Basic Legions map design.

Fixious

Test Lead
With the map editor being public for a little while now, I thought I’d take this time to tackle a question I’m sure many have on their minds: what makes a good Legions map? You can’t use Tribes logic and think simply creating a map with large rolling hills automatically results in a good map. I found this out myself not too long ago. I fired up the map editor thinking I’d create a random terrain full of hills, place the flags at opposite ends of the map and call it a day. But in order for a Legions map to be viable, at least in a Capture the Flag setting, a few key components must be present.

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First, lets look at the most played Legions map of all time: Frostbyte. What makes it so good? Well, balance is an obvious element. No side has a major advantage over the other. It’s easier to jet up and do a super quick back-grab on Beta, while Alpha has a better starting bowl (in my opinion). Then again, Alpha only has that one bowl, while beta has two. So in a way they balance each other out, with both sides having their own strengths and weaknesses. What else makes a map good? As I mentioned previously, front bowls provide quick routes to the enemy base, both for cappers and light offense. If your base is lower than the surrounding terrain and provides no obvious or close ramps/bowls, it makes gaining speed that much harder and can make the map unpopular right from the get-go. However, front routes obviously aren't the only way to cap a flag. Sideroutes must also be viable, given the map is big enough. Frostbyte is generally considered a small map and supports a handful of front and back grabs, apparently enough to make it the most popular map so far. Elegiac is one example that combines the two properly.

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Elegiac starts you off above the surrounding terrain and provides front bowls right by the base, similar to Frostbyte. However, these bowls are more aimed at throwing you to the side of the map, allowing the player to setup easy side-routes. The flag stand itself also heavily supports side-routes, which is another thing that dictates how to design a map. Frostbyte offers no real side-routes, unless you want to come over the side barriers. It very heavily supports front-routes instead, much like Elegiac is with side-routes. There’s no real front-route bowl on Elegiac, which isn'ta huge issue as long as some sort of bowl exists that provides an accessible route to the enemy flag stand. One of the more unpopular maps, Gorge, doesn't really provide any obvious front or side bowls, which is likely the reason no one enjoys it that much.

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Yes, there’s a fairly large ramp at the front that shoots you toward the enemy base, but then you have this giant hill in the middle with structure in your way. Further more, these hills aren't setup to launch you at the enemy flag stand like Frostbyte provides. Gorge is the antithesis of front-routes, and was purposefully designed as such. Like Elegiac, front-routes are possible, but they aren’t as approachable. Side-routes are encouraged here, but they also aren't designed that well to support side-grabs. It sort-of kinda works, and the jump pads certainly helped, but it still isn't terribly fun to cap on. If you notice, on both sides the terrain is higher than the flag stand itself, which can be a pain to get around if you manage to pull off a high-speed side-route. But flag stands and bowls aren’t the only things to take into consideration. Size is another key factor, and has a few different aspects worth considering.

First we have overall map size. Within the community there are three map sizes players refer to simply as small, medium, or large. A map like Nivosus would be considered small, Elegiac medium, and BladeRun large. However there are actually only two different map sizes to work with. Elegiac and Frostbyte are technically the same size. The distance between bases is the key difference. Zenith and Bladerun also use the same map size specifications, though BladeRun feels a lot bigger simply due to the bases having different orientations and being spread further apart, and the OOB grids being further out/closer together.

Right now with the community being so small, you’re better off spending your time creating a medium-sized map. Keep the bases relatively close (Elegiac is a good example). Whether or not you want players able to see base to base is up to you. Focus on making it easy to gain speed quickly from player spawns, and that the surrounding terrain guides the player into appropriate routes. Creating both viable front and side-route bowls is entirely possible. Maps like Reactor or On Throughout The Night have very obvious front and side-route bowls. While not necessarily community favorites, they follow the formula from above and simply work.

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Zenith is sort of the odd-man out I guess, since while it does have both front and side ramps that allow for decent starting speeds, it doesn't really focus on one or the other. Sure you can leave out the front thanks to the large (but shallow) front bowl, but actual front routes are mediocre at best (unless the capper goes all the way back and heals, which can work if the other team lets them). If anything, Zenith encourages side-routes the most, though they aren't as easy to setup compared to Elegiac or OTtN. It requires actual knowledge on how to ski and form routes. It doesn’t hold your hand and blatantly say ‘this is a front bowl, go this way’. It has the starting requirements, but from there on out it’s up to you to get to the enemy flag stand. Because of this, Zenith likely provides the fastest grabs for decent cappers. They have the room to build up speed, unlike a map like Elegiac where speeds over 250 will simply slam you into a lovely wall.

If Legions had 500-1000 more active players, Zenith could very likely become more popular than it currently is, at least in PUGs. PUGs are limited to smaller to medium-sized maps due a relatively small player base and balance in general (anything over 8's becomes disorganized chaos). Having a 7v7 on a map as big as BladeRun just wouldn't (and doesn’t) work. It’d be extremely boring with any kind of meaningful or fun action too spread out and rare.

This is merely how I view maps in Legions, and what I feel works/doesn't work. I debated for quite a while as to whether or not to post this, as I don't want to see a bunch of cookie-cutter maps that only feature obvious bowls and what-not. But I'm also a bit worried with what I've seen so far. Maps are being made by the community, which is great! But a lot of them simply wouldn't work in Legions as you might expect them to. Nothing personal; we all probably want the game to stay active. But just remember what makes the popular maps popular in the first place, and build from that instead of reinventing the wheel.

;)
 

Poponfu

Lead Developer
Dont just set the sun / angle / color on your maps and think ' presto , lit ! '

You need to use the sgLights and place them around for small detail things and as larger ambient lights in other areas. Some people have a grasp of this some not it seems. Makes a map go from flat and terrible` looking to something atleast decent.
 
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