Suggestion for randomly generated maps

So I was playing the random generated map that is on the team autohost and noticed something.

I like the maps we get, or at least most of the time, but I have a difficult time to pick at a glance a fac that would work well because the terrain is difficult to grasp. Trees are a nice feature, and clumping them is a nice touch, but the ground is mostly all grass everywhere until there is either a very steep cliff or the elevation fell below water.

Adjusting the tilt of the camera or using the elevation visual helps gauge what the paths are, but as soon as you turn that off or set the camera back to a playable angle, the maps mostly look like a large green square.


The other maps use different terrain textures to indicate features. For instance if the terrain is flat there is grass/roads/concrete... but around or next to that flat land, where elevation changes, you'll see sand, dirt, rocks (not reclaimable, just a visual aid to indicate change in terrain). I'm thinking it would be nice if average elevation was grass, lower was sand and higher was dirt/rock. These are just suggestions, they could be anything else so long as they are different so that at a glance, a player can see there is a plateau here, "hallways" or valleys there, a hill here... stuff like that.

It's functional, but it would also look nicer than a big green square.

I don't understand your example. Did heightmap come out like that in the game, displaying it only for the bottom third?

I used it in the last 2 random maps I played and I could see elevation mapped on the whole area.

But on another note your map is a somewhat decent example of what I'm talking about, although leaning a bit more than average on the easier to read at a glance side. We see "dirt" where there are cliffs which, I assume, are only pathable by spiders. There are two hills that also look made of dirt. But otherwise, despite the map having good elevation variety, it's mostly a big grass box.

The texture is currently just a representation of what can move where, with some gradation between thresholds. The maps tend to be green squares because most areas are veh pathable. I'm busy for the next few weeks, but would like to diversify the texture when I get back to it.