Why the map size debate is miguided; some thought experiments

I finally saw one too many posts about reducing map size and wrote up this rant, lol. The tldr is that GGG is correct to focus instead on changing the content of maps to be more fun rather than reducing the size of the maps.

My general thought is that the whole reason people want GGG to reduce map size is so that you spend more time doing the kind of content that you most enjoy or they want a change of environment and enemy type. So if they simply replace more of the generic monster fights with the kinds of fights that you enjoy, you would be happier with how big the maps are.

You can see that this is true with some thought experiments; imagine the minimum size of a map that you would be comfortable with the game having. What's the benefit to this? Let me guess; you spend more time doing the content you prefer; fighting the boss, doing the breach, whatever. So really the issue with the current state of the game isn't map size, it's the content ratio; too much time fighting generic monsters, not enough time doing cool stuff.

Let's do another one; imagine the game has maps a bit smaller than what you'd say is the minimum size of a map. What's the problem here? Why don't you want it to be smaller than this minimum? My guess is that it would be annoying to be interrupted in your fighting by constantly having to go back to the hideout and pick out your next map; too much time would be spent on loading screens.

Okay, one last thought experiment, we're going in the opposite direction now. Given the optimal content that you would prefer doing, is there a maximum map size which would be terrible to play?

This whole concept is completely unrealistic so you can just do whatever crazy thing you can imagine with it. Imagine a map that has infinite size, however, in this map there is no content that you don't enjoy. All the fights are the cool fights that you love, whether that's breaches or boss fights or whatever. The environment and enemy types changes often enough that it doesn't feel like you're traveling through the same area all the time, there's some kind of mechanism through which you can adjust the difficulty to your liking as you go, and there's just the right amount of monsters respawning behind you so you can take a break if needed, but you never have long stretches of backtracking through empty zones. The only reason you have to go back to your hideout is if your inventory gets full. Seriously... isn't this the most perfect situation? (I guess this is my idea of a generic idea of perfection really; if it was more tailored to me personally, there would be areas where there's only rare fights and/or only boss fights, and I could probably come up with a bunch of other, more subtle ideas maybe you would have a different idea of a perfect infinite map.)

The main reason games have zones separated by loading screens is hardware limitations. It is not because players actually prefer zones separated by loading screens. The reality is that we've never had a world where we don't have loading screens so people have convinced themselves that they actually like them, and some aren't old enough to remember when loading screens were obtrusive enough to be really annoying, or are too old and have forgotten what that was like. The reality is, there's no benefit to finishing a map and going back to your hideout to pick out the next one or clicking through to the next area. If you doubt me, save up a bunch of the hideout maps so you can do them all at once and do 100 of them in a row. Report back; is this your idea of fun?

I thought most of that criticism related to the campaign areas? at least that was my feeling.

I thought maps were of acceptable sizes, the issue was backtracking to kill the rare, something that doesn't exist in PoE1.
and there's a larger issue surrounding that regarding player agency and homogenous gameplay which leads to a stronger 'meta'. every player is running maps the same way, and so there's a build that's best at it. in PoE1 this isn't the case and there's a decent amount of nuance to mapping strategies (or there used to be).

when a player first runs a game's campaign their goals are aligned with those set by the game and it's developers. if a player should choose to run that campaign again they likely have their own personal reasons. we don't necessarily care about or want to run the campaign again, we just liked xyz thing. it's most valuable assets (unique boss encounters in this case) have been seen and done.

actually I wonder if the random nature of encounters in an arpg campaign takes away from the feeling of mastery one can find from a game like Dark Souls.

anyway, it's interesting to see a game get designed in real time. I really can't think of another game designed quite like PoE2... heavier more costly combat (relative to other arpgs), in a game cantered around endlessly engaging in combat for random rewards.

and I really think that's what contributes to some players feeling like the campaign was a slog they didn't want to participate in... like when you cross a road IRL you do it with clear purpose - enter the store and buy food. in an arpg it's like you're crossing the road because there might be something cool in the dumpster.

it's not really the size of the zones, it's just the feel.

I don't really understand the argument for making maps smaller, other than for those that want to just speed-run their way through a linear map. I like big maps. The exception is endgame maps where you need to back-track a ton, but I think they just need to add some more well-placed checkpoints to travel around.

Other than that, to me big map = more enemies to kill = more xp/potential for drops.

I also enjoy just wandering around maps looking for stuff. IMO they need to add more into the maps to make them more engaging rather than making them smaller.

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Johnny_Hotbody#4829 wrote:

I also enjoy just wandering around maps looking for stuff. IMO they need to add more into the maps to make them more engaging rather than making them smaller.

This is exactly what they are working on. Not sure where the 'they are making maps smaller' came from. I think some people misunderstood the recent interviews.

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

This is exactly what they are working on. Not sure where the 'they are making maps smaller' came from. I think some people misunderstood the recent interviews.

Pretty sure it was just when they mentioned removing areas of the campaign maps that were a "dead-end" because the intended locations at the end of those paths were not in the game yet.

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Johnny_Hotbody#4829 wrote:

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AintCare#6513 wrote:

This is exactly what they are working on. Not sure where the 'they are making maps smaller' came from. I think some people misunderstood the recent interviews.

Pretty sure it was just when they mentioned removing areas of the campaign maps that were a "dead-end" because the intended locations at the end of those paths were not in the game yet.

I'm not sure, never heard it mentioned. I know they spoke about 'maps taking too long to run' but their take on it was that it 'feels' long. I never heard them state they were making them smaller but they were addressing the issue of the perception. Talking exactly about what you brought up, and the lack of content in maps, the random encounters we had in poe1 etc. There was one statement that Jonathan said about being surprised how long even some experienced players take to finish a map, so maybe it stemmed from that?