Lumbercamp

Darksoul

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2009
35
13
Lumbercamp is a ABC control point map set in the mountains, it's a large and open map on an attempt to accomodate big crowds for the 32 players/instanspawn servers; but it also works great with standard rules.

B is still boring...to me...but that doesn't mean everyone should ignore B.The sentries built on B can no longer be outranged; but it's still advisable to keep a sniper nearby.

The catwalk I added on A is probably the most detailed object on the map, once again I got carried away...I just love modelling trusses. But it is also an attempt to test a theory of mine: the players tend to dwell or pass more often around areas or objects that are more detailed than what's around them; if it's true players will use the catwalk extensively to reach the roof on A (I want them on the roof), I also think the catwalk might be a solution to a problem with people who jumped into the pond they had no way to get back on track, they were left on a pit with only one way out and that was going towards RED's defenses...everyone who fell died or if they stayed on top they died to the snipers...let's see how that goes now.

The new path to C has one entrance through the railroad on A. This path is only accessible to soldiers, demoman and FAN scouts (as far as I know). The explosives jump may be tricky and the reason of this is to keep very few people taking that path. The idea is that path would be useful on 32 player servers when attacking C; many times I have been on servers where the defense has entrenched sooo much that no ammount of ubers can get through and that point becomes a huge meat grinder, I have looked for another way to get there, but guess what there is no other way to get there. I think I have added something that may give some space to breathe on those crowded servers however on servers with standard rules the "difficulty" to get there would not be worth it since there are still other easier more obvious ways to reach C.

Another reason for me to want very few people getting there is that the path has it's exit right on top of C, if an offensive engineer were to setup up there that path would turn into any of those wretched tunnels on Dustbowl; I like Dustbowl but I don't want tunnel fights on this map.

And that's all I have to say about this alpha. It's not like many people are going to read this...anyways.
 
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Seba

DR. BIG FUCKER, PHD
aa
Jun 9, 2009
2,364
2,728
From what I can tell, the cap areas look a tad too big. Another thing, I don't think that making RED teles unsappable is a good idea. You will get hate from BLU Spies and many people will avoid it. Consider making the map smaller or adding shortcuts, instead of ruining a Spy's day.
 

Darksoul

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2009
35
13
Indeed the CPs are a bit on the large side, how large is what I want to know with this release; they are larger than the average taking into account this map may (I hope) be played in 32players/instant respawn. I'd figure giving a bit more personal space for everyone would make the scenario feel less cluttered.

Unzappable RED teles...I want to let the gameplay test see how much of a bad idea it is.
 

PenPen

L5: Dapper Member
Apr 24, 2008
207
136
I hope you don't mind my wall of text since I do have a wall of text for you after a runthrough!

I haven't tried sapping teleporters as I only did this by myself, but it's a part of the game and blu usually needs to take advantages whenever they have. Regardless, I'll go off first by saying I like the map's layout, but so far it favors snipers a lot on points A & B, along with scouts and maybe great sentry spots. And what I see so far is that C might be really hard to cap.

One thing I noticed is that a lot of building tops are blocked, and sticky bombs get bounced off from invisible walls if I shoot them at the skies. I think we'll have to get some demomen and soldiers to play this map to see how they fare.

Anyway...

The blu spawn started off with two doors, one in front and one in the back. So far the back one is blocked out, and if there's no real use for this area, I'd suggest making this a window instead.
cp_lumbercamp_a10009.jpg


The route to B is rather straightforward, there's only one route that splits into two. But this area is way too open (and I know that red team can't get into this building), and snipers can pick off blu guys easily outside the end of the room.
cp_lumbercamp_a10001.jpg


Point A looks like an easily-sniped capture point. It's very open. Also, the tree is weird.
cp_lumbercamp_a10000.jpg


But point A also includes a path to this roof, and there's a giant playerclip on top of the higher 'mini-roof' here. Additionally, there's no opening on the roof, so there's little to no incentive to get on there.
cp_lumbercamp_a10010.jpg


This sign to B is misleading since it's located right next to the sewer and people may try to get into the water thinking that they can go to point B that way.
cp_lumbercamp_a10011.jpg


This opening on top of the spawn gates doesn't serve much of a purpose except for both teams shooting grenades into/out of spawn. It might be better to have that covered up.
cp_lumbercamp_a10006.jpg


There's some holes on the buildings on point C to B, but the playerclips prevent demos and soldiers from reaching onto the building roofs. It's kinda misleading.
cp_lumbercamp_a10008.jpg


On another random note, I like the red spawn area. But the path out of it, it's better off if you have railings against the cliffs.
cp_lumbercamp_a10005.jpg


Point C's capture area is weird. Basically, there's only one path to get to the point, and it involves going between red spawn's exits. I don't think blu is going to be able to cap this point most of the time, unfortunately. Either open up the area or create an alternate path. I'd say the warehouse in front of it would be a better capture area.
cp_lumbercamp_a10004.jpg


And minor issues here:
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w258/penpen35/cp_lumbercamp_a10003.jpg
http://i178.photobucket.com/albums/w258/penpen35/cp_lumbercamp_a10007.jpg
 

Darksoul

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2009
35
13
Thank you, excellent feedback the kind of stuff I want to know before proposing the map for gameday.

I'm trying to make BLU spawn feel like a small train station, that's the reason for the big door to nowhere. I'm going to have to make that "entrance" less contrived and make it raise less suspicions.

I didn't realised everyone was so eager to get on top of all the roofs on the map. I made the roof on A easily accesible to feed that need...but once people are up there, they don't like it, hmmm I'll make the roof on A more appealling and the roofs on C available to some degree.

Loved the comment about the misleading sign from A to B, it means you saw it right away; but the position isn't the best.

The layout of C is right now the best solution I have to make the Scouts and spies more viable in the final capture. The purpose of the huge warehouse in front of C is to draw the sentries away from the point it self and to give cover to any spy or class that slipped through; I believe I made the warehouse quite sentry friendly so engineers choose to build in the warehoure rather than on top of the point, but it gives clever demoman, soldiers, pyros even heavies a solid chance to destroy them without the need of an uber. The scouts have a way of getting to the capture zone without going through the warehouse, the same goes for soldiers and demoman.

You can say that I deliberately made the access routes to C in such way both the defense and the ofense would find themselves in the way to C, once again in an attempt to draw the major gunfight away from the capture point and to "filter" the amount of people at the capture zone. However I believe both RED an BLU have routes around the Warehouse that are of easy transint and without the need to fight for them. I also like to think that when BLU goes through the defense at the warehouse and starts capturing they gain quite a favorable position and gives them a good chance of capturing on the first arival.

But heck that's all speculations and TF2 play time talking up there, I want to test all that; but not yet.

I'll definitely close that opening on top of RED spawn entrance doors. And deal with the generous sniper lines of sight at A and B.
 

PenPen

L5: Dapper Member
Apr 24, 2008
207
136
No problems.

On the note about sign to B, I think it'd be easier to tell if you make it like a mining cave thingy of sorts where it's lighted and people will know "Oh, there's this path to B." It'll definitely help out.

About jumping around as soldier/demo, I'm just trying to reach different places myself with sticky/rocket jumps. I'm crappy as both and don't use them much, it would be better if feedback about these rooftops are provided from gameday.

One thing I noticed and forgot to mention is that I seem to suffer a bit of framerate drops in B surrounding the point. I don't know why yet.

I think you should be able to submit for gameday as long as it functions well (which is a working map w/o any problems) and you're looking for additional live feedback (or sourceTV demos afterwards). From my unintelligent observations and playthrough I think it's working pretty well already.
 

Lazy Eskimo

L2: Junior Member
May 17, 2009
74
11
It takes red some time to get to spawn doors so it's not like they can just hope on after they spawn. Putting it in the warehouse will make it too easy to cap.

Both doors at a can be covered by defense at same time.
 

Zwiffle

L6: Sharp Member
Jun 24, 2008
269
161
Hey I played about a round and a half on it last night, both on defense. I feel that while aiming for 32 players is an admirable goal, you should really aim for about 24. It should feel slightly cramped with 32 players, not comfortable with 32 players. With the 20 or so people playing last night, it felt very big and almost empty. I can't say for point B (I think it was point B, the one two the right of the Red spawn) but point A felt way too big. I think if you raised the cap up a bit, and pushed that far back area up a little bit to make the point a little more cubic, that would make the play area feel better.

I love being able to fight above the point on the roof - that's a lot of fun and adds a lot of dynamic combat to the point. I wish more people would add roof combat, even limited roof combat to their maps.

I do like point C a lot though. It seemed a tad easy to defend, but I remember someone on blue wanting teams to be scrambled, so maybe it was just the teams were unbalanced in skill. I couldn't stay until the end (I think there was about 1:30 left when I had to go scrim) but blue seemed to be making a little bit of progress in capping C. I don't know how it turned out, and I don't remember the final score.

I also noticed a scout doing all kinds of FaN jumps and getting to tricky spots, which is also good, because using those hidden spots adds a lot to a map as well. Lots of trick jumps, or hidden, unexpected paths leading to behind C might help get some Spies back there or allow some kind of wiggle room. It didn't seem like Snipers would be useful when assaulting C, I don't know how much you planned that, or I could just be mistaken.

Everything else seemed to be on track - I would just try squeeze point A a bit, and again I can't comment on point B. Point C looks good, maybe open it up a little bit, and add or make clear some nice trick paths for Scouts/Spies to cause disruption.
 

Sgt Frag

L14: Epic Member
May 20, 2008
1,443
710
At first I was thinking it may be too hard to cap C. But then it was capped twice so I guess you can scratch that :)

I liked the map overall, though one 30 minute test was not enough to get to know the map.
C seems maybe too easy to attack/defend from all sides. But like I said, not enough playtime yet.

Would be cool to see an overview of the map in screenies. Would give a better sense of the map as a whole.
 

Penguin

Clinically Diagnosed with Small Mapper's Syndrome
aa
May 21, 2009
2,039
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This map was pretty big. So big that sentries became easy to outrange.

Dunno what you can do about that. Also, Red should always come in BEHIND a cap, not in front of it.
 

Darksoul

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2009
35
13
If the engineers want their sentries to live longer they need to think outside the box, I have been testing this map almost daily at the CnB servers and people have found lots of good sentry spots you just need to be more creative and stop looking for corridors with only one way in, or places where all the team will be forced to pass; there aren't any as fars as I know, so even on defense I believe I have forced the engineers to play offensively to earn a spot. I like to believe a good engineer will always find a good spot.

But I'll create some more corners at A and B; specially B that seems to lack a fertile ground for sentries...

Red coming from behind...they do come from behind, and this is a custom map and the point is to do things differently, no?

In early tests RED spawn was behind and level to the capture point like the "rule" says, but having it that way resulted in RED having to walk too long to get anywhere; at that stage it took a RED player on average 25-30 seconds to get to A or B, but only took 5 to 7 seconds to arrive at C, while the offense took around 20-25 seconds to reach C. That would really render C uncapturable; and to make RED take longer to reach C I had to increase the time it took the defefense to get to the other points.

At the end placing RED spawn directly bellow C proved to be the best solution it lowered the travel time to A and B to an average of 17 seconds, and around 12s to get to C. And since C takes exactly 12 seconds to capture alone; if after one big push only one BLU player is left, he will get the point.

In fact C turned out better than I expected, when you're defending and someone is capturing your point it gives you an urge to reach it, when you're going through the warehouse you know they are going to be on the high ground with their guns ready and pointing at you, I love a good fight and that certainly looks like a good one heheh, anyways; many people won't like it but I love that feeling.
 

Darksoul

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2009
35
13
I believe last gameday was a successful one for Lumbercamp; but I get the feeling it was cut short for some reason...or I was having too much fun there to not notice the 30 minutes were over. People mentioned issues with player clips and others got stuck on displacements, there's also that weird thing obstacle on the stairs at C; I have no idea what it is and for the moment I have no clue on how to fix it, but it's the first time that's happened.

There's still that issue with BLU players going the wrong way when they respawn; I would like to try another solution before finally deciding to add a wall there (the view is nice). People get mixed feelings with the map the instant they get in, most of them are like "I hate it" and the round hasn't even started, I think it's because of the Gravelpit style. There are also mixed feelings about the diffculty of the captures. From the demo captainAngry published I noticed how the defense organised at A and stayed there until the end of the round, C is not impossible and with the extra path going to C it becomes a little bit hard to defend.

I honestly don't know what to do about the difficulty of the captures, some say they are too easy others too hard...I get the feeling that the teams need to stay together. Anyways post your comments or flames, whatever you see fit.
 

Darksoul

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2009
35
13
I wasn't expecting this thread to be bumped by someone other than me, it's always awsome to know someone else is interested in this little project.

I have been studying more than usual in the past weeks; my semester got really hard, really fast; this week has been nothing than isentropic efficiencies, steam and gas tables, regeneration, reheating, expansion, compresion...and the week before that was mass inertia, angular momentum; and the week before that strength of materials. And frankly I haven't been able to update the map as often, and I don't think it's going to be updated in the following weeks either.

But I've been meaning to change the theme of the map to stormy, the large outdoor spaces , the bright green grass and the ligthing is something that has always bothered me, and I think with cooler colors it would look nicer, or at least less anoying. And maybe add a custom machine to host the small circular saw at B; but it's going to be a while.

Anyways once again, thanks for bumping this and I'll try to grief upcoming gamedays hehe.
 

JSTProductions

L1: Registered
Oct 15, 2009
31
10
Except of the displacements, this looks like lumberdyard (for real man ^^)
It's really nice, looking forward to RC!!!

BTW: I working on lumberdyard-ish map too, koth_woods, check it out if you want:).