27 replies to this topic

[9erRed]

Greetings all,

Russ has stated that PGI did have to "fudge" some of the terrain, mostly due the fact that looking at small terrain objects from the cockpit of a Mech would reduce most items to a few pixels. And rather difficult to detail at that level. They looked at a "happy zone" of about 30 feet above ground as the detail level to focus on.

But yes, everyone is correct the fauna represented in all the maps is so off. And the layout of objects is far from what you would expect from an area that has been "emergency evacuated". There should have been mass exodus with all it's confusion in every city area we see. And yes, city planning does need to be considered before the gameplay routing is considered. As we can see from what appear to be some very poorly laid out streets. (and breaks the emersion factor) And that leads to some really stupid placements for the turrets, but that's a different matter.

Just some observations,
9erRed

[80sGlamRockSensation David Bowie]

haruko, on 20 October 2013 - 10:21 PM, said:

I've always noticed the same thing.

WHY does PGI use mech sized grass?! At first we conspired, that the Atlas and all the mechs were actually human sized and that PGI was simply reusing crytek assets (the grass).

I proved that false, and in the process learned that they could easy scale down the grass...

So next I assumed it was just all the scenery that was out of scale.

Aaand...a few days ago I proved that wrong too, as you can see below, the Atlas is about 3 stories high, and you can see the in-game pilot standing in the doorway of the River city building, with the River City car for reference.





Hell I can put the pilot in the car if I want! Beep beep!


So why do the maps feel so out of scale aside from the grass? Ding ding! You guessed it! PGI just has bad map design! All maps in MWO follow the philosophy of: Earth bowl + Ocean

Basically every map in MWO is just a giant earth bowl with some sort of ocean/water front part, which is why they all feel so...fake, on top of bad city design, I mean I KNOW it has to be balanced for play, but you can have balanced city maps without the layouts being complete {Scrap} and nonsensical! It doesn't take a genius to figure that River City makes no sense, how the hell does the Gazelle even land!? A lot of people tell me that there's debris blocking the rest of the runway but even if you cleared it, it still can't land because there are two huge mountains blocking the whole airport!



Hell if you remove the mountains and use some natural obstructions River City already looks better:


And don't even get me started on the 1000ft tall street lights in Frozen City:


So tl;dr what I'm trying to say is that;

- The maps, and their assets, ARE in scale
- The mechs are in scale with humans
- The reason the maps feel horribly out of scale is because PGI can't into making natural feeling maps, or effective use of map assets to make sensical facility layouts.

I mean seriously, when you measure it in-game, Canyon is a giant 1 mile wide earth bowl (literally it is a bowl), it's the same length across that I walk to the bus stop every day.

Still relevant in 2014.


PGI is bad at map making.

[Bigbacon]

River City......

What a stupid map....Teams spawn on top of each other almost....it is by far the worst map I think.

Assault you are pretty much in turret range ALL the time....
Conquest you are in a mass cluster F from the get go.....

awesome map for the looks and such, absolutely terrible map to actually play.

[Featherwood]

mwhighlander, on 18 March 2014 - 05:30 PM, said:

Still relevant in 2014.


PGI is bad at map making.

Name one thing PGI are good at? Money grabbing? Meh, no, they are lammers in it (just ask Blizzard how to). Fans' milking? Hardly so, I'm BT addict, but I won't give a dime to lazy ... hmm..., hmmm, I don't know proper word for PGI.

[CeeKay Boques]

Just want to give props to mad MSPaint skills.

laughing at my desk.

[verybad]

Otto Cannon, on 21 October 2013 - 03:00 AM, said:

I think they might overhaul the maps when destructible scenery gets added, but it doesn't seem to be a big priority at the moment as long as the maps work but just look a bit wrong.

Ahahahha Destructable Scenery! Teah, maybe when that gets added.

[KhanCipher]

PropagandaWar, on 21 October 2013 - 08:17 AM, said:

Also weapons need to be scaled as well. An AC/20 should be 1 size and 1 size only. Sure the barrel may be a tad thinner but not that much.

http://www.sarna.net...i/Autocannon_20

Quote

An example of the rating system: the Crusher Super Heavy Cannon is a 150mm weapon firing ten shells per "round" while the Chemjet Gun is a 185mm weapon firing much slower, and causing higher damage per shell. Despite their differences, both are classified as Autocannon/20s due to their damage output.

[kuangmk11]

KhanCipher, on 09 April 2014 - 05:03 PM, said:

http://www.sarna.net...i/Autocannon_20

We only have one AC/20 variant (etc) in game so they should all look the same. I'm all for adding more variety but they should look different from each other and the same across chassis.