EiRR Development Direction

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[Barbi3KillzAll]

I've spoken to Unknown, Volsky, Dire on developing and polishing EiRR mod and there are some things where some community input will be helpful. The purpose largely is to make the mod as enjoyable as possible if released and to have a transparent development approach.

- On Game Design [Focus of this post]
- Development efforts on EiRRLauncher
- Analysis and Documentation on existing game infrastructure for future development work

On Game Design
I think there's a need to set down game design philosophy or principles to say how EiRR should be played so that units and doctrines etc. don't become OP/UP (substituted P for powered or priced) while remaining enjoyable to play.

Central to that are these core ideas among others
- every unit should be viable if used correctly
- more micro/skillful play should be rewarded

I've pushed the idea (and they have agreed) that map design should constitute balance as well. Among many established games, there's a standard map design philosophy (e.g. CSGO [among others] with bombsite A, B and going mid) and the game is balanced and designed for official map play. EiRR should take the same route.

I will be looking at taking a principles based approach to balance as opposed to rule based (For example: there are 3 pillars of balance in EiRR: Map Design, Unit Pricing and availability, Ecosystem of viable counters and playable alternatives)

Why designate official maps?
- Map should be well designed to allow various type of play
- Game balancing can be done consistently on units performance on official maps which are less bias
- Game design ideas can be built on units performance on official maps
- Players can choose to have a fair competitive map to play on, or choose other maps for variety but be aware that the game is not balanced for it.

What makes a good map
6p Neuville is readily accepted as a gold standard for maps, partially because it is a stamp of Semois, a professionally made map by Relic allowing for optimal engagement distances. I'll make my points based off Neuville.

What we need help here is describing the rules that says, what makes a good map? These rules can come in several forms and some of these readily observable in neuville are:

- Map is designed with a town placed n the middle, for fights to occur in the middle.
- Map has wide spaces on left and right of town for flanking to occur
- Map width is sufficiently wide for a 3v3 (e.g. width wise is large enough)
- Map length is long enough so that units take a short while to reach the middle and gaining ground is viable (unlike Tanteville which is quite short and players) and rewards good aggressive attacks
- Map allows some backcapping to occur (if enemy sits and plays passively in town, backcapping also a debateable mechanic)
- Map allows both infantry, vehicles and tanks to play well (e.g. st lambert has pathing issues, or some maps have excessive trees)

While I have my personal views on what makes a map good, I think it makes sense to take a consultative approach and avoid potential bias or blindspots.

Curating official maps
Once the rules/guidelines/concepts for map is made, we will request for play tests on maps and we will observe replays to see if the map rules are met, so that the map qualifies as an official map.

Input from you

Please reply to this post with either of the following:

- Your views on the stated game design ideas
- Your views on linking map design to game balance
- What rules/guidelines/features a good map should have

[Unkn0wn]

Here's the list of all EIR maps in current rotation, for your information:

1vs1
Angoville (with reworked sectors)
Semois
The Dike

2v2
Bergen
Brecourt
Church
Country side
Crossroads
Forest
Foy
France
Gold Sector
Hinderdam
In der hitze
Industrial Riverbed
Lanteville
Marshland
Neuville
Nuenen
Operation Martlet
Operation Deadstick
Point du Hoc
RN175
Road to Carentan
St Winn
The Causeway
The Dike
Venue

3v3
Lille
Abbeville
Adaire
Adolfs Countryside
Airfield Assault
Alencon
Bastion
Bocage
Montaville
Brecourt
Bretonneux
Burgundizzle
Carentan
City outskirts
D-day
Deserted Village
Dutch countryside
Egletons
Forest
Ghost Town
Graveyard
Montaville
Monte Cassino
Montherme Forest
Neuville
Red Ball Express
Ruins
Somewhere in Normandy
St Come du Mont
Suburban Dawn
Tanteville
The Scheldt
Vieux Port
Villas

4v4
Abbeville Winter
Adolfs Countryside
Bredrin
Burgundy
Goodwood
Monte Cassino
Nueville Winter
Purple Heart Lane
Road to and from Carentan
St Mere Eglise
Schijndel
Trevieres
Villers Bocage


Other maps:
(I've been trying to remove these for a long time but cant locate their files, all are by henry666 and listed as AOW maps. Must have snuck in through some map pack somewhere)
- Harbour invasion
- Morning glory
- Vire center
- Vire north
- The beach
- Crossfire
- Bridge to far
- Goetterdammerung
- Invasion
- Resource conflict
- Vire river city

--


In terms of what constitutes a good map, generally I believe indeed its along the lines of what you've listed. When adding maps I look at the following:

Size: longer than it is wide, playable area for a sufficiently sized 3vs3 for instance is approximately 512*256. This is sufficiently wide to offer flanking possibilities for 3 players. Smaller and you very easily get into the realm of maps a la RTC where you can effectively have a single AT gun cover a big portion of the map.

Sector design: are they even on both sides, i.e. do they add up to 50/50 map control in a situation where both players are contesting the middle. I don't think theres an "ideal amount of sectors" per se, but 3-4 sectors should be enough cover the width of a map, with about 5-7 on length. Fewer sectors around spawn arounds, some room for "capping play" around middle area of the map, in line with flanking possibilities.

Layout: favored EIR maps tend to be fairly rural, i.e. mix of buildings and open space. Some more urban parts can work, but important to offer wide enough streets/avenues for tank play and no high density of garrison-able buildings. There should be some "hard points" around which combat will naturally situate itself, i.e. a church, a chateau, a manor house, ... These fulful a role akin to "VP" points in vCOH. Other shotblockers like hedges, groves play an important role to break up spaces and allow cover but important they dont turn flanks into individual lanes which are easy to lock down with singular support weapons. There should be enough points at which armies can flow between flanks and middle area of map.

Pathing: this ones extremely important for good vehicle play and factions like PE. Important to not have objects cluttered all over. Some craters and elevation is ok but keep clear lanes for vehicles and easy manouvering, particularly in more urban settings. (cfr. Carentan is a good example of sufficiently wide streets with little clutter)

Eye-candy: splats, splines, plenty of detail to make the map look good. Good atmosphere settings. Fuck bloom.

Professional finish: maps need proper loading screen, ingame name, map preview image, ...


Our map list is still fairly large, despite the fact that Ive already trimmed down about 50% of the maps we used to have in. I dont think theres any point to having an extensive map list when most of the maps are ones no one will ever want to touch. Id be happy to trim it down further and applying some of the rules above I highlighted maps in green which work, maps in yellow which need work and maps in red which I propose to cut. Of the ones in green, there's still some divergence in playstyle, but i honestly don't think that is a problem as such. Monte Cassino for instance is a decent map, even if in terms of gameplay it favours vehicles a lot more than maps like Neuville do.

If we want to create further clarity for players on what the recommended maps are though we could give a few of the ones like Neuville an [official] tag ingame.

[Tachibana]

Honestly, I think you can prune the map pool even more aggressively. Like, 10 ea for 2v2/3v3/4v4. Leaving slots open for 1v1.

[Unkn0wn]

Yes you're probably right, I would suggest to cut out the maps in yellow as well until we can make revisions to them and then playtest them (we can offer players gold). I could use some help with that, i.e. if anyone knows how to use worldbuilder. it's a lot easier to edit existing maps rather than to make one from scratch, and we have an ample amount of decent maps that just need some tweaking to become great/EIR standard.

Also, if someone could help me locate those custom AOW Henry 666 maps in the EIR/map files, i'd really like to remove them from the map list.

[Tachibana]

Henry maps may be coming from "archive.34 = EuropeinRuins\Archives\RelicMapsModified" in the module

As for pruning, imo;

2v2
Church
Crossroads
Foy
In Der Hitze
Neunen
Martlet
Forest
France
Pick 2 more?

3v3
Neuville
Montaville
Deserted Village
Monte Cassino
Egletons
Tanteville
Adolf's Country
Dutch Country
Normandy
pick a 10th

4v4
Villers Bocage
Burgundy
Schijndel
Fuhrerstahd
Carentan 4v4
Neuville Winter
Teviers if we can clean up some of the pathing.
Though, How many 4v4s do we actually play? Might not even need a full 10.

[Barbi3KillzAll]

I have explained that to Unknown already on discord.

I found the Henry maps issue. It is a steam workshop subscription problem where his maps are subscribed in company of heroes relaunch. For some odd reason this applies to all of us as well. I reinstalled EiR on 22nd Nov. On 25th Nov, there was a steam subscription file pushed to me. You will find the maps in my documents\my games\company of heroes relaunch\europeinruins\archives\subscriptions\ .

RelicMapsModified is just modified relic maps.

[tank130]

That is probably because someone had those files in their folder and uploaded their folder to the FTTP site. You need to go on the server, locate them, and remove them there.

Then make sure whomever is patching does not patch them in again.