Level Design And You

[Oates_]

Scott on choosing the tile system (taken from Devstream 7): 

"As far as the decision to do it, I think it was more, just, we knew we were a small team, and we knew we were going to do a PvE game. We knew that we had lots of warnings from other developers and research saying that you can't build the content fast enough in front of the player, so we were looking at solutions to do that at a high quality, and we came up with a level generator. It seems to work really well for us so far. There's still a ways to go, I think we can improve it. To speak to one of the points was, multiple ways to get to the objective, we need to address that part. I think that's something that I'd like to see the generator be able to do. Either we put multiple ways in the actual tiles, or we allow the generator to actually create multiple paths to the same objective so that the player can actually choose left or right."

 

Devstream 7 was about a year ago now. The tile system still seems to work just as well now at addressing those concerns as it did then. How best can the level system be expanded to continue to provide the same high quality expectations as the game moves forward?

 

I don't have the best solutions. And even if I thought I did, 

 

 That isn't my call.

 

I'm just asking questions that are aimed at getting people to think. We should always be looking at how things can be improved, regardless of whether or not we believe that anything is broken. Feedback is more than just bug reports.

 

In conclucsion, I would remind you that level design is foundational to gameplay.

Changes come with great cost, but there are still many benefits that can result

from those changes. Thank you for your time.

 

[Kyte]

You could start by offering something of value yourself.

[DSpite]

If you designed 50 tiles and they were put into the current procedural map-generator, they would be "that annoying room" and we would never really care or notice. Because you can't design a map. Maps are RNG. Tiles are a way to pretend we have ships instead of rooms. I want ships.

 

Actually no, they wouldnt be, as I would at least stick to the premise that this game is Warframe.

 

You know that vast tile with the ships docking? It would be easy to have the ship itself activate guns and fire on you forcing you to take cover while fighting, with the option of breaking into the ship back doors via hacking and either kill the operators or destroy onboard systems etc etc.

 

You know Those tiles that have massive amount of vertical space? Why not add top and bottom exits that make the players make the players use their abilities to navigate? Finally some extra incentive to use either our jumping skills or burn up some energy with movement abilities, while stuff still spawns and shoots us.

 

I'd rather have more "annoying rooms" thank you very much, then "that annoying square in the ground that keeps disgorging Moas", or "that annoying Osprey that just drops mines".

[Kyte]

Well they did say right now the implemented level generating tech isn't up to dealing with more than one path between major rooms. To me that's the most important thing that needs figuring out.and I'm fairly sure the DE staff already knows that.

[Lactamid]

Well they did say right now the implemented level generating tech isn't up to dealing with more than one path between major rooms. To me that's the most important thing that needs figuring out.and I'm fairly sure the DE staff already knows that.

Let's hope so. 1 path just doesn't cut in :(

[fredbred]

not sure what the first post want to change about the levels, but I spend over 300hrs of gameplay and I must say that the randomly generated levels are what I enjoy.

 

 What bothers me more that level design (if at all) is that for example on earth in open space, you hear "they are trying to choke you out"! I mean - what? BTW - the warframes are flying in the space outside of their spacecrafts. Why was it again the machines need to breath?

[Andreuswolf]

Yeah, I'm going to have to bump this.

 

DE, it's time to leave proceedural generation behind and start building memorable levels that make names like "Everest," "Pacific," "Olympus," "Io" or "Enceladus" actually mean something.

Edited August 10, 2014 by Andreuswolf

[AandOE]

If we had a defense map where the target was on a vertical elevator, and each level opened the door to a new and different threat, floor plan, et cetera, that'd be cool. 1st round, the basement/ground floor, 2nd round is the cat walks for the 1st floor, and so on up and up. (or down and further down) The procedural tiles system could then be implemented to provide x number of floors per made tile, with regular stairs heading up between each one at a fixed point. (for those not on the elevator when it starts up between rounds)

 

Some floors could be vast and wide, with lots of windows and light. Others could be cramped, windowless, and dark. Some could open out on a straight bridge, where snipers from an adjacent building/floor could do super long range attacks, or hordes of infested rush the target. The beauty with this is that we'd have to go into the mission with people owning a wide, diverse weapon set for an easier time, but this would not be the end all. Folks that want to spam one weapon would be forced to use their others if the doors open up with 20+ targets waiting for them right there. (melee time!) Or rather, the long range one would allow for great accuracy to be more useful than spray and pray. Want a nightmare mode version? Open 2, 3 or even 4 sides of the elevator up for worse and worse conditions. ^_^

[LukeAura]

In terms of why random tilesets, well, niche. 
Google third person dungeon crawler shooter. 
Your first hit is wikipedia, your second and third hit is a warframe review. 

You google third person open world shooter and you get things like, "Top 25 open world games." 
"Best shooters." 
"What are some good open world shooters?" 

The tilesets and the 'dungeon crawler' aspect they bring make warframe unique from other games. Helps it stand out.

And it would be pretty hard to claim any kind of level design as strictly better than any other.
The trick then, is making the tilesets good and the dungeon crawler system work. It would be simpler, more effective, and keep Warframe in its niche. 

More complicated maps, more surprises and twists, looser sense of direction on missions(waypoint the goal on the minimap, not the exit to follow in each room). Navigating the mission should not be about following the waypoint from one end of the room to another, but finding and advancing through a twisting maze of rooms.
Roughly, it would be like navigating the Depths from Dark Souls 1. Every path will bring you to the same end point, but there are so many and each one comes with its own tricks and challenges to conquer. 

 

[Oates_]

I don't think tile-sets will integrate well with Archwing gameplay. They're probably going to have specific Archwing missions that don't have much crossover with regular gameplay. I wouldn't want to see the outside of the current maps.

 

This is exactly the kind of thing I was worried about when I made this topic. Future game systems like Archwing will need a lot of work in order to integrate into the tile-system smoothly, that is, if immersion is to be maintained.

 

It is pointless to offer suggestions, I can only offer perspective. DE isn't stupid. They are well aware of what they are doing and why. I wish they would tell us their goals for specific systems in warframe so that we could provide better feedback. Right now feedback is purely subjective.

[DSpite]

You are all basically asking for something that does not exist in the real world. If we make ships, planes, starships, whatever, we will find the optimal layout to fit a requirement and we duplicate it. You expect every aircfraft carrier to have different layouts? For what? Confuse boarding parties? Pretty sure THEY would get intel first, and have a damn map. The only people you confuse is crewmen switching posts to another ship.

 

"Oh but it's not RL, it's a game". Yes, a game where NONE OF YOU have to code stuff anyway, that the more directionally inclined of us will absorb, memorize and will still just see as "another tile" on the 2nd play through, regardless of how much dynamic junk you put in the way. I know game maps better then local maps, or used to, until I started playing Ingress, and now give directions to people based on Portals. But that's another story.

 

Even if Warframe goes "Skyrim tile level mad", I fail to see what we really get out of it when we are not playing an exploration game.

 

Will I enjoy new maps? Immensely. For about an hour. Then I will stop noticing features and just remember hiding spots, learn the cover etc etc. Even if you made it dynamic, certain elements would need to stay constant (height of containers, barrel sizes). You would adapt in seconds. You could dump me in a random Bards Tale dungeon level - the ORIGINAL one btw, on Apple IIe, and I'd work out where I was, because I hand drew the maps, back in 1985 - the maps are not the core content here, the combat is.

 

If DE could press a few buttons and make it happen? Bring it on. Saying "we need this?" No way.

[mrhat.lf]

Something that might be a bit off topic would be so see more of the 'rare' tiles, not the standard yards upon yards of straight hallways. Take a look at Jupiter. For the people who love the skybox of the whole set also like to see more opened up areas. These more open areas are kind of rare, which disappoints me.