Many maps look really nice, but they have employees walking around outside, there's either too much or too little loot, and details like drill floors and random boxes are sometimes entirely missing.

This guide is supposed to help especially new, but also experienced mappers to make their map playable and balanced. I'm focusing on those aspects only. There are more guides out there explaining the Level Editor's functions.

Some classes require specific gameplay objects to work properly. Here's a checklist of what every map should have.

Gameplay & Loot:
- combined number of escape vans & money drop zones: 3-4
- combined number of ambulances & rescue helis: 2-4
- combined amount of stealables in $: 160.000-400.000
- amount of jewellery (1 case = 3): 12-24
- gold bars: 1-6
- ATMs and cash registers: 4-12
- number of Vault doors: 2-6
- number of igniteable plants: 10-30
- number of random boxes: 20+
- number of fire doors 2 or more
- 1-2 micro vents (interior vent)
- number of (hackable) PCs: 8-25
- 4-12 CCTV cameras
- 1-2 fire alarms (2nd only needed on big maps)
- at least 1 drill floor
- at least 1 destructible wall
- at least 1 roof cctv box (can be placed anywhere)
- at least 1 garbage bin


I recommend against placing money printers on your map.

Spawns:
- number of Robber spawns 3-7
- Roof spawn set (doesn't count towards robber spawns)
- VIP spawn(s) set
- Insider spawn set
- Horse Spawn
- Midround robber Spawn (this is supposed to be placed in a safe location, you can either use 0,0,0 coordinates or put it behind another building.

NPCs and POI:
- number of NPC employees: ~ 15-30
- number of Employee POIs: ~ 20-50
- number of NPC customers: ~ 20-50
- number of customer POIs: ~ 30-80

(numbers highly depend on the map size and layout)

Bonus:
- include 1-4 donuts for robbers and cops to heal inside the bank

Colors:
This might not seem important to you, but it absolutely is. Experienced players will shoot NPCs based on their disguise they wear and which floor they stand on.
Avoid placing a red customer floor. Yes it might look nice, but it's gonna catch people off guard, thinking they just entered an employee zone.

AI Block:
To make sure that employee NPCs don't enter customer areas and vice versa, you need to place AI block zones. Place them into each doorway connecting employee and customer areas. You also need to place them in destructible walls. Scale them so they reach from wall to wall or to the size of a door, and at least body height. Also don't make them too thin, 0.5 scale on the flat axis should be a minimum, or they might not work properly.

Probably the hardest part about designing a map is to make it balanced and prevent choke points.

Here's a few things to keep in mind about that:
- multiple entries into the bank, ideally one fire door and one destructible wall on the outside
- same for entries from customer to employee zones
- about half the vaults should be accessible by eiher a fire door, vent or destructible walls.
- The harder a vault is to access, the more loot should be inside. Easily accessible vaults, for example with fire doors or destructible walls should have around 25-35k in them, while safer basement vaults can have double that amount or more.
- never build basements with only one entry. It'll be way too easy for cops to camp it. Use either a fire door, elevator or destructible wall as a second entry. (arcade has 3 entrances)
- building stairs for multiple floors closer together helps cops, spreading them out helps robbers. (big bank is a good example)
- The bank should have windows in at least two directions on the outside, a few small ones to throw money bags out and a few big ones for anyone with a grapple, ladders or jetpack to enter, and for robbers to exit. Placing too many windows will make it too easy for robbers, placing too few benefits cops. I think having one side of the building with only small windows or no windows at all is fine.
- Igniteable plants shouldn't be scattered all over the map. There should be a few areas where they are and a few areas without plants. Possibly even a whole floor without plants, to make it easier for cops to find them.
- Fire doors should either lead from the outside into the building, from customer to employee area within the building or into a vault or room with money laying around, like a manager's office for example.

Many mappers think it's a great idea to put weapons on the map. It isn't. Most weapons totally break balance. A common theme is weapons behind a "locked door", which then a mechanic is gonna unhinge, or a robber will walk right in after the cop, kill him and take a gun, which was meant for cops only.

Here's a list of all the weapons, categorized.

Never place:
Rifle
Silenced Rifle
Carbine
Bullpup
Sticky Launcher
Grenade Launcher
Auto Sniper
Heavy Pistol
Sceptre
Dagger
Hammer
Grappling Hook
Chrono Launcher
Syringe Gun

You could
SMG
Rocket Launcher
Rope Launcher
Tear Gas Launcher
Sniper
Slug Shotgun
Gladius

Those are fine
Pistol
Silenced Pistol
Auto Pistol
Tommy Gun
Shotgun
Tazer
Flash Launcher
Smoke Launcher
Bottle
Sickle
Wrench

I Personally like to place a few weaker pistols around the map, so people who ran out of ammo have a backup plan if there is no robber alive who can refill ammo, and cops could grab a gun rather than running back to the cop car.

A gun stash behind a drill floor is a good way to implement an extra drill floor into your map for the insider class, I've also seen guns in vaults.
If they're hidden behind a vault door or drill floor, you could go for stronger weapons such as SMG and Tommies.

Logic:
Every mapper loves logic. It's a way to implement traps, puzzles or to simply add extra functionality to doors.
However, in most cases it's sadly used as a "secret" entrance to a vault. You have to know where the button is, sometimes on the other end of the map. You need to play a map for 3-4 rounds to randomly find the button or lever.

Keep in mind that most players on public servers don't know how their class works, and that there is no friendly map exploration.

Conclusion: Unless the logic button is right next to the door, in the next room, or the door opens automatically via logic zone, I would not use it.

Custom Doors:
While it's a fancy way of building secret entrances, the same logic applies as before.
Nobody knows they can open this shelf. Make it obvious somehow, you could use arrow signs or rotate the custom door a little.

Custom Stealable Objects:
Custom stealable objects are a great way to add some variety to your map.
Unfortunately, they will often be overlooked as just decoration, so you need to make it very obvious that they're stealable. Present them on a pedestal or art frame, add some light and maybe rotating lasers. I also wouldn't shy away from arrow signs and 3d text, while they might not look great, at least it's obvious what you can steal.

Due to a variety of reasons, it's possible that players sometimes fall through the map unintentionally or leave the map intentionally to grapple underneath and kill people from below.

Recently, Teleports were added. You can place a teleport entry just below your map, positioned at x,y = 0 and Z just below your map, and scaling X,Y= 300 and Z=1.
Place a teleport exit somewhere above the map. Players will take fall damage, which can be negated by placing a trampoline just below the teleport exit, and a ceiling above. Hoever that's not really needed, I would keep the fall damage to punish people trying to exploit.

I could write a lot here, but most other classes were already enabled by the type of loot and gameplay objects we placed. Here's 2 more things:

Arms Dealer:
The bots often get stuck on the roof, but Topax found a smart solution. He built a stairway down from his roof, which they can use to navigate the map.

Micro:
A few small gaps between boxes, furniture and walls help the micro to hide. While it might not always look clean, you should think of this class when designing interiors.

If you have any questions regarding the level editor, please join the official discord, where I will gladly answer your questions. I won't be answering any questions in the comments of this guide.

Perfect Heist 2 Discord:
https://discord.gg/perfect-heist-2-866119900234121236