pl_ultralaser

III_Demon

L2: Junior Member
Sep 28, 2008
57
29
ULTRA MEGA LASER!

i'm trying to do a few ambitious things with this map. it will need a lot of testing. =]

#1 - the wide open feel. maps tend to feel like tight little rat mazes, and i wish there were some open areas sometimes. the alpine environment demands it, IMO. huge sweeping vistas of giant mountains and wide valleys. obviously this isnt usually done for 2 reasons: vis perfomance, and sniper balance. the performance can be handled by balancing the amount of detail, and i'm hoping the sniper issue can be managed with the right sort of cover, and lots of playtesting.

#2 - vertical play. maps tend to feel like a mostly flat plane, they're fundamentally a 2d maze, with a bit of elevation thrown in here and there. its rare that i play a map that really feels like its using the up/down axis to its potential. the primary problem with this is player frustration. people never look up. i'm hoping i've solved that by sloping the entire play field, so people are always looking up or down just a bit.

#3 - returning to areas. maps tend to be linear, especially payload maps. they progress from point A to B to C, with one team pushing forward and the other pushing back, always. in this one, control point 1 and 3 are almost literally right on top of each other. the track spirals back around on itself, so the area that was the defenders' battlements for one point becomes the offense's front line for another.

also, a mountain climb map became painfully obvious once the payload game type and alpine environment both showed up. =] there are a few people doing very cool things with that concept already, hopefully my take on it will be fun and unique enough for players to enjoy.

i welcome any and all feedback, because achieving the goals i've set out to acomplish on this map will be tough. i've been working on games for ages, but i'm not much of a mapper, and this is my first TF2 map.

current version will hopefully be in the gameday test this weekend (nov 22) http://www.solfire.com/~iii_demon/temp/tf2/downloads/maps/pl_ultralaser_a1.bsp.bz2 (upload broke, file was corrupt. fixed at 11:30pm nov 21)

way more (out of date) screens can be found here: http://www.solfire.com/~iii_demon/temp/tf2/
 
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Artesia

L6: Sharp Member
Nov 11, 2008
278
72
I had fun playing! one thing I noticed was the only healthkits I found were full healthkits... good for me... cause I got to get back to the fight, but if we had a medic the normal ones would have sufficed, maybe replace the full kits with normal ones, but make a few more... I dunno just one thing I noticed. another thing, which will obviously be fixed was I had to look for which wall was the door out of one of the respawns... id just give that its own unique texture from the rest of the room so its more easily seen... it only took me a second but it popped into my head "where's the door" until I just touched all the walls.

other than that I think you're doing a great job of making it feel open, I didn't feel too vulnerable to snipers. perhaps when you make the 3d skybox you could make other mountains arouond, obviously without a 3d skybox it feels like the world is flying, but that can't be helped until you're further along :p

keep up the good work
 

Galago

L2: Junior Member
Sep 29, 2008
90
5
I'll be able to playtest it tomorrow. Can you climb the top portion of the map? How do you get up that high?
 

Memento Mori

L2: Junior Member
Mar 25, 2008
61
11
1: Bridges over lava should be wide enough to have a player either side.
2: Final climb to the laser is very easy to snipe, soldier/demo spam on, and requires more cover. The initial right hand route is also quite hard to jump on and could do with being less steep. There could also be more side routes but I may have bypassed one (I didn't walk too far up the mountain although I rocket jumped up).

Obviously it is an alpha but in the future I don't know how well you (or anyone) will be able to detail the huge mountain itself, it will be very hard to make such a large object look good, and it may look bland if it is just repeated, but maybe some fake inaccessible trails etc. and small caves would help break it up. Just some ideas for the future builds.
 

S3BB0_L1C1OUS

L3: Member
Nov 2, 2008
118
13
I killed like 10 people as sniper from that spot without even loosing a single health point and I was lagging. So I think with a pro sniper this is a mean spot. You shot, you duck, get up shot, etc.

pl_ultralaser_a10000.jpg
 

bob+M|M+

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 31, 2008
346
394
Hard to give good gameplay feedback on this map since it was many of our first time playing. Everyone was all over the map for the first 20 minutes.

The last point seemed very difficult to cap due to the nature of demoman, soldiers and snipers having clear view of the downhill slope beneath them.


Some minor issues:

Ceilings in the first spawn room are too low. Very little space to move comfortably around this area.
plultralasera10036tr5.jpg


Could use even more cover here. I also think this area is a bit too linear. Some alternative paths around here would be nice.
plultralasera10037oa6.jpg


This climb is too difficult considering the battles around this area.
plultralasera10042dz7.jpg


You take fall damage when you walk off the top of that ledge.
plultralasera10043qa1.jpg


This map has a lot of potential, best of luck to you.

bob+M|M+
 

l3eeron

L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
Jan 4, 2008
593
88
This map will be awesome if it gets polished!

I spent the half hour on it, feels a bit too long. The distance between caps is a excessive. Couple that with the down hill advantage that Red has, it's heavily favored in Red's advantage.

I played demo and medic on this map, some things that frustrated me:

- other demos could lob their nades twice as far as I could heeve 'em up hill. I think adding some tall buidings in/around the last vertical push is a good idea.

- There's no "safe" area to build ubers, going medic on this map is suicide. Maybe add a one sided gate somewhere around the middle, or an area inaccessible to BLU etc.

- Got push off the map too much, I like it, but there was too much open hill to fall off.


I hope you can gather up a nice little animated sequence shooting the laser if BLU caps out. Maybe a combo of env_laser, env_explosion, env_shake, gibshooters etc. to "fake" the final explosion.
 

Blindfate

L1: Registered
Nov 2, 2008
43
6
We didn't play this map last night, unfortunately, so I just went through it solo.


I really wish we had played it, I really like the nature of it. try to keep in mind "surf geometry" on some of your angles. I doubt it'll break anything, but it might have some unintended consequences. I'm too lazy to zip the demo, but if you want it I'll send it to you. Just pm me your e-mail.


The only "bug" i noticed was that after you cap the third point the cart can roll down to the second point.
 

III_Demon

L2: Junior Member
Sep 28, 2008
57
29
thanx to all for some good feedback, i had a blast playing with everyone! i'll definitely get in on some more gameday events in the future.

the only healthkits I found were full healthkits...

obviously without a 3d skybox it feels like the world is flying, but that can't be helped until you're further along :p

working on the health and ammo distribution, for sure. its a bit sloppy now. as for the skybox, yeah.. i wont start working on the skybox for real until i'm satisfied that the major structure of the map wont be changing. definitely planning on a cool skybox.

Can you climb the top portion of the map? How do you get up that high?

not the big flat center area, no. thats just placeholder brushes, that part of the mountain is mostly there to block visibility, so you cant actually see the whole map at once, even though it has a wide open sky.

1: Bridges over lava should be wide enough to have a player either side.
2: Final climb to the laser ...

some fake inaccessible trails etc. and small caves would help break it up. Just some ideas for the future builds.

lava bridges have been widened.
final climb area is being worked on.
the fake trails and caves idea is good, i hadnt thought of either of those. maybe a bear family.... =]

I killed like 10 people as sniper from that spot

noted and fixed. i was thinking that'd be a spot for soldiers and demomen to hop up and take potshots, i forgot i'd left the height so a sniper could see over it.

The last point seemed very difficult to cap due to the nature of demoman, soldiers and snipers having clear view of the downhill slope beneath them.

the last point is intentionally difficult, i wanted the difficulty to progress as the map progresses. getting the balance right is tricky, of course. i'm working on the area right now, hopefully the next version will be better for both teams.

as for the first blu spawn, the idea there was to be a 'secret' underground shop where they built the bomb, so it would be themed as a cramped little shop, and its really nothing but a spawn room, theres no need for it to be anything more than access to the exits.

- There's no "safe" area to build ubers, going medic on this map is suicide. Maybe add a one sided gate somewhere around the middle, or an area inaccessible to BLU etc.

I hope you can gather up a nice little animated sequence shooting the laser if BLU caps out. Maybe a combo of env_laser, env_explosion, env_shake, gibshooters etc. to "fake" the final explosion.

'safe' how? there are a few deliberate little staging areas for each point, where blu can hang out in a spot with good cover... theres no actual 1-way doors, but the non-linear nature of the map makes those a lot more difficult to place, i havent thought of anywhere they'd be decent.

laser effects are definitely in the plan. the question is... does the laser fire if red wins, or blu? =] i'm thinking if one wins, the laser fires, and if the other wins, it explodes. =]

The only "bug" i noticed was that after you cap the third point the cart can roll down to the second point.

thanx for catching that, i caused that bug when i moved the 3rd point a bit, and forgot to change the number of the path that gets disabled. i wouldnt have caught it for a while.