Balenced Rural Maps

One of the best aspects of a survival game is its map. A well balanced map, such as Russia in U3, will provide enjoyable and more fair gameplay. Anyways, let’s get to the point: Creating a more balanced rural map.

Goals

There points are my suggestions and goals in order to create a phenomenal map experience in Unturned II.

  • Separating low tier and high tier players (and loot)
  • Preventing spawn camping by high tier players
  • Providing optimal space for base building and foraging/hunting
  • Creating a scaled level of hazard, depending on tier of area being played in
  • In general, create framework for balanced U4 maps in the future and fix the errors in U3 regarding maps

Location and Map Difficulty

There are many places in the globe with rural areas, but not all are equally easy to survive in. For example, I am going to categorize these real life locations to what their gameplay difficulty should be .

  • Extreme: Alaska, Nevada, Sahara Desert, Siberia, and Yukon (extreme climates)
  • Hard: British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Washington, and Ukraine (harder climates, because these places actually have winter)
  • Normal: Arizona, California, France, Texas, and Italy (normal climates, because these places have less harsh winters, along with good weather and living climates)
  • Easy: ???, maybe PEI?

Making a Normal Map

Now to begin the process of what would be the ideal balanced and tiered map, I am going to choose the location of Northern California, which would be a Normal Rural map. I am going to use the tiered map system, and I will further explore the tiers below here.

Tiers

There are three dimensions to the tier system I am about to prevent. The first is location, or how the location on a map effects the items and hazards that spawn there. The second is drops, which take the form of loot and resources. The third is hazards, which include the turned, weather, and other extremes that may be present in an area.

There will be in effect, five tiers. Each will have their own separate loot pools and locations.

  1. Tier I, or the Starter Tier
  2. Tier II, or the Low Tier
  3. Tier III, or the Middle Tier
  4. Tier IV, or the High Tier
  5. Tier V, or the Extreme Tier

Location Tiers

A map should be tiered with T1 on one side, and T4 on the other, with few T5 locations fitted in the T4 area. This keeps players on their respective sides of the map, which means every area a tier encompasses must allow the players to be self-sufficient, and not to rely on lower tier areas, with the exception of T1.

Tier I
Since this is rural California, I am going to start the players on abandoned farm lands and camp grounds. This gives players access to rudimentary loot with basic materials on hand. But it also pushes lower tier players out to the next tier so they can acquire a better and more reliable source of food. Some examples would be vineyards with dead plants, farms with razed fields, and rudimentary camp sites.

Tier II
Next, players will come across small towns and more well equipped farms, with access to basic loot and food, along with basic ranged weapons. They should find their first real vehicles here, but be able to refuel using alternate and less efficient fuel sources. They should have open fields nearby, with hunting/trapping and base building potential with basics.

Tier III
Now players will begin facing real hazards. They will now have access to the largest of towns, with local police stations, and the ability to gain household and intermediate ranged weapons. Gas is obtainable in gas stations, and there should be plenty of civilian vehicles. It would also include grocery stores, and maybe some type of housing development. Mid tier bases should be built here, with access to mid tier base building resources.

Tier IV
This is where players move out into public lands, which will include quarries, military installations (because the military does stuff in the middle of nowhere), camp sites with high tier loot, and different types of mines. This will be very good hunting and foraging grounds with springs, along with also having lots of hazards, such as roaming patrols of zombies and sometimes hordes. Roads will be made of dirt, requiring players to move out on foot, or acquire much better high tier vehicles. Gas will be heavily available in military installations.

Tier V
The best of the best loot is in these very few select locations. It can have a deadzone, requiring players to mask up, or even can be a military camp where players have to follow a steep and rugged path clogged with turned. These will make even the most experienced players have a difficult time. However, it will be worth the effort.

Loot Tiers

This is quite self explanatory.
  1. Melee weapons, basic tools such as flashlights and rakes, and work clothing. Wood, cloth, and stones. Bikes, decrepit tractors, canoes and rowboats.
  2. Basic ranged weapons, better every day clothes, better tools, like chainsaws and headlamps. Wood, cloth, stones, bricks, and planks available. Utility vehicles, farm trucks, motor boats, and other civilian vehicles.
  3. Civilian and police guns, tools such as blowtorches and mortar, and better clothing, including backpacks and civilian and police vests. Wood, wood planks, stones, bricks, and mortar available. Police vehicles, better civilian vehicles, and your first off-highway vehicles.
  4. Military weapons, advanced tools, tactical gear and clothing. Wood, wood planks, nails and bolts, stones, bricks, mortar, cement mix, steel, and other metals. Also other rare resources such as saltpeter and sulfur, for makeshift bullet creation. Military vehicles such as jeeps, M45s, HMMWV, HEMTT, and other non-armored military stuff, and finally, high tier off-road vehicles.
  5. Advanced clothing and gear. Armored vehicles. An actually okay source of bullets. This stuff is good, but at least balanced, so players without T5 gear can still compete, but at the same time T5 players will have an edge in a few niche situations.

Hazard Tier

  1. The most basic form of turned. Water and food will actually be the most scarce here.
  2. Basic turned and turned patrols. Some forms of weather can affect the player here.
  3. Basic and advanced forms of turned. Turned patrols and large clumps. The horde can appear in town, but will disperse slowly if leaving the area. Sometimes single turned with roam far outside of their bounds. Some forms of weather can affect the player here.
  4. Dangerous wildlife. Asbestos in mines. Turned are armored with tactical and military gear. Advanced turned present. Turned patrols and the horde will sometimes seek players and their bases. Weather can change a day from a good one to a horrible one.
  5. Armored turned. The most exotic and dangerous types of turned are also present. Excursions? Radiation and its affects. High voltage fiber optics. Crazy freak weather that occurs because of whatever happened in that location. The horde will destroy you if you dare to mess with it in T5 areas, but will dissipate when leaving their bounds.

Polls

That's it folks! This is my first post by the way, but that isn't important. Anyways, put your thoughts on how you think the tiered map formula can be improved, or if it can be replaced with something better. Oh, here's the poll:
  • Tiered maps like this
  • Tiered maps, but less strict
  • Not a tiered map
  • Null (for accidental votes)

0 voters

3 Likes

Welcome to the forums!

I do like the amount of thought you’ve put into this and it does make for a satisfactory baseline framework to build upon, but just IMO it’s very rigid and linear sounding which may limit its versatility. Tbf you did specify just rural maps though so I’m not sure how this slots into other types of map designs.

That being said, keep in mind Unturned II is less focused on PvP and more survival-centric, so there’s several other types of loot and location specialties to consider than just weaponry or vehicles.

Overall, pretty good for a first post.

EDIT: Misread the loot section, but still, there’s plenty of other factors to consider in location design, such as area visibility, nearby infrastructure, and presence of natural resources in the vicinity.

3 Likes

Thanks.

Yes, I was thinking of elaborating more on how the environment would be more of a threat in rural maps, seeing how there would be less civilization in general. My concept of the T4 area was more of a very wild place, where players could be mostly self dependent if they had the skills to hunt and trap in game. Along with that, the turned would be more of a threat than players in that area since they’d most likely be geared just as well as the player, if not better.

2 Likes

First, Welcome to the forums! I really like your idea, but I think it’s very strict, I think it would be better only 3 levels, with a difference not so great between them. The first would be where the players would give spawn, in the case small coastal areas and maybe rural with a small number of turneds, the second would be where the player would spend most of the time, the amount of turneds is much higher, but the loot too is more rewarding, also here we can find other types of turneds more often, as we migrate to the third level, we would have a lot of turnouts and hordes frequent, as well as several types of equipment rarer and better.
I’m glad to hear that your first suggestion is so good, at least much better than my first suggestion :pensive:.

This topic was automatically closed 28 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.