290 replies to this topic

[Crashburn]

Are we really nitpicking other people's suggestions? I stated "cold maps" for brevity's sake and not having to list 3 to 4 specific maps every time I'm trying to emphasize a point. I guess I should've just been specific. <Sigh>

Also, I really wasn't including either of the Forest Colony Classic maps in the "cold" grouping. I know....one has snow in it. I mentioned later in that earlier post about not having double classic selections in the same 4 map groupings. So maybe that's why you thought I was including those 2. And the times I've seen double Forest Colony Classic's I've every once in a while had double Frozen City Classic in the same 4 grouping. Essentially 2 real choices only differing by some different snow textures in one and reduced visibility in the other.

So to my main point. I don't have a problem really with cold maps showing up. Frozen City Classic doesn't pop up that often, and I actually like it. Alpine I don't think is anyone's favorite, but it comes up in a 4 map grouping rarely. My issue is with the new Frozen City, Polar Highlands, and to a lesser extent Hibernal Rift. At least one of those 3 maps came up on 14/15 drops. The one lone outlier was the double classics. Like you said 21 maps. 3 maps appearing 14 times almost in a row. Shouldn't happen that often. Law of averages dictates that.

To that point...I did some programming back in the day, PGI is most likely using a random number generator to "select" those 4 choices. Typical RNGs aren't truly random, it's based on an algorithm that usually ends up favoring certain numbers. Maybe the easiest thing is just to change the values of the high frequency maps. If Alpine is assigned map #1, and Polar Highlands is assigned map #10, etc. Change one of those infrequent maps to the map # of Polar or Frozen City that show up about 70% of time. I think that would be a pretty easy fix..just change assigned map values every month.

Gold13, on 17 November 2020 - 11:53 AM, said:

Sorry to break it to you but by my count, 7 of the 21 maps currently in rotation are snow maps, so on average you would expect 1-2 of the 4 options to be snow maps.

A big reason for this obviously is the separation of frozen city and forest colony... would be fine IMO if there was just a single option each for Forest Colony Classic and Frozen City Classic, and then the game can randomly choose between the two sub-options (not sure if people have strong opinions between them... personally I don't really care).

[Vercors]

New maps will take up space on the hard drive, try to make a rotation between playable maps at each update.

Thanks.

[13Tradesman]

Hill climb on maps is a big issue for the heavier slow mechs at the moment...I see too many areas where a light or medium mech can climb just fine but a heavy or assault is completely stuck. Sometimes the provided "ramps" on the map are the right incline but the wrong size so heavies/assaults are just too fat to climb up.

In so many ways this limits movement across maps and does not allow for more varied firing lines/positions. New players unaware of the limits of their mech can easily find themselves getting stuck in odd places...or just find it lame that they can't climb up slopes...

I suggest a two prong approach- review/revise all maps selectively for overly steep terrain and add more and wider 'ramps' to allow mechs to climb terrain.

-Give heavier mechs better hill climb in-line with or just slightly less than medium mechs

-gametypes: Domination...we all know this is king of the hill...it might be interesting to see location changes to the circle. Either after a set time the circle location changes (like halo) or maybe have two domination points on a given map.

-adding specialized gametypes/modified maps specifically for jump jet use...grim plexus comes to mind as map that could have a modified variant. Mechs with jump jets would get a bonus on the map. Lots of unused terrain due to: the nature of mission objectives, because jump jets are too weak or the terrain is in need of modification to make it viable for vertical gameplay.

[Hammer Hand]

I like a lot of these ideas. Different types of maps (underground and underwater) a lot of the ideas to reskin existing maps a great too. I do like the idea of moving drop zones even making them randomized. Adding stuff to discourage NASCAR is okay, but we as players control much that behavior. If we group up and face left they will come straight to us. Form a firing line call targets and things get festive! We can also move to a different place on the map to fight. Almost all fights on all maps happen the same place.

Edited by Hammer Hand, 17 November 2020 - 08:15 PM.

[Heketon]

Okay, my list.


Reskins:

• I do like the idea of reskinning Polar Highlands to make a set of farms. Make the low spots into irrigation or river features. (I seem to recall that Cryengine wouldn't handle changing damage variation underwater (e.g.: an AC/20 round should drag and have less range once it hits water).
  
• Faction play maps should use the mech elevators for the defenders.

New Ideas:

• I like the Grand Canyon idea from upthread. A long, thin map that would do well as a faction play map as well.
  
• A map called Crater. Instead of a large, mountain in the center of the map, there's a pit, with a small mound of meteor material at the center or to one side. The land is all broken from the impact to provide cover. Small fire details around the zone if you want it looking like a fresh impact.

Move spawn points on the very large maps. Why have all that space if you aren't using it? Make it so the axis of attack doesn't go through the center. For example, in Alpine Peaks, why not put the spawn points on the far west or east of the map? Have the direction of attack be more or less north to south rather than diagonally.

[OP8]

Without getting crazy with new stuff, some easy fixes I think are important.
Remove dynamic time of day on maps to improve framerates, but give every map 3 set times of day so the lighting and visuals don't get boring. This could be a map start parameter with a 33% random trigger, so it doesn't require 3 separate map files.

Make a 12v12 version of emerald taiga, put a tunnel through the center mountain so skirmishes don't require nascarring the center of the map. Quick play should have at minimum one map of every environmental tileset, and we're desperately lacking a well lit grass and pine tree map that isn't FP. Emerald taiga could be modified for this purpose with minimal dev investment.

Leave canyon network alone, but modify hibernal so the ramps go in the opposite direction; make counterclockwise rotation almost impossible without jumpjets, and the ramp/fall/ramp/fall ratchetting action to force teach players that sometimes you've got to flank in the other direction. I explained this in another thread a month ago in detail. Canyon and hibernal are specifically the maps that teach players to rotate excessively because the maps don't give you any other choice but to nascar or get mauled.
Daytime version of solaris city, remove a majority of the Z-fighting animated textures.

HPG is the ugliest map ever because of how it was textured so lazily. None of the world geometry needs to change here but the infinite grey blocks on EVERYTHING has gotta be fixed. It looks like a square mile of wet newspaper with no color, depth, or atmosphere. All the ramps need a yellow or red hazard crosshatch texture on the edges so you can see them. All the buildings need a border of a flat-ish color so they don't just blend into every other grey thing near them. All the little pylon post things need visual purpose like make them big tesla coils with copper windings, or make them charred smoke stacks, or radio relays, or ANYTHING other than the crap grey generic texture on them now. Put lava, or sparking electrical machinery, or any colored detail under the grates in the floor around the central "hill" and ramps to the basement. Give HPG a second time of day where a big red moon is adding light from the other direction. The walls and floors can't all have the same texture everywhere. When people come to my house and watch me play, everyone hates this map because no matter where you look, you can't tell what's near or far, walkable or vertical, or an edge you'll fall off until you're right up on it. DESPERATE for a serious art pass. Break up the monotonous grey everywhere. I was building maps with better visual depth and atmosphere than HPG when I was mapping for doom2 as a kid. This is unacceptable.

Tourmaline and Rubellite are both generally ok, but each could use separate daytime/ dusk settings, a bright version and a moody shadowy version.

It makes sense for all the lances to drop semi-together in most modes, but in skirmish mode I think each team should get randomly dispersed at any of like 40 random spots across their side of the map. Make the start of skirmish games a little more deathmatch-ish by dropping each individual mech in their own gridsquare across the whole team's side of the map. Put 400+m between every skirmish spawnpoint.

Give each map 2-3 random possible premeditated locations for the beacon and peestain in domination mode, to make the mode a little more dynamic. Using Alpine as an example, at gamestart the map rolls a dice for beacon A,B,or C. A site is right where it is now, B site is on the ridge over the city by the mountain, and C site is by the radio tower on the other side of map from site A. Every map has a few good locations that are equidistant from the spawns, give players creative license to fight in less common areas not necessarily the predictable center of the map's best nascar spot.

All of my suggestions are geared towards adding visual diversity and options for tactical creativity to the players without obligating the devs to too much technical work. Start with this kind of stuff.

[BarHaid]

Okay, I'd like to see the day/night cycle removed and replace with dawn/day/dusk/night. 4 random options that the map is set to. A lunar environment like HPG or Mining Collective could have a cycle if it was really extreme; having a moon and galactic disk twisting around you as you fight could be a neat distraction! But for the terraformed worlds it doesn't make much sense to have the change so rapid IMO. But every map should have cycles. The ones that don't depress me (see below for exception).

There are plenty of great map ideas out there and I have no cool alternatives, but what I would like to see is Tourmaline Desert at Night. It is my favorite map, but visually a bit bleak. At night when the temperature drops it could be amazing with a close nebula illuminating the sky, and causing UV glow on mineral outcroppings. My preference for dusk/dawn would be sensor scrambling dust storms resulting from the rapid temperature change. If Command Consoles, Active Probes, and Targeting Computers offset this it would be a neat offset I think.

two cents to the tip jar

[BarHaid]

Delta503rd, on 17 November 2020 - 12:58 PM, said:

LARGER MAPS - Most folks are perfectly happy playing a brawler mentality game (don't wanna walk far, etc), but some would like to see the game be a little more tactically challenging; because truthfully all the maps are so small that the matches predominately devolve into mind numbing brawls. You guys will know the average play time of a match, but my guess is that it is easily less than half the allotted 15 minutes. People mostly just "run to center - get shot" in a thoughtless "ring around the rosie" dance; it gets boring. Too many small maps just keeps the entire scope of the game too small - grouping up is almost frivolous because "putting your heads" together to improve your play has almost no effect, its pointless, there's no room (IMO it's a major reason for the failure of group play and lower player numbers in general).

But to add to this you NEED to make sure your game modes use the space! Random Dominion placement; alternate base locations; something to stop us from ignoring half the map.

[nUUUUU]

I guess the point made about spawn points.
So, some maps in MWO are very large, others are smaller. The only issue is, most maps have a place where most of the engagement and movement occurs from.
One solution for this is the location of spawn points. If we can have asymmetrical spawn points, and an aspect where the presence and active participation of lights is critical to identifying whats happening on the battle field.
Static spawn points lead to very repetitive gameplay. The idea is to add a sense of randomness that allows or forces the use of the other parts of the maps that generally aren't used.

[Mycroft000]

Remove map voting entirely, just drop us on random maps.

Also figure out a way to implement MW5's procedurally generated system for maps. You can't form permanent strategies as a group for maps that will never exist again.

[Daemonara]

My group of friends that play propose to get rid of the map/mode voting altogether, anything that speeds up the time it takes to land on battlefield would be a win and that seems like the easiest way to do it.

[Nightmare1]

Re-release the original Terra Therma and call it "Terra Therma Classic." Then, let's talk new maps.

...I miss my favorite map!

Sheridan Mackison, on 17 November 2020 - 04:15 PM, said:

I like the idea of rolling plains. Having tall prairie grass to provide an new type of cover would be interesting.

So...Polar Grasslands?

[Pz_DC]

All maps are one or two levels. Make maps with a lot of tunnels, it's crossings, bridges etc so map will have more then "two flors one over another". Add some "space" maps like HPG and more "map-bazed" effects then affecting cooling.

[Tarteso]

Select map, then mech. No more map lottery

[Big-G]

Nightmare1, on 18 November 2020 - 06:27 PM, said:

So...Polar Grasslands?

That's not a bad idea... a big savanna style map might actually be cool given tall grass of course

[50 50]

Discussion on maps from a little while ago.
https://mwomercs.com...maps-maps-maps/

[dr3dnought]

• New Community-Driven Map (Community input from start to finish)

Sure let's try it, a new map is a new map. But I have very little faith that it will turn out well if it's design-by-committee.

• Update Unbalanced Maps

I hope you can make a thread about which specific maps are unbalanced and need updating, until then I really don't have any input to give

• Spawn Point Fixes

Yes, canyon network assault spawn springs to mind.

[Sheridan Mackison]

Nightmare1, on 18 November 2020 - 06:27 PM, said:

Re-release the original Terra Therma and call it "Terra Therma Classic." Then, let's talk new maps.

...I miss my favorite map!



So...Polar Grasslands?

Polar is exactly what I have been thinking about since making the post. So, just like we have Forest Colony Snow we would have Polar Highlands Summer. Tall prairie grasses and a rushing river flowing through the lower valleys. I don’t know if the game physics can handle it, but having the flowing water push against the mechs and affect different weight classes like hill climb does would be great. The impact would be opposite of hill climb...light mechs might get swept downstream (or be unable to advance upstream) while heavier mechs would have an advantage. To make dominion a bit different the current beacon could be a small island in the middle of a lake surrounded by prairie grass and the hills could become small islets.

[Sheridan Mackison]

Tarteso, on 19 November 2020 - 10:54 AM, said:

Select map, then mech. No more map lottery

Similar idea, pick your weight class then after map is decided pick from your collection of that weight class. This would let you match the heat load of your mech to the map or misses for Polar Highlands but laser/ballistic for Solaris City. Maybe even camo scheme to match map (snow vs bog/forest). This might give some incentive to own more mechs that would currently be redundant (why do I own 3 Highlander variants?).

[Sheridan Mackison]

While waiting for everyone to hit “Ready” show on the map the spawn points, resources and other points of interest.