Recently me and a couple other community members made and shared a forum around some unturned discords about maps, what they do well, and how the community responds to them. Today I shall be posting the results of this survey for all to read. This was mainly conducted to help workshop creators polish their maps for the audience that will be playing them, and I just thought it would be fun.
Enjoy!
I am going to break this down into questions and the most interesting responses I personally found as well as the general response to said question.
Question 1: What do you believe makes an unturned Survival map fun?
The overall response to this one was that they need a good mix of difficulty and replayability. here are some notable responses:
Both medium and large maps can be really good, but large maps have to be executed correctly, like I really enjoy Hawaii because there is so much in it, you will almost always see something that will catch your attention that you want to explore, while in Russia there is so much empty space that it makes it less entertaining, while this is really good for base building and such, it doesn’t allow people to interact and those interactions are enjoyable. I also very very much enjoy PEI, this is my favorite medium map and possibly my favorite map, it just has a lot in it, it’s fun in pvp or pve because it allows for a lot of interaction.
Detailed and many locations, enough and balanced spawns, unique locations, scenery/terrain/landscape, cave systems/bunkers,
Variety of spawns (high tier loot)
BALANCE
A compromise between russia’s depth and Washington’s pvp mayhem
Question 2: What do you think survival maps do that just doesn’t work?
The responses to this one were all over the place from
Generic locations (sometimes VERY similar to other maps), or some areas aren’t detailed so they are bland compared to other areas
to
finding food every 5 seconds
Its mostly about balance and weaponry but I think you should just read these for yourselves
Forcing dumb concepts such as smaller inventory spaces.
Fail to spark long term interest by being repetitive (that’s more of the game’s problem tbh) although mostly if it’s inconsistently detailed (empty buildings like carpat) or with unbalanced spawns (again, carpat is a pretty good example of being bad).
In my personal opinion survival maps should have decreased vehicle spawns or less fuel as vehicles should be an accomplishment for unturned survival and not just an every player thing also huge kits with everything shouldn’t be on instead just spawn in with clothes and a few basic loot items such as a baseball bat.
They try to make some locations very hard to get to with “parkour”
Not enough locations, weird compound objects, flat maps
Not making the map survival-y enough. Most loot is given right off the bat, removing the challenge from the game. And completely restricting item spawns isn’t the solution to the problem cough carpat cough
as you can tell most of the responses are giving carpat shit 
Question 3: What do you think survival maps need more of?
Stay with unturned style
I liked how Russia had loot progression. Sure that’s controversial, but it helped with kosing a little bit. I also liked the deadzone concept. I want to see more zombie types, which is kind of the only good thing Ireland did well. Also I like maps which have lots of quests that reveal parts of the story the more you complete, and also help you get invested into what would otherwise be a pretty bland single player experience. Greece has a SHITLOAD of quest secrets for example, it’s a blast if you get the time.
Some stuff that survival maps do right is make the player seem like they are actually surviving. An example of this is making loot more redundant and harder to find but also making the map look run down cam really add to the atmosphere.
Carpart made the game harder by giving you little inventory space, and worse guns (for the most part) though this dosen’t matter, of the guns that do spawn, most of the time you will get a really good one, for the map atleast.
Make you fight for what you want.
Yukon does this nicely, metal ore is loosely scattered around the map making it hard to create a well fortified base early on. It forces you to progress
How there are fewer military spawns/bases and these bases are much much farther away from spawn, allowing the higher tier player to stay away from players starting out. Keeping end game survivors up north is essential to allow players to start and not get killed right away.
Greece does the NPC’s good, Carpart is trash, Hawaii has good caves, Germany has great verticality, Yukon is snowy, PEI is original and done well, Russia is large, unique and awesome.
I like how the one above literally just says yukon is snowy lmao
Give opportunity for player interaction, these are some of the best moments because they can’t be scripted and are different almost every time
Question 4: Out of these 3 maps which would you rather play if given the choice?
The options were: PEI, Greece, Germany
And the choices were almost entirerly even!
Take from this what you will, I think the data speaks for itself
This next question was more of a meme because we all pretty much know what people were going to say but:
Question 5: What are your feelings towards the map Cyprus?
It doesn’t introduce anything not already done by Greece, but that’s kind of the point. would have preffered an actual scaled down version of Greece.
It had two issues, one of them is that it resembles greece too much, although I know it was the point, it makes it less fun than Greece and all the other maps. There is simply no point playing it when you have the other maps. The second issue was that you can get shot with a lockdown from half the map, which made it easy for looted people to stay in controll.
From a meme standpoint, it is obviously leagues ahead anything else ever created. From a genuine standpoint, yeah. No.
Hated the Arena Lobby(made me sick)
I’m a part of the Cyprus fan club so hell yes go Cyrpus, even though it’s just a small greece
Most of the answers were “Never played it” Which actually kind of surprised me because I thought more people had played it.
This next bit is alllll about arena maps (take some notes danaby)
Question 6: What do you believe makes an unturned Arena map fun?
Danaby2
okay good start
Balanced spawns as well as a balanced map. Perfectly balanced, as all things should be
What sets a map like Athens from monolith would be the amount of hiding, camping, or flanking places. Verticality is also quite nice as seen in paintball arena.
An arena map is fun if one strategy won’t guarantee success and if there are a variety of paths to take and many ways to hide from others and ambush them.
If it’s made by Danaby, larger arena maps, vehicles can be fun sometimes. Same as before with new locations / items / weapons.
An arena map that is fun is a smaller map which has plenty of places for the player to set up and get prepared for the gunfights.
A lot of spawns and fast paced action
Close quarter and urban environments spreading from close to medium range with loads of cover
there was this one brave soul that just straight up said
Not a fan of Arena maps, sry
Question 7: What do you think an Arena map should focus on?
This one was a multiple choice question so I am going to ultra summarize
The two things people choose most were
Location and Design
Layout and Spawns
with
custom weapons and clothes
Question 8: What do you think Arena maps need more of?
We need more interesting concepts. Since they aren’t part of the lore so much can be done on the arena front that is, so far, untouched.
Arena maps need more close-quarters areas and locations that require skill instead of decent guns in order to win.
More gamemodes. Like even a bomb defuse gamemode, idk, just get creative.
More open areas and hiding holes so that it seems like a true fight and not just having an area where you can snipe with a grizzly.
I can’t think of anything atm
(Just brainstorming) Maybe add very rare spawns for things you don’t normally see in arena…like grenades, shawdoestalker, RPG, military vehicles with weapons-tanks, Chariot ect
slower zone speeds
Question 9: What do Arena maps typically do wrong?
With the city-based arena maps, almost no cover is available and who wins is based more off of who has a sniper rifle and a great spot rather than who has the most skill.
City Arenas are all well and good but there are way too many of them that are just repeated over and over again.
bad spawns (Alpha valley) Long matches resulting in few PVP engagements + long waiting times (Medium Sized Arenas)
The gun spawns are rng, which sucks, although that is a problem I have with battle royale in general.
Riffles + scopes = OP
Spawns are too close to each other
Make it plain and boring, it should take a couple of braincells and strategy to play arena
To much houses and towns (like alpha valley) exact opposite of real zombie apocalypse. ALSO, spawns are sometimes terrible allowing two spawns to kill upon start
Give you too much, a lot of maps give you a lot of guns or armor right away or make them really common and it doesn’t allow for you having to find anything and you often die immediately.
There are no clothes to increase your storage so you often run out quickly
Question 10: What do Arena maps typically do right?
With the arena maps that I’ve played, most of them have unique details (Bunker Arena and Paintball Arena) and they provide enough cover for people to avoid getting taken out early on but they still leave in ways to take out threats in hard to reach spots.
Typically they provide alternate routes, Balanced spawns, and an enjoyable atmosphere
Being a good game mode when im boared of surviving
They make the layouts and design of locations good(Cyprus has great city layouts and design)
Put you in an inclosed space with a lot of shortcuts and hiding spots
They almost always provide a very nice place to fight in and is very nice for practicing your aim. And a lot of workshop maps take this one step further by
nothing
what an edgy bastard ^^^
Question 11: What is your favorite arena map AND whats your favorite survival map?
Athens arena and Russia
Athens or Bunker Arena, Washington survival
Alpha Valley, Russia
Don’t have one AND Russia
Favorite survival map: Russia Favorite arena map: Athens Arena (when it was in the game)
Russia and washington arena
Athens arena is my favorite arena map. Hawaii is my favorite survival map.
My favorite arena is Paintball Arena while my favorite survival map would be Germany.
Athens arena/Greece
my favorite arena map is Athens and my favorite survival map is Russia (so far)
Athens + Russia/Yukon
athens arena
Arena map #1: Athens Arena - Survival map #1:Russia
Washington Arena and Russia
Athens and Russia/Yukon (I like them both the same)
I hate arena maps. Hawaii 4 lyfe.
My favourite survival map although simple is Pei bacause of the size and the locatuons being easy to get to but also very somple and rewarding if you get something good.
Hunt Arena, Hawaii
this next question is about the scrapped horde mode.
Question 12: What do you think about the scrapped horde mode?
A full version of the horde mode would of allowed for many interesting Unturned maps if it could be set up to give players enough time in between waves to manage their inventory and refill magazines.
It should be reworked and reimplemented.
I think it had an interesting concept, definitely not unique, but still cool, and could have been a very fun game mode.
Sucks would have been fun if it were to be finished
Bring it back pls. I make horde maps but am constantly disappointed that the gamemode is not polished or finished. It just needs the nav system to be fixed as well as constant player detection. It really wouldn’t need that much work to fix so just fix it please. It would open up another aspect to the game and could grow/diversify the player base.
Whore mode
Question 13: What makes a map of any kind fun to play?
To give you something to do after you have got to the military base. Like Russia you need to travel around the map to find filters for silo 22. Or you can do quests or you can do ester eggs on it. A MAP NEED TO GIVE YOU SOMETHING AFER THE MILITARY BASE.
Any kind of map is fun to play on if it can constantly bring at least some action to the player (encounters with zombies/players) and provide a challenge that can be overcome (OP Pine Rifle vs. Maplestrike).
Being unique, if there’s already a map in the game that is the exact same, it wont be fun
Variety. IDK what to say here honestly. just things that surprise you. cool environments, I’ve said this before. I like bunkers/closed up systems that kinda work well as mini arenas inside of survival maps like on Hawaii, that shit is spooky AND makes for a good fighting spot.
Being able to explore and build is in my opinion what makes the gaming experience of unturned worth it but this is just my opinion.
An interesting location, with a focus on a purpose (Greece was the NPC map, Hawaii was the water map, Washington was the PvP map, ect)
Large scale and minimal to over top amounts of detail, optimised so it doesn’t kill people’s games on lower end mechines
Its size, the Easter eggs and quests to do, the spread of locations, the variety of items and vehicles and the danger from zombies and animals.
Thank you for reading through these responses and I hope they serve all you mapmakers out there well.
If you wanna read the full responses here is the link
Goodnight