Buffing/nerfing pk
By Xniper03
Summary points
Main Body
It’s time for week 3, and with that comes a tutorial for how to balance your map. If you’re ever stuck in a scenario where you need insight into how to make and fix your or someone’s parkour, then this guide is for you! The concepts covered apply for all maps - but more prominently in expert/insanes.
Consistency is key!
One thing many enjoyable maps share is consistent difficulty, which is why I put heavy emphasis on this when making parkour. It can be hard to accurately gauge how hard your own parkour is. It’s subjective to everyone playing your map, although there are some things you should always avoid doing.
To start with, we all know very well how a misplaced checkpoint / wrongly placed jump can negatively impact your experience severely. To avoid your map having these bad qualities, you must learn how to identify them. For this there are some tools at your disposal. Using them effectively will improve your parkour substantially.
How Checkpoints are your best friend when balancing
Checkpoints are a strong tool when making parkour. Having a good understanding of how their placement affects your parkour is important. You need to account for cp length, regrabs and difficulty when deciding your placement. This may sound intimidating though, especially if you have little personal experience to go off. If you’re starting out making parkour, don’t hesitate to use checkpoints excessively.
It’s worth looking at examples of good/poor cp placement, noting what's good and bad. Playing through maps is the most effective way of doing this. I will show some examples of what I consider good/bad cp placement though.
Miku is a good example of balanced and varied parkour. The difficulty is consistent, and the map showcases great variation while not hesitating to throw new concepts at the player. The length between checkpoints are very similar, which compliments the parkour well.
Cathedral has very consistent parkour, however it doesn't feel this way. Most of the parkour on cathedral is easy, however this map can be very challenging for some due to the last checkpoint, which is excruciatingly long.
Ironman is the exact opposite. On a jump by jump basis the parkour is inconsistent and checkpoint length varies, similarly to cathedral. Despite this the parkour feels balanced due to great cp placement. Checkpoints are always near the harder jumps, while the easier jumps belong to longer checkpoints. This is a more demanding way of balancing a map, and you need to have a good perception of difficulty to do this successfully.
For you to make parkour suited for any difficulty, you need to make yourself familiar with what difficulty you are making parkour for! Or put into other words, you must train your perception of difficulty. Again, playing through maps is the best way to give you a reference to work with. From playing maps you will also realize what kind of parkour you personally like/dislike. Identifying the types of jump you prefer will let you be more efficient when building/fixing parkour.
Artificial Difficulty
I also want to touch on artificial difficulty a little. Generally, artificial difficulty is when you make a jump harder by restricting a player’s options of movement. It is a very toxic way to buff any map, since the jump itself doesn’t really change. Here are some examples below:
Here are two jumps from parthenon, the sequence of purple pane to purple pane, and the subsequent jump to ladder. They are very easy jumps by themselves, however the inclusion of the pane ceilings forces you to approach this differently. Their sole purpose is to restrict your options. Unnecessary ceilings like these are a great example of artificial difficulty, and should be avoided at all costs.
This checkpoint here on Wheelchairguy may induce PTSD for some of you reading. The soulsand and chest wall restrict your movement, and the sidewalls are no help. The parkour here is also very repetitive - you will probably do all of these jumps with the same timing and turning.
The row of “luck vines” here are taken from gameboy. I will briefly mention them because while these vines do not restrict your movement (although those panes above do), they are still perceived as luck based to an average player. This jump requires a precise setup to do consistently. Most people do not know any good way to do these, so for them there is no skill expression to be found here. Putting this in the middle of a checkpoint is a good way to waste people’s time, which is exactly what gameboy did.
Restricting movement can lead to interesting jumps, but in most cases I see it being misused. Try to avoid this unless you know what you are doing, or ask for advice from an experienced mapper.
Aesthetics in parkour
The last thing I want to mention is elevating your parkour with aesthetics. There are many unique blocks to choose from in 1.8.9. Prior to making the parkour for a map, you should consider what blocks fit the colour palette of your map. You should always look to blend your parkour well into the build. Hugging the wall or not is up to you, but be careful about this, as it can lead to your parkour feeling repetitive. Floating parkour is less restricted and easier to work with, which is why I prefer playing/making that type of parkour. Floating parkour is completely fine as long as you blend it well into your build, while not taking anything away from your surroundings.
Moth does a great job at this. From the front the parkour is not obstructing with the build in any way, rather the build is being complimented by it.
Notice how even from the back of the build, the parkour still does not obstruct nor take anything away from the build.
This is mostly what goes through my mind when I make parkour. To summarize I made a cheat sheet you can look at.
By Xniper03
Summary points
- Consistency
- Checkpoint placement
- Perception of difficulty
- Artificial difficulty - what is it and how to identify
- Aesthetics
Main Body
It’s time for week 3, and with that comes a tutorial for how to balance your map. If you’re ever stuck in a scenario where you need insight into how to make and fix your or someone’s parkour, then this guide is for you! The concepts covered apply for all maps - but more prominently in expert/insanes.
Consistency is key!
One thing many enjoyable maps share is consistent difficulty, which is why I put heavy emphasis on this when making parkour. It can be hard to accurately gauge how hard your own parkour is. It’s subjective to everyone playing your map, although there are some things you should always avoid doing.
To start with, we all know very well how a misplaced checkpoint / wrongly placed jump can negatively impact your experience severely. To avoid your map having these bad qualities, you must learn how to identify them. For this there are some tools at your disposal. Using them effectively will improve your parkour substantially.
How Checkpoints are your best friend when balancing
Checkpoints are a strong tool when making parkour. Having a good understanding of how their placement affects your parkour is important. You need to account for cp length, regrabs and difficulty when deciding your placement. This may sound intimidating though, especially if you have little personal experience to go off. If you’re starting out making parkour, don’t hesitate to use checkpoints excessively.
It’s worth looking at examples of good/poor cp placement, noting what's good and bad. Playing through maps is the most effective way of doing this. I will show some examples of what I consider good/bad cp placement though.
Miku is a good example of balanced and varied parkour. The difficulty is consistent, and the map showcases great variation while not hesitating to throw new concepts at the player. The length between checkpoints are very similar, which compliments the parkour well.
Cathedral has very consistent parkour, however it doesn't feel this way. Most of the parkour on cathedral is easy, however this map can be very challenging for some due to the last checkpoint, which is excruciatingly long.
Ironman is the exact opposite. On a jump by jump basis the parkour is inconsistent and checkpoint length varies, similarly to cathedral. Despite this the parkour feels balanced due to great cp placement. Checkpoints are always near the harder jumps, while the easier jumps belong to longer checkpoints. This is a more demanding way of balancing a map, and you need to have a good perception of difficulty to do this successfully.
For you to make parkour suited for any difficulty, you need to make yourself familiar with what difficulty you are making parkour for! Or put into other words, you must train your perception of difficulty. Again, playing through maps is the best way to give you a reference to work with. From playing maps you will also realize what kind of parkour you personally like/dislike. Identifying the types of jump you prefer will let you be more efficient when building/fixing parkour.
Artificial Difficulty
I also want to touch on artificial difficulty a little. Generally, artificial difficulty is when you make a jump harder by restricting a player’s options of movement. It is a very toxic way to buff any map, since the jump itself doesn’t really change. Here are some examples below:
Here are two jumps from parthenon, the sequence of purple pane to purple pane, and the subsequent jump to ladder. They are very easy jumps by themselves, however the inclusion of the pane ceilings forces you to approach this differently. Their sole purpose is to restrict your options. Unnecessary ceilings like these are a great example of artificial difficulty, and should be avoided at all costs.
This checkpoint here on Wheelchairguy may induce PTSD for some of you reading. The soulsand and chest wall restrict your movement, and the sidewalls are no help. The parkour here is also very repetitive - you will probably do all of these jumps with the same timing and turning.
The row of “luck vines” here are taken from gameboy. I will briefly mention them because while these vines do not restrict your movement (although those panes above do), they are still perceived as luck based to an average player. This jump requires a precise setup to do consistently. Most people do not know any good way to do these, so for them there is no skill expression to be found here. Putting this in the middle of a checkpoint is a good way to waste people’s time, which is exactly what gameboy did.
Restricting movement can lead to interesting jumps, but in most cases I see it being misused. Try to avoid this unless you know what you are doing, or ask for advice from an experienced mapper.
Aesthetics in parkour
The last thing I want to mention is elevating your parkour with aesthetics. There are many unique blocks to choose from in 1.8.9. Prior to making the parkour for a map, you should consider what blocks fit the colour palette of your map. You should always look to blend your parkour well into the build. Hugging the wall or not is up to you, but be careful about this, as it can lead to your parkour feeling repetitive. Floating parkour is less restricted and easier to work with, which is why I prefer playing/making that type of parkour. Floating parkour is completely fine as long as you blend it well into your build, while not taking anything away from your surroundings.
Moth does a great job at this. From the front the parkour is not obstructing with the build in any way, rather the build is being complimented by it.
Notice how even from the back of the build, the parkour still does not obstruct nor take anything away from the build.
This is mostly what goes through my mind when I make parkour. To summarize I made a cheat sheet you can look at.
- Choose a suitable set of blocks prior to making the parkour
- Do not restrict movement options without reason
- Keep the length between checkpoints consistent
- Hard jumps closer to checkpoint, easier ones later
- Know your audience!
