{ . . . }

Paladins Inspired Level Design

This level design utilizes choke points and lanes in order to mimic Paladins dynamic levels causing the game to not just be won based on mechanical skill or knowledge, but the combo of both.

Map Explanation

Building the Map

This level was created to mimic map styles of Paladins. From my 2000 hour experience with paladins, I created several strategies to win on every map. In order to remember these stratgies, I began to identify similarities between maps to help myself remember them.

Choke Points

  1. One of the simplest things that almost every map had was 3 choke points per team side. Each choke point would change the dynamic of team fights. This is what gives each map there feel. Lots of times players decide if they like maps based on how fair they deem the choke points to be for the attacking and defending sides.
  2. In this level design, there is a slight difference where this map only has 2 choke points per side and a wide-open middle.
  3. When deciding whether or not to have an open middle, I came across the idea of how it could drive a huge dynamic change after a point fight. If team A has a comp built for winning open areas then they may win the point, however, after the point, the map changes dynamic into more of a lane-based map, If team A doesn’t have a plan to attack up lanes Team B may suddenly become stronger. This dynamic helps to drive charter selection for the map itself rather than just to pick the “statistically better charter”.
  4. After the center point is captured the next chokepoint is approaching the high ground of the enemies territory, the team pushing the cart must be able to take on the enemy team even when they have the high ground. Utilizing the straight roads near the high ground the pushing team could use snipers / long range champions to help keep pressure on the defending side so the high ground doesn’t become an overpowering point.
  5. The 2nd chokepoint is near the spawn room. The last section of road near the capture point is wide open to be fired upon from defenders coming out of spawn and defenders on the high ground. In order for an attacking team to win strategically, the attacking team needs to win the defender’s high ground. Once this is done the attacking team has full leverage to push the cart in

Lanes

Another feature I identified was that most paladins maps operated off of 3 lanes excluding frog isles which had a main lane, an off lane, and a center window.

These lanes create opportunities for flanks and full pushes to win/loose a team fight. Typically these parts of maps are called rotation points, if team A decides to only hold main and left flank, if team B realizes in time they could rotate over to the right flank and break behind team A giving them a leg up in the fight. When designing this map, I decided to fully implement the 3 lane system in order to create opurtuinity for the more knowledgeable team to come out on top.

Assets Used