Big Maps & Small Maps
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The Lighter Side of Pessimism Join Date: 2002-03-02 Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
The Lighter Side of Pessimism Join Date: 2002-03-02 Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
While the size of the current maps does make for good games, I wonder about the potential for larger & smaller maps.
Current maps:
4-5 tech points, 9-11 res nodes & ~30 secs between each tech point
Big map:
6-7 tech points, 12-14 res nodes & ~45 secs between each tech point
Small map:
2-3 tech points, 6-8 res nodes & ~15 secs between each tech point
I imagine that games on smaller maps would play a lot like Combat. Fast paced, full of rushes with very little tech researched. Games on larger maps would probably be slower and involve a lot of late game tech (endless Onos vs EXO) and perhaps also require greater reliance on AI units and phase gates.
Do you think larger or smaller maps could also have a place in NS2?
and do you think these maps could work for competitive 6v6 play?
Current maps:
4-5 tech points, 9-11 res nodes & ~30 secs between each tech point
Big map:
6-7 tech points, 12-14 res nodes & ~45 secs between each tech point
Small map:
2-3 tech points, 6-8 res nodes & ~15 secs between each tech point
I imagine that games on smaller maps would play a lot like Combat. Fast paced, full of rushes with very little tech researched. Games on larger maps would probably be slower and involve a lot of late game tech (endless Onos vs EXO) and perhaps also require greater reliance on AI units and phase gates.
Do you think larger or smaller maps could also have a place in NS2?
and do you think these maps could work for competitive 6v6 play?
Comments
Not sure what would happen on the big maps, but they would at least allow both sides to get full tech.
Short version is that to properly balance the risk and reward of expansion, NS2 maps need to be relatively small and have few res nodes (as compared to a RTS). Drop the size/nodes further and the already dominating micro becomes overwhelming (e.g. NS2 combat). Increase it too much and the macro devolves into spam (e.g. constant mass lifeform/weapon explosions).
Say for instance by increasing the cost of placing an extractor and implementing a limit to extractor count, and combining this with having different tiers of resource nozzles available on the map, providing different amounts of res income. This would discourage the teams from just placing extractors everywhere on their side of the map, but force them to more carefully choose certain locations to expand to. This might even give the teams a bit more strategic flexibility and general variety in how games develop.
Just some theorycrafting though.
I say no thanks to either small or large maps. It's already hard enough to balance around the ONE tech point difference Veil offers, having to balance the game around a 3-4 tech point difference between maps would be a disaster.
The best solution to fix this issue would be to implement some sort of RT upgrading system. You need to make it more viable to upgrade a few close RTs rather than mass RT spam.
I agree with you, that I'd love to see bigger maps in terms of size. Honestly, I'd love to see NS1-style maps. Very complex, long, tight corridors. The level design of NS1 and NS2 varies vastly and, though I like the new NS2 approach, I think it can become dull with some time as all these huge rooms do not convey the same tight atmosphere you've felt when you played NS1 and spent most of the time in tight and long hallways. I know that didn't want that for NS2, though, I hope they change their opinion. Bigger and more complex is what I'd love see.
More tech-points than 4 or 5? Actually, no. More res-nodes? Why not, depends on the mapsize and layout I guess.
For example, in SC2 you typically increase your res flow by building more workers to harvest minerals/vespene gas at limited number of resource locations (e.g. main balance + 1-2 natural expansions). In NS2, on the other hand, you increase your res flow by capturing more resource locations.
This difference messes with the fundamental size and layout of maps in NS2 as they need to have fewer resource locations (to prevent spam) and smaller overall size (to bring the risk/reward of expansion into balance) than equivalent RTS maps.
In SC2, even on the smallest maps, many if not most resource locations are left either barely or untouched throughout a match. In NS2, its rare to have a res node not have an extractor or harvester on it at some point in the game and many spend most of their time captured rather than free. The cost/benefit of expanding is high in SC2, but low in NS2.
-It inherently favours marines since aliens need 3 hives to reach max tech and marines only need two
-The game would be leaving out much of the later game elements, becoming shorter and less varied
To have a map with less than 4 tech points there would need to be some kind of mod to even things out.
WUT?!
It's like playing maps with more or less players than the default.
Less players = big map = Alien favored
Many players = small map = Marine favored