Koth HotFlags B8

Beta 8, give it up for Beta 8!

I feel i'm getting close, I want to try expanding the mid area or spawn area to make the walk to the point a bit longer, but one beta at a time.

• Replaced the rock near the shattered glass with a baseball
• Fixed rain not extending out to the ocean
• Fixed some misaligned textures and nodraw'd unused ones
• Moved Medpacks in dusty rooms back 64 hu to make them more visible to people going for ammo or cover
• Changed the colour of dustmotes in the highground lockerrooms to match the sun instead
• Fixed standing on the alarm sirens
• The dove is now real
• Shrunk the spawn highground slightly to offer better lines of sight upon exiting spawn
• Increased defender's respawn time from 7 seconds to 8 seconds
• Reduced attacker's respawn time from 5 seconds to 4 seconds
• Removed wooden planks sightline blocker from the beach.. I feel this will just lead to people complaining about the beach being unusable again but it could cut both ways, snipers need some ground too, right?
• Lowered the height of tires in each team's dusty room
• Expanded the highground near the point.. this was brought up a few times in alpha versions but I couldn't think of a way to implement it properly decoratively... I still can't, but think it's worth checking out

Hey everyone! Time for a new hotflags update, plenty of changes this time around both aesthetically and for gameplay.
I've genuinely really enjoyed making this map so far and even more seeing others play on it, hopefully it can reach a state where I'm happy with it soon.

Change Log:

• Added additional detailing
• Added dust to indoors area near beach

• Flipped board height differences on the beach
• Fixed visible nodraw brushes near trainyard
• Fixed some overlapping brushes
• Increased control point capture radius, now you can sit in the corners and still be within capture range

• Removed rain cloud visuals during sun-showers
• Removed tires near control point
• Removed some geometry & props near spawns, there were previously sightline blocks but might not be needed anymore, only testing will show
• Removed fences near the mid point lowground, this is an experimental change, but should hopefully let snipers and other classes feel more secure on the battlements

• Experimental change: Removed ocean suction and replaced it with clip brushes, this feedback came up a few times, and while I believe it takes away some charm from the map, I believe it's worth testing to see what it could lead to.
• (Hopefully) Improved performance

We don't talk about what happened to beta 6.. mostly because I don't know

It's been hard working on this project feeling depressed and with a lot of other things to worry about in my life, but I genuinely want to see this map come to fruition as a Team Fortress 2 map I've finished.

I really like how it plays, looks, feels and it's based off somewhere in real life close to my heart; plus, I feel like TF2 could use a ton more tropical beach themed maps, they're super pretty!


Changelog:

• The water now only sucks you in once you go past the buoys, players were having trouble identifying when the water started sucking you in previously and felt it took control away from their movement rather than being hazardous. This change should hopefully both give player a clear indication of where they're in danger and let players feel more in control when near the water
• Detailing
• Removed the Geometry Reference "Creepy pasta room"
• Optimisation (3,000+ unused texture faces turned into Nodraw!)
• Fixed some Z-Fighting faces
• Fixed a hole in the ceiling of the upper flank leading to outside the map
• Improved indoors lighting, there should now be more of a gentle transition than a hard switch between outside & indoor lighting.
• Placed a fence on the beach to hopefully aid sightlines, I'm not sure if I like this change, especially since it's a thin wall in the center of the map and feels like a cheap copy paste rather than creating an interesting gameplay space, but I'll see if it incentivizes the beach more by itself or not

Mostly an art passing update, if not entirely art passing, skybox could still definitely use more work but I think it's getting somewhere better than where it was before now

• Detailing
• Fixed misaligned textures
• Optimisation
• Improved Clipping
• Optimization
• Hopefully the lorikeets now disappear into a tree rather than nothingness
• Made shooting the bird more efficient

* Portalflow fixes
* Changed all stair clips to be block bullet, so they no longer eat explosions
* Added a healthkit to the other side of the battlements

• Added a cafe to the courtyard area, it should now be effectively divided into two seperate areas. The hope here is it'll allow for smaller DMs to take place to let classes like Scout & Spy get more value from attempting a flank. Additionally the geometry should allow for more interesting combat. I'm concerned this area will need to be further expanded in the future, but want to see how the current iteration goes before making a major change which requires changes elsewhere to be done.

• Improved Clipping
• Smoothed the Sand
• Adjusted capture time to 6 seconds (up from 5)
• Replaced blu team's wooden fences with chain link fences to be more in theme for their team
• Artpassing
• Reduced max fog distance to 9,000
• Improved the train's turn stability

• Made doorway thinner at the room leading to staircase highground
• Added buoys in the water indicate where the tide gets stronger
• Added new lighting to indoors sand bank
• Removed lowground path from sand bank to block sightlines & offer a more concise path
• Control point stairs should be properly surfable now, same for other stairs on the map
• Added more warning signs to the beach by user request
• Aligned hazard stripes on control point
• Shutter doors now open 10% faster to not bap scouts
• Changed drowning damage to be more consistent in the ocean
• Fixed duplicate sand displacements
• Removed references of crocadiles on the no swimming signs
• Fixed being able to go out of bounds from the ocean
• Replaced beach umbrellas inside gameplay space with rocks, not sure how this will affect the theme & feeling but hopefully it'll help make the area easier to move around
• Fixed a few pixel walks allowing you to perch in odd places
• Fixed various unsymmetrical areas of the map, primarily related to props not being mirrored properly
• Artpassing
• Optimization
• Added the bird

• Made Push brushes in water follow the beach edge, letting slower classes escape the tides instead of being locked in Water Prison for eternity
• Modified mid pathway from spawn to courtyard to allow a choice between left or right, not sure if I like the change but i'll see how it works in gameplay, the goal is to give the team being pushed back to their spawn a fighting chance going out
  
• Hopefully started artpassing.. but I have no idea what i'm doing there to be honest

• Reworked Staircase route again, hopefully this should allow the attacking team to clear a landing zone on the highground for the rest of their team, and allow a quick drop down to join them

• Removed some surfboards from the beach which didn't provide proper cover & motivated players to take a weird route
• Adjusted fences for alternative spawn exits to offer more room when utilising sandbags
• Adjusted staircases to be easier to walk up
• Extended nobuild in the ocean to prevent funny delfy trolling moments
• Removed sandbags from (red left, blue right) spawn exit path and replaced with a ramp, this used to be intended as an 'anti-spawn camp' method but is now obsolete due to other map changes
• Adjusted beach sand to hopefully be easier for scouts to jump onto umbrellas
• Moved healthpack on mid battlements to the low ground for easier access, received complaints it was in an awkward spot and now that i'm looking at it I agree
• Hopefully improved Optimization, I believe the issue is how many players + weapons + hats are being rendered at once but unsure what a good fix & efficient would be.

• Massively reworked mid to be smaller, hopefully this makes snipers sightlines on the point less threatening by requiring the sniper to put himself at risk to put others at risk, but requires proper testing to be seen

• Experimenting with different skybox setup to see if this will reduce FPS loss, if it doesn't i'll likely scrap the skybox entirely for now and have to figure out a way to handle it later

• Moved wooden fences on the beach to not be perchable
• Fixed some props being non-solid
• Lowered the battlements of each team's alt spawn door exit
• Changed the resupply cabinets to only affect the team which can reach them, incase someone tells Delfy how to get inside
• Swapped Health & Ammo pack locations near control point, removed health pack (2 medium healthpacks nearby the point gave the defenders an unnecessary advantage I believe, interested in seeing how this changes koth point combat)
• Blocked off control point access from the upstairs route (This route was far too easy to control and gave too much vision over the point with no way to retake it once it was secured by an engineer)
• Added more cover for players taking the upstairs route to use, so they have a fighting chance when going up
• Reduced the two full healthkits on the map to medium healthkits
• Modified Geometry to hopefully help for optimization down the line
• Fixed some sandbag clipping
• Added some hint brushes to help with basic optimization
• Changed Grey control point signs to properly be Blu
• Added more cover to the control point
• Added more surfboards where they were missing to provide proper cover