Author Topic: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps  (Read 12751 times)

Offline hitm4k3r

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #30 on: 11-12-2016, 06:12:00 »
Simple thought for you both: map size is map structure and vice versa. I don't need more map structure to get player interaction, especialy not better, more and more diversive player interaction and I don't need it to get the opposite result. Get out of your FH2 mindset. Cod, ArmA, BiA, BF, CS, , OpF, RO, PR, FH2 or what ever maps - all are FPS maps and none is right or wrong. Structuring a map by it's size isn't better or worse compared to structing it by it's layout and you will find any appraoch in any game. I would really like to know whom of you both actually played all of these different games intensively?

I think I know enough about mapping myself and actually played games that show any approach, so that you don't have to deal with memes btw. I am not some funky troll you are trying to belittle  ;).

Regarding science: I study Geography so I have my fair share of conflicts with creationists aswell. :P
Our science is only true until they prove us wrong. My first approach to science is to question anything and I would recommend you to do the same: makes life much more interesting and science actually valuable. The trend of giving players much more power in FPS-games is just one way of showing that the leveldesigner-driven way is not the holy one. Need some examples of simple FPS games? Ghost Recon, BF (where the player can be the soldier he wants to be), DayZ, Squad, GTA, Far Cry (extreme example where it got more liberal with every game), ArmA, War Thunder, Heroes & Generals etc. etc. etc. Even racing games went that way (The Crew, Test Drive Unlimited).

All that in genres where we are made to believe that the leveldesigner has everything in his hands. Still you need someone to create a level  :P

Offline LuckyOne

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #31 on: 11-12-2016, 12:12:15 »
If I might throw in my 2 € cents... From my viewpoint (NOTE: I am not a game designer by trade nor education, although I did take a few courses that touched briefly on the importance of the design in general, and in particular in relation to user interaction with interactive media) there are 2 opposite ends of the scale for video games:
  • The Sandbox

     The Sandbox is the ultimate environment where a player has been given almost complete freedom of his experience. There is very little structure either in the level design or the general gameplay. It's essentialy a "find your own fun" type of game.
    Modern incarnations (think Minecraft, StarMade, or even ArmA) tend to heavily rely on procedural generation tech, and on the opposite end player-driven content. This type of game can be very satisfying if the person playing is a deepy creative one, or has a strong desire to interact with other players.

  • The Roller Coaster

     In FPS known as the "rail shooter" it is a game with carefully crafted levels, and the gameplay is tuned to achieve a specific "flavour". Although there is a tendency to enable the players limited freedom of choice (such as RPG-like elements and multiple storylines, or even "open gameplay") the experience is still primarily driven by the game designers. It is a thrilling ride with carefully placed curves and breathtaking sights for the players to live through. No rock, tree or effect is placed arbitrarily, but all with the goal of achieving greater player "immersion".

Now, FH2 being based on a game from the era when "The Roller Coaster" was the primary design methodology tends to naturally fall more into the latter category. Although a map designer might offer an "illusion of free choice" he still molds and shapes a map to achieve a specific "flavour" of gameplay, within the confines of the engine capabilities, of course.

I believe currently The Sandbox (and sandbox-like) games are the players' preferred choice, because they tend to make gameplay more "personal". It's always satisfying to see how something you "designed" will play out (I guess it is the same drive that makes the game designers happy to see their game played).

The problem is that FH2 has limited mechanisms for going in the direction of a Sandbox (PR tried to achieve more of a Sandbox feel and ended up implementing many arbitrary and "out of band" features to keep the overall gameplay fun).

I do believe it is worth to explore alternative approaches to the map design and general gameplay in FH2. The question is only how to do it without breaking the finely tuned machine that the current incarnation of the mod is... I'm afraid it will take a new engine (and a new team ?) to take the game in a different direction.
This sentence is intentionally left unfinished...

Offline Airshark79

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #32 on: 11-12-2016, 13:12:37 »
If a map can bring something new to see every time it is played without frusturating the player for his incapabilities then it is a good map. That's one reason to see larger maps being more of a safe bet for a newcomers point of view. There's more to see without getting shot every twenty seconds. Kasserine, Sidi Muftah will always be a better experience than Bardia, PdH or Mareth Line for a newcomer. Since you have more places to go and more things to see and interact with.

You can go way too overboard with the idea of distant flag-outposts with for example Nordwind, or Vosges though. But the great about some of those maps is that you can interact with enemy infantry outside of your range of engagement, that is something the vanilla maps severely lack. There's usually no deal of you're seen- you're dead problem in those, for example across the pond in Wake, or between two mountains in Faid Pass unlike a map like St.Lo Breakthrough, where camping is a real problem to deal with. So a squad or an individual can plan their aproach to a certain place where they don't get shot in the face constantly, like in Omaha beach.

A lot of the vanilla maps don't award communication or teamwork, since there are no support mechanics set in game such as rearming, healing, reviving, you can see that sort of thing is apparent especially in maps like Gold Beach or PHL where one guy with a rifle can disrupt a squad movement in a matter of seconds while a similar mod PR has the revive mechanic to deal with stragglers and retain cohesion more easily.

So one way to bring teamwork is with more options, in a map like Hill 262 a communicating squad has a chance to go for several flags, some of which are defended less or not at all, at one time, and then there is an intellectual involvement in which everyone can participate in defeating the enemy rather than just shooting everyone they see to death.
« Last Edit: 11-12-2016, 13:12:49 by Airshark79 »

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #33 on: 11-12-2016, 13:12:23 »
Why do you people keep talking about map size? Did you ever actually read my post? It. Is. Not. About. Mapsize. It is about how to structure conquest maps. It has nothing to do with "freedom" or "tactics" or whatever ideological words all you muppets like to throw around. It is a technical tutorial about how to design a conquest map. Nothing in it is up to debate, it is just basic design principles. And now every wanna be mapper is coming out of the woodworks with his own personal theories about unrelated stuff. I say this in my videos for fun, but is everybody except me really stupid?  ;D

Seriously before you respond, please actually read my initial post.
« Last Edit: 11-12-2016, 13:12:05 by Ts4EVER »

Offline FHMax3

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #34 on: 11-12-2016, 14:12:16 »
Nope,  ;D ;D ;D, we are not stupid. We are just lazy to structure our words corectly ;).
That other thread failed miserably and if you try to spam or flame here, I will break your arms.
FH2 won't be the last FH. ;)

Offline Airshark79

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #35 on: 11-12-2016, 14:12:03 »
Seriously before you respond, please actually read my initial post.

Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps

I read it, it's the most harmless read I've seen today. All I know is that something must've ticked you off to make this thread. You play this game in a certain way and a lot of people disagree with what you deem to be wrong or unacceptable. Example, never taking a transport and not being involved with squads. So when everyone else is doing what you are doing, like walking to the nearest flag in Seelow Heights or Hurtgen Forest you somehow imagine the team is working towards an objective together when in reality nobody speaks a word and are only looking for people to shoot at.

Doesn't matter though. Now quite a few of the maps are here to stay if the community enjoys them so there's a new and exciting process of natural selection for newer and more interesting concepts.
« Last Edit: 11-12-2016, 15:12:15 by Airshark79 »

Offline Matthew_Baker

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #36 on: 11-12-2016, 17:12:45 »
Get out of your FH2 mindset.



This is literally a thread about Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps. Also, is it a meme when I'm just quoting a movie in white text?... good to know :D

The problem is that FH2 has limited mechanisms for going in the direction of a Sandbox (PR tried to achieve more of a Sandbox feel and ended up implementing many arbitrary and "out of band" features to keep the overall gameplay fun).

I do believe it is worth to explore alternative approaches to the map design and general gameplay in FH2. The question is only how to do it without breaking the finely tuned machine that the current incarnation of the mod is... I'm afraid it will take a new engine (and a new team ?) to take the game in a different direction.

I would agree. :) FH2's mechanisms aren't designed for Sandbox gameplay. That's my argument against putting a sandbox style map in FH2. You need the Sandbox style gameplay mechanics to go with it. And I think that changing FH2's gameplay mechanics at this point in its life, would be a total overhaul that would take it in a different direction.

All I know is that something must've ticked you off to make this thread.

Good to know you've come into the discussion with an unbiased opinion. ;)

Offline GeoPat

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #37 on: 11-12-2016, 19:12:58 »

I would agree. :) FH2's mechanisms aren't designed for Sandbox gameplay. That's my argument against putting a sandbox style map in FH2. You need the Sandbox style gameplay mechanics to go with it. And I think that changing FH2's gameplay mechanics at this point in its life, would be a total overhaul that would take it in a different direction.
It's almost like it was developed despite the engine instead of with it.  IMO official FH2 gameplay style and maps operates constantly at the weak point of the BF2 engine, which is intense player interaction.  It's basically frag and lag most of the time.  Some of the maps are considered unplayable by those of us who prefer a little more strategy.  Though I would like to see servers enforce teamwork more, the mechanisms don't need to be changed to play more sandbox style maps.  The CMP has proven that players will adapt and appreciate the variety.  As I write this Midway has 90 players and it defies all FH2 conventions.

Offline MajorMajor

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #38 on: 11-12-2016, 19:12:10 »
It sure does defie them; there is no stock FH2 map so poorly optimized. The island area, besides being completely unremarkable, is almost unplayable due to FPS drop. If you aren't into air/naval combat, that map is dull as hell.

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #39 on: 11-12-2016, 20:12:35 »
From now on I will delete all comments that do not directly address the content of the dev blog or subsequent installments. I don't want this thread to become some kind of battleground (or even more than it already is now).

Offline Alubat

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #40 on: 12-12-2016, 00:12:55 »
Nice thread & dev blog
Dunno why, but Arad is the only new map that dosent do it for me while I find pegasus as one of the best maps in the whole game

Its not allways I like to game as intense as beeing in a squad.
Playing as lonesome wolf can be just as fun and is more relaxing and less stressed

Offline MajorMajor

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #41 on: 12-12-2016, 08:12:05 »
Looking at the layout diagrams for Arad and Sinai made me wonder... could a FH2 conquest map with 6, even 7 flags, work if some of them were clustered enough? Stock maps (64p layers at least) always have 4-5 flags, but BF1 succeeds with 6. And in the other end of the spectrum, some Bf1942 maps had as few as 3.

Offline Ts4EVER

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #42 on: 12-12-2016, 13:12:30 »
That is entirely possible. Some of the custom maps do that, as well as Sfakia. You just need to be aware of what effects it will have. If you cluster together lots of flag, you will get a very high octane area, very chaotic, like Sfakia. If you make a huge, open map with lots of flags on it, it is important to not clutter it up to much with overgrowth etc, otherwise you will have the problem of the areas between the flags basically counting for nothing, with every flag being a self contained "island". In a case like that I would go with a very long view distance and relatively open terrain, so that the flags are in direct "contact" with each other, over long range of course.

Offline hitm4k3r

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #43 on: 13-12-2016, 00:12:28 »
Nice thread & dev blog
Dunno why, but Arad is the only new map that dosent do it for me while I find pegasus as one of the best maps in the whole game

Its not allways I like to game as intense as beeing in a squad.
Playing as lonesome wolf can be just as fun and is more relaxing and less stressed

That's a pretty interesting POV and pretty much sums up what I've been talking about. Arad is a classic conquest map and I spend quite some time thinking about how to "guide" players with different meassurements, yet there are people who don't like it as much as other maps, gamemodes or whatever. Pegasus on the other hand introduced something new while still keeping the classic FH2 gameplay. With the introcuded gamemode a team has actually a choice of where to attack while still maintaining some limits. It's a nice and smooth way in the middle between two extremes and actually shows a tendency towards player driven gameplay without introducing base building or anything.

Offline Alubat

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Re: Designing Forgotten Hope 2 Maps
« Reply #44 on: 13-12-2016, 01:12:47 »
Nice thread & dev blog
Dunno why, but Arad is the only new map that dosent do it for me while I find pegasus as one of the best maps in the whole game

Its not allways I like to game as intense as beeing in a squad.
Playing as lonesome wolf can be just as fun and is more relaxing and less stressed

That's a pretty interesting POV and pretty much sums up what I've been talking about. Arad is a classic conquest map and I spend quite some time thinking about how to "guide" players with different meassurements, yet there are people who don't like it as much as other maps, gamemodes or whatever. Pegasus on the other hand introduced something new while still keeping the classic FH2 gameplay. With the introcuded gamemode a team has actually a choice of where to attack while still maintaining some limits. It's a nice and smooth way in the middle between two extremes and actually shows a tendency towards player driven gameplay without introducing base building or anything.

Maybe I just havent played Arad enough yet. I think its a map that appeals more the high experienced players, than new comers.
Maps should favor both experienced players and noobs at the same time :-)

I mostly like playing as lone some wolf in the working days. After 8-10 hours of hard mans work in noisy conditions. I dont allways feel for the squad rush kind of gaming. if I do I can still just follow others without beeing in the squad.

Saving the energy for playing FHT in a squad Thursday and Friday

I like gaming FH2 as it is. Some people play it like CS others like GTA. Making it a squad only based game would kill a lot of fun for me and probaly only appeal military geeks and students :-)

The best maps in this game are maps like a good song that just gets better every time its played, but shouldnt be in rotation too often