MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
It seems I forgot to put a power point in Storage. I'm away from my computer atm, but I'll get a fixed build out at some point today (hopefully before the NSL & SCC tests)
Hope you'll get a fixed build out before we start. If you can't we might have to switch to another map and postpone yours to next week. Let me know via Steam if something is wrong
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Apparently (have a look at that video for an example) fusion is marine biased. Does anyone have some thoughts about why it might be (or whether it is) marine biased? One comment from the video was that aliens can't really sneak through the map. Another comment is that it's too easy to lane block.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited September 2014
I've had players saying Supports is cramped. So I shuffled some stuff around and made it bigger
(This is still WIP)
The Crevice entrance to Supports is to the left, the hallway from Transfer is through the door at the far end
Supports is still a separate location, but you can see the hive & eggs will happily spawn there. (The hallway from Transfer & a side entrance to the hive room is behind the player)
You can also see the Supports powerpoint from the hive room
Any thoughts on how this might play?
[EDIT] Supports is now about the same size as the sloped portion of the readyroom
PelargirJoin Date: 2013-07-02Member: 185857Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Supporter, Reinforced - Silver, WC 2013 - Silver, Forum staff
That looks just awesome and definitely better/bigger. No real thoughts about it, just make it live please. Okay, this is actually WIP but it doesn't matter if that's more appreciated than the past old room. Probably needs some tests on it to make sure it's viable enough and not disturbing for ARCing or simply fight in this room. To summarize, is it really better for competitive gameplay? But it sounds like very positive and pleasant for a first glance.
we where on fusion some times on my favorite 22player server. it lagged a little in the readyroom so folks seem to have swiched map becose of this. i dont know whiy this is, maby to many round faces or maby cose no occlusion between secret- and readyroom? i dont know i'm a noob..
great mapstile lovin it
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Done
- Cysting bug fixed
- Occlusion geometry in the readyroom (just in case)
- New look for the vents
- Oh, and a new little hallway bit between Stalk & Unloading
Soul_RiderMod BeanJoin Date: 2004-06-19Member: 29388Members, Constellation, Squad Five Blue
This is the start point for fusion. Although it was a false start, and a server timeout, before the game actually started.
Feedback:
I have already spoken much about the plain-ness of the map, but I think you have done some excellent work detailing partd of the map. As you can see from the early parts of the video, I love my wall-jumping experience around fusion, always have.
As far as gameplay goes, I don't like playing it too much in it's current state. You can't hear me, but at the beginning of that video, I am commenting on how narrow those passageways out of the hive are. As you see later in the game, the time it takes to get out of the hive, and the narrowness of those halls make it almost impossible to get at a marine base in transfer.
The hallways are generally narrow, but because of the lack of details, which I like for wall-jumping, Aliens have no cover. In NS1, aliens were faster than marines, so the lack of cover didn't matter. With marines and skulks being basically the same running speed in NS2, this is not true, and means much more cover is needed for aliens.
Lane-Blocking:
This is one of the single biggest reasons for marine general map dominance.
Marines can lane block their base at 2 points near the middle of the map, Approach and Upper Passage. This means they can have a good block all the way back to their base. Any aliens that get through get mopped up by respawners.
Aliens furthest point from base for a 2 point block is Transfer and Turnip. That is no distance at all from their base, and if any marines get past, they are already in the hive.
If aliens want to move their lane coverage to a safe distance, somewhere matching marine distance, they could take storage and unloading, but they'd need a third block at slice. If any marine made it past that, he could go down anyone of 4 or 5 routes to the hive, meaning the aliens have to waste time searching for the one that got through, instead of just being able to leave it to respawners.
I'd say rather than shrinking the map, that with widening corridors, and making rooms bigger to accommodate cover, you may end up slightly increasing the size of fusion.
I really like fusion, the design, the geometry, the ideas, but ultimately, to be a proper finished, reasonably balanced map, it is going to take a lot of work.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited February 2015
It's been on hold. I took a break from NS2 and now I've found myself moving to the UK. Though I might get a little bit done in the next couple of weeks.
--
So, the problems with fusion atm:
- There are a lot of long hallways with no cover
- The hallways out of the hive are too narrow
- The marines can easily lane block from just beyond their naturals
- Given that Transfer controls alien access to 2 lanes and 1 alien natural, it's far to easy for the marines to lock-down
- Turnip (one of the alien naturals) is a long way from the hive
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited October 2017
I've been making some changes:
- Servers & Approach have been completely rebuilt
- The vent from Servers to Fortress/Shortcut has been replaced by an actual path
- Approach (i.e. the bottom end of Fortress) has less stairs and as a result, has slightly less verticality.
- The rock walls and the holes in the walls have been rebuilt.
The new layout
Approach, Servers & Shortcut are the only area that have changed
Servers
You can see part of the Shortcut reactor thing down the hallway in the first screenshot.
Approach
The path from Servers to Approach
The new, flatter Approach
Shortcut
It isn't obvious in the screenshots, but you can't go around the rocky side of the reactor in Shortcut.
There are also some surprisingly long lines of sight throughout Shortcut.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited October 2017
I've had a look at tech point to tech point travel times on fusion:
Walking with rifle
Vista to Fortress - 34 secs
Fortress to Observation - 32 secs
Observation to Unloading - 28 secs
Unloading to Vista - 32 secs
Vista to Observation - 46 secs
Unloading to Fortress - 44 secs
Running with rifle
Vista to Fortress - 30 secs
Fortress to Observation - 28 secs
Observation to Unloading - 25 secs
Unloading to Vista - 29 secs
Vista to Observation - 43 secs
Unloading to Fortress - 40 secs
The travel time to the bottom of Fortress is a few seconds faster than shown, but you have a lot of stairs to go up and boxes to go around to get to the tech point.
[EDIT] I'll leave figuring out the tech point to resource node travel times to someone else.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
While the new Servers/Shortcut path is being tested/tweaked I'll be working on a rebuild of Observation & Supports.
It's only a geometry/lighting test atm, I haven't made any attempt at turning it into a playable space.
There'll be two reactors instead of one.
The tech point room will between/in front of the two reactors (I've added the tech point model to give myself a rough idea of where it's going).
The catwalks around each reactor will be the new Supports location.
So I have a bit of direction It'd be awesome if you could let me know:
What annoys you about the current Observation/Supports/Transfer areas?
Are there any aspects of those areas that should stay the same?
ZavaroTucson, ArizonaJoin Date: 2005-02-14Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited October 2017
Sure you'll hear my frustrations on Beige's VOD, but I think that Fortress is an atrocious starting location for Aliens. Storage is really hard to hold, and so is the southern expansion point. Marines can also shoot the Fortress RT from that vent in the middle of Fortress. While they may not be able to take the TP, they can take everything else in the room and outside with relative ease.
Also, routing is confusing. Fortress especially. I'm not a big fan of that room, though.
That said, when Aliens started Observation, it was a much different game. There is a lot of friendly vents and enough verticality in large rooms to drive marines nuts.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
Here's a quick overview of the changes that I've pushed out over the past couple of days:
- You can see the glass in Servers !!!
- You can't start at Fortress or Unloading any more (it was an experiment that quickly proved to be a bad idea)
- I've added a lot of crates in to help manage LoS problems in some of the rooms.
- There's now a ramp from the platform in Fortress to it's northern exit. This means that cysts, MACs & drifters can go over the platform to get to Storage (it now takes 3 cysts instead of 6 to get from the top of Fortress to Storage)
- The node in Storage has been moved off to the side to make it a bit less vulnerable.
- Some of the vents throughout the map have been changed or removed:
- - The Crevice/Transfer vent has been removed
- - The Upper Passage/Stalk vent is now an Upper Passage/Dice vent, this means that Dice may actually be used now.
- - The Supports exit of the Supports/Transfer/Storage vent has been removed and one of the Supports exits was also removed.
- I've begun detailing the broken walls throughout the map (only Crevice at the moment).
The current layout
The glass!!
Fortress, now with cover down the bottom and a crate ramp leading towards Storage
The new Upper Passage/Dice vent
The initial version of the broken wall detailing, I'll probably do this with a custom mesh at some point. (don't worry, they're not collidable)
Comments
(This is still WIP)
Supports is still a separate location, but you can see the hive & eggs will happily spawn there. (The hallway from Transfer & a side entrance to the hive room is behind the player)
You can also see the Supports powerpoint from the hive room
Any thoughts on how this might play?
[EDIT] Supports is now about the same size as the sloped portion of the readyroom
- Supports location rebuilt
*points to screenshots in my last post*
It just goes around and cost 8 on this example.
I'll have a new build out with the fixed bug & the new vents by the weekend.
great mapstile lovin it
- Cysting bug fixed
- Occlusion geometry in the readyroom (just in case)
- New look for the vents
- Oh, and a new little hallway bit between Stalk & Unloading
This is the start point for fusion. Although it was a false start, and a server timeout, before the game actually started.
Feedback:
As far as gameplay goes, I don't like playing it too much in it's current state. You can't hear me, but at the beginning of that video, I am commenting on how narrow those passageways out of the hive are. As you see later in the game, the time it takes to get out of the hive, and the narrowness of those halls make it almost impossible to get at a marine base in transfer.
The hallways are generally narrow, but because of the lack of details, which I like for wall-jumping, Aliens have no cover. In NS1, aliens were faster than marines, so the lack of cover didn't matter. With marines and skulks being basically the same running speed in NS2, this is not true, and means much more cover is needed for aliens.
Lane-Blocking:
This is one of the single biggest reasons for marine general map dominance.
Marines can lane block their base at 2 points near the middle of the map, Approach and Upper Passage. This means they can have a good block all the way back to their base. Any aliens that get through get mopped up by respawners.
Aliens furthest point from base for a 2 point block is Transfer and Turnip. That is no distance at all from their base, and if any marines get past, they are already in the hive.
If aliens want to move their lane coverage to a safe distance, somewhere matching marine distance, they could take storage and unloading, but they'd need a third block at slice. If any marine made it past that, he could go down anyone of 4 or 5 routes to the hive, meaning the aliens have to waste time searching for the one that got through, instead of just being able to leave it to respawners.
I'd say rather than shrinking the map, that with widening corridors, and making rooms bigger to accommodate cover, you may end up slightly increasing the size of fusion.
I really like fusion, the design, the geometry, the ideas, but ultimately, to be a proper finished, reasonably balanced map, it is going to take a lot of work.
I hope so. My favorite custom map.
I misread your message.
--
So, the problems with fusion atm:
- There are a lot of long hallways with no cover
- The hallways out of the hive are too narrow
- The marines can easily lane block from just beyond their naturals
- Given that Transfer controls alien access to 2 lanes and 1 alien natural, it's far to easy for the marines to lock-down
- Turnip (one of the alien naturals) is a long way from the hive
Does that sound right?
- Ambient SFX throughout the map
- A new natural resource node in Crevice near the Observation tech point.
- misc. visual polish.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=178964086
- Servers & Approach have been completely rebuilt
- The vent from Servers to Fortress/Shortcut has been replaced by an actual path
- Approach (i.e. the bottom end of Fortress) has less stairs and as a result, has slightly less verticality.
- The rock walls and the holes in the walls have been rebuilt.
Approach, Servers & Shortcut are the only area that have changed
Servers
You can see part of the Shortcut reactor thing down the hallway in the first screenshot.
Approach
The path from Servers to Approach
The new, flatter Approach
Shortcut
It isn't obvious in the screenshots, but you can't go around the rocky side of the reactor in Shortcut.
There are also some surprisingly long lines of sight throughout Shortcut.
Walking with rifle
Vista to Fortress - 34 secs
Fortress to Observation - 32 secs
Observation to Unloading - 28 secs
Unloading to Vista - 32 secs
Vista to Observation - 46 secs
Unloading to Fortress - 44 secs
Running with rifle
Vista to Fortress - 30 secs
Fortress to Observation - 28 secs
Observation to Unloading - 25 secs
Unloading to Vista - 29 secs
Vista to Observation - 43 secs
Unloading to Fortress - 40 secs
The travel time to the bottom of Fortress is a few seconds faster than shown, but you have a lot of stairs to go up and boxes to go around to get to the tech point.
[EDIT] I'll leave figuring out the tech point to resource node travel times to someone else.
It's only a geometry/lighting test atm, I haven't made any attempt at turning it into a playable space.
There'll be two reactors instead of one.
The tech point room will between/in front of the two reactors (I've added the tech point model to give myself a rough idea of where it's going).
The catwalks around each reactor will be the new Supports location.
So I have a bit of direction It'd be awesome if you could let me know:
What annoys you about the current Observation/Supports/Transfer areas?
Are there any aspects of those areas that should stay the same?
Also, routing is confusing. Fortress especially. I'm not a big fan of that room, though.
That said, when Aliens started Observation, it was a much different game. There is a lot of friendly vents and enough verticality in large rooms to drive marines nuts.
- You can see the glass in Servers !!!
- You can't start at Fortress or Unloading any more (it was an experiment that quickly proved to be a bad idea)
- I've added a lot of crates in to help manage LoS problems in some of the rooms.
- There's now a ramp from the platform in Fortress to it's northern exit. This means that cysts, MACs & drifters can go over the platform to get to Storage (it now takes 3 cysts instead of 6 to get from the top of Fortress to Storage)
- The node in Storage has been moved off to the side to make it a bit less vulnerable.
- Some of the vents throughout the map have been changed or removed:
- - The Crevice/Transfer vent has been removed
- - The Upper Passage/Stalk vent is now an Upper Passage/Dice vent, this means that Dice may actually be used now.
- - The Supports exit of the Supports/Transfer/Storage vent has been removed and one of the Supports exits was also removed.
- I've begun detailing the broken walls throughout the map (only Crevice at the moment).
The glass!!
Fortress, now with cover down the bottom and a crate ramp leading towards Storage
The new Upper Passage/Dice vent
The initial version of the broken wall detailing, I'll probably do this with a custom mesh at some point. (don't worry, they're not collidable)