I was inspired by a Chunk's great video series Brick by Brick to walk you guys through the construction of this map that I'm making, called Expansion. If you aren't familiar with a Chunk and want to see some great maps, visit his youtube channel! You can see his thread here: http://www.forgehub.com/threads/wip-wet-dream-4v4-asym.150942/ I wanted to talk about the progress I've made, as I'm making it, in case you guys are interested in the process. Feel free to give me feedback through the process, and I should more easily be able to make changes. I will underline my initial goals for the project, and how they change along the way. Here goes! I wanted to name the map Expansion because my plan to build it was to effectively just keep expanding outward, instead of designing a specific floor plan or something. I also wanted the map to have a very sprawling geometry. Spoiler: Initial Stage First Stage Goals: -No perfectly horizontal/vertical pieces in the map -Create huge vertical differences -Take advantage away from the higher ground -Easy movement between the levels -Allow players to travel fluidly throughout the map without directly looking at their path ---Smooth ground ---Few falling deaths (if any) -Use mostly primitives, with little to no decoration -Huge map, long LOS distances -No lightbaking Here is the beginning of my WIP: The vertical differences right now are really small, but the ground is somewhat smooth (although it does not always have that appearance). There are way too many places to fall to your death right now. But I think the angles allow for lower players to get to the top quickly, and take advantage away from the high ground. Spoiler: First Update This first update is small, but I think I have some important things to say about the progression of the map. Below are two screenshots I took. Although it's not extremely clear from the images, I added a level at the bottom of one of the two big rings in the map. I figured players will fall down here on accident, even if they are familiar with the map, so I wanted the experience to induce the least amount of frustration as possible. I also wanted to adhere to my goal of easy transition, and take advantage away from the high ground. My initial solution was to add a spiral staircase in the middle of the rings, but that required too much attention on the part of the player, was complicated to build (and I am lazy as...!), and also would need to go to the bottom of the next level to allow for smooth transition. This last one is important because I needed the lower level to have minimum structure in order to keep it flowing. My solution was to add a mancannon to the center (it's that little glowy thing). It accomplishes all my goals. And because this map does not care about transitions from specific lips or elbows to others, I could set the mancannon to virtually any speed/height I wanted. I'm comin' up for ya! Also, what better place for a stronghold than at the center of the bottom of the ring? You'll feel like a baller when you drop down on people, and the mancannon allows for interesting plays. I also did what is often considered a no-no and made a HUGE almost 45-degree ramp (44.53 degrees, I think) that may stay or go, in order to allow for easy transition between huge vertical differences. The bottom of the primitives are somewhat difficult to work with, but I intend to have no overlapping layers, so I'm going to essentially angle the bottoms of the above primitives off to make cliffs that are somewhat parenthesis-shaped. It looks super sloppy right now, but I'm going to take the time to smooth it out. I also did away with the 2x2x64 primitive that was jutting out. It felt awkward and uncomfortable. However, I like the idea of bridges that are much too thin to fight on, and therefore, can only act as highways between two regions. I intend to add some of these in to the final stages of the first draft. They allow me to create vertical differences without giving the player on the bridge an advantage. He is sure to fall off the bridge as soon as someone shoots at him! My last thoughts are that I think mancannons will work very well on this map, so I may use them to connect hills of great distance. I could similarly use teleporters in order to create my long-distance/LOS firefights, while allowing players to quickly travel the map. I would like to experiment with a warthog, too. Right now, the map is too small to support fluid warthog travel. But if the map is on the verge of being warthog-friendly, I may just expand the platforms and throw one in there! Spoiler: Second Update I'm very happy to see the support I've been getting for the map! I polished the primitives and indeed put the ramp to good use! There are some pretty big height differences right now, but I wouldn't mind pushing it a little further. You can see the new area below. The black makes it a little hard to see, so it may soon change. However, hopefully you can see a ramp that leads up to the mancannon from the last update, a more flat space, and then a large ramp up to the first area. Again, it may be hard to see, but the primitives have been pretty polished so that their edges are easy to understand and do not snag players. They should appear as pretty simple geometry during player navigation. The upper area is definitely a little overpowered at this point. I considered adding obstructions and defenses to the lower areas in order to make the bottom more defensible. Illustrated below, I believe I could use tall and narrow passages to block line of sight, and allow safe lower travel. However, this breaches my map goal of having large LOS distances, and slows down gameplay as players spend more time awkwardly searching for enemies. The solution, I believe, will be to add more high ground areas and to add elements that allow for players to easily ascend. We can get a better idea of how much of a problem this is, and how to address it, when we begin to flesh out the map a little more. I plan on adding more high ground around where I am standing in the first shots, allowing players to split up their pathing a little more. There will additionally be a route off to the left of the mancannon that will take players up. I will be adding more, higher locations, to provide good vistas for combat. I also added an island that currently is only connected by one teleporter pair, but will soon be connected by two, and some terrain. The teleporters effectively act as instant-speed mancannons. The island is not overpowered due to limited entry because it has a direct LOS to so much of the map. This means that players on the island will have an easier time spotting enemies, but will also be more vulnerable. Because the island may essentially act as a catalyst for combat, I'm afraid it may become a pinnacle, channeling all of the combat into it and making gameplay stale and repetitive. I think I will try to stop this by positioning other platforms to have a strict advantage over the island. But we will see what happens during testing. I like the uniformity of having these big circle pieces, and they fill nicely with terrain pieces. Lastly, I brought back one of those skinny bridges. It allows quick travel between two platforms that cannot otherwise be traveled between easily, despite their close proximity, It should be visible in the first two images, but was added in another, later session. It effectively connects the left and right edges of the shot. The bridge may make either of these ledges too powerful, however, and may be altered to be more twisty and hard to walk on, connect two different ledges, or be removed entirely. This will likely only be decided after testing. I also tried playing around with a warthog. It worked really well for some areas, but extremely poorly for others. No hog! Anyway, I am excited to hear what you guys think! Spoiler: Third Update I finished a draft of the map, but it's a very raw version. You can actually just walk straight off the map right now. I posted pictures of the map, and wrote more below. Here are some videos of the first testing on the map. See the map pictures and more below! Spoiler: Fourth Update You can see below, but I walled the map up and finished all the terrain. I also created a rainbow color scheme that I am personally not a fan of. I will probably change the scheme to be something simpler and less goofy. I also noted that I was thinking about replacing the walls of the map with bars and terrain that extends beyond them. This leads me to consider turning the map into a kind of primate exhibit in a zoo, or something. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfmzfsLhFu4&list=PLA84nRkxFjc_42m7lpFsx8QbLU7L5ah6K&index=6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knkG2_P5ezo&index=7&list=PLA84nRkxFjc_42m7lpFsx8QbLU7L5ah6K Spoiler: Fifth Update I renamed the map to Primal. I did away with the rainbow color scheme, and replaced the walls with glass to reduce shadow. I also placed weapon markers under each weapon so that weapons can easily be located. Green markers are for tier 1 weapons, yellow for tier 2, orange for tier 3. Additionally, blue are for grenades, and purple for powerups. Right now there are 2 speed boosts on the map. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_d6NQT-tXSU&index=8&list=PLA84nRkxFjc_42m7lpFsx8QbLU7L5ah6K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWktGM8knX4&index=10&list=PLA84nRkxFjc_42m7lpFsx8QbLU7L5ah6K https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ApTzzwTEJ0&index=9&list=PLA84nRkxFjc_42m7lpFsx8QbLU7L5ah6K Let me know what you guys think! Any feedback is welcome!
Glad you're doing this. I always like seeing how maps get built, and how they evolve over time. I'll be following your progress for sure.
I love a challenge, but you want to make sure there is a unified theme of aesthetics for this map like a skatepark or demolished building. I feel like this should be built on a Paralax canvas otherwise. It does sound like a very fun idea to try though and I'm excited to see your progress also.
That's interesting. I was thinking the aesthetics are kind of nice by being uniform, but it sounds like you want something a little more realistic. I think playing on one or many demolished buildings could be cool, but also require a lot of detail and complexity. I could alternatively go for something like a cave palette, but I just made a cave-themed map! Haha! What do you think?
I was just making suggestions as the Breakout gametype is usually the only unified theme of colors only maps these days or Tron styled. I personally love the simple clean aesthetics, but there can be a loss of depth perception when the colors are all the same for the floors and walls unless lighting is added at key points. Look at the map from an outsider's perspective first look of immersion. Does the map look visually correct with it's background and intended theme, can they find their way around easily on the map, is there differences on the map that help the player orient themselves on initial spawn or for call outs? I love the black and green, but it seems that it may be hard to tell where one object ends and the other begins in a frantic pace of shooting. I love the idea though so keep going and share the progress! On a personal note I'm a person who loves all maps, but I can really only create accurate remakes or assist in designs. I personally can't come up with original layouts very easily on my own as I end up scrapping them all due to over thinking the gameplay. I am currently working on a remake of Midship as an abandoned Forerunner theme as I can't think of anything unique as a project yet.
I just posted my first update. Although the changes are slight, I think this is an important time to stop and talk about why I progressed the way I did, and where I will go in the future, so please check out the update! : ) Also, I've reached 3% collision, so I can only expect to make a map about 30 times this big, at maximum. ; (
Thank you everyone for the support! I went ahead and made some pretty big changes and posted the next update. I would love to hear what your thoughts are, even if you don't think they are important! Thanks to Duke of Mearl for giving me his insight!
Apparently you cannot upload more than 9 files per post, so I'll add the images down below. I've about doubled the size of the map so far. It's pretty freakin' big, which is what I was going for. I've been leaning toward a bowl shape in order to maximize sight lines, illustrated below. However, there is still space for players to hide behind ramps and things, which I worry may slow down gameplay. People will need to quickly be able to find and engage other players in order for a map this large to still be fun. I've added two mancannons in order to facilitate movement. I opted to use mancannons instead of teleporters because I wanted the movement to be one-directional here. They take you from a ledge to a spot that allows you to quickly engage places that players might be more likely to post up at. But more to do with that after playtests! I also added a second teleporter pair to the island. By going through both teleporter pairs, a player can quickly travel a length about half the map so far. I like this a lot and want to incorporate some more teleporters. I want a pair of teleporters that connects both ends of the map for rapid movement. I'm in a bit of a pickle though, because I want players to be facing the direction they will emerge from when they enter the teleporter. However, I also want teleporters placed against the walls on the far ends of the map that will allow players to emerge behind campers. I'll have to play around with that soon. I want to add at least one more main high ground area before wrapping up. I want to make the map as big as physically possible for 4v4 with tools that allow players to quickly find and engage other players, while also not being too chaotic. The map might actually be about its maximum size already, but it should be easy to downscale if I start too big. For weapons, I think I want to keep everything very weak. No snipers for sure. Maybe no rockets either. I am also thinking speed boost will allow players to quickly travel the map, and overshield will help aggressive players. I might just do precision weapons, OS, speed, and maybe a shotgun or something. As for where they will go, I haven't put too much thought into that yet! The map also looks pretty uniform throughout, which I think looks nice. However, callouts will be virtually impossible. I think I will color specific areas of the map so that the colors may be used. I could also use big lights as beacons, or something. New Goals -Bigger, bigger, bigger! -Aggressive, but not ridiculous -Make callouts easy Spoiler: Images
I got to play this map 3v3 with some friends last night and took these two videos. The map is still super raw, and you can even escape the map really easily, but it was good for testing out the basics. The map is a little slow for 3v3, so I think it will be close to perfect for 4v4, although maybe a little slow. I still have to add some space to the map, however, so maybe I want to add additional functions to help people get from one end to the other more easily. I liked it a lot, and it plays almost exactly how I envisioned it would, but it still has a lot of polishing to undergo. I won't write the laundry list here just yet. One thing that is very apparent, though, is that the black needs to go. It is hard to see what is going on in some tight areas, and I did not hear a single callout. I think I will make each of the three main high ground areas a primary color, and then slowly blend them in the areas in between. It should make the map much more navigable. If I do this, I might also want to rename the map. I think 'Expansion' is somewhat misleading because it implies that it has something to do with a map pack or something. If I used primary colors to color the map, I'm thinking a name like Element might be appropriate. It describes the simpleness of the pieces used to make the structure, as well as their colors. Hmm!
After watching the video, I really think you should turn this into a BMX/Skate park with concrete ground, wood ramps and skate pipes and metal rails as the thin connector's. It would look look pretty awesome!
I finished up the terrain. I added walls and some flooring up around the island area. It's now just a third high ground area. There is now no way to fall off the map, completing my original goal. In an effort to make the map easier to see on, and to make it easier for callouts, I threw together two goofy color schemes. Well it's really the same color scheme, but with pigment or lights. I specifically chose the red area to be red because it is stronger than the blue area. Warm colors appear closer than they are, meaning players should feel slightly more comfortable shooting at people in the red area, decreasing its strength. The blue area, conversely, should appear slightly further away, meaning players may not feel as comfortable shooting at players in the blue area, somewhat increasing its strength. However, I think it's way too loud for my taste; and I think the colors discourage players from playing seriously. I'll probably scrap both, but here they are. The skate park idea could be cool, but I think it would be difficult to convey effectively ('cause I'm an awful forger), and really isn't my taste. In an effort to increase brightness after the walls were added, I'm thinking I will replace the walls with tall bars, and make the terrain appear to expand beyond the bars. Perhaps I will add an aesthetic door. I think that is beginning to sound like a zoo exhibit. Maybe that would be a cool idea? I could call it, "Primal." Anyway, here's what I did. Spoiler: Color Scheme Pigment Spoiler: Color Scheme Lights Strangely, I think the lights make the map feel darker.
It actually looks way better with the colors on it. I think the colored lights also are a nice touch to it. It makes it feel like a fun warm up map. I'd like to test this with you sometime.
After playtesting, I was given some feedback. The biggest complaints were all pretty closely related: -Long LOS makes planning and fighting awkward and uncomfortable -Difficult to find cover -Difficult to get to the weapons -> always felt like instant loss to any BR As above, I intended for the sight lines to be ridiculously long, but I need a way to convey to the players that this was intended, and that they need to adapt or get over it. I could alternatively just bow down to the player and reduce the sight lines and give them cover. Watching the replays, about half of the kills came from very interesting firefights. And almost the entire other half of the kills were very one-sided, where one person had a bigger gun, or they dropped down on someone and got several first shots, or something similar. I have so many ways I could potentially fix this. Oh boy! Here are my thoughts: -I could add lazy cover -I could add screen filters or weather that decreases the length of the sight lines -I could raise the center to break sight lines across map, forcing people to fight at a more comfortable range, and providing more cover -I could increase the terrain height variability to allow players to hide in the trenches (although this may slow down gameplay too much) -I could decrease the size of the map to bring people into more comfortable ranges -I could increase the size of the map to make the LOS distances even longer, making it so a BR might even be out of range, and signalling to players that they may want to be moving through the map instead of trying to shoot across the entire map (I would probably have to add more things like teleporters and mancannons to allow players to still move through the map at a rate that keeps the game moving, but it's possible that people will move more anyway under the cover of "being out of range of enemy fire") -I could make it easier to find/get to a weapon to even the playing field -I could add more precision weapons to even the playing field -I could remove all or most precision weapons to even the playing field -I could add more powerups. Limited duration of the powerups may force players to keep moving and make it harder to achieve a cascading victory (although maybe this backfires and the winning team just moves to collect more and more powerups) ->Speed boost allows players to find cover, and close long distances more easily ->Overshield allows players to move freely by effectively wearing their cover ->Camo allows players to move freely by effectively wearing their cover People were also trying to jump to blocks that were just out of reach, or angled to look like they could be jumped onto. I'll be going through the replays to fix literally every block that people got caught on. I'm thinking about adding some sort of signal that conveys to the player that a block can be climbed onto or not, but I'm not exactly sure how to do that just yet. I think my best bet is to just make it so pretty much everything can be easily jumped/clambered onto. I would be happy to hear what y'all think!
Don't forget this was a map you did to test yourself to make something out of the box. It may or may not end up working well, but ask yourself - did you learn from the experience of building and testing it? Is it worth the time to constantly revise this map or to take what you learned from it and apply it to the next version or new map? Sometimes it's better to move on to a new project and possibly return to one later once you have a few more designs built. It may help to correct the flaws with this map you are having currently.
I've done some more testing, and thought I would share the videos for those who are interested. I also went ahead and made some big changes. In the videos, you'll see some really crazy and intense firefights, but also some very one-sided thrashings, and a few geo snags. Strongholds seems to play better than slayer, but I hope to make slayer equally fun to play, and to improve the map for both gametypes. Overall, the map has been pretty well-received so far; and the people who have played on the map more than once seem to like it better. I think players are uncomfortable when they first play the map because it's so weird, but then they begin to understand and enjoy it. I also went ahead and did away with the rainbow colors, replaced the walls with glass to reduce shadow, and placed markers under the weapon spawns so that weapons can be easily located from longer distances. I also added a second speed boost, and took them off of weapon pads to avoid confusion. Green weapon markers are for tier 1 weapons, yellow for tier 2 (only a needler right now!), orange for tier 3, blue for grenades (only one splinter!), and purple for power-ups. Essentially, warmer colors from green means more firepower, while cooler colors mean utility. I also added lights that show the teleporter connections. I think this might be a little too much. In pretty much every lobby, 7/8 people get it, and one person has no clue. The map is also called Primal now! It may change again. Spoiler: Testing Spoiler: Rename and Recolor
I agree that it's good to keep moving, but I'm more than happy to make changes to the map so that it will play smoothly and enjoyably. There's no reason to abandon the mission! I've gotten a lot of support for this map, and most people seem to enjoy it, so I'm determined to continue improving the map! : )
I think things are just about done. After making the changes and testing with quite a few lobbies, the map has gotten pretty good reviews. People are learning to play the map, there are way fewer snags, and visual queues make the map easier to understand and play. Here is some gameplay footage of the latest version. I think I'll end the project here, but continue to tinker with the map as necessary. Final changes will be things like weapon placement, weapon ammo, weapon type, aesthetics, stronghold placement, etc. Next, I'd like to try to make a map double this size for 4v4. We will see how that turns out!