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Beautiful or Playable Maps?

What's more important to you?

  • Playable Maps

    Votes: 70 63.6%

  • Beautiful Maps

    Votes: 40 36.4%
  • Total voters
    110

Conan Edogawa

One Truth Prevails
1,061
Posts
15
Years
This is something I've seen coming up a lot so I thought I would get opinions. What is more important to you? A beautiful map or a playable. No in betweens here. I vote for Playable. Just because a map looks good by itself doesn't mean it will be fun to play. If you look at the original Nintendo maps most are "poor" as far as looks go but they're fun to play. Also since they're hacks that are meant to be played I think playability comes first. What do you think?
 

Chibi Robo

of the entire epoch!
854
Posts
15
Years
  • Age 28
  • Cali
  • Seen Apr 2, 2013
Well a map always has to be practical like an entrance and a end
But In my opinion I like beautiful maps who doesn't like strolling by a city when it looks gorgeous
 
Vrai

Vrai

can you feel my heart?
2,896
Posts
15
Years
  • Age 29
  • Seen Oct 24, 2022
Playability is the most important aspect of mapping. Who cares if it looks beautiful if you can't get through the map?
 

sasquatchd00d

welcoming a clean head.
264
Posts
15
Years
I'm not going to vote because it's both. A beautiful map without playability is still awful and vice versa. Aesthetics and playability go hand in hand really. A map that's beautiful, but only gives me one tile of walking space? No thanks. A map that gives me a wide variety of things to do as well as giving me space to move, but looks terrible? I'll pass. But people tend to lean towards beauty for some reason. Take Pokémon Crono for example. The routes give the player little room to move, yet they look aesthetically pleasing. And this is a very well made hack and quite popular.
 

sab

Now too much of a life.
999
Posts
15
Years
I think that a map that looks ugly but has great playability stinks, and a map that looks great but you can only get to one or two parts is also worth-less. It is essencial to make a nice map that has lots of side passages to explore while still keeping shape and good placement.
 
Luck

Luck

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6,779
Posts
16
Years
  • Seen May 20, 2023
It's a mix of both. They are connected, because you cannot have a truly great map without both of them. Of course, they matter differently in their respective areas. Whenever someone just makes a map they don't plan on using in a game, I lean more on the aesthetics side, as long as the path gives the player space to move. The rating is reversed when someone plans to use the map in a hack, as long as the map doesn't look awful.
 

Griin.

277
Posts
15
Years
  • Seen Sep 24, 2014
I'd say playability. Sure that map has to be beautiful but you won't see its full beauty in game. So this is why i vote for playabillity.
 

lucas_irineu

4
Posts
15
Years
There is no reason that you cant have a map that is both playable and beautiful. Someone skilled enough to make a beautiful map can easily make it good to play in.
 

hunterzhorizon

Noob, Needs Teacher.
33
Posts
14
Years
it can be pretty as hell, but not work.
id rather it be playable as hella, and ugly.
though, looks are somthing that will catch the eye.
this is sort of a tricky question.
but i voted playable.:)
 

Pokepal17

More cowbell~
1,519
Posts
15
Years
Disturbed said:
Finally, this is my kind of thread.

Alright, first of all... I originally thought (like, 6 months ago) that a beautiful map was the most important thing to make, and the aspect of playability had never occurred to me. Alright, (sorry Neti) but playing Legend of Fenju, which was a hack entirely based around beauty, with limited sense of playability, I thought to myself, 'is this really what I want to strive for?' Sure, looking at a map on a thread like the MRT, what we really enjoy seeing is a beautiful map... but people need to imagine how much it would really suck to be a person who is playing the hack. Now, if the map has a mixture, it may go nicely... but it is near impossible to have a nice map, with a good sense of playability, unless your mapping style is exactly like Rijon Adventures', and Liquid Ocean's. Those two hacks are the only ones I can name off the top of my head, that truely combine playability, and beauty.

(I know people will hate me for this) Nintendo had it right, we had it wrong. I'll say it right now, EVERY SINGLE MAP I MADE THAT I POSTED ON MRT IS BAD. Nintendo's style is really what we should strive for.

Honestly, I can say... Nintendo has made very beautiful maps, and very playable maps.
Click to expand...

This is probably one of the best posts iregarding mapping ever. You're totally right, even I've played hacks with beautiful maps which aren't very playable. However, we shouldn't all just copy Nintendo's style, we should tweak it a bit so it would suit us.
 

Conan Edogawa

One Truth Prevails
1,061
Posts
15
Years
Pokepal17 said:
This is probably one of the best posts iregarding mapping ever. You're totally right, even I've played hacks with beautiful maps which aren't very playable. However, we shouldn't all just copy Nintendo's style, we should tweak it a bit so it would suit us.
Click to expand...

That's exactly how I feel. People should try and map with a balance similar to the one Nintendo has.
 

Pokepal17

More cowbell~
1,519
Posts
15
Years
Gir? said:
That's exactly how I feel. People should try and map with a balance similar to the one Nintendo has.
Click to expand...
Yep, but since a lot of us have been told to do more beautiful looking maps, we're all used to it. Nintendo make a lot of good maps and we (including myself) all say they are rubbish, even though we may not be able to do better.
 

burakcem

I will become a pokemon Champ!
3
Posts
14
Years
i'd say playable because a map doesn't always have to look good to be fun and i think you play a game for fun !

The beauty is just something extra
 
Chimchar 9

Chimchar 9

(:
1,619
Posts
16
Years
Well, i prefer beautiful maps.
I can see what Disturbed is saying, but i think playable maps should be maps with quite alot of scripts in, otherwise well it'll be pretty boring with hardly anything around.

In a hack you should make afew beautiful maps & afew Playable maps, just to equal it all out.
 
Luck

Luck

¯\_(ツ)_/¯
6,779
Posts
16
Years
  • Seen May 20, 2023
Disturbed said:
Finally, this is my kind of thread.

Alright, first of all... I originally thought (like, 6 months ago) that a beautiful map was the most important thing to make, and the aspect of playability had never occurred to me. Alright, (sorry Neti) but playing Legend of Fenju, which was a hack entirely based around beauty, with limited sense of playability, I thought to myself, 'is this really what I want to strive for?' Sure, looking at a map on a thread like the MRT, what we really enjoy seeing is a beautiful map... but people need to imagine how much it would really suck to be a person who is playing the hack. Now, if the map has a mixture, it may go nicely... but it is near impossible to have a nice map, with a good sense of playability, unless your mapping style is exactly like Rijon Adventures', and Liquid Ocean's. Those two hacks are the only ones I can name off the top of my head, that truely combine playability, and beauty.

(I know people will hate me for this) Nintendo had it right, we had it wrong. I'll say it right now, EVERY SINGLE MAP I MADE THAT I POSTED ON MRT IS BAD. Nintendo's style is really what we should strive for.

Honestly, I can say... Nintendo has made very beautiful maps, and very playable maps.
Click to expand...

I disagree. Nintendo is a far cry from beautiful maps, at least to me. It was very playable, but I think a beautiful map has to look natural as well as be playable. square patches of grass, straight lines of trees, and mountain tiles that almost perfectly follow each other just doesn't cut it as natural.
When we use the Nintendo style of mapping, we have a void where originality used to be. you should use your own style instead of mimicking another style. I actually tried to make a Nintendo style map, and I hated it. Maybe I don't have the touch that Cirno has, but I absolutely hated my Nintendo maps, and I'm sure others would as well.
 
Ninja Caterpie

Ninja Caterpie

AAAAAAAAAAAAA
5,979
Posts
16
Years
All of the above.

Well, some things can still be beautiful without screwing with gameplay. Mountains and trees and water can have nice, awesome, beautiful, natural shapes without screwing with gameplay. The only thing that poses a problem is when the mapper makes it so natural that it restricts the player.

But both together is good. Sasquatchd00d does this brilliantly, and Thrace does too. So do I, if I say so myself. 8D

And Disturbed, most of your maps are awesome-looking to play in too, stop putting yourself down.
 
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