The Battle For Control in Shooters (Part 2)

(This article is a follow up to an earlier work, I suggest reading that first: https://www.patreon.com/posts/battle-for-in-1-64101416 )

So let's say we've got a combat space that mostly works, but we're looking for ways to improve it. In this example I'll be using the arena I used to show off the game late last year: 

There's a couple issues here. Starting with problems for the npcs, enemies have limited view of the player at the start of the fight, leading them to awkwardly engage with you if you hang back at the start. On top of this, they start basically in the middle of the arena and have limited room to retreat to. This sometimes led to them getting bunched up in the corners of the map, away from the main action.

(This area looks neat, but the layout isn't very comfy for the player to navigate and enemies are more encouraged to get close to the edges of the space due to cover mostly being on the outside rather than in the center of the space.)

On the player's side of things, they are given minimal incentive to move forward into the space as long as enemies are on screen due to how much the spacing of cover favors their starting position, leading to those awkward fights I mentioned earlier. There is a flanking path on the right, however cover there is minimal and it directly leads into enemy territory, so a soldier is liable to cut your movement off at any point in this fight.

(So much cover, not much of a view for a good fight.)

I knew it needed work, so I kept hammering out little changes for the map, never fully feeling ok with but getting closer to something workable. Progress became far more consistent when I took a step back and re-evaluated my main goals for the map.

So what are the goals of this space? Well it's an arena at the end of the demo, so it needs to be fairly engaging and a step up in difficulty from previous fights. A big focus of the mod is npc behavior, so I obviously want a space where the enemies look good moving around. In order to get the flow I wanted, I realized both the player and enemies both need space in the map they can use depending on the situation which can basically be broken down as player controlled space, contested space, and enemy controlled space. Like in the 1st article, we can basically visualize these spaces with simple colored boxes like so:

(Green is player controlled, yellow is contested, red is enemy controlled)

Visualizing the space this way makes some problems quite clear. Both the enemy and player's controlled spaces are more wide than they are deep, basically encouraging them to strafe around more than directly move into the space. To make matters worse the cover in the contested space is pretty limited and can get exposed pretty easily. In playtests I often noticed players very uncomfortable moving forward until most enemies were dead, and they never felt super confident holding any one spot as they moved up to deal with the few stragglers who were hanging out towards the end of the map.

So I knew a few things. I needed to give the player more anchors of cover in the map that helped push them forward and more space for enemies to retreat back into when their cover was exposed. I didn't want to lose the map's identity entirely, so rather than reworking the main space, I basically worked around it, transforming the player and enemy side to create a smoother flow of movement for both parties. For a bit of added drama and to help lean into the long lines of sight in the main contested space I made the fight centered around a Suppressor positioned at the far end, giving the fight more of an identity. 

Starting with the players starting position, I opened up their exposure to the map significantly, incentivizing moving up and behind something asap. The flanking path on the right is now far more favorable to the player due to its added cover and how it cleanly protects them from the Suppressor menacing them across the main contested space:

(Our pov if we take the flanking path, getting LOS on a new part of the map while getting us away from the Suppressor, which might get him to reposition as we move further up in the fight)

In the contested space, I added a bit more width, carving out some bits of the wall to give both the enemy and player some extra options to get out of the way of fire. This let me feel better about the long line of sight from the player's start to the Suppressor's preferred camping spot, since I knew they always had some way to get out of the way of his vision.

(We can see how the Suppressor gets a clean view of the main contested space, firmly controlling it while unable to see the player if they take the flanking path.)

On the enemy side, they no longer have direct access to the flanking path, and instead have been given additional space behind the Suppressor to retreat to/enter in from. I also removed the stairs going up to their territory from the main contested space, making it a one way drop for soldiers entering the fight and protecting the Suppressor a bit from players who might manage to rush in with a shotgun.

(The fight often leads to a situation like this, where the Suppressor repositions to this nice highlighted spot for a final showdown with the player. Ignore the bad lighting on the pipes tyvm)

With these changes, the fight now has a nice clean flow and heightened drama, with the player advancing under heavy gunfire before finally getting a chance to take some clean shots at the Suppressor who has been harassing them through out the fight. By focusing on making sure both the player and enemies had proper areas they could both advance to and retreat into, I found it a lot easier to find ways to add small bits to the map to achieve what I was looking for. 

Hopefully this article has been decently insightful and interesting, if there's any questions you have about level design or details you wanna know about in relation to the arena feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks so much for your continued support and enjoy this Summer of Inhuman!