Why Not Have Procedurally Generated Pvp Arenas?

[Flibbertigibbety]

I enjoy the pre-made arenas that DE has created, but it seems like there's a lot of variety that could be had by having procedural generated PVP arenas thrown into the mix. I mean... PVE is all about it, so I'm surprised that they're not in PVP. If the arenas generated had set of generation rules to make them good PVP maps, it could work out quite well. Make deathmatch an asymmetric map, where CTF would be a large tile in the middle, a large tile on each side, and several medium tiles to connect them. Have the procedural process setup to make them symmetrical, and players would have a different battlefield to play on every time.

 

I mean... the tiles already exist, and many of them would be an absolute blast in a PVP battle. They'd just have to add spawn, flag, ammo, energy, and health points to each tile.

 

I suppose the only issue would be that you might have to have a tile "mirrored" to make it truly symmetrical, and I don't know how easy it would be for DE to do that.

Edited October 28, 2015 by flibbertig155

[AdunSaveMe]

Because having a random map is just confusing.

[Krion112]

I think it's a two-fold issue:

 

First, it's easier to balance a hand crafted map, rather than trying to balance for a map that can be randomized from any number of tiles. It may seem like it could be balanced, but it'd be very difficult due to all the potential combinations.

 

And second, last I recalled, the tile system can't support connecting multiple paths of tiles. All alternate pathing is done in a single tile, but it sounds like you expect it to generate an arena, and as I said, the system doesn't currently support that.

[Flibbertigibbety]

I think it's a two-fold issue:

 

First, it's easier to balance a hand crafted map, rather than trying to balance for a map that can be randomized from any number of tiles. It may seem like it could be balanced, but it'd be very difficult due to all the potential combinations.

 

And second, last I recalled, the tile system can't support connecting multiple paths of tiles. All alternate pathing is done in a single tile, but it sounds like you expect it to generate an arena, and as I said, the system doesn't currently support that.

I agree that it's easier to balance a hand crafted map, but if the maps were symmetrical, balance would be... well... balanced between teams. Both teams would have the same advantages and disadvantages. Powerups, spawn points, etc would be set by DE so they wouldn't be random on the individual tiles. As far as tiles supporting multiple paths, who says they have to? You can have the tiles connected by the same doors. on each side to create a linear battlefield.

 

As far as mirroring to make the sides of the levels identical, an option would always be to only use tiles that are perfectly symmetrical themselves. Many corpus levels are very similar shapes whether you enter one side or the other.

 

But I personally think the randomness of the levels you play on would be exciting. Starting the battle not quit knowing what you're about to get into sounds pretty exciting to me.

[AlphaSierraMike]

I agree that it's easier to balance a hand crafted map, but if the maps were symmetrical, balance would be... well... balanced between teams. Both teams would have the same advantages and disadvantages. Powerups, spawn points, etc would be set by DE so they wouldn't be random on the individual tiles. As far as tiles supporting multiple paths, who says they have to? You can have the tiles connected by the same doors. on each side to create a linear battlefield.

 

As far as mirroring to make the sides of the levels identical, an option would always be to only use tiles that are perfectly symmetrical themselves. Many corpus levels are very similar shapes whether you enter one side or the other.

 

But I personally think the randomness of the levels you play on would be exciting. Starting the battle not quit knowing what you're about to get into sounds pretty exciting to me.

If two separate tiles are connected by only one doorway, the map will be unplayable, when both teams would just wait and shoot anything going past that doorway. Lay a few Hallowed Ground, shoot some penta rounds, have an entire team run Kulstars. It'll just turn into a waiting game, even with Warframe's slow TTK. It's always nice to be able to predict movement, but this is just straight up telling people are going to come through this doorway, feel free to grab your kills. Multiple pathways is always needed in a multiplayer map, unless it's something goofy like Husky Raid on H4. That's a solid example of what single path games turn into. There's a flag to cap, but most of the time the match ends by the time limit because nobody can get past that doorway in the middle.

 

Besides, if it was truly random, every map you play would be the first time, and I think this is a common feeling, every first match on a new map is always boring and frustrating because I have no idea where to go, where the hotspots are, where the pickups are, and where the enemy is generally. Most games already end with hitting the time limit, this would just make it even slower.

[Flibbertigibbety]

If two separate tiles are connected by only one doorway, the map will be unplayable, when both teams would just wait and shoot anything going past that doorway. Lay a few Hallowed Ground, shoot some penta rounds, have an entire team run Kulstars. It'll just turn into a waiting game, even with Warframe's slow TTK. It's always nice to be able to predict movement, but this is just straight up telling people are going to come through this doorway, feel free to grab your kills. Multiple pathways is always needed in a multiplayer map, unless it's something goofy like Husky Raid on H4. That's a solid example of what single path games turn into. There's a flag to cap, but most of the time the match ends by the time limit because nobody can get past that doorway in the middle.

 

Besides, if it was truly random, every map you play would be the first time, and I think this is a common feeling, every first match on a new map is always boring and frustrating because I have no idea where to go, where the hotspots are, where the pickups are, and where the enemy is generally. Most games already end with hitting the time limit, this would just make it even slower.

I can see where you're coming from regarding the doorways. Many tiles have the larger doorways, so it might not be as big of a deal if those were used. As far as the maps being new... the layout and tiles you play on will be unexpected, but will most definitely be familiar if you play the game at all. Players have run those tiles over and over... and will know the layout the second they walk through the door.

[AlphaSierraMike]

I can see where you're coming from regarding the doorways. Many tiles have the larger doorways, so it might not be as big of a deal if those were used. As far as the maps being new... the layout and tiles you play on will be unexpected, but will most definitely be familiar if you play the game at all. Players have run those tiles over and over... and will know the layout the second they walk through the door.

I'm assuming you're referring to the tube doors or the wide doors in void, and their counterparts in corpus/grineer tiles. They're still coming in a linear fashion, even if they could bulletjump through the door or something. It's still riskier than staying back and stare at the door, which compared to running through the door, you have cover and first shot advantage when the person coming through the doorway won't know where the enemy is hiding, but the enemy knows exactly where he's coming from, that doorway.

 

So it's individual tiles like PvE, then it probably can't achieve that freshness you're looking for if it was fully procedural generated, like seen a few variation, seen them all, even PvE maps seems a bit samely after 50 consecutive void runs, yeah ok it's the atrium room, now it's the sewer, and then the intermission room with two death orbs.

 

And with single doorways, the interaction between the tilesets isn't going to change that much. Yeah the cover might be on the right side of the doorway this time instead of the left, but that's about it. Once you cross that doorway it's just play like you would on that tile, unlike a Minecraft world if it was a shooter map, you have different elevation change, vantage points, object/cover layouts, caves for flanking, chest that contains pickup, bodies of water to make a quick escape, etc. But then again, you lose a lot of control with that route. You can't really get the best of both worlds of proper map flow and procedural generated, like the gameplay is not entirely random, nor does it have the proper flow of an individually designed map.

 

I wouldn't mind having pickups occasionally change places though, like a 50/50 chance that the point will spawn a health/energy, and maybe even add a extra roomy ammo box as well into the rotation. That sounds kinda nice in terms of making energy less easy to locate.

[Nlim]

I rather would like to see a simple map builder (either with the orange or void simulation tileset since they seem easy enough to hanld to make it possible) integrated into the steam workshope (like they seem to plan with skins) which than may be used once custom matches are avaliable (heck in theory maybe even in PvE for the Simulacrum simulation). Would allow for varierty and specially designed challenges (and as a bonus it would probably be good for a tournament scence should one ever develop since they don´t have to use the official maps if players have problems with them *thinking of Starcraft 2 maps*).