26 replies to this topic

[Tarogato]

Here's what all of MWO's maps look like when they are put to correct scale with one another:






For giggles, this is the size of a few of the maps in the context of New York City. If you put River City at Manhattan, our river actually scales favourably with East River in the real world.

Spoiler

Now, my biggest gripe with the level design has to be that most of the maps are dominated by central features and there are no objectives sufficient enough to encourage players to engage in diverse locations. Simply put - a lot of the area goes to waste because we only fight over a central hotspot most of the time, which is usually encouraged by funnel-y map design and not a fault of the players themselves.

Here's what the maps look like with only the fighting areas highlighted:





I have to ask... how often do you get in a fight outside of the highlighted areas? I suppose not often... practically never unless you're a large unit in group queue trying something new or playing a competitive league drop. So how much of the maps actually goes to waste?




Eek, numbers. Well, the takeaways are:

• The map with the most playable area is Alpine Peaks, followed by Polar Highlands
  
• The map with the least playable area is Frozen City --- no surprise there, either
  
• The map with the most wasteful out-of-bounds is Forest Colony (actually, Vitric if you count CW)
  
• The map with the least wasteful out-of-bounds is Crimson Strait, followed by Grim Plexus

Here's the real kicker... how much area do we actually USE, though? Like... actually fight on?

• The map with the best ratio of utilised area is Canyon Network, followed by Mining Collective
  
• The map with the worst ratio is Forest Colony, followed by Terra Therma and then Grim Plexus

---

Hope you've found this informative... or at least interesting to look at. =]

(cross post from reddit - link to original post and discussion here)

Edited by Tarogato, 23 March 2016 - 12:41 PM.

[Tristan Winter]

Old, but still relevant:

http://www.pcgamer.c...tion-to-detail/

• Why does the fighting only take place on 15-20% of the maps? Grind zones.
  
• What's the point in having the rest of the maps? "Positioning & Exploration". Basically just a brief walk before the action starts.
  
• Is this a terrible map design philosophy? Yes, undoubtedly.
  
• Has PGI been consistent with this? Yes, all the way up to Polar Highlands. Now they may be finally learning.

I do agree with the point about Canyon Network being an optimal use of the map, by the way. Polar Highlands could have been more like that, if there were more cliffs, slopes and plateaus that forced team movement. Unfortunately, while Grim Plexus does a lot of things right, its outside perimeter consists basically of tall, massive, impassable pillars that effectively hinder any complex maneuvers, rather than incentivizing them.* Hard to say if this was intentional or accidental.

* - When the pillars are so massive, you can't really attack from two angles very well, because it splits your forces up too much and each half becomes too vulnerable to counter attacks.

Edited by Tristan Winter, 23 March 2016 - 12:51 PM.

[Tarogato]

Tristan Winter, on 23 March 2016 - 12:46 PM, said:

Old, but still relevant:

http://www.pcgamer.c...tion-to-detail/

• Why does the fighting only take place on 15-20% of the maps? Grind zones.
  
• Is this a terrible map design philosophy? Yes, undoubtedly.
  
• Has PGI been consistent with this? Yes, all the way up to Polar Highlands. Now they may be finally learning.

On a related note ---> http://www.davidchia...el-design/c1x2j

You could argue that Bog was designed so that the east team could get the high ground first. Intentional imbalance...





Somebody said on reddit, "HPG Gameflow? WWAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH, you leave all that empty space just so that it can be abused by building huge *** walls that are not jumpable or accessible from inside the ring outside few specific lights? You never assumed someone would camp outside the arena? God damnit. What a hackjob."

Tristan Winter, on 23 March 2016 - 12:46 PM, said:

• What's the point in having the rest of the maps? "Positioning & Exploration". Basically just a brief walk before the action starts.

This is actually important though. Without walking time from spawn to action, the action would happen immediately, which means it would happen in the same place every single match because teams don't have time to go anywhere else before they encounter the enemy. It's a great idea, and it works very well for Polar Highlands in particular, and somewhat well for Grim Plexus. But then with maps like Alpine, Terra Therma, and Forest Colony, the main central areas of the maps are so poorly designed that it doesn't matter how you approach them, you'll get the same flavour of battle more often then not, which completely defeats the purpose of having the long walk from spawn. I have ideas on how to fix this issues, but I'm leaving it for a later post when I've actually flushed the solutions out with mockups and such.

Edited by Tarogato, 23 March 2016 - 12:57 PM.

[Tristan Winter]

Tarogato, on 23 March 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

On a related note ---> http://www.davidchia...el-design/c1x2j
You could argue that Bog was designed so that the east team could get the high ground first. Intentional imbalance...

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. I would have thought the intentional imbalance was obvious, given the location of the stairs?

For me, I don't have any particular gripes about the map balance on any maps, except a few blunders here and there. Alpine Peaks, for example. My major pet peeve is predictable gameplay and making huge maps that always lead to fights over the same tiny areas.

Tarogato, on 23 March 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

Somebody said on reddit, "HPG Gameflow? WWAAAAAAAAAAAAAATH, you leave all that empty space just so that it can be abused by building huge *** walls that are not jumpable or accessible from inside the ring outside few specific lights? You never assumed someone would camp outside the arena? God damnit. What a hackjob."

Heh. Yeah, sniping is definitely different in MWO from other games I've played.

Kind of interesting that the same person came up with the ideas for basically all the maps I hate most in MWO. Well, old Forest Colony wasn't terrible, it was just extremely limited. Viridian Bog, Terra Therma, HPG Manifold, I actually do hate those maps very much, for the same reason. Extremely predictable maps, rarely any fun surprises.

[MeanFacedJohnny]

I'm just here to agree that it seems every map tries to force the fight to center. Look at domination, that gametype just re-enforces the 'rush to the middle and fight' mentality of much of the map design. Which is why, even as much as people complain about it, I like conquest. That is the only gametype that attempts to spread out the area of combat.

[William Slayer]

To my mind, map design is just as important to any game as the game play itself. In fact, as we see with many of the maps in MechWarrior Online, the map design dictates the gameplay. Our new map Grim Plexus works to solve these issues IMO. Care was taken to create a central area that was a place most players wanted to avoid due to its death trap like positioning. Flanking, and extreme flanking around the outside are called for. A bold push across the middle to support a great flanking maneuver can win you the battle on this map.

Something you must understand about games is that there is a limited amount of space for us to play on. A game board in the digital sense.

Question, would you prefer to see a game board in the more traditional BattleTech sense? Such as a square or rectangular board?

[Pariah Devalis]

Tarogato, on 23 March 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

For giggles, this is the size of a few of the maps in the context of New York City. If you put River City at Manhattan, our river actually scales favourably with East River in the real world.

Spoiler

That just makes me want a "Manhattan" island map even more. Dense city, and not much larger than some of the current maps, considering how relatively narrow it is.

Edited by Pariah Devalis, 23 March 2016 - 01:47 PM.

[Tristan Winter]

Tarogato, on 23 March 2016 - 12:52 PM, said:

This is actually important though. Without walking time from spawn to action, the action would happen immediately, which means it would happen in the same place every single match because teams don't have time to go anywhere else before they encounter the enemy. It's a great idea, and it works very well for Polar Highlands in particular, and somewhat well for Grim Plexus. But then with maps like Alpine, Terra Therma, and Forest Colony, the main central areas of the maps are so poorly designed that it doesn't matter how you approach them, you'll get the same flavour of battle more often then not, which completely defeats the purpose of having the long walk from spawn. I have ideas on how to fix this issues, but I'm leaving it for a later post when I've actually flushed the solutions out with mockups and such.

Of course. My problem with it is how PGI tries to implement the idea. Polar Highlands and Tourmaline are basically the only maps where the "Positioning & Exploration" is important. On most maps, it's just "Positioning", because you know where the enemy is going to be 20 seconds into the match, and you only have 1 or 2 viable options yourself, most of the time.

How much "Exploration" is there really on HPG Manifold or Alpine Peaks? So yeah, we're in agreement. It's important, but PGI isn't doing it right.

[Wintersdark]

The problem you run into here is MWO players, as usual, are very divided on this issue. We have one group - most of us here, it seems - who love bigger maps where exploration is important. The other group, however, wants shorter battles where we get right from startup into combat asap with as little "wandering around" as possible. These people tend to hate polar highlands, and prefer smaller maps.

Personally, I think we need MORE PH sized maps... though not more open ones, a massive dense city map with long sightlines down streets would be awesome.

After all, we have lots of tight direct-to-combat maps as it stands.

[Requiemking]

You should add a "Most Unbalanced Map" segment for QP and FW. My nominee for the Faction Warfare segment is Grim Portico.

[Rebas Kradd]

Wintersdark, on 23 March 2016 - 05:58 PM, said:

The problem you run into here is MWO players, as usual, are very divided on this issue. We have one group - most of us here, it seems - who love bigger maps where exploration is important. The other group, however, wants shorter battles where we get right from startup into combat asap with as little "wandering around" as possible. These people tend to hate polar highlands, and prefer smaller maps.

Personally, I think we need MORE PH sized maps... though not more open ones, a massive dense city map with long sightlines down streets would be awesome.

After all, we have lots of tight direct-to-combat maps as it stands.

Exactly. The quick-combat people have what they want already.

Additionally, as I'm always saying, bigger maps leave room for smaller engagements, in turn higher TTK, role warfare, and information warfare. Assuming we get some gamemodes that also leave room for these things.

[Karl Streiger]

Rebas Kradd, on 20 June 2016 - 09:50 PM, said:

Exactly. The quick-combat people have what they want already.

Additionally, as I'm always saying, bigger maps leave room for smaller engagements, in turn higher TTK, role warfare, and information warfare. Assuming we get some gamemodes that also leave room for these things.

you only get smaller engeagements when you have multiple mission objectives.

a good idea is to look at MechCommander (1) this system should work quite well within MWO Assault mode:

some crude painting:
base Red is heavy armed - a frontal assault will result in defeat. it is guarded by multiple LRM and SSRM turrets as well as two direct fire long range (Gauss, ERPPC) turrets.
Two watchtowers also grant the ability to see enemy movement.
The Achilles heel is the secondary base with (power, control, repair???)

Second base is very open so fire is mostly direct - but less turrets but the secondary base is a though nut.

A neutral base provide limited armor repairs 3t armor and 1t ammunition per mech at best

- how it could be played - first the light Mechs have the mission to disable the enemy watch towers (light Mech engagements)
- heavys and mediums may take a run for the secondary base - while assaults struggle for the main combat line (8 Line)(repair rearm base)

maybe you got repair stations in the secondary bases to this will cause a second hotspot (K-Line)


Anyhow with just one objective and the option to kill the other 12 guys its obvious that those maps will never be used for their full size. So we could just cut the map development time and produces frozen city size maps.

[Moldur]

I have nothing constructive to say right now.

All I want to say is that the map design in MWO is very poor for the most part. It is a major part of the game and I find it completely lacking. We have all these mechs. We have all these game mechanics. It all goes to waste. It's like if Planetside 2 gave us a 100x100 meter square map and said "**** you, that's it."

It doesn't matter how cool the mechs, weapons, gadgets, etc. are. It doesn't matter how game mechanics are. None of it matters if the maps suck. Even repetitive maps can be fun if they are good maps, but both repetitive and bad maps like most of what we have in MWO are the absolute worst. It's like tripping at the finish line and losing the race.

[Hit the Deck]

Very nice work and thank you!

[Red Shrike]

I can see why people love Canyon Network and Mining Collective (and the old Frozen City) so much, they're by far the smallest maps.
That picture also shows why I dislike the FP maps, they're so friggin small. An entire planet, and you give me a battlefield that's smaller than Manhattan?

Tristan Winter, on 23 March 2016 - 12:46 PM, said:

I do agree with the point about Canyon Network being an optimal use of the map, by the way. Polar Highlands could have been more like that, if there were more cliffs, slopes and plateaus that forced team movement.

Except Canyon Network doesn't force team movement. Unless it's a conquest game, everyone just deathballs on either side of the middle until either team has lost over half of their mechs, and only then will the other team risk a brawl.
I love Polar Highlands. The other day our team got pinned down so I took a big detour in my 64kph mech and wrecked their flank.

We already have enough maps with terrain features big enough to hide a King Crab behind.

How's this for a city map?

Spoiler

Edited by Red Shrike, 21 June 2016 - 12:24 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

This is no news really, without any kind of viable objectives that do not involve killing the opposite team there is zero reason to use all that space on the large map. For the same reason people want to play on small maps, beacuse 3 min walk in the woods just to get to the fight is just silly. Alpine conquest is an amazing example. The map is roughly 10x10 squares, yet 4 out of 5 cap points are within 1 sqare from each other. Stupid ...

The only real metric that matters for PUGs IMO is how people vote. If there is Canyon Network it always gets voted, if there is Frozen City it always gets voted etc. And yet PGI is about to turn Fronzen City into Forest Colony 2.0.

For competitive play diversity in map design is what matters. Old RiverCity for example was a good brawl oriented map which was turned into your average mid range lasertrash for the sake of "balance". Old Caustic was the opposite, i.e. a very long range oriented mech, which was also turned into your average mid range lasertrash for the sake of the same "balance". I mean this happens and then people wonder why laservomit is so "meta" in PUGs ...

Maps aren't supposed to be "balanced", they are supposed to be different. Of course you are also supposed to be able to pick a loadout for each map rather then pick one and pray map selection isn't going to fk you over. This is also a huge reason for all the "meta", because it is what works well enough on all maps, not what is best for each.

There should be maps with lots of open space that give advantage to long range builds, there should be maps with no open space that give advantage to brawler builds, there should be small maps that give advantage to mechs with more firepower and there should be huge maps that give advantage to mechs with speed. There should be maps that are very different from each other, unlike what we have now, most importantly there should be actual objectives - i.e. go there destroy that in 3 mins or go there and there and defend those two points. Objectives, cap points and spawn points should also be dynamic, i.e. you'll have to think where you want to fight or where you want to go and cap each time rather then have patterns that everyone follows each time.

Edit: Another good example is CW/FW map design with goddamn redacted chokepoints. There is NO way to attack without going through them. I think we all know just how dynamic and diverse such fights are ...

But of course hoping that anything solid comes out of PGI map designers is just as stupid.
Because Minimally Viable Product^TM.

Edited by PhoenixFire55, 21 June 2016 - 12:52 AM.

[Satan n stuff]

Tarogato, on 23 March 2016 - 12:39 PM, said:

The map with the most playable area is Alpine Peaks, followed by Polar Highlands

I'd like to point out that with the long sight lines on those two maps, the playable area feels a lot smaller than it is.
Most of the other QP maps have combat frequently taking place at very short ranges and you can potentially approach to within 100m of the enemy team and still be completely in cover, this doesn't usually happen on Alpine or Polar.

Edited by Satan n stuff, 21 June 2016 - 01:01 AM.

[PhoenixFire55]

Wintersdark, on 23 March 2016 - 05:58 PM, said:

The problem you run into here is MWO players, as usual, are very divided on this issue. We have one group - most of us here, it seems - who love bigger maps where exploration is important. The other group, however, wants shorter battles where we get right from startup into combat asap with as little "wandering around" as possible. These people tend to hate polar highlands, and prefer smaller maps.

Players aren't divided on this issue, players simply want to do meaningful things in a match after 10-15 mins of "searching" for it. Running around the map in a light doing nothing or better yet crawling towards a fight (i.e. doing nothing) for several minutes in the assault isn't meaningful at all.

There isn't such a thing as exploration in MWO no matter how big your map is and there isn't such a thing as scouting in MWO, beacuse unless silly lemmings the enemy team will always be grouped up together and it doesn't matter if you know where they are in advance or not simply because all you need to do is kill them with a big blob of your own that will eventually stumble into the opponents.

Give teams a reason to split up, make dynamic spawns and objectives and people will vote for bigger maps just like they are voting for smaller maps now.

[Wintersdark]

PhoenixFire55, on 21 June 2016 - 01:05 AM, said:

Players aren't divided on this issue, players simply want to do meaningful things in a match after 10-15 mins of "searching" for it. Running around the map in a light doing nothing or better yet crawling towards a fight (i.e. doing nothing) for several minutes in the assault isn't meaningful at all.

Except this thread is full of people who, like me, do like much larger maps even given the context of our game modes. They'd be even better with better game modes, but if we just make tiny little maps we'll never be able to have good game modes to use them. Kinda chicken and egg, maybe, but I - and many others - love the larger maps.

So, yes, people ARE divided on the issue.

Quote

Give teams a reason to split up, make dynamic spawns and objectives and people will vote for bigger maps just like they are voting for smaller maps now.

Sure. I'm all for this, but honestly I don't know if it's possible or not in the context of our matches. Maybe, but... I dunno. I don't think we'll ever have game modes where splitting up is a worthwhile thing to do. Id love to be wrong there.

[Johnny Z]

I will add this to the topic. There is a small part of the player base trying to deliberately make fights in the same area every time. Any mention of alternate tactics is shot down verbally in chat or even outright none action in match. In worste case long flanking maneuvers seem to have been reported to the other team via a third party chat program, with the follow up verbal in chat "stick together". This happens on occasion in solo queue and faction play.

Not made up or imagined but a fact of game play as it stands. Make of it as you will.

Unrelated to this topic, but to similar topics about procedural map generation vrs hand made. Also open world vrs instanced. The way MechWarrior has done their maps and game design is the right way, allowing for the detail, fidelity, quality needed in map design and even mech and game mechanics to create first rate, action packed, immersive, intense game play.

I personally always wanted a desert dune map that would be totally open with only rolling dunes as cover. How this would be for game play I don't know. Maybe it wouldn't be the favourite map but if for variety sake alone, I look forward to one being added maybe.

As I have said quite a few times in the last months, where MechWarrior is lacking badly is the static mechbay, which has no variety or customization or exploration, or anything for that matter because it is actually nothing more than a glorified inventory screen.

The galactic strategy map is nice to look at but has almost no functionality yet or player inter action. Another part of the game that can do with a lot of improvement. On the bright side here, it has already been said that logistics is being worked on, what ever that means.

I think the load screens should be sci-fi scenes of cities, ships, personalities etc, instead of scenes of maps that players already see very often, to.

Edited by Johnny Z, 21 June 2016 - 02:17 AM.