I'm going to post alpha 11 later today. If I decide to start making the 3d skybox I'll call it beta 1 instead. If I don't, there won't be an alpha 12, that one will the the beta 1.

I fixed the "you can see the team blocker through the door" issue, as well as the "you can hold the spawn door open" issue that I originally did a tradeoff with the team blocker being visible. Basically, the team blocker had to be behind the door to not see it, but if it were behind the door then you could stall it open by standing under the very edge of the door. The solution was to put the blocker behind the door like before, make the doors the opaque version (the one with windows had visibility glitches), and put an invisible blocker in front of the doors.

Also, I rotated the map 180 degrees (casts the sun on the blue team's storage/shipping building) and optimized some brushes.

The biggest thing I fixed is probably the spawn door, anyway. I still need to make it so that you can enter the spawn rooms during humiliation.

hey dude! so we tried out your map tonight and there were a few things we noticed. the first time we played it as a combo v combo and found that a few things were kind of annoying and took away from what classic ultiduo felt like. basically the spawn times were a little too long for 2v2, the fact that the point can be capped and blocked on both sides of the platform was a little frustrating, and the spawn doors felt a little slow to open. also, having a health pack on the lower part of the point was kinda weird for an ultiduo map, and it felt like you could just kite ubers for days as a medic.

so we were a little jaded by the end of the 2 rounds we played, and invited 2 more of our friends to come in and play. as an ultiTRIO map, this was so fucking fun! i had more fun playing this map 3v3 than i have in any tf2 for months. we ran scout soldier and med initially, and then continued to experiment with other class combinations. 2 soldiers were ok, 2 scouts were ridiculous, and demo/soldier or demo/scout was just silly. pretty much when we were playing it 3v3 we had to coordinate a lot more, we came up with on the fly strats, and the gameplay was fast paced and really fun.

all of the above issues for 2v2 were pretty much gone, the map played really fluidly for the most part 3v3. the only thing we still were a little wary of was the spawn doors being slow and the light source glaring on that wall, which was mostly because we felt like the map was too dark on one side and REALLY bright on the other.

anyway, we're definitely going to be playing this map more as 3v3. it would be really cool to see more maps like this.

Thanks for the feedback, I haven't gotten any tests from many people familiar with ultiduo itself yet so I didn't know how well it really played out. All the tests I played and looked at were pretty low level and with the tests I was in we considered the kiting and point blocking to be pretty fun mechanics.

Was 3v3 really that much better with those mechanics? I didn't consider any other gamemodes, and if it works a lot better for 3v3 with the current layout I'm tempted to work with that instead. I guess encouraging medic parkour and trick rocketjumping is less "ultiduo" and more "silly skillplay", which I appreciate a lot more (being a fan of TFC CTF) than something I'm not even good at (ultiduo).

Though I do appreciate ultiduo too, don't get me wrong.

Do you have a demo you can send?

I'll definitely be making the spawn doors faster, and I'll probably soften the map's lighting a lot, but compared to how it was before I made it so sharp it's a lot more ambient with a low light angle. I'm gonna not post it as beta until I'm sure /most/ of the map works well with the focus of /some/ gamemode, even if it's 3v3.

(ramps and platforms)

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43624441/20121105-2324-koth_bunkalow_a10.dem

for ultiduo i think the focus is a lot more around DMing than doing fancy plays and stuff, but that sort of thing can get really old really fast. so stuff like the point blocking and medic surfing were a good idea in theory, but hardly practical in 2v2 when the goal is just to try to out DM a combo.

we've been playing this all night as a 3v3, and it really is a lot of fun. you dont really get to practice coordination with scouts and soldiers ever unless its in a 6s match, its definitely a good way to practice distraction plays, heal orders, capitalizing on dmg etc. basically, 3v3 forces you to play off eachother which none of the other maps (ultiduo, mge, DM mod) really prepare you for.

a few more things:

-scouts were having a field day with that fence right outside of spawn, and just the amount of stuff around the map makes it pretty hard to hit scouts in general. i actually don't think this is really a problem, otherwise soldiers could just wreck scouts if they were on the ground and they abused the height. just pointing it out.

-i wish the skinny plank didn't have a lip on it, just because sometimes splash damage just doesn't register at all. also, maybe removing 2 of the ramps leading up to the point might be prudent, but i don't know how much that would limit medics/scouts from accessing high ground.

excited to see another version of the map! hopefully this kind of thing catches on.

@ source demo: I'll check it out around noon, I've got to wake up and other "morning" shit right now.

@ scout terrain: I'll see if there's anything that seems queer in terms of cover for scouts and if I can do anything about it. I don't think it's a problem for different classes to have their own dis/ and ad/vantages on a map like this, but if there's anything that can be uncalled for I should check it out (especially since I only intended soldier/med to be relevant before)
Overall it doesn't surprise me that it's hard to kill a scout on an open map, they are the master of choosing engagement after all, and being able to see what's coming after them just makes it easier to escape it, but that doesn't mean there's nothing to balance out there.

@plank: Does splash really noreg on it sometimes? I swore that the blockbullets I put on it would help:

http://i.imgur.com/swAtM.png

It's on that on both of ends of both planks, but the geometry's all a little different. What part of the planks were you having trouble with? I could stretch the rampup on that to improve reg.
People have suggested removing a set of ramps onto the cap before, but I really feel like it limits immediate vertical motion, which is more important on a map with the cap point set up like this than (for example) the area between granary last and 2/4.

Sorry I didn't post alpha 11 yesterday, I decided I wasn't done with the design after you gave your post on 3v3 being great on it.

EDIT: New lighting (the sams as before, but softer). Hope it's chill.
http://i.imgur.com/yfMUc.jpg

the part where I would splash is actually the side on the point, so if they were walking towards you on the plank and your rocket hit like right under the lip no damage would be done, but that's more because that's just how that works in TF2 than anything else. its a really minor thing that happens. i think someone eventually just said "just aim a little higher" which obviously made it alright.

i think the map geometry makes it fun for all 3 classes. medics have a crazy time just kiting and avoiding, and there are those hilarious crossbow moments where you can do some big damage if they let you. soldiers have a lot of things to splash off of, I'm still trying to figure out the best spots to splash and where the "kill zones" are. as far as the trick jumping stuff, i think we all just kinda bombed in but i'm sure in the coming weeks of playing this we'll come up with some crazy stuff. this map is really fun to play scout on. scouts with good movement have a great time. lots of things to jump off of, lots of different routes, etc.

i agree about the ramps. after thinking about it i realized it was crucial to have them where they were. its nice to be able to run underneath the point to escape a bomber and pop out somewhere unpredictably. yeah man, i think a few minor tweaks and this baby will be ready to go to beta.

We alpha 11 now.

EDIT: Don't download this, look at my next update.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_a11.bsp

Changes:
- Softened lighting, rotated map to put it on the opposite warehouse
http://i.imgur.com/p5Dcf.jpg
- Fixed all (?) of the issues with the doors
- No layout/pickup/geometry changes
- Filled a hole in a supposed-to-be-solid piece of cover

I don't have any geometry or layout changes in mind, but if anyone gets an idea that "fixes" a problem with 3v3, please let me know.

If someone has 4 people to play this then I'd be more than willing to give anyone connect info to my own server while I'm not using it. Just message me on Steam and I'll get it set up.

I'm up for a playtest. I linked your post to a friend of mine who was thinking about playtesting too.

I accidentally left a random piece of test cover around so I have to post an update that removes it.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_a12.bsp

Sorry guys. Try not to play a11, because it's lopsided. Tell me if I made any other mistakes like that one.

all right, another night of playing this map. some more crazy shit went down.

the spawn doors work really well, no problems there. a couple more weird complaints about the planks going from the spawn and not hitting some splashes, but it didnt seem to be a huge factor. maybe if the planks were flush with the surfaces? just a thought.

2 things though: can the railing be shot through? even hitscan wont pass through those, let alone rockets. it'd be cool to be able to shoot through them.

and also regarding spawn times: once you have the point and you can hold it, its really easy to hold and prepare for the next "wave". partly this is due to the fact that the attacking team (the team that doesnt have control of the point) spawns at the same rate that the people who have the point do. i know most koth maps work where if you don't have the point you spawn a little faster, to give a slight edge to a team who is at a disadvantage as far as positioning goes. not sure how you would go about doing this, but yeah once that happens i think the spawntimes will be ideal.

demo!

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/43624441/20121107-0121-koth_bunkalow_a12.dem

Thanks for the demo, I'll check it out in the afternoon again.

@planks: I really did try to make them play well with splash, but if it's still not working right I guess I can cut off their ends and lower them flush with the other platforms.
Just for record, this is how the planks look for a12 in Hammer: http://i.imgur.com/QCn5h.png

@spawn timers: Right now they're identical to koth_ultiduo (I think?) but I'll skew them depending on point owner because the map give tactical advantage to the point owner.

@railings: All of the railings have blockbullets inside them because one of them 100% had to be cover, and consistency with these things is important. I definitely think that they should all be solid, and if it's confusing then I'll just look for a better prop if there is one.

yeah maybe a solid fence instead of a railing. there's so many maps where you can shoot through them that i think we all instinctively did it at some point even though we knew we couldn't shoot through them.

I played it once today and thought the cooldown for capping was way too long. Almost "you should just let them cap and then recap it" kind of long since overtime was like a full minute.

I'll lower it and we can see how that goes.
Also, I changed the porch-construct connector plank and added (non-colliding; you can shoot through their edges) metal sheets to the railings to make it obvious that you can't shoot through them.

http://i.imgur.com/OXwzG.jpg

I spent most of the time since the last update figuring out how to fix a VRAD-induced lighting bug.

EDIT: I can't directly control the decay rate. The faster the cap time is the longer the decay time is, and it's hardcoded. If I can change the cap rate depending on whether someone's on the cap point I could do it, but I don't know if that's possible.

I will save you the trouble: it is not.

Okay, I got two versions of a13, and I want them to be compared. The difference is that, one of them has a 3 second base cap timer and the other has a 7 second one. This isn't all bad - the 7 second base cap timer has a much faster cap decay rate. Ideally I would have both things be low, but you can't control them independent of eachother, at all.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_a13_3.zip (EDIT: Broken, correct version here: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_a13_3%20fixed.zip)
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_a13_7.zip

I leave it up to you guys to figure out which has the 3 second base timer and which has the 7 one. Funny joke.

Image: http://i.imgur.com/sHCN0.jpg

I'm gonna try out the 7second base cap tongiht with my friends in a 3v3.

I made an embarrassing mistake somehow so both maps have 7 second base timers.

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_a13_3%20fixed.zip

Here's the fixed 3 version.

dude i was going CRAZY glad i refreshed this thread and saw that post ^ lol

So my friends and I tested both the 3 and 7 second timers. I think we're gonna play with the 7 second one, because the other simply caps WAY too fast in my opinion; it's like Blands last!

very fun.

Thanks for the kind words :)

So, I started whipping up an art update but Steampipe ate my Hammer, so I can't keep working on that. In the meantime, does anyone have any ideas how I could make the map more ultiduo friendly without harming its 3v3s?

Beta 1 now!

- Did a bunch of art stuff
- Filled in useless areas that people kept running away into and then dying
- Added an extra route to the upper level, in the furthest apart pair of corners on the bottom of the map

SS: http://imgur.com/a/rvGaa

Download: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_b1.zip

Pls play this and get feedback to me, I kept playing it the past couple days and we're still having a lot of fun doing 3v3 (ultiduo + scouts) on it. This should be a really stable version, so don't worry about learning stuff that's just going to be changed later.

That pink checkerboard texture in spawn is making me go blind.

I fixed it, same URL, just redownload. For real this time.

so after playtesting with ultiduo, some thoughts:
It's much too easy to fall down between spawn and the point, and when you've fallen down it's very difficult to get back up without ending up on the wrong side.
will edit with more

Got b2 up.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1811521/koth_bunkalow_b2.zip

- Made spawn exits into mini-highground
- Added one-way window to look out of spawn
- Added a cover thingy to secondary spawn exit

Everything was requested from playtesting. Not content with my window texture; does anyone have a good one for the wrong side of a one-way window with the chickenwire in it? I can make my own better, but it would be nice to use a good one if there already is one.

Will update screenshots later.