Tasmania alt_a5

New update, one step closer to Beta!
Addressed feedback:

"Map is too flat"
I'm looking for ways to add height without disrupting much of the flow, I'll submit for playtesting, check what I can do and then edit accordingly

"Point is too flat"
Added minor height elevation (possibly needs more) to point and a ramp to that elevation for comfort



"Enemy can use our side's (near point) ramp to get an advantage"
Added a tiny balcony to replace the ramp connected to the floor, this requires 2 jumps to use making it uncomfortable to get up from the point




"Right flank is too far away" + "(Your) Right flank's health pack benefits defenders"
The speed was intentional, however, after running in it I believe it's far too slow, I'll look into shortening it
The health pack has been moved to the (previously closed) gate, anyone camping on the health pack can get trapped inside the room.



"Engineer is difficult to play"
As of now I have expanded the Left flank's room to allow safer building, replaced a backwards Health pack for a Med. ammo and moved the Right flank's ammo pack to an elevation, even after those edits I believe engineer may need some more, but I'll have to see.



"Map is mostly tall walls"
As of currently this is the layout and due to laziness I didn't want to add clips/props to the top part of these walls, if I see the chance I will try to add some roof(s) to make it look less uninteresting.


Extra changes:

Made the right exit to spawn a little bit more appealing with a few anti-spawncamp measures

Made spawnrooms bigger

Made sunlight dimmer (It made some walls way too bright)

Updated some badly placed clips, including handrail in capture point's higher balcony

Increased size of left flank's ammo pack, Health pack brought a bit forward

Minor brushwork.


Enjoy.
If you find any logic errors, let me know!

Pretty quick update, innit?

Changes:

Fixed broken func_regenerate on Blu team

Removed Sniper balcony and dropdown in Left flank, replaced for a few elevation changes



Moved door in Right flank to the ammo room, ammunition moved inside the main room



Control point now has ramps to make it more comfortable to move around in



Some changes to the "Spawn courtyard into the connectors" area




If you find any errors, let me know.

Well, that took a while didn't it?
I had a tiny break from Tasmania to work on an A/D map You'll see later , now i'm back to this.

Changes:

Leftmost path can no longer skip the point entirely and has a dead end instead, might be changed to something more interesting than a Sniper balcony/Engineer nest area.



Control point is now at a small (32 HU) elevation.



Moved multiple brushes around.

Added some minor and non-intrusive textures to allow players to recognize areas with ease, NOTE that these might; not match the theme of a room, be misaligned or be placeholders.



Sun shadow is now dimmer

Respawn times have been set to KotH defaults



If you find any error involving broken logic; let me know, thanks.

After a short break and planning what to do next, I decided to change the layout very heavily, replacing the most uninteresting path with the least used (Flank), as it has much better gameplay possibilities and can be used outside the objective, this may need editing but for now I'll wait for the next playtesting session

Changes: Vent system was completely removed. "Flank" was moved to the path closest to the Spawn rooms and changed to allow both teams to go in without walking through center. Added more pickups and props. Made all diagonal walls darker for clarity of geometry, places with poor lightning made these difficult to notice if you weren't paying attention. Removed ramp to vents and changed it for another exit from the "Spawn area"

This update changes the layout a little bit

Changes: Removed door in this room and opened up some space .

Opened a path from the inside to this platform .


Added this tiny "hallway" to inrease the Ammo and Health's visibility and give Snipers a spot (Needs testing to see if it's balanced)


Made the flank even smaller and changed pickups

The vents are no longer "One way", they used to require Blast jumping or Force A Nature to go back up
Ramps beside point have walls, Added Hydro arrows that aim towards the point to help guide the player in case they get lost, Added Overlays to pickups, Props and swapped some previous ones around, Changed all lights on the map; there are some spots where it's too bright, I'll see in the future if lowering them is necessary

That is all, remember to please report any errors or weird geometry you find, Thank you!

New update.

Changes: Added more props around the map. Textured the vents properly I have yet to build cubemaps. Reduced capture and respawn times. Decorated some places lightly. Flank's size was reduced. Sniper sightlines nerfed, again. Added a very conspicuous pile of dirt.

New month, new look!

Changes: Added a fair amount of props around the map, Including signs, crates and 2 dumptrucks. Nerfed sightlines. Balanced the height differences around the map thus making the point easier to take back. Flank now has a FULL health pack and a ton of medium ammo packs to incentivize going into it. Added a few windows for visibility. Moved and rotated the Respawn rooms and upgraded the lightning.

There are still a few issues like Soldiers being very powerful, this will be fixed in a future version

Good (whatever time of day it is for you), mappers!
Yesterday we had an Imp and Tasmania was playtested, for the first time; with real players!

It went... OK, apart from the snipers, so I decided to summarize the problems and post what changes I'm planning

** Problems **:
1 - "Where do I go!?", It was dumb to think players would know where to go, my thinking was "Well, they downloaded the map they must've seen the screenshots"...forgetting servers don't show screenshots, Yeah...
2 - "I can see this guy from across the map!", even in the first iteration Snipers were a problem, they still are.
3 - "Too much height difference in the center", Soldier has too many places to stand on and shoot down, the area around point is too open which lets Scout be an annoying little bas-
4 - Hard to know where things are if you can't see them, a few pickups took too long to spot and be recognized, if you're in spawn you don't know what's outside without opening the gates, etc etc...
5 - Flank is too far away to be used effectively, The only time I saw someone use the flank was to grab the small health kit, I think no one even saw there was a Medium Healthkit and Ammopack

** Proposed solutions **:
1 - Add arrows and more distinct geometry/props
2 - Add more props on the sightline, twist some paths further
3 - I will move around some height around the map especially around/on the point
4 - Might change geometry for the pickups and add glass to spawn
5 - I think the best way to fix this is completely close off one path and connecting the flank to a path near spawn to allow it to become a contested area, this is the biggest edit on the list which will change gameplay massively

Oh also, remove that Hallway or use it, it's useless and was leftover in case I wanted to add another vent system, I'm not sure what to do here

Fixed: Red only had one functional spawn entity.

Changes: All textures have been replaced, Walls are now white and floors are team-colored

Patch notes:

Fixed: Hud only showing Red even if Blu captured the point. Centered some offset textures and fixed logic