Thanks for taking things so seriously. It's comments like that that make people not like you a lot, Natty. No offense, but was it really needed to belittle my post?
It was intended to the
general notion that players create the experience themselves, not your post. And it is indeed, an adorable notion, but not how it actually works.
Players like a
certain amount of freedom, as which rock to take cover behind and which opening to use. But mostly the map design is deciding for them, many times without them knowing about it.
As an example; if you looked at player movement heatmaps over huge open maps like El Alamein bf42, you'd see that even with this almost 100%ish "freedom" they still stick to the same routes and use the same ways of getting the flags.
It's patterned behaviour, and it happens in all games after a few years of game play.
Why do the exact same thing every round? I don't get what's to like about that. Why would anyone design a map so it's played the same way every time?
The answer is in the question,
kind of, design is about deciding. You create a map and you decide what the experience should be. Take maps like Pointe du hoc, Hurtgen, Falaise pocket, Ramelle, PeB, Tunis etc.. We have many of these maps. They don't allow you to just run wherever you want a create a "dynamic" gameplay. It's meatgrinding action, the core of this mod. The mapper has taken ballsy decision and given you a limited area on which you are allowed to move. The same things (more or less) happen each round because that is the
intended design. And I dont mean players run the exact same path every time, but more or less, and splitted out on 1,000 rounds, you wouldnt be able to see any difference in what happens in those maps. That's clear design, as opposed to letting players freely decide the experience, as they can't do that, they aren't designers.
Funnily, if you would take a map like El Alamein bf42 or perhaps Totalize in Fh2 and apply a heatmap pathing overlay to it, then re-design the maps so players cant move except on the "beaten tracks", most of them wouldn't care in-game. Freedom is there to assure players that "you know, you can go there instead if you really want to" but they don't do that, they stick to the best routes that gives them most fun. BC2 is a great example of where designers looked at this and decided "heck, just create the map so those unused freedom "open" areas are blocked off (by water or mountains mostly) and concentrate the action towards the objectives". And it worked perfectly. Also, players like that, because it means they have a clear challenge ahead of them that they can look at and go "yea I can do this!" whereas in maps with no clear objectives and too much freedom, they have no clear challenge to look at, and therefor also no predictable reward.
Personally, I like a bit of both, but fact is, every time Im bored or get disconnected from the game in FH2 (where I lose immersion) is when I have no clear goal or objective, when the map isn't telling me what to do, or why. Example is Cobra. What do you do on that map as American once the farm and watermill is taken? And why? the experience just ends before your eyes. Same thing happens on other maps as well. Freedom as game play killer.
