Why PS2 Maps are Generally Considered Bad

It's simple. It's so simple. I can't believe I've never read it here or Reddit or PSU or anywhere.

The PS2 design team aren't used to making FPS environments. They're (MMO)RPG designers.

Look at any given base, and you'll see a multitude of screwups. Open firelanes, a chronic lack of z-axis, poor map flow, poor base layouts, improper ways of giving vehicles access. Replying to another thread I was thinking through what they were thinking, how they screwed it up so bad when the first (for all it's flaws) was far better in this regard.

Then I got to thinking. Forgelight is an MMO engine. This is, like it or not, the Everquest Next team's handiwork. I can't think of a single member of the team who worked on a competitive, team-based FPS. (Someone, please correct me if I'm wrong, I often am.) But you know what these environments would be PERFECT for? A competitive, PVP-based, Everquest-style (or WoW style, if you don't remember WoW ripping off EQ2) MMORPG. You could play any futuristic MMO from the last 5 years in Planetside 2 and be quite happy. I can see my SWTOR Mara being transplanted to Auraxis, and only freaking out when he can't find any mobs or dailies.

PS2 map design isn't deliberately bad, despite what we've all been saying this last year. It's actually pretty good. It's just the genre is wrong. If any dev reads this (lololol X-POST TO REDDIT BRB) I'd be interested to hear about the FPS chops of your level designers. If not, perhaps the PS2 team would be well served by hiring aspiring talent from the CS, UT, Quake or even CoD modding scenes? I reckon NS2 would be a perfect breeding ground for people with experience in asymmetrical balance, for what it's worth.

Anyway, as usual shoot me down if I'm blatantly wrong. I think I'm onto something. I still think the state of bases and all the issues resulting is a bit poor, but suddenly I'm a lot more accepting of basic errors in map layout. I wonder if anyone else feels the same.

I don't know about what bases in particular you are talking OP, but i think that most people agree that the revamped bases are better in terms of battleflow (with that I mean less huge chokepoints and more smaller ones).

It could be because of the lack of Dev experience, but i rather think that it's because of a lack of time, remember in what shape this game was released? Balance was screwed, half of the things that were supposed to be implemented are only coming out now, the game was a mess.

If you ever asked yourself "what the hell are Devs thinking when building bases?", then you can just watch Arclegger's livestream, i found it really interesting.

I agree.

Have a look around the parts of the map NOT near a base... lots of interesting little landmarks and scenes, etc...
If PS2 was a RPG the maps would work pretty well.

Expanding on your theory, what we have is RPG continents with FPS bases (poorly implemented mind you...)

If all they did was improve the FPS nature of the bases it would be a massive improvement.
(And NO, more walls, rat races and dome shields are NOT the answer!)

Amerish bases are amazing and i feel that content is gradually getting better

I was actually thinking of SWTOR and GW2 when I made the connection...the last 2 proper MMOs I played. The bases actually better fit those 2 games than any FPS I've played in recent memory. The closest comparison to FPS design I can think of is the original Tribes, but this game has neither the speed nor the dynamic.

Not saying you're incorrect, but I respectfully disagree.

Yeah, I did sit in on this stream, and it was somewhat reassuring. However, it's like they've only recently started thinking about this stuff. Esamir, case in point. I agree it was a time-based thing, but more that they didn't have time to properly train themselves up. Watching him miss things that come up in basic tutorials I used 10 years ago kind of lends him to criticism. He's not bad, but I just don't think he properly has a feel for how his own maps will play within this context.

"Competitive FPS's", translation "COD things", no thanks.

No, how does CS, Enemy Territory, BF2 and UT sound? It's accepted that CoD is not competitive. You'll have to try again, I'm afraid.

I was into level design for Halflife/Halflife2 and it's mods back in the day.
Was well received in the mod community and learned a lot about level design.

What OP has stated is rather ambiguous and doesn't really apply in the way he put forth because this game is an MMO and in a way, they are making it up as they go along.
Statements like 'lack of z-axis', 'poor map flow' etc. aren't statements of quantitative measurements. They are broad statements about aesthetics from a point of view. Sure, many may share the same point of view ( I'm sure I would agree with OP on many specific points) but to suggest that the team needs to ask a UT level dev or someone like me who designed for 32 player Deathmatch with different weapons, no vehicles (or limited vehicles) etc. etc. etc. is rather unrealistic.

If you want a sincere discussion on level design

1. pick a particular area of the map
2. decide what the point of that area of the map is
3. explain why you believe it has faults
4. play the 'what-if' game to try and adjust for whatever conceivable play style would do in that situation
5. choose what play style you want to weight that area to.

After that, you then move onto the next place on the map. All the while you need to keep track of the different places you've now designed/re-designed and make sure that the continent has a wide variety of places that cater to the different scenarios and doesn't favor certain play styles, which is a whole other level of the map design...

Have you seen some of Cleggs tweeted pic of the revamp. It looks incredible.

No i havent actually. I'll check it out now

Once you get off Indar and take a look around the base design improves drastically.

I like how you wrote "generally considered bad" when expressing your own personal opinion. It makes it sound like your individual opinion matters more than it does, which is almost universally agreed.

The base layout seems very random...especially the new Biolabs...I walk around that thinking, the hell happened in here? Its like a twister came through and just dropped stuff everywhere, then the cleanup crew just decided to stand everything up where it lay and call it good.

Same thing in the New Freyr, the walls are just randomly placed to cut off the vehicle lane from the base. THe walkways dont lead anywhere, not like they lead back into the spawn rooms or something. Or across to the outer walls. Those buildings around the gens are all just randomly placed in w/e fashion.

Then the walls around the towers and the outer base walls....even those dont seem to have any rhyme or reason to them. SoE has blocked off the back doors to Amp stations, now we get to climb into the towers...it might not look so bad if those areas were not previously doorways that looked better before.

In case you didn't see them yet

Meh, the two ive seen didn't look like much of an improvement. They need some FPS people in there doing map design.

Ok had not seen those...The underground point is nice but the overhanging land will be great for attackers. just meh.

In all fairness Indar and Amerish are pretty bland. Mostly landscape design then copy paste buildings. Esamir on the other hand is much better now. Bases are more unique (still suffer some degree of copy/paste) and generally better designed. I was also watching the live stream of one of the devs making a new Amerish base and that seems quite cool.

Personaly I also think that some critisims compairing PS to most of the "Competitive" FPS map design it a bit hard just due to the Scale of the battlefields. Many FPS maps are far smaller then the average battle range around a base ( think the fight between Indar excavation/ Quartz ridge) which by it's nature helps change what they have to do to make a map compaired to.

For example I'll look at Howling Passes design. With how it is the base it's self is nothing special, however when you look at it in a larger scale you see how its design and position lends itself to a Strong Defese verses attacks from the North/West, while having a weaker defence when being attacked from the south.

It seems to me that the root problem is in considering them 'maps'. It seems that the continents have been designed from the off as a suite of maps linked together with each map providing a unique fight that is fair for both sides. But this is a narrow view of what PS is which is conquest across Auraxis as a whole.

We've been calling from beta for the bases to be more defensible, slowly but slowly the devs are getting there. Rather than having experience in bf series design a better understanding of the unique aspects of PS1 might have been better then build the bases around that.

I hardly think that your conclusion is anywhere near fair to the SOE devs. Lets take a look at some of the challenges PS2 maps would present that normal FPS maps do not. Particularly pre lattice

1. Absolutely no control over population size. A given section of land needs to be able to put up a good fight from anywhere from 10-20 players to hundreds.
2. Absolutely no control over the boundaries of the map. Take a given base there is almost never any borders beyond terrain.
3. Minimal control of spawn points. Yes there's a preset one in the base but AMS's will define where the fight is coming from.
4. All of these prevents the devs from knowing the vector of the combat. Both the direction and speed of the attack will be determined by the placement of Sunderers and infantry vs vehicle composition are completely up to the players.
5. No control over the infantry vs vehicle vs air mix. BF4 has a fixed number of vehicles per map. PS2 you could have a fight that involves armor columns supported by air clashing and 10 minutes later that same piece of land has to support a rolling inventory battle between AMS deployments.
6. No control over population balances. While massive numerical superiority will tend to lead to victory, the maps have to be designed that both an underdog and overdog have to be able to enjoy the fight.

What does all this give you? Jack of all trade maps. Because they need to be able to support nearly any fight type and that makes them a bit generic. You can't emphasize the z axis because there may not be one. A firelane is directional and the combat is as likely to occur across that direction as along it. Plus any angle between.

Overall I think they've done fairly well. And they've been redesigning their game to allow for more control of some of these factors (ie lattice and vehicle control) and committed themselves to doing better.

Even if we take your incredibly hostile conclusion as true, I'd counter that most true FPS map designers would simply respond that excellent maps in these environments are impossible and not even bother. Maybe they grabbed MMO people because there's a similar lack of control in MMOs.