Both of these grey boxes contained specific design elements for each mode as uncovered through the CoD level design analysis. With bomb defusal requiring asymmetrical spawns as well as 2 focused objectives containing lots of cover to support gameplay. Where as hardpoint levels required more space for its higher quantity of objective points as well as geometrical symmetry. Both designs were quite different despite both utilizing a 3-lane system.

Visually, it became clear that trying to design other modes around a bomb defusal level would require a lot more balancing due to its few objective points and heavily asymmetrical design being unsuited to other modes. Where as the hardpoint base design already supports 4+ areas for objectives and may already support other game modes before even requiring balancing. 

Evidently, the hardpoint base gave a more balanced design for numerous modes but didnt fully support bomb defusal as the enhancing design element of asymmetrical objective placement was missing and so balancing solutions were formed to fix this while attempting to keep the changes to a minimal.

Balancing Solutions

Additional Balancing

Using Solution #3 as a base for the multi-mode design, i then went back to the literature research where core design elements and balancing mechanisms were discovered to further improve the level.

I found that the base designs altered spawns had led to the side lanes becoming favoured for either team. Left - red team/defenders & right - blue team/attackers. Although each team equally controlled a lane - maintaining symmetrical balance, it meant that the side lanes may be used more frequently to reach the middle objective than intended which would misdirect the flow. 

I balanced this by giving the disadvantaged side lines of sight and cover so that they could prevent the connectors being overutilised. This also required measurement balancing, which was recorded in-engine by collecting the times required to reach certain points.

Additional connectors were also added for the players attempting to cut off the side lanes as i felt they shouldnt be punished for this playstyle and should also have a fair route into the centre.

Overall, the purpose of this balancing was to reinstate the purpose of side lanes as flanking routes/alternative options to the central objective while maintaining the middle lane as the primary choke point. By correcting the 3-lane system, flow patterns should function as intended.

Environment #2 also used one flexible asset pack, although some of the main features were too big to fit onto the base design. 

Instead of ignoring these assets, I considered a practical scenario where using them may have been a requirement - as some levels are designed around important landmarks and or real environment features which cant be left out.

This led me to scaling up the map proportionally so that the designed structure wasnt affected but this still required some additional balancing such as added cover due to the some slightly longer lines of sight.

Although the purpose of creating these practical examples wasn't to create a set of polished levels, they did provide different valuable game-like scenarios which required different forms of balancing.