About Making It Flow

Not really sure what you mean by flow mate but recent advice given to me saying the more diverse paths you have to move around from point a to b to c, the better.

 

Maxamize the ramps minimize the jumps, put in good/useful lines of site. Very brief and basic, but that kind of stuff makes maps flow really good.

 

Instead of just popping into Forge mode and placing random boxes around the map until something looks cool, try just drawing a basic layout of your map on some paper first. Sketch out the basic paths that you want players to follow, and kinda map out where you want the action to be.

As a general rule, try and design your map so that players can travel in circuits around it, from point A to B to C and back to A. For example... on Guardian, one circuit is from Overshield, across top middle, into Blue room, over the little ledge, and through the cannon back to Overshield. Another even simpler one up Gold lift, down to bottom Mid, back to Bottom Gold and up the lift again.

Just draw out a few circuits like these until you have some interesting play areas, and then work from there.

 

general rule. if you can ambush someone in about three ways (unless it's a corridor), then that's flow.

Also, no jumping and make sure everything has a purpose.

 

You can have some jumping, just not a lot.

What I mean by site lines, if you are going to have a decent sized map and plan for it to be br orientated make sure you have longs lines of site to shoot people from.

 

Jumping should never been neccessary. Ever. Jumping is for slight combative advantages, such as being able to get from Gold 2 to Blue on Guardian.

 

That is what I meant it as.

 

Says the creator of Cave Freaks...

 

That's a minigame, we're talking competitive. At least I assumed....

 

lol probably are I just thought that comment was funny coming from the creator of a map that you have no choice but to jump to get anywhere.

 

That should just about cover it man. Interesting ways to move about the map, nothing too complicated that you can't do in the middle of the fire fight, some ways that you might not expect to be useful for quick routes back to the fighting. And multiple paths to get anywhere really.​

 

That's really hard to do without having the map being OPEN. Making a multi-roomed map with multiple entrances to each room is very hard because of limited items. If bungie could give us a new Foundry with more items of different sizes, and items that require less memory so that there would be a larger budget, then making maps with flow would be THAT much more easier.

 

Flow goes hand in hand with Continuity; both are essential map design concepts. Flow is merely a measurement of how a map's Continuity works. A map with good Flow is one with good Continuity as well.

That being said, Continuity is the ability of a player to move about a map without hindrance. A map has good Continuity when it does not require a player to jump AT ALL in order to traverse the majority of the map. That means that every major area of your map should be accessible via walking alone.
As someone before said, you want your map to be navigable in circuit fashion. Dead ends on a map are very, very bad! Even maps like Avalanche that supposedly have "dead ends" where the bases are (at the end of the horseshoe) have a base design that eliminates dead ends. Circuits make a map flow, but keep in mind that these circuits should be walk-navigable as well. At least the vast majority of them should be, anyway. Guardian, for instance, has a number of circuits that require jumping but most are completely walkable.

Flow is a very controllable thing though. Building a map with open circuits and walkable routes is one thing, but it might make a certain area a "hotspot" or a "kill zone." That's all fine and dandy if you want it that way, but it's generally not advisable to build a map with said hotspots. Pre-Boundless Snowbound was a great example of a map with a hotspot, as everyone would go underground to the Shotgun spawn and ***** it like there was no tomorrow. Bungie tried to rid themselves of the hotspot by implementing the HC weapon set, but that was almost to no avail as well since the Beam Rifle became a noscoping weapon of epic great justice. Boundless ended up fixing the problem with the hotspot down there because it removed shield doors and allowed grenades to be thrown into the bottom more easily, thwarting campers. The removal of the shield doors consequently altered the map's flow, as you see.

This is where we get to jumping. Jumping can be used to impede flow and thus redirect it. A part of a map that requires a jump is said to have "broken continuity" or to be "discontinuous." Again, let's look at Guardian. Imagine what would happen if the center platform was directly connected to the top Gold room... a hell of a lot more people would go there, that's for sure. The flow to that area would become rather high, and there would likely be an even greater hotspot there. Why is it that adding a jump there makes it better? It's simple. The jump forces players to make a decision- they can either jump across or drop down to the catwalk below. It's fairly likely that a player who spies another down below will choose the latter option, and thus player movement (flow) is diverted from the Gold Room toward Hammer spawn. There is a reason behind almost EVERY jump in a Bungie made map. Learn from them and improve on their technique.

I hope you understood what I said! Haha.

 

I like to think that i'm good at making maps flow.
I don't think i can help you by telling you something in text, i would have to see your map to help, but, i would really like to help.
please add me, my GT is my username.
[Check out Syndicate in my sig just to show you that i can forge and that i know how to make maps flow, bc i think syndicate flows really well.]

 

good post, i never thought about jumps that way b4

 

Way to hit the nail with the hammer Debo. That is a lovely post and very true. Good job.

(if that doesn't help, then I don't know what will lol)