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  #1  
Old February 1st, 2022, 12:38 AM
GameBear GameBear is offline
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Expanding the design space for competitive maps

The last new terrain set was released more than a decade ago. Thousands of maps have been uploaded to this site. Map features have been analyzed, and ideas about what makes a good tournament map have been refined, resulting in lots of constraints. Creating a tournament map that breaks new ground is a challenge.

Mapmakers continue to come up with great new designs, even while traveling well-worn paths. But there are a couple directions that have not been explored much.

Map sets
Tournament maps generally use 2 or 3 terrain sets. There are only so many viable combinations, and most have been attempted many times over. A map set combines a larger number of terrain sets to produce multiple maps. This opens up a whole bunch of new possibilities, as each map in the set gains access to a much wider range of terrain. The downside: one dud map ruins the whole set. Making one good map is hard enough; trying to make a set of them is a big step up in degree of difficulty. The sweet spot (balancing flexibility and difficulty): combine 6 or 7 different terrain sets - 3 master sets, plus 3 or 4 terrain expansions - to produce 3 maps.

Glyph of Brandar (custom glyphs)
The Glyph of Brandar dates all the way back to the original Rise of the Valkyrie set, but has never been widely accepted in tournament settings. There are reasons for this - custom glyphs can create confusion and frustration for tournament participants. Custom glyphs allow for greater flexibility in map design, though - the right glyphs can complement or counterbalance map features, or introduce new strategies and tactics. Adding a few new glyph options to the standard pool, or simply allowing one custom glyph per tournament, could spice things up while minimizing the negative impact. The key: keep it simple! Powers should be reused (from cards) and/or be very straightforward.

What’s the first step? Make the map you want to make. Try making a map without worrying about terrain sets. Just focus on designing a tournament map that looks good. It’s a fun exercise, even if you don’t go any further than that.

That’s it. I’d love to hear what you think of these concepts, positive or negative. If nothing else, maybe this post will provide a little push toward your next map. Thanks for reading!

Last edited by GameBear; February 1st, 2022 at 12:44 PM.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 01:12 AM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

@GameBear , there is definitely room to expand on this. With the state that 3d printing is in, there really is no excuse for more "official" terrain. Getting said terrain into a program like virtualscape is the part that I couldn't help much with. (Not too keen on computer software programming). More official glyphs is in the same vein as the terrain but miles easier to pull off. Easy as Glyph of Brandar=New Glyph in virtualscape. I have a ton of ideas for new terrain and the ability to make it both in 3d sculpting programs and then on my 3d printers. The problem I ran into is the design space for it. There needs to be a solid direction if there is a group creating it. As far as I"m concerned there is a vast amount of things that can be added to the Heroscape world. Some ideas are: Turrets, cannons, or mounted weapons of any kind that could be used by figures. Vehicles, or mounts, that are Neutral passive in nature that can be used by anyone. Then you have things that could simply just be interacted with similarly to the fortress door. I'm surprised that there were never anything more to that after the castle set. As far as "Treasure Glyphs" go, not a single modern era weapon was done officially. There are all kinds of things that could be made into one time use glyphs, or gear that can be had by the heroes of scape. For the most part, I play other games nowadays, but if there were things like this, or alternate styles of play that revolve more around objective style play instead of straight deathmatch every game, I may still put it on the table. I'm pretty much over most of what I just mentioned but thought it was worth a shout. Good luck with any projects you guys can get rolling for some results.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 02:09 AM
GameBear GameBear is offline
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

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Originally Posted by TREX View Post
GameBear, there is definitely room to expand on this.
Yeah, there are so many possibilities for custom terrain. It would be cool to see the efforts of the Engineers of Valhalla culminate in some widely accepted community-designed terrain.

For now, I'm just looking at ways mapmakers can branch out when designing tournament maps, while staying fully within the confines of "official" Heroscape. The Glyph of Brandar sits in a gray area, so I'm also trying to give it a little nudge towards acceptance. Baby steps.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 04:08 AM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

I've never been into the tournament side of heroscape, I always played large maps with friends at my house; however, I could certainly by supportive of new custom terrain that is accepted by the heroscape community at large as official.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 04:23 AM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

And there lies the problem. Who decides what is official and what process is required by those people to be accepted. And is anyone willing to go through that process.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 11:01 AM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

It'll always be custom (as with all the fan made projects on this site) and not truly 'official' but it could be an official custom from the EoV.
Hopefully they will take the challenge. I know they're already working on some stuff.

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Old February 1st, 2022, 02:30 PM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

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Originally Posted by Tornado View Post
And there lies the problem. Who decides what is official and what process is required by those people to be accepted. And is anyone willing to go through that process.
Tournament directors individually decide what maps to use.

I haven't run a tournament in a long time, but if I were to run one, and GameBear had created a package of maps from a certain set of terrain, I would almost certainly use it. I expect there is no veteran tournament director on this board who would not consider using a package of maps from GameBear, using alternate terrain content in this way.

Take one of the hobby's best competitive map designers, and encourage him to loosen (but not release) the traditional shackles of terrain packages? Yes please.

There have been a couple of individual maps that work this way. I'm pretty sure that @Dignan designed a pair of maps that use the trees from 3xRttFF separately from the roads. Maybe I'm misremembering? But that was relatively small scale, compared to what GameBear is contemplating here. I am curious for dignan's thoughts.

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Old February 1st, 2022, 02:36 PM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

My post was in response to the previous post concerning custom terrain.
I agree that Gamebear's idea is worth exploring.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 02:37 PM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

Ah, yes. Quite right.

The designs of the Age of Annihilation, and their ACES compatibility with VC
C3V "Easily the best quality classic customs I have ever seen."
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Old February 1st, 2022, 09:28 PM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

There are some new glyphs from C3V - I like the new dimension Zawit brings to the endgame.

I think the Glyph of Brandar is a good idea, as fixed glyphs are used successfully in tournament maps (including my personal favorite Embattled Fen, and not just because I'm in this thread). I think if a mapmaker gives the GoB any special "terrain" powers it's up to them, just as mapmakers recommend heavy/normal snow.
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Old February 1st, 2022, 11:34 PM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

Quote:
Originally Posted by GameBear View Post
Map sets
Tournament maps generally use 2 or 3 terrain sets. There are only so many viable combinations, and most have been attempted many times over. A map set combines a larger number of terrain sets to produce multiple maps. This opens up a whole bunch of new possibilities, as each map in the set gains access to a much wider range of terrain. The downside: one dud map ruins the whole set. Making one good map is hard enough; trying to make a set of them is a big step up in degree of difficulty. The sweet spot (balancing flexibility and difficulty): combine 6 or 7 different terrain sets - 3 master sets, plus 3 or 4 terrain expansions - to produce 3 maps.
As an event organizer, I would love to see this implemented. I've seen plenty of maps that use partial sets but it always feels so bad to use a map that's only using half of one or more of its given terrain sets, so I think some groups of maps that all share terrain would be great! The holdup, as you note, is that each map needs to carry its own weight, because I wouldn't want to lock myself into using a map that doesn't meet my standards even if the other one or two do. But I would love for map-makers to try this out!

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Old February 2nd, 2022, 12:35 AM
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Re: Expanding the design space for competitive maps

Quote:
Originally Posted by GameBear View Post
Map sets
Tournament maps generally use 2 or 3 terrain sets. There are only so many viable combinations, and most have been attempted many times over. A map set combines a larger number of terrain sets to produce multiple maps. This opens up a whole bunch of new possibilities, as each map in the set gains access to a much wider range of terrain. The downside: one dud map ruins the whole set. Making one good map is hard enough; trying to make a set of them is a big step up in degree of difficulty. The sweet spot (balancing flexibility and difficulty): combine 6 or 7 different terrain sets - 3 master sets, plus 3 or 4 terrain expansions - to produce 3 maps.
I'm intrigued by the suggestion, @GameBear , yet also daunted by it. So many options!

Will you lead the way in presenting us with a suite of 3 such maps?
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