[HELP] Need help nerfing sightlines in my map!

Aqwertybqwerty

L1: Registered
Aug 26, 2011
49
2
First off, i'm not sure if this is in the right section. Admins, please move it if it's not.

Now, after watching the STV demo from the recent test of my map, koth_ghosttown, one recurring problem kept popping up: sightlines. My map is grossly open, and although I figured i'd run at least one test to see how it plays, it got me a tremendous amount of criticism during the test. Some other problems came up as well, but I think I can fix those and, in any case, they aren't as severe as this one. The problem though, is that i'm unsure how to downgrade this problem without completely restructuring my map. Some ideas of mine were (please read my thread first):
*Adding a door underneath the arch
*Adding an extra building or two in the open areas
*Displacements everywhere (might not help sightlines, but should help with snipers)

...and that's all I can come up with, and i'm sure it's not enough. If anyone could help me fix this, i'd be extremely grateful. If the only option is a complete map reform, well, than that's what I need to do, I suppose.
STV Demo (courtesy of theharribokid): http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12338304/Gameday Mappacks/Demos/koth_ghosttown_b1.zip
 

Fruity Snacks

Creator of blackholes & memes. Destroyer of forums
aa
Sep 5, 2010
6,394
5,571
Just looking at the map's overhead, you're right, it is grossly open. It doesn't look like a town, it looks like a random military boot camp out in the middle of the desert.

Breaking/Preventing sightlines is best done in the planning/building stages of a map... When you design a map you want to keep in mind you are building an environment, not a map. What you have doesn't look like an environment, its square, too open, flat and dull. Unfortunately I think you need to really work at making it feel more like a ghost town, rather than a square open desert. You can look at overheads of other maps to get a good idea.

**I'd like to note, sightlines can be good something, but if they are ridiculously long -over ~1k units- then they become an issue. and that value is a very high upper limit, you want to keep them relatively short**
 

Aqwertybqwerty

L1: Registered
Aug 26, 2011
49
2
Okay, well, looks like i'm back to the drawing board. In that case, i'm probably going to keep some of the buildings and the mining tunnels but rearrange and add onto them.Right now i'm just trying to get the gameplay right, so no new textures for me :p
 
Apr 13, 2009
728
309
How to break a sightline :

1) buildings or cliffs. Also necessary for breaking down areas for vis calculations
2) use height differences (if you have a 4000 units long open area and you put a hill in the middle, you've effectively cut in half the longest sightline, unless you've got battlements that can see above the hill)
3) prop spam !!!! (not a very good idea but a useful last resort)
 
Mar 23, 2010
1,872
1,696
height differences are great for breaking up sightlines and making the map fun. your map looks really flat and boring.