We do have an ongoing effort in place to deal with map changes. The issue is that the tooling is still being figured out for that. There are some unfinished maps out there be we aren't prepared to put them in game until we can be sure of how to finish and/or fix them.
Great to hear!, also I have been thinking about this thread for a while, namely how to do weather in a polygon-cost-effective way.
I have just had a spontaneous idea when dwelling on this thread.
Create weather collision boxes on top of any different angled or height surface that could be exposed to weather (Rain, Snow , Hail, lightning etc.) have them slant in the opposite direction as the movement of clouds (yes we'll need some simple cloud objects), when a cloud touches these boxes, Spawn a crisscrossed mesh (based on the distance to the camera and graphics settings) extended to the cloud in question onto which a simple rain/snow etc. texture is played, on the surface beneath have a simple splash anim panel on each surface with the same pattern and timed to the same timing as the rain/snow etc. anim., When ceasing to touch a cloud, the anim should pause playing the anim (staying on the last given frame) and lower the top of the model into the surface/base while raising the bottom edges of the UV face layout towards the top of the UV face layout at the framerate of the snow anim, model's top hits the ground/base. (Otherwise you could have these rain or snowfall meshes spawn and fall in segments and just stop spawning them when it's not touching a cloud).
Pooling/Icing etc. some of said weather collision boxes could have "pooling" collision planes on the surface in low areas which when the cloud touches the weather col box start to raise a panel of water from under the floor (which has splash anims), for snow or ice build up there could be anything from a simple flat ice texture raising through the floor to a 3D mound of snow.
Drainage/Icicles, on edges of buildings where these are likely to form, weather patterns will spawn them, the iciles could be 3D upclose and destructible. where as water drips and drainage could be just an arched column playing a waterfall anim.
At a distance the crisscrossed structure could be a simple cap-less box whose 4 sides are disconnected and crossing partway into each face. close up the crisscross might have 10x10 faces (100 polygons (200 if counting trigons only)) to make the rain look more dense. pooling will happen regardless of closeness and would be a server defined record.
For lightning burns, using the floor-print texture from [Electric Melee. Lightning Rod] but coloring it black and pasting it as a non-repeating texture layer over the given surface at; object placement[X, Y] modified by texture offset and the orientation vector[+/-x, +/-y] could ensure correct placement.
For lightning casting, playing the [Electric Melee. Lightning Rod] animation at any random place during the storm (and possibly dealing energy damage to any targets) while connecting a jagged arc to the impact location should do the trick.
previously I had been contemplating these things for my own games and did not really like the poly counts I was seeing. but this system is rather light in that regard. I'll most likely use it myself.
