Politely explaining why I believe the maps are poorly designed

(zenstar) #41

[QUOTE=Frankie Godskin;364931]
Nah, I think we’ve moved beyond the point where we blame skill–especially if a dev posts and understands these concerns/ The “you’re not good enough” argument doesn’t hold water here.[/QUOTE]

I don’t think he’s blaming skill. It’s quite possible that he and his friends have nicknames for different points on the map.

It may be confusing for newbs but once you’ve begun playing the maps a bit you can describe places on the maps decently.

For example Shipyard (that’s the missile launch one right?) 1st map:
Main gate, Side gate, Back tunnel, Health CP room, Supply CP room, The Crane, Far back entrance (this is from a security point of view).
2nd map has very few locations: Side bridge, hackbox killzone, hackbox overlook, resistance entrance corridor, main way in (again security pov).

(FrankieGodskin) #42

Answering Chris in one shot:

[quote=.Chris.;364906]There needs to be enough distinction for areas in order to be given proper names, this is tricky in some areas of the maps. Colour can be used yes, not so much the the whole room but say you had a red box on a balcony and another balcony near by with a blue box, you have two unique identifiers to help distinguish from, saying left or right balcony doesn’t cut it in most instances, what if you’re facing wrong way :slight_smile:

There’s loads of simple tricks you can use in the placement of map objects and in the shaping of world geometry to help craft out areas that are distinct enough but still part of an over all theme.

Going back to the balcony example, one balcony with boxes on it and a broken railing, and another one with gas cylinders on it and a fully intact railing. So if the enemy uses these places you can either say “box balcony”/“broken balcony” for one and “cylinder balcony”/“unbroken balcony” for the other.[/quote]

(FrankieGodskin) #43

[quote=zenstar;364941]I don’t think he’s blaming skill. It’s quite possible that he and his friends have nicknames for different points on the map.

It may be confusing for newbs but once you’ve begun playing the maps a bit you can describe places on the maps decently.

For example Shipyard (that’s the missile launch one right?) 1st map:
Main gate, Side gate, Back tunnel, Health CP room, Supply CP room, The Crane, Far back entrance (this is from a security point of view).
2nd map has very few locations: Side bridge, hackbox killzone, hackbox overlook, resistance entrance corridor, main way in (again security pov).[/quote]
But you used interactive objects when describing. Main and side gates are interactive objects, as is the Health CP room. How would you decribe the area just outside of the side gate? How about the area outside the side gate, if you’re coming from the crane and then you make a left? What about the area you make a left to before you get outside from that area? What if you go out that side gate and make a right into the little room? Or if you go out the side gate and make a right into the open area? Are there any visual cues or objects that make those area look/feel different than sections of the map near the front gate entrance?

(RabidAnubis) #44

Okay. About the conversation about the PC v.s. console,

Consoles were ahead for maybe 4 years, from the release of the Xbox 360. But now we’ve fallen behind, and we are going to be slowing down the community for a few years until the PS4 comes out, and then we will be ahead again.

Look up battlefield 3 pc vs console. There should be a youtube video.

(FrankieGodskin) #45

[quote=Shinigami;364936]sigh
when i clicked this thread i was expecting a smart conversation about how the levels where designed in terms of objective location and attack/defense balance. Instead its a thread about poor aesthetics lol. Oh well, if anyone wants to discuss the level design objectives wise, not aesthetics, here are my two cents:
[/quote]
With only one night playing, I feel it is too soon to judge layout. I’ll be happy to add my thoughts on the new maps’ flows once I have enough experience to have an informed opinion.

(Nexolate) #46

FYI: Consoles are built using current PC tech. As such it’s impossible for a console to ever be “ahead” of PC hardware, technology-wise.

Regards,
Nexo

(zenstar) #47

But those are part of the map. The main gate and the side gates are gates. One is a main entrance and the other is a side entrance. Even if they weren’t interactable they’d still be gates.
The back tunnel is still the back tunnel and isn’t interactable at all (that’s what she said snort).
The crane is a crane. It’s a massive feature even if it is interactable.
So the only issues you have with map 1 are Health / Supply CP room ?

For map 2 “Hackbox killzone” can be replaced with “The killzone” or “the deadly courtyard”. The side bridge is still the side bridge… maybe you could change it to “the raised bridge” or “the pipe bridge”.

Basically by dropping the interactable objects you’re dropping map features. It’s a bit like saying “describe what I look like without referencing my features”. The objectives are the main purpose of the maps and as such make up an important part of them.

Descriptions like “The safe room” are immenantly recognisable because they have a safe in them. If the safe wasn’t an objective it’d still be known as the safe room.

I think you’re muddying your point with this line of argument. Your main point of “everywhere in a single level looks too similar to everywhere else in the level” stands better on it’s own than trying to get people to describe parts of a level.

As an extreme example: Give people enough time to look at a brick wall and they’ll start naming individual bricks and be able to describe an exact position on the wall to a fellow wallstarer and be understood easily.

On the point of “sameyness” throughout a level… I guess a bit. But not to the point where I’ve actually thought much about it at all.

(BiigDaddyDellta) #48

[QUOTE=Exedore;364778]I actually agree with a lot of points that the OP makes, but it’s not as simple as calling it poor design… it’s a encompassing production issue. If overall visual fidelity of the maps was reduced, more memory can be dedicated for unique assets per area, differentiating them better… memory is the key constraint with what you’re asking for. Overall both of the DLC levels push the technical limits of the game a lot harder than the shipping ones, because we had more experience polishing and optimizing them.

And… Terminal has a hangar? :confused:[/QUOTE]

You know I was thinking yesterday, slightly off topic, what do you think would happen if someone made a game with mediocre graphics but just and insane game/gunplay expirience. Do you think it would be excepted?

(KnollDark) #49

The only thing I don’t like about Founder’s Tower is that its a vertical map which makes the minimap very confusing

(Thundermuffin) #50

@zenstar

I think what the OP is trying to say is that when compared to other games, these maps don’t have parts that stand out on their own without having to use objectives.

One of the best examples I can think of is dm6/campground from Q3/QL. Remove all the weapon, armor, and health pick ups. Can you still describe the map? If I say pillar room, what do you think of? You think of the room going from the RL to the YA (in duel, at least), right? You don’t think of the RG platform or the RA spawn.

The problem with calling out the objectives is pretty obvious on Reactor; the lights are colored (red and yellow), yet if your graphics are turned down the lights aren’t apparent at all. My team would say, “3 coming to red,” and I would go, “wait, which side is the red room?” I couldn’t tell the difference at all, because the lights didn’t show up at all, besides a flat texture on the ground. Had they actually put crates on one side and then some trash on the other, it would have been so much easier to just call, “crate side/trash side,” and none of us would have had this problem.

That example also isn’t my fault; my PC is completely capable of running a game like this, but BRINK just doesn’t like to run well on anything above extra low.

You know I was thinking yesterday, slightly off topic, what do you think would happen if someone made a game with mediocre graphics but just and insane game/gunplay expirience. Do you think it would be excepted?

CS1.6 is pretty much this (just older and with a well established name), but it still sells a lot of copies and has tons and tons of players. You could say QL also fits this, but the reason QL doesn’t do so hot is because of the lack of mod support. Lots of people like their CPMA, DeFRaG, etc., and custom maps, but you can’t play them online.

(dazman76) #51

If it was aimed at the competitive scene, most probably. After all, a lot of them are still playing W:ET - and even when they played ET:QW, they’d instantly drop the resolution and turn off all shiny. I’ve seen some terrible screenshots from comp. players, but that’s how they roll - even when their machine could comfortable run high frame rates with some shiny enabled :slight_smile:

If it was aimed at “the rest of us” - no, I doubt it. Which is sad. I’m no comp. player - not because I don’t want to, I just don’t have the skills. But I’m quite happy playing say, Red Orchestra - which looks pretty rough these days, but is still one hell of a game if you like a realism FPS. And RO2 is landing in just a few weeks, woot! :slight_smile: That is looking pretty gorgeous, all told.

(nephandys) #52

I’ve got to agree with the OP on this one. It’s extremely hard to verbalize locations on the map in a straightforward simple way. Like you should be able to say something like “Oh we’re in X room or we’re by the giant statue” for example. Instead you are forced to either say an entire paragraph or eventually after playing maps forever with the same team I believe most teams out some kind of naming scheme/know the maps like the back of their hands.

For example, Aquarium first obj I simply describe the two obj points as left of spawn or right of spawn, but there’s really not a lot else to differentiate the rooms (yes I can identify some things that make them different, but again several sentences worth of discussion to impart that to my teammate is too long in an FPS).

There’s other areas where this is not an issue and works perfectly. Example: I’m in the bar on Aquarium, I’m in Fashionista on Resort, etc. Identifying your location to your teammates in game should always be that easy.

(zenstar) #53

[QUOTE=Thundermuffin;364983]@zenstar

I think what the OP is trying to say is that when compared to other games, these maps don’t have parts that stand out on their own without having to use objectives.
…
[/QUOTE]

This is why i said that he’s muddying his point a bit. Notice that I don’t disagree with him about the “sameyness” of most of the maps. I disagree on the whole “describe places in the map without objectives” bit. There are lots of points that are both objectives and features of the maps.
The cranes tend to be a good example. They are objectives but they’re also massive pieces of engineering that stand out. Same with the gates.

I’ll agree to a point about “sameyness” and I think you have a valid point about the colours in reactor. I’m guessing the lower quality textures on consoles further enhance this too.

I’m not saying he doesn’t have a point. I’m saying he’s actually detracting from his point with a tangental issue that is easily defeated.

(murka) #54

How about simply red and blue(well, it’s slightly blue)?

Tho i agree that most parts of the maps aren’t that easy to distinguish.

(FrankieGodskin) #55

[quote=Thundermuffin;364983]@zenstar

I think what the OP is trying to say is that when compared to other games, these maps don’t have parts that stand out on their own without having to use objectives.[/quote]
This is exactly what I am saying. I can tell someone to go to the crane, or the the HP room. But the other 95% of the map cannot be singularly identified.

(Darksider) #56

[QUOTE=RabidAnubis;364946]
Consoles were ahead for maybe 4 years, from the release of the Xbox 360. But now we’ve fallen behind, and we are going to be slowing down the community for a few years until the PS4 comes out, and then we will be ahead again.

Look up battlefield 3 pc vs console. There should be a youtube video.[/QUOTE]

Umm What? I suggest you research before making a comment like that again, consoles were never ahead in cpu,graphics and memory over PC, never…

(zenstar) #57

I’d say if you removed the objective rooms, CP rooms and spawn rooms from the map you’re not left with much. All maps (any game) will require generic corridor 316 to link feature A with feature B.

I think we’ve hit a disagreement of opinion though.

I do agree with you on the whole “It’d be nice to have more distinguishing features to a map” and the whole “map theme is too samey throughout the map” (as I’ve said), but being able to describe where I am or where I want to go: I disagree on that point. The only map I’d find this hard on is CCity due to the long winding paths. - and which side of the reactor in reactor as Thundermuffin stated.

(Exedore) #58

I think there are some highly visible and incredibly successful examples of this.

(.FROST.) #59

One can see/notice that in the first second when he spawns for the first time ever on these maps. The maps look awesome. Its almost like the difference between ME1 and ME2 (around 75% I’d say) and it runs very smooth. You guys did a great job. Brink isn’t just something unique anymore. Now its definitely on the very good side of “unique”, wich quite frankly, wasn’t allways the case.

(RabidAnubis) #60

[QUOTE=Nexolate;364953]FYI: Consoles are built using current PC tech. As such it’s impossible for a console to ever be “ahead” of PC hardware, technology-wise.

Regards,
Nexo[/QUOTE]

I know. But consoles optimize the systems a little bit better.

Remember when there was a sudden boost in graphics around the time of release of CoD4? That was because the PS3 and Xbox 360 came out. Now the PC is starting to show its uph a lot more. For instance, Battlefield 3 and SC2 both bring out the true power of the PC.

I’m not saying either is better or worse, it’s just that new consoles force graphics ahead.

I believe I watched a video that says that graphics increase by about (Polygon wise) 25% per year, on average. (So if for CoD 4 the graphics increased by 50%, next year the graphics may only raise 10%, and then next year 20%, or something like that.)

Now, for PC the optimization allows for about 5-10% of the increase to be cut off hardware wise.
And, the optimization for the system usually allows 10-15%. Those may not be perfectly accurate, but that’s the area it is in. This is simply because there is ONE type of processor, ONE type of graphics card, and ONE type of everything in a console. So you don’t have to worry about cutting off half of the processors in the process.

But the PS3 has been out for 5 years. Meaning that the cost of graphics (Going for the high side on this one) has gone up from 160% to 201%. I’m guessing the graphics in the system were made for about 1.5 times the average when the system was made.

There is a reason why sony releases a new system every 6 years. That is about when the graphics are twice as powerful, give or take. And then the first 3 years the console will be ahead, and the last 3 the PC will be ahead, simply because by then those graphics would be cheaper, and what do you do? Throw in a new graphics card. What do the console players do? Get watered out versions.

(For instance, and Imac 4 years ago had 256 mb of Vram. Now the lowest has 512. That’s double and it’s been about 5 years. I know that is a bad example but it is easier to use something that has one model.)

I’m not a techie at all or anything, but this is what I have gathered up from various threads and stuff. I would love it if some one would give me the real numbers, from a more reliable source than forums.