Guide [Special] Happy New Year! Map 2017

[Viking4s 10,791]

 

Hello Tankers, I hope you are presently enjoying the ongoing TO holiday celebrations that started on December 24^th, which include the brand new deadly turret Striker and, of course, the long waited “Happy New Year Map!”, available yet again after one lengthy year!

 

The article below is not a guide, nor a review, but a special report in the form of a portrayal of this unique map. So if you have not yet played on this special map, do not hesitate further, as it will disappear on January 9^th!

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Introduction

 

To keep us plainly entertained, the elves of the TO factory design two special celebratory map per year, one for Halloween (sadly long gone now), and the second one for the End of the Year: the “Happy New Year!” map. Those maps are only available temporarily, and likely modified from one year to another. No information, description nor guide would exist.

 

I will draw the living portrait of the New Year map, which is also known as the Assault Map (ASL). First, I will start with the overview and description of the different map characteristics, then we will look at the history of the new year map series, then at some gameplay experience, and finish with the Gold Box hunt.

 

 

The Map Overview and Features

 

The New Year map was made available on December 24^th 2016 all the way to January 9^th 2017, accumulating a total of 16 days for hard battles and fun.

 

► Map Description

This huge map features a snowy Vintage Village settled in the middle of the map, bordered by the active Red Camp on the East side, Drawbridges Way on the South side, the icy Blue Stronghold on the West side, and The Fosse on the North side. You cannot miss the giant decorated Christmas tree, which thrones in the middle of the olden village place.

 

Credit to @TS7StudioHD

 

The playable area is a perfect square shape of an unknown size. However, my rough estimation is that the map is bigger than the Solikamsk map (2950 props), but smaller than Dusseldorf map (3685 props). For simplification, we can accept that it is made of 3136 props, in other word a square of 56 props side.

 

The map is played with the “Night Winter” theme, which include props covered with snow and a nightglow combined with the traditional New Year night skybox. This skybox, which was introduced since 2012 with the New Year map only, is the most beautiful and colourful skybox of the whole TO’s portfolio. On one side, the skybox displays a magical orchard of trees, illuminated with a myriad of coloured lights, and dominated by a massive TO Christmas tree. On the other side, the St Basil's cathedral of Moscow exhibits a stunning façade and the typical Russian roofs. The silent black night sky is sprinkled with shining stars and draped with divined Aurora Borealis.

 

All the map characteristics create the perfect atmosphere of the quiet eve of Christmas, with all its magic and the promise of the expected venue of Father Christmas and his gifts.

 

► Divisions and Overview

The map is equally divided in 3 mains areas: the Red Camp (East side), the Blue Stronghold (West side), and in between is squeezed in the Battlefield (The Fosse, The Vintage Village and The Drawbridges way). Each of the three main area are segmented into three features, making for nine distinctive features in total.

 

 

1. Red Camp Area

The Red Camp hosts the base of the Red team, which is scattered on three levels, each associated with three features. From the North side to the South side of the Red Camp you will find:

• Crimson Fort, a middle-age look alike squared bailey (level zero),

• Carmine Terrace, a flat area hill facing the Vintage Village (level one),

• Bloody Motte, the highest point on the map link to the Carmine Terrace (level two).

 

Each of these features houses a red flag post, which makes three flags in total located in the Red Camp.

 

2. Blue Stronghold Area

In the Blue Stronghold is established the base of the Blue team, which is constructed with two forts and a hillock. From the North side to the South side of the Blue Stronghold you will find:

• North Fort, the first of the two level zero strongholds.

• Cyan Hillock, the highest elevation for the blue team (level one).

• South Fort, the second of the two bastions, sports a Double Armour zone within instead of the North Fort's Double Power.

 

The South, North and Crimson forts are all identical in shape and size. The two Blue forts are the cradle of the two Blue Assault Points. In order to distinct them from the standard Control Point, we will call them Assault Points.

 

3. The Battlefield Area

The neutral zone is the area of the map where the tanks of Red Camp need to cross in order to assault the Blue Stronghold. From the North side to the South side of this Battlefield are regrouped three features:

• The Fosse, an entrenched sublevel where a building once likely stood.

• Vintage Village, an assortment of timbered house gathered around the main place.

• Drawbridges Way, an area similar to The Fosse, but with two additional high bridges connecting the Red Camp from the Bloody Hill to the Blue’s East Fort. 

 

The New Year map is a really big and complex map with open areas (The Fosse and Drawbridges Way) and a variety of tight areas (in between the houses in Vintage Village), all of which are spread across four different levels. This display offers lots of hiding places for campers or safe heavens to take cover from campers.

 

► Supply Drops

There is a total of 38 drops on the map: 6 Repair Kits, 10 Double Armours, 11 Double Powers, and 11 Speed Boosts. They are more or less scattered homogeneously on the whole map, although it seems that the Speed Boost are more common outside the neutral zone, with none of them in the Village. It is worth noting that four of the Repair Kits are located on each corner of the map and the last two in the Village by the Christmas tree.

 

 

If player are smart and quick enough, they can easily pick up 3 drops on their way to the Blue base in order to buff up their tank considerably. This set up offers a more versatile choice in term of pick up drops strategy compared to last year's map, where the option was more Defence versus Offence: Blue Team had more Double Armour and the Red Team had more Speed Boots and Double Damages.

 

Comparisons of New Year maps supplies drops versus other popular TO maps:

 

 

The New Year Map, with 38 drops, contains slightly more drops than Berlin map (37 drops), but less than Solikamsk (41 drops). In general, it has a level of drops similar to big maps, and maps with high number of players (from 24 to 40). The number of drops available per player is quite high, with 1.58 per player. Just under the ratio, you will find with Solikamsk map (1.71), which has an increased ratio due to a lower player count. The New Year map is similar to that map in many aspects.

 

► New Year Special Features

For this New Year special, a unique mission of “Earn experience in ASL Mode – 0 / 1500” was available, if you were lucky, you would have the mission (mission with “Earn experience”) in one of your three daily mission. Once completed, the tanker will receive either a high crystal reward (depending on the player's rank) or an excellent amount of supplies (here again, the total and assortment would vary by level).

 

 

Additionally, the map had two times the chance of natural Gold Boxes. The Gold Box and the red flag undertook some special celebrative revamping (see picture above). The standard white parachute of the supply drop was redrawn with frost and snowflakes. Unfortunately on this map, where the moonlight tints everything slightly more blue, this new design is really not noticeable. Additionally, an ASL filter button is available at the bottom of current battle panel.

 

 

New Year Map History

The New Year special celebration can be traced back to December 2011; however, I will only cover the two previous New Year and compare them to 2016. Let’s have a quick look at the 2015 and 2016 new year map.

 

► The two New Year maps of 2015

In December 2014, two New Year maps were available to Tankers from 24^th of December 2014 to the 12^th of January 2015: the “Happy New Year! (Race) CP” and the improved 2013’s New Year map recalled just “Happy New Year!”. Both map had the New Year skybox and were played with a Winter Night theme.

 

The “Happy New Year! (Race) CP” map is designed for CP mode with only one Control Point. On this huge map, two racing tracks, which start at each of the team base and bundle with obstacle, lead to the Assault Point, which is located at the top of the map in front of a giant Christmas tree. The day after its release, the map was made available in the other three battle modes: DM, TD & CTF.

In the spoiler below, an in-game picture of the Pine Tree and a spectator mode picture overview of the whole map.

Picture from the Pine Tree - Credit to @williew

 

 

Spectator mode overview of the New Year Race map (in CTF battle mode)- Credit to @DarthvaderjonGTR

 

 

 

The second map, “Happy New Year!”, which is now known has Aleksandrovsk map, was actually introduced on the first of January and could host the four battle modes: DM, TD, CTF and CP. The Aleksandrovsk map had a “Night Winter” theme, which was only available at the time and is not currently available in the game. As any Ney Year map, this map featured also a giant Christmas tree on the hill in the middle. Once the festivity gone, the map was permanently added to the game, with three new theme (“Summer Day”, “Summer Night” and “Winter Day”) minus the Christmas tree, which was replaced with an immense water tower.

In the spoiler below, a spectator mode ranking video of this map and a spectator mode picture overview of the whole map.

 

See below the spectator mode video of the New Year map by @DarthvaderjonGTR

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVOelJ1e2WE

 

Spectator mode view of the New Year map - Credit to @DarthvaderjonGTR

 

 

 

Of course, during the whole period of celebration, the game was given a festive face-lift with holiday decorations: traditional holiday paints, awesome cookie mines, a snowman flag, a special design for all drop boxes, and most of all, a unique New Year rank up effect.

 

 

 

New Year 2014 Rank up effect - Credit to

 

 

 

► The New Year Assault map of 2016

The New Year map of 2016, which was made available from December 25^th of 2015 all through to January 10^th of 2016, featured for the first time this all-new, exclusive battle mode called “Assault”. This is a mode where one team defends a base with a unique Assault Point, while the other team attacks the base in an attempt to deliver their flag to the Assault Point within. With this map, the Assault mode story begins.

 

The Gold boxes worth a special value of 2016 crystals on all maps, plus themed items created especially for the occasion: gold box (white, blue and yellow gold with the green pine tree icon), notification sound (“Ho Ho Ho”) and drop zones (stylized snowflake). The red flags was also revamped into the form we see for 2017.

A set of unique daily missions with increased difficulty but bigger rewards:

• Earn experience points on the New Year map
• Earn experience points in the Assault battle mode

Regarding the gameplay, the biggest problem of the reds is the management of the flag. In fact, the red players often behave like egoists, and thus fight to carry the flag. This is detrimental to the success of the team, while cooperating would certainly increase their chances. Also, in some cases, the blue team had an easier job as they had only to defend. If your more interested on the review of the 2015 Assault mode read from last year those two reports published in the newspaper: [issue 46] In Review: Assault Mode & [issue 47] Assault: Best Gift from Devs'.

 

► Comparison with the New Year Assault map of 2017

The 2017 map is similar in many aspects to the 2016; however the set up of the map features was altered (size, organisation and aesthetic). See below the list of the main changes:

• three times bigger in number of props.
• three forts instead of one, previously only the blue team had a fort.
• Vintage Village has been extended.
• the Battlefield keep its organisation, with The Fosse on one side and the Drawbridges Way on the other side, however they doubled in width.
• the back of the red team base has been extended.
• two blue Assault Points instead of one.
• three red Assault Flags instead of one.
• 5 points (wave 1), then 3 points (wave 2) per flag, instead of 10 points for last year.
• the number of drops and their strategic location.
• Increase number of player, from 10 players per team in 2015, to 12 initially (wave 1) and now 15 (wave 2)

What did not change:

• 1 team point per ten seconds for the blue team. 
• the shape and size of the fort.
• the village houses appearance and overall set up and still located in the central part of the battlefield.

 

The reason why the number of Flag and Assault Point was increased is fairly simple: it is to address the issues highlighted in the chapter above; the Reds fighting over the possession and the carrying of the flag, and for the Blues the apparent facility to protect easily one Assault Point on a small area with few point of entry. The increase of these items led to the increase of the map size, to cover the growth of space needed.

 

Below, an artistic overview in spectator mode, of the “Happy New Year!” map tested in the test server a week prior to the release of the final map 2017, it shows an hybrid map between 2016 and 2017 map (2016's map shape with 2017's special Assault feature: 4 flags and 2 Assault Points):

Video in Spectator mode by

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPkuwIMEYNQ

 

 

 

 

The Gameplay Experience

 

Despite being initially created to host the Assault (ASL) mode, the New Year map is also available for two more traditional battle modes: Deathmatch (DM) and Team Deathmatch (TDM).

 

Comparisons of New Year maps versus other popular TO maps:

 

 

► Assault mode (ASL)

Description
Assault combat mode is a mix of CP and CTF modes. Two teams compete on the map and both spawn in their own base. The red team has three red flags in its base, while the blue team has two blue Assault Points (in the middle of the Assault Point you have a stylized white pine tree instead of the alphabet letter found in the Control Point). The red team leads the assault with the flag and the blue team must defend its Assault Points and prevents the capture of the enemy flag on the blue Assault Point. The capture of a flag brings points to the red team, while the blue team gains 1 point every 10 seconds of play.

 

The number of point per flag capped and maximum players have been updated by wave. See below the different wave details.

 

Comparisons of key details by the different wave of update of the game:

 

 

Therefore, ASL is a race against the clock for the red team to capture as many flags as quickly as possible. The game ends when the red team has captured enough flags or when the time runs out. This experimental mode still needs to be reworked to solve some imperfections and ensure a balance between advantages and disadvantages for both teams.

 

Tips to play with ASL mode

◆ This unusual mode requires good organizational skills and effective communication between each team if they want to succeed in their business.

 

◆ Defending the Assault Points requires a defender to keep an eye on all access roads and entry gates to prevent the enemy from sneaking in. The establishment of a successive defense curtain will be useful. First, the snipers cover the open battlefield, then the midfielders protect the entrances and defenders patrol around the points.

 

◆ Additionally, a line of defenses made with mines will reinforce the strength of the blockade. Make sure you place pairs of mines if you can, as any medium hull will be able to survive the blow of one mine.

 

◆ If needed, a Blue player can raid the Red Camp in order to disrupt enemy’s organisation and slow down the progression of their attackers. However, this may undermine the effectiveness of a defensive team, and should mainly be left to those with minimal range effectiveness, such as Firebird or its cousins.

 

◆ If the red team loses the red flag, do not return it, unless you have too (great danger of another red player to take it back). The flag will return automatically after 30 seconds giving you 30 seconds of rest! Remember it is a race against the clock: 30 seconds lost for the attackers and 3 points gained for your team. Furthermore returning the flag gives you ZERO POINT, ZERO XP and ZERO score point! THIS IS NOT CTF! Defending the assault of two flags is easier than defending against three flags.

 

◆ To succeed, the red team needs to control the Battlefield area and drops in order to be able to break any strong line of defense.

 

◆ The use of splash damage turrets will be useful to destroy defenders concentrated around the Assault Points. Once the defenders are eliminated, any mines laid by them will disappear, leaving an accessible path for the passage of the red flag towards the Assault Points.

 

◆ Despite being a big map, the distance between the flag and the Assault Point isn't as large as it seems. The terrain offers lots of cover, therefore Light and Medium hulls are the best options. My preference would be the use of Hornet, Viking and/or Dictator. The last two are even better, as they will sustain the blow of the defender's mines. In addition, if you are a Gold Box hunter, then Dictator’s upwardly-inclined hull is the optimal choice.

 

◆ A strong attack (pick up the Double Damage and Double Armor boxes) or a more subtle fast attack (with the Speed ​​Boosts and Double Armours) accompanied by a diversion will be possible options. Another option is the progressive attack, which consists of advancing by reinforcing your position. Once the flag carrier is out of service, another takes over and continues to advance.

 

► Other Battle mode and format: DM, TDM and ASL with XP/BP

Unfortunately, I could not find New Year map played with this set up. In my point of view, this is the drawback of the combination of the Battle button and the Striker Contest. In addition, the lack of TDM mode can be blame on the overly large size of the map and the low popularity of the mode. I did play a few games, but not enough to give proper feedback. I still had good games (excluding TDM) with few people, and in order to honour those brave tankers, please find below screenshots  of the final score board.

 

 

 

DM Battle

 

 

ASL XP/BP Battle with lower ranks on EN2

 

 

ASL XP/BP Battle with Higher ranks on RU1 and late at night

 

 

 

 

The New Year Gold Box Hunt

 

► New Year Gold Box

The Gold Box is a colourful white, blue and gold-yellow cube with a green pine tree drawn above the golden “1000” number. The pine tree and the number are drawn on the four side’s face of the box. The Gold Box is dropped 30 seconds after the notifying screen announcement (“A gold box will be dropped soon”) combined with the announcing sound of Santa Claus’s deep-throated laugh or chuckle: “Ho Ho Ho”. The Gold Box drop location marker, which appears during the announcement in a random location in the map, was also altered into the figure of the stylized yellow snowflake. This design is identical to the one displayed last year's New Year Map. The revamped parachute of the Gold Box is of the same frosty appearance as the other drop parachutes. Note that this time, unlike the Halloween 2016 map, both Natural Gold Box and the Gold Box Supply dropped during the event are identical in shape and the way they are announced.

 

 

 

Comparisons of New Year Gold Boxes designs since 2013

 

 

 

 

► Gold Box Hunt

The best way to find the number of Gold Boxes and the pattern of the Gold Box drop zone is to perform a costly, nevertheless savouring, Gold Rain. See below the spec view of the pattern revealing the entire Gold Box drop pattern of the New Year map.

 

 

This screenshot was extracted from a video of a Gold Rain with spectator mode:

Happy New Year! 2017 map Gold Rain by @TS7StudioHD

 

 

This pattern is a little bit disappointing, having only 18 drops location available on the map. As you can see, both the Red Camp and The Blue Stronghold are void of drop zones, as they are all located in the Battlefield area, with the following split per features:

• Four drop zones in The Fosse, two at the bottom and two on the edge of the adjoined sides the two Forts,
• Ten drop zones in the Vintage Village around the Pine Tree and between the old houses,
• Four drop zones in the Drawbridges Way, one per bridge and two underneath.

In probability language, you have 56% of the Drops zone are in the village, and 22% per each area adjoins to the Vintage Village. In order to increase your chance of finding a Gold Box drop zone, you would need the help of a Speed Boost (the map is big and you have only 30 seconds) and look:

• If you are in the middle of the map: first the Vintage Village and then drive as fast as you can in one of the area outside the village.
• If you are either on the North side or South side of the map (the 3 Forts and Bloody Motte): first look in The Fosse (North side) or the Drawbridges Way (South side) and then head on full speed to the Village.

The technique to hunt for the Gold box is very diverse, as they fall into a variety of places:

• under the bridges,
• on the bridges,
• on flat area (in the Vintage Village and The Fosse),
• near the edge (The Fosse),

Therefore, equip your tank accordingly, and Good Gold Box Hunt!

 

 

Conclusion

 

The map is truly vast, offering countless opportunities for Tankers to play using their preferred tank combination, camping position, ambuscade and hidden raids. The map can additionally accommodate three playing mode (ASL, DM and TDM) with more or less success. This map can definitely stay permanently, maybe not in ASL, but in the other mode. It has the potential of a Lost Temple style map. Although we can still gather more gameplay experience and feedback, I can already consider the New Year map 2017 as a matchless map, where everything has been boosted to a higher level compared to the former version. The revised Assault mode is more complex and gifted with more Assault points, more flags post, more players, more props, more drops and more Gold Boxes . . . We can say that we, kids, have been spoiled by the developers this year.

 

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We are still halfway through the New Year celebration; the article would be likely amended later to cover more ongoing special activities, so stay tuned. 

 

I have one request for you Tankers: please try to create and play the ASL as XP/BP, you will see it is something truly enjoyable (and you will find more Gold Box). You will not be able to experience it again before another long year passes!

Last point, if you are like me, disappointed about the current Gold Box Drop pattern, especially after the giant trick from the Halloween Map, do not hesitate to submit below your own creative pattern!

 

 

See you later Laggers
                          VKG4S

Season's Greetings

Edited June 20, 2017 by Hexed

[Shedinja 1,488]

Fresh from the printers, a well-rounded article from our own @Viking4s, surrounding the subject of the intriguing New Year map. Enjoy!

[Rad-Powered 1,694]

I don't like this map.

[stanzhang 3,291]

Wow a huge full review! awesome work!

The map is really hard to balance. It is well balanced now in ctf but in xp, blue team always win.

Edited December 29, 2016 by stanzhang

[r_Valk8 2,086]

Pruh oke.

[XxPAXI2xX 169]

~article~

So helpfull topic, awesome job man!

Edited December 30, 2016 by Flexoo
Please, do not quote whole topic next time.

[Crip 4,735]

So helpfull topic, awesome job man!

 

When quoting a long message, please use a Spoiler.

 

 

 

Nice review Vik! :)

[Zenyth 6,494]

excellent article man

I love how you summarized all the points that influence a good attack or defense in ASL mode :)

pretty extensive with all the detailed tables like drop box ratio

love the map zone names too :P

[TTK_229 1,080]

Nice article.

I hate the map, completely unfair for Blue Team.

[Viking4s 10,791]

I don't like this map.

Don't worry there is 78 other maps to choose from.

 

Nice article.

I hate the map, completely unfair for Blue Team.

Wow a huge full review! awesome work!

The map is really hard to balance. It is well balanced now in ctf but in xp, blue team always win.

Thanks.

Depending of the mode you play and the option, it is sightly unfair to the Red Team. However depending of the overall experience of your team you can still win when the map is unfair to you. Chose wisely the team you want to play.

 

Pruh oke.

So helpfull topic, awesome job man!

Nice review Vik! :)

Thanks a lot guys. :)

 

excellent article man

I love how you summarized all the points that influence a good attack or defense in ASL mode :)

pretty extensive with all the detailed tables like drop box ratio

love the map zone names too :P

Thanks. Shedinja help me concise the O & D points.

Edited January 2, 2017 by Viking4s

[stanzhang 3,291]

It's a good thing that golds only drops in the center! Because in some bases gold drops in one specific team and those are really hard to get.

[NewbieCake 3,067]

Last I remembered, gold box dropped 40 seconds after the notification.

[austen_pierce 1,948]

Very good article, Viking4s

 

.

Edited January 1, 2017 by austen_pierce

[Viking4s 10,791]

Last I remembered, gold box dropped 40 seconds after the notification.

40 seconds seems a bit too long to me, even if every time the hold-up feels like an eternity.

I stated the common value which you can also find in the wiki here http://en.tankiwiki.com/Gold_Box .

Edited January 2, 2017 by Viking4s

[austen_pierce 1,948]

I've noticed that no-supply battles on the Happy New Year Assault Mode map favor the Blue team.

 

Supplies-enabled battles tend to favor the Red team.

 

Not a rule but definitely a trend.

[marc.jp_44 20,837]

Absolutely fantastic! Seriously, that is TO Newspaper quality. Absolutely freaking amazing!

[Ninja 10,468]

Awsome, was looking forward to seeing this since the Halloween Map overview.

[TS7StudioHD 854]

WOW Such a detailed article from you bro :) 

Love ad Support from my side :)  :wub:  :)  :P 

[GeeVuh 1,647]

Nice. 

[maria-mary 23]

:)

[anuclearbomb 220]

 

Comparisons of New Year maps supplies drops versus other popular TO maps:

 

 

The New Year Map contains as many drops as the Berlin map (37 drops), but less than Solikamsk (41 drops). In general, it has a level of drops similar to big maps, and maps with similar number of players (24). The number of drops available per player is quite high, with 1.58 per player. Just under the ratio, you will find with Solikamsk map, which has an increased ratio due to a lower player count. The New Year map is similar to that map in many aspects.

 

Season's Greetings

Hate to break it to you, but 38=/= 37...

Edited January 5, 2017 by anuclearbomb

[Yuri160 4]

Hahahah, for the first time Im reading the TO newspapper, and Im laughing :D xD Nice.

[goid-2017 1]

There is this annoying little Golds Dx

[Akame 4,578]

When quoting a long message, please use a Spoiler.

 

 

 

Nice review Vik! :)

lol

[RIDDLER_8 5,552]

Please keep this map active after the 9th of January. I want to play in Assault Mode every day of the year.