Arctic

KotH Arctic rc

  • This map is featured! Our best maps, all together in one place for your viewing pleasure.

Hanz

Ravin' Rabbid
aa
Jan 18, 2009
844
479
KotH Arctic
By Hannes 'Hanz' Tirez
Contact: hannes_tirez@hotmail.com

Being the winner of STARs KotH contest, Arctic features the King of the Hill gamemode and was designed to be played in a 9v9 Highlander format. While the primary focus lay with this specific format, Arctic offers a good time for every amount of players.

Thanks to:
*The UGC admins and players for giving plenty of feedback on the map from a competitive point of view, and also for willing to use the map in their Highlander League!
*yyler for running highlander tests
*ScorpioUprising for 6v6 feedback
*TF2Maps for testing it and being a great community that gives a lot of help
And dabp for the custom skybox, but also for the great feedback, tips and hints during the whole development of the map!
 
Last edited:

BlazrM4N

L1: Registered
Sep 17, 2011
29
17
Yo hanz, I accepted your request to make an Promo picture of your map. So here it is.
6DABABE2A04846213A8794F479A830C0DBABD0FD

I just put a cigerate for solider (To make him more badass?) :)
 

Hanz

Ravin' Rabbid
aa
Jan 18, 2009
844
479
So after todays test I took notes of a few things:

*Healthpacks closer to the point? Right now they're kinda at the spots like in Viaduct, but I'll probably put one in the small shack as well.
*Multiple scouts seemed to be pretty annoying. I don't know wether I should remove the tunnel or not, because it's actually designed to be played in Highlander 9v9, but scouts seemed to get behind the enemy team pretty easily.
*...?

For the ones that were there: please post your remarks! ;)
 

MetalKev

L2: Junior Member
Mar 5, 2012
70
23
Got to play this map today. Arnold and I went mini-sentry engie and got about 8 dominations between the two of us. I had a blast playing it so thanks so much for making it!
One small criticism. Even if the pack is far from the point or otherwise inaccessible I feel like there should be one more medium health pack somewhere on the map. Maybe it won't be a big deal in highlander with a coordinated medic but it felt like all the small health packs weren't cutting it and people were fighting over the medium one near spawn. Could just be my opinion.
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
aa
May 14, 2008
1,544
2,818
Highlander test: my p-rec demo https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1281220/feedback/20120709_2158_koth_hanz_72_2_color_srsbs.dem

The path up to the container/window area is too "safe". You get a free ticket to advance up to the best position to attack the cp. With a quite significant height advantage.

I'm not entirely sure what to think about the long sightlines. Against a really good sniper, I would never want to play medic on this map.
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
STV from yesterday's HL

I liked this map pretty well but I agree with Ravidge that the container/window area is really safe. I know some people have suggested making the center building have a second story inside that connects to the little walkway that extends from the window area, and that might help but it might also really crowd the center building.

I didn't really mind the sightlines as a Heavy, and I was playing against a decent Sniper, but you probably want to do something about them anyway if possible.
 

ANova

L7: Fancy Member
Jul 16, 2009
415
132
Yeah I agree with these two, and I also really liked the map as a scout. It was easy to hold and take back.
 
Aug 23, 2008
404
380
Hey, we pugged this tonight, 6v6. Have to say, this was definitely appreciated by the pug group. Think you may really have something kiler here.

Demos:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3492731/spacesaver/20120715-0356-koth_hanz_72_2.dem
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/3492731/spacesaver/20120715-0435-koth_hanz_72_2.dem

Okay, not much to change to be honest, but some things to think about.

1) Not sure I like the windows in the middle building. They take away a lot of the surprise factor of when a team switches from one side to the other, though not directly. You often see peoples feet and you can tell they are moving around. Other than that, the middle building felt fine, but pretty uninteresting. Its in a fairly hard spot to use effectively, as its at the bottom of the mid hill area. It might be cool for you to open a door in the upper area to that balcony that goes to the left side, the one that touches that building. Then you'd have a very viaduct middle house, but a lot cleaner.

2) I think the map needs a little more ammo. I was running pretty low, and having to drop into that weird side tunnel thing felt really strange. Maybe some smalls on the fronts of the window building? So that you can back up towards your spawn (safe) and get some ammo?

3) The sniper sightlines from the choke doors is pretty extreme. You can get sightlines all the way up to different parts of the point. The left side door you can see the right side of the point, and if anyone is wandering over there you can get a sick shot very easily. The right side choke is harder, but you can certainly do some work there as well, popping anyone who jumps on the roof of the hut.

4) The health on mid felt weird to me, but other people really liked it. I play medic mostly, and with viaduct the healthpacks feel a bit closer. I'm not sure its a problem though, could just be how the map is set up.

5) The left side flank (the huge stairway with the fences and catwalks) is cool, but its also pretty easy to shut down. If your a scout and a roaming soldier is camping up there they can just spam you all day and you can't really do anything to them. I'm not sure if there is a real solution, but you might try adjusting where the stairs enter and exit, so that you don't end up with this perfect straight shot down to spawn (also another sniper sightline, the sniper stands way back below the platform in spawn and can see all the way up the stairs).

6) Lower the upper part of spawn. Demos in comp like to sticky jump towards the exits, and having a platform that they drop off of means the med can't keep the heal beam on them when they do. Also, it makes figuring out who is up and when harder. If you need to add some character to the spawn room, open up the left or right side and throw some stuff in there, but I don't think there is any reason for the tall spawn area.

Other than that, we really seemed to enjoy it. It was pretty hectic tonight, so I might have some more feedback for you later, but I really think you've got almost a perfect koth map going right here. It might be a little formulaic, but you've really nailed the proper formula, methinks.
 

Hanz

Ravin' Rabbid
aa
Jan 18, 2009
844
479
It's good to hear those positive reactions, it will definitely give me the motivation to finish it for the STAR contest. :)

I am going to continue working on it around the beginning of August, as I just came back from 2 weeks of Greece and are leaving again in 2 days to Italy. But don't worry, I will detail the map in time!
 
Last edited:

Hanz

Ravin' Rabbid
aa
Jan 18, 2009
844
479
Okay after todays test we can skip the 'definately finishing it'.
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
5,102
4,621
D:

noooo

It might not be the #1 Best Map Ever but people have fun on it, there's no reason not to finish it. The world could use more good quality TF2 maps.
 

Idolon

they/them
aa
Feb 7, 2008
2,105
6,106
What happened that led to this? I can't imagine anything in the map layout that would generate such a negative take.
Imbalanced (ish) Highlander testing. Blu got steamrolled pretty hard and a few of us had (myself included) 0 fun.

Oh, and finish this. You'll never be able to please everyone, but that's no reason not to try!
 

Ravidge

Grand Vizier
aa
May 14, 2008
1,544
2,818
In case of a unbalanced test (uneven teams) you can safely ignore the "feeling" feedback right away.

Look instead at what kind of positions the winning team is adopting, seeing what a commanding team does when they are in full control is useful for balancing the map as well.
How easy are these positions to hold, are they ever in any danger for holding that position?

Look at what the suppressed team are doing, do they have any viable way to counter? Is there something they're missing in your opinion (if so try to make it more obvious). If they're doing everything right, but the skill/teamplay difference is too great, that is not a map issue.
 
Aug 23, 2008
404
380
In case of a unbalanced test (uneven teams) you can safely ignore the "feeling" feedback right away.

Look instead at what kind of positions the winning team is adopting, seeing what a commanding team does when they are in full control is useful for balancing the map as well.
How easy are these positions to hold, are they ever in any danger for holding that position?

Look at what the suppressed team are doing, do they have any viable way to counter? Is there something they're missing in your opinion (if so try to make it more obvious). If they're doing everything right, but the skill/teamplay difference is too great, that is not a map issue.

Agreed. It can be hard for players to differentiate between when the map is bad and when they aren't having a good time due to team balance, but I wouldn't let one imbalanced playtest color your vision too much.

To give you one story example: I had a map that I was trying to get competitive players to play. So far, very few had shown any interest. Then, I stumbled upon a random demo of a bunch of ESEA Invite/Intermediate players playing. I was excited. But, after watching it, I saw that it was a 5-0 stomp, and I felt really bad. I was sure that every player in the pug was shouting "this map is so dumb, who makes maps like this?"

Two days later I was in a mumble with one of the players from that pug who had been on the losing team. Instead of being super critical or dismissive, he was like "This map is awesome!" Even after being on the losing team and getting crushed by skill imbalance, this really talented player could tell the map was reasonable (which I had assumed up until that point) and was quick to point it out.

Moral of the story: If playtesters give you super negative feedback based on skill differences, they probably aren't the sort of people you want to rely upon for judging the relative merits of your map. If they are capable of losing AND pointing out what they really like about a map, chances are their feedback is much more valuable.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
Yeah, I imagine a team that keeps losing round after round will start trying to figure out why. If it's something to do with the map, they'll figure it out and (hopefully) tell you.
 

fubarFX

The "raw" in "nodraw"
aa
Jun 1, 2009
1,720
1,978
I just want to make it clear that I usually don't care about winning. whenever I am losing and I can tell that a win is not going to happen, I just go silly mode. who cares about the objective right? I just to go dm and have fun. well, turns out going dm wasn't even fun this time. so that didn't work. I came to the conclusion that this was because the map was too uphill. for most of the playtime I had on the map, all I could do was watching my team getting rolled in an attempt to get up that hill. I feel like the map as height problems as the offence team is constantly at a disadvantage but yeah w/e, it must have been the teams. I should get good instead of ranting on the map.
 
Last edited: