Quote:
Originally Posted by Tristan28
I don't get why people do this:
Why don't you just put a regular wall. It is the same as what you have go there, but you used two objects to create what you did. |
Various little visual cues like this keep a map from becoming confusing. Walking through tight areas that have no distinguishing features is incredibly frustrating.
It's easiest to learn the layout of a any kind of area, be it a halo map or your home town, by recognizing landmarks and imagining where everything is relative to that landmark. Proper use of landmarks on a map will allow the player to quickly memorize that map's layout, which is incredibly important since confusion is gameplay's biggest enemy.
This is why forgers are so obsessed with unusual little aesthetic features that seem to serve no real purpose. The blue fence for example looks significantly different than a normal wall, it immediately jumps out at you, making that a notable area. The more unusual the visual cue, the more of a lasting impression it will make on the player's memory. And the more of a lasting impression is made, the easier it becomes to memorize that maps layout, drastically improving gameplay.
So that's why people are always racing to find the next interesting way to position a box or interlock a staircase. The more innovative the map's visual cues are, the easier it becomes to memorize that map's layout, resulting in a map that's simply more fun to play.