This week I scaled the entire map down roughly 20%. Right now I'm really happy with the timings, It feels a lot less of a chore to navigate.
I also merged ceremony and crossing into one and renamed preparation to ceremony.
Uranus had some flow issues fixed and There's some more vents added.
The maps still got some major issues- large open spaces and overly powerful choke points seem to make the map marine friendly.
Some issues I'll be fixing this week are:
Ceremony is too small for a key location that sees a lot of combat.
The crossing is far too marine friendly.
The crossing as a double res node makes it too powerful- back the just one!
Cooling is a horrid choke point for aliens leaving their start.
Cooling is just too tight in general, I'll be opening up the ceiling and some vents into the room itself.
The Park has a LOS issue and a snipeable RT Node.
Upload RT cannot be dropped.
If you found any issues I didn't mention please point them out. As Always I welcome any help in the form of suggestions and feedback.
I think this falls under the category of super minor issue, but I did find a spot you can hit the medical hive from on the other side of the "screen": http://imgur.com/86LEEMZ
The hive died right before taking the pic, but one of the little nubs of the hive arms sticks over that wall (where all the bullet holes are)
6:44 couldnt place "Upload" RT. Im still experimenting with streaming. every new stream is better quality (setting it right is a hard task) . BTW. i love the map and with this scheme it will be perfect...
Those are some brilliant screenshots, really can't wait to see all your custom stuff when you get the greybox all down.
After last night we had a talk, i think you know most of the pressing matters like corridors are a little narrow now(But you picked up on that). The room sizes really do seem to be a good size didn't seem too big like the last few times.
Few issues with this map. Aliens can Easily access 4 rts, yes park is killable but the rest is pretty easy to hold having good gorge placement. I think park rt should be removed and connected to crossing if u plan on keeping a double there also the crossing power is a bit accessable by aliens but , ill have more feedback once ive played it i honestly thing this map is okay but has a few issues with crossing
Holy batman cow in the heavens! This is amazing! I really like this sort of lines on the floor. Nice flow.
Altho it seems to stand in contrast to the rest, but nice goin.
This probably took quite a while to make.
Theres a 2nd vent in ceremony in top right thats currently unaccessable its there but cant use it also, i get stuck on the bottom right hand corner of ceremony because theres a wall missing.
Thanks for the input kinley! I'll fix the issues and have revised the park so it connects to the crossing. I'll have this build submitted for Sunday. While its great you point out some specific issues I would also really like to get a short description/story of the games that were played (length, which areas were most heavily contested etc) this helps us understand the map as a whole. changing one small area can effect the flow and balance of the entire map.
with regards to aliens having four free RTs; The map is based around a 2Forts game play style (with the fixed spawns) giving each team half the map at a bias is fundamental to that design. That said I do want to make it hard to turtle areas and give each team the ability to contest areas on the enemies side of the map.
Keep playing the maps, the feedback of a competitive player is much appreciated!
WELCOME DAAN! its about time :P
I wondered what you were doing in spectator that game. Poor aliens though. Hopefully today's build will give them bit more of a break from the marine beat downs.
This plays so much better than the first version. And your graphics test is spectacular! Just keep it simple otherwise so it is visually clear.
2 issues:
- the ceiling geometry (mostly trims and such things) is very confusing in commander view. It's hard to see whether something is a wall or just a platform/edge/height difference in an open room (providing a sight line). Often I believed a Drifter covered something or people could see something when really there was a wall in the way, and vice versa.
Make it clearer to see such things. I noticed it in crossing (center), the entire parts north of crossing, the room right of crossing (where the ramp leads too), the parts left of crossing all the way to the left TP room.
So just make these ceiling parts commander invisible.
Also I recommend some special conspicuous graphical trim for all edges (only the edges) of platforms/height differences in otherwise open rooms, so one can immediately recognize them. This would make it much easier to see those, cyst around them, etc.
- for some reason, as alien comm I could not use bone wall (infestation required error message) even clearly on infestation. I'm not sure if that is map related.
With the latest build I've revised how the park connects to the rest of the map. Adding a secondary route to the park was intended to make aliens have an easier time expanding into the center of the map. The main problem before was marines cutting the cyst chains as they came into ceremony. This worked as I hoped (yay!) but the rushed job has left the north east of the map in a crushed mess.
I'll be sitting on this build for a few more games but my intention is to revise the north east areas (J4, the view, medical, the park and the crossing) to feel less cramped, read more clearly and have more even timings. Though layout itself will change very little.
While this build is still a long way off perfect I now feel the scale and the layout of the map are very solid. This is a fairly big deal for the maps development. It means the changes I make from here on will be a lot less drastic and mainly just consist of me improving individual areas as opposed to adding or removing routes and rooms.
I'm going to return to art for a few weeks so hopefully in a few weeks while i study and develop the map
wonderful feedback hozz, thank you! I'll try fix all the issues you encountered ASAP. That said most are just down to me being lazy with the groups and entities. The maps been in a pretty constant state of change up to this point so I didn't want to spend too much time on getting everything perfect.
Another idea: remove the resource node in The Park.
This map seems to be Alien biased, and Aliens already have 3 free RTs (base, Cooling, Medical) which are a very far way for Marines to attack.
Alternatively, you could keep the RT in Park, but make a connection between the south part of Park (South Park? ) and the room north of Upload (just connect these rectangular rooms right next to each other, to the right of the Crossing power node). I think this would ultimately be a better idea than removing Park RT. Marines have more ways to attack Alien stuff (in Park, Medical) and Aliens have an additional route to get to Crossing, Ceremony, and Upload, without having to go through enemy territory (like happened yesterday, when Marines held Ceremony and Crossing).
If necessary, you can make Crossing more friendly for Marines to hold (e.g. make it bigger towards the south and put both RT spots there, maybe even on an elevated platform) or remove Park RT if this turns out to be too Alien attack friendly.
I felt that the map is low on attack route/flanking options (which especially showed for Marines who had a hard time going for Alien RTs, but also Aliens didn't really attack Marine territory before Ceremony fell) and that connection would make gameplay more dynamic.
If you ever go for random spawns, you also don't destroy the general layout (5 TPs with RTs between each, and a double in center) this way.
--
Unrelated, I had the impression that J-3 and Cooling are a bit cramped and Marine unfriendly. They went there with Exo train and even ARCs, but it never amounted to a real danger for Aliens. Not sure what happened there.
edit:
I think the lots of columns in the rooms are responsible for this. I think you should generally (in the entire map) remove some of them, because 2 columns in a room can make interesting gameplay, 5 are just random. For example, does Ceremony really need 5 fat columns? Delete the 3 right ones (so only the 2 at the start of the platform remain).
--
And another thing I forgot: I could not cyst into the lower part of Alien base (between Hive and power). Given how little space is available in Alien base (which led to the one of our Onoses being trapped) I would have liked to put some buildings there (and eggs also don't seem to spawn there).
NICE! I'll carefully consider all the suggestions as I continue fixing up the areas.
The map is intended to have a (sort of) 2forts gameplay, fixed spawn and bias RT's for both teams are kind of fundamental to the design. The type of game we had on Sunday was exactly the type of game I was trying to achieve. Fast, furious with a lot of push and pull, ending with both teams battling it out with end game gear.
I do completely agree that the park was too hard for marines to contest and the connection between J3 and cooling is problematic.
With regards to flanks and routes; I feel the layout (in terms of connections and complexity) Is very close to being final. I wont be adding any more corridors or routes. I will however be adjusting flow, spaces and distances between all areas to make flanking an assaulting positions easier.
In the next build is going to involve some fairly significant reconstructing of the map. The central areas, and all the north east rooms are going to be redesign to accommodate the the new layout. There will be a few more rooms (with power-nodes) and less corridors. This build will be in circulation for a few weeks as I need a few more games to really understand the problems and figure out the best solutions.
All previous builds have seen marines completely wipe the floors with the aliens dead bodies. The pillars are just a cheap way of giving aliens some cover, at this point I'm not too concerned with achieving balanced combat in every room but i'll certainly try removing any OP blocks of cover.
While I wont change the layout away from the two '2forts' style, I am fairly confident I'll be able to address all the other concerns you had with this version. Be sure to post about any other issues or info about games I miss out on, your feedback is very useful. Thanks man.
Over the past two weeks I've redesigned around 60% of the map, mostly on the alien side. I've been experimenting with methods of removing corridors and creating more interesting rooms for combat, while still retaining a good sense of flow and direction. The maps completely unbalanced as the marine side has remained untouched for this build and is now significantly smaller than aliens and very bare; making it next to impossible for aliens to push into marine grounds. For the next build I'll continue to develop the existing rooms and rebuild the older ones.
I've marked the areas that will be tweaked/fixed with green, and the ones that will be completely rebuilt in Red.
As I said earlier the map is completely unbalanced, this will probably remain this way for a few more builds as my main focus now is making interesting rooms and combat scenarios. I also personally feel populating the map with crates and vents is not the best solution for balancing a map.
Crates (or other similar props) seem to just make the rooms feel cluttered and disrupt flow. Designing the room so that there is enough structural cover (like pillars, railings, alcoves etc) is probably a better approach as world geometry just seems to read better and provide more clarity than random props scattered throughout bare rooms.
Vents remove aliens from the map and aren't at all interesting or fun to navigate. They do read well as alternative alien routes, and are sometimes the only solution to balancing issues, I just feel they should be added in once you identify issues that cant be resolved through a rooms design.
I time I will have plenty vents and 'crates' in the map, but what i want to try and create in these early stages is rooms that feel dynamic in terms of combat and navigation for both teams.
All feedback and suggestions are more than welcome.
Thanks
Your approach on designing rooms as combat scenarios, trying to imagine how the fight will be, and then putting structural cover is one that i like the most, as in refinery, conduit room with all the pipes that let alien cover behind, or in tram, server hive, with the structure in the center of the room and the props that look like server racks.
Using crates should be the last resort to give cover unless the room purpose has something to do with crates.
Video of latest sunday match on NS2_GASH youtu.be/Cm2c2XnHSwE?t=1h22m40s
(sorry to the admin who has to review all these, give me a pm if there's a better way to submit vids with timestamps)
I am sure they don't mind. The videos are very very helpful. Reviewing the games (even bad ones) always gives me some new insight into the problems with the level design and it makes Sunday nights even more valuable. Thank you daan
WELLO!
Another new build with many significant changes throughout the map. I am still prototyping ideas, especially with the central areas and marine side but it appears to be a step in the right direction.
This build features a very different design in central area which has been problematic from the start. Originally I had intended to have 'The Crossing' room as the main set piece of the map, an epic open(ish) bridge area between the two sides of the map. It would be the scene of intense push and pull combat as each team struggled to hold the strategically valuable area!....
... Sadly this wasn't meant to be.
I have experimented with many designs and iterations with the middle but it never felt right while I was trying to achieve the epic room I had been so romantic about when planning the map.
Initially (with no RT's) it felt like a load of wasted space, it was only really used as a sneaky route to flank central areas.
I tried it as a single RT location to increase the value of the area this proved even more problematic. As an area of transit, RT's were just sniped too frequently and it was just more appealing to spend the effort holding less vulnerable RT locations or offensive positions.
Then as a Double RT location the value was increased and for the first time I saw people attempt to setup bases there but this forced fracture into an uneasy 12 RT map, and sucked a lot of the attention away from the areas that would provide more interesting game-play.
After that I briefly tried it as a single RT location with a room-within-a-room type area. The same problem arose as before; hard to defend and not worth the effort.
It seems you need the RT to cancel out the negative space, but as a area designed for traffic its very hard to encourage teams to attempt to setup a forward base there unless they're already dominating, that is.
Also its important to note that large 'epic' areas just bring up loads of other issues inherent with NS2's fundamental design. LOS, sniping, overly exposed cysting routes, a single power-node that is responsible for huge a area of the map, and so on.
I feel Refinery has the best example of an 'epic hub' area and even that brings its fair share of gameplay problems similar to what I was finding with my previous builds.
With this in mind I've binned the original idea and settled for a much more humble one. I've now split The Crossing into three rooms; a junction at either end with a single res node room off set from the main route in the middle. It brings the central areas gameplay back inline with the rest of the maps style of rooms and corridors.
Epic: No
Workable, fun and balanced: Yes
I'll be getting married in Just under three weeks so It might be a bit quite on the update front for the next month or so. I will be taking the time to see how the next few tests play out and plan my next iteration of the map.
All feedback and suggestions welcome as always. Thanks.
This almost look cinematic but really, if not adding some godrays or smoke for ambiance you should atleast get some upcoming biodome foliage in this map.
Really loving what i seen so far - very original map concept with a nice twist on the ancient/future.
LOL! that's great.
Its a shame you're avoiding 250. Its a pain to relearn and there is some issues but all in all its still the same game at its core.
note to self... need more pot plants and smoke effects :P
I dont know if there is values to change in the editor but in top image above i increased the contrasts so its not as grayish tone to the map, i love how you took something BOLD as gold or blue instead of sticking to the safe gray. Thats why descent was a good change with red tones and neons. if you put dynamic light behind window bars on left with higher intensity and distance than the other laps i think the godray effect casting shadows like that could be replicated even though i drew it on there keep the pics coming i cannot wait for more!
about 250, Skulks are so unpredictible they can look as if they are turned away from you on the client side but and still bite in the face or pretend to jump away full speed then cancel it and going for a dead stop mid-air haha :P i propably will get into it once biodome comes out, if not that then when THIS does
I dont know if there is values to change in the editor but in top image above i increased the contrasts so its not as grayish tone to the map, i love how you took something BOLD as gold or blue instead of sticking to the safe gray. Thats why descent was a good change with red tones and neons. if you put dynamic light behind window bars on left with higher intensity and distance than the other laps i think the godray effect casting shadows like that could be replicated even though i drew it on there keep the pics coming i cannot wait for more!
about 250, Skulks are so unpredictible they can look as if they are turned away from you on the client side but and still bite in the face or pretend to jump away full speed then cancel it and going for a dead stop mid-air haha :P i propably will get into it once biodome comes out, if not that then when THIS does
Comments
This week I scaled the entire map down roughly 20%. Right now I'm really happy with the timings, It feels a lot less of a chore to navigate.
I also merged ceremony and crossing into one and renamed preparation to ceremony.
Uranus had some flow issues fixed and There's some more vents added.
The maps still got some major issues- large open spaces and overly powerful choke points seem to make the map marine friendly.
Some issues I'll be fixing this week are:
Ceremony is too small for a key location that sees a lot of combat.
The crossing is far too marine friendly.
The crossing as a double res node makes it too powerful- back the just one!
Cooling is a horrid choke point for aliens leaving their start.
Cooling is just too tight in general, I'll be opening up the ceiling and some vents into the room itself.
The Park has a LOS issue and a snipeable RT Node.
Upload RT cannot be dropped.
If you found any issues I didn't mention please point them out. As Always I welcome any help in the form of suggestions and feedback.
Also My man Carnage recorded himself playing the map as commander, the fun starts at 6.30 . I personally find re-watching these super helpful! Thanks.
The hive died right before taking the pic, but one of the little nubs of the hive arms sticks over that wall (where all the bullet holes are)
After last night we had a talk, i think you know most of the pressing matters like corridors are a little narrow now(But you picked up on that). The room sizes really do seem to be a good size didn't seem too big like the last few times.
We need a few more games, but it's getting there.
Altho it seems to stand in contrast to the rest, but nice goin.
This probably took quite a while to make.
with regards to aliens having four free RTs; The map is based around a 2Forts game play style (with the fixed spawns) giving each team half the map at a bias is fundamental to that design. That said I do want to make it hard to turtle areas and give each team the ability to contest areas on the enemies side of the map.
Keep playing the maps, the feedback of a competitive player is much appreciated!
I wondered what you were doing in spectator that game. Poor aliens though. Hopefully today's build will give them bit more of a break from the marine beat downs.
2 issues:
- the ceiling geometry (mostly trims and such things) is very confusing in commander view. It's hard to see whether something is a wall or just a platform/edge/height difference in an open room (providing a sight line). Often I believed a Drifter covered something or people could see something when really there was a wall in the way, and vice versa.
Make it clearer to see such things. I noticed it in crossing (center), the entire parts north of crossing, the room right of crossing (where the ramp leads too), the parts left of crossing all the way to the left TP room.
So just make these ceiling parts commander invisible.
Also I recommend some special conspicuous graphical trim for all edges (only the edges) of platforms/height differences in otherwise open rooms, so one can immediately recognize them. This would make it much easier to see those, cyst around them, etc.
- for some reason, as alien comm I could not use bone wall (infestation required error message) even clearly on infestation. I'm not sure if that is map related.
I'll be sitting on this build for a few more games but my intention is to revise the north east areas (J4, the view, medical, the park and the crossing) to feel less cramped, read more clearly and have more even timings. Though layout itself will change very little.
While this build is still a long way off perfect I now feel the scale and the layout of the map are very solid. This is a fairly big deal for the maps development. It means the changes I make from here on will be a lot less drastic and mainly just consist of me improving individual areas as opposed to adding or removing routes and rooms.
I'm going to return to art for a few weeks so hopefully in a few weeks while i study and develop the map
wonderful feedback hozz, thank you! I'll try fix all the issues you encountered ASAP. That said most are just down to me being lazy with the groups and entities. The maps been in a pretty constant state of change up to this point so I didn't want to spend too much time on getting everything perfect.
This map seems to be Alien biased, and Aliens already have 3 free RTs (base, Cooling, Medical) which are a very far way for Marines to attack.
Alternatively, you could keep the RT in Park, but make a connection between the south part of Park (South Park?
If necessary, you can make Crossing more friendly for Marines to hold (e.g. make it bigger towards the south and put both RT spots there, maybe even on an elevated platform) or remove Park RT if this turns out to be too Alien attack friendly.
I felt that the map is low on attack route/flanking options (which especially showed for Marines who had a hard time going for Alien RTs, but also Aliens didn't really attack Marine territory before Ceremony fell) and that connection would make gameplay more dynamic.
If you ever go for random spawns, you also don't destroy the general layout (5 TPs with RTs between each, and a double in center) this way.
--
Unrelated, I had the impression that J-3 and Cooling are a bit cramped and Marine unfriendly. They went there with Exo train and even ARCs, but it never amounted to a real danger for Aliens. Not sure what happened there.
edit:
I think the lots of columns in the rooms are responsible for this. I think you should generally (in the entire map) remove some of them, because 2 columns in a room can make interesting gameplay, 5 are just random. For example, does Ceremony really need 5 fat columns? Delete the 3 right ones (so only the 2 at the start of the platform remain).
--
And another thing I forgot: I could not cyst into the lower part of Alien base (between Hive and power). Given how little space is available in Alien base (which led to the one of our Onoses being trapped) I would have liked to put some buildings there (and eggs also don't seem to spawn there).
The map is intended to have a (sort of) 2forts gameplay, fixed spawn and bias RT's for both teams are kind of fundamental to the design. The type of game we had on Sunday was exactly the type of game I was trying to achieve. Fast, furious with a lot of push and pull, ending with both teams battling it out with end game gear.
I do completely agree that the park was too hard for marines to contest and the connection between J3 and cooling is problematic.
With regards to flanks and routes; I feel the layout (in terms of connections and complexity) Is very close to being final. I wont be adding any more corridors or routes. I will however be adjusting flow, spaces and distances between all areas to make flanking an assaulting positions easier.
In the next build is going to involve some fairly significant reconstructing of the map. The central areas, and all the north east rooms are going to be redesign to accommodate the the new layout. There will be a few more rooms (with power-nodes) and less corridors. This build will be in circulation for a few weeks as I need a few more games to really understand the problems and figure out the best solutions.
All previous builds have seen marines completely wipe the floors with the aliens dead bodies. The pillars are just a cheap way of giving aliens some cover, at this point I'm not too concerned with achieving balanced combat in every room but i'll certainly try removing any OP blocks of cover.
While I wont change the layout away from the two '2forts' style, I am fairly confident I'll be able to address all the other concerns you had with this version. Be sure to post about any other issues or info about games I miss out on, your feedback is very useful. Thanks man.
I've marked the areas that will be tweaked/fixed with green, and the ones that will be completely rebuilt in Red.
As I said earlier the map is completely unbalanced, this will probably remain this way for a few more builds as my main focus now is making interesting rooms and combat scenarios. I also personally feel populating the map with crates and vents is not the best solution for balancing a map.
Crates (or other similar props) seem to just make the rooms feel cluttered and disrupt flow. Designing the room so that there is enough structural cover (like pillars, railings, alcoves etc) is probably a better approach as world geometry just seems to read better and provide more clarity than random props scattered throughout bare rooms.
Vents remove aliens from the map and aren't at all interesting or fun to navigate. They do read well as alternative alien routes, and are sometimes the only solution to balancing issues, I just feel they should be added in once you identify issues that cant be resolved through a rooms design.
I time I will have plenty vents and 'crates' in the map, but what i want to try and create in these early stages is rooms that feel dynamic in terms of combat and navigation for both teams.
All feedback and suggestions are more than welcome.
Thanks
Your approach on designing rooms as combat scenarios, trying to imagine how the fight will be, and then putting structural cover is one that i like the most, as in refinery, conduit room with all the pipes that let alien cover behind, or in tram, server hive, with the structure in the center of the room and the props that look like server racks.
Using crates should be the last resort to give cover unless the room purpose has something to do with crates.
Keep the good work.
youtu.be/Cm2c2XnHSwE?t=1h22m40s
(sorry to the admin who has to review all these, give me a pm if there's a better way to submit vids with timestamps)
Another new build with many significant changes throughout the map. I am still prototyping ideas, especially with the central areas and marine side but it appears to be a step in the right direction.
This build features a very different design in central area which has been problematic from the start. Originally I had intended to have 'The Crossing' room as the main set piece of the map, an epic open(ish) bridge area between the two sides of the map. It would be the scene of intense push and pull combat as each team struggled to hold the strategically valuable area!....
... Sadly this wasn't meant to be.
I have experimented with many designs and iterations with the middle but it never felt right while I was trying to achieve the epic room I had been so romantic about when planning the map.
Initially (with no RT's) it felt like a load of wasted space, it was only really used as a sneaky route to flank central areas.
I tried it as a single RT location to increase the value of the area this proved even more problematic. As an area of transit, RT's were just sniped too frequently and it was just more appealing to spend the effort holding less vulnerable RT locations or offensive positions.
Then as a Double RT location the value was increased and for the first time I saw people attempt to setup bases there but this forced fracture into an uneasy 12 RT map, and sucked a lot of the attention away from the areas that would provide more interesting game-play.
After that I briefly tried it as a single RT location with a room-within-a-room type area. The same problem arose as before; hard to defend and not worth the effort.
It seems you need the RT to cancel out the negative space, but as a area designed for traffic its very hard to encourage teams to attempt to setup a forward base there unless they're already dominating, that is.
Also its important to note that large 'epic' areas just bring up loads of other issues inherent with NS2's fundamental design. LOS, sniping, overly exposed cysting routes, a single power-node that is responsible for huge a area of the map, and so on.
I feel Refinery has the best example of an 'epic hub' area and even that brings its fair share of gameplay problems similar to what I was finding with my previous builds.
With this in mind I've binned the original idea and settled for a much more humble one. I've now split The Crossing into three rooms; a junction at either end with a single res node room off set from the main route in the middle. It brings the central areas gameplay back inline with the rest of the maps style of rooms and corridors.
Epic: No
Workable, fun and balanced: Yes
I'll be getting married in Just under three weeks so It might be a bit quite on the update front for the next month or so. I will be taking the time to see how the next few tests play out and plan my next iteration of the map.
All feedback and suggestions welcome as always. Thanks.
This almost look cinematic
Really loving what i seen so far - very original map concept with a nice twist on the ancient/future.
had some fun with it lol, anything to keep me from playing 250
Its a shame you're avoiding 250. Its a pain to relearn and there is some issues but all in all its still the same game at its core.
note to self... need more pot plants and smoke effects :P
about 250, Skulks are so unpredictible they can look as if they are turned away from you on the client side but and still bite in the face or pretend to jump away full speed then cancel it and going for a dead stop mid-air haha :P i propably will get into it once biodome comes out, if not that then when THIS does
You can make lightrays as cinematics