We're about 3 months into the wipe and this gives me an opportunity to talk about the massive expansion we got on woods. Woods was previously a map shaped like a horseshoe, with a big choke point in the middle you had to cross somehow I order to extract. The map was mostly made of well… woods and not a whole lot of free loot was laying around. The entire map was centered around one area: the lumber mill where the scav boss would spawn with a big stash in the middle of it that could have one of the most valuable items in the game the red rebel ice-pick. One safe on the entire map, located at the mill area as well. The map has basically nothing to do other than tasks and potentially farming Shturman, although with the map being so small, killing him was one thing, looting him was another…
The lack of things to do on that map as well as the lack of loot made woods one if not THE most unpopular map in the game. So naturally BSG wanted to boost the map a bit and so they started working on an expansion so massive, it would basically double the size of the map. Adding a camp to previous portion of the map full of medical loot, a camp so dense in loot you could fill your whole backpack and be ready to extract with a decent amount of cash. They added mini towns, lakes, more camps full of loot, stashes and most importantly the sniper rock! The ability to get on top of sniper rock, basically having vision of almost the entire map and most importantly the lumber mill! Soon woods became one of the best maps to snipe in, with the ability to pull some incredibly long range shots, you could even kill Shturman from 250-350 meters away.
But then BSG had the bright idea idea to give us a task that would change the way the map was played forever! "Kill Shturman 25 times" unlocking the monstrous MK-18 from Jaeger and basically turning the map into a race to killing the scav boss… Additionally although the size of the map was doubled, the number of player spawns basically stayed the same, making the density of PMCs much much smaller. Meaning that the map at times feels like a ghost town. Unless you're in the lumber mill area the map feels so empty, some PvP by sniper rock and maybe by the emercom camp and that's really it… But that's not really the only thing that's keeping woods as probably the least played map even after the rework, you see there are two more maps that are ruining it for all:
Reserve and Interchange are currently so good for acquiring high value loot that any other map that's loot oriented is basically pointless to be in. Why spend 20 minutes farming camps on woods when you can rush tech stores for a chance to put a graphics card or a tetriz in your container, or maybe go look for AESAs on reserve? As long as these maps exist, farming camps on woods for loot will always be a hell of a lot less efficient…
In addition the fact that the boss basically never spawns outside of that one area makes the map centered around it. The expansion should have introduced other points of interest on the map, perhaps raiders could spawn in the USEC camp or the camp by the locked gate? Maybe Shturman could spawn in other locations? The Cultists do amount for something but let's face it, the Cultists haven't exactly been a huge success… You really need thermals to hunt them efficiently other wise they will wipe the floor with you. Nobody really goes to woods to hunt Cultists plus they only spawn at night time.
In my opinion the expansion was good, the devs did an excellent job at expanding the map but in the end it didn't even matter. I would have much rather have that time put into giving us streets of Tarkov or Suburbs. I guess they can still utilize the work they did by adding more points of interest to the map but as it stands I'll have to count this as a failure since the map remains fairly unpopular.
What are your opinions on the map?
