NS2_Fracture
Howser
UK Join Date: 2010-02-08 Member: 70488Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
UK Join Date: 2010-02-08 Member: 70488Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Subnautica Playtester, Retired Community Developer
For the past few months I've been working on my ns2 map, Its based around the simple idea of having both teams start at fixed locations at opposite ends of a map, divided into two halves. I want to create a map thats fairly unique and this seemed like an original, workable concept. Although every other element of the maps design is open to change, retaining the this basic design is something I feel should be at the heart of all choices and experiments I make going forward.
Here's the current layout and the build we played today:
An annotated version to explain the basic layout:
Excuse the cheesy greek titan/god names for locations, at this point in time I am more concerned with making something fun than explaining the purpose of rooms. They will do the job for the time being.
Today we played the first ever game on the map. Aliens easily wiped the floor with us marines, we lost most the early engagements and found it hard to regain any ground. That said one game is hardly a large sample and I'll wait for a few more to get some deeper insight into the flaws of the design. Though I can say with some certainty its unbalanced in favour of aliens. I believe this is mainly due to the distances marines have to travel to get to key locations in the map, aliens move faster and in turn can reinforce their front lines faster. It probably should be said I was commanding marines, so its even less representative of a normal game when your commanders fixated on travel times and how engagements playout.
Based on this one game, and a bit of thinking here's my first thoughts on changes to make marines have a slightly easier time getting around the map:
In the mean time whole map will be scaled down slightly, corridors were too wide and ceilings were generally too high. I'll be resolving these issues before I commit to any more drastic changes.
If anyone has any feedback, suggestions, found any bugs or has results from games played throughout the week here's the place to let me know.
*Workshop link*
Thanks
Here's the current layout and the build we played today:
An annotated version to explain the basic layout:
Excuse the cheesy greek titan/god names for locations, at this point in time I am more concerned with making something fun than explaining the purpose of rooms. They will do the job for the time being.
Today we played the first ever game on the map. Aliens easily wiped the floor with us marines, we lost most the early engagements and found it hard to regain any ground. That said one game is hardly a large sample and I'll wait for a few more to get some deeper insight into the flaws of the design. Though I can say with some certainty its unbalanced in favour of aliens. I believe this is mainly due to the distances marines have to travel to get to key locations in the map, aliens move faster and in turn can reinforce their front lines faster. It probably should be said I was commanding marines, so its even less representative of a normal game when your commanders fixated on travel times and how engagements playout.
Based on this one game, and a bit of thinking here's my first thoughts on changes to make marines have a slightly easier time getting around the map:
In the mean time whole map will be scaled down slightly, corridors were too wide and ceilings were generally too high. I'll be resolving these issues before I commit to any more drastic changes.
If anyone has any feedback, suggestions, found any bugs or has results from games played throughout the week here's the place to let me know.
*Workshop link*
Thanks
Comments
Would have loved to have seen more of it, look forward to future games.
I like the new layout. It balances the problem with no middle left/right connection with faster navigation for marines.
5 points in left side 4 in right side. not counting the starts. i feel the right side res is too spread and less vantage to hold right now.
I had to extend the distances as it wouldn't be balanced to give both teams a completely free tp. For Aliens side I think I'll rework the routes so cysting can go from cronus to ourea making it more affordable to expand to that tp in the early game.
I'd guess any marine team that lets aliens have a tp without contesting it is doomed to fail. the idea is that it forces both teams to try manage both sides. There's a lot of value in denying the other team the rt or tps they need as opposed to just capturing what you need.
On top of that I think it breaks up the symmetrical nature of the map and spices things up.
Also I'm not a fan of 4 tp maps and It wouldn't surprise me if marines are going to have their tech split over free tech points in the future.
Made it easier for marines to defend their closest rts, less hiding spots for aliens, contracted a few corridors and removed hermes.
Should be interesting to see how it affects gameplay before i make the drastic changes.
Looking forward to giving it another whirl.
commander there is a hive in ur anus!!! ... :P
I definitely like the concept of the split in the middle.
I'll also be building an experimental build with a central bridge going between the two sides, I think the disconnect between the sides requires too much coordination from marines to hold. I guess we'll know with more testing.
The map still feels a little too big, so I'll spend the next week resolving any issues with the timings and scale.
I'm not completely happy with the flow between ceremony and the Crossing. Once I can identify the problems I'll redesign the central area to resolve the issues.
As always I really welcome all feedback, suggestions and crits.
It was fun to play, didn't really get to see bottom half as alien. Marines seem to constantly push us at the park and reception.
But it's a nice change up from the old map, still few places to work on but i like it. Really does need more game time though want to check the crossing out more.
I've got some game play i'll be uploading to youtube for you later to look at.
I also did some game play of the map on sunday. It's my first time and i forgot to record my voice(might be a good thing)
ns2_Gash
I also need to improve the flow into Upload.
I think the lack of vents and extensive use of corridors is what stops the aliens pushing marines back once they decide to hold certain choke points.
I'm going to start rethinking the corridors so the connections between rooms seem more natural and then add any vents to break any OP choke points.
But first I need to test the new down scaled version I'll get on the workshop tomorrow. Its about 15% smaller.
Red outlines are the latest layout.
Also I need name suggestions, NS2_gash might work for comedy value. But I'm certainly not keeping it. Any ideas?
The canyon and map split is the main feature of the map.
ns2_Fracture or NS2_Rift is the best I've got so far.
This was quite fun to play the other day, and I like watching the developments you've made/are making!
As with the first iteration of the map, I build a lot of stuff to be disposable. I like to call this 'prototyping' but generally Its just me learning lessons the hard way, foreseeing this happening I do a rush job on my first efforts and thus hopefully don't waste too much time on silly ideas. The stuff I am going to be talking about wont be used in the map but I feel there's some important lessons to be shared.
Artistically, I had a very strong idea of what i wanted to do from the outset; some sort of hybrid between Art Deco and the existing sci-fi art style. I did a lot of quick concept art trying to develop the theme, form some simple visual conventions to follow and a original colour palette. While I managed to develop some good ideas and settle on the colour pallet I really struggled with getting the balance between the two themes right. Natural-selection 2 has a very well established and well realized art style, deviating from this too much just made things look disconnected with the rest of the universe. From very early on I intended to make the map different and goofy (like l4d2's Dark Carnival, or The Unitarian Church In dead space 2) but at the same time I always wanted the map to feel like it was part of the same universe. This has been proven to be much more of a fine balancing act than I originally anticipated. Here's some images of some of the prototyping I've been doing over the past few months:
Some rough concept art, Adding computer terminals, chairs, plants and other 'living' details is probably the easiest way of grounding the design:
The colour palette I'll be using. Charcoals, greens, gold (secondary) and red as a highlight. While not very moody its easy on the eyes and quite distinct:
The biggest Issue I've had with making sci-fi textures is focusing too much on creating an interesting 2d surface one its own. In practice a texture like this has very little use for mappers, there's too much contrast and the detail frequencies are just too high:
Using 3d apps to protype objects and shapes has been very useful, while these meshes aren't suitable for in game use its a nice way to get an idea on how forms interact with one another. In the future I'll be trying to adapt this method so its easier to convert any successful experiments into usable models:
I also slapped up a quick texture set and experimented with using them for a mock up ready room. This was really useful as it highlighted all the issues with the textures I had made. The trims were far too thin. Small, decorative trims just make stuff look old worldly. Larger chunkier details seem to be the best way to create a sci-fi environment. In trying to make some textures look ornate just made them look noisy. Again balancing detail frequencies and contrast is probably the most important aspect of making usable textures.
While I haven't really done much artsy stuff in the last few months, but I have been making a lot of head way with the level design, I my plan is to have the map finished in grey boxing within the next two months. After that I'll be able to focus solely on finalizing the art style and making a decent art set for the map. The next time you see stuff in-game, the weirdness will be turned down significantly, but (hopefully) it retain the unique feeling.
As for the Back story the map is set on a isolated desert planet far from our solar system. the action takes place within a facility that attempts to make wealthy, dying people immortal by digitizing their memories, mapping their DNA and storing their frozen naked bodies in hope future scientific breakthroughs that might bring them back. Someone has being using the cryo storage unit to hold frozen alien lifeforms... I never said the back story was going to be original!
The map is physically divided into two separate halves, both will have a separate but complimentary theme. The ceremony side will be the ornate art deco style with quasi religious vibe (for the public) and the labs will be matching in terms of the pallet but will be much more typical NS2 in style.
As for a name for the map I've bitten the bullet and gone for ns2_fracture.
Dude...
First, it is absolutely fabulous!! Second, these screen shots surely are very busy, maybe too much, but you have already noted that in your elaborate above. Also looks more steam-punk than scifi-deco though. I think it will require addition of some Hi-tech elements like led-lights, outline neon lights, computer screens etc.
One thing that comes to mind to resolve busy feeling is to focus more on clear textures, especially for floor and walls. Its not about to scrape all the detailed textures, but most of the Level design is done by shapes created from "world" mesh and it is very hard to "squeeze" busy textures onto busy architecture. Detailed textures are quite useful for ceilings (so you can keep them relatively flat -> win for skulks) and for special features (detailed piece of wall).
The detail effort saved on walls can be put in trim textures and the props.
I really would not give hope on this one. If the diamond shape sticks to 4/8 grid, extruded hole could be cut there and added detail like a grating or exposed pipings/wirings. If you keep the grid in your mind when creating shapes on detailed textures, you are giving the designers tool how to create nice details by using those shapes already incorporated in your textures.
Also love the panels on this texture, they could make a nice simple wall texture on its own.
But despite all, it is definitively amazing piece of environment design already as it is. I would be delighted if I could get hand on those assets and give a try to create a art test room for you. Unfortunately my Steam is blocked by Steam Guard ATM, and I am still waiting till they resolve it...
The current texture set is very low quality, there's no grime pass, very little fine detail and they're pretty much just AO and cavity maps layered over generic surfaces. This works for prototyping, but once you get up close you can see how crappy they are. Once the maps finished being grey boxed I'll get on with rebuilding them into a much more polished and usable state, hopefully something closer to the very high NS2 standard (if i can achieve that). Once I have enough basic assets I'll be happy to share them with everyone on the forums for putting through their paces.
Pandademic: I actually tried to watch dune recently (after making this stuff), Its pretty bloody awful for a lyncher film but the environments were nice, though very very goofy. There's plenty of films that use the art deco/sci-fi hybrid. fifth element, AI and blade runner are some obvious ones. Though I can't really think of any games?! The main source of inspiration has been real world art deco, I wanted to create my own take on blending the two themes as opposed to stealing off other artists.