How often do you recognize "adjacent" map slices?

[mjbroekman]

Does anyone get a happy feeling when you drop on a map and look around and say "Oh wait! I know this map. I've done so many missions right over <there>" on the edge of the map?

Just dropped on a desert base defense mission and it was within sensor range of the drop point for a desert battle. I was so happy to see the map re-use.

That being said, I'm ecstatic when I drop and DON'T recognize the map until the end of the mission when I look where I ended up and realize I just fought my way across a map, but just in a different direction.

 

[SpenReyn]

I'm practically giddy when I DON'T immediately recognize the map, since I tend to run the same missions on the same terrain types all the time. I'd love it if they could just alter the starting position like between 3-6 different options. If I have to run another "take out the enemy lance" on a tundra map one more time... but I'd rather do that than the 12 on 4 missions.

 

[mjbroekman]

I'm not entirely sure, but it feels like it happens a heck of a lot more often after 1.3...

 

[King of Zoot]

I tend to notice the map with the big sandbar and the one with the terraced hill a lot. Other than that not really.

 

[Eximar]

It pains me to say it, but we need more maps more than we need more mechs, at the moment.
How about lots more of both?

 

[mjbroekman]

It pains me to say it, but we need more maps more than we need more mechs, at the moment.
How about lots more of both?

Sure, but this thread wasn't about that. It was about the happy feeling you get when you discover that you are on a map slice you've played before but didn't recognize because of the spawn and objective locations. Also, I don't think we need new maps as the existing maps are ENORMOUS, but we just play on really small sections of them.

Unless you're talking about skirmish mode, but then (again) that's off-topic to this thread.

 

[Eximar]

I recognize map slices constantly, which I why I would really like a lot more of them.

 

[jj284b]

personally, i think proceduraly generated maps would be probably better for Battletech.. i know devs wanted to have nice detailed maps, but at some point you learn them all...

 

[mjbroekman]

Procedurally generated maps have a few flaws:

1. If you don't expend a lot of processing time to build them, you end up running a higher risk of pathing issues and stuck units.
2. If you don't know what the terrain is going to look like, it becomes really hard to know if a spawn point is in a good place that will meet the mission parameters.
3. It is almost impossible to debug map / terrain issues with procgen maps.
4. Procgen maps simply don't look as good.

The point of this thread was that we are seeing repeated uses of map slices... but from different approaches and that leads to them fighting like different maps in some cases. The map I mentioned in the OP fought completely differently as a base defense contract compared to when I've fought it as a battle contract...because the OpFor spawned in a different location and I spawned in a different location. The map may have been "the same", but fight didn't take place in the same places.

That, to me, says good things about how these maps are put together.

 

[Jade_Rook]

The devs have also said that they don't have the resources to do randomized maps, but this is getting off topic.

I have really enjoyed seeing maps I know from a different perspective in Flashpoints. I had a mission that was a capture base mission on a map that I had fought on dozens of times, a desert base with high walls beside a road. Normally the start point has us coming up the road and hitting the base from the side. The flashpoint had me coming in perpendicular to the road with a ridge that I could put my fire support mechs on. It was a small, but refreshing change.

The mission immediately after that was a consecutive deployment defending the base I just captured. It was a lot of fun, even if my lance got torn up by three heavy lances. I don't think I had ever defended that base before.

I agree that more maps would help, but I am impressed with how a small change to an existing map makes it feel different.