Hello Everyone!
I'm gonna keep this dev diary short because I am eating breakfast. But long story short. New Version of Larur! Adding in 2 new Features! Let me walk you through em!
Points Locked until X amount of players is killed:
Pretty Simple. A Problem that occurred is that people bum rushed the points but this defeated the point of the respawn mechanic because no-one had died yet. To prevent this I have added a counter that counts the number of Player deaths and works accordingly to tally it until it hits a threshold where therein the points unlock.
Anti-Stalling Failstate Stop-Gap
This is gonna be a controversial change to say the least. When the game stalls too long it will now throw everyone into a death arena that they are guaranteed to die from if they don't hurry it up. I probs should've just added a timer to the map and I'm not sure what the critical reception is gonna be. Lets see. Here's some development screenshots showing me going crazy tryna get both features working:
Few Other Changes:
Sock Skybox No More - Different Ground textures - Some minor changes
Thank you to everyone who's playtested so far and for all the warm reception to this map! We are nearing the end of the alpha for this map and as we do I am implementing the last of the features. Thank you to everyone. See ya in a9
New Respawn Sound Cue
People Who Respawn Receive Uber
New Message that provides info on the gamemode
Made points lock on cap and removed their ability to cap
fixed pixel clip
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Do you like these changes? Let me know!
Hello Again! This is the brand spankin new update for larur! This time we have a whole host of new changes and finally fixes. I'm confident in saying that map is reaching a point gameplay wise that I am satifisified with! The curious case of this maps logic is almost cracked and the map is better than ever. The map's development lulled a bit around a5 but I think the momentum has finally started rolling again! I'll take you through the changes!
New Respawn Points
The Points now respawn you at the respective point you captured them in. So lets say your Red and you cap A then your dead teammates get respawned at A instead of at Mid. Now I have to state something: The Respawn mechanic is STILL not fully complete yet. You can win the game by capping points which isn't what I want and ontop of that the points are suppose to lock after you cap them. Brokk had a great idea to open the points after a few people die but I'm not entirely sure how to implement this so any help in the matter is appreciated!
New Accessibility Options
The crate jumps on the map have been removed and replaced with way more convenient stairs in there place. I hope this allows for better rotations on the map and also a map that is not so geared towards classes like scout or soldier or demo or what have you.
Health Kit Changes
This is actually a change from the previous version but I thought I'd just list it here. The map has had a whole host of its health and ammo packs changed and they no longer respawn once picked up. This is to prevent someone from just camping one spot with a pack of whatever.
Final Thoughts
Very Satisfied with this version and stoked to bring more in a7. I think people are gonna like this version and despite the road ahead the map is closer to my vision than ever before. Thank you all for reading and have a good one!
also new Nails! Hell Yeah!
Not too much to explain in this update. More health kits, Stairs replacing the prop jump to middle roof & a fix to a MASSIVE EXPLOIT on this map that allowed you to spawn in the middle of the map immediately before the game even started.
Not looking forward to the feedback page on a4
A6 gonna be a good one
Cya have a good one
Hello! Another version of larur is out! This version brings minimal to no differences in the map is except now the logic has been switched out. From the faux 2CP Arena logic to temporary 2CP logic borrowed over from Byre. I do not believe this change will be permanent on the map but until I can figure out to make Faux 2CP logic with respawn mechanics work without the problems it generates It will remain this way. This update took longer than I wanted to but its out now. This is A4
Respawn Mechanic
If you see below you will see a new temp hud that I whipped up in this version. When a team caps a point their team respawns. The point is supposed to lock after but I can't get it to work properly. If anyone knows how to do so in Hammer let me know. The teams are also suppose to respawn in the respective capped point but I couldn't get it to work so for now they spawn in the centre of the map.
That concludes the dev diary. Every other change on the map is a quality of life change or something I stated I was gonna change in the last version. When tested this will probably turn into a complete disaster but lets see. Known issues are the missing hud textures that appears before the game begins. Logic isn't 100% also. Okay that's all for now. Hope to iron alot of this shit out in A5. Till then if you want to help in anyway hit me up. Thank You for your time, bye
Hello again! Happy to announce larur_a3! This update seeks to smooth out the grievances people had with that last two versions. Namely: Lighting & People not using the Roofs. So let me take you on another lengthy dev diary!
Lighting
Most common feedback I've gotten so far on the map was the Lighting. It's always been admittingly too dark and I was apprehensive to change it for the longest time because it looked cool ass hell. But I concede it had to change. Teams could barely recognized each other. Map should be way more visibly clear now.
(Note: B Point is now way too Bright, will change in next version a4)
The Roof
Players still have not been able to intuit that they could get on the roofs on the map. This has me very sad. It's made gameplay dynamics on the map duller because a whole way of playing on map just isn't being used. So I've decided with help from the tf2maps discord to covertly point towards the player that they can infact go up there. I've added a prop jump and a health kit plus an arrow pointing upwards to show that players can get up in that area.
Final Thoughts:
Happy with the way the map is coming out but there's still work to be done. As of A3 the main mechanic hasn't been implemented also: The logic is presenting problems when played on the tf2maps server. I have not been able to deduce what's the problem as of the time of writing and releasing this version however I will work towards fixing these issues. If anyone can help please let me know
Thank You, This concludes the dev diary on a3. Till next time! Much Love! :]
Hello yall! Proud to finally release the a2 second version of larur! After testing on a1 a few problems became readily apparent and I thought I'd go into depth about what those changes entail. Come with me as I delve into insanity tryna explain some stuff.
Sightlines
First thing is simple: The big af sightline from spawn to spawn was heavily disliked and most people did not care for it. To remedy this I blocked off the window but kept it as a chicken wire mesh to you could still see through it. With this change I hope to retain visibility but cutdown on Snipers smoking you two second into the game. I also blocked a few other sightlines.
Removals
The Silo-Sniper nest just didn't work in execution. It the line of sight it did give you was very little & mostly just gave you a sightline into the other Silo-Sniper nest. No one used it and it served little purpose, so I decided to seal it up and put a small ammo pack in its place.
Renovations
A Point has gotten a significant remake, well somewhat but I think its still pretty worthwhile. Something that kept happening game after game was one team going one point and the other going another. This created what I call a "Bear-Goose" effect wherein combat became predictable and games panned out somewhat the same. In order to also understand the effect we must also look at the OG A point. It was far to pushed away from the significantly closer B point and whatever team took it (usually red) had a huge advantage this due to the fact that the point just wasn't fun to attack into and was a slog most of the time. So what I've done is push A up in the map making it closer to B. I have also redesigned the hallway-hut leading from point to point, making it less cramped and allowing for more unique gameplay tactics to occur. I have also gone about changing the side entrances to them somewhat harder to spam but also easier to attack into. Lastly on this topic: Not many people knew you could get on the roof of the middle hut-hallway, this proved confusing to me because I thought it was obvious but it apparently wasn't and my job is just to remedy problems presented. So I have changed the middle roof texture to hopefully make people more aware of the nature of it.
Signage
Some people found the map confusing. I added more signs
Lighting
I added more lights and the map is 30% brighter now
Known Issues
Due to the nature the maps logic you can currently as of A1 & A2 pretty much perpetually stall rounds by being the last one alive while not all the points are capped. Another issue is that when a feedback round activates a death-loop happens wherein players perpetually die because the server keeps insta respawning them and the logic is meant to prevent this thus killing them. Last known issue is that on this Alpha-2 version, some of the signs are broken ironically enough. I changed some brushwork into func_detail and forgot that when you do that the overlays break.
Final Thoughts
I do not believe that all these fixes will remedy all the problems with this map. All I am striving to achieve right now is chip away at the problem to I find something that resonates with the players and I feel like this update is a step in that direction.
If you want to help with this map in any way let me know! I'm trying to make this thing the best I can and I hope I can achieve that :]!!!! Gracias! Bye!