/shipping/water treatment, none of which have nodes and serve more to connect hydro to the outer ring.
c) energy flow makes both monorail and fab bad hives, it makes hydro way too important for aliens, and generates the same type of issue that locker room/courtyard has in docking, namely the marines cutting off half of the map too easily. cross spawns only may solve this.
some interesting notes:
arc spots are better than it seems. They aren't quickly accessible, but are relatively alien favored due to all the vents and random sightblockers, leading to combat for control of the room rather than suiciding gorges just to kill the arcs.
Do we really need the comments about how no one has faith in UWE and we're out of touch with the game and players, etc. etc. in this thread?
Perhaps if you guys spent an hour playing your own game outside of playtests and game creation with the community UWE would get a better sense of how the game is currently played by its community. I think that would be very beneficial for you guys and us as players of the game.
Long distance RT sniping is no better on summit, tram, or veil. Locations such as crevice, elevator transfer, and cargo all have vulnerable RT locations.
I also agree that Shuttle Bay-Launch Control is problematic (since the shuttle only provides a limited amount of cover in an otherwise very open room), but its no worse than North Tunnel-Warehouse or Hub-Elevator Transfer on tram.
Once again, I see people searching for perfection rather than whether its equal to or better than the current comp map selection.
No one expected the map to be perfect, After all, there a limited player testers who are top notch competitive players or seem to have an idea on how this game is actually played.
I personally hate the map, it's bigger then other maps some parts even a 5-10 second walk increase as a floor running skulk, You notice with tram, veil that they suffer length for width or vice versa. in Descent its both long and very wide. So to say the map is no bigger then tram/veil is a freaking joke and a half.
The map is a cluster fuck, has someone let mine craft go nuts in it and then copy and pasted into spark editor?
Arcing is OP more so then tram.
overall, This map is NOT yet ready for competitive play. Nor does any team of higher caliber want to play it in ensl as they aren't competent with it yet.
Do we really need the comments about how no one has faith in UWE and we're out of touch with the game and players, etc. etc. in this thread?
Perhaps if you guys spent an hour playing your own game outside of playtests and game creation with the community UWE would get a better sense of how the game is currently played by its community. I think that would be very beneficial for you guys and us as players of the game.
No one has that image of that guy in charge of WoW forum management going insane in forums/twitter before being fired? The recent Jay saga at Diablo 3 and his inevitable departure from all things community related? Strayan might be featuring in one of those if he reads this thread hahahahaha.
It seems to me like the mappers are instantly dismissive of any concerns brought forth, calling it hivemind bullshit and the like.
I've played on the map for probably ~6 hours of play, with one scrim on it and a bunch of pubs.
1) The north side of the map leaves much to be desired.
Cut the map in half, horizontally. How many res nodes are on the north side vs. the south side of the map?
If you have chosen "3 north // 6 south", you are correct! This map is stupidly south sided. Good luck if you have an alien spawn in fabrication!
2) Assuming you have an alien start in fabrication, good luck getting a second hive!
Monorail and Hydroanalysis are literally -right- next to the marine start. If you can somehow maneuver your way to a second hive, guess what- All three of these hives are extremely easily arccable.
Launch Control- Right to the south. How do you clear that as aliens? You get to walk into a gigantic wide open room. Good luck.
Hydroanalysis- Right from the south // Right from the west. Good luck holding this one.
Monorail- The second level lets you arc, allowing your skulks to funnel down a very long hallway. Good luck!
3) Multi-story maps do not work with NS2.
How many multi-story maps can you count in tram/summit/veil? Zero! And do you know why?
Because they simply don't work with NS2. There is -one- spot that is multi-story in the above three maps: summit's sub-access start above the res node. And guess what? Medpacks/ammo packs are completely broken there!
Take a hint. Monorail's bottom floor cannot be medded (under the stairs). Plaza is hilarious. Gravity has serious issues here. Water treatment? Thank god nobody goes there.
4) The map is too god damn big.
I know you've done tests doing the walking shit, but look at it from a res node perspective.
Aliens start in fabrication. Marines start in drone bay. Aliens say, "Oh my god we need to kill harvesters!".
So the aliens send a skulk over to Observation. Next res node? Gonna go kill gravity.
Well fuck.
So let's put this in summit terms. You just killed ventilation. How do you get to computer lab? Oh! There's a vent that brings you straight through sub-access!
Or tram! You can go from observation to south tunnels straight into logistics!
But descent? You can either go through Drone bay, or you can go all the way around through hydroanalysis! If hydroanalysis has marine presence? Hit your F4 key, then type j2 in console because I guarantee that will be faster.
Other than that, this map suffers from "Where the fuck is the vent" syndrome that all other custom maps suffer from. Water treatment (What's the point of this room anyways), Where the fuck is the vent? East of the wall? Nope. It's in the ceiling, in a little divvy, north of it. Oh hey there's a tiny 1 inch block of a vent in shipping! OH GOD NOBODY TOLD ME IT GOES INTO HYDROANALYSIS (Why is this vent in here anyways, trying to promote gorge biling from vents?) Hey, there's another yellow block in receiving (Why is this even a room anyways?) OH, IT GOES STRAIGHT TO HYDRO TOO!
This map is absolutely -not- ready for competitive play. Yes, it looks pretty, but as of now I'd rather play on jambi. I'd say docking is more ready than this one, and docking has some serious fucking issues.
It seems to me like the mappers are instantly dismissive of any concerns brought forth, calling it hivemind bullshit and the like.
Can you come up with a single source for that, or are you just running your mouth off? I wouldn't say anything like that, and I'm certain none of the others would either. We take competitive feedback very seriously, which is why Cory has been gunning so hard to get Descent played in Season Two and get feedback and information from high level games.
We want to be in a dialogue with the competitive scene so that things are improved to everybody's benefit. It just makes the situation harder to navigate if people like you are already having a dialogue with imaginary versions of us who apparently say jerkish things.
I'm happy to see that it's been decided that Descent will be in Season Two, hopefully the delay will be enough to help with people's concerns.
Nor does any team of higher caliber want to play it in ensl as they aren't competent with it yet.
Source for this? Both Mercury and Godar(?) thinks that the deal with a 3 week delay before the map goes out will do good for the scene, help the mappers get the time to fix the big issues with the map and so forth. The other teams such as Arc havent really decided yet, from what I've read and heard.
There is no need to keep complaining about wheter the map will go in to S02 of ENSL or not, this is already decided and we should focus on the things that need to be fixed rather than keeping this thread as a dev, mapper and map/playtester bash-fest.
After watching the all-in scrim last night, playing on the map in play tests and now much more in pubs I feel the "information" area needs to be redone slightly. Its a massive death trap for any fade trying to go though that narrow door, much less do combat in. Its way to easy to get stuck on stuff. Sure you can go over the glass but that's not always the best solution to escape. I mean its fine to have parts of a map that are hard to fight in but directly outside a spawn location on a main route?
Information looks cool as shit but it just doesn't seem to play well from my experience.
It seems to me like the mappers are instantly dismissive of any concerns brought forth, calling it hivemind bullshit and the like.
Can you come up with a single source for that, or are you just running your mouth off? I wouldn't say anything like that, and I'm certain none of the others would either. We take competitive feedback very seriously, which is why Cory has been gunning so hard to get Descent played in Season Two and get feedback and information from high level games.
Sure.
I was scrimming on descent, All-In vs. dn`, and when I said "This map sucks", instantly Rehevkor, Rantology, and Jonacrab got on my ass saying (basically) "What are you talking about this map doesn't suck we've been working on it for a long time it's very good!". I'm willing to bet they don't remember a single thing I typed (I brought up three points), which prompted me to make this post because they can't idly ignore my points here.
If you're going to include descent into season two, please include docking as well. It's literally better than descent right now. Both of them are unplayable, but apparently you don't give a fuck about that. You just want your shiny map out.
Can you leave map feedback in a less jarring and cynical way. The map testers do take competitive balance very seriously, although it's hard to get all the feedback we'd like when it's presented in a manner that is essentially yelling at us the entire time we read.
It seems to me like the mappers are instantly dismissive of any concerns brought forth, calling it hivemind bullshit and the like.
Can you come up with a single source for that, or are you just running your mouth off? I wouldn't say anything like that, and I'm certain none of the others would either. We take competitive feedback very seriously, which is why Cory has been gunning so hard to get Descent played in Season Two and get feedback and information from high level games.
Sure.
I was scrimming on descent, All-In vs. dn`, and when I said "This map sucks", instantly Rehevkor, Rantology, and Jonacrab got on my ass saying (basically) "What are you talking about this map doesn't suck we've been working on it for a long time it's very good!". I'm willing to bet they don't remember a single thing I typed (I brought up three points), which prompted me to make this post because they can't idly ignore my points here.
Oh for fucks sake. This is not what we (or at least I) was trying to say. We were not trying to dismiss you or your team's concerns, as a matter of fact, it was the exact opposite. For clarification, here was the point we (as in the map testers and the mappers) would like to have gotten across:
The mappers are 1000% more than willing to make changes to the maps to facilitate their inclusion in tournaments and competitive play. They are willing to work very hard to do it. But to do that they need feedback.
No one is trying to force the map into season 2, yeah, some are pushing for it, but no one will throw a tantrum if it's not included. Either it gets played or it doesn't and that's that. The entire point of the buzz around this (and other official maps like docking) is that there is going to be a big push and a dedicated effort by the mappers to get these maps into a competitively viable state.
But again, none of this can be done without feedback. So every time we here anyone say "the map is not ready" or "the map is bad", it drives us nuts because saying things like this do not ultimately improve the map's viability, they accomplish nothing. That is what we were trying to convey last night in the server. So in this respect Shino, thank you for coming to the forums and writing down the issues and concerns you had for the map. That is the most helpful thing you could have possibly done and everyone highly appreciates it.
And also some others in this thread have sort of essentially rolled their eyes and said "oh well UWE will take forever to fix issues anyway". And this is also not true, Jonacrab has already fixed all of the RT LoS issues and the Club ARC'ing issue and it will go out in the hotfix getting released at some point this week. UWE and the mappers are very excited at the opportunity to improve the maps to have them included in competitive play, and I'm sure they are more than willing to facilitate that with timely patches once feedback has been gathered and updates have been made.
tl;dr: PLEASE leave feedback if you have concerns or issues with maps. Otherwise nothing will ever change.
Shino, we would all appreciate it if you would present your concerns in a less abrasive manner, they seem to be well thought out, but I get distracted by being annoyed at the way you presented them.
Forcing static or excluding spawns is an option; however, it just seems.. boring. Better to fix the imbalances instead of applying band-aids.
Close spawns IS the imbalance, lol. Travel times! It is not a band-aid, it's a fix for the completely random spawn system appled to maps that were designed for static spawns.
On topic though, I just played my first 6v6 on descent yesterday and it was a joy to play. Didn't encounter any issues not pointed out here.
Except, maybe make glass textures more visible in alien vision? But that's not map specific.
Chicken to call out UWE on that movement change is not fair game... ENSL could have held the events early instead of a custom map cup, the were just as aware as everyone else the patch was coming at the end of February and should have planned better. Did it suck for some of the games, sure but thats not UWE's fault.
Technically, it is.
The movement was bugged.
As far as this map goes Descent has been in production for a very long time and all we are asking is for people to really play it. Learn the map play multiple rounds, give constructive feedback and lets make necessary changes if they are needed. People that play one or two rounds should not be forming opinions on how balance the map is since that honestly is nowhere near enough time to evaluate and learn the map. I would rather have descent any day of the week over any of the three custom maps that could potentially get into season 2. (not meaning to be harsh in tone, but some of the posts in here are ridiculous)
Most competitive players do play any new maps extensively(Even just in pubs), but some do make rash decisions based on a few playthroughs of a given map.
The ones that dislike it fall under a few categories.
They don't like it because it's not the old map.
They don't like it because they don't know it.
They don't like it because of balance issues, or perceived balance issues.
it's hard to take this map seriously when they fail at basic things like room names covering up RT locations (not just once, but in three separate instances)
The mappers have no control over this, the room names are centered automatically based on the area powergrid and there is no way to manually place location names on the minimap.
But don't mind me... continue ignorantly bashing the mappers and UWE for making an effort.
You can control location name on maps. At least I do.
Knowing that the name is in the center of the location entity, you can give a false perception to spark of the boundary of the entity by placing little probe location entities. I did a top down view paint to help visualize the concept.
You can control location name on maps. At least I do.
Knowing that the name is in the center of the location entity, you can give a false perception to spark of the boundary of the entity by placing little probe location entities. I did a top down view paint to help visualize the concept.
That was my understanding of the workaround for this problem. Still, it seems silly to reject a map for competitive play based on some room names blocking major points on the minimap.
Definitely, I'm not pointing that out solely for the benefit of comp players.
Fair enough, but Jonacrab knows that workaround. Some things like this slip through the cracks, especially if you're focused on more pressing matters (e.g. finding/fixing exploits, game-breaking structure placements, holes, stuck spots, etc).
Comments
From my perspective the people that are worth listening to are all saying we need a bit more time to decide/practice, or have a few changes they want to see go in first.
We played 6 rounds on it tonight, and apart from having become entirely used to no close spawns from ENSL, it was enjoyable from a commander viewpoint. Lots of ways to approach the various choke points and possibilities for safe/aggressive phase gates.
Don't like close spawns, but that's an ENSL-fix I guess. Monorail is still painful for marines, I don't mind monorail but I do mind it as a marine spawn.
Since monorail is an issue, any ideas on how to resolve it?
http://www.ensl.org/articles/752
this way people can still enjoy close spawns (etc) on public since alot of players like this feature.
@Gadx If monorail is an issue we can simply deacivate it
I like this. This will help the mappers fix and get feedback in a reasonable time before we play them in ENSL.
Will be exciting to watch and play!
Not planning to derail the topic, just trying to get the point across to you:
You technically did not buy anything more than what was included in the release version of the game. That's part of the pre-order deal.
Everything else they do to the game after that (that is not part of fixing gamebreaking bugs) is considered goodwill towards customers. It is UWE's deliberate decision to invest their company's money into further support of the game, rather than spending it instantly on the development of a new title. Again, there is no contract between the customers and them that requires them to ship at least x additional content updates as part of the retail sale after launch, as it would be for games that include a DLC Season Pass. They chose this business plan with the ultimate goal to sell more copies of the game due to the release of the update, which is their good right.
My point was never to get the update across as something unique and awesome. Just that we can be happy that they decided to go this road in the first place and that the "I spent money on this update" argument doesn't really have any solid base to stand on.
As for the update, you seem to forget about the engine upgrades (decals, distortion, performance) that were part of the update, as well as a lot of balance changes to existing mechanics and maps, which all needed playtest time before the release as well. It's easy to complain about the slow update cycles in the weeks before the update if you don't factor in how much crunch time this update actually required.
I am not criticizing anything about your post except the cash argument. I knew what I was buying at release and wouldn't have needed any more than that, but I am glad we got more anyway.
a) plaza node can be shot from crew quarters or club - really hard to defend as aliens
b) energy flow is too close to hydroanalysis or the middle of the map in general, making it really hard to hold as well. It's counterpart rooms are club/shipping/water treatment, none of which have nodes and serve more to connect hydro to the outer ring.
c) energy flow makes both monorail and fab bad hives, it makes hydro way too important for aliens, and generates the same type of issue that locker room/courtyard has in docking, namely the marines cutting off half of the map too easily. cross spawns only may solve this.
some interesting notes:
arc spots are better than it seems. They aren't quickly accessible, but are relatively alien favored due to all the vents and random sightblockers, leading to combat for control of the room rather than suiciding gorges just to kill the arcs.
No one expected the map to be perfect, After all, there a limited player testers who are top notch competitive players or seem to have an idea on how this game is actually played.
I personally hate the map, it's bigger then other maps some parts even a 5-10 second walk increase as a floor running skulk, You notice with tram, veil that they suffer length for width or vice versa. in Descent its both long and very wide. So to say the map is no bigger then tram/veil is a freaking joke and a half.
The map is a cluster fuck, has someone let mine craft go nuts in it and then copy and pasted into spark editor?
Arcing is OP more so then tram.
overall, This map is NOT yet ready for competitive play. Nor does any team of higher caliber want to play it in ensl as they aren't competent with it yet.
Not cool.
I've played on the map for probably ~6 hours of play, with one scrim on it and a bunch of pubs.
1) The north side of the map leaves much to be desired.
Cut the map in half, horizontally. How many res nodes are on the north side vs. the south side of the map?
If you have chosen "3 north // 6 south", you are correct! This map is stupidly south sided. Good luck if you have an alien spawn in fabrication!
2) Assuming you have an alien start in fabrication, good luck getting a second hive!
Monorail and Hydroanalysis are literally -right- next to the marine start. If you can somehow maneuver your way to a second hive, guess what- All three of these hives are extremely easily arccable.
Launch Control- Right to the south. How do you clear that as aliens? You get to walk into a gigantic wide open room. Good luck.
Hydroanalysis- Right from the south // Right from the west. Good luck holding this one.
Monorail- The second level lets you arc, allowing your skulks to funnel down a very long hallway. Good luck!
3) Multi-story maps do not work with NS2.
How many multi-story maps can you count in tram/summit/veil? Zero! And do you know why?
Because they simply don't work with NS2. There is -one- spot that is multi-story in the above three maps: summit's sub-access start above the res node. And guess what? Medpacks/ammo packs are completely broken there!
Take a hint. Monorail's bottom floor cannot be medded (under the stairs). Plaza is hilarious. Gravity has serious issues here. Water treatment? Thank god nobody goes there.
4) The map is too god damn big.
I know you've done tests doing the walking shit, but look at it from a res node perspective.
Aliens start in fabrication. Marines start in drone bay. Aliens say, "Oh my god we need to kill harvesters!".
So the aliens send a skulk over to Observation. Next res node? Gonna go kill gravity.
Well fuck.
So let's put this in summit terms. You just killed ventilation. How do you get to computer lab? Oh! There's a vent that brings you straight through sub-access!
Or tram! You can go from observation to south tunnels straight into logistics!
But descent? You can either go through Drone bay, or you can go all the way around through hydroanalysis! If hydroanalysis has marine presence? Hit your F4 key, then type j2 in console because I guarantee that will be faster.
Other than that, this map suffers from "Where the fuck is the vent" syndrome that all other custom maps suffer from. Water treatment (What's the point of this room anyways), Where the fuck is the vent? East of the wall? Nope. It's in the ceiling, in a little divvy, north of it. Oh hey there's a tiny 1 inch block of a vent in shipping! OH GOD NOBODY TOLD ME IT GOES INTO HYDROANALYSIS (Why is this vent in here anyways, trying to promote gorge biling from vents?) Hey, there's another yellow block in receiving (Why is this even a room anyways?) OH, IT GOES STRAIGHT TO HYDRO TOO!
This map is absolutely -not- ready for competitive play. Yes, it looks pretty, but as of now I'd rather play on jambi. I'd say docking is more ready than this one, and docking has some serious fucking issues.
Can you come up with a single source for that, or are you just running your mouth off? I wouldn't say anything like that, and I'm certain none of the others would either. We take competitive feedback very seriously, which is why Cory has been gunning so hard to get Descent played in Season Two and get feedback and information from high level games.
We want to be in a dialogue with the competitive scene so that things are improved to everybody's benefit. It just makes the situation harder to navigate if people like you are already having a dialogue with imaginary versions of us who apparently say jerkish things.
I'm happy to see that it's been decided that Descent will be in Season Two, hopefully the delay will be enough to help with people's concerns.
Source for this? Both Mercury and Godar(?) thinks that the deal with a 3 week delay before the map goes out will do good for the scene, help the mappers get the time to fix the big issues with the map and so forth. The other teams such as Arc havent really decided yet, from what I've read and heard.
There is no need to keep complaining about wheter the map will go in to S02 of ENSL or not, this is already decided and we should focus on the things that need to be fixed rather than keeping this thread as a dev, mapper and map/playtester bash-fest.
Information looks cool as shit but it just doesn't seem to play well from my experience.
Sure.
I was scrimming on descent, All-In vs. dn`, and when I said "This map sucks", instantly Rehevkor, Rantology, and Jonacrab got on my ass saying (basically) "What are you talking about this map doesn't suck we've been working on it for a long time it's very good!". I'm willing to bet they don't remember a single thing I typed (I brought up three points), which prompted me to make this post because they can't idly ignore my points here.
If you're going to include descent into season two, please include docking as well. It's literally better than descent right now. Both of them are unplayable, but apparently you don't give a fuck about that. You just want your shiny map out.
Can you leave map feedback in a less jarring and cynical way. The map testers do take competitive balance very seriously, although it's hard to get all the feedback we'd like when it's presented in a manner that is essentially yelling at us the entire time we read.
This is not true.
Oh for fucks sake. This is not what we (or at least I) was trying to say. We were not trying to dismiss you or your team's concerns, as a matter of fact, it was the exact opposite. For clarification, here was the point we (as in the map testers and the mappers) would like to have gotten across:
The mappers are 1000% more than willing to make changes to the maps to facilitate their inclusion in tournaments and competitive play. They are willing to work very hard to do it. But to do that they need feedback.
No one is trying to force the map into season 2, yeah, some are pushing for it, but no one will throw a tantrum if it's not included. Either it gets played or it doesn't and that's that. The entire point of the buzz around this (and other official maps like docking) is that there is going to be a big push and a dedicated effort by the mappers to get these maps into a competitively viable state.
But again, none of this can be done without feedback. So every time we here anyone say "the map is not ready" or "the map is bad", it drives us nuts because saying things like this do not ultimately improve the map's viability, they accomplish nothing. That is what we were trying to convey last night in the server. So in this respect Shino, thank you for coming to the forums and writing down the issues and concerns you had for the map. That is the most helpful thing you could have possibly done and everyone highly appreciates it.
And also some others in this thread have sort of essentially rolled their eyes and said "oh well UWE will take forever to fix issues anyway". And this is also not true, Jonacrab has already fixed all of the RT LoS issues and the Club ARC'ing issue and it will go out in the hotfix getting released at some point this week. UWE and the mappers are very excited at the opportunity to improve the maps to have them included in competitive play, and I'm sure they are more than willing to facilitate that with timely patches once feedback has been gathered and updates have been made.
tl;dr: PLEASE leave feedback if you have concerns or issues with maps. Otherwise nothing will ever change.
On topic though, I just played my first 6v6 on descent yesterday and it was a joy to play. Didn't encounter any issues not pointed out here.
Except, maybe make glass textures more visible in alien vision?
The movement was bugged. Most competitive players do play any new maps extensively(Even just in pubs), but some do make rash decisions based on a few playthroughs of a given map.
The ones that dislike it fall under a few categories.
They don't like it because it's not the old map.
They don't like it because they don't know it.
They don't like it because of balance issues, or perceived balance issues.
You can control location name on maps. At least I do.
Knowing that the name is in the center of the location entity, you can give a false perception to spark of the boundary of the entity by placing little probe location entities. I did a top down view paint to help visualize the concept.