Ns_bast Feedback
Mendasp
I touch maps in inappropriate placesValencia, Spain Join Date: 2002-07-05 Member: 884Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Retired Community Developer
I touch maps in inappropriate placesValencia, Spain Join Date: 2002-07-05 Member: 884Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Shadow, Retired Community Developer
<div class="IPBDescription">I'm jealous :(</div> So Altair and Eon have feedback threads here and I thought: "Maybe I should start one too!", but then there's this other thought of: "What if the result is the same as with the b5 bast feedback thread?".
So please, if you're going to post vague comments on how you don't like the map at all or that you want X (and X is the door 99% of the times) back, please, refrain from posting.
I know bast is far from perfect, but I'm wondering if it's better than the previous version and what can be improved now and for this I need your help.
I repeat: Please, if you're going to make witty replies about how I raped the map or how much you hate me (or something that doesn't help me at all) please refrain from posting.
I appreciate feedback <b>a lot</b>, so you help me, and I help you (improving the map, that is).
So please, if you're going to post vague comments on how you don't like the map at all or that you want X (and X is the door 99% of the times) back, please, refrain from posting.
I know bast is far from perfect, but I'm wondering if it's better than the previous version and what can be improved now and for this I need your help.
I repeat: Please, if you're going to make witty replies about how I raped the map or how much you hate me (or something that doesn't help me at all) please refrain from posting.
I appreciate feedback <b>a lot</b>, so you help me, and I help you (improving the map, that is).
Comments
I can add more constructive and objective comments; when I had more bast games... But at first glance; it seems more playable and Yes, it is much better than b5 version...
Closing the MS door to engine solved a lot of issues and new vent in Feed is a good addition... Though I didn't have chance to play alien side; It seems like most of the RTs near Refinery are too vulnerable to marines... maybe additional vents can solve it...
That's all for now...
Its too easy to keep marines in their base because of the alien friendly rooms behind the 2 entrances of marine spawn.
You can not really siege hive locations when marines go counterclockwise and you can siege too good when marines go clockwise.
In the actuall layout the diagonal "killing door of doom" looks obsolent <!--emo&:(--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/sad-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> like many parts and dead ends of the map.
Feedwater needs some plants.
You cant say much about the map ballancing because the game ballancing favours aliens too much on public servers.
All the minor changes are good in general.
I still don't get why **** had ot be removed fromthe actual if it can still be in, and operate in the ****et ***m, but that's such an old subject you're probably sick of it.
Anyway: real criticism.
I like bast, and I don't know why other people don't.
I still think that the whole upper path to engine situation is a little funky. I just doesn't feel right yet, and the long hall up out of MS is too alien friendly that close to MS, as well as a real pain when it comes to marines turtling at the end (think about it: the two ways into MS both require major elevation changes, which = death to onos from nades and alien trafficjams).
I don't get what people are bitching about with refinery. Yes, it's a big, different hive. It's GOOD that the hives have some character and atmosphere. It's NICE to have some open spaces sometimes! Maybe a little more blockage on the ground for skulks, but I mostly think people haven't realized all the vents and dark places for skulks to sneak around in.
Goodbye double (sniff!)
<!--QuoteBegin-apos+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (apos)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->I still think that the whole upper path to engine situation is a little funky. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Agreed. Maybe try to change height levels? Make something like the pit from agora?
The only thing I ask is if you could stick more things from the ground that extend to the upper platform in Refinery or to the ceiling, as in my opinion, that opens a whole new area to attack from, the roof.
With Skulks spawning below marines and skulks attacking from above a few marines are going to have trouble keeping track of all directions, especially in such a vast room as refinery.
The removal of the double node is good but one thing I noticed is that the node thats located at the old rotating door seems to get neglected later into the game by marines and aliens alike, especially if engine hive has been captured and a PG is up.
Of course you could just say thats a problem for the rines to deal with or the aliens to properly scout the map so I wouldn't worry too much about it, but its a common thing I see happen.
It also feels very bland. :x :/
I think by that he means that the mapping is not up to par in that area, referring to such things as detail creating the bast atmosphere which we have come to love.
T H A N K Y O U ! +1
I know you heard this about a million times but man....
I mean, i know people can go through rough patches in their lives, things go wrong, etc etc
but what in gods name drove you to create that <i>thing</i> you named ns_bast in b5.
However, the latest version is a great improvement <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Ok so youve taken an earbashing, now for some feedback.
I think its really good now, the only thing I will say is that I think Engine and Refinery are still a little close and easily accessable from one another. I know this works both ways, but once you have one locked and phase gated, its not too hard to take the other, esp if they start in feedwater.
Also if you look at the lay out of the res nossles, there are only 3 that are reasonably safe for marines. MS, atmos, and main aft, the rest are all close to alien hive locations. So maybe atmos was better left as a double node. This is just my opinion.
But yeah, alot better then b5 so ta.
Suggestion though: Add another RT somewhere on the map. There's currently...what...9 RTs? That isn't enough IMO.
Yes. Perhaps adding a slowly opening door will fix this? (such as the one outside of MS, going toward where double...was).
Suggestion though: Add another RT somewhere on the map. There's currently...what...9 RTs? That isn't enough IMO. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
8 nodes. Well, I'm open to suggestions on this matter <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
<!--QuoteBegin-keep it Gangsta+Mar 15 2005, 08:05 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (keep it Gangsta @ Mar 15 2005, 08:05 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin-->AHHH MENDASP!
T H A N K Y O U ! +1
I know you heard this about a million times but man....
I mean, i know people can go through rough patches in their lives, things go wrong, etc etc
but what in gods name drove you to create that <i>thing</i> you named ns_bast in b5.
However, the latest version is a great improvement <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Ok so youve taken an earbashing, now for some feedback.
I think its really good now, the only thing I will say is that I think Engine and Refinery are still a little close and easily accessable from one another. I know this works both ways, but once you have one locked and phase gated, its not too hard to take the other, esp if they start in feedwater.
Also if you look at the lay out of the res nossles, there are only 3 that are reasonably safe for marines. MS, atmos, and main aft, the rest are all close to alien hive locations. So maybe atmos was better left as a double node. This is just my opinion.
But yeah, alot better then b5 so ta.<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Well, beta 5 bast was kind of... the first step (heh, crates), didn't really have much time to make all the changes (and I had alternate solutions for the engine problem, but required more development time).
With Engine and Refinery being too close to each other, well, I may try to make the path longer, but I'm not sure how right now. I'm thinking about moving the entrance to Water Treatment from Engine to another place so it just takes a little more. Ideas?
<!--QuoteBegin-Khaim+Mar 15 2005, 06:46 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Khaim @ Mar 15 2005, 06:46 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--><!--QuoteBegin-UKchaos+Mar 15 2005, 12:12 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (UKchaos @ Mar 15 2005, 12:12 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> The new route out of marine start (where the revolving door used to be) is very skulk friendly. I suggest widening the hallway or lowering the ceiling. <!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
It also feels very bland. :x :/<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
I will try to do something about this for 3.1. It was just a copy & paste from the old corridor that went into the revolving door, except modified a bit.
Thanks for the comments so far <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
I'll give you what I know so far -
The slope from MS to Main Aft is excellent in that it slows down the sprint to Engine hive, however as others have said its VERY alien friendly, plenty of space on the walls and ceiling for skulks to dodge, and the corridor is high enough to make killing fades/lerks a joke. Its a colossal marine deathtrap. Dunno if thats the intention but its certainly how it seems to be in action.
Ref hive is awesome. I've seen a lot of people try to rush in the west side of ref and try to shoot the hive, only to be thwarted by infestation. The hive is actually defendable now. Ref however also has some slopes under the hive which are very very good at killing eggs.
A nice touch is the vent running from ref to just before water cooling. Aliens can spill out of it like a flood, and its nullifies most marine sieges. This I like, even tho it seems a bit overpowering.
As I say, I'd like to play it a bit more with a wider range of players before I get anything more specific than that. I will say its a real improvement over the previous release.
With Engine and Refinery being too close to each other, well, I may try to make the path longer, but I'm not sure how right now. I'm thinking about moving the entrance to Water Treatment from Engine to another place so it just takes a little more. Ideas?
<!--QuoteEnd--></td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'><!--QuoteEEnd-->
About the node situation. Why not put a node in the middle cockpit/ninja rout to ref. That part of the map, while cool, and good looking, is useless unless as a ninja route to the ref hive. If you put a node in there somewhere it will increase traffic, and it wont throw off the node symmetry and balance of the map because it will be in the middle. If you go with this you should try not to make the room its in too alien biased.
What if you put the exit from engine hive on the east side instead of the south side, and made the path from water treatment turn that south east corner. This would also make it easier to seige engine from the south side. You might want a vent to counter that.
Bast has a special place in my heart because when I was a noob, I would always start my ns playing on ns_nothing because i wanted to learn one map at a time. Because they are big and intimidating. And Bast always came after nothing in the map rotation. So I always played bast right after nothing, making it my second favorite map.
I AM BASTMAN, DEVOURER OF WORLDS.
...
Slide the main aft RT up to bastman's head and then have a new tower near that catwalk which goes over the bottomless pit?
*dies*
I AM BASTMAN, DEVOURER OF WORLDS. <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
Heh. I prefer to call it "<a href='http://mendasp.thezazi.net/spiritofbast.jpg' target='_blank'>The spirit of bast</a>".
I agree with most of the suggestions so far like a need for more RT's and a longer route between engine and refinery.
Instead of just adding a RT somewhere or making a hallway longer, it would be awesome to make some more creative changes. I know everyone asks about the door, but I wont bother you with that. I would like to see some of these issues resolved by adding back some feaTures from the old versions of bast.
Here are two things that I loved about the older versions that were my absolute faves that might help the current issues.
1. Since the door that leads to engine is now blocked off, the elevation of marine start could be increased a little bit so that a elevator could be put back in. This does not actually help with the current problems. It is just one of those atmosphere things. It would be cool for it to be a little higher. Not necessarily as high as the original, but high enough for a elevator. <!--emo&:)--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/smile-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='smile-fix.gif' /><!--endemo--> It might also help with the connection of marine start to main aft.
2. I know a lot of work went into the new engine room and I like it the way it is, but I would absolutely love to see it be moved further back on the map like it was in the older version with one entrance and vents. I am not asking for the old engine back, just suggesting that it be moved back like it used to be. Kind of a combination of the old and new engine rooms. It would make the distance between marine start and engine the same as it is now, but a little longer between engine and refinery. You could even put an RT somewhere in between like where engine is now.
One other suggestion I just thought of to make the distance between engine and refinery a little longer would be to change the walkway in water treatment. Make the walkway so that it is collapsed so that the marines have to go down into the water to get through to the hall outside of refinery. This would prevent sprinting straight through there for marines. Might be harder on onos though depending on how it is done.
I think everything else on the map is perfect.
Well that’s my 2 cents. Like I said, I like bast as is, but there are things I miss from older versions. I am not a mapper and I know that changing the map is a difficult thing even when everyone is not yelling for this and that. I'm just happy to have the privilege of being able to send feedback to the guy who made one of my favorite maps. Hope it helps a little.
Thanks Mendasp for all your hard work.
1: I'd like to see an additional res node up here, to help balance out res node distribution. This seems a logical place, not too close to the hive but not too close to the wall beside marine start.
2: This suggestion works in with #4. Add a hallway that goes from the non-functional door east of main aft, and connect it with the elevator shaft just west of the south end of Engine Room hive. You could add a ladder going down the shaft and auto doors like the shaft to the west of it. This would provide an alternate route to Engine Room. While it would be nice to have the rotating door back up at this end, it's not mandatory. <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
3: Add a couple water 'vents' that connect with the long water vent that is there currently. The exits would be on the floor in the two low spots in Engine Room, and you could have a little flooding like in Feedwater.
4: Put in a wall or a non-functioning door here to block off this path. Marines can now use the alternate route to get between Engine Room and Refinery as noted in #2. This would make the distance about the same as it is to get from Feedwater to Refinery.
5: Add a water vent 'exit' on the wall below the catwalk, and waterfall the water down into the pit. This would encourage more use of the water vent by aliens, since the current length is very long to go underwater.
6: It would be nice to have an alternate route to refinery from Feedwater as it can be hard to travel there should marines be camped outside the west end of Refinery and/or in Tram Tunnel. It would also be nice to have the Refinery vent near the res node connect with the vent that goes to Engine Room, but that's not a big deal.
7: I've always felt that the above ground opening here should be big enough for a skulk to fit through. It often seems like a 'mistake' since the space almost seems big enough, but it isn't.
8: It might be better to have this res node in the upper deck in that 'overlook' between the two vents. I don't know why, but it just seems like it would be better for the node to be more 'central' in the hive. While it may seem closer to the node near Tram Tunnel, the distance is no closer than the distance from Marine Start node to the Purification node.
My two cents anyway...
Regards,
Savant
I added 2 RTs, in places that were lacking, and one on the new path.
AND, I increased the path from refinery to engine (or other way around).
And all fades in the game turn into 2 dimensional Bast-men.
rofl @ bastman btw <!--emo&:p--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/tounge.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='tounge.gif' /><!--endemo-->
When I got done cleaning up this part of Bast's minimap for 3.0 release (the buildminimap command has issues with round things, and with two of them next to each other, they tend to both look mangled) I wondered how long it was before someone saw the face in Bast's minimap (ala the <a href='http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast24may_1.htm' target='_blank'>Face on Mars</a>).
To drag my post on-topic I'll say I have played a fair number of games on Bast and they have been very enjoyable. Things seem relatively balanced, and the increased distance between MS and Engine Hive is a huge part of that. My concern is the frequent relocations I have seen to Main Aft Junction, and this would be my way of fixing that (minimal geometry changes required; yellow is unchanged, red is moved/changed):
I AM BASTMAN, DEVOURER OF WORLDS.
<!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><div class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
I called it first, back in PT! <!--emo&:D--><img src='http://www.unknownworlds.com/forums/html/emoticons/biggrin-fix.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='biggrin-fix.gif' /><!--endemo-->
Pro : It's Bast.
Con : No revolving door.
Mendasp, I love you man.
- Shockwave