FPS Map Design Questionnaire!

[Covelio]

Hello map and environment enthusiasts!!!

I would just like to say that I think this forum and all the active users are great. Thanks to this forum, the people creating amazing maps and other various websites and forums, I have learned loads and plan to keep a log of my work. I'm going to be creating a multilayer map using UDK soon for my college final major project.

Right now though, I'm collecting research to help me and planning how I am going to carry everything out, which is the most important part of the process. I have created a questionnaire to gather some research and help me justify my design decisions. I have a link to the questionnaire which should only take 5 minuets of your time.

Any help with this would be hugely appreciated as it will help me achiveve the best mark I can get for my course before going to university!

Here is the link!; http://kwiksurveys.com?s=LLLJIF_46902186

Thank You! And look out for my designs soon on the forum

[Covelio]

I have had over 200 responses! Thanks to everyone who helped!

[Crusha K. Rool]

Phew, a lot of those question can't really be answered without having a game context.

-Large outdoor maps vs cramped indoor maps depend on the movement that is available, as well as the size of the team, vehicle availability and classes that play very differently. You can't play Battlefield on small indoor maps, CoD requires lots of cover, TF2 has classes like the Scout and Sniper that take advantage of open areas while others like the Spy or Medic need cover to operate efficiently.

-In the weapon page did you mention only stuff like Assault Rifles, SMG, MG and so on. All bullet-based weapons that merely differ instead of mentioning stuff like rail guns, ricocheting weapons, sniper rifles with clearly visible tracers, mortars, spinfusors and all the other exotic stuff that requires more prediction of the enemy than the shoot'n'forget instant-hit guns.

-Vehicles may add a great tactical component to a game, completely ruin any fun that you may have on foot or end up completely pointless, depending on their implementation.
UT2k4 did a great job adding vehicles that are a good help for the game but can still be fought by a single good player on foot. Tanks in Battlefield make you pretty invincible against infantry if the infantry doesn't have any long-range explosive weapons, since they are completely immune against bullets. Vehicles in Tribes Ascend cost quite a lot of Credits to spawn, so it's a steep investment and you don't want to lose that vehicle, ending up not risking anything and rather sitting in the base or retreating from too dangerous situations - makes them pretty pointless.

-Teamwork and objective-oriented gameplay depends on how much it is encouraged by the game. UT2k4's ONS makes it pretty easy even for bad players to still contribute a lot to the team with the simple mechanics of atttacking nodes and healing with the Link Gun. CTF is also pretty straight-forward, you already help by killing the enemy before he gets your flag.
As soon as classes rely on each other, bad team mates become more apparent, for instance a lack of Medics in TF2. Some positions are also not fun to play or not very rewarding, making few players utilize them.

-Z-axis in level design is a no-brainer, of course is it better if maps have several different height layers since they offer the moment of surprise and require more awareness by players if they need to also look up or down from time to time instead of getting tunnel vision. Height differences also offer advantages that need to be considered in decision making, for instance having a better view up high but also being more exposed. And being able to quickly get down while it's harder for the enemy to get up.


Anyway, nice survey. I like it especially that we get to see the results after completing it.