The Officially Unofficial Weekly Discussion #77: What is your favorite mission map?

[DougGraves]

There are a lot of maps.  The coolest ones tend to be for specific missions.

 

For coolness factor, ease of completion, whatever - what is your favorite map?

 

 

[Spaghetti Betty]

Stop Rikti Bombing

 

I love the Cap power station map! It's structure gives a lot of angles to LoS pull with, and Rikti are fun to fight! You can also spend as much time as you'd like in this mission, since the bombs and hostages are relatively easy to find.

[twozerofoxtrot]

The Elmo map.

 

Wish we could use it in AE.

[Intermipants]

Frostfire ice halfpipe room - is there anyone who hasn’t slid down that halfpipe?

[Knock!]

The "Destroy the Vampyr Lab" map from Tobias Hansen's arc. It's mostly a normal Council cave map, but I love the hatches you have to drop through to get deeper into the caves. They give the map a nice vampire-lair atmosphere. And the Transformation Capsules are cool too.

 

I think the last mission in the Ernesto Hess TF reuses much of that map, but it adds the "giant robot inside a volcano" room at the end, which is pretty great too.

[UltraAlt]

9 hours ago, DougGraves said:

For coolness factor, ease of completion, whatever - what is your favorite map?

 

The Mutant Origin arc mission with the final battle with Dr Vazh.

 

[UltraAlt]

2 hours ago, Knock! said:

I think the last mission in the Ernesto Hess TF reuses much of that map, but it adds the "giant robot inside a volcano" room at the end, which is pretty great too.

 

Actually in some of the earlier missions you can look through windows into the robot building/launching bay area and see the robots legs.

 

 

 

Now to power up the Ninjazord!

 

 

Edited May 17 by UltraAlt

[Greycat]

3 hours ago, Knock! said:

The "Destroy the Vampyr Lab" map from Tobias Hansen's arc. It's mostly a normal Council cave map, but I love the hatches you have to drop through to get deeper into the caves. They give the map a nice vampire-lair atmosphere. And the Transformation Capsules are cool too.

 

I think the last mission in the Ernesto Hess TF reuses much of that map, but it adds the "giant robot inside a volcano" room at the end, which is pretty great too.

 

Also used in the Trapdoor mission.

 

 

As far as my favourite? The map in the Eden trial, full stop. Not used (or really sensible to be used) anywhere else, nothing else even comes *close* to it.  Every time I run Eden (admittedly rare,) I end up taking screenshots. Other maps, you can kind of see "oh, this piece is familiar, they used this there, too," and it makes sense from a "reuse assets for missions" way. The Eden map looks... sculpted.

 

Part of me wishes we had more giant, unique setpieces like this. The rest of me can just *guess* how much work that would be...

 

Edited May 17 by Greycat

[DougGraves]

12 hours ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Stop Rikti Bombing

 

I love the Cap power station map! It's structure gives a lot of angles to LoS pull with, and Rikti are fun to fight! You can also spend as much time as you'd like in this mission, since the bombs and hostages are relatively easy to find.

 

Is that the outdoor map in a fenced in area on a hill, and there are multiple buildings with a lot of ramps going up in the north part of the map?

 

That is a map I really like.  A lot of diversity in fighting areas and exploring.

[MrAxe]

Any office map without the weird, nonsensical dead ends.

[Spaghetti Betty]

51 minutes ago, DougGraves said:

 

Is that the outdoor map in a fenced in area on a hill, and there are multiple buildings with a lot of ramps going up in the north part of the map?

 

That is a map I really like.  A lot of diversity in fighting areas and exploring.

Yes! That's the one. It's excellent for practicing herding! There is a great combination of rigid and exotic-shaped structures that allow you to really dial in on your angles!

[Eiko-chan]

7 minutes ago, Spaghetti Betty said:

Yes! That's the one. It's excellent for practicing herding! There is a great combination of rigid and exotic-shaped structures that allow you to really dial in on your angles!

FYI, this map is just an instanced version of the PTS Power Station in northeastern Cap au Diable, right next to the horns of Mount Diable. 

Edited May 17 by Eiko-chan
correct ordinal

[starro]

My pic was already stated by Grey Cat... I am surprised those art assets / zone look did not turn up elsewhere in the game.... maybe that spine/rib cage is that same one on a Peregrine Island.  

 

My second favorite is the Sky Raider base out in the water that looks like a bit of an oil drill platform.  There is something about the different levels with the pop out turret guns, the chaos from the flying villains and sharp corners where ground based heroes can run into a wipeout... you get your way to the top only to get likely overwhelmed with a undisciplined group, archvillains and just more chaos.

 

My third favorite.... has to be everything Cimerona above ground. ok not a mission map, but happy with the expanded zone from the ITF into the zone - it is beautiful.  I felt that was better than the dark Mot inspired Dark Astoria renovation.

 

Ok, I said I would not do more than two but my fourth nomination is actually the destroyed Galaxy City.  I have gone from offended Galaxy is gone to liking that map.   The original tutorial was so clunky.    I kind of hope there is some Incarnate related destroyed Galaxy City zone with those blue jello monsters coming soon.

[Eiko-chan]

6 minutes ago, starro said:

My second favorite is the Sky Raider base out in the water that looks like a bit of an oil drill platform. 

This platform exists in Sharkhead Isle. One of the exploration badges for the zone is on it. 🙂

[starro]

18 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

This platform exists in Sharkhead Isle. One of the exploration badges for the zone is on it. 🙂

Ooooh yeah!!! Memory is fuzzy but is there a second badge in a burning tanker nearby?

[Eiko-chan]

1 minute ago, starro said:

Ooooh yeah!!! Memory is fuzzy but is there a second badge in a burning tanker nearby?

You remember a badge location correctly, but not the right one. That badge you're thinking of is, I suspect, the one on the sinking Oil Tanker in Port Oakes. There is a second badge in Sharkhead along the beach near the platform, though.

[Doc_Scorpion]

The big outdoor Faultline map at the end of Jim Tremblor's arc.

[Oubliette_Red]

Big cave map that has that trail over a pit, which leads up to what appears to be a dead-end room only to have a switch-back, loop-under around to the right and can be totally missed if you do not go all the way into the room and turn around to look back in the direction from whence you came. Total Morrowind throw-back cave for me.

 

[Greycat]

48 minutes ago, Eiko-chan said:

You remember a badge location correctly, but not the right one. That badge you're thinking of is, I suspect, the one on the sinking Oil Tanker in Port Oakes.

 

... which, while not a "I like the entire map" thing, does have an easter egg for some unfinished content.

 

If you look at the "oil slick," it forms an Eye of Horus. It was *supposed* to end up tied to the Blood of the Black Stream and Gadzul Oil.

[Techwright]

15 hours ago, twozerofoxtrot said:

The Elmo map.

 

Wish we could use it in AE.

I'm probably overlooking the obvious, but I'm drawing a blank on the reference: "the Elmo map"? We're talking the furry little red guy hyped up on sugar?

 

I'd never given a favorite map much thought, but possibly the fleet map on the Admiral Sutter TF, assuming "TF" = "mission" in this case.

[SeraphimKensai]

I really like the burning forest map. Something about it being on fire gives it a sense of urgency.

[DougGraves]

9 minutes ago, SeraphimKensai said:

I really like the burning forest map. Something about it being on fire gives it a sense of urgency.

 

I made an AE arc on live just to use that map.  I used it as a place for Hellions to perform sacrifices on kidnapping victims by burning them.  

[stevesmith]

On 5/17/2024 at 10:05 AM, DougGraves said:

There are a lot of maps.  The coolest ones tend to be for specific missions.

 

For coolness factor, ease of completion, whatever - what is your favorite map?

 

 

Hey @DougGraves

 

I wanna tell you that one of my favorite mission maps has to be the Council Empire Base in Striga Isle. The atmosphere is incredible, with its intricate layout and the sense of being deep inside enemy territory. The mission flow is smooth, and the enemies provide a good challenge without being overwhelming.

[ZorkNemesis]

16 hours ago, Greycat said:

Not used (or really sensible to be used) anywhere else

 

I know the first big chamber with the rock wall is available as a large Arena map; I remember when i4 dropped and everyone was in the Arena for a week.  Ended up in that room in one bout before I had ever been on the Eden trial.

 

One of my favorite mission maps has to be from Infernia's chapter of Who Will Die.  That part where you're on the ship and you step out on deck to see the rest of the fleet suspended in air, you climb the ships fighting Rularuu the whole way.  Pretty crazy moment.

[Shred Monkey]

Lots of good ones listed.  I'm a fan of the Underground ITrial map.  

 

Also, I want to give accolades to the original sewers maps.  We probably don't think much of them because they're so common, but they were really well done for creating a modern day urban dungeon crawl.