60 replies to this topic

[Acersecomic]

I am posting this here because there isn't a general topic on all maps and I don't want to post this on every single map subforum. (Quickplay rant, did not play faction)

WHY?! WHY ARE MAPS IN THIS GAME SO FKIN TERRIBLE?! I HAVE NEVER IN ANY GAME SEEN MAPS SO BAD FOR GAMEPLAY!
There are some pretty maps in this game, but almost none of them are good for gameplay.
You either have super long corridors making it impossible to flank enemies, resulting in all battles ending up frontal confrontations at the same chokepoint.
Or you have very open maps where it's LRM proceeded by GTFO when your AMS is worth sht due to the amount of missiles raining down.
Then you have maps where nowhere is viable for a fight so everyone always meets at the same chokepoint, where again flanking is impossible so everyone just bumps into each other.
And then there are maps with barely traversable roads where you barely have room to fit two mechs but guess what, it's the chokepoint where the fight goes down, there and nowhere else.
And then! Maps with a chokepoint that is a SINGLE "hallway", a kill corridor, where if you push you die, so all everyone does is peek-a-boo, die, then next player does the same until one team loses enough players that the other can push.
And then there are maps that are just so freaking huge that you run for half the time it takes the match to end, 3 minutes of running and doing nothing, 3 minutes of fighting.

Few maps that are exceptions to these rules are Forest Colony, Rubelite Oasis, HGP Manifold, Veridian Bog, Solaris City, Frozen City. And even here the examples are huge maps with nothing going on for half the match. And guess what, aside from Manifold And Frozen City, the rest is unpopular. While the biggest offenders to all of the above are popular maps.

Why? Why is PGI so horrible at making maps?! Their maps are pretty and some quite interesting, but in terms of gameplay they are a total and absolute mess. These are industry professionals. And yet PGI is doing the minimum in terms of quality for this game. And the maps are their biggest offenders. "plop, you're in an arena now, 12v12, whatever bye" while their dropships fly off.
It's just... how, why?! Serious question. Why?! I am honest to god baffled how anyone can make and then release maps like this! A professional company!

[Anjian]

That's because they were designed to be pretty first and foremost, and no one appears to have a clue about level design.

[MW Waldorf Statler]

PGI has tried to redesign many old Maps .
unfortunatly they made old Faults again ...placing High Mountains that were blocked and they brought the Maze Design back.

[Daggett]

Acersecomic, on 17 September 2018 - 01:50 AM, said:

You either have super long corridors making it impossible to flank enemies, resulting in all battles ending up frontal confrontations at the same chokepoint.

Can you name an example of such a super long corridor?

[Acersecomic]

Daggett, on 17 September 2018 - 03:13 AM, said:

Can you name an example of such a super long corridor?

Alpine Peaks, Canyon Network, Terra Therma, Tourmaline Desert as an example.
These include long corridors or "routes" from where it is implausable and impractical to escape from or flank from because they are long and medium+ mechs aren't exactly race cars, so you either become a lack of tank and firepower for your team at the chokepoint or a suicial because if you commit to flanking, there is no running back without at the best case being severely crippled.

[RickySpanish]

This one time, on Polar, I outflanked the enemy team in my brawler Scorch and scored six kills. If it is possible to outflank on Polar, then is it possible that you haven't considered every possibility, OP?

Edited by RickySpanish, 17 September 2018 - 04:05 AM.

[Shifty McSwift]

A number of the maps are really good to be honest, unfortunately QP player mentalities tend to drag the maps down. occasionally you get a team that breaks those norms and suddenly it becomes interesting on most maps.

I agree some maps are just not great in general, but honestly most of the crap play comes from player choice/norms in QP, which tend to align with, leave your heavier mechs to fight a front while you try to stab a back, which in essence is fine, but not when everyone does it even your assaults.

[RickySpanish]

Shifty McSwift, on 17 September 2018 - 04:05 AM, said:

A number of the maps are really good to be honest, unfortunately QP player mentalities tend to drag the maps down. occasionally you get a team that breaks those norms and suddenly it becomes interesting on most maps.

I agree some maps are just not great in general, but honestly most of the crap play comes from player choice/norms in QP, which tend to align with, leave your heavier mechs to fight a front while you try to stab a back, which in essence is fine, but not when everyone does it even your assaults.

The lack of respawn in QP is what really destroys it imo, so much tactical and game design possibility is removed by the overriding mechanic of killing a single enemy 'Mech permanently reduces the effectiveness of the opposing team. This takes precedence in all but the rarerist of Conquest matches. It also causes much of the OP's rage - map design falls right apart when there is zero point in moving across most of it, and matches devolve into rotating into each other's rears and murdering players who have moved away from their blob. Seriously, I can't say enough bad things about no respawns, it's a hideous game design flaw that has homogenized every single game type in QP. Gross.

[Acersecomic]

RickySpanish, on 17 September 2018 - 04:04 AM, said:

This one time, on Polar, I outflanked the enemy team in my brawler Scorch and scored six kills. If it is possible to outflank on Polar, then is it possible that you haven't considered every possibility, OP?

Do you see me mentioning Polar among the corridor maps? No, that map is reseved for hell, Satan's personal slave, the LRM spam and is waaaaaaaaaay too open. That map, shrinked by say..... 40% and with a lot more of those ice/rock trenches would actually be a lot of fun.

Shifty McSwift, on 17 September 2018 - 04:05 AM, said:

A number of the maps are really good to be honest, unfortunately QP player mentalities tend to drag the maps down. occasionally you get a team that breaks those norms and suddenly it becomes interesting on most maps.

I agree some maps are just not great in general, but honestly most of the crap play comes from player choice/norms in QP, which tend to align with, leave your heavier mechs to fight a front while you try to stab a back, which in essence is fine, but not when everyone does it even your assaults.

And therein lies another problem with the map design. PGI, unintentionaly since they can't even design maps properly, make maps in which if you want a different approach, forces players to change up things and be way more organised. In random, public quickplay matches. Yeah... You can't make people do what they don't want to do. And if you step out of that norm, you're dead.
So instead of forcing ideas, how about maps designed in a way that allow such actions without going out of your way to break builds and make people feel like they're smart.

[RickySpanish]

Acersecomic, on 17 September 2018 - 04:13 AM, said:

Do you see me mentioning Polar among the corridor maps? No, that map is reseved for hell, Satan's personal slave, the LRM spam and is waaaaaaaaaay too open. That map, shrinked by say..... 40% and with a lot more of those ice/rock trenches would actually be a lot of fun.



And therein lies another problem with the map design. PGI, unintentionaly since they can't even design maps properly, make maps in which if you want a different approach, forces players to change up things and be way more organised. In random, public quickplay matches. Yeah... You can't make people do what they don't want to do. And if you step out of that norm, you're dead.
So instead of forcing ideas, how about maps designed in a way that allow such actions without going out of your way to break builds and make people feel like they're smart.

For some reason I really like Polar, it definitely is awful to experience LRM hell on, but it does at least allow reasonably unrestricted movement. Canyon I think is my least favourite map which is probably illustrative of the point in the OP - it's well designed, but a lack of communication seals the fate of any 'Mech not equipped with jump jets if their lance doesn't second guess the actions of the other two lances at spawn. If you choose the wrong path you are as good as dead as there is no escape from those valleys.

[Acersecomic]

RickySpanish, on 17 September 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

For some reason I really like Polar, it definitely is awful to experience LRM hell on, but it does at least allow reasonably unrestricted movement. ...

Yeah, when there's no LRM on it, brawls can turn out really fun. Some of the most fun brawls happened on that map for me, win or loss.

[Shifty McSwift]

RickySpanish, on 17 September 2018 - 04:18 AM, said:

For some reason I really like Polar, it definitely is awful to experience LRM hell on, but it does at least allow reasonably unrestricted movement. Canyon I think is my least favourite map which is probably illustrative of the point in the OP - it's well designed, but a lack of communication seals the fate of any 'Mech not equipped with jump jets if their lance doesn't second guess the actions of the other two lances at spawn. If you choose the wrong path you are as good as dead as there is no escape from those valleys.

Yeah Polar is really not so bad, it comes out as trench style combat for the most part and tends to have the most random battle scenarios by virtue of a lack of real landmarks or central positions. Teams are heavily rewarded for scouting, punished for balling up entirely (generally speaking, a good murderball will always do well to some degree), individuals are punished for trying to peep or push alone etc.

It is just (like a few other maps) that QP 12 randoms plopped together mode (some likely trolling/providing misinfo or god knows what else), isn't a great setup in itself.

[Shifty McSwift]

RickySpanish, on 17 September 2018 - 04:11 AM, said:

The lack of respawn in QP is what really destroys it imo, so much tactical and game design possibility is removed by the overriding mechanic of killing a single enemy 'Mech permanently reduces the effectiveness of the opposing team. This takes precedence in all but the rarerist of Conquest matches. It also causes much of the OP's rage - map design falls right apart when there is zero point in moving across most of it, and matches devolve into rotating into each other's rears and murdering players who have moved away from their blob. Seriously, I can't say enough bad things about no respawns, it's a hideous game design flaw that has homogenized every single game type in QP. Gross.

I disagree about respawns in singular game modes, BUT, what would be very nice is a button for moving on to the next game quickly, which would act like a respawn button, just in putting you into a new game (possibly in a random ready mech from your mechbay), but obviously the system we have can't allow that and/or population issues won't allow it.

[Anjian]

Old MW4 Ranger, on 17 September 2018 - 02:18 AM, said:

PGI has tried to redesign many old Maps .
unfortunatly they made old Faults again ...placing High Mountains that were blocked and they brought the Maze Design back.

Excess map design can also cause graphics lag and excessive memory consumption by the game.

[Jonathan8883]

Oh, I thought this was going to be a complaint about the bad visual design - namely, that some maps are TOO DARK to see on (Therma, River City night), and/or have too much "fog" (Forest Colony) requiring players to spend the entire match in Thermal or Heat vision in order to actually see enemy mechs.

Rubellite is one of the best maps in the game simply because you can actually see your enemies.

[Shifty McSwift]

Jonathan8883, on 17 September 2018 - 05:20 AM, said:

Oh, I thought this was going to be a complaint about the bad visual design - namely, that some maps are TOO DARK to see on (Therma, River City night), and/or have too much "fog" (Forest Colony) requiring players to spend the entire match in Thermal or Heat vision in order to actually see enemy mechs.

Rubellite is one of the best maps in the game simply because you can actually see your enemies.

I have noticed there is a decent variation in lighting among the maps, but yes, much of it could stand some going over for the sake of visuals. Having a few scenarios where the vision modes will make a substantial difference is actually a great idea, but having so many weird color washed environments that make distinguishing things in general difficult just doesn't end up looking nice, so working to make those lighting differences more pronounced and some of the more half way lighting scenarios less funky would be good IMO.

[Daggett]

Acersecomic, on 17 September 2018 - 03:29 AM, said:

Alpine Peaks, Canyon Network, Terra Therma, Tourmaline Desert as an example.
These include long corridors or "routes" from where it is implausable and impractical to escape from or flank from because they are long and medium+ mechs aren't exactly race cars, so you either become a lack of tank and firepower for your team at the chokepoint or a suicial because if you commit to flanking, there is no running back without at the best case being severely crippled.

The question is if it's the map's fault or the player's one.

For Terra i fully agree, it has way too much long and impassable mountains without any shortcuts. Even light mechs can have problems getting into position fast enough.

On the other maps however i'd say that there are alternatives and that experienced players should know which places are usually better avoided and where a flank can be initiated safely.

For example no one forces my team to go through F7 death valley on Tourmaline. More often than not you can redirect your puppies to advance from F5 or F6 into E6 instead, or push them to at least not stop in death valley if they really want to go there.

Same is true for Canyon. It's no rocket science that high ground is to be preferred here and that the low ground in C4 is a deathtrap. Like on Tourmaline the solution is to simply not go there, and if you do then at least push hard to get out quickly.
And of cause if your mech has no JJ than you have to adapt and maybe support the main force rather than trying to flank through inescapable trenches.

Of cause there are situations where going through low-ground is the best move and good players know when to take the risk and when not. So those areas are not always useless traps, but rather a test of positioning skill, which is usually not a bad thing.

Both Canyon and Tourmaline have been tournament favorites and are also highly picked in QP. Maybe the reason is that their gameplay design is not as bad as you think.

If you want to flank and only flank then you need to choose a really fast mech for that job. If you take a 97kph medium or even slower than you simply have to accept that you you will have much fewer flanking opportunities depending on the map. Only the fastest mechs can make sure to flank in time and get out of hot situations alive as well.

BTW: Did you know that long corridor chokepoints with no possibility of flanking are a staple in good level design for shooters?
Take Counter Strike's famous de_dust(2) map for example, it's all about the chokepoints and players loved it.

Here is a quote from a game developer who analyzed the map:

Quote

More rhythm variation is induced by the different chokepoints that exist within de_dust2. These points are mandatory passages (also guiding the player), and force the team to go one by one through the door. The pace slows down and makes it possible to fight at close quarters. However, some players manage to play at far range with sniper rifle by shooting in the doors’ gap. Even so, depending on the arches’ doors’ opening, some players have to come up close to identify and shoot their enemies. Nonetheless, the map also has corridors facilitating long distance shots.

In essence this means that a good shooter map needs opportunities to both brawl and snipe, long corridors and other chokepoints simply fulfill this purpose. Without chokepoints brawling in MWO would probably be much more difficult, not everyone puts a high emphasis on flanking.

TLDR: Chokepoints are a good thing! Flanking is what i do the most, and i rarely experience any problems doing so. You seem to either choose the wrong mech, time or path for flanking if you think that the maps don' support this playstyle.

Edited by Daggett, 17 September 2018 - 06:38 AM.

[Acersecomic]

Daggett, on 17 September 2018 - 06:33 AM, said:

(Lots of good stuff in this quote)

Comparing CSGO and this is vaastly different, as are the movement mechanics.
Same as with comparing tournament nature with quickplay nature of players. Teamwork and approach to play is so different between these two that you might call them different games altogether.

If players are not adapting to map design (as is the case ever since this game went into beta), and as is the case with all the games of this type (example World of Tanks), then maps have to be tailored to the players playing it (what Wargaming does).

While I will not argue the importance of sniper ridges and chokepoints as well as killzones, maps in MWO are disproportionatly huge, and of all that terrain... only small 2x2 is where any fighting is going on and it ends up being a huge, messy snowball brawl with no real sense or coordination.

If maps in this game have good design, then they've been designed for the wrong game and for the wrong crowd.

Edited by Acersecomic, 17 September 2018 - 07:02 AM.

[MechaBattler]

I agree that a lot of the time the fights play out in the same spots on each map. Anything that adds to the repetitive nature of the game is bad. Especially in a game like this where there is no real new content.

I think they should just chop up existing maps and rearrange them. Just move a few things around. So they're not always 100% the same. So you might get HPG again, but there's no second floor to the center. What if parts of canyon network were flooded? Although they haven't added water to a map in a long time. So what if they used lava? They could make use of the destroyable walls from Incursion. Just throw them up in different places where no cover exists normally or to block choke points. Just to vary it up.

They could do a lot with what they already have.

Another idea is what if Domination moved? The only issue with this idea is that it would probably disadvantage one team more than the other, depending on where they're positioned.

Edited by MechaBattler, 17 September 2018 - 10:07 AM.

[Phaex42]

Alpine peaks would be half as bad as it is if there weren't so many invisible walls. It's utterly infuriating to fire at enemies you'd hit most other maps and see your shots hit the almighty performance crutch forcefield. The height differentials are also problematic if you happen to be playing a mech with torso mounted weapons and low pitch.

Edited by Phaex42, 17 September 2018 - 10:38 AM.