145 replies to this topic

[MuonNeutrino]

Overall, bog is one of my less favorite maps. It has its good points, but it also has some significant downsides. (Also, as SpiralFace mentioned at the start of the excellent post that he made while I was writing, many of these apply to more than just bog.)

What I like:

- Low visibility
Unlike a lot of people, I actually *like* that not all maps are crystal clear. It can be done badly (see: inexplicable muddy fog on forest), but maps with less than perfect visibility help give scope for more sneaky tactics, especially in conjunction with tools like ECM, and give a reason to actually use alternate vision modes. In the case of bog, I particularly like that it is done via visual clutter making it more difficult to pick out mechs and visual concealment hiding mechs rather than only fog. (I also like that a lot of the foliage doesn't block weapons fire or movement - the ability to hide while shooting, or shoot at things that are just *hiding* rather than being behind solid cover, adds another interesting dimension.) I know I'm in the minority here, but I would be sad to see that go.

- General size
Bog feels a bit cramped sometimes, but that's mostly because of the layout and how it affects player movement patterns. The actual overall size of the map is good - there is also room in the game for larger maps, of course, but bog is a good size for a 'smallish map'.

- Verticality
I like that there are multiple highly distinct levels of terrain, each of which has segements that can be reached by land-bound mechs as well as others that can only be reached using jump jets. Similar to the visibility note above, I feel that this promotes more sneaky and interesting gameplay. We don't live in a 2-d world, and I like maps that remind people of that. (As an aside, this is also a feature of Mining Collective, which is my favorite map in the game.)

What I dislike:

- Getting stuck
Simply put, *moving* anywhere on this map is an absolutely infuriating royal pain in the ***, especially if you were stupid enough to bring anything heavier than 55 tons or lacking jump jets. There is just far, far, far too much little stupid rocks and twigs and roots and 1-inch-tall-elevation-changes and general clutter that is somehow capable of stopping my 100 ton walking death avatar in its tracks. Frankly the real problem here is the movement code - a lot of the things which stop our mechs ought to be WAY the hell too small to do that, and walking machines should climb slopes as easily (if not *easier*) at low speeds as at high speeds - but unless and until that movement code is fixed, it is the responsibility of the level designers to work around it and not give us environments where we have to battle bad design more than the enemy. (Note that I would generally suggest making most of these small terrain features simply not block movement rather than removing them - they *do* add to the gameplay visually, including as part of the visual clutter and concealment I mentioned above. They just need to not be made of superglue.)

Note that I am *NOT* saying that all terrain everywhere should always be free to move over, or that restrictions on where you can and cannot move aren't a legitimate (and indeed, very important) tool in a level designer's toolbox. What I'm saying is that restrictions in movement should be *intentional*, thought-out choices by the designer and should be made out of discrete, reasonably sized map elements which are clearly and immediately obvious to the player instead of random tiny cosmetic crap lurking in the mud/pebbles waiting to reach out and grab your mech's ankle. The goal, of course, is that movement restrictions should be part of the tactical and strategic decisionmaking process of the players, *not* an infuriating and semi-random game of 'what pebble will I get stuck on today?'

(And for the love of god fix the damn stairs. There is no reason whatsoever that I should have to rock my 100 ton death machine back and forth like a arthritic elephant with a walker just to get up them - if they're meant to be passable terrain, then make the damn things passable!)

- Layout
The map's layout has two main problems. The first is the 'prominent central terrain feature' issue that plagues so many maps, exacerbated in this case by the poorly balanced layout of the access to those features. It's nice that there are two of them instead of one monolithic blob, but it's still not great, especially when one team gets so much easier access than the other. The other major issue is the 'bottleneck layout' problem that makes forest colony so terrible. While it's not as bad as some maps, the terrain still starts off wide while encouraging players to funnel down towards a much narrower combat front, with the predictable result that combat overconcentrates in a few areas, while much of those side and back areas go unused because there is simply no reason to ever go there - there's no reason to fight there, and they don't connect to anywhere interesting. (For example, the water side of the map is interesting terrain that goes criminally underused, but that's because most of it goes nowhere useful and the one passage that *does* is also narrow, under the guns of higher terrain, and in general a great place to get bottled up and wrecked.)

In general, the middle of a map ought to be the *widest* part in terms of playable area and paths for movement, not the narrowest, because that gives scope for movement of and maneuver around the point of contact. (This, by the way, is the problem with forest - the boundaries are wide, but the *playable* area is absurdly constricted near the middle.) A partial example of this is HPG (another of my favorite maps), where the middle is the exact opposite of constricted without being empty or open, and there's reasons to travel the higher pathways near the middle, the more secluded pathways near the walls, the basement, and even occasionally the long, looping outer areas.

- Invisible walls
This is hardly unique to bog, but this map has even more places than usual where the collision geometry is *vastly* larger than the visible geometry, and it remains as annoying as ever. Not much to say about this other than 'fix it!', and perhaps to pay closer attention to this issue in initial map construction so that you don't have to keep going back and dealing with it afterwards.

[Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky]

I know its been said before like a broken record but...

The placement of the stairs to the upper level of the 2 mountains are completelly advantageous for 1 team.

Edit: spelling error

Edited by Aleksandr Sergeyevich Kerensky, 26 May 2016 - 03:15 PM.

[Ultimax]

Steven Hicks, on 26 May 2016 - 01:21 PM, said:

What do you like about this map?
Including what you like about the map helps us identify what should be kept in mind when design changes and even new levels. We don’t want to take out or ruin what you think makes a map special if we can avoid it. So let us know some of the things you prefer about the map.

What do you dislike about this map?
These are things you want us to look at and hopefully improve as we make changes. Keep in mind these things are from a Level Design standpoint. You can still express your concerns about things like art and game mechanics, but the main focus of these posts is things like spawn points, objective locations, and the overall layout of maps.

Our focus is currently set on Viridian Bog. So changes are going to start being made on that map first, and then we’ll move to another. We hope to do more posts like this if it goes well. But for now, lets hear your thoughts!

Viridian Bog

What I like:
I like the multi-level design, meaning the lowest portion of the water area and the highest portions of the climable surfaces make for an interesting design overall.

I like having so many high and low places to fight from, and the map has overall good cover.

I like the colors and overall ambiance of the map, the "big bug" is a neat feature.


What I dislike:
Extremely low visibility due to trees & huge leaves that not even heat vision can see through combined with frequent fog/haze make for a very enjoyable experience. All of the maps like this have a problem, I want to see the game. I want to see the great looking mechs, I want to see the great looking map - instead I almost automatically go to heat mode for half the match because I need to see targets.

Forcing players into heat vision mode isn't "immersive" after a point it just becomes obtrusive, frustrating and means we never actually see the map you worked hard to design.

On top of this, the foliage is INDESTRUCTIBLE.


If a tree can stop my AC 20, my Gauss, my Lasers then why aren't we covering our mechs in super-tree bark?


There are way too many obstacles on the ground, it makes movement extremely frustrating for big mechs. The two large center plateaus have some of the worst stair climbing in the game.

If you're not fast enough or lack JJs you can get stuck on STAIRS and not even be able to get up them easily - this is bad, considering how dominant and important these locations are.


Lastly, those two dominant structures. 90% or more of the matches play out around these structures - the rest of the map is barely used and they are close enough to the spawn that a team with a speed advantage can rush a plateau and pin the other team down. It can be very lopsided.

Edited by Ultimax, 26 May 2016 - 03:28 PM.

[TLBFestus]

Honestly I can't think about anything I like about it because I dislike some aspects so much;


1. Colors. Be honest here, does the boss only allow you a limited palette with each map? In this case everything is green or yellowish for the most part. Be a bit more generous in your use of colors.

2. Spelling Mistake. I'm pretty sure you meant to call it "Viridian Clog" because of all the things you can get stuck on unexpectedly. Seriously.....it's probably hands down the worst map in the rotation for getting stuck on stuff.

3. High Ground Access. It definitely benefits on side over the other creating a significant imbalance in game play. If you give one side earlier access to high ground you need to give the other side the same opportunity.

[XX Sulla XX]

Likes.

1. Decent visibility. I like maps where I can see enough. Maps like Forrest Colony are to muddy.
2. Variation in height. I do not like flat maps like polar highlands. Bog gives you some variation in height you can play at.
3. Cover. I like maps with good cover.

Dislikes.
1. The narrow part in the middle where E5 is made out of bounds. The way the map is designed it tends to just have people fighting around the same hills in the middle. I think the E5 side of the map needs opened up.

2. Lack of access to the top of many hills without many jump jets.

3. Steps that are still easy to get stuck on.

Edited by XX Sulla XX, 26 May 2016 - 03:48 PM.

[White Bear 84]

LIKE:

1. Overall layout is not too bad with several key areas to move around but (see below re: bog area)

2. It's green!

3. The carapaces offer good cover around the map

4. There is a good blend of cover and open space (bar the litter.. ..see below)

5. The altas attacked by vines looks cool

6. Gameplay is usually quite fluid, does not *always* end up revolving around the central high ground, but even then good teams know how to counter this and shift the gameplay away.

DO NOT LIKE:

1. The raised areas are quite generic, really there are only two accessible to most mechs, while JJ capable can reach a few more, many JJ can reach the most. Accessibility to high ground could be improved, maybe by extended arches or something that are highly exposed (as to avoid making it TOO easy)

2. Crap everywhere, seriously you trip up on a blade of grass.. ..it has small object syndrome. These small logs etc should be destructible

3. Bog area is lame. It is a small slither on the side of the match, why not have a larger bog area, say like the caustic salt flats? This would make the lower region more usable on the map..

4. Spawn inequality. if you spawn on the right side it is easier to get to key defensive positions.. ..not as bad as alpine or other maps but might need some tweaking.

5. Areas of the map at the back get little love.. ..sometimes get cool brawls, but often no reason to use. Typically funneled towards centre of map.

6. Hitboxes - shooting past trees or peeking from the mounds, there are quite a few hitbox issues that need to be fixed. i.e invisible walls.

7. STAIRS - For fusion powered battlemechs, these are ridiculous to get up, smallest change in geometry e.g clutter and you have to zig zag to get up them, it's a pain.

[StumbleBee]

I want to thank you for taking the time to get player input. The rest of my points aren't much more original:

• The obstacles are a huge problem, not least because two identical-looking objects may have totally different effects. Having to remember whether that's the log I can walk over or the log that will stop me, or which path up the stairs I have to use based on the speed of my current mech is a nuisance. I want to fight the red team, not the map.
  
• I love the look of the map. The insect carapace, the slimy thing surfacing in the water, and so on are fun in a way none of the other maps can match.
  
• I also like the verticality of the map. While we wait for an urban setting, this is a pretty good stand-in.
  
• The lily pond is mostly unused, partly because there aren't enough ways to get out. Lights sometimes use it to flank, but that's about it. It's largely wasted space, which is unfortunate because it's already a fairly small map and fighting under that foliage is fun. Replacing some of the normal trees with the big yellow leaves might be nice (especially if they're destructible).
  
• The indestructible leaves, vines, and twigs that block visibility are a pain. It sometimes feels as if PGI wants players to be blind (the white-out on Frozen City is the worst example, but there are many). That said, I'd be very interested to see how night in the bog would look.

[RockTripod]

I am begging you, on behalf of all colorblind players, expand the color palette. Add some contrast please. Its awful for the red/green colorblind. The layout is fine, but I would get rid of some of the roots. But good god, the color scheme.

[Legato Bluesummers]

In Viridian Bog the main problem is that the map is completely one sided. The team that spawns in C6 is the winning side, with just a little bit of organisation a team can take control of both Hills in C4 very easily because they have the only staircases to the higher ground. If you are on the losing side your team has to choose which death trap to go, when the other team has the higher ground and can counter the losing side because they have more mobility.

There is an easy way to fix this very unbalanced map, by also adding staircases for the losing side it gives both sides equal opportunity to plan and do what they want. It will be more about strategy then being the unlucky team with a handicap just because of the map. This will give both teams a fighting chance to have good games for all skill levels.

[Duncan1dah0]

PRO
1) The little things: the dead atlas, the worm creature.
2) Green
3) Plants & terrain.
4) Cover
5) Maneuvering around the land masses.

CON

1) The sense of scale is lost. I'm running around with this giant stompy robot and I have trees that tower over me like I am a child. The trees I knock over feel like saplings my kids knock over.
2) The replay value is low. As mentioned prior, there are a lot of funnel pints that the game plays out at 80% of the time.
3) The ramp imbalance.
4) Getting caught on the stairs. The idea that an Altas can't step over something is ludicrous.

[Clit Beastwood]

Dislike? The haze/fog, but thats not just in viridian. Instead of volumetric fog its just a persistent haze, like i need to clean my glasses or something. I dont see very well and the haze makes it much more uncomfortable. Its substantial enough that people try anything to get rid of it. If you meed to obfuscate long sight lines, add some hanging vines from the trees or some volumetric wisps.

[GLaDOSauR]

Things I like:
I really like the several different ways that the battle can go down, even though you're funneled into a choke point, that area is very diverse with many different terrain features that can either turn it into a sniper war, or a crazy brawl with lots of flanks or counter-flanks.

Things I don't like:
For one thing, ALL of the roots should be able to be plowed through like some of the shrub things on forest colony. Second, this is kind of an annoyance of mine on all of the maps, but still applies to this one too(though forest colony is the worst) The sense of scale is way off. You could make that map a COD arena and I wouldn't be able to tell that something was amiss.

[zudukai]

i love how jump jet friendly it is, the plateaus and spires are very interesting, adding an extra space in that dimension to fight in.

i don't like all the trees and i don't like the un-even stairs, for a strategic location there are no features or man made embankments, nor any other identifiable value.

Edited by zudukai, 26 May 2016 - 05:40 PM.

[MumenRIder7]

It's hard to be positive about viridian bog, I'm a gameplay oriented player and my opinions come almost entirely from that perspective. Viridian bog is easily the worst map in the pool and HIGHLY reflective of the general consensus problem with the current design team. No one at PGI plays the game, especially no one at PGI plays the game at a reasonably high level. Few if any high level players are consulted on design decisions and many many decisions are taken to twitter and made by the under-informed masses. Like we are doing here, but regardless here are my opinions.

Positives

Uh....

Good diversity of elevation, taking FPS games out of 2 dimensions is good? I guess?

Being able to jump on the trees add's a nice skill element. It's a good reward for players with precise movement control without penalizing less skilled players like overly restrictive ground clutter does.

Negatives

BALANCE

High ground in all cases offers significant strategic advantage at a fundamental level. Any player on highground inherently has more options. If you are on the highground you can jump down whenever you want, or choose to remain highground. A lowground player can ONLY choose to remain low ground. Viridian bog is extremely unbalanced in this regard. One side of the map has all the access to the two highgrounds, the other has to resort to weird glitchy tree jumps to access high ground. The same side with the high ground access also has the best exits from the low ground (think theta on conquest). Lets not even start on the combat related advantages of highground.

Giving mass highroad access to one team... man its just embarrassing for the map designer to have done that...

GAMEPLAY

Tons of low to the ground clutter. A double whammy of punishing low weapon mounts (which decreases the diversity of viable mechs) and the "what the **** am I tripping over" syndrome. Fixing the game engine to sort out this problem is clearly a very difficult problem to solve. Why not alleviate the problem by fixing the maps? No one wants to have their badass stompy robot stopped dead by tripping over a ******* root.

Overhead clutter. UAV's are incredibly powerful. Defense against UAV's is entirely reliant on your teammates. Nothing says fun like dying early because some random dolt on your team wasn't paying attention. If you are going to leave UAV's at an extreme power level, for the sake of community it may be wise to make sure it's possible for team mates to help one another out. Dieing to LRM's that would normally be no threat because your team mates simply will not shoot down a UAV probably generates as many player log offs as FW ceasefires do. If you want people to play your game, lets remove the rage generators. Get rid of the endless overhead line of sight blockers or make them block weapons too.

Oh ya, that overhead clutter? Totally blocks vision in the low-to-high ground fights that are often forced by the (bad) map layout. It sure would be fun to see the mech I'm shooting at up there, rather than shooting at a red box. Just delete the leaves or something.

COSMETICS

Mechwarrior is a semi-mech simulator/FPS hybrid. A HUGE HUGE HUGE part of the appeal of the game is the feeling of being in a giant towering fighting robot. Your art design should encourage this feeling. While yes TECHNICALLY there are giant trees out there that would make even a battlemech seem small, THAT'S NOT THE POINT. I feel like I'm in a giant robot on maps like emerald Taiga. I feel like I'm playing a soldier in Call of duty, ducking behind a tree on viridian bog or forest colony. I get that it's sci-fi and sci-fi has huge monsters and stuff but the MAJORITY of the visual impact of a map should make your mech feel bigger, not smaller.

Fog, literally no one likes it. It's a cheap crutch to hide detailing mistakes. Stop putting it on maps.

MAP SIZE

It's on the upper side of what I'd say is good for quickplay, but doesn't need a change. Don't pull a forest colony and add 30-90 seconds of pointless walking to the start like you did with the horrible forest colony remake. Please don't **** up the one good aspect of this map in a remake.


Summary

Less (zero) ground clutter to trip over.
Less overhead line of sight blockers.
Equal access to highground power positions (or at least access to equal amount of them)
Less super sizes trees to make my mech feel tiny.
NO ******* FOG!
Don't make the map idiotically giant like Boreal.

[NGxT]

The most egregious parts of this map are the steps up the middle hills, which are a constant source of annoyance. Just turn them into actual ramps, in terms of movement, if not visually. The other part that is stupid is that one side gets access to both ramps. This needs to be changed, one ramp for each side. Symmetry isn't a bad thing.

The second part that needs to be fixed is the abundance of absolutely terrible hitboxes and collision boxes on the terrain, specifically the trees and carapaces. The gaps in between branches and carapace pieces need to be able to be shot through, or else remade to visually obscure in line with the collision mesh. There are also some walls of the various smaller mesas on the map that also have 'invisible wall' syndrome, but those are less annoying than the trees and carapaces.

Third, get rid of those super tall mesas in the lower water section at the far north and south ends of the map. There should not be any places on the map that are so very stupidly hard to reach, even with max jumpjets. Most mechs need to do a two stage jump to reach those platforms. In fact, reduce the height of the various mesas on this map across the board. It promotes camping and is just not conductive to fun play on this map, particularly in skirmish.

[AssaultPig]

I'm really glad to hear this map is being looked at. I'll post more detailed feedback later on, but even a pass that smoothed the 'stairs' and cleaned up a lot of the miscellaneous geometry bits that mechs get stuck on would be welcome.

[M T]

What do you like about this map?
The platforms.



What do you dislike about this map?
The stairs.

All the junk in the map.

The bushes and transparent textures (Leafs, etc) really demanding for hardware.
Not to mention there is so much crap you can barely see anything on this map and thus requires perma heat vision.

[Gyrok]

Steven Hicks, on 26 May 2016 - 01:21 PM, said:

Hey Folks! It’s one of your friendly neighborhood level designers here. With the recent addition of new Level Designers at PGI, we’re hoping to take a critical eye to some of our previous maps and make changes that make these maps more enjoyable, tactical, and address any problems currently present..

You mean total reworks? Right?
Not necessarily. While some maps may need complete overhauls, we hope to make smaller changes to a lot of the maps. A lot of time from a lot of people can go into a map rework. With these forum posts we hope to achieve a way to iterate the already existing maps in a smaller more iterative process, similar to how we’ve been handling our Competitive Maps.

So we want you (Yes, you!) to help us designers outline what you like and don’t like about these maps. Nobody knows the levels better than the fine folks who play them every day. So we want you to post your thoughts and feedback here. We’ll be keeping a close eye on the forums as we work on the levels.

A good format for your feedback would be to outline your thoughts as such:

What do you like about this map?
Including what you like about the map helps us identify what should be kept in mind when design changes and even new levels. We don’t want to take out or ruin what you think makes a map special if we can avoid it. So let us know some of the things you prefer about the map.

What do you dislike about this map?
These are things you want us to look at and hopefully improve as we make changes. Keep in mind these things are from a Level Design standpoint. You can still express your concerns about things like art and game mechanics, but the main focus of these posts is things like spawn points, objective locations, and the overall layout of maps.

Our focus is currently set on Viridian Bog. So changes are going to start being made on that map first, and then we’ll move to another. We hope to do more posts like this if it goes well. But for now, lets hear your thoughts!

Likes:

There is good cover for both sides.

Dislikes:

Ok, first thing...there is still far too much to get hung up on.

The steps are still terrible...there is no way you should be able to get stuck going up steps. It is absurd how often an assault mech gets focused trying to go up the steps because they get stuck at a point where the step height is too high to go up.

The trees are still a bit wonky. Sometimes you shoot through the leaves and hit something, sometimes not. Hit boxes for the trees themselves can be a bit wonky too.

The hit boxes around the walls are still off. Sometimes you can see something, but you shoot the wall because your weapon is focused on an invisible wall (this is a recurring theme across all maps, by the way. Though HPG is much improved, especially up top)

Some of the insectiod-esque shells have a ceiling to enter that is too low in places for a tall mech like Atlas, Kodiak, or Executioner. I can recall specifically the one at the bottom of the D4 steps being an offender there, but there may be others.

The lower section is mostly just a diversion that gets ignored. That section of the map could be used for so much more than just being a practical barrier that limits the width of the map.

The "haze" across all maps (bog, caustic, frozen city day, and forest colony, particularly, are bad about this...) does not provide an atmosphere of realism, it just limits visibility in a superfluous manner. It makes those maps, for the most part, the "alternate vision mode" maps. While some may enjoy the "haze", for players who are playing to win, you have to use alternate vision modes because your enemy will be, and not being able to see is a huge limiting factor that results in death.

The high platforms are not approachable from both sides. I feel as though at least one of these should have steps on the backside, or be approachable from both angles. It leaves the team spawning on the side with the steps a tremendous advantage because they can view the approach of the opposite team, or prevent them from taking the high platform completely.

Thanks for reading this.

Edited by Gyrok, 26 May 2016 - 06:11 PM.

[GridIroN]

The entire concept of the map does not work for the engine and gameplay choices the devs have made for the game.

- The pinpoint convergence of the weaponry makes hitbox issues with peaking past trees or formations overly frustrating or not possible at all when it really should be

- Moving and repositioning your mech is overly complicated because there are vines and crap coming up from the ground or strewn around that your mech cannot automatically walk over, or break.

- Mechs cannot easily protect themselves because whilst parts of your torso are shielded, other parts of your body like your legs, or other side torso are not because trees and foliage is the only viable cover given the attack paths.

- The giant dead animal carcasses are cool, but implemented in a way that just creates a wall, as opposed to being feesable as a cover or hiding system.

[AssaultPig]

Detailed Feedback Post

Full disclosure: I think Viridian Bog is currently a terrible map and can't really be "fixed" without significant changes. Some improvements can perhaps be made around the margins, but in general a lot of work is needed. There are (imo) two primary problems.

Here is a grid map, for reference:



Problem #1: Team spawn locations are flagrantly unbalanced

The team that spawns around C6 (hereafter referred to as the 6-side) has several decisive advantages over the team that spawns near E2 (hereafter, the 2-side.) The 6-side team has much better access to the C4/D4 area where most combat generally occurs; they start closer and have many 'entrances' and firing positions in C5/D5. Meanwhile, the 2-side team is funneled into three narrow chokepoints with poor sightlines and comparatively little cover. The 6-side team has much better access to the central bluffs along the four line, since the access ramps for those bluffs both inexplicably face their side. If the 2-side team chooses to push along the lower D line (the 'swamp' path) they are still at a considerable disadvantage, since the ramp back up in D5 is exposed and behind a blind corner.

These problems are particularly acute in domination mode, when the 2-side team is forced to aggressively push into the center of the map.

Problem #2: Movement difficulty

More than probably any other map, Viridian Bog has many ground features (rocks, tree branches/roots, etc) that obstruct mechs' movement. While this isn't necessarily a problem, it currently is not obvious at all which terrain features actually impede you. This causes situations where your mech is "stuck" on a rock or tree root or whatever, and not only was the offending terrain feature not obvious, it's likely not even in the player's FoV. If a 100 ton atlas can't step over small rocks or brush aside tree branches, those features need to be made more prominent so that I know to steer around them.

Likewise, the "stairs." They're obviously intended to be places mechs can walk up to higher elevations, but their surface isn't uniform so you frequently get stuck. Again, it appears that your mech should be able to move up the ramp, but you can't, and the reason you can't isn't obvious.

Bonus "problem": Useless spaces

F and G line sections of the map seem to serve no purpose and ought to just be removed. There's actually a neat bluff feature in F2, but since it's off in the corner nobody ever sees it. The only reason anybody ever goes into that little G3 dogleg is to hide once a skirmish match is well-decided.

The 2-side spawn could be moved nearer to the D line.

Edited by AssaultPig, 26 May 2016 - 10:47 PM.