Session Name: | Level Design Workshop: The Holy Grail of Multiplayer Level Design: Maps for Casual and Competitive Play |
Speaker(s): | Andrew Yoder |
Company Name(s): | Hi-Rez Studios |
Track / Format: | Design |
Overview: | In this session, Andrew Yoder will cover the discrepancy between multiplayer maps for casual and competitive play and define "holy grail" maps as those that work for both audiences, giving examples from the history of multiplayer FPS level design. He will describe several design processes he and his team used at Hi-Rez since beta closed to create the levels for 'Paladins', a team-based FPS. He will focus on their experiments with player feedback on greybox maps in a public test queue as an attempt at external, data-driven iteration. His presentation will also detail some of the unexpected results from specific maps in the test queue, and Andrew will compare the results of this process to Hi-Rez's previous process based on internal feedback and iteration. He will go on to describe the effect of this process change on the team, and the unexpected consequences of putting level designers in the position of data analysts. To conclude, he will connect these observations back to his quest for the "holy grail" of multiplayer level design and caution others on their own quests. |