Circular Motion

It's not a bad little idea, you obviously had too much time on your hands with the pictures
Existing map examples could have been included like Citadel for rotationally symmetric and the pit for symmetric.
I dont really get where this fits in with Paladin though, as that WAS rotationally symmetric. I'm assuming the circular motion didnt work well because the power points were too close together and dominating over the rest of the map which prevented the need to move and flank the enemy.
However, Guardian only gets its circular flow because its Asymmetric. There a strategic advantage of holding the Sniper tower because, you get:

• An Overshield with 3 seconds invulnerability
• A sniper rifle
• A clear look out over Top mid.
• Access to bottom mid
• Direct Access to "green"
• A height advantage over "blue lift"

This obviously outweighs the confinements of Gold, which is accessible from various different areas over a wider scale with more spawns as well, which makes it strategically the harder place to control than the Sniper tower.
So with one team holding the tower, the other team attacking, the map flows in a general circular motion forcing dead players holding at sniper to spawn at green, and Dead players attacking to spawn at blue, both teams counteract each other at tower.
With no need to advance on Paladin, there was no need to create the circular motion anyway, the map played more like the pit, Hold your side, make sure you win.

This may have been what was pointed out, despite it being a Rotationally Symmetric map, it played like a Symmetrical map.

Now, Arguably, I've contradicted myself stating Guardian is an Asymmetric map. In physical appearance and attributes to the overall map itself, it is Asymmetrical. But Overall, Guardian is very much Rotationally symmetric as its 4 regions connected by multiple pathways with gravity lift paths available as well in rotational symmetry.
Basically, if you want to create a map with a circular flow, it would be best to create it on an Asymmetric map, with Rotational Qualities. Having a Symmetrically Rotational map, may cause momentary lapses of no movement between the two parties and having them simply cross fire until an opportunity arises.

 

What?

 

Yes, it was. The biggest problem was that only two ends of the map were useful. For perfect rotational flow you need people to be able to travel around the map. I've seen it done with as little as three main points to hold, but four is more common, as seen on Guardian.

 

Thats what my wall of text was about.
It didnt require ANY circular flow at all to function as a map. Does The Pit flow in a circular motion?
The map itself was based on Guardian, the gameplay wasnt. What would have been the point replicating a map already made and producing the same gameplay we already have? You may aswell just load up default Guardian and play it that way.

As it was inspired by Guardian, a lot of the critisism people made of the map wasn't really open minded enough to be honest. I personally thought the map played great and played like an MLG map should.

There is simply ONE exception to the MLG maps that have a circular flow and thats Heretic, just because it's too small to constantly spawn the enemy team in their base, they always have an option to spawn behind in the other base.

Personally, the map didn't require any rotational flow to make the map work. It served its purpose well for an MLG map.

 

I just thought i'd add one last thing,

On your mentioning of points to hold, Guardian has 1, which i stated above. The sniper tower. It has 3 direct access routes to the tower (4 technically with top and bottom mid) which are all in a close environment of one another. Paladian recreates the 1 point of hold, but replicates it for both sides to create a symmetrical appeal for MLG. The map has been designed for MLG and even though Guardian is still used in MLG (much to my disapproval) I think Paladin outplays Guardian for its traditional gameplay attributes. Think Onslaught. Two Identical sides, with shared towers and a central control point. They have 3 points to control, but the map never has a circular flow of gameplay. Its all Fixed gameplay, which is how all MLG games should be played. Which is probably why Guardian was removed when Heretic first emerged.

About the above mentioned Tango Down, they may have Rotationally symmetric maps to make it fair for each team, but they again, are created for FIXED gameplay, as the teams never switch places and control different areas repeatedly.

 

Dunno in all fairness, i don't think you can apply a "circular flow" rule to any individual map. As all maps are individual in themselves and require bespoke spawn systems and control points to make them the maps they are.

I could example with my latest map eXodus, someone at the testing said. "Wow Steve.. do you know this is two way symmetrical?" But with it beind a standard symmetrical map with multiple directions, the circular flow rule applies, but doesnt apply to an outskirt, it applies to the centre of the map. Most people havent yet noticed, but all direction of gameplay occurs in the centre of the map and hardly anywhere else (Which is why KOTH tends to work really well)

I think we can put this down to a simple explaination of what a potential system could be, if the specific requirements of the map design are already met.
E.g. a small 2v2 map with open combat designed for Oddball, you could then determine whether the map is Symmetrical or Asymmetrical and figure out whether you want a Rotational Symmetric structure to apply to the design and whether the "Circular Flow" would apply to the map as well.

(I think that pretty much sums up everything you need to consider before designing any map really?)

 

I think maybe I worded it poorly when I said points to hold, but my only other idea was the word "bases" which is even less accurate.

Obviously on a map like Guardian you want to control snipe, on Blackout you want to control BR, on Heretic you want pink etc. In any map there's almost certain to be one place that both teams would like to be, that's what motivates them to confront each other. A good map has other viable options though, where even though both teams would like the better position, they can compete from another spot. On Guardian both teams want snipe, but the team that doesn't have it is not left helpless because they can be at yellow or blue.

You actually want everybody to covet the same positions and weapons in order to make the gameplay interesting. Complete equality between competing positions makes for boring gameplay because nobody really wants to be anywhere other than where they already are. That's why on a functionally symmetric map the base is never the best place to be. Instead, on maps like Valhalla, The Pit, Narrows, and Heretic, both teams want to control the middle of the map. Can you imagine playing any of those maps if the base was the best spot to hold down? Nobody would bother leaving their spawn.

Actually, Guardian wasn't the best example. Guardian is a bad MLG slayer map because it doesn't encourage enough conflict. With both teams content to sit opposite each other taking pot-shots until the camo respawns, gameplay is atrocious. You need to motivate people to move and confront each other. Without an objective gametype, the only way to do that is to give different positions unequal power.

edit: 1000th post lolz

 

Touche, good key points. However, primarily, Paladin itself was designed around MLG King, which forces movement around the map's central areas regardless. It requires one at the most to control a single tower to assist in map control. But i do see the points in Paladin's lack of flow for a Slayer map.

And a more accurate word for your description would be region or zone?
I.e Valhalla, Top mid, Pelican, turret, Bubble shield, Cannon landing etc....

I see the theory behind map making has so many flaws and loopholes in certain rules, it's probably why such a huge variaty of maps can be made with such little tools like forge gives us. The reach Forge will be something on a whole new level to play with.

 

I was trying to take the conversation away from Paladin and more towards a general sense of map design, but you're right that King encourages great movement. It's my second favorite gametype behind Flag.

 

Aye KOTH is a good gametype, it prevents camping to an extent and sets players on alert for the whole map, rather than certain areas and spawns.

Sorry, wasnt trying to direct the conversation back to that map, it was just a good example where the map design itself doesnt need to generate a flowing gameplay, when the gametype does itself.
On guardian, as it's already a nicely flowing map, crazy king gets a little epic and occasionally, you get 3 or 4 people on top mid running to the next hill location because the flow comes from all angles to one specific point through the map (top mid) so in some sense, designing a map with circular flow, isnt always the best option either as it could involve people in combat too often.