Multiplayer Board Submissions

This is a thread for people to submit their ideas for possible multiplayer board ideas.

Jon said he was interested in getting more boards for MP so I figured we could all submit some and let Jon / Farbs / Flax / the community decide which to be included.

The conditions I'd like to see people follow is no single VP maps (they are usually boring) and try not to make the maps dominantly strong for a single class / race.

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Some things I've been trying to note when making maps are some basic criteria to make it not favor one class / race over another (these are guidelines and not hard rules -- so break them when needed, but be vary wary when doing so):

• Maps are symmetrical (in theory there could be balanced maps that are non-symmetrical, but without an insane amount of testing it would be difficult to prove and it is better to just keep it symmetrical)
• Characters start 2 spaces apart from each other to reduce the problem of drawing Loner on the first turn.
• Victory point squares are either 2 spaces away from the start of a character or 5+ spaces away from the start -- so one race can not get to a VP location before another with a default move.
• Victory point squares should not be more than two standard Walk (move 2) cards away (factoring in difficult terrain costs) -- otherwise you can run into stalemates (like in Celestial Lions)
• Characters should not have line of sight with the enemy unless it is more than 10 squares away at the start of the game (so only Flash of Agony could be used to give first player advantage which generally isn't a good idea due to hitting your own teammates for more)
• Starting areas should not be able to be completely blocked off by Flash Flood / Illusory Barrier within the first turn (Flanking Move + Walls shouldn't completely shut out a team)

There are a few others to the list of "good things to take into consideration" that I'll add when I think of them or others mention them.

 

Here are some board ideas I threw together in about 30 minutes or so each. The cosmetics obviously leave a lot to be desired, but functionality is the important part to test. I'm exploring the idea of having interesting VP configurations that lead to varied gameplay. Basically for these maps (and another one or two I'm working on) the goal is to not have a single VP or single cluster of VPs, but also to encourage melee combat and not have it devolve into a "passing fest" like some maps turn into (for example: Celestial Lions).

EDIT: I made a few changes to Zen_Diagonal based on some feedback. I still have some work to do fixing line of sight so Flanking Move + Flash Flood on the first turn doesn't imbalance the starting positions but it should feel a bit better for casters maneuvering around now.

 

Since im lazy can i just link the one sin my pvp thread? http://forums.cardhunter.com/threads/tuknir-pvp-custom-maps.3857/

the new ones i may make i will post here

 

I will note for archival purposes a similar thread, from which SLG pulled boards for a tournament back in January.

Also, I will cheerfully ignore your restrictions (because single-vp spot maps are the bestest!) and submit my own maps again for your consideration... ^_^

Temple of Industry (formerly Dwarf Pavilion) - a ring of difficult terrain (steps) separating an outer "racetrack" from the central platform. Four victory squares are arranged in square formation at distance two, with a single blocking column in the middle of the entire formation. note: I made this map before ziggurat existed, and I think it is sufficiently different

Forest Glade - It feels claustrophobic, and has some weird lines-of-sight, but there are certain strong positions for wizards, if they can reach them. Step-warriors have lots of good cover, but it's also too narrow to flank characters when attacking head-on.

 

None of your maps are wizard-friendly (Didn't download tuknir's one though)

 

Agreed. They really favor non-wizards due to heavy amounts of blocking terrain. Plus, single VP maps are BORRRRING. We have enough single VP (and maybe even clustered VP) maps! Much more curious about maps similar to the recent Tezkal Maps which I feel are by far the strongest of all the map designs so far.

 

Since there will always be people who don't mind (or even like) single VP maps, can I ask for some clarification. Would you prefer them to start other MP board idea threads (so that this thread is one among many) or are you willing to have them post here and you're just stating your preference about how you'd recommend boards to be designed?

 

I'd rather see all submissions in one thread, and I don't think BM is prepared to completely discount single-VP boards, for whatever that's worth.

 

I will beat you with a triple wizards team on those maps any time you'd like.

I, uh, hated most of the Tezkal maps, and I was playing wizards on them. Only Hyperthalamus Havok was consistently good for wizards. Fortunately, Ziggurat won't suck as much, now that whirls were nerfed, but it's still terrible for wizards despite being a large map. (Remember that you were playing whirlspam+NS through that entire rotation.)

 

Single VP maps are potentially good, but I'm not convinced that they can be completely balanced in the current state of the game (Immovable / Impenetrable Nimbus / Flash Flood). You can post them, but I feel like there's enough of them in the game already.

Sure, let's go. :-P

Tezkal wasn't that weak to wizards -- 3DC was used to a pretty strong degree by others. And just because I used NS + WW/WWE doesn't mean that's all I faced. There were other builds that were very strong on those maps.

Yeah, it is fine to have single VP maps posted, I'm just giving guidelines on things people should focus on that increase the diversity and interesting gameplay choices. If there's a single VP map that is just amazing in concept I'd gladly support it! =)

 

I've updated the main post with a list of "good map practice guidelines" -- I'd be curious to hear of others if people have ideas.

 

Just musing - having run Loner-heavy builds, back before Sacrificial Axe existed, I felt like this was a problem only if the map was large. If it's a smallish map, then it's fine to squish a team together at start. (And this is an entirely subjective measure, which I can't frame any better than I have... )

Other rules...

- don't start any characters in difficult terrain

 

I'm not sure that's necessarily a good rule. I think it can be used wisely to balance starting races if used properly. It just isn't used properly in the Crypt map that everyone complains about... :-P

 

The rule should be: "Don't start chars behind difficult terrain."

 

Again, that shouldn't be a problem if the goal is to reduce movement of the starting character to 1 to balance for racial movement to get to VP square(s).

 

erm, can we not have guidelines tagged to cards ? I feel your approach is backwards, no offense intended. If you are going to reduce loner from taking effect, then perhaps we should restrict greater heals, talented healer, altruism, impetous heal etc from first turn draws as well ? With wall of stone gone, there is no starting area that can ever be completely blocked off due to teles/fly. So if you are going to restrict flanking move+walls, we should also restrict first turn teleports/fly? And so on and forth... If board designers have to take said guidelines to reduce certain 'powerful' combos/playstyles/babysit parties, we might as well not design. Let the players find the best builds. Board designers should not be hampered by cards/first turn combos.

Actually, Farbs sums it very well here:

my 2.5cts...

 

edit: I moved this to a separate thread, so as not to derail / bury further submissions.

 

Looks like fun! Where would you put the spawn points? Oh and just FYI, the asymmetry is not purely cosmetic, there are some slight line of sight differences in that LOS can be drawn between playable squares passing between the two single squares of blocked terrain in the southern half of the river, where LOS cannot be drawn the same way for the symmetrical counterpart.

 

They are guidelines, not rules. But I feel strongly that someone shouldn't simply be in a hugely worse position simply due to first card draws and bad automatic positioning. If someone makes a move that puts them in that situation, that's fine -- but if they just start there with no meaningful decisions behind it then it creates frustration over poor luck (Loner).

Additionally, there needs to not be a first player advantage that can single handedly determine the game (Flanking Move + Flash Flood / Illusory Barrier giving 2+ VP because someone went first and had the cards).

Games should be determined by play, not simply by getting lucky or unlucky before any actual gameplay decisions come into effect.

Farb's comment was for a specific tournament where people built for each map individually -- you can't do that in multiplayer because you have to build for a group of maps. It might work if there was only 1 ranked map and it rotated weekly... which might be a cool idea to explore, but right now that's what we have constructed Leagues matches for: weird, non-perfect PVP maps. For a normal MP board rotation, you want maps that encourage as many builds as possible without a single dominant build -- but with some that will work better than others (although none that will result in an instant win).

 

Ok after checking my pvp maps i want to leave here 3 i like, and hope you guys will like it too. please comment on then

King of the Pavillion version 2:


Frozen Cave:



Cellar: