72 replies to this topic

[DrxAbstract]

Appogee, on 22 June 2016 - 10:52 PM, said:

But not everywhere, and probably not on every planet.

When piloting a 100t 3-storey war machine always feels the same as wearing a battlesuit, then there is something wrong with the environmental scaling.

Haakon Magnusson, on 22 June 2016 - 11:38 PM, said:

Yup

Hopefully new level designers come from school where the curriculum not only included human sized environments. Then again they will not be listened, like that poor tester or testers who said that minimap usability was bad but got overruled by PGIs Star Chamber.



This is not some metaphysical discussion how small we as a species are in the universe/planetary scale, but simply about percieved scale and how to make our warmachines size more apparent. Yes, we also have features on our planet that are conviniently 2, 5, 10, 20 meters as well, which are very good comparison points visually. IF you choose objects you can relate to, sort of an universal idea.

Like everybody gets the size of a truck, a car, common trees around the world; pine, birch, palm. Yes, I know other planets they might not look at all like here, well, mechs are not precisely practical so putting birch trees as an imported species to Rasalhague Prime isn't that far fetched in the mech universe, I am sure Solaris can have pink palm trees.



These are exactly the words I'd use, feels like we are running around in some suits fighting, then you have some mechanical pets (ligths) running around your feet. It is WAY too hard to distinguish what size mechs are as there are too few familiar sized features to compare to.
Positive exceptions are the maps with abundance of buildings and vehicles spread about.

It definitely wasn't going in the metaphysical direction, nor do Mechs currently drive like 'battlesuits', although that is actually close to how they should feel depending on your source material from lore; fluid rather than jerky movement and so on.

There are a number of buildings, vehicles and shrubbery our Mechs tower over in the game on every map, and some our Mechs are much smaller than such as the Mech gantries in Alpine and big office buildings in river city, etc. Were you expecting to be a behemoth towering over a 30 story building? I'm not sure what exactly your issue is with Mech-Environment scaling and I'm not sure you know or understand it yourselves given there are numerous objects within the game our Mechs are appropriately scaled against, so what's the problem? You want more stuff to trip over?

Some examples would go a long way toward clarifying your points.

[STEF_]

This map sucks also for the fog.

Why do you think Canyon is the most popular map?

[vocifer]

Stefka Kerensky, on 23 June 2016 - 02:23 AM, said:

Why do you think Canyon is the most popular map?

It's the smallest one.

[Dirk Le Daring]

Nope, I stopped listening to him when he told Russ that camo for invasion (I) variant mechs was not important, and Russ listened.....

[Hades Trooper]

Dirk Le Daring, on 23 June 2016 - 02:42 AM, said:

Nope, I stopped listening to him when he told Russ that camo for invasion (I) variant mechs was not important, and Russ listened.....

Amen brother, Sean thinks he knows all when obviously he doesn't care about us who have waited for ages for camo on invasion variants mech that Russ promised a long time ago

[Appogee]

DrxAbstract, on 23 June 2016 - 02:12 AM, said:

Some examples would go a long way toward clarifying your points.

The flora and fauna on Viridian are great examples... massive trees, massive carapaces, stone formations which just happen to be step-sized if Mechs were human-sized...

On Crimson, Canyon and other maps, all the flora is also very large ... and there is no smaller flora or undergrowth which gives even that large flora a sense of scale. So it creates the impression that that the megaflora is actually small, and in turn, makes the Mechs feel small.

I could give literally dozens more examples and screenshots. But hopefully these few explain how MWO maps generally make Mechs feel small, and most players already recognise these.

[Appogee]

Alistair Winter, on 23 June 2016 - 12:56 AM, said:

Insert visual cues such as roads, buildings, vehicles and normal sized vegetation. Ideally, even animals such as birds or humans (as seen in MW3)

Exactly.

In fact it would be super cool if we had humans running around, cowering near buildings etc. Cars getting the hell away from the battlefield.

Mech Assault (yeah, I know) used these to help create a sense of scale and interactive live environment.

[SnagaDance]

Right. A good example is in Crimson Straights, when you walk to the tunnel from the industrial spawn. Just at the point where you start getting squeezed in by the mountain and the higher ground there are vehicles at ground level.

I only noticed them after I don't know how many games. And then I saw they were supposed to be trucks! Trucks that should be around 3m in height, they should have come to about 1/3 the height of my Jenner, but I wonder if they could get past my ankle actuator!

Really threw me off. Meanwhile they've designed train tunnels that are several times higher than they need to be for the trains. Quite logical I assume, it's not like it's hard or expensive to tunnel through a mountain right?

[Alistair Winter]

SnagaDance, on 23 June 2016 - 05:05 AM, said:

Right. A good example is in Crimson Straights, when you walk to the tunnel from the industrial spawn. Just at the point where you start getting squeezed in by the mountain and the higher ground there are vehicles at ground level.
I only noticed them after I don't know how many games. And then I saw they were supposed to be trucks! Trucks that should be around 3m in height, they should have come to about 1/3 the height of my Jenner, but I wonder if they could get past my ankle actuator!
Really threw me off. Meanwhile they've designed train tunnels that are several times higher than they need to be for the trains. Quite logical I assume, it's not like it's hard or expensive to tunnel through a mountain right?

Mechs are definitely oversized in MWO, but the truck stop outside the tunnel of Crimson Strait is one of the few places in MWO maps where they actually managed to combine different visual cues of different sizes to establish a scale. You have both buildings, roads, traffic lights, garages and trucks. There's also a truck stop that clearly isn't meant for mechs to walk on (it's rather narrow), but at the same time it doesn't pose any problems in terms of collision and mechs getting stuck.



They need more of that, basically. It's a fair point about mechs being far too big and tunnels making no sense in their design (and honestly, would it kill them to put a few trains in the depot under the platform?) but Crimson Strait does a lot of things right in terms of establishing scale. Especially in the less used areas of the map.

http://mwomercs.com/...as-in-mwo-maps/

[STEF_]

vocifer, on 23 June 2016 - 02:29 AM, said:

It's the smallest one.

The clearer one

[Alistair Winter]

Stefka Kerensky, on 23 June 2016 - 02:23 AM, said:

This map sucks also for the fog.

Why do you think Canyon is the most popular map?

There's probably about 10 different reasons, or more. Mapmaking is a lot more complex than people think. Which is part of the reason why many MWO maps are so bad, I guess.

[Rebas Kradd]

Alistair Winter, on 23 June 2016 - 05:17 AM, said:

Mechs are definitely oversized in MWO, but the truck stop outside the tunnel of Crimson Strait is one of the few places in MWO maps where they actually managed to combine different visual cues of different sizes to establish a scale. You have both buildings, roads, traffic lights, garages and trucks. There's also a truck stop that clearly isn't meant for mechs to walk on (it's rather narrow), but at the same time it doesn't pose any problems in terms of collision and mechs getting stuck.



They need more of that, basically. It's a fair point about mechs being far too big and tunnels making no sense in their design (and honestly, would it kill them to put a few trains in the depot under the platform?) but Crimson Strait does a lot of things right in terms of establishing scale. Especially in the less used areas of the map.

http://mwomercs.com/...as-in-mwo-maps/

This. We need more spaces like the MW5 trailer - fewer gigantic skyscrapers and more ordinary houses/parking garages. Make it feel like a real mech.

[QuantumButler]

Bring back original Forest Colony, new version is worse in every way except cosmetically.

[Raso]

Give people a reason to spread out across the map and they..... might? I mean there are objectives in conquest but I'll be damned if most matches still don't devolve into skirmishes in the same locations.

Give people reasons to spread out and assault multiple locations. Make it so those reasons have a real impact on the battlefield (repair bays, power stations to power other capture points and so on). I'd also argue that if you add more of a focus on these control points that people should be allowed single re-spawn during instant action game play. My reasoning being that with multiple objectives throughout the battlefield we want to encourage the players to be a little more daring for 2 reasons: 1 to speed up play and 2 so that people feel more comfortable taking the risk of splitting up to handle multiple zones of conflict. A 2nd chance at life could serve as exactly that incentive. I'd even argue that, for simplicity's sake, have the mech you reswpawn at be from a list of trial mechs and have mechs on that list be restricted based on what objectives are your team owns (assaults have to be delivered via drop ship so the comm beacon would need to be held, heavies can only be spawned at a forward operating base if you hold a connected power station otherwise only medium and lights can spawn at the FoB and heavies and smaller at your central base.)

I'll say it again and again until I am blue in the face: "give people a reason to care about the rest of the map and they will!"

[vocifer]

Stefka Kerensky, on 23 June 2016 - 06:15 AM, said:

The clearer one

HPG maybe?

The old Frozen City "day" proves another point: Fog doesn't matter if the map is small enough for the heat-vision to be 100% effective. So it's not a deciding factor.

Size is what matters.

QuantumButler, on 23 June 2016 - 06:58 AM, said:

Bring back original Forest Colony, new version is worse in every way except cosmetically.

Well that was the foggy one I don't want to return.

[STEF_]

vocifer, on 23 June 2016 - 07:34 AM, said:

Size is what matters.

.....I thought we were talking about maps.....

[SnagaDance]

Alistair Winter, on 23 June 2016 - 05:17 AM, said:

Mechs are definitely oversized in MWO, but the truck stop outside the tunnel of Crimson Strait is one of the few places in MWO maps where they actually managed to combine different visual cues of different sizes to establish a scale. You have both buildings, roads, traffic lights, garages and trucks. There's also a truck stop that clearly isn't meant for mechs to walk on (it's rather narrow), but at the same time it doesn't pose any problems in terms of collision and mechs getting stuck.



They need more of that, basically. It's a fair point about mechs being far too big and tunnels making no sense in their design (and honestly, would it kill them to put a few trains in the depot under the platform?) but Crimson Strait does a lot of things right in terms of establishing scale. Especially in the less used areas of the map.

Yes to all of this!

That's what truly threw me off with that location, it's perfect for size comparison within the environment, it tells a story about a larger world.

It's only when you compare the size of mechs to this picture that things go wrong, when they could have been so right!

Crimson always reminds me of the MechCommander 1 intro, you know the one, where mechs actually walk between buildings and it feels more alive that way.

Edited by SnagaDance, 24 June 2016 - 12:56 AM.

[LowSubmarino]

Forest Colony simply isnt a good map.

As was stated, remove the mountains entirely. Let it look more like Polar Highlands, with slight alterations apart from the vegatation and water.

But let the general landscape lean more towards polar Highlands.

The most annoying thing is not the mountains though. Its part of it.

The most annyoing thing is that vision is abysmal in that map. Just abysmal. You simply cant see ****.

Its no fun.

I love sniper builds and I love to play them.

Even on good brawler maps (old frozen city) a sniper can be very effective. Even though it was a small brawler map.

This huge forest colony map simply aint no fun for a player like me.

And apparently almost nobody else wants to play it.

And why take the old frozen city out???

Just leave it in the rotation too. Evybdoy loved it.

Why take out a map that evybody loves and insist on keeping a map like forest colony that nobody wants?

Sometimes I wonder how they could ever come to such weird decisions.

Let me make those decisions. I can do much better decisions.

[Rebas Kradd]

Raso, on 23 June 2016 - 07:13 AM, said:

Give people a reason to spread out across the map and they..... might? I mean there are objectives in conquest but I'll be damned if most matches still don't devolve into skirmishes in the same locations.

Give people reasons to spread out and assault multiple locations. Make it so those reasons have a real impact on the battlefield (repair bays, power stations to power other capture points and so on). I'd also argue that if you add more of a focus on these control points that people should be allowed single re-spawn during instant action game play. My reasoning being that with multiple objectives throughout the battlefield we want to encourage the players to be a little more daring for 2 reasons: 1 to speed up play and 2 so that people feel more comfortable taking the risk of splitting up to handle multiple zones of conflict. A 2nd chance at life could serve as exactly that incentive. I'd even argue that, for simplicity's sake, have the mech you reswpawn at be from a list of trial mechs and have mechs on that list be restricted based on what objectives are your team owns (assaults have to be delivered via drop ship so the comm beacon would need to be held, heavies can only be spawned at a forward operating base if you hold a connected power station otherwise only medium and lights can spawn at the FoB and heavies and smaller at your central base.)

I'll say it again and again until I am blue in the face: "give people a reason to care about the rest of the map and they will!"

This, this, this, this, this!

[Johnny Z]

oneda, on 24 June 2016 - 01:04 AM, said:

Forest Colony simply isnt a good map.

As was stated, remove the mountains entirely. Let it look more like Polar Highlands, with slight alterations apart from the vegatation and water.

But let the general landscape lean more towards polar Highlands.

The most annoying thing is not the mountains though. Its part of it.

The most annyoing thing is that vision is abysmal in that map. Just abysmal. You simply cant see ****.

Its no fun.

I love sniper builds and I love to play them.

Even on good brawler maps (old frozen city) a sniper can be very effective. Even though it was a small brawler map.

This huge forest colony map simply aint no fun for a player like me.

And apparently almost nobody else wants to play it.

And why take the old frozen city out???

Just leave it in the rotation too. Evybdoy loved it.

Why take out a map that evybody loves and insist on keeping a map like forest colony that nobody wants?

Sometimes I wonder how they could ever come to such weird decisions.

Let me make those decisions. I can do much better decisions.

Forest colony is a good map. Whats needed is at least one forest map with the same assets and less mountains and obstacles to create variety. There should be 3 or 4 maps like rolling plains and desert dunes, lunar land scape, that add to the variety. These would be a lot less labour intensive to boot.

Edited by Johnny Z, 24 June 2016 - 07:12 AM.