Tell me, what design philosophy do you find the most important? Honestly, things like balance, weapon placement, and spawning etc. is trivial for anyone who has a decent amount of experience, so please try to avoid the obvious stuff like "always make sure that weapons are in a neutral location" and things of that sort. First of all, I know Multi thinks that the most important philosophy is to allow the player to succeed, and while I do think that is super important, I think you can take it a step further. Let me explain. I honestly cringe at the thought of maps that I've made in the past because of how restrictive they are. A map like Cobalt works, and works well, but the player isn't allowed any creative freedom because every path is a 2 way door or hallway. Yes, technically Cobalt allows the player of higher skill to succeed in every situation, but it's almost always the same from game to game and that's why, even though I still play a lot of customs, Cobalt never gets loaded up. Once you've played it a few times, the design has been milked dry and offers nothing to the player in terms of creativity or player experiences. So that's it. I think the most important philosophy to uphold (assuming things like balance are in order) is that the player should always be able to creatively succeed in the moment. A good example of a map that does this to some extent (most maps don't do it at all) would be oblivion. Although this is probably the best example we have of a map that allows the player to creatively succeed, we've only scratched the surface. I say this because I don't think very many people have thought about level design from this perspective. Who knows what would've come out of the community if we had 100 MultiLockOns competing with each other over the past year. This is something I've been thinking about on and off for a few months now. I've been playing these other games like WoW, Smite, Destiny, and even some single player games, and I keep noticing certain trends. In a game like WoW, for example, a dps class can only be played one way (unless you want to do **** damage). Games like Smite do a better job at making space for player influences by creating a sandbox of abilities that generally provide utility when combined across characters, but then you look at an individual toolkit and the combo/purpose of each ability is clear cut. A perfect example is a character called Nox. She has an aoe ground targeted ability that goes off for a large burst of damage after 2 whole seconds. This delay makes it impossible to hit anyone with the ability alone. However, she has another ability that roots the player in place, so the design of the character obviously wants you to place the aoe under someone, and then root them in place so they get stuck inside of it for the explosion. There is a little bit of utility in the explosion because it silences when the aoe is placed, but that's still a shallow design at best. As I type this, I realize that this philosophy could (and should) be applied to every level of a game, including single player. Allowing the player to be "himself" and do something only he would think of has to be what I most want in any game, especially the competitive in nature. Of course, there are many complications to this idea that I'm willing to discuss, such as "when does the player have too many options?" and so on. I'm interested to hear what you guys have to think.
what sorts of design elements create that creativity according to the definition you thinking of? Ledges, special jumps, things you can do differently that you may not notice immediately, but over many plays?
That would seem like the obvious explanation, but there are much better and more effective ways to allow players to make personal decisions. One way is to give areas of your map multiple utilities. For example, the window in the middle section of Oblivion can be used as... well a window, and it can also be used to flank both ways and nade the middle hallway. Another way is to give each area of your map situational utility. Allowing players to assess every situation with thoughts like "what is the best way to go about this considering teammate positioning, enemy positioning, my personal strengths/weaknesses, weapons that each player has, and spawning." will go a long way in giving your map longevity. As multi states in a video, maps only become stale when they are played the same way over and over. With all that being said, there definitely IS a limit to how liberating a map can become to the player if you don't want your map to become a mess of too many options to track. A huge part of all of this that needs to be taken into consideration are weapons and player traits. Spartans can't fly or walk up walls, so there are naturally occurring limits to what we can pull off. I think the world has yet to see a game that truly promotes individuality and decision making at all levels, from the player movement/abilities to weapons to map design, but that's for another thread.
My design philosophy is utilitarian with a dash of justice. For real though, I prioritize aesthetics and fun over framerate and complexity. I don't worry much about the number of routes, as long as they're fun to take.
So my two cents on this is that a persons perspective of what is liberating is drastically different. Your examples could even be flipped around based on another person's preferences. Design is a funny thing like that and is typically why you have people who think other people are idiots because they think their opinion lacks less bias than someone else's.
Well you asked, so here it is... I have a broad design philosophy I apply to art and themes which is partially a joke and a totally profane, but also completely serious. It has a little bit of a backstory so let me explain: I work as a videographer at an online music store. We sell drums, basses, but mostly guitars and pedals. One of my recurring projects is to create various "get the tone of ___ " videos where we'll pull up a famous guitarist and break down how to get similar guitar tones for cheap. A little while back, we did a video centered around Jack White of the White Stripes. When we do these videos, we'll usually pull up a youtube video and just play it over and over to learn the songs and get the tones right. So we pulled up one of his solo songs, "Lazaretto" and at that moment in time there was a particularly amazing top comment: "This guitar riff makes my **** feel like it's 18 inches long" Upon reading this, I laughed out loud, because it is an absolutely hilarious statement. But then I thought about it again and I realized that this is literally the greatest compliment that could be given to a guitar riff. Think about it, what is the purpose of a badass guitar riff? The goal is to make you as the listener feel awesome, to feel empowered, to feel badass, to feel like you have a massive 18 inch ****...This became my only goal from that moment forward when I was writing a guitar riff. If someone told me the riff I wrote made them feel this way, holy cow. What a compliment that would be. After a little bit of time, I started to think about how this philosophy could apply to forge and level design. I realized that if you apply this phrase to your process, it's actually a pretty relevant philosophy. So I ask myself when I'm building a map, or particularly when I'm choosing a skybox / theme..."Does this map make you feel like your **** it is 18 inches long?" Because if you think about what a spartan is (an oversized super soldier that's 7 feet tall and nearly invincible) then when you are playing halo, becoming that spartan, you should feel that sense of empowerment. So I try to apply this idea to a lot of things during the process. It's particularly helpful in terms of arting up a map...if you follow this philosophy then you are basically constantly asking yourself "How do I make this feel epic and awesome?". The way you do that with art and themes is you create large objects that give a massive sense of scale, skyboxes that go on for a long distance. Stuff that reinforces the idea that you're in a location that is larger than the map, and has depth that continues beyond the borders. Do you want to feel like you're in a little box shooting at a couple other guys over and over again? Or do you want to feel like you're part of a greater battle or something more meaningful? Another way I try to inject this idea into a map is by creating a lot of risk / reward...A power position that is easy to fall off of, a jump that is just BARELY reachable, a weapon that grants you an easy kill but is dangerous to grab...Stuff like that. I don't really believe in making pathways over-scaled or rounded to prevent spartan charging or to make things easier for the players to navigate. If there's a tight corner, it's gonna be really tight, and if there's an OS on the map, I'm gonna make it so you're likely to die trying to get to it. If there's a lift, it's gonna shoot you really far, not just a few feet. Stuff that takes things to extremes and puts you in unusual situations. The hope is that while doing this, there will be the potential for some sort of awesome moment in the game that makes you feel like you actually are that giant super soldier you're supposed to be. Like you just barely made it out of that encounter alive, and the reason you are still standing is because you made a bold move, not because you played it safe...I don't think I've really pulled it off yet, but that's what I'm striving for these days.
Nice. I'm glad this thread is getting worthy responses. Some people will probably hate me for saying this... but I think The Fated Fire was mostly right about "Heroism". The goal of any action based game is to make the player feel like a badass, and I think my philosophies tie into that, just on a more detailed level. Let me give you an example. When I was testing a 1v1 map the other day with multi, I used a 1 way teleporter in a way that made me feel like I had an 18 inch ****. I sat near the sender and waited for multi to come challenge me, and then when we started to duel. I quickly ported and continued to shoot him from another angle, and he died before he could turn to fight back. If that were just a normal teleporter, I would've either been right behind him (an instant flank which is what a majority of teleporters are used for) or the fight would completely reset as I port out of line of sight. Neither of these would have made me feel cool because that's what you would expect when using tele and there is no real forethought involved. Also, don't mistake this example as me saying that all teleporters need to have multiple utilities. They don't. This is just one example of many of how you can allow the player to get creative and feel awesome, all while rewarding skillful play.
Master chief has a 18 inch **** confirmed. Not locke though. No one cares about him. "Spartans can't fly or walk up walls". For some reason this has given me a real urge to prove you wrong. I wonder how I could incorporate something like this into a successful design. This brings me to a design philosophy I love: Break the rules, think outside the box and, most importantly, prove people wrong. Of course, sometimes breaking the rules leads to terrible maps but at least they're more interesting.
Well, it's not really a matter of opinion if you look at it from the perspective of my example. When you go from room to room to cobalt... You just go through a door or hallway. There are very few entrances and exits and those transition areas themselves are completely devoid of any decision making outside of "Did I win the gunfight? Yes? Push. Did I lose? Yes? Let shields recharge." One style of map rewards forward thinking and one holds the better player back by severely limiting the ways he can outplay his opponent on an individual level. And of course, we can sit on forums and talk all day about how some people prefer playing extremely limited designs. I get preferences. You can like minigames the most for all I care. My point is that those designs do not stand the test of time. I can't think of any really simple maps that get played over and over (excluding any matchmaking levels because we are literally forced to play those). Maps with almost all macro geometry Like Cobalt tend to get stale rather quickly because the encounters are always the same every game and there isn't a large pool of fights to choose from in the first place. When you start giving areas of your map multiple situational uses, especially on multiple planes, the possibilities quite literally exponentially increase and maps seem to evolve over time.
I do too much of this, because I prefer being half a second away from some cool movement option. It's like the movement equivalent to aesthetic noise (which I also pull off quite nicely). That being said, my current mission has been curbing (haha qrrbing) my enthusiasm for said chaotic routes. A good example of what I've been trying to avoid is the middle area of Empire. All that tower/clamber mess makes it far too punishing in terms of skill gap.
That's a deep question man. I guess my philosophy is kind of similar to Pat Sounds'. It's all about the theme, the setting of the map. I always try to have one unifying concept that the map is built around, that is visually interesting and gives the map its own unique character. Usually that concept also gives the map its unique play characteristics. You can have the most balanced map in the world, but unless it has character to it, it's going to become boring pretty fast. The worst kind of map is one that's just boxes and corridors. Even if they're MLG-approved boxes and corridors, there's so much more room for creativity and making a map interesting. On "Autumn Contingency" it's the massive spaceship in the middle. The rest of the map is kind of open, to let you appreciate the scale and make it look like the ship crashing knocked everything else flat. It's BTB, too - big ship, big fight. You're having a huge chaotic battle around a huge chaotic crash site. The ground is uneven where the ship's ****ed it up, and cover is mostly linear, because it's composed of ridges and rows of hull plates. On "Lijiang" it's the verticality. The map has two vertically separated levels - and the surrounding environment outside the battlespace is also very vertical. The whole thing's set in a skyscraper, so it's all about enclosed, vertical design. Which is also the map's key play mechanic, the interaction between the two vertical levels, which enclose the central garden bit. "Kuiper Pass" is built around the visual of the main cavern with the giant Sangheili statue. To achieve that, you need two levels, to get the scale. You need a cave, and you need an exterior area to contrast that cave. You need pillars to achieve the temple feeling. So that's set out the map's main spaces, and their designs, already. The outside is an open plaza for contrast, and you have a deep catacomb-y level with winding tunnels leading into the heart of the mountain. That's long-range and short-range, and you have a mid-range area in the upper level of the main cavern, which forces you to stay at a certain distance because of the gap in the middle. Now I can't tell you this is the best approach. Sometimes a visual concept just doesn't translate into a good map (lord knows my playtesters can attest to that). But it's the way that comes naturally to me. It's the same way I write stories - design a big moment and work around that. TL;DR: Striking visual concept first, then use that to build out the gameplay elements.
Nah I'd rather play any MLG map. Even though most of the designs are somewhat considered basic, they still have a ton of strategy and charm behind them. What I'm trying to say is that intricacy comes from simplicity (See: Almost every CE map). IMO It's a one-way tipped scale. If the map looks meh (aesthetically speaking) and has amazing gameplay/geometrical design, I'd say it easily trumps the need for artsy-fartsy BS. Other way around? Not so much. I guess the necessary line I'd draw is that a map should hold an identifiable yet clean theme to tell apart from other map counterparts. Clean being a very important word here. The map's geometry should be easily readable so it can click faster with the player, opening up better opportunities for faster strategy and engagement planning. Core maps are made to be won on, not admired by their (unnecessary) detail. EDIT: Not to say that simplistic themes and aesthetics look bad, honestly I prefer them in an art-related aspect.
That sounds a lot like my approach. Is this possible? I'd betcha people think it isn't. Is it really? Can it be done well? Is it awesome? Yes? Make it. There is no "Try"
I don't think CE maps can be placed anywhere near the same category as "MLG" maps. The verticality alone makes them way, way different. On another note, CE maps each have more "design" than every halo 5 map put together. Just because the game has super basic aesthetics and doesn't have 5 million clamber ledges doesn't make damnation a "simple" map. Also, I don't know what you've been smoking, but when I think of an mlg map, I think of onslaught. Are you suggesting that onslaught has a ton of strategy involved instead of just "spawn move forward br people repeat"? Finally, I'm not sure how much of this is a response to my initial post, but I said nothing about aesthetics or clutter. Allowing the player to make his own decisions from a moment to moment basis on a philosophical level has almost nothing to do with "micro" geometry.
Yeah I could see the misconception here. No, MLG maps are nowhere near as complex as CE maps in terms of geometrical design. I was trying to compare two different takes on simplicity (Interesting design + simple art and safe design + simple art). MLG maps can be fun even though their designs are boring, and CE maps can be fun with their complex designs too. The importance of simplistic aesthetics reference was more a comparison on both sides of the spectrum between MLG and CE. It works for both. Easily readable, by my own definition, are simple routes or sight-lines that leave opportunity for the player to spice it up with their own personal or team decision making. I guess you could say I got that mixed up with easily identifiable, which more relates to aesthetics. To me, both go hand-in-hand in order to produce success.
Every map should be design with how Hex said (the win) in mind. Simplicity and focus are key to any map becoming great. Forgers should keep in mind things like: -Readable aesthetic -Being able to play against the enemy, not fighting the map -fair spawns and flow Things like these encourage maps that are fun, unique and at their core are competitive. Verticality is another factor that I believe forgers abuse more than use. Maps don't need extensive verticality to be fun or interesting. Having proper design and flow with interesting engagements are what sets maps apart. Having your map being vertical doesn't make it better or worse, it's merely another tool to create what ever fights you want on the map. Another thing is the true meaning of flow in gameplay. Flow is how players play your map. Is your map about top control? Is your map about to sides facing off? Is your map wide or linear? You should always design for unique flow on a map, this alone makes maps stand out.
That last sentence is basically what I've been calling "shape". If the overall shape of the map is boring, then the map is boring. You can add all the cool **** you want, but the map will get stale rather quickly without shape.
Indeed. I rather call it "How players play your map" because referring to a shape doesn't give good context to what it really means, But I understand. I also looked at that 1v1 called "Never Forever" and thought it looked pretty cool.