In response to my previous guide on
finding Mephisto, I would like to write another introductory guide—this time on reading maps generally.
Once again, this information is not unique to me. At the end of this post I have provided two helpful videos from MrLlamaSC and a link to Maxroll covering this kind of information. However, not everybody has the time and patience to go through the 5+ hours of content in the videos, and I personally found explanations in all those sources confusing or incomplete in some ways.
So what I'm doing here is distilling that information in a (hopefully) readable post to be even more helpful to D2 players.
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The first and most important thing to understand is that map generation in D2 (and D2R) is based on
map entrance and exit tiles. Here is a full map of one level of the Forgotten Tower (in Normal):
What I mean by the "entrance" and "exit" tiles are these two pieces right here:
Many of the maps in this game have a set rule for generating the map from the entrance tile to the exit tile. For every level of the Countess' Forgotten Tower, the rule is that
your character's path through the exit tile is to the LEFT of the entrance tile's orientation (for
every difficulty, by the way). Take a look at the red arrows here:
In other words, when you enter this particular level of the Forgotten Tower, you want to head in the direction of the red arrows as much as you can. For this little map, it meant that I kept going down until I could head left. And what do you know? My way through this exit tile is the direction of the red arrow.
Another way to put this is that you want to look for an exit tile in the Forgotten Tower that is rotated 90 degrees clockwise from the orientation of your entrance tile. Imagine that you have an image of the entrance tile like the one above and then you rotate it clockwise 90 degrees. If you do that, you'll understand why you can end up with gg map pieces like this one:
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There are still some maps that are going to cause us some trouble. But you'll notice by looking at the tiles that they still follow the set rule for that map.
One way this can happen is by the "three rights make a left" map generation. Take a look at another Forgotten Tower map to see what I mean:
The next level of the Forgotten Tower is not physically located to the left of our entrance tile (it's behind it!). However, that exit tile still follows the map generation rule because "three rights make a left." The red arrow is still pointing to the left of the orientation of our entrance tile!
All this means is that this could have been a viable map as well, but the map we got was generated in less probable way:
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A final point to cover is that, in general, advice like "follow the left wall" for the Forgotten Tower (or Durance of Hate Level 2) is typically bad advice. More often than not, if you understand and apply what I'm explaining here, your runs will be faster.
The reason for this is related to the "three rights make a left" map generation and the fact that the exit tile for Durance of Hate Level 2 is sometimes in the middle of the map (or somewhere behind the waypoint).
Here's that prior "three rights make a left" Forgotten Tower map with the left wall in red:
If you had followed advice like "follow the left wall," you would have found the next level
eventually. But once you recognize the rule and the pattern, halfway through doing this you can realize that you have an odd map and immediately start looking across the map for a "three rights make a left" setup (or some other wonky setup like you get in the Durance of Hate Level 2).
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The tldr; version: When guys like MrLlamaSC say that the rule for a particular map is to "go left of the way you came in," they mean
that your character's way through the exit tile is left from the way your entrance tile is oriented. Or, put differently once again, if the advice is "go left of the way you came in," this means that the exit tile is rotated 90 degrees clockwise in relation to your entrance tile.
Of course, if the rule is to "go straight from the way you came in" or "go right," you'll have to apply all of this accordingly.
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CreditsAgain, I have benefited from the content of speedrunners like MrLlamaSC for understand all of this. I also appreciate the feedback I've received on my two prior guides (both the good and the bad) that has motivated me to make more and to find ways to be clearer with my explanations.
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Helpful Sources1. MrLlamaSC — MAP TRICKS TO KNOW! - MAPHACK IN YOUR MIND —
https://youtu.be/iaAmrldC3c42. MrLlamaSC — ULTIMATE SPEEDRUN GUIDE -Coaching a Team —
https://youtu.be/NkkJG1Atbgw3. TEO1904 — Map Reading —
https://d2.maxroll.gg/resources/map-reading