作者：Dodger

选择

Sid Meyer曾说过“游戏是一系列有意义的选择”，对于多人模式游戏设计来说，这一再正确不过了。在单人游戏中设计师利用线性发展，或者只是一般的玩法片段操作等设计工具来引导玩家。而在多人模式游戏中，玩家只要使用你所提供的工具，就能够持续创造自己的体验。（请点击此处阅读本文下篇）

为此，我们很有必要从这个角度来看待多人模式地图设计：为玩家提供优秀的工具，以便他们创造良好的体验。

当然，这一切听起来显而易见，但还是有许多人误解了这个基本概念，因此我们有必要在此进行阐述。

地形选择

在多人模式FPS地图中为玩家提供有趣选择的一个好方法就是，给予他们多种地形选择。（游戏邦注：例如，墙壁、高地、低地等都属于地形选项）优秀玩家会掌握根据情况来选择地形的方法。例如，玩家选择比对手更高的地势总是一个更好的主意。这不但可以为其提供更高的射击角度，通常还会提供部分的掩护。现在假设你将高地设置在一个靠近墙体的地方，那么玩家就必须做出选择：走向高地并获得掩护，还将自己暴露在极易被敌人的炮火击中的空旷之地？

优秀的多人模式设计师总会考虑到地形选择，并尽量为玩家提供更多好选择。

多人路径

在单人模式游戏中，将玩家引向人的游戏所能提供的最佳玩法体验总是有利的。通常，这会导致线性关卡设计（多数情况下，最适合你想提供的体验）。在多人模式中，线性路径通常较为不利。优秀的玩家在一个关卡中会不断改变自己的路径，有时候是为了摆脱追击者，有时候是为了获得自己渴望的武器或拾取道具。无论是哪种，玩家在一个多人模式地图中拥有大量路径选择总是更有优势。一般来说，优秀多人模式设计应该尽量确保所有主要地形至少有3条路径。但也有一些例外情况，我会在之后的连载文章中提到这一点。

流程

除了多条路径之外，优秀的多人模式关卡设计师还要经常考虑到如何让玩家全面地体验一个多人模式地图。这种认知水平称为流程，它影响到包括死亡竞技地图的掉落道具布置，以及节点追击地图中的节点布置等方方面面。

设计师最好在动手设计关卡之前先拟一个粗略的泡泡图表。这种图表通常是由一些简单的形状构成（如是圆形、方形、三角形），并以此代表一些主要区域。当你完成了一个不错的地域布局时，你可以箭头将其连接起来，显示该区域的不同出入途径。之后你就要开始考虑如何让玩家从一个区域转向下一个区域，该路径有什么兴趣点。如果你无法想出一个优秀的流程来，也可以参考一些多数时候甚为管用的默认形状：

圆环

圆环是关卡中最简单的流程。虽然你几乎不可能设计一个圆环流程的关卡，但有时候你可以让自己的主要流程路径定义为关卡中的一个简单环路。这通常是一个有利于你想出更棒流程的优秀跳板。

数字8

如果你玩过任何竞争型多人模式游戏（通常是FPS），你就会注意到许多关卡是基于简单的数字8来创建的。数字8对于主要流程来说是一个非常有趣的形状。它们不但具备了圆环的所有优点（只要提供了有趣的流程），还增加了一个切割圆环周长的额外主要流程路径。

通常来说，你可以通过设置良好的数字8来获得极具融入感和复杂的流程。

fig8 example(from ongamedesign)

焦点

焦点是多人模式地图中一个极为重要的功能。它们不但能够将玩家兴趣划分成地图上的多个不同点，还可以提供具有视觉兴趣的区域。每个设计良好的地图都将包含地图上最重要地点的一个焦点（通常是中心），以及每个主要区域的一个次焦点。

焦点的例子包括很高的结构，有趣的地形，需要玩法的元素（如节点），拾取道具以及那些可为区域增加特殊的视觉兴趣的东西。

垂直性

地形选择部分已经涉及了一点关于这方面的内容，但我们不可夸大垂直性在多人模式设计中的重要性。垂直性可增加玩家在某区域的选择数量，但也会增加某个地区所含有的“每平方米玩法”。一个完全单调而支持32名玩家的地图可能是400m*400M，但你却可以通过仅增加地区上所有主要区域的一两个关卡的垂直性，让一个200M*200m地图容纳相同数量的玩家。

例如，在《Resistance》中，我们发现向一个空间添加3米的垂直性（尤其是3到6米高度的落差）可以让我们的空间更有趣，并且更具稠密感，也更有趣味。

掩体

在多人模式中，重要的是让你的玩家多数时候无法射击得太远。大型开放空间一般要用许多掩体来分割。这也有利于玩家避开长时间易被攻击的状态并穿过区域。但这个规则也有例外情况，如任何你想鼓励风险/奖励场景的区域（例如，，边界拥有大量掩体，中心拥有一件很棒升级道具，鼓励玩家冒着可能被某人击中的风险去获取该道具的大型开放区域）。我们在之后的文章中也会提到这种风险/奖励场景。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Designing FPS Multiplayer Maps – Part 1

By Dodger August 1, 2008 Game Design

An Overview: What is Fun About FPS Multiplayer?

Choices

Sid Meyer once said that “a game is a series of interesting choices” and nowhere in game design is this more true than Multiplayer Design. In a single player game, the designer has access to design tools to help guide the player, like linear progression, or even just general good crafting of gameplay segments. In a multiplayer game, the player is constantly having to make his own experience using only the tools you provide him to do so.

As such, it is important to approach multiplayer map design from this perspective: Provide the player with good tools and he can create a good experience.

All this sounds blaringly obvious, of course, but given how many people get this basic tenet wrong it deserves stating.

Terrain Options

One good way to provide players with interesting choices in a multiplayer FPS map is to give them a variety of terrain options to choose from. (Elements like walls, cover, high ground, and low ground are all examples of these terrain options.) Good players learn what terrain to use depending on the situation – for example, it’s usually just a better idea for a player to have higher ground than his opponent. Not only does it provide him with an excellent angle to fire at them with, it also usually provides partial cover. Now lets say you place the high ground near a wall – now the player has a choice to make: Does he go for the high ground and attempt to get cover, or does he stay in the open to avoid getting hit easily with a splash damage weapon?

A good multiplayer designer is always thinking of terrain options and trying to engineer them to provide as many good choices for the player as possible.

Multiple Paths

In single player games, it is often beneficial to lead the player towards the best gameplay experience your game has to offer. Often, this leads to a linear level design (which is, in most cases, best suited to the experience you want to provide). In multiplayer a linear path is rarely beneficial. A good player is constantly varying his route through a level, sometimes to shake off pursuers or sometimes in order to go after desirable weapons or pickups. Either way, it is always advantageous for the player to have a number of paths to get to and from every major area in a multiplayer map. As a general rule, a good multiplayer design should strive to make sure all major areas have at least three ways in and/or out of them. As with all rules, there are exceptions — and I’ll get into those in future installments.

Flow

In addition to multiple paths, a good multiplayer level designer is constantly thinking of how he wants the players to move globally through a multiplayer map. This level of understanding, called flow, affects everything from pickup placement in a deathmatch map to node placement in a node-capture map.

It is often beneficial for a designer to come up with a rough bubble diagram before attacking the level. Such a diagram will usually just consist of simple shapes (circles, squares, triangles) representing major areas. Once you’ve got a nice area layout, you connect them with arrows showing the different ways in or out of that area. Then you start to think about how you want a player to travel from one area to the next and where the points of interest are on that path. If you’re ever having trouble coming up with a good flow, there are several default shapes that you can always fall back on that work almost every time.

The Circle

A circle is the simplest kind of flow a level could have. While you would almost never design a level that only flowed in a circle, sometimes you can define your major flow path as a simple circuit through the level. This is often a good springboard that gets you thinking about even better flows.

The Figure 8

If you play any competitive multiplayer games (most often FPSs) you will notice that a lot of levels are based off the simple figure 8. Figure 8’s are a very interesting shape for major flow. While they offer all the benefits of a circle, as far as providing interesting flow, they also have the added benefit of an additional major flow path that cuts through half the circumference of the circle.

Often, you can get incredibly involved and complex flows out of a few well-placed figure-8s.

Interesting Spaces

Focal Points

Focal points are a particularly important feature of multiplayer maps. Not only do they divide up the players’ interest to many different points on the map, they also provide areas of visual interest. Every well designed map will contain a focal point at the most important point on the map (usually the center) as well as minor focus points in every major area.

Examples of focal points include really tall structures, interesting terrain formations, gameplay-required elements (such as nodes), pickups, and anything that adds particular visual interest to an area.

Verticality

The terrain options section touched on this a little bit, but verticality’s importance in multiplayer design can not be overstated. Verticality increases the amount of player choices in an area, but also increases the “gameplay per square meter” that a map has. A completely flat map that supports 32 players might be 400m x 400m, but you could fit the same number of players into a 200×200 map just by adding one or two levels of verticality to all the major areas on a map.

In Resistance, for example, we found that adding verticality to a space in 3 meter increments (specifically 3 and 6 meter height differences up or down) made our spaces much more interesting and allowed them to be a lot denser and generally more fun.

Cover

It’s important in multiplayer that your players not be able to shoot too far ahead of themselves most of the time. Large open spaces should usually be broken up with a lot of full cover. This also allows players to advance through areas without being vulnerable for too long. The exception to this rule is any area where you want to encourage a risk/reward scenario (for example, with a large open space with lots of cover on the outskirts and a nice powerup in the center the player is encouraged to take a risk and get the powerup with the possibility that someone might shoot at them from the well-covered spots.) We’ll get more into risk/reward scenarios in future installments.（source：ongamedesign）