CP Soot

Mar 20, 2012
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This map is temporarily on hold for the duration of the KOTH contest!

A standard, displaced push 5CP map that takes place in an industrial hotspot within a cold setting. Both teams first vie for control over a pivotal train stop and continue on to try and overthrow their competitor's encroaching coal business. The map will utilize a Barnblitz-type aesthetic at mid that merges into a Gorge/Coldfront aesthetic towards lasts.

Special thanks to:
A Boojum Snark for his awesome game/prop libraries
TWTCH182 for usage of his server
 
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Mar 20, 2012
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Looks good, I like the 2nd point.

Use fog_override 1 and fog_enable 0 for overview screenshots.

Thank you. I was trying to figure that out. I didn't know about the override console command.

Fr0Z3n said:
For some odd reason I really like final, but it seems too open.

Maybe I'm just too used to indoor finals.

This is something I am definitely keeping an eye on. I originally had an indoor finale planned, but I wanted to try something different. Cover is one of those things I am looking at. The spawn doors are another (at the current moment, you can be sniped coming out of them. I am not a fan of that.)

Thanks for the comments, guys. I'll make sure to put it up for the next game day.

EDIT: New overview up - now with 100% less eye pain.
 
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Mar 20, 2012
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Thanks for everyone that came to the gameday. It was extremely informative and I got back a lot of interesting feedback.

Here's some things I have planned for A2+ (going in order of priority):

1) I'm going to spend a good deal of time on the signage. There's already a few signs, but I really want to direct the flow towards the points. I like the option of being able to travel between Mid and Last without directly coming into contact with 2nd, but I want that to be a conscious decision. There was also a few complaints about not knowing where to go after spawning at both forwards. This will be addressed.

2) The transition between 2/4 and middle will be simplified. I plan to keep the building with the dropdown (although the chickenwire corner will become inaccessible). The sewer entrance will be changed so it can be rocket/sticky jumped over. The building separating the sewer and 2nd might shrink.

3) I want to reduce the overall amount of chokes in the map. I noticed the map got stuck a lot between Mid and 2/4. I want to give the offensive team coming from Mid an option that doesn't involve going through a tight doorway.

4) Of course, and I'm knocking this out as I type, I'll be fixing the bugs (improper bullet blocks/z-fighting/slow doors).

A thing I do want to start a conversation about is Last. I want to hear opinions about it. I know Fr0Z3n noted that it seems open. I do plan to give it more cover in the future. I want to hear, from today's playtest, how it felt. Was it too hard to defend? Awkward to fight on? I'd love to hear opinions.

Once again, thank you guys for your feedback. I appreciate it greatly.
 

tyler

aa
Sep 11, 2013
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4,621
I totally forgot to post for you!

I think this is a great map and it's one of the best put together alphas I have played in a while. Really refreshing. Here are some things I think you should think about (and in some cases you are already).

http://i.imgur.com/a7IzR.jpg
I like that 2/4 is kind of out of the way, like Badlands, and I think it works fine and won't be an issue. But I think that you should do something to this to make it stand out more, because at this point it just looks like high ground. The spire is kind of an attention grabber, since it's alone and huge and weird; your 2/4 isn't so unique.

http://i.imgur.com/rMbz9.jpg
Coming from last and moving this this doorway, my instinct is not to go right. I've already turned right once and it feels weird to do it again. I'm moving back towards spawn now if that's what I do. The arrow is there, but it doesn't stand out at all (blue on blue, and it's in shadow), nor is it invasive enough for me to want to follow it when I do see it. It took me a while to get this down.

http://i.imgur.com/VjsHc.jpg
This got me a few times also. Coming out of this spawn, my instinct is to go through the huge open door right next to me with glowing signs in it that say EXIT and CAPTURE POINT. You know? Not that gray tunnel.

http://i.imgur.com/E3Nhm.jpg
This is a long boring walk that I don't like much.

http://i.imgur.com/sMHBY.jpg
Another 180 degree turn, but this one is a lot tighter than the one I just posted about. Again, the sign just doesn't stand out. In this case, I might suggest doing the moving sign trick and placing a large billboard sign in front of the player, in the door that looks at mid (not in this screen), then another pointing right, into the tunnel. Up to you.

http://i.imgur.com/SEH8N.jpg
This is backwards. The roller goes inside.

http://i.imgur.com/VLgTL.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/n3IOc.jpg
May want to fix this! There are a few other minor visual things that I didn't screenshot because it's an a1, like the displacement near the hydro guard rail being just a top. I'm sure you know about it.
 
Mar 20, 2012
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yyler said:
I guess I had went with the assumption that the colored team signs would be enough (and it might when the map is actually textured with materials that aren't straight up blue and red). I'll see how I can get it to stick out a bit more.

yyler said:
Considering that the 'see-through' portion of the building wasn't a success, I might work with it so the entrance doesn't force the player to do a 180. Good point.

yyler said:
Yep. That one is annoying and gets a lot of people turned around.

yyler said:
Hmm. Well, I don't see how I can replace that walk without removing the sewer entrance. I could possibly just all-together remove the sewer portion (which would mean the player doesn't go down and, thus, up)

yyler said:
It's moments like these that I wish there was a middle-ground between barely visible overlay arrows and in-your-face giant arrows. Thanks for the suggestion.

yyler said:
Doh. :)


yyler said:

Aye. Working these out. I will probably be redo-ing a lot of these displacements once I kick into detail/aesthetic drive. Thanks for the headsup.

Great feedback, yyler.
 

thaumiel

L1: Registered
May 9, 2012
28
7
Last seemed quite easy to attack. As an outdoor point (nothing wrong with that) it's kind of like Freight except without the easily defensible chokepoints. Pushing out of last is also literally an uphill battle (and there are lots of flank routes for backcaps), that said we did manage it at least once so i suspect losing 2nd isn't quite as bad as, say, losing Gran 2nd. The shorter distance helps i suppose.

Not sure i can say anything very helpful here, I thought the map was quite fun :p If i have a criticism it's only that last doesn't have anything immediately unique and interesting about it. Mid is awesome, forward is pretty interesting to attack and defend, last is just... kinda there. It's not bad, it's just not really cool like the rest of the points >.>

and another thing - you can capture forward without clearing its area. I'm not sure how else to put this. Blands spire is hard to reach and easily spammable so you have to make sure no enemies remain in the area in order to successfully cap it. One person remaining in the gran house can make your life difficult—or, if your team is coming through, will be forced to retreat. Pushing into this forward doesn't force your enemies to retreat. The area can remain contested even after the point is captured, which could potentially lead to stalemates. again, this didn't really happen in our test, but all the points at which the game slowed down quite a lot were when one team was trying to hold forward. the chokey entrances from mid didn't help much either.

hopefully this makes sense... i'm not saying change it, just a thing to think about (and one that might be different anyway once you make your planned changes to chokes & transitions)
 

Sergis

L666: ])oo]v[
aa
Jul 22, 2009
1,874
1,257
i enjoyed playing this map. its quite wide though, not overscaled, just wide - runtimes seem fine but fighting distances are often at a very falloff-affected range. i didnt really like the circular tunnel to mid because it's very lowground with no real option to bail out. the second point has to be made more noticeable too. looking forward to next iterations.
 
Mar 20, 2012
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kiriona said:
Last seemed quite easy to attack. As an outdoor point (nothing wrong with that) it's kind of like Freight except without the easily defensible chokepoints. Pushing out of last is also literally an uphill battle (and there are lots of flank routes for backcaps), that said we did manage it at least once so i suspect losing 2nd isn't quite as bad as, say, losing Gran 2nd. The shorter distance helps i suppose.
It was sort of a conscious decision. I did a good deal of research on competitive play when dealing with last and one of the most common complaints about maps that I see from comp. players is "last is too hard to attack."

On the other hand, I don't want it to be impossible to defend. It's one of those hard balances that I feel will keep me tweaking last until I reach it.

kiriona said:
Not sure i can say anything very helpful here, I thought the map was quite fun :p If i have a criticism it's only that last doesn't have anything immediately unique and interesting about it. Mid is awesome, forward is pretty interesting to attack and defend, last is just... kinda there. It's not bad, it's just not really cool like the rest of the points >.>
I have plans to make last unique in terms of aesthetics. If that's not enough, I'll jump back to my sketchbook and see what else I can do to shake it up a bit. Dr. Element and Mangy said the geometry is pretty neat. However, geometry doesn't float everyone's boat.

kiriona said:
and another thing - you can capture forward without clearing its area. I'm not sure how else to put this. Blands spire is hard to reach and easily spammable so you have to make sure no enemies remain in the area in order to successfully cap it. One person remaining in the gran house can make your life difficult—or, if your team is coming through, will be forced to retreat. Pushing into this forward doesn't force your enemies to retreat. The area can remain contested even after the point is captured, which could potentially lead to stalemates. again, this didn't really happen in our test, but all the points at which the game slowed down quite a lot were when one team was trying to hold forward. the chokey entrances from mid didn't help much either.
Yep. I definitely noticed this. On a post on the last page, I said I wanted to give offenders from Mid an option to reach 2nd without passing through a hard choke. From the testing, it looks as if the sewer might have been a bad idea (as Sergis and yyler have noted) and a good option to give the map a chokeless path to forward.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. Lot of interesting and helpful comments.