So the PTR is live with the scaling changes and the new map.
I've just played one game and it feels... weird? Basically the goal is to capture shrines, which work like curses on Cursed Hollow which will fire 4 projectiles at the enemy core. There are several spawn points on the map and usually from 1 to 3 shrines spawn simultaneously. The core has 30 (or 40?) hit points.
The big thing about the map is territory control, if you destroy the enemy fort in the lane it will become yours after 10-15 seconds. This adds and extra "bullet" to your arsenal, so if you capture 2 forts and fire a shrine it will send 6 bullets across.
The mercs are different (basically they blow up at the structures eliminating themselves from the map), the boss works as a 4-bullet shrine if defeated.
So here's what I liked: map atmosphere is great, visuals are awesome. There is a sense of progression as the match goes on with the shortcut opening which is a nice touch.
Unfortunately, I didn't have any fun with the gameplay. Capturing shrines is too fast, and the "shooting-at-the-core" mechanic is even worse than Blackhearts Bay. THe shrine just disappears and some bullets fly which you can mostly see on the minimap. Boring. At least the pirate ship had awesome voiceover and musical score when firing. You felt like you did some damage. Here, there's very little feedback on the actual progression, the only real way to win is to get the core to 0 by shooting at it. And you will need to shoot a lot.
The incentive to capture enemy forts is too small, in my opinion,: they are easy to recapture, as they are located closer to the enemy spawn and the only way to actually win is to capture altars. It's a bit sad that the map still has the 3-lane structure, I think that if the forts were put into a circle, with people spawning in the middle through the shortcuts from the main isolated base it could create some more movement around the map in the attempts to capture the forts and altars, but as is, the game seemed to always be concentrated in the middle of the lanes all the time, which gets boring.
I was expecting to like the departure from the usual map mechanics, but I need to play a few more games to understand what makes this map tick. The first impression is bad and the worst part is the ending to the map will always be exactly like the Oasis - by capturing another shrine and shoot the last volley at the core - anticlimatic.
