[crossfire] Map Design, was Re: IRC traffic for Sunday Oct 22

[Mark Wedel]

Alex Schultz wrote:

> Map design:
>     -Are maps designed badly so players can die too suddenly?

  Some maps are.  I don't have any specific maps in mind.  And some of this is 
just the general speed of the game - the fact that a combat takes less than 5 
seconds means that death can happen very quickly.

  The general case of problem maps are those in which you enter already in 
danger, and don't have a good clue on how dangerous it is before going down the 
exit.

  In some cases, in fact, I do a double apply - apply the exit to the map, and 
immediately hit apply again, so I can quickly see the layout of the map and what 
is on it and come up with a game plan.

  But the specific problems are maps you enter, get assaulted by monsters, and 
are pretty much dead immediately.  I don't have a problem with maps that have 
monsters by the entrance if the difficulty progression is there (for example, if 
you just had to kill a dragon to get to the exit leading to the map, having an 
dragon by the entrance wouldn't be unheard of).  But many maps have creatures 
that are much more difficult (or a completely different type, so you may be 
prepared for a dragon and get a titan) type of thing.

>     -Proposed standard view size
>         -Is it needed? Perhaps LOS should always limit seen distance
> instead of
>         a hard map size limit.

  For indoor maps, that is often the case.  But it also depends on what the 
hypothetical target is.

  I'd say there are not a lot of maps where a 25x25 map will see much more than 
a 19x19 map (but there are some that do have large open areas).  But I'd say 
there are probably a lot of maps where 19x19 will see quite a bit more than 
13x13.  13x13 means you are seeing 6 spaces way from you - even twisty dungeon 
maps often have straight passages here and there that are longer than 6 spaces.

  I would say that pretty much every underground map should use darkness code, 
which does limit visibility quite a bit.  However, the player still has an 
advantage here - shoot an burning hands (or other flame spell) in some direction 
- that illuminates the area and also kills anything that is there.

  And I'd say that if things are done so that LOS makes it so that you never see 
beyond 9 spaces (thus, 19x19), you may as just make that the official map size.

  I recall the real issue here was what advantage do different players get for 
different sized maps.

  At the most basic level, I'd say let players use whatever map size they want. 
  If they decide to play on an 11x11 map, they are making the choice to 
disadvantage themselves.  The problem there, of course, is if some map has some 
visual clue that is 8 spaces away (pulling a handle operates that gate, etc) 
that you don't see on an 11x11 map but would on a 17x17 map.

  (as an aside, there is no way to prevent players from using small maps if they 
want, because they can always modify the client to show whatever size they want)

  So the issue really comes to mapmakers.  If they want to hide something from 
the players, they should probably do it via LOS and not by distance (put the 
lever behind a bend in the wall, etc).  But to be honest, I can't recall many 
issues where this comes up.

  The few cases where this does sometime come up isn't related to gameplay, but 
just visual continuity.  Some maps have 'views' of the surround area (I'm think 
the comet quest, where when at the top level, you see the surrounding area).  In 
many cases, those were designed for 11x11 mapview, so if you have a view larger 
than that, it doesn't look right.  But that is in some sense easy to fix - if 
those are adjusted for 25x25 view, they would never be incorrect.

  One random musing in this:  Dungeons maps are generally limited in size per 
level for various reasons (performance and monster creation being the main 
ones), with things like exits/stairs from one level to the next.

  It'd perhaps be interesting to make a rambling dungeon with map tiling, with 
monsters getting tougher the deeper you go in.  Wonder if the random map code 
could be changed to make such maps.  This would fix the problem you don't know 
what is about to kill you when you go down an exit - you'd always have a chance 
to see the monsters at some distance in such a tiled dungeon.