How I modified a map for the rebirth mod

NintendowsNintendows Join Date: 2016-11-07 Member: 223716Members, Squad Five Blue
edited December 2017 in Mapping
I'm not much of a mapper, but I do have a few mods on the workshop. My main project has been a mod collection I call "Rebirth" that changes the game in a few fundamental ways. Each commander can choose their teams race, so you can have marines battling marines, or even aliens battling aliens. The second, more minor change, is that power starts off and the "emergency lighting" is removed. Vanilla maps don't always work very well or look as good as they could with a few simple changes.

The two main gameplay problems are:
  • Power nodes are too easy to hit
  • Infantry Portals are too easy to hit

I fully acknowledge that these maps were never designed with my mod changes in mind, so please don't think of this post as a kind of complaint. Instead, I wanted to show you how I changed ns2_tram to fit within my mods.


First, I moved and covered up some power nodes:
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I also moved some of the default infantry portal locations away from pathways a little bit, but screenshots of that are tough.

I fixed some of the "ignore power" state of some of the lights so that when the power is off, rooms appear interesting. (I know it's not easy to tell how it differs from the default tram)
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Other (unrelated to the mod) changes:

I added a ladder to the vent in mezzanine here because making that jump originally was way too difficult and felt like a glitch.
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I also added that silly extra occlusion geometry trick so you don't hear things in the two rooms over as if they are very close. I can't show you a screenshot in-game of that, but here's what it looks like in the editor. I encourage you to hear the difference it makes in game. I made the occlusion geometry the lava texture so it's easier to see.
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You can check out my version of ns2_tram on the workshop here.

Comments

  • HandschuhHandschuh Join Date: 2005-03-08 Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
    edited December 2017
    @Mezzventjump
    If you want that vent accessable you could make the jump much easier if you just remove the edge above the vent a bit (or make it higher)


    The trick about is that you move forward on the jumpingspot a bit to gain speed and you don't jump directly into the vent but rather you jump to a position left of the vent and then strafe into the vent with the rightstrafe (Pressing Rightbutton midair and Moving the mouse to the right)

    Only with strafing midair you can avoid getting your head clunked and get into that vent... against aliens it's good that it's really hard and you miss this jump a lot - even if you've done it a lot - since it gives you so much mapcontrol (and suprisekills (e.g. lerks in there)



    About the occlusion-geometry I have doubts it's a good change because this will screw with ppl's minds once they play normal tram against aliens again.
  • NintendowsNintendows Join Date: 2016-11-07 Member: 223716Members, Squad Five Blue
    Handschuh wrote: »
    ...against aliens it's good that it's really hard and you miss this jump a lot - even if you've done it a lot - since it gives you so much mapcontrol (and suprisekills (e.g. lerks in there)

    It's only a surprise because the jump doesn't look possible... it's a kind of hidden game mechanic. I'm not a huge fan of those.
  • HandschuhHandschuh Join Date: 2005-03-08 Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
    edited December 2017
    To be fair this "hidden gamemechanic" is what makes this game good for competitive... otherwise it I would never play it (and I think many others as well) without the movementmechanics it still has. It just needs to be adressed properly by tutorials with explanation, since this "mechanic" is what you constantly (should) use as skulk/lerk/fade even though as marine it's impact is much smaller.

    So if you remove the edge above the vent you can make this jump without strafing and it still needs a tiny bit of skill to jump from the edge.

    Why am I suggesting this? Dumbing down a game is always boring.
  • NintendowsNintendows Join Date: 2016-11-07 Member: 223716Members, Squad Five Blue
    I agree that dumbing down the game is boring, but I'm in favour of removing things that seem unfair. I like how my change makes it so that you can still get into the vent quickly if you know about the trick jump, but you can now make it into the vent slowly using a ladder. I'd like to make it even slower to take the ladder somehow, so the trick jump is even better, but I can't quite figure out how to to do that.
  • KasharicKasharic Hull, England Join Date: 2013-03-27 Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
    Nintendows wrote: »
    I agree that dumbing down the game is boring, but I'm in favour of removing things that seem unfair. I like how my change makes it so that you can still get into the vent quickly if you know about the trick jump, but you can now make it into the vent slowly using a ladder. I'd like to make it even slower to take the ladder somehow, so the trick jump is even better, but I can't quite figure out how to to do that.

    The only reason the trickjump is hard for some people is because you have to stand at the very bottom of the angled geometry to be able to perform it... I see many people walking up it and failing over and over again.

    If you wanted to make the trick jump easier, add a little collision geo to the bottom of the angled geo to make it easier to stand on and then raise the lip above the vent a little just to reduce the risk of banging your head.

    Adding a ladder to the vent is neither slow nor interesting in the slightest... you can effectively and with no skill at all, rotate from mezzanine to north tunnels in 1/8 of the time it would usually take you (unless you were able to perform the mezz jump accurately and quickly.... even then it still takes up some time to do)
  • NintendowsNintendows Join Date: 2016-11-07 Member: 223716Members, Squad Five Blue
    The problem is not that the jump is hard (I'm in favour of adding difficult jumps), it's that it doesn't appear possible.
  • HandschuhHandschuh Join Date: 2005-03-08 Member: 44338Members, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Community Developer
    edited December 2017
    Since this part is not very important to tram in MvM, you could redesign the position of the powernode to make a jump
    from ground -> powernode -> some plattformthingy (which looks like the thing you do the trickjump) -> vent ...

    and generally you probably think it's questionable that marines can shoot from ET the Powernode in mezz from a to long distance... since you changed the other powernodes like server

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