Baohu - Dunkelschwamm

 

    A front-doorless fort with a scientist glued to the center, a courtyard, and a button that spawns waves of enemies, the goal is to protect the scientist. Except enemies don't target the scientist so it is hard to lose this map.

SCMapDB page

Author: Ice Box

Date of final release: 2011

Maps in package: 1

Map review of Baohu

(originally posted on SCMapDB)

by GrandmasterJ | September 18, 2022 | 3108 characters

    Baohu is a wave defense map which really requires a large number of players to make feasible. The point of the map is to protect a scientist from an onslaught of progressively more impossible waves of bullet-spongey enemies. However, the scientist himself has a ton of health and is never explicitly targeted by the enemies. Rather, the main obstacle of this map will be enemies breaching the base where the players spawn and spawncamp the players. I played this with one other player, and we got as far as a wave of bulky snipers who would unload several sniper shots into one of us the moment we spawned, instantly spawnkilling us, until we resorted to cheats to work our way through the rest of the waves. This map definitely requires a lot of players to make sense of.

    The actual battlefield is extremely simple. There is a simple fort: a gate with a mounted turret above it, stairways to either side, and the scientist in the middle of the open fort behind the open gate. On the back wall is most of the player's weapons, though grenades and satchel charges are also up near the mounted turret. The enemies spawn in a big empty box in front of the fort, 8 at a time (or 1, in the case of bosses). Early on this is pretty manageable, but basically as soon as enemies are strong enough to breach the base you're gonna be in spawncamping zone unless you have a ton of players dealing with this.

    Early enemies include zombies and vortigaunts, with our first really difficult wave being alien grunts. By the time we were fighting human grunts we were having trouble, and as mentioned the sniper assassins was where we drew the line and turned on cheats. Along the way there was a gonome boss who wasn't too difficult. After the snipers was female assassins, bullsquids, and then finally a heavy weapons grunt boss. Ironically, the heavy weapons grunt would probably be one of the easiest parts of this map.

    I really like the arsenal on display, but the enemies' heavy HP counts really neuter any satisfaction of using them. This paired with the spawncamping results in a really annoying experience that I'm not likely to recommend to anybody. It isn't even a whole lot to look at.

    If you have a very active server which enjoys wave defense, maybe put this on with the knowledge it will get at least four players. Otherwise, I say give this map a pass.

Pros:

• Good arsenal
• Defending the scientist is a breeze, as the enemies do not target him and he has tons of health

Cons:

• Spongey enemies are a pain to fight
• Having players spawn where the enemies are trained to invade means lots of spawncamping, which makes the game unplayable with certain playercounts at certain waves
• Inconsistent difficulty pacing
• Bland arena

Score: 4.5 / 10