MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
A reoccurring comment about fusion has been that it's too lifeless and doesn't have enough props. What are some locations that could do with some more detailing?
A reoccurring comment about fusion has been that it's too lifeless and doesn't have enough props. What are some locations that could do with some more detailing?
I'm sorry to say that, but all of them.
You've got awesome geometry going on and really cool room designs (especially vista and the whole northern part of the map), but it's almost entirely geometry using the same few textures over and over.
NintendowsJoin Date: 2016-11-07Member: 223716Members, Squad Five Blue
I love the geometry on fusion, and it's amazing what has been done with the textures available. I frankly prefer the minimal and effective use of props over the overuse of the same NS2 props all the other maps already use.
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
I think perhaps geometry and props are overrated and the map should simply convey walls, floors, and ceilings via lights or perhaps interpretive dance.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
I spend a few minutes on your map today, when it was played on SCC server.
I agree with others, part of the geometry is amazing and unique, although sometimes over the top like in Vista.
You could do with less sides for curves and try smoothing edges. Also Vista has terrible FPS. Too many shadowcasting lights from outside. Way too many, i just checked.
A lot of that amazing curved geo doesn't have trims adjacent to the face it's embedded in. Like your windows for example. So a lot of the curved effect gets lost, because you don't get the proper curved effect from all viewing angles. Trims are the eyeliner to pretty geometry.
Lot of corridors are way too small. I don't mind that they are not pretty at the moment. You shouldn't spend too much time on them until the layout is settled, but at least try to create more space.
Some areas mix different texture and prop sets, which looks really weird. I don't think it's a problem, If you want different styles in your map, but at least separate them. Like a few high-tech shiny areas like Biodome or Descent and some other areas with the more industrial texture set depending on the purpose of the location.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
edited November 2017
Continuing to work on the look & lighting of fusion.
The whole map has had the lighting redone and Vista & Observation have been tweaked and re-textured.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
New version
- Cascade has cover
- Turnip has been completely rebuilt
- The stairs in Turnip, Upper Passage & Crevice aren't as steep any more
- There's a fence around the Fortress elevator (this should make turtling a bit more difficult)
- The Storage node has been moved into Slice
- New occlusion geometry for the entire map
- Reverb effects have been added in all of the canyons
It turns out that I forgot to remove the Storage node when I added the Slice node, so now fusion has 11 nodes. I want to see how it plays with that many nodes before I remove any of them.
Any feedback on how it plays will be awesome.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
A new build of fusion is out
- The Storage & Crevice nodes have been removed
- The Transfer node has been moved to the Storage side of Transfer
This means fusion now has 9 nodes & that the northern naturals are a bit less secure.
- Fortress has been opened up
The goal here was to give attackers longer line of sight.
- The Fortress-Slice vent & the Fortress-Storage vent have been removed
- A new Fortress-Storage vent has been added
By removing the vents that pass underneath the elevator, it should be easier for marines to hold Fortress.
Those crates were initially added to reduce the number of cysts needed to reach the platform. But I've also tried to make sure that every vent in the map can be accessed from at least one end by marines.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
- Supports is now part of Observation (finally)
- The area underneath the elevator in Fortress has been blocked off (finally)
- The area around the Transfer node has been opened up a bit
- Observation can now be used as a marine start,with Vista as the alien start (experimental, I might change this back later)
- Misc visual tweaks & geometry changes
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
- Transfer has more paths through it, making it less of a bottleneck.
- The door between Transfer and Supports is now a short vent, this means that EXOs and Onos can't pass through and marines & fades need to crouch to get through.
-There's more space at the top of Fortress.
- There's a vent from the top of Fortress to Shortcut. This will definitely do something to how difficult it is to hold Fortress.
- Unloading has been rebuilt and opened up. It now feels like an actual tech point.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
What does everyone think about the balance on fusion and what might be done about it? It was just played on SCC, most players thought it was marine biased and there were a few players that apparently had never seen alien wins.
Here are some stats on Win Ratio and Winner vs Game Length.
The map is kindof snowbally. What tends to happen is that one team takes control of the middle and then defends it to the bitter end, where the enemy can't hope to catch up anymore. Additionally, turtling seems to be an issue, on both sides.
I think the main reason for both of these things is that the starting TPs are kinda far away from everything. I know - if you look at the facts (distance, travel time) it doesn't seem like that. But it feels like that. The middle TPs, on the other hand, are comparatively close together.
I know pinwheels suck, but I think for this map to become truly balanced you won't get around shuffling some of the rooms around.
Here's some ideas, mixed with general impressions of some of the rooms:
- I don't really like the fortress/shortcut/upper passage/slice area. It feels unnecessarily claustrophobic, and (except for fortress) doesn't really add anything to the map. Feels a bit like filler.
- Now, fortress is definitely not filler, but I think it's just not going to work. It's an interesting experiment, but it just doesn't play well; there's too much verticality. If marines attack it, they're funneled through two very tight spots (bottom left corner or entrance from storage) where aliens can ambush them at will, and they usually barely get to see the hive when attacking. If aliens attack, it's not quite as bad, but attacking upwards as aliens just isn't fun. Marines look down and shoot at you like fish in a barrel. If you don't want to scrap the whole room and redo it, I'd at least seriously flatten it. Move down the uppermost floor with the TP down to the lift floor with the RT, and adjust the bottom most floor (near approach exit) upwards. That should help a lot.
- To make the map less elongated, I think observation needs to be moved down and Vista up. I'd move observation to where transfer is right now and completely cut transfer, since that room has been only trouble so far.
- To move observation north, I'd cut approach and create a more direct connection between server and fortress. I'd also remove upper passage, slice and the part of shortcut that has the shortcut label on it on the minimap. Then replace upper passage with storage, and replace storage with something completely new, otherwise the TPs are too close together.
- Finally, open up turnip and move the turnip/cascade/crevice area to where slice/shortcut are right now.
- Actually, you know what? completely cut the server/fortress connection, force marines to go into the middle.
- Finally, shuffle around RTs and connections until the whole thing looks reasonable again.
I guess you then have something that looks a bit like veil.
Probably, most of these ideas are bad, i just wrote down what comes to mind. But the point is that the overall layout doesnt seem to work, but you do have some really cool rooms (the whole north eastern part is great, for example) which should probably be rearranged. There's some others (fortress) that need to be reworked because they're not great right now. To make the redesign easier I'd cut some rooms that don't really add anything to the map, like the whole center part around slice - not really a fan of that.
I think a veil-like layout wouldn't be a bad idea. We don't have a real veil-like.
MouseThe Lighter Side of PessimismJoin Date: 2002-03-02Member: 263Members, NS1 Playtester, Forum Moderators, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow
A new build is out:
- Lower Passage has been flattened a bit and its node has been moved to the room in Upper Passage (this node will be a bit less secure, but it's now in a choke point that blocks rotation between Slice, Unloading & Vista)
- The Slice node has been removed
- The Fortress tech point to has been moved back to to the eastern wall to make it siegable from Slice (the Fortress-Shortcut vent should make this siege position a bit less powerful)
- The Transfer node has been moved back into the main Transfer hallway and a node has been added at the bottom of the stairs in Crevice (the aliens now have 2 relatively secure naturals)
- Slice has some more slices
Really liked the game we played last night, my only concern was how hard it was for me to fight back against the arc siege from slice. I spent a good deal of time dying over and over trying different things. The wasted effort, that the marines put there in the end however, resulted with us winning the game. In the end it felt really balanced for both sides, as we had a good grip on the rest of the map, after we did break the siege.
I did have a severe drop in performance two times, going through the "lava crevice" near slice. One time wall jumping as skulk, the other time flying through as lerk. Might have been occu geo as you said yourself, but the drop was really severe, like 10 fps stutter hell for 5s, so it's worth checking twice. (max settings I stable 120 fps; 1070 + i7-7700k and 32gb ddr4 ram)
I really like the map, and I look forward to playing it again.
Great work, keep it up !
@Mouse by looking at the screenshots alone there seems to be a lack of hidingspots in general?
There aren't too many mid-rooms hiding spots in fusion. Most of the cover comes from crates/props, vent entrances, and corners. Though most rooms have 3+ entrances and short loops between some number of them. So it's sometimes difficult to hide but it's relatively easy to flank, bypass encounters or rotate between entrances.
Here are some concerns about the map brought to my attention:
1. Marine start should have 2 natural RTs that can be reached within 10 seconds of running. The left RT (Servers) is 11 seconds away, which is fine, but the right RT (Upper Passage) is 18 seconds away. Consider moving the right one closer.
2. Alien start should have 2 natural RTs that can be reached within 10 seconds for a gorge. The left RT (Transfer) is 10 seconds away, which is fine, but the right RT (Crevice) is 8 seconds away. Consider moving the right one farther.
3. It's very Alien favored to have a vent Marine Start, especially one that a single marine cannot get into. A good example is ns2_veil - Control Room, which has no vent and is very balanced. But then looking at ns2_descent, which has a vent in every tech point, is very Alien favored.
4. There are only 9 RTs on the map. Less RTs means it takes longer to get upgrades and higher life forms. And it means both teams will be heavily dependent on claiming RTs, and if one team has 4 or 5 and the other has 3 or 4, it is very difficult to recover and have a comeback. A good example of a map that has too many RTs and the effect of it is ns2_tincan_station. It has 12 RTs. Both teams are able to get their full upgrades very fast, and if losing, can still survive by finding 4 or 5 RTs until they can have a comeback.
5. May want to consider the main Alien hive layout to be more arc friendly.
I believe the map is currently Alien favored and I hope these comments will help balance the map.
Overall, the maps looks great! Love the concept and vision you have.
Comments
I'm sorry to say that, but all of them.
You've got awesome geometry going on and really cool room designs (especially vista and the whole northern part of the map), but it's almost entirely geometry using the same few textures over and over.
So far I've only been playing in the south east corner of the map.
Credit to @Nintendows for tips on effective lighting.
I agree with others, part of the geometry is amazing and unique, although sometimes over the top like in Vista.
You could do with less sides for curves and try smoothing edges. Also Vista has terrible FPS. Too many shadowcasting lights from outside. Way too many, i just checked.
A lot of that amazing curved geo doesn't have trims adjacent to the face it's embedded in. Like your windows for example. So a lot of the curved effect gets lost, because you don't get the proper curved effect from all viewing angles. Trims are the eyeliner to pretty geometry.
Lot of corridors are way too small. I don't mind that they are not pretty at the moment. You shouldn't spend too much time on them until the layout is settled, but at least try to create more space.
Some areas mix different texture and prop sets, which looks really weird. I don't think it's a problem, If you want different styles in your map, but at least separate them. Like a few high-tech shiny areas like Biodome or Descent and some other areas with the more industrial texture set depending on the purpose of the location.
The whole map has had the lighting redone and Vista & Observation have been tweaked and re-textured.
- Cascade has cover
- Turnip has been completely rebuilt
- The stairs in Turnip, Upper Passage & Crevice aren't as steep any more
- There's a fence around the Fortress elevator (this should make turtling a bit more difficult)
- The Storage node has been moved into Slice
- New occlusion geometry for the entire map
- Reverb effects have been added in all of the canyons
Any feedback on how it plays will be awesome.
- The Storage & Crevice nodes have been removed
- The Transfer node has been moved to the Storage side of Transfer
This means fusion now has 9 nodes & that the northern naturals are a bit less secure.
- Fortress has been opened up
The goal here was to give attackers longer line of sight.
- The Fortress-Slice vent & the Fortress-Storage vent have been removed
- A new Fortress-Storage vent has been added
By removing the vents that pass underneath the elevator, it should be easier for marines to hold Fortress.
Those crates were initially added to reduce the number of cysts needed to reach the platform. But I've also tried to make sure that every vent in the map can be accessed from at least one end by marines.
- The area underneath the elevator in Fortress has been blocked off (finally)
- The area around the Transfer node has been opened up a bit
- Observation can now be used as a marine start,with Vista as the alien start (experimental, I might change this back later)
- Misc visual tweaks & geometry changes
- There's a 2nd window into the Storage turbine (!?!)
- The door between Transfer and Supports is now a short vent, this means that EXOs and Onos can't pass through and marines & fades need to crouch to get through.
-There's more space at the top of Fortress.
- There's a vent from the top of Fortress to Shortcut. This will definitely do something to how difficult it is to hold Fortress.
- Unloading has been rebuilt and opened up. It now feels like an actual tech point.
With the power out
The view from the windows
- I've had fun with the trim tool on some of the pillars/bulkheads throughout the map
Better?
Here are some stats on Win Ratio and Winner vs Game Length.
I think the main reason for both of these things is that the starting TPs are kinda far away from everything. I know - if you look at the facts (distance, travel time) it doesn't seem like that. But it feels like that. The middle TPs, on the other hand, are comparatively close together.
I know pinwheels suck, but I think for this map to become truly balanced you won't get around shuffling some of the rooms around.
Here's some ideas, mixed with general impressions of some of the rooms:
- I don't really like the fortress/shortcut/upper passage/slice area. It feels unnecessarily claustrophobic, and (except for fortress) doesn't really add anything to the map. Feels a bit like filler.
- Now, fortress is definitely not filler, but I think it's just not going to work. It's an interesting experiment, but it just doesn't play well; there's too much verticality. If marines attack it, they're funneled through two very tight spots (bottom left corner or entrance from storage) where aliens can ambush them at will, and they usually barely get to see the hive when attacking. If aliens attack, it's not quite as bad, but attacking upwards as aliens just isn't fun. Marines look down and shoot at you like fish in a barrel. If you don't want to scrap the whole room and redo it, I'd at least seriously flatten it. Move down the uppermost floor with the TP down to the lift floor with the RT, and adjust the bottom most floor (near approach exit) upwards. That should help a lot.
- To make the map less elongated, I think observation needs to be moved down and Vista up. I'd move observation to where transfer is right now and completely cut transfer, since that room has been only trouble so far.
- To move observation north, I'd cut approach and create a more direct connection between server and fortress. I'd also remove upper passage, slice and the part of shortcut that has the shortcut label on it on the minimap. Then replace upper passage with storage, and replace storage with something completely new, otherwise the TPs are too close together.
- Finally, open up turnip and move the turnip/cascade/crevice area to where slice/shortcut are right now.
- Actually, you know what? completely cut the server/fortress connection, force marines to go into the middle.
- Finally, shuffle around RTs and connections until the whole thing looks reasonable again.
I guess you then have something that looks a bit like veil.
Probably, most of these ideas are bad, i just wrote down what comes to mind. But the point is that the overall layout doesnt seem to work, but you do have some really cool rooms (the whole north eastern part is great, for example) which should probably be rearranged. There's some others (fortress) that need to be reworked because they're not great right now. To make the redesign easier I'd cut some rooms that don't really add anything to the map, like the whole center part around slice - not really a fan of that.
I think a veil-like layout wouldn't be a bad idea. We don't have a real veil-like.
Hope that helps?
- Lower Passage has been flattened a bit and its node has been moved to the room in Upper Passage (this node will be a bit less secure, but it's now in a choke point that blocks rotation between Slice, Unloading & Vista)
- The Slice node has been removed
- The Fortress tech point to has been moved back to to the eastern wall to make it siegable from Slice (the Fortress-Shortcut vent should make this siege position a bit less powerful)
- The Transfer node has been moved back into the main Transfer hallway and a node has been added at the bottom of the stairs in Crevice (the aliens now have 2 relatively secure naturals)
- Slice has some more slices
I did have a severe drop in performance two times, going through the "lava crevice" near slice. One time wall jumping as skulk, the other time flying through as lerk. Might have been occu geo as you said yourself, but the drop was really severe, like 10 fps stutter hell for 5s, so it's worth checking twice. (max settings I stable 120 fps; 1070 + i7-7700k and 32gb ddr4 ram)
I really like the map, and I look forward to playing it again.
Great work, keep it up !
There aren't too many mid-rooms hiding spots in fusion. Most of the cover comes from crates/props, vent entrances, and corners. Though most rooms have 3+ entrances and short loops between some number of them. So it's sometimes difficult to hide but it's relatively easy to flank, bypass encounters or rotate between entrances.
Here are some concerns about the map brought to my attention:
1. Marine start should have 2 natural RTs that can be reached within 10 seconds of running. The left RT (Servers) is 11 seconds away, which is fine, but the right RT (Upper Passage) is 18 seconds away. Consider moving the right one closer.
2. Alien start should have 2 natural RTs that can be reached within 10 seconds for a gorge. The left RT (Transfer) is 10 seconds away, which is fine, but the right RT (Crevice) is 8 seconds away. Consider moving the right one farther.
3. It's very Alien favored to have a vent Marine Start, especially one that a single marine cannot get into. A good example is ns2_veil - Control Room, which has no vent and is very balanced. But then looking at ns2_descent, which has a vent in every tech point, is very Alien favored.
4. There are only 9 RTs on the map. Less RTs means it takes longer to get upgrades and higher life forms. And it means both teams will be heavily dependent on claiming RTs, and if one team has 4 or 5 and the other has 3 or 4, it is very difficult to recover and have a comeback. A good example of a map that has too many RTs and the effect of it is ns2_tincan_station. It has 12 RTs. Both teams are able to get their full upgrades very fast, and if losing, can still survive by finding 4 or 5 RTs until they can have a comeback.
5. May want to consider the main Alien hive layout to be more arc friendly.
I believe the map is currently Alien favored and I hope these comments will help balance the map.
Overall, the maps looks great! Love the concept and vision you have.
WiseChoices
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