Draft of checklist: How playable is a map?

[zybork]

How playable is a map (and NOT, how beautiful it is made)? A good map brings players to play with or against each other, it does not confuse, does not bore, if your are into playing, and not into wondering or even being annoyed by the map, it is a good map.

I compiled a number of characteristics I think are distinctive.

positive things:
a + Can it be played well with many players (15 on each team, 30 total)?
b + Can it be played well with few players (3 on each team, 6 total)?
c + Does it have a clear layout (=you don't get lost easily after a few games)?
d + Is it not too hard to move to another base location than default?

negative things:
z - Does it encourage players to jetcamp?
y - Does it have many long corridors?
x - Does it have exactly one base location far superior to any other?
w - Does it have no really usable base locations at all?
v - Does it have dead ends only accessible to small aliens and crouching humans?
u - Does a map allow "speed build"?

These are the points out for dispute, maybe they could be weighted, feel free to comment/add, here are my thoughts:

a) Do you know the feeling to step on each other's toes constantly, even if you try to avoid it? Such maps are not good for a big number of players, and thus reduce the chances of a good game by the chance of having too many players in the map. [example for bad map: uncreation]

b) A good map is always fun. Even if there are only 3 people on each team. If a map is too big or too complex, you spend your time running around without ever confronting each other. [good maps: atcs, tremor]

c) Can you find your way, even without spectating the map for an hour? Is it intuitive to use? No? Then it is a bad map, for it makes gameplay uneasy, betraying the purpose of a map. [good maps: atcs, tremor, uncreation; bad: niveus]

d) Can you reach any other base location with ease without the help of a second builder? Don't get me wrong, a superb base location should not be too easy to reach either, a good game needs challenge. But it should also not be nearly-impossible to do. [maybe a bad map in this respect: niveus]

u) The build timer is there for a reason. If you just have to jump over an edge to suicide and happily can build again after respawn, this reason has been compromised, and the map designer did something very important wrong. [seen on: uncreation, transit]

v) The game is over, aliens have destroyed the human base. One human is hidden  in a small vent, with armour and a saw. Result: It takes ages and many many dretches and basilisks to get him out, leaving the whole rest of the team in this unpleasantly boring state of watching the routine of putting the human out. [arachnid, karith]

w) The capabilites of a good builder should make a difference. If you never played a game on a certain map with a base that could at least withstand a minute even if only defended by one single somebody, the map designer failed in that respect then. [maybe alien buildings on nexus6 is an example]

x) Good base locations encourage teams to move, however, available base locations should not be TOO good. "Go to superb base location. Game over." This should not happen. Window room on Niveus or the elevator room on Karith Station are good examples, turning games on such a map into a boring routine easily. [karith, niveus]

y) Diversity is the name of the game. Long corridors are good for humans with their long-ranged weapons, and long corridors are a good thing - if there is not too many of them. Otherwise, the game may become unbalanced if even tyrants can be taken down by two stupid riflemen standing on the other side of the corridor completely locking maybe large parts of the map. [perfect example: uncreation. also a number of custom maps are plagued by this.]

z) Large rooms with high ceilings or skies? This introduces jetcamping, and making a game more a pain than a pleasure. [karith; extreme bad map in that respect: uncreation]

[nubcake]

ok...

[commander scrooge]

I must ask what you have against     

Jet camping-- unrelated to the map, jet camping is useless with out the reactor, kill the reactor and the jet campers are toast.
Jet camping may be a pain but as long as a goon can pounce to the ceiling all it takes is a skilled goon to take out the jet pack, unless  the jet pack has some skill under his belt too.
Speed build-- this could be a problem but on most servers I have played on you get negative kills for suiciding preventing your team from advancing stages.

What about glitch building?
Are you saying one textured-box maps are the best?

[A Spork]

Niveus isn't that complex....if you can't find your way around, I'd hate to go on a road trip with you....
And a and b are kinda ehhhh...some maps should be designed for a big game, some for a small game. They don't have to be perfect for both.

[zybork]

One point sure is missing: A map should not be monotonous. (None of the prepackaged maps is, some rogue maps are.)

And yes, I am pretty sure a good map should be playable both with many and few players. That seperates maps from good maps.

[A Spork]

UTCS is good, but its lousy with alot of people....Nano is slightly better, but still....

[mooseberry]

What about glitch building?
Are you saying one textured-box maps are the best?

Avoiding glitch building is kind of an obvious thing...

As to your second question:

How playable is a map (and NOT, how beautiful it is made)?

I think this is a pretty helpful thread, and I would encourage you to continue it. Looks are an obvious thing more or less: you look at your map and it looks good or it looks bad, but getting gameplay correct is a much more subtle and complex task to do, which is why many custom maps don't do a good job on it.

@A Spork: You are surely used to it, but I have seen many newbs get very confused on Niveus. It's not extremely confusing, (for me at least, Cerebrus (sp?) comes to mind... I always end up walking in circles) but it's not particularly simple either.

@Commander scrooge, as for you jetcamping, how I interprete his talk of jetcamping (how I understand it) is that it would be bad for a map to have a design that allows jetcamping to be really effective. Sure jetplaying is a player thing, but in cases like uncreation, humans can camp the skies and delay the game very long with their jetpacks... on ATCS you can sure jettard, but it is not as easy to actually affect the outcome of the game (by camping).

Anyways Zybork, I like it so far keep it up.

[zybork]

Addendum:

positive things:
a + Can it be played well with many players (15 on each team, 30 total)?
b + Can it be played well with few players (3 on each team, 6 total)?
c + Does it have a clear layout (=you don't get lost easily after a few games)?
d + Is it not too hard to move to another base location than default?
e + Does it take into account how different classes move, run, and attack?

negative things:
z - Does it encourage players to jetcamp?
y - Does it have many long corridors?
x - Does it have exactly one base location far superior to any other?
w - Does it have no really usable base locations at all?
v - Does it have dead ends only accessible to small aliens and crouching humans?
u - Does a map allow "speed build"?

e) People's preferences differ on which class they prefer; is a map especially good for tyrants and not for goons? Is ist awesome to use with a jetpack but not for a battlesuit? Can wallwalking aliens reasonably do so in the map? A good map respects the characteristics of different classes, and creates a diversity of ways for gameplay, and a multitude of different possible tactis enriching the game as a consequence.

[zybork]

Another addendum/modification:

positive things:
a + Can it be played well with many players (15 on each team, 30 total)?
b + Can it be played well with few players (3 on each team, 6 total)?
c + Does it have a clear layout (=you don't get lost easily after a few games)?
d + Is it not too hard to move to another base location than default?
e + Does it take into account how different classes move, run, and attack?

negative things:
z - Does it encourage players to jetcamp?
y - Are corridors and rooms monotonous? (modified, was: Does it have many long corridors?)
x - Does it have exactly one base location far superior to any other?
w - Does it have no really usable base locations at all?
v - Does it have dead ends only accessible to small aliens and crouching humans?
u - Does it have dead ends (=areas that can only be accessed one way) at all?
t - Does a map allow "speed build"? (former u, moved down the list)

y) Long corridors and empty, square shaped rooms are for sure easy to map and easy to play in, but they make the game boring and easily unbalanced. Diversity is the name of the game. Small corners a dretch may hide behind. A crate goons may have to jump around to snipe something. Diversity adds a lot to gameplay, it encourages movement, it encourages agility, it adds new possibilites to movement and building. This is the reason why you have barrels standing around at human default in Niveus, this is the reason why ATCS is so successful: You can hardly walk ten metres without having a small corner, a gap where tyrants cannot fall through, and the corridors that lead around the bunker make many turns. Now imagine ATCS with that corridor straightened out...

u) Any room should at least have one entry and one exit accessible to a number of classes. And altough it may be wise to limit access to a certain location (like the platform of ATCS or the pipes in Arachnid) to all classes but the biggest ones, it is unwise to limit it to all but the smallest ones, for this easily leads to a deadlock. Examples are the window room in Niveus (only ONE door!) and the elevator room in Karith - if one team got this location, the game is usually moreless over. So: Every room (large enough to hold a useable base that is) should be accessible from at least two ways, otherwise gameplay may be suffocated.

[zybork]

positive things:
a + Can it be played well with many players (15 on each team, 30 total)?
b + Can it be played well with few players (3 on each team, 6 total)?
c + Does it have a clear layout (=you don't get lost easily after a few games)?
d + Is it not too hard to move to another base location than default?
e + Does it take into account how different classes move, run, and attack?

negative things:
z - Does it encourage players to jetcamp?
y - Are corridors and rooms monotonous? (modified, was: Does it have many long corridors?)
x - Does it have exactly one base location far superior to any other?
w - Does it have no really usable base locations at all?
v - Does it have dead ends only accessible to small aliens and crouching humans?
u - Does it have dead ends (=areas that can only be accessed one way) at all?
t - Does a map allow "speed build"?
s - Does it have traps/single spots where players can get caught in?

Since I have been encouraged to not abandon this list, I don't, and there is another quite important point that came to my mind lately:

s) A good map keeps the gameplay flowing, and one thing to prevent this is single places in the map that can trap a player, this is: you can get in, but you can never get out. The best example would be a simple hole in the floor, where anything that cannot fly, wallwalk or jump high will get caught in, but most often, issues are more subtle. It is not larger structures like the underground tunnels of tremor, where it is obvious that tyrants cannot get out (altough everything else except s1-grangers can), it is things like the space between slopes and crates (like in the crate room in arachnid2) that may render a player immobile. If players complain too often that they get stuck in a single spot in your map, it is time to correct those mistakes. And NO, they do NOT add to gameplay, create paths where tyrants/battlesuits/... may be too big to enter, but do NOT just create traps. This is nothing but a bad idea[TM], and you are to avoid it.