Maxime Lyon
Level Designer
How to define the ideal size of a multiplayer FPS map?
We will try to answer this question by analyzing various elements present in several current FPS.
SUMMARY
INTRODUCTION
Just recently released (when I wrote those lines), Battlefield 2042 showcased the large size of its maps as a selling point, now accommodating up to 128 players compared to the 64-player maps of previous installments.
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This change in map size left me wondering:
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How do you define the ideal size for a multiplayer FPS map ?
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This is the question we'll try to answer after analyzing the maps of various shooters and previous Battlefield releases, to understand what elements impact the size of the maps experienced by the player.
I. Number of players/Km² ratio
A. Analysis of map sizes in different games
1. De_Dust2 (Counter Strike)
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Counter Strike is played in team vs team, Terrorist vs Counter Terrorist with 2 modes, Hostage where CTs must rescue a group of hostages or Bomb where Terrorists must plant and detonate a bomb.
Players don't reappear in the event of death; they have to wait until the next round, making a life precious to cover the map and communicate.
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The number of players depends on the server, but in general, maps are 8 vs. 8 or 16 vs. 16 (5 vs. 5 for ranked games).
The fact that the area covered by a team decreases in the event of a loss has an effect on how players feel about the size of the maps.
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De_Dust2 is approximately 11000 m² or about 0.01Km².
2. Kafe Dostoyevsky (Rainbow Six Siege)
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Rainbow Six Siege is a popular modern shooter based on Counter Strike.
Two teams compete over several rounds, with one team attacking while the other defends.
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All game maps are 5v5.
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Kafe Dostoyevsky is one of the largest maps in the game, measuring almost 10,000m² or about 0.01 Km².
3. Erangel (PUBG)
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Player Unknown's Battleground is a realism-oriented battle royale.
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The game starts with 100 players and the entire map available, but this shrinks as the game progresses due to the toxic gas.
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Erangel is the largest map in the game, measuring 64 km².
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PUBG offers other smaller maps, such as Vikendi (36 Km²) and Sanhok (16 Km²).
4. King’s Canyon (Apex Legends)
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Apex Legends is a battle royale that has taken the classic BR formula and added elements such as Legends, characters with abilities, and is very arcade-oriented.
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All maps are played with 60 players, and become smaller as the game progresses due to the toxic gas.
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King's Canyon is a small map of Apex measuring approximately 3.2 Km².
5. a) Shipment (Call of Duty)
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Call of Duty is a dynamic, arcade-style AAA shooter best known for its deathmatch team, but the recent release (while I wrote this) of Modern Warfare introduces a new land warfare mode.
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Games are played by between 6 and 32 players, depending on maps/modes and servers.
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Shipment is designed for games between 8 and 12 players, but some servers raise the limit to 48 players, turning the map into a chaotic battlefield where a player's average survival time is just a few seconds...
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Shipment is the smallest map in the license and measures between 600 and 650 m².
5. b) Nuketown
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Nuketown is an average-sized map, around 1,200 m².
Nuketown can be played by 12 players or more.
5. c) Krovnik Farmland
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Krovnik Farmland is a large land warfare map, measuring between 0.75 and 1Km².
Land warfare maps are played by 64 players (32v32).
6. a) Route 66 (Overwatch)
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Overwatch is a futuristic shooter based on the Team Fortress 2 formula, with unique characters and abilities.
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All the game's maps are played in 6v6.
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Route 66 is a convoy escort map, one of the longest at around 500 m in length.
6. b) Hanamura / Volskaya Industries / Temple of Anubis
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Those maps are attack maps where you need to either capture or defend the 2 Zones.
Those maps measure around 1500 m².
6. c) Nepal
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Nepal is a map divided into 3 roughly equivalent parts for Capture mode, each measuring around 730 m² on average.
7. Amerish (Planetside 2)
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Planetside 2 is an FPS MMO featuring 3 factions fighting a war for control of the planet.
The game features 3 factions on servers of up to 2000 simultaneous players.
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Amerish is one of the maps available depending on the server chosen. It measures 64 Km².
8. a) Caspian Border (Battlefield 3)
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Battlefield is a AAA shooter known for its realistic look, as well as its destruction and use of numerous vehicles.
The map can be played by 64 players (32v32).
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Caspian Border is one of the largest maps in conquest mode, covering approximately 1.21 km².
8. b) Metro (Battlefield 3)
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Metro is an infantry-focused conquest map, with no vehicles, approximately 400 m long.
9. Battlefield 2042
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This graph compares BF2042's map sizes with those of equivalent maps in previous games.
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Battlefield 2042's maps are all larger than their counterparts in previous releases, with the smallest (Kaleidoscope) measuring around 0.21 Km² and the largest (Irreversible) ~ 1.93 Km².
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All these maps are played by 128 players (64v64).
The advantage of adding up to 128 players instead of 64 is to increase the intensity of battles, but for the game to remain playable in good conditions, the maps need to be enlarged, always linked to the player/km² ratio.
However, if the ratio remains the same, the addition of 64 players will have no real impact, so the player/km² ratio must be affected.
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Let's imagine a map for 64 players with a surface area of 4 Km², where the ratio of players per Km² is 1, meaning that a player has 1 * X chance of encountering an enemy (X being the % chance of encountering an enemy).
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If we doubled the number of players without touching the map, we'd have a ratio equal to 2, i.e. 2 * X.
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If we doubled the size of the map without adding players, the ratio would be 0.5, i.e. 0.5 * X.
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If we decide to double the size of the map and number of players, we get a map of 8 Km² for 128 players, the ratio remains equal to 1, so the addition of 64 players is not felt.
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On the other hand, if we decide to double the number of players but enlarge the map slightly, say by 50%, we'd get 128 players for 6 Km², giving a ratio of 1.5, i.e. 1.5 * X.
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When creating a map, try to keep the player/km² ratio = 1, whether it's for 8, 16, 32, 64 or 128 players, to preserve a balance that makes the game playable (but there is an acceptable margin, a ratio = 0.9 would hardly be felt on a small map, but the margin reduces with the size of the map).
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However, as mentioned above, the aim of adding 128 players in BF2042 is to make battles bigger and more intense, and to do this you need to increase the ratio, as in the example above, not forgetting that too large a ratio makes a map difficult to play (CF: COD Shipment 48 players).
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We'll now look at the size comparison chart with this information in mind.
B. Ratio between size and number of players
We note that maps measuring less than 1 Km² host an average of around ten/dozen players, with a few exceptions (Kaleidoscope Battlefield 2042), whereas with 1 Km² or more, games contain at least sixty players (Apex/BF) or even a hundred (PUBG).
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The case of Planetside 2 and its 2,000 players is unique in that it's an FPS MMO.
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From this, we can identify a ratio corresponding to the number of players in relation to the size of the map, i.e. : Players/Km².
Counter Strike :
De_Dust2 = 11,000 m² for 16 players = 687 m² / player
Rainbow Six Siege :
Café Dostoyevsky = 10,000 m² / 10 = 1,000 m² / player
Apex:
King's Canyon = 3,200,000 m² / 60 = 53,000 m² / player (same as PUBG)
Overwatch :
Hanamura / Volskaya Industries / Temple of Anubis = 1 500 m² / 12 = 125 m² / player
Call Of Duty:
Shipment = 650 m² / 8 -> 81 m² / player
Nuketown = 1200 m² / 12 = 100 m² / player
Krovnik Farmland = 1,000,000 m² / 64 = 15,625 m² / player
Planetside 2 :
Amerish = 64 000 000 m² / 2000 = 32 000 m² / player
PUBG :
Erangel = 64,000,000 m² for 100 = 640,000 m² / player (at the start of the game)
Battlefield 3 :
Caspian Border = 1 210 000 m² / 64 = 18 906 m² / player
With 48 players (unofficial game): 650 m² / 48 -> 13.5 m² / player
Battlefield:
For BF3 and 4, maximum speed is 7.15 m/s; for BF2042, tactical sprinting raises maximum speed to 7.25 m/s
Call of Duty:
Maximum speed for a player on foot is 7.5 m/s
Counter Strike:
When equipped with the knife, players run at 250 units/sec. We can estimate 250 units at 5 m or 5 m/s.
Rainbow Six Siege:
Light characters run at 5 m/s, medium at 4.5 m/s and heavy at 3.75 m/s.
Apex:
Players sprint at 26 km/h, i.e. 7 m/s
Planetside 2:
Maximum character speed averages 6 m/s
PUBG:
Standing sprint at 6 m/s
II. Players mobility
A. Analysis of different types of movement in different games
Tribes Ascend:
In addition to traditional movement, Tribes Ascend stands out for its original movement: players can ski to get around, which, if well done, allows them to move fast with the help of a jet pack.
Apex:
Characters are highly mobile, capable of sprinting, straddling and jumping, and some can teleport or use a grappling hook.
They also have access to ziplines or jumpers, a kind of thruster that throws a player a long way, as well as a few rare vehicles (Trident) that can carry 3 players including the pilot (i.e. a squad).
Counter Strike:
Character speed depends on weapon weight, players can equip the knife to run faster, they don't have sprint or super jump.
Call of Duty:
Characters can sprint (+ tactical sprint), straddle, climb, jump and, since Modern Warfare (2019), use vehicles.
Certain assets modify speed, as do weapons.
Planetside 2:
Characters are more or less mobile depending on their class, while light assaults have a jet pack that the others don't have.
Players have access to a wide variety of vehicles (air and ground) to fight on the battlefield.
Rainbow Six Siege:
There are 3 character categories impacting speed, Light/Medium/Heavy, light characters run faster than others but are less resistant.
Players can sprint, step over obstacles and rappel up and down walls.
Battlefield:
Players can run, sprint, jump, straddle, climb, use a parachute, as well as land and flying vehicles.
Equipment does not affect speed, but players can equip themselves with a sprint bonus.
PUBG:
Characters can sprint and run while crouching, but speed remains unchanged.
They also have access to a wide range of vehicles (cars, quads, etc.).
B. Link between mobility and map size perception
Making a 1 km journey doesn't have the same effect on foot or by car; making the journey on foot is longer, so the goal seems to be further away.
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This principle is also found in games: let's take a 64 km ² map and 3 players starting on the left and going all the way to the right, i.e. 8 km of road:
The 1st player runs across the map. The 2nd player crosses the map by car. The 3rd player crosses the map by plane
These 3 players have therefore crossed the same map, i.e. the same distance of 8 km, yet the feeling of size is different for each.
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For the plane, the map seemed small, whereas the player on foot found it immense. Vehicles can “artificially” reduce the size of a map by impacting the way it feels.
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This is why games with large maps (PUBG/BF) provide players with vehicles, and vice versa for games with small maps (CS/R6S).
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In the case of Apex, Battle royal with a large map (3.2km²), the low presence of vehicles is compensated for by the high mobility of the characters.
III. Number and type of vehicles according to size and number of players
A. Analysis of vehicle use in different games
PUBG:
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Vehicles are used almost exclusively for travel, whether for moving or escaping, especially toxic gas.
Apex:
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The Trident, the game's only vehicle, is used for moving around.
Call of Duty:
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Vehicles have different uses: quads and jeeps are used to move around quickly,
while APCs and tanks are used in combat, to defend/attack a position or flank enemies.
Planetside 2:
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Vehicles are essential to Planetside's gameplay,
enabling large-scale assaults on objectives.
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Some vehicles are designed for direct combat, others for transport (personnal or troops).
Battlefield:
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Vehicles have different roles:
Some for movement (jeep, transport chopper...).
Others for combat and position taking (attack chopper, tank...) or air supremacy (Jet).
B. Study of a ratio between vehicles (types/numbers), players and map size
PUBG:
There are many different types of vehicle, from motorcycles to armored vehicles and boats, all with different characteristics.
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The map features around 40 vehicles spread over 64 km² (Erangel) for 100 players.
Apex:
There's only one type of vehicle, the Trident, of which there are 11 on the Olympus map (estimated at 9 km² for 60 players).
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Call of Duty:
On land warfare maps (~ 1 km²), there are around ten vehicles per team, so 20 vehicles per 64-player map.
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Transport vehicles are :
Quad: 2-seater, very fast and agile, designed to move quickly alone or in pairs
Jeep: 5-seater, fast and maneuverable, ideal for small groups with little protection
-APC: 6 seats, including 1 for the pilot who also controls the turret, armored transport vehicle capable of making squad members reappear inside, used as a “spawn point”.
-Chopper: unique flying vehicle, 5 seats, can move very quickly and serves as a “spawn point” for the squad.
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Planetside 2:
There are many different vehicles, some unique to their faction, all with different roles and requiring resources to be “purchased” by players.
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The game's map measures 64 km² for up to 2,000 players, and there is no vehicle limit. Each player can buy a vehicle if they reach a “vehicle pad”, as long as they have the necessary resources.
Battlefield:
The Battlefield license has always offered a wide range of vehicles. In modern Battlefield (BC2, 3, 4, 2042), transport vehicles can be summed up as follows:
-Light transport (jeep/quad)
-Armored transport (hummer)
-Light helicopter
-Transport chopper
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In all, there are around 20 vehicles per 64-player map, such as Battlefield 3's Caspian Border, measuring 1.21 km².
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For Battlefield 2042, there are 128 players for larger maps, such as Irreversible measuring almost 2 km², so there are on average around thirty vehicles per map.
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Only transport vehicles are taken into account here, as vehicles designed for combat (e.g. tanks) generally only carry 2 players and have a low speed, so are negligible in terms of mobility.
Let's take Call of Duty Modern Warfare, Battlefield 3 and 2042 as examples.
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That's theoretically 18 vehicle spaces for 32 players, giving 36 vehicle spaces for 64 players (still not counting combat vehicles).
-> (36 x 100) / 64 = 56.25% of players can potentially be in (transport) vehicles.
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However, these figures need to be put into context: they are theoretical figures on the total number of seats available, but in reality, during a game, vehicles are rarely at full capacity.
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So, if we take into account the practice where some players use a 4-seater vehicle on their own, we can divide these results by 2 to obtain a ratio closer to practice, i.e. :
126 / 2 = 63 -> 49,2 %
96 / 2 = 48 -> 37,5 %
In practice, therefore, between 37.5 and ~ 50% of players use vehicles during the game.
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The presence of vehicles is linked to the size constraint, these vehicles enable fast movement, but are also subject to a limit, their number is adapted to a game of 64 or 128 players on a map of a certain size.
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In doing so, although the size of the map would make it possible to add players, to keep a good vehicle/player balance, we'd also have to add vehicles, but this would also require enlarging the map, creating a loop:
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+ PLAYERS -> + VEHICLES -> LARGER MAP
For Battlefield 2042, on the Irreversible map (~ 2 km²) with 128 players, there are per team :
-9 Light transports: Jeep = 4 slots / Hovercraft = 4 slots
-3 Armored: MAV = 5 slots (rest = combat vehicle)
-2 Air transport: Nightbird = 4 slots / Condor/Hind : 6 slots
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A maximum of :
9 x 4 + 3 x 5 + 2 x 6 = 63 players x 2 = 126 players
-> (126 x 100) / 128 = 98.4% of players maximum can use transport
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And at least :
9 x 4 + 3 x 4 = 48 x 2 = 96 players
-> (96 x 100) / 128 = minimum 75% of players can use transport
For Call of Duty, multiplayer contains 4 vehicle types (transport only):
-Quad: 2 slots
-Jeep: 4 slots
-APC: 6 slots
-Helico: 5 slots
For the Krovnik Farmland map, there are (estimated) per team:
-2 quad (2x2)
-2 jeeps (2x4)
-1 APC (1 x 6)
For Battlefield 3, on the Caspian Border map (1.21 km²), again not counting combat vehicles, there are 4 jeeps (3 slots) at the starting point, i.e. :
3 x 4 = 12 x 2 -> 24 transport vehicle slots at the start of the game.
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However, it's important to note that when a point is captured, vehicles (notably jeeps) appear according to the points, so this figure can change over the course of the game.
-> (24 x 100) / 64 = 37.5% of players can use a transport vehicle at the start of the game.
Battlefield 3:
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As previously mentioned, Battlefield's hot spots can be found at objective level; for Caspian Border there are 5 objectives, so 5 hot spots.
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Some battles also take place outside the objectives, but these are far less frequent and therefore negligible.
Planetside 2:
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Planetside is a special case: the map (in this case Amerish) includes dozens of objectives, and the number of players means that there can be several fronts at the same time.
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As in Battlefield, hotspots are located at objective level, but it's up to the players to decide where to attack, and thus where to create a new front that forms a hotspot.
Overwatch:
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On the Nepal map in capture mode, there's a single hotspot revolving around the objective. The map is designed so that the 2 teams are always facing each other on the objective.
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However, if one team crushes the other to its spawn point, the hotspot moves.
Call of Duty:
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Nuketown is a fairly small map, so it could almost be considered an entire hotspot,
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but there are a few particular places where players cross paths more often, such as the 6 presented here.
PUBG:
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On Erangel, there are 9 main hotspots, with battles taking place all over the map - that's the Battle royale principle - but the most populated places are the hotspots where players most often go at the start of the game.
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However, as gas narrows the map, the hotspots in the course of the game depend on its path.
Counter Strike:
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De_Dust2 features 5 hotspots, the places where the 2 teams meet and clash most often.
IV. HOT SPOTS Study
A hot spot is a point on a map where there is a high concentration of players.
In Battlefield, these hotspots are generally found at objective level.
B. Number of hot spots depending on the game
Apex:
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On King's Canyon, there are 6 hotspots, however, like PUBG, battles take place everywhere, so hotspots are essentially the most popular places at the start of the game, especially for finding equipment.
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Then, with gas restricting the size of the map, hotspots during the game are randomized according to the game and depend on gas-related area reduction.
Battlefield 2042:
Same principle as for the analysis above, however, the layout of the objectives here on Irreversible, the game's largest map, is very different.
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In the previous image, we could see that the objectives are fairly well distributed in the center of the map, without being too far apart from each other, but still far enough away from the bases of the 2 camps.
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Here, Irreversible is considerably larger than Caspian Border, yet the addition of a single objective makes a large part of the map useless and therefore deserted.
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Whereas on Caspian Border, the placement of hotspots allows you to use almost the entire map for different strategies, on Irreversible, the placement of objectives is too compact compared to the size of the map. However, the idea of dividing an objective into several sub-objectives (e.g.: A = A1 / A2 / A3) is interesting, but to exploit its full potential, you'd have to space them out over the whole of sector A instead of compacting them, because currently, each sector includes a large desert area, since players desert these zones if they don't have an objective.
C. Hotspot Size
If we compare the hotspots in Counter Strike with those in Battlefield, we can see a significant difference in terms of size: a few m² for Counter Strike and several dozen for Battlefield.
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However, in proportion to the map, the 2 games have the same share of hotspots, i.e. around 10% of the total map.
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Battle royale follows with 10 to 20% of the map at the start of the game, and this grows as the gas advances, eventually representing 100% of the remaining map when the gas reduces the viable area to a few m². In fact, as soon as the gas arrives, the hot spots at the start of the game disappear, replaced by new ones formed as players move towards the safe zone.
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Gradually, as the safe size of the map shrinks, the ratio of players to km² decreases and encounters become more frequent, creating multiple hotspots that eventually become one when the zone is reduced to a few m², where the last 2 survivors clash.
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If we consider the safe zone as the objective, we keep the same principle as Battlefield's points to capture.
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For smaller maps such as Nepal or Nuketown, we're approaching a third of the map as a hotspot, with, in the case of Nepal, a presence around the objective.
A. Description of a hot spot
V. Compiling the results
All this analysis has enabled us to identify a crucial element in the creation of shooter maps :
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The Player/Km² ratio
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To which we can add vehicle parameters, character mobility and the layout of hotspots.
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Before the release of 2042, Battlefield was played in 32v32 in well-proportioned maps, some with vehicles, but the arrival of 2042 and its large 64v64 maps was greeted coldly by some players, who felt a sense of emptiness that we were able to explain by the hot spots.
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BF2042's larger maps have the same number of objectives, similar in size to previous opuses, but on larger maps, which inevitably means players are concentrated on these particular points of the maps, leaving the land between them empty.
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This applies to both 32v32 and 64v64 maps, but the difference being size, the feeling of emptiness on a 32v32 map is less present, as we've seen with Discarded (128), which is twice as large as Noshahr Canals for the same number of objectives, players being concentrated on the latter, so the “empty” zone is twice as large for Discarded, leading to a feeling of desert.
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How can this be corrected ?
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If we were to continue enlarging shooter maps, how could we eliminate or at least reduce the feeling of emptiness as much as possible ?
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For a start, we'd need to ensure that the player/km² ratio is always respected, so that there are enough players for the size of the map (as well as the presence and number of vehicles, depending on the mobility of the characters).
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Secondly, we've seen that even on maps respecting this ratio, there can be this feeling of emptiness due to hot spots, so the idea is to ensure that these hot spots are better distributed across the map rather than being too concentrated in certain places.
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To achieve this, we'd need to add objectives to be captured in proportion to the size of the map, in addition to enlarging them, which would make it possible to transform empty zones into hotspots to further dilute the number of players on the map without having too great an impact on the capture of zones.
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However, the aim is not for hotspots to cover 100% of the map, otherwise we'd end up with the 48-player Shipment map on Call of Duty, which becomes total chaos, it's all a question of balance.
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By following these 2 principles, we could create ever larger maps, and in so doing, we'd be getting closer to the Planetside 2 model, with a gigantic map, as large as its number of players, and with a huge number of objectives, but we'd be switching from a simple FPS to a FPS MMO, which makes a big difference.
CONCLUSION
We can now answer the question:
“How do you define the ideal size for a multiplayer FPS map ?"
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Firstly, respect the number of players/km² ratio, ensuring that it's neither too high, making the map chaotic (e.g. Shipment 48 players), nor too low, making the map desert-like (e.g. Irreversible 128 players).
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Secondly, build the map according to character mobility, a map won't have the same feel if the player has the mobility of a Counter Strike or Apex character, so you need to ensure that the feel is adapted.
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Thirdly, in relation to character mobility, define the use, number and type of vehicles.
For PUBG, the map is large, and characters are slow to traverse it, so there are many vehicles for moving around; for Battlefield, vehicles are essentially there for combat.
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Fourthly, ensure that hotspots are laid out in such a way as to dilute the number of players over the entire map, thus avoiding the appearance of empty zones.
Here are the 4 elements that help establish the ideal size for a multiplayer FPS.