I hate your map design philosophy

This is the absolute worst part of the game for me. Almost every map is filled with tight corridors and choke points. And the open maps just have a bunch of unwalkable terrain. And they are all filled with these tall vertical assets that just obstructs your view.



I mean what exactly is the purpose of this tower here? It's not just unwalkable terrain, it blocks everything behind it. It's like your map designers have OCD. They see an open space and they go "We NEED to put something here! Preferably something tall!" What is the opposite of claustrophobia?



Jesus just look at Willow. You took the spray paint brush in MSPaint and just went psycho all over this map. Full of trees everywhere

I think the map design in PoE2 complete shit.

Map designers? They're procedurally generated; what do you mean? Your complaints are valid, but your framing is weird.

I agree, though; terrain that hides monsters and effects should have transparency, not whatever that blackout nonsense is, and the leaves of trees should not stop me from seeing monsters when my character is on the ground presumably looking ahead. I also think there are a few too many bits of map clutter that block line of sight and projectiles.

There are also a few maps (blooming fields or whatever is a big one) where it can be difficult for me to tell the difference between walkable and unwalkable terrain without looking at the map, and I feel that is a major failing.

"

ReggShanks#0071 wrote:

Map designers? They're procedurally generated; what do you mean? Your complaints are valid, but your framing is weird.

I agree, though; terrain that hides monsters and effects should have transparency, not whatever that blackout nonsense is, and the leaves of trees should not stop me from seeing monsters when my character is on the ground presumably looking ahead. I also think there are a few too many bits of map clutter that block line of sight and projectiles.

There are also a few maps (blooming fields or whatever is a big one) where it can be difficult for me to tell the difference between walkable and unwalkable terrain without looking at the map, and I feel that is a major failing.

Some are, some are not.

But even those who are, are using "blocks".
Those blocks are designed by the same people that design the ones that aren't.

Not sure If I explained this right...

"

Skellymancer#5263 wrote:

"

ReggShanks#0071 wrote:

Map designers? They're procedurally generated; what do you mean? Your complaints are valid, but your framing is weird.

I agree, though; terrain that hides monsters and effects should have transparency, not whatever that blackout nonsense is, and the leaves of trees should not stop me from seeing monsters when my character is on the ground presumably looking ahead. I also think there are a few too many bits of map clutter that block line of sight and projectiles.

There are also a few maps (blooming fields or whatever is a big one) where it can be difficult for me to tell the difference between walkable and unwalkable terrain without looking at the map, and I feel that is a major failing.

Some are, some are not.

But even those who are, are using "blocks".
Those blocks are designed by the same people that design the ones that aren't.

Not sure If I explained this right...

I believe you're referring to tilesetting. And yes, but it's usually more complicated than assembling a group of premade blocks into a final completed map space like a sliding tile puzzle. There's a sense of fuzziness to it as the generator places elements.

As an example, that Willow map that OP posted a screenshot of -- do you notice how the center of the > shape has fewer small grain-of-sand style noise points on the map? It's clearer. If the map generator were simply assembling large chunks of map into a whole, you wouldn't see a central stripe of clearing like that, you'd tend to see awkward cutoffs and treelines along edges. That tells me the generator probably has an object density gradient where there's more of those small dots of non-traversable terrain near the edges of the map than in the center.

They have a different generation algorithm for each tileset that suits the tileset. If they wanted to reduce the amount of small chunks of impassable terrain, that could most likely be tweaked pretty easily for any map, although it would be less apparent on some (re: Slick) than others (Woodlands, Willow).

"

ReggShanks#0071 wrote:

I believe you're referring to tilesetting. And yes, but it's usually more complicated than assembling a group of premade blocks into a final completed map space like a sliding tile puzzle. There's a sense of fuzziness to it as the generator places elements.

PoE1 didnt have the problem because you were able to run maps you wanted to and were not forced to run every map and on top of that most maps features wide lanes or open spaces plus way better movement.

I dont care about your explanation as to the 'why' because it sucks and feels bad and that's all that matters.

+1

Agreed, 90% of map layouts are terrible.

let us run what layouts we want. if we just want to run sandspit with breach/deli all day then let us. thats the beauty of poe1. you can run what you want how you want it.

"

ReggShanks#0071 wrote:

the leaves of trees should not stop me from seeing monsters when my character is on the ground presumably looking ahead.

Uh oh, if we begin to bring realism into the picture (har har) here, we might begin to wonder why our characters can't see past the edge of the world (screen) on a nice, sunny day, even though that appears to be a distance of about 7 meters / 23 feet, vertically.

Particularly short-sighted bunch, these exiles...or perhaps it's a peculiar, magical fog that plagues Wraeclast...or smog created by nasty Vaal experiments?

But seriously, this is hands-down the most ridiculous legacy characteristic revisited in the sequel. In PoE 1, the excuse was that it was hard-coded and impossible to change, yet...surprise! (not really)...here it is again, over a decade later, imposed by choice: One can neither scale back far enough to see a decent distance around in 3rd-person view, nor draw forward far enough to see decently in quasi-1st-person view.

Regarding map design: Yes, the majority of maps are congested with impassable terrain, almost certainly to limit ranged and AoE blasters in their ability to destroy targets at a distance, to provide monsters with cover for ambushing characters at close range, and to make retreat (down narrow corridors in the presence of monsters and ground effects) difficult.

+10000000000000

Worst maps in an arpg easy.