What are things you'd like to see in a Terrain?

[Ltf 381]

An afghanistan map with no fobs just like in medal of honor 2010 would be great, something like clafghan maybe. High and snowy mountains, some caves and small villages. There would be only villagers that are forgotten by everyone and some taliban outposts on the mountains. I would like to see an untouched afghan terrain in short.

 

On the other hand, I hate fobs that are everywhere around the map. I mean we can build them anywhere if we want to, sometimes they just kill the atmosphere because of their locations. Then there are huge rocky places, they can look great but also cause performance issues. Also buildings with no furniture gives an empty feeling, all the buildings cannot be furnished from editor due to performance issues and it would take so much time but when buildings have built in furnitures(just like takistan buildings) that gives a more lively look to the terrain.

[Ex3B 265]

I think it depends. If its a small terrain, then over all aesthetics and looking realistic (as opposed to artificial or contrived) are important.

 

For larger maps. I want to see a variety of terrain suited to a variety of missions/situations, with strategic features.

Larger maps I like to use in a series of missions advancing over the map, with infantry, armor, and air missions mixed around. Naturally, for my liking, it should be lend itself to variety. Smaller maps aren't so suited to campaigns. Did Stratis feel a bit small to you all in the campaign (particularly if you did the scouting side missions, and started seeing the same areas as in the main mission over again)?

 

Altis is pretty good, for example. Unlike stratis, (which is generally no good for armor)it, has some wide open plains excellent for armor combat, jet operation, etc. It also has lots of coves, a strategic choke point (pity that the main airbase is there, perhaps over emphasizing it), some near islands connected by a small isthmus, good urban areas, some mountainous areas, some forested areas. Being based on sat data, it also feels real,

Tanoa has a few areas that are suited to armored combat, and some strategic areas (bridges, the commanding view from the volcano), and is pretty good except a bit too small. it feels real too (even if its a composite of real sat data with additions.

Sahrani looks a bit too fake to me in many areas.

 

Chernarus is pretty good. I like when there is a coastline (it doesn't have to be an island), so that bases far offshore can be placed, opening up options in mission design. One major airfield is not a problem if I can place a carrier 30 km away. I feel its a little lacking in strategically important terrain, aside from flat airfields. Sure the valley form chokepoints, but there's so many that they don't have the same effect as the center of altis.

 

What I'd really like to see is a map of two big islands, separated by a reasonably large distance of water... Or at least one large island/terraind, and a 2nd moderate sized island.

Like maybe a combination of chernarus and Everon.... which should come out to 231 sq. km of land area, compared to the 270 sq km of altis.

[JD Wang 351]

Well just in case anyone comes back to this thread looking for ideas....

 

As a mission maker there's a couple of things I look for in a really good map.

 

I prefer airfields to be close to the edges of the map, and if there are 2 then having them either end like Takistan or Lythium is really helpful. This means you can run a campaign based out of the (for instance) northern airfield, and then a couple of months later based out of the southern airfield and get a totally different feel to the map.

Airfields in the middle are terrible in my opinion. Eg Diyala is a great map, but I feel like the airfield in the middle of the map means if you use that as a base there's not much between your base and the edge of the map so the enemy are right on you. 

Secondly I want 90%+ enterable buildings. Tanoa is an amazingly beautiful map, which is ruined by the lack of enterable buildings. Take the Blue Pearl Harbour, great place for making all sorts of missions. Except none of the warehouses are enterable, none of the building in the area are enterable except for about 3 or 4 on the breakwater. It's a real shame and ruins so much potential.

Prebuilt FOB's personally I prefer to build my own. Lythium has probably surpassed Takistan as my favourite map, but I would like it even more if it didn't have so many prebuilt FOB's. Sure put in a couple, but I think it's better to leave the majority to the mission maker.

Towns - a decent sized central town is always welcome. It doesn't have to be massive, but just somewhere you can see being the hub of the area where trade/businesses would want to be.
Again going back to Lythium the towns are cool and being close to the airfields would be realistic, but in terms of gameplay I would have rather seen them more central to the map. Sometimes gameplay trumps realism.

Finally keep in mind when creating a map that a lot (if not most I assume) of communities play COOP vs AI, so the AI need to be able to navigate around your map. Sure bridges look awesome and can make for some great mission objectives, but if you can't get the AI to cross them then they're more hindrance than anything. Same with rivers, they can be great, but you don't want AI constantly trying to swim across or destroying their vehicles at crossings because it's too deep.