One thing I've noticed about GW2 (here I go again...) is that when you enter a Dungeon with a team, you have like 4 options in terms of what specific content you're going to do. I was doing the Catacombs of Ascalon dungeon last night, and there are 4 "paths" you can do in that dungeon. It's all the same map, with different rooms and hallways, etc, but your objectives and the NPCs you talk to/fight change depending on which path you choose to do, and you can eventually do all 4, of course. In fact, you can redo all of them ad infinitum, like TFs in CoX. I like that the game makes more use of the maps they built for dungeons that way.
I don't know if the CoT devs are planning on making maps for dungeon/TF type stuff specifically, but if so, I would say "Don't be shy about writing more content for those maps than just the one TF."
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
Agreed. If done well, it's actually cool and fun to see the same map again in a different context--and presumably it streamlines development. I wouldn't mind this being done with most, if not all, mission maps.
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Moreover, the loots are differents, the stories are differents but have the same core general story, the boss and strategies are really differents :) A good way to join several "lores" in one dunjeon :) I agree with this idea !
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In CoX, it seemed like there were only a few maps that were used over and over again. Granted they were large and complex and we only saw portions of them at a time. But we ran them so many times that I could predict exactly where the next dip and curve was going to be in the cave. Where the elevator was going to be and where the boss rooms were.
I think while it is admirable to design a game with maximum reuse of assets, I disagree with some of the people on this thread that recognizing the same assets when they are reused is a good thing. In my opinion, I shouldn't recognize the same geography unless it is, in fact, the same geography according to the lore of the mission.
If you make the map large enough and complex enough, you can use it over and over again without the players even knowing it. Running it backwards is an example I've seen that is easy to do and hardy recognized by the playerbase. But even with this complexity we will see some repetition. I just don't think that noticing repetition is a good thing.
Edit: I realize the OP was referring to "dungeon" content that is meant to be repeated over and over and changing up the map so you're not repeating the same map and content every time you repeat the same "dungeon." I agree that doing something to vary the experience is a good goal and providing a map that includes several path options and variations is a good thing.
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To give some more detail in terms of what I'm talking about (and I agree that CoX reused like EVERY map a lot, and I didn't mind that really), We did the Ascalon dungeon on "story mode" which is the easiest version, and that was just a run through a dungeon with an end boss that's basically a big bag of HP you have to tank and spank. Then we did "path 3" which is a harder version which has some parts to it where you have to protect the NPC while baddies spawn all around the room, and another part where you have to run around a room collecting 5 relics while baddies attack you, etc. At the end, the end boss has a "tremor" ability that causes stalactites to drop from the ceiling of the cave you're in and basically it coats the entire floor in AoE "avoid the green stuff" damage effects that will pretty much 1-shot you. There's an NPC that has a "force field" power that can protect you, so you have to keep close to him and keep him alive, etc.
The different versions are all still "You're in a catacomb fighting gravelings and Acalonian ghosts for some reason." but the actual tasks and so forth are different, which makes different powers more or less useful, which is nice. There are parts that make stealth powers good to have, parts where AoE is awesome, etc.
There's also a part where the game tells you "a bonus monster has spawned" and it appears in red on your map. It's a troll. It's really hard to beat, has no place in the story and can be totally ignored. I'm not even sure it gives you any treasure if and when you do defeat it. Basically they put a troll in the dungeon to troll you.
R.S.O. of Phoenix Rising
To be clear, I was talking about the re-use of recognizable and significant terrain for different story lines, NOT just unimaginatively similar terrain being used all of the time. Which is what I assumed Radiac meant also.
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Ideally there will be modules that can be fit together in a number of different arrangements, making layouts more varied and less predictable. Cave tunnels could be skinned with several different tints, and interior wall/flooring colors as well, so that even "generic room #12" could look a few different ways.
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Many of the maps in COH were actually different. You could get an inkling of this if you looked at the map variety in the MA. They used the same base assets repeated over and over. The problem is that the assets were very static and many times would only fit together in certain ways. This meant that if you saw a room all the spawns were always in the same locations. There were only so many pattern variations that were achievable. Which meant that if you saw a given room you knew you'd likely see elevators at the other end or it would go to a hallway and back to another room or elevators. This low level patterning distracted from the high level variation in the maps in COH. When MA came out I basically expected that we would be able to build out our own mission maps by stacking these low level blocks together. I was disappointed that we couldn't when MA came out.
I don't disagree with reusing assets but care should be taken to ensure that there are lots of assets and that they can be arranged freely and organically. I think that their algorithmic methodology should handle that but we shall see.
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