map basics

more talkings about design choices later

pictures or i'll drop you in ubers (even more)

I like both layout and theme-ambientation.

Here are some other thoughts (+screenies)
http://imgur.com/gallery/4zC1r

good stuff. some of these things are gonna be sorted by default once there's decoration (for instance, the roofs will get taller as there will be more stuff etc, the inside wall will become a 'netting' type of wall. there's inspiration from my local shisha shop which the center will become eventually. I have to create all of these textures first though, so I decided to create the layout first and do just a basic draft.

but yes some stuff can be done here, like especially the ideas with the packs, I think those are good ideas for sure and removing the hide under area, that's not something I thought about at the time. I'll sort out some of that stuff for next version, and I can tell you that I'll keep the rest in my mind.

thanks for looking :)

Impossible???????

orange_koth_almih

did you test how rockets behave on the circular roof above the big healthpack ?

besides on the railtrack side what is the reasoning behind the two buildings with healthpacks above the environmental hazard? First it makes the map ultra wide and second it's so far away from the objective I don't see why players would want to play and fight in this area.

small details https://imgur.com/a/ZZc96

Hi, I dug up this up from the depths of my dropbox, having completely forgotten I made it after that post 4 months ago, this is probably going to be my entry for beaters map set thing

new version had a redesign around the train tracks side, I was never happy with that side (neither was twiggy) but it seems a lot better now, the space is much better used. I fixed some of the stuck spots and clipping out the map p sure

to answer some posts-
yeah, it is in dev textures, sucks but idk what theme to go with atm so there we go, I could use wooden textures or whatever but it would still look bad
the domes are just displacements, rockets behave normally
the map is pretty wide/big because it just has to be that way if I want to bisect the map, otherwise it feels way too cramped on the sides

Just had my first playtest, here is a new version

reduced the area on cliffside by about 30% and simplified it a lot. Less room to run away from people, easier to get back onto high ground so you're not just dead if you touch the floor
changed up health packs, should be easier to break forward holds, should be more rollouts available, should have more healthy medics
I also removed some general clutter and really easy flank route, fixed the reflections so that you can tell where glass is.

I haven't shipped any textures because I haven't finished the custom stuff yet. Is it better to leave it all in dev or texture some of it?

Just some initial thoughts on the map, didn't run through it very thoroughly:

- I really like the idea of having crammed "doorways without roof" outside, because it allows people to go around and jump over, while also making splash easy to hit on scouts
- Some areas seem really crammed, especially the underground passage between spawn and mid area, as well asa the area around the house with a medium healthkit outside the point. (I think instead of having extremely narrow gaps separating vertical floors it would be better to extending it and just creating a roof, or contracting it, giving players more space to move.
- It's interesting that the point is indoors.
- With mirrored symmetry, I feel like having health packs next to ammopacks with different distances between both teams is kind of messy, or maybe I'm too organized. I think the pack should be in the middle instead.
- The white sphere-roof is not very intuitive for movement. i personally would use a more simple shape so people can get a better understanding on the movement on top of the surface and the splash damage spread.
- I think the map has some good potential. I think you should make sure there's both interesting areas to fight in both inside & outside, so people will put up with shooting enemy gamers indoors.

2nd playtest has gone, here is this weeks version
As long as the map keeps getting played I will be trying to release a version each week.

This version tries to clean up some of the common complaints.

People didn't like the palm trees because they block vision and it's weird seeing people sat in them, so I've gone and removed the ones in the playable area. They'll be back in the outside once I get that started. I've also moved the spawns and turned them so they're more normal, and fixed some of the clipping problems requested.

I've increased the amount of vision severely. The lower parts are mostly seethrough, made of wire and wood, so you can see to the other side (don't worry it is blockbulleted to perfection.) If you're new to the map you should find it much easier to orient yourself too. The center nipple has also been shortened and is made of glass now too, so you can see players on the other side and a little bit down if you want to. I hope this makes it a bit easier to keep track of players and it should incentivise players to go on the high ground more, flanking on low ground will probably get you seen.

I've opened up the entrance up top, as requested by a fair few people, I've started with about 50%. The side point entrances have got the same treatment. Additionally the roof on the sides of the mid have changed, which should enable players to spam people holding there, as it was discovered it's actually very hard to kill people there. It also just makes it feel roomier which is nice.

I started to decorate the map, but this needs to be out today in case it's tested tomorrow, so I didn't get that far, hopefully it gives an idea of the way I'm hoping to take the map.

I played this in Beater's map test mix thing last Friday and liked it a lot.
Some of the palm trees were a little awkward so I'm glad to hear most are gone.
I think the whole mid point area (particularly upper) is quite ugly despite playing fairly well, and I have no idea how it could possibly be detailed but good luck! c:

Feel like the top area on this side of the map needs more space, specially the part on the right
https://i.imgur.com/Zzotqho.jpg
also you can stand on the edges of the round roof thingy but its tricky, maybe make some sort of platform to make it more natural? example https://i.imgur.com/7xUA6Fb.png

After another fast runthrough:

- Way too much ammo on the roof. The danger of having too much ammo is it makes engineer a lot more viable, which I personally think shouldn't be a goal of any map.

- Still many crammed doorways

- The fence outside spawn is really low, make it obvious you can't walk outside the map.

- Cliffside health kit house is too big/too close to the main building, very small gap in drop.

- Ramp room next to the shutter, I really like it. What's worth experimenting is flipping the ramps around, and also I feel like there might be too much space & almost impossible to chase down a scout frag in the lobby.

- There are 5 exits from lobby to the main area. This will make it fairly easy to get flanked, but I don't know if it matters as much as it's koth map and the flanks on either side of the point (I will call them Cliffside and Pitside for simplicity.

- Any reason in particular you have a tiny balcony and straight ramp between lobby and second? I think it would work better by just having a sideways ramp or a straight ramp (and then flipping the orange dev wall inside small healthkit room.)

Hi again collaide thank u for looking again!

I don't know how relevant engineer is going to be on koth regardless. imo there isn't enough ammo on via so I wanted to avoid that but I guess I can remove the large ammo whenever if it becomes a problem?

I will raise the fence, np

So I think all of these are sort of similar design areas. I think the crammed areas are mostly in the central route, and the reason for that is because that's the flank. The concept is that the 2 side places are both viable combo areas and so it's a necessity for the central part to be kind of hard to run, if that top area didn't have hard chokes then teams will only ever want to go there, which would mean it's just a map with 2 flanks and the point would be really centralised for attacking aswell. IMO that would break my concept and if it turned out this wouldn't work well in practice I would make an entirely new map with a standardised layout.

Reason for 5 exits is that you need 2 exits per 'side' to break forwards efficiently. Imo you should consider the exits by side, as both exits can be covered by players per side, in terms of defending, but it just makes it more interactive than just you know here's ur exit go jump out of this and we'll follow you.
I'm planning on revamping that shitty underground tunnel, so that each side will end up having a 2 decent exits and access to the flank if they choose to, I hope it will then be really clear what I'm trying to achieve. (right now imo the cliff side feels like a flank thanks to the 'secondary exit' being god awful, tight, uninteresting crap)

The use of a balcony+planks, this tries to help achieve the separation of the areas. You don't come out of the doors, then rotate into the centre point going up the ramp, that would ruin the point. The idea is that when you've chosen to go through that point it's a risk to rotate through to the other side, instead of being able to walk wherever. That's the upshot, if the attackers have multiple good options for attacking, the defenders need to be able to see the lines and react to them. So therefore the attackers either spend time to do a slower rotate through lobby, which is gonna be possible once I've sorted it out more, or they must take that risk of going through that choke. That kind of thing simply isn't gonna be possible if I make it easy to rotate into the middle.

The way I see it, it's like this, imagine if on process you don't have uber on 2nd defending against ppl with 100% on mid. You tend to put ur spam classes more forward to spam out uber if they wanna come choke. If you spot heals going pc you gonna bring ur soldiers and demo back so they're not caught when they uber out lower pc or whatever. Now imagine instead of pc it's just a 1way door you can't see through. Now they can uber out on u without u seeing where they're coming and that's gonna be gay as fuck because you'll always have to hold back thanks to that threat.
That's what this map is gonna be, if you allow the attacking guys to rotate in and out of sides without any real time spent or risk, ur meds always gonna be caught out. I think it's really important not to give the attacking team room to put the uber anywhere, but allow them to send unhealed players everywhere, is the bottom line.

I hope my huge explanation makes some sense to you and I'm not looking to shut down your feedback, I am listening, this is just my perspective on how I see it playing out, it remains to be seen if it's gonna work
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Also I am gonna remove that dome house on the cliff side and replace it with like some kind of solid pillar or obelisk. Nobody really likes it so rest assured it's gonna get changed

This weeks version

been a little busy so haven't done much

forgot to raise fence (sry collaide)
raised skybox (np alfie)
replaced the dome hut with a pillar (experimental)
opened up choke under balcony, basically removed those pillars that were just clutter and got in the way

remade the underground area to be overground and far more spacious. Hope to see a bit more traffic through there now, and the cliff side route has been changed in accordance with these changes.

I put a few holes in the roof of the point, because people have been complaining a lot about not being able to leverage the high ground. The glass on the lower area should provide some cover so you'll need to be spamming 2 soldiers in order to kill one person. I think that might be enough risk to justify launching 2 soldiers from the side?
I don't really like the capping low ground being shootable from up top and think this isn't going to work, but this is my last ditch attempt at keeping the point below. If this doesn't work I'm going to cave in and put the point on the high ground I think.

That's about it.

If you're a part of beaters test group, 3 main feedback points:
Should I put the point on high ground?
How is the new cave thing?
Pillar or dome? Or something else entirely? Ideas are great

I really need to get started on detail and optimisation so I need to get these things solid now-ish, only 4 weeks till the end, has to be at least a bit polished by then according to the guidelines.

Thank you all.