Quagmire

PL Quagmire final

Gus

L1: Registered
Feb 28, 2012
26
17
Well, the map is great, but I got this texture problem.

Also, there's some rocket-jump locations that you can try to remove. Some of them:

1 1B 2 3 3B

And you could put some red-friendly medkits, because seemed that they favor blu.

Anyway, the map is great, and the explosion feature is awesome!
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
Thanks GustavoA for the feedback! This is good stuff.

I'll definitely look into why Pakrat didn't pack up the textures for those models, take a look at medkit pickup balance and fix some of those rocket jump spots. Good finds!
 

bob+M|M+

L6: Sharp Member
Mar 31, 2008
346
394
I had doubts about the gameplay since you jumped into detailing so quickly without testing a public alpha, but after running around the map, the gameplay looks very playable. There are at least 3 paths to every point that all are valid choices of using. So congrats on not screwing up the most important part! I also really like the dynamic element choice you've included. After every cap the cart stalls, allowing red to regroup and preventing steamrolls from point to point. nice!

before you get this on servers, do a nice solid gameplay pass of clipping edges, clipping all your stairs, removing collision on props that get in the way/add clipping around them (like pipes on the wall you can get caught on), lighting all your dark areas, adding plenty of arrows, adding fade distance to A LOT of the props, and better optimization in some key areas.

First of all I would highly recommend getting rid of ALL the smoke. Aesthetically, it's great. It's eerie, and compliments your swamp vibe perfectly... but it is a big FPS killer and will be very apparent when you have 24 people playing at once. Consider that the FIRST thing to get rid of when you start getting complaints about lag.

Here's some other things I saw:

Here's the first area that had bad FPS.
plqm2.jpg

Not sure exactly where to put the topmost hint/skip, since the building is "open" all the way to the peak of the roof... maybe someone else knows.

This area had the worst FPS in the map. Lots of smoke all around, and tons of props+water rendered from all directions.
plqm3.jpg

Occulders may be your solution for rendering all the swamp props past the left. I think a lot of your map could benefit from occluders.


plqm1.jpg
 
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Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
I had doubts about the gameplay since you jumped into detailing so quickly without testing a public alpha, but after running around the map, the gameplay looks very playable. There are at least 3 paths to every point that all are valid choices of using. So congrats on not screwing up the most important part! I also really like the dynamic element choice you've included. After every cap the cart stalls, allowing red to regroup and preventing steamrolls from point to point. nice!

Thanks! Definitely good to hear. I had play tested it many times with some friends, so I had an idea of the problems early and definitely went through a lot of iterations. I just started using this site once I was a little further in.

before you get this on servers, do a nice solid gameplay pass of clipping edges, clipping all your stairs, removing collision on props that get in the way/add clipping around them (like pipes on the wall you can get caught on), lighting all your dark areas, adding plenty of arrows, adding fade distance to A LOT of the props, and better optimization in some key areas.

Yep, definitely on my list of things to do. I've been doing a big push on those things the last few days.

First of all I would highly recommend getting rid of ALL the smoke. Aesthetically, it's great. It's eerie, and compliments your swamp vibe perfectly... but it is a big FPS killer and will be very apparent when you have 24 people playing at once. Consider that the FIRST thing to get rid of when you start getting complaints about lag.

/cry
I know you're right, but it fits the theme so well that I just had to try it out. I'll heed your advice though. If I get complaints about FPS when it's all good and optimized, the smoke will have to go.

The areas you pointed out are definitely areas of mild concern for me. I still have a full prop-fade pass to do and the center building from your first screenshot is long overdue to become a vis-blocker with surrounding hints. It should help some. I have a few portaling bugs that are driving me crazy. You're right - occluders in a few key places might be my best bet.

Thanks for the advice and definitely thanks for downloading and checking it out!
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
We ran this map on the penny arcade server the other night. It wasn't a full server, if I recall it was somewhere around 15 people, so it was a decent crowd.

The map generally played okay but there were a number of complaints that I heard over and over:

a) Poor direction pointing players where to go. Defense spawn felt particularly schizophrenic, every time I spawned it felt like I was being pointed at a new door,
b) Too many buildings resulted in too many routes, people kept complaining of getting lost,
c) Buildings felt too cramped when inside them,
d) Ammo and health was placed oddly, nearly everyone was complaining they couldn't find health when they needed it nor where they expected it,
e) Lots of dark corners under ledges and stairs to hide in that should probably be clipped off, especially between the 2nd and 3rd checkpoints,
f) The final point might be too easy for offense to capture. Probably needs play testing.


I don't mean to come off too critical, like I say, the map played well once we got through the first round and people started to figure out the layout. The checkpoint bombs were amusing to everyone (the amount of blast knockback is hilarious) and no one point felt too hard to coordinate a push.

It certainly looks pretty and pulls off the swamp theme extremely well.

I think if you could reduce the new player disorientation it would do a lot to help initial impressions.
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
Awesome xzzy. If things need to be fixed, then they need to be fixed! You definitely didn't come off too critical.

Most of your criticism is easily tweakable and I'll take a look at those things more closely while working on beta 2 (in which some of this stuff has been looked at already).

Really appreciate you taking the time to let me know these things. I hope to play with 15 real people sometime soon. :)
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
Beta 2 released - Link updated
Full changelog here (ran into character limit on actual changelog?):

Appreciate the help and advice from people that have contributed!

3/10/2012
- Detail complete!
- Gameplay pass
  • Tweaked some health / ammo placement
  • Added decals to all health / ammo placement spawn locations
  • Added more arrow signs
  • Lit up some dark corners
- Big optimization pass (still some more to do. Always more to do)
  • Portaled the center building
  • Fade distance pass on most props
  • Lowered density on swamp smoke
- Clip pass
  • Ramp clipped all stairs
  • Angle clipped little pieces that you could get caught up on along walls
  • Non-colliding prop pass on all small props attached to walls
  • Tweaks to some prop collision for demomen (so stickies would work)
  • Clip ceiling so demomen couldn't sticky jump out of the clip walls
- Lots of bugfixes
  • Fixed all(?) cubemap seams in the water
  • Fixed some bad model sorting through glass
  • Fixed missing textures for timebomb model
  • Fixed a stuck spot and a spot you could see out of the map
  • Removed shadows on some dynamic objects like lockers that were making funky shadows

Known Issues to be resolved:
  • Some trees that you can see over some rooftops are popping in and out in certain spots from some portaling. I have a plan to fix this.
  • Could improve framerate in a few areas some more
 
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Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
Beta 3 up. Link updated.

3/15/12
- Feature Complete!
- Detail grass
- Swapped out swamp water for 2Fort water since it was crashing some people
- Ambient sounds
- Soundscapes
- Lots of bug fixes

Known Issue: Detail grass on the terrain in the skybox. Whoops.

Added a top down image.
 

Wilson

Boomer by Sleep
aa
May 4, 2010
1,385
1,223
I forgot to feedback this during gameday so i say it here.

The map is pretty cool despite fps problems and some odd detail choices, but pretty much all outdoor areas lack any height difference (Expect for that short hill and walkway near it) for non-explosive classes. Almost all major height difference on map was roofs and most of them had no real way on them.

Other issue was lack of health, there was few health packs around, but mostly in areas that don't help attackers and they weren't all that useful for defenders either.
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
I forgot to feedback this during gameday so i say it here.

The map is pretty cool despite fps problems and some odd detail choices, but pretty much all outdoor areas lack any height difference (Expect for that short hill and walkway near it) for non-explosive classes. Almost all major height difference on map was roofs and most of them had no real way on them.

Other issue was lack of health, there was few health packs around, but mostly in areas that don't help attackers and they weren't all that useful for defenders either.

Thanks Wilson. I definitely am putting some work into the framerate issue, so I'll be anxious to hear what you think on the next revision. I have already done an extensive pass on portaling, model fading, etc, but there is also just a lot of stuff in the map (as well as some expensive stuff that I just wanted to try).

I am also looking at the health issue. The health was a first pass and this was the first time I had been able to get it in a gameday, so something was expected. Thanks for the criticism.
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
b4 update

Beta 4 update

- Removed all smoke volumes (barely noticeable and hogged resources)
- Removed all prop_physics (barely noticeable and hogged resources)
- Reset water_lod_controller back to default (had doubled the lod distances)
- Fixed detail grass in the skybox terrain
- Fixed a few props that were lodding out too early
- In an embarrassing attempt to place arrows I found that I was backwards on what I thought the arrows did. Reversed them to make more sense
(I had arrows pointed to the red base, but later was told that red arrows point in the direction that red should travel)
- Added a couple more cubemaps
- Implemented a bunch of feedback from last game day
- Added / adjusted health and ammo
- Fixed all errors on load (pesky Vphysics errors)
- 216 props remove
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
Beta 5 update
Changelists are getting smaller!

3/31/2012
- Clipped a few edges that I found that were still catching me
- Fixed a nasty sightline that Wilson found into the blue forward spawn. Thanks Wilson
- Fixed some z-fighting in a distant swamp section
- Added a rock for cover and a small health on the blue side of checkpoint 1
 

Monsterclip

L2: Junior Member
Jul 9, 2011
57
37
If you downloaded b5 before this post please grab it again. I forgot to pack custom files into the bsp. Download link is updated.
 

ics

http://ics-base.net
aa
Jun 17, 2010
841
541
I agree with Behind You, even though your map is beta, its BAD to have multiple versions around with same name. This is why when maps such as Freight and Gullywash went official, they both were renamed as _final1 instead of _final that they used to be to avoid having players who had maps downloaded with same name to have conflicts, aka dropped from a server due to different version of the map. Many people cannot even fix this issue because they dont know why it's happening.