New Map Generator Options

@snoog said in New Map Generator Options:

Alpha client UI is severely lacking in options as well, I hope more are added before release. Why are the only resource options Basic, Low_Mex, and Water_Mex? Besides just lacking descriptions what they even are, only 3 options?

Before there were only three options as well. You just couldn't select them directly. Instead you had the mex slider that acted as an input to these three options and drove the amount of mexes that got spawned. When I discussed the generator options rework with Sheikah I argued that we will at least need the mex slider in the future, but we couldn't reach an agreement. So we first implemented the parts that we could agree on. That is what you see now. If the community has a strong desire to have the mex slider back it could be implemented again.
What's definitely not coming back are the water, plateaus, mountain and ramps sliders. You are supposed to use a fitting terrain style instead.
The mex and reclaim slider are a different deal. I guess that the mex slider is desired the most. I'm not sure about the reclaim slider as reclaim is not directly visible on the map preview and there are various different reclaim (prop) styles to choose from, so it could be that they already give a broad enough range to choose from.
I'd like to hear some input from the community on this.

The mex slider is an insanely big deal and probably the most important slider since it completely changes how maps are supposed to be played.

Also since the other sliders were removed id really like to be some sort of archipelago style setting.

I would just add more resource generators before adding a mex slider.

Although I guess thinking about it some more it might be possible to add a slider for the prop and resource only since that might be more intuitive to use but probably needs investigation.

There is a big reason why all the og adaptive maps have tons of different mex (and reclaim) settings. It allows u to play the same map in a completely different style

Yes and that is easy to do in a predictable manner for a sinlge map with prescribed locations but it is not trivial to do in the generator. Especially since that was the biggest complaint, that the sliders didn't have the desired effects for players.

I appreciate the further explanations, I apologize if I came off salty, I kinda was. I would definitely recommend more mex/reclaim options in the future. As for getting a slider back, I guess the slider itself doesn't matter much if it's just mapped to the options we have now. But there should probably be an announcement explaining the changes and how the mex options are really still the same.

For clarification: the slider did not directly choose from the list of options. I'd guess 90% of maps used the basic resource generator. The value from the slider was used as a general density factor for this basic resource generator.

@sheikah said in New Map Generator Options:

Especially since that was the biggest complaint, that the sliders didn't have the desired effects for players.

Was that also the case with the reclaim and mex sliders or was that only about the terrain sliders?

@theweakie said in New Map Generator Options:

Also since the other sliders were removed id really like to be some sort of archipelago style setting.

Isn't the small islands style not more or less an archipelago?

Ah my bad, misunderstand. In that case, I'd say it's important to add a density option. And a description of what the different generators do would be nice as well.

@blackyps said in New Map Generator Options:

For clarification: the slider did not directly choose from the list of options. I'd guess 90% of maps used the basic resource generator. The value from the slider was used as a general density factor for this basic resource generator.

Technically it was used to select from those options and a density factor for all the resource generators but the type of resource generator selected was a bigger impact

Was that also the case with the reclaim and mex sliders or was that only about the terrain sliders?

Yes, I got those complaints for all the sliders

From experience i can say that the mex slider was way more accurate than the terrain sliders. I would set the mountain slider to max and half my maps wouldnt generate a single mountain.

@blackyps said in New Map Generator Options:

Isn't the small islands style not more or less an archipelago?

Not quite sure since i almost always used the sliders to create maps (will check it tonight) but generally speaking mapgen was quite bad at creating good water maps

Do play around with the different terrain styles. If you find that there is a kind of water map that is lacking we can maybe add it as a new terrain style.

A new alpha was just released that adds reclaim and resource density options for custom styles

Excellent idea with the bounded sliders.

Using random Biome & Terrain options, it seems I'm getting a much more diverse (and playable) set of maps than I was before. So a nice improvement.

1. "Biome" only has the option "RANDOM" - why have a drop down menu then?
2. Some of the options are unclear. What does "resource generator" mean (basic, low_mex, water_mex)?
   --> many of the terrain generator options are unclear ("flooded, valley, little_mountain, mountain_range)
3. What is prop generator (high_reclaim vs large_battle, what is "basic"?)

It feels like there is very limited information/no examples/images gives, so players have to painstakingly try out all the options to make sense of them. Frustrating.

Easiest to understand elements are the sliders. Helpful. Option to use map names is great too.

4. I don't understand why no water slider will be added back in (how can I ensure I get random maps without water?).
5. If there is a list of terrain options could we just click those we want to be included when going random (to exclude others)?

1. If biome as only has the option random then likely something is going wrong when the client is trying to get the options from the generator.
2. The names try to be descriptive of what they are but full descriptions are just lacking at the moment.
3. Prop generator is effectively reclaim
4. The water slider was removed because it was incredibly unreliable. And it is easier to pick terrain styles that are low on water
5. That is a good idea and will have to see if it can be done without cluttering the UI too much.

Thanks. Maybe it also could be added what kind of map one gets (gras/green, snow/white, alien etc.).
I find some colors harsh on the eyes.

That is what the biome controls

We should indeed add tooltips that describe the options. They are not hard to add, but someone has to write them. It's much appreciated if someone wants to contribute descriptions