Maps, Map design Feedback

[AtomicPope 3,953]

I'm talking primarily about RB since I'm playing that mode. Some of the general points about maps and map design that come to my mind are as follows:

 

-Large, open maps like Kursk or Mozdok, or Poland Break as an example are very rare in the rotation. You can play a whole weekened without getting any of them while getting maps like Eastern Europe or Karelia several times in a row. It's not like I only want to play open big maps, but it would be cool to have a bit more balance when it comes to map selection. I can understand getting mostly small maps at low tiers where everyone has small calibre, relatively low velocity guns, but I'm at T4 right now where pretty much everyone has long range, high velocity guns so getting larger maps/maps that offer long lines of sight a bit more often would be cool. Again, I don't only want large maps like Kursk, and I don't even want them to be in the majority, but as of now the MM seems to be heavily skewed towards small close combat maps.

 

-Terrain: Personally I find extremly bumpy and hilly maps frustrating as they restrict your movement, make you slow and force you into predictable corridors. It just feels cool to zip around in fast tanks, and utilize their speed. Having to constantly maneuver around obstacles or climb steep slopes slows you down to a crawl, it's already annoying in fast vehicles, now imagine driving something heavy and slow in terrain like that. A prime offender in this regard is Frozen Pass - the map is small and full of rocks and hills. This map is fine on Tier I with the smallish fast and nimble tanks there, but once the tanks get heavier and slower to accelerate the map gets quite tedious to play. Other maps that go into that direction are Ash River, Karelia White Castle, Kuban to varying extents. They have some bigger, relatively flat areas but going there usually means being picked off by someone sitting on one of the many hills.

 

The better maps like Poland, Operation Neptune, Fields of Normandy offer both relatively flat, open areas with long lines of sight for long range combat and getting around quickly while also offering the option of urban combat with their small villages - Fields of Normandy less so, but there's still plenty of hard cover in the form of houses sprinkling the area, and soft cover like shrubbery. Maps with those kind of terrain feel more natural and real.

Edited December 27, 2016 by AtomicPope

[Godman_82 9,389]

4 minutes ago, palmatius100 said:

I totally agree with it, however some players just start constantly whining that it takes very long time to get to battle and gaijin is forced to make smaller maps, which in turn makes many RB and SB players very unhappy. 

It don't have to be far away, just somewhere "aside"

[Bat_the_Judge 982]

Also, i would say that having maps that offer different playstiles that suit different tabk classes and nations would allow more extensive WW mode opperations in the future. I really dont know too much of what to expect from WW, but the fact that it will never work in most of the current maps, especially the ones changed in 1.65 update

[*Lyrch75 494]

Copy and paste from the Ground forces thread post I did

 

The map designs overall are weak as examples of sane uses of armored forces. Some of them have areas that are reasonable places that armor would fight, but over all they are weak. 

 

Most maps are entirely too small, even for reasonable AB play. In addition to that they are topographically too constraining, 2-3 corridors available for advance is what most offer you, with some maps offering a couple other sprint paths that speedster tanks can use to leapfrog. 

 

Cap points, on most maps, are in nonsensical locations; even if we were playing a FPS let alone a tank game. 

 

Fixing the above issues will require different maps. A few things that could be done to improve the existing maps, IMHO. 

 

1. Stop marking the enemy's spawn point on the mini map. I have never understood the reasoning behind that. 

2. Randomize the spawn points and cap points locations for each match. Yeah sometimes that will roll a completely unbalanced map, but the next time it rolls the locations it likely won't be. 

3. Randomize the map size. Sometimes you will get the full Mac Daddy Kursk map, and sometimes you will get the itty bitty Sinai knife fighting map. 

 

I think that these changes would make the games more unpredictable and more fun. 

 

[AtomicPope 3,953]

45 minutes ago, palmatius100 said:

I totally agree with it, however some players just start constantly whining that it takes very long time to get to battle and gaijin is forced to make smaller maps, which in turn makes many RB and SB players very unhappy. 

 

It depends mostly on the terrain, you can have big maps where you still enter combat almost right away; examples are Kursk or Mozdok. After you clear the first hill you have usually a line of sight across much of the map so you can engage in long range combat soon after entering the match.

A negative example would be El Alamein - the map is huge, but the upper part of the map is a rock maze limiting LoS, and the lower part with the dunes isn't that much better either because the dunes are so high and have a smiliar effect on the LoS, plus climbing the dunes slows you down alot and is quite tedious. I like the map, but it's easy to see why Gaijin is moving the spawns and objectives closer and closer together.

Big maps are only good if the terrain allows people to move around fast and do long range combat - if you have a big map filled with hills, slopes and obstacles it becomes even bigger so to say, because all those things make you slower and block the view on enemies further away, thus delaying enemy contact and forcing you to drive a longer time until you see action.

 

25 minutes ago, palmatius100 said:

Also, i would say that having maps that offer different playstiles that suit different tabk classes and nations would allow more extensive WW mode opperations in the future. I really dont know too much of what to expect from WW, but the fact that it will never work in most of the current maps, especially the ones changed in 1.65 update

 

 

Pretty much, not all people have the same playstyles, plus different vehicles often require different playstyles - tanks like casemate TD or SPG like Nashorn, Marder, Archer, T95 etc with limited gun traverse, or tanks with a very slow turret traverse suffer on urban close combat maps, and would benefit from more open maps. Also, people keep complainging about SPAA killing their tanks, which is largely due to small maps forcing close combat, on maps like Mozdok killing tanks with SPAA is almost impossible since flak rounds lose much pen over the distance and due to the nature of the terrain it's unlikely to have SPAA sneak up to you close enough to kill you either.

[AlanHR 5,261]

In general tanks would never enter CQB on their own without infantry support but since this is the game and there is no infantry CQB maps exist. Major flaw of CQB maps is there is no terrain around it (or very little) to provide different approaches. If borders on Stalingrad map (same with Berlin map) are expanded there would be much more possibilities. Objectives still could be inside factory (or town centre) so someone would need to go in to capture it but others could provide long range support or "denial of entry" (this is different from spawn camping) with extended flanking manoeuvre.

 

This would provide fun for people who like CQB and also for one that don't.

Edited December 27, 2016 by KH_Alan

[Bat_the_Judge 982]

19 minutes ago, KH_Alan said:

In general tanks would never enter CQB on their own without infantry support but since this is the game and there is no infantry CQB maps exist. Major flaw of CQB maps is there is no terrain around it (or very little) to provide different approaches. If borders on Stalingrad map (same with Berlin map) are expanded there would be much more possibilities. Objectives still could be inside factory (or town centre) so someone would need to go in to capture it but others could provide long range support or "denial of entry" (this is different from spawn camping) with extended flanking manoeuvre.

 

This would provide fun for people who like CQB and also for one that don't.

This is exactly what im thinking. maps should provide opportunities to all kind of tanks and playstiles. if takimg the example of abandoned factory, simply expand it 1km to all directions. There are fields, forests in that radius, which already makes the map suitable for all tanks. also, players in factory should beware of floating t34-katyusha boat in the river nearby This little change would make the map perfect for WW as well

 

Talking about Berlin map... there is a garden on the east of it, right? include that garden in the map and much more opportunities become available. Also, imagine german team (with few Japanese tanks because sekrit dokument says so) defending Reichstag against USSR (and few Brits) team.

Edited December 27, 2016 by palmatius100

[PL_Andrev 7,386]

2 hours ago, palmatius100 said:

Well 1st what game modes are you talking about? I personally would dislike this idea, because when spawns are being changed closer and closer to enemy team, close quarter battles are made, and this thing is the biggest issue for a lot of RB and SB players. Also this would be bisased towards some nations. Nations like germany really have no fast tanks, while ussr just take out their trucks and capture all the zones. 

 

Really not. In this idea there is only one active capturing point:

dark - inactive spawns / light - just active spawn points / white - capturing area

 

When point is captured the forcing team should attack the next one, where the next one was a spawn for enemy tanks.

In this solution the "fast russian tanks" what you talking about met a medium / heavy tanks just spawned few second before at previous spawn / current capturing zone.

Please note that spawn points are in same distance to itself - not important which point is an active capturing area.

This idea may work with:

- join in progress feature, 

- AB mode (several tanks per player),

- WWM / long time battle offensives

 

[Godman_82 9,389]

Only remember, that placing town even in big, open maps, will still magnetize players to go into buildings, as they are giving cover. It would be best if urban area would be placed at one side of the map, so slow heavy tanks can go other way without being sniped by fast tanks who got to city much earlier. There was some map in WoT, i believe called Port, which was perfect example.

Edited December 27, 2016 by Godman_82

[AlanHR 5,261]

Just now, Godman_82 said:

Only remember, that placing town even in big, open maps, will still magnetize players to go into buildings, as they are giving cover. It would be best of urban area would be placed at one side of the map, so slow heavy tanks can go other way without being sniped by fast tanks who got to city much earlier. There was some map in WoT, i believe called Port, which was perfect example.

Not necessarrily if open parts of the map are not entirely flat and provide good hull down positions or possibilites to move behind some ridges undetected. Open map doesn't need to be flat. Mozdok is open map yet there are numerous places to go hull down or move undeteted.

 

Of course urban area doesn't need to be always in the dead center of the map but in center between spawn points so both forces have reasonably same distance (terrain dependant) to it. Placing urban area at the edge would again limit approach from underneath that urban area. Target is to make urban area approachable from all sides so force which manage to establish control of terrain around it will be able to capture it more easily as it is in reality.

 

One example would be original Poland map. Whoever established control over S ridge and N tree patched areas usually won the battle as their forces could capture without much ground threat (only air).

[Bat_the_Judge 982]

I personally really think that the village in kursk is an perfect example of a urban area that should be designed similarly in other maps. it is accesible by both team easily and offer some cover, however there are many places exposed to snipers. 

 

My personal opinion is that towns should be closer to edges than the middle of the map, however they should still be accessible from all directions. though the maps in RB and SB should still be aimed for 600m + combat ranges and not a whole lot of CQB

Edited December 27, 2016 by palmatius100

[Schindibee 2,862]

Well, some aspects have already be discussed at length (map size for instance), so I won't add to that.

 

What I'd like to mention however is the general map design, talking mainly about ground forces maps.

 

Now I understand why a lot of the maps are designed as they are, basically +/- mirroring the major features and scenery elements: this is the easiest way to make it balanced and fair for both sides.

 

This is however highly unrealistic and in most cases gives the maps a very artificial feeling, lacking of immersion.

 

There are actually only a handfull maps which feature a roughly realistic scenery or are actually even taylored after a real world location (Hürtgenwald, Berlin, Köln),but still with artificial symetry  forced upon those otherwise intereting locations.

 

Is it really impossible to take real-world locations and reconstruct them in the game world in a way that doesn't scream "Symetry" all the time?

 

Also, maps are usually very VERY cluttered with details and features which do appear in real life, but not in such quantities/densities usually: not every scenery type features huge bouldelike rock formations that offer convenient, non accessible barriers.

 

So to sum it up: What I'd love to see introduced more are maps representing real world locations in a realistic, non-forced-symetric real world style.

[Raldi92 2,923]

Many guys here have already addressed the main issues ( when it comes to RB and SB game modes )  with actual WT map design philosophy so there isn't much to be added .

 

Personally if i had to summarize all the issues in some  words i would say  that the main flaw in WT map design ( again for RB and at some degree  SB  )  is the absence of immersion . 

To me immersion can only be achieved if maps look ( your artistic department is doing a great job on this )  and feel ( feeling is very important sometimes even more important than look )  as realistic as tanks do and sadly this is not the case for most of the maps we have to play in RB and at some degree SB . 

 

I would like one more time to point out the AMAZING JOB   #B0ris_the_blade : http://live.warthunder.com/user/B0ris_the_blade/   has done in WT Live .

This guys has created some outstanding custom maps when it comes to realisme and immersion . 

Bocage : http://live.warthunder.com/post/368203/en/  and Operation spring awakening : http://live.warthunder.com/post/509032/en/   are for me the perfect examples of what WT maps  should look like at least for SB  , with RB keeping the same philosophy but with a litle smaller dimensions . I mean look at those maps . road positioning  , terrain geometry , hill dimensions  etc etc etc it's bleeding of realisme .  

 

Imagine what Gaijin could produce when one guy alone can make such amazing and realistic maps . It's just a matter of philosophy !

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2016 by Raldi92

[Tivoru 4,927]

1. Realistic Terrain/Field

 

At this moment every map, doesn't matter it is small or big one, is designed to be full of humps. That humps slow down tanks, especially slower tanks, like Churchill, Matilda, T95, Tortoise, Maus. They need to be more flat like in real life. 

 

For example El Alamein ingame:

 

And real one:

 

"But you'll be able to snipe poeple from spawn to spawn"

 

Thats why we need real fortifications, shooting possitions, trenches as part of the fields to lep poeple play with different tatcits. Maps need to look like prepared to fight, with some sniper positions for TD's, roads for slow and heavy tanks etc. 

 

 2. Spawns

 

To protect players from spawn kills we dont need "Spawn Protection" mechanic. It's possible to make it easier and better, we need spawns out of map. We need 3 spawns on each side, every on the edge of map. When you'll spawn there, you'll need to enter the battlefiled.

 

3. Battle Directions

 

At this moment we can see, that almost at all maps we fight from West to East or vice versa. We need more scenarios of one map with vertical or aslant fights.

For example on Poland map one team can spawn in town and another one in forest in North of the town.

http://imgur.com/a/iU6Rm

Village will protect one side from sniping by entire length of map, and another side will be protected by woods, bushes and fortifications.

 

3. Core Map

 

The best maps in the game is propably Mozdok and Volokolomsk, maybe it still has lot of humps, but villages, forest, train station and big parts with open fields makes this maps so real. In Hurtgen Forest we don't even fight in forest, whole south part of map isn't used by players. Other maps should be designed similiar to these maps but with own unique features like towns, rivers, hills, bridges.

 

[Godman_82 9,389]

1 hour ago, KH_Alan said:

Not necessarrily if open parts of the map are not entirely flat and provide good hull down positions or possibilites to move behind some ridges undetected. Open map doesn't need to be flat. Mozdok is open map yet there are numerous places to go hull down or move undeteted.

 

Of course urban area doesn't need to be always in the dead center of the map but in center between spawn points so both forces have reasonably same distance (terrain dependant) to it. Placing urban area at the edge would again limit approach from underneath that urban area. Target is to make urban area approachable from all sides so force which manage to establish control of terrain around it will be able to capture it more easily as it is in reality.

 

One example would be original Poland map. Whoever established control over S ridge and N tree patched areas usually won the battle as their forces could capture without much ground threat (only air).

Agree. I would only add that even if both teams have equal distance to urban area BUT there is cap inside, it might not be balanced game thanks to one single vehicle type on certain BR (like Hellcats). Creation of the map should consider many possible scenarios and not lead to "first team wins" (like it quite often happens on Ash River, when there is only one cap placed at the highest level).

[AlanHR 5,261]

1 minute ago, Godman_82 said:

Agree. I would only add that even if both teams have equal distance to urban area BUT there is cap inside, it might not be balanced game thanks to one single vehicle type on certain BR (like Hellcats). Creation of the map should consider many possible scenarios and not lead to "first team wins" (like it quite often happens on Ash River, when there is only one cap placed at the highest level).

It may be done by slowing down capping itself. Needs some experimenting but it can be ballanced so even if Hellcat gets to cap first it would take significant time to cap it which gives other side opportunity to counter it. Maybe cap time needed could be determined when session starts according to vehicle speeds in session itself (number of JIP players is insignificant here).

[PL_Andrev 7,386]

1 hour ago, Tivoru said:

The best maps in the game is propably Mozdok and Volokolomsk, maybe it still has lot of humps, but villages, forest, train station and big parts with open fields makes this maps so real. In Hurtgen Forest we don't even fight in forest, whole south part of map isn't used by players. Other maps should be designed similiar to these maps but with own unique features like towns, rivers, hills, bridges.

 

Volokolomsk has two bugs:

1. When there is one capture zone is at open field (no village) spawn is not accessible by team attacking from one side. It makes this map unbalanced at this point.

(one team is hiding by wrecks / trenches when second  team have "wall of ground" before zone where is exterminated and cannot punch back when go to zone).

2. Color of snow is different than other map area when you use plane - maps looks cut-off from plane map. 

 

But you're right - this is a very good map.

[AtomicPope 3,953]

Yeah as others mentioned, Volokolamsk is also a great map, I like all variants of that map. What comes to mind there is that the smallest of the Volokolamks map variant should maybe restricted to lower tiers since it feels a bit restrictive on fast vehicles with long range guns. I think it would overall be a good idea to have bigger maps selected more often by the MM with increasing BR. Small maps are okay with the low calibre and low velocity guns on the early tanks, but as the velocity, range and destructive effect of the weapons grows with rising BR it would be cool to have the map selection reflect that. Also distance is a protection itself, you're harder to hit at a distance and more likely to survive hits since the pen drops with range.

 

2 hours ago, Schindibee said:

 

Also, maps are usually very VERY cluttered with details and features which do appear in real life, but not in such quantities/densities usually: not every scenery type features huge bouldelike rock formations that offer convenient, non accessible barriers.

 

 

Also this, especially with the giant rocks on some maps. Also(maybe it's just my detail level) but to me the rocks often look kinda low poly and ugly, and look out of place, and their abundance on some maps feel unnatural. 38th parallel, that new Korea map has alot of neat details like the korean style houses and the new trees/plants, the terraced rice fields, but those details are overhadowed by giant rocks blocking view everywhere; they feel really out of place and constrain your movement. IMO if they are intended to limit line of sight it would look better to replace some of the rocks with some of those korean style houses, or forest patches if possible.

 

[Bat_the_Judge 982]

I certainly agree with the idea of slowing down the speed of calturing bases in domination. mainly, volokolamsk leads me to this, since on the large volokolamsk variant in RB it is just so one-sided that the team with m18s or russian aa trucks will always get the advantage and often cap 2 or even 3 points before the other team, usually german, even gets to the nearest capture point

[MaybeMaybeNot 1,759]

Map sizes are roughly the same (majority) , just different arrangements , this all comes down to level design  and the ability of the dagor engine current . the bigger maps you all love are very open and on a level basis not that heavy in resources because well there is not much to render in for the map ( adding players and players movements at distance does require more resources )  

 

Adding more  aesthetic details & level-specific graphic textures for more immersion typically requires more resources from the client and server  "post-processing step on textures"   for a 9k x 9k map lets say 

Many of our player base have med systems , high end users are not that common so many things come at a  performance cost. Some work to Dagor engine (dont quote me ) might not happen at all but   we did have streaming introduced recently ,  we could see , along with the new sound engine in the year 2017 i'm thinking may /Jun we may hear somthing about a dagor update & sound engine update  (again speculating i am) then we may see large-scale features more accessible and rendered

 

 

With WWM on the horizon new locations , altered locations on a larger scale is the idea , testing will prove what will be what , so when closed testing begins i hope many of you are in it  

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bat_the_Judge 982]

Hunternz , a little off topic here, but in this thread you mentioned WWM mode quite a few times and about early 2017... Are you already introduced with details or no? Also, is it already im the final development stages without community knowing it, like gaijin does all the time?  Im just being very curious right now 

Edited December 27, 2016 by palmatius100

[MaybeMaybeNot 1,759]

5 hours ago, Tivoru said:

1. Realistic Terrain/Field

 

At this moment every map, doesn't matter it is small or big one, is designed to be full of humps. That humps slow down tanks, especially slower tanks, like Churchill, Matilda, T95, Tortoise, Maus. They need to be more flat like in real life. 

 

For example El Alamein ingame:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 2. Spawns

 

To protect players from spawn kills we dont need "Spawn Protection" mechanic. It's possible to make it easier and better, we need spawns out of map. We need 3 spawns on each side, every on the edge of map. When you'll spawn there, you'll need to enter the battlefiled.

 

3. Battle Directions

 

At this moment we can see, that almost at all maps we fight from West to East or vice versa. We need more scenarios of one map with vertical or aslant fights.

For example on Poland map one team can spawn in town and another one in forest in North of the town.

http://imgur.com/a/iU6Rm

Village will protect one side from sniping by entire length of map, and another side will be protected by woods, bushes and fortifications.

 

3. Core Map

 

The best maps in the game is propably Mozdok and Volokolomsk, maybe it still has lot of humps, but villages, forest, train station and big parts with open fields makes this maps so real. In Hurtgen Forest we don't even fight in forest, whole south part of map isn't used by players. Other maps should be designed similiar to these maps but with own unique features like towns, rivers, hills, bridges.

 

 

El Alamein different photo of real life 

 

 

 

 

Spawns 

 

This is tricky it may seem all easy stuff to you guys but the depth of it well is not that easy to balance , i'm not going to touch much more on spawns because spawn camping will come into this discussion and i'm not going to allow that , but lets see what happens if everyone stays inline per say.

 

 

 

 

 

Battle Directions

 

Not a bad concept for that map , some flaws but possibly a RB SB arrangement 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Alabama-Shrimp@psn 735]

Personally I don't like Volokolomsk  because it's so lumpy making it very slow going, not helped by the snow, for heavy tanks and can make it really difficult for SPG to even line up a shot. 

 

Unlike a lot of people with well though out and considered answers from my point of view, which is always AB, I don't know what the answer is to the map problems. I do know that the recent changes haven't helped and in some cases, jungle, ash river and eastern Europe (haven't had Berlin yet) they have spoiled what were pretty decent maps to play on so first they should be undone then new maps created with what has been suggested. 

 

[MaybeMaybeNot 1,759]

4 minutes ago, palmatius100 said:

Hunternz , a little off topic here, but in this thread you mentioned WWM mode quite a few times and about early 2017... Are you already introduced with details or no? Also, is it already im the final development stages without community knowing it, like gaijin does all the time?  Im just being very curious right now 

 

Yes WWM is completed in primitive stage , the core of the mode  is complete because basic game mechanics are completed (refining ongoing)  , some features and changes to the game have been because of said mode.

 

So let's say introduction of an alpha  may appear for closed testing , FEEDBACK from community on this will be vital to more development of said mode  

[MaybeMaybeNot 1,759]

10 minutes ago, *Alabama-Shrimp said:

Personally I don't like Volokolomsk  because it's so lumpy making it very slow going, not helped by the snow, for heavy tanks and can make it really difficult for SPG to even line up a shot. 

 

Unlike a lot of people with well though out and considered answers from my point of view, which is always AB, I don't know what the answer is to the map problems. I do know that the recent changes haven't helped and in some cases, jungle, ash river and eastern Europe (haven't had Berlin yet) they have spoiled what were pretty decent maps to play on so first they should be undone then new maps created with what has been suggested. 

 

 

Volokolomsk  dynamically needs this ok , otherwise guy moves 400 meters and then its over for you or them , and a sniping feast on each map is the only game style you will be able to play .

 

IRL what do you think happens on different terrains , snow slows you down , typically tanks and vehicles just got stuck , hills need to provide cover , engagements are always going to be around 1.7k  at its longest distance on smaller maps