Map height: A comparison

Question

Maps are something that a game often has to nail as players will be spending most of the game in those maps.

However not all maps are created equal. No matter what series or genre some maps are remembered for being good and others are remembered for being awful.

Some are bad for differing reasons such as stonehaven from cod ghosts being far too big for its own good or tf2's 2fort and dustbowl being relics brought over to a new age that doesn't work with them (lack of grenades and armor for example).

Pvz shooters are no exception as for every driftwood shores and zen peak we have a tourist trap island and time park.

The maps in pvz do have something that stands out to most and that is the massive vertical leap players can obtain which even beats out games like tf2 or over watch.

Now since pvz is class based only certain characters can truly utilize this verticality well and even then they're not equal.

And you know what they say. Seeing is believing after all!

1st point of mainstreet's average soldier prowling grounds.

Top of burger joint tower looking out at the taco restaurant.

For reference to the ground. Those nearby buildings are valid to.

On top of daves mansion. Its an oppresive sightline that can opress zombies Al the way at spawn.

On top of park structure which can be reached by soldier. Eagle eye into garden point and even the next one.

Can see around the map in gw1.

Cactus ingenuity!

Can you think of any bfn point that is so open and vertical as this?

Now think of a map such as crash course or chomp town. Not the tallest buildings but many allow you to go up by stairs however there are disconnected buildings right next to them that can be jumped to yet in maps like sharkbite shores or jewel junction you have tall buildings with no way to climb without an ability.

Gw1 had excellent areas of vertical dominance however the sightlines provided allowed those who were dominant to rule these spots while classes like engineer, sunflower, and chomper who were at the mercy of the others. No gw1 was perfect but there's a reason why there looked at so fondly.

Now how does gw2 compare?

Observes most of the academy and is a pretty accesible area near the front.

Most of whats in this picture is capable of being climbed.

Those sweet sightlines. You also can climb rocks nearby which can allow even classes like chomper to reach some rooftops.

Time park is bad but you cant argue that it doesnt allow some weird height sightlines.

Zomburbia house with clearsightline of point.

Yet counterable and reachable by normal classes with flanking from behind.

A deadbeard (out of frame) used barrel blast to reach the tiny shutter below than jumped onto the house. Why is bfn the one with anchors away again?

2 tried to get away from the dominant gw1 meta of soldier and peashooter and it worked for the most part yet I do have some gripes with class exclusive terrain.

The cannons in the building ahead can be jumped on yet the roof itself is blocked off, why? I can already see the point and fire into the point from where im at.

Good vantage point in moon base z yet I cant jump up to that small space right there, why its not out of the maps. Its the center of the freaking building for pete's sake!

The very top spires of zen peak are unreachable, why? They dont even provide good cover to begin with.

There are many more examples than this such as the giant zoo sign in zomburbia which you can get on top of.

In frosty creek the building near the bridge can have tallnuts and dummies put next to the logs than be jumped on to reach the fence than the building.

There are even more ways to do these such as drone riding or Allstar placing dummies between buildings to jump halfway with them. Warping between buildings.

Gw2 did improve yet also regress in some ways of gw1's design. The new characters were able to adapt better such as citron using his ball form to jump to higher ground, rose and hovergoats floatier jumps, and Imps double jumps made the meta more bearable even if the four classes of sb, peashooter, corn, and soldier were still dominant. Sightlines were still prominent although with a bit more cover.

One thing that really bothers me is the rocket jump height. It was near perfect in gw1 yeti in 2 you must often jump before using it for jumps that would've been braindead in gw1. Its especially noteable in seeds of time's final point with the medieval village houses as there great vanatge points but nearly impossible as soldier unless you already have a set up area to jump from.

Bfn is an enigma as we have more options than ever yet so little room to use them.

Tree in peachy district. Strangely the tree with house is unclimable

Road for height comparison.

Cactus at taco resataurant. Not very high. Look at the gw1 taco resaturant and remember that the hat brim and top were all usable. I could shoot at enemies from the burger tower to the hat.

The red watertower in bfn cant be gotten on. This is a bizarre collision thing where I can't get on but hang off the edge of the invisible barrier.

Cant get on top of those in loggy acres. Its not hurting anybody so why is it blocked off?

Looks cool until you realize you cant use any of this.

Ditto.

Cant get on this.

Same invisble wall but near the 1st point.

You cant get up there. I tried.

You can however get up here. Yet it counts as out of bounds. Why is this available and not the freaking old fort one!

Cool height but its between points and not a good sightline so who does it really benefit? Attackers are already advancing and defenders are way from the action or will be warped. Reminds me of the moon diner in peachy district as well.

In daisy drive you can get on a tree yet jumping will cause you to hit the skybox.

In tourist trap island there are weird slightly raised pieces of land that are too big for jumping yet not good enough for high ground use and poisitioned where they dont face the point, why?

Now with bfn we have a lot of abilities which would've annihilates the issues of gw height supremacy for more characters those being: swoop slam, gravity smash, rocket ride, slobber shot, alarcity, anchors away, sap trap, and more.

Yet when playing bfn these abilities rarely stood out do to how little you have to go in bfn which thanks to the increases jump height and sprinting jumps can be reached easier.

Something like the sightlines of gw1 would've been downright obliterated with alarcity and bfn cacti sniping yet only until the map design was squished that they decided to hardline sniping. Bizarre isnt it?

Why did they crush the map design yet so many classes are now better at reaching the high ground? Something like anchors away or alarcity would've been perfect in Zomburbia yet is inconsequential in TTI?

Really the best way to describe gw1 maps was that what you saw in them is what you could get on. Yet its the opposite in bfn.

The one thing bfn brings to mind is the "advanced movement" era of call of duty starting with advanced warfare where we were promised a whole new way of looking at combat which sounds cool until you realize everything was only one story tall and half of it was unusable (those invisble walls in infinite warfare yikes), thats what bfn's maps remind me of.

iron_guard8 · Answer

There's one of those giant rocks at the first point of Goopy Gully that is super tall and I can't even get a drone up there, but back when you could get matches without bots in BfN, there was this guy who always played Deadbeard and somehow got up there, making him a major pain to deal with as a plant. I really hate glitch exploiters and hackers like that.

That aside, I would say that GW2 gets the height system the best of the 3. Not perfect of course, but one complaint you will see even today in GW is how Peashooters and Foot Soldiers on the rooftops dominate the matches, whereas while they are the easiest to get up there, other classes have more options and the maps have more ways to get up there, which is why I feel GW has the best overall moods for their maps, but GW2 has the most fun maps to battle on of the 3 games (barring Time Park anyway).

Vertalicality can really make a map shine, and BfN's general lack of both height and width do harm the multiplayer experience to a high degree. With little high ground and not enough flanking spots, the maps feel almost claustrophobic at times.

stukapooka · Answer

@Iron_Guard8 It seems that the skybox in bfn is bigger than what the drones can reach and i wonder why they did that.

Gw1 definetly had the best areas in the series and the suburban atmosphere has never really been topped by maps trying to replicate it.

Peashooter and soldier were simply too good in gw1 since like you say the other classes had options none of them were as dominant as theirs and playing as another class leaves you at their mercy.

Gw2 feels like it sacfricied some of gw1's best aspects of its map design to better accomodate all the classes. Even chomper was given ranged options.

Imo whjle I prefer gw1's overall G&G maps in always held the opinion that gw2's non turf maps are overall the best (minus time park of course) gw1 does have some good ones though.

Bfn maps take the 3 lane design trope and ram it into the ground as some sections just feel like a giant line and once again I find it strange how they decided to revamp the snipers to make them better at gaint sightlines and allow them to climb big structures in the game that nukes that style of map design.

It stinks on oozevoir especially since jumping is the maps gimmick but there really arent any place to go by ooze only.

thesprinter85 · Answer

High vantage points are common on some maps and they are very rare on other maps. It would be interesting if every map always contained at least some higher terrain that can be accessed by almost any class, as players could likely fight for the high ground in this location for a tactical advantage in combat. However, not all maps even have ways of accessing higher ground unless you are a character that has lots of jump mobility, such as Peashooter or Foot Soldier. I would like to see a method of being able to reach high ground in more maps as almost any class because it would be useful if being attacked by a Foot Soldier or Peashooter (or a character that can access high ground normally) and it would be easier to deal with the camping on rooftops. Nevertheless, I understand that the differences in map height in each map are actually quite nice, as in some maps, gaining the high ground is more accessible even by characters that do not have much vertical mobility (such as in Frontline Flats) and in other maps rooftop camping by specific classes are harder to deal with (such as Zen Peak?).

This being said though, there are ways to get to higher ground even if the map does not really support it. For instance, you could use Tallnut Battlements or another placeable ability and use it to jump to high ground. In Frosty Creek, you can use Sunflower and place the Heal Flower on a small mound at the little house near the cabin and you can jump on the fence and get on top of the house with Sunflower, which is normally inaccessible, giving you high ground there. It's fun to try out little neat tactics on different maps, and if you gain a lot of knowledge regarding a map, it will help you in combat a lot.

stukapooka · Answer

@TheSprinter85 I think a good work around is to give every class a alt ability that allows them to get to higher ground.

I remember someone suggested a grappling hook for chomper where you would have to aim of course but it would pull him to the area he hits. This way it requires skill since you have to position yourself at any angle before using it.

Of course in using this for mobility chomper would have to give up one of his abilities thats so effective on the ground.

Sunflower could give up heal flowers for an umbrella leaf from pvz 1 that launches any plant that jumps on it into the air at super pea jump height. This way its still tactical and can still benefit the team even without healing. Maybe a cool idea would be that it could also launch away long bombs that land on it like the 2d games.

Cactus and deadbeard can freely swap between wallnuts and cannons for alarcity and anchors away. This will benefit different playstyles.

Imp could lose impkata or gravity grenades for an ability that launches his boosters into overdrive causing him to fly upwards if you hold the jump button for a time.

All these ways would allow other classes to catch up but not exactly match the vertical focused classes. That classes like chomper arent left behind on maps like main street or zomburbia but dont become a new tyrant of the heights since they would have to take way something in return so sunflower couldnt just jump to the heavens plant a heal flower than rain sunbeam death from above with little challenge.

iron_guard8 · Answer

I know a valid reason some give that GW's maps have balance issues, which I largely agree with, is that the rooftops dominate the action which means Foot Soliders and Peashooters, which are already the best general purpose characters in the game, rule the battlefield. This is a serious problem and one of my very few complaints about the original game.

I'd be quite happy with giving every character some kind of option to get to the high ground, whether through map design, or abilities, or a combo of both. Just make them fit the character and vary things up a bit so they don't feel too much alike.

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Map height: A comparison

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