CP Overwatcher

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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Submission into the Tale of Two Skillsets Mapping Competition First Half.

Detailing submitted into the Tale of Two Skillsets Mapping Competition Second Half.

Highnoon is a map that is intended to take the style of Standin and expand it to create a larger, more intense feeling map. Most people tend to think that Standin is a map that is rather small, and I agree. So this is larger.

Some focuses of the map are flank routes into the points (Most if not all paths between the points exist in pairs rather than being only one, which contrasts from Standin). I try to also have a general theme of going downhill as you progress from A to C. Finally, I want to express a lot of different gameplay styles in one map, with big cluster fights on B to lots of flanking on A to a tight, long hallway feel on C. I hope the balance of areas in the map gives everyone something that they enjoy in the map.
 
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Sergis

L666: ])oo]v[
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Jul 22, 2009
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i didnt really feel the "more intense" part, either i arrive to a point where there is an ordinary fight or i arrive to an empty point and stand around waiting for it to get capped already

the most disheartening part about standin maps though is losing as you cap the point. i get that overtime would make rounds near unwinnable but the way it is losing sometimes is more disappointing than it should be
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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I think in the next version I'm gonna toy with some of the distances and respawn times. Notably the distance to A and structure of A is probably going to be changed a lot, though I may not do that in the next version now that I'm thinking about it.

I'm probably going to drastically cut the spawn times (Like half them) or do something to where owning a point means a longer respawn ala koth. I'll also try to make it more informative to the paths leaving spawn, and where you are generally.

Hopefully those changes I'm thinking of will help to set the pace of the map more positively. I'm wanting it to feel like you're fighting a lot over a large area, and I'm getting the feeling that people aren't.
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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Updated to a3a. In this update, I have introduced a new A point. I have no idea how it plays. I mean, I have an idea on how it WILL play, but I don't know if it's more fun or less fun. But it sure feels closer to B and more vertical, so it has that going for it.

I've introduced a new spawning mechanic into this mode as a test. When you start, you have a respawnwave of 2. As you cap more points, it increases. If you own one point, it goes to 5. If you own two points, it goes to 8. Both of these are reductions on what it was beforehand, so you should see a lot more spawning and pushing.

Note though this means that defending your caps is more important than ever. If you have two caps, they'll be able to have the spawn advantage to better push both at once. So you have to buckle down and just say "Hey, We're gonna defend" when you get assaulted like this. You can also try to cap their last point, but for the most part, if you don't defend and they've already put time on the caps, you're probably going to lose. This also means that it's harder to attack that last point.

I'm trying to structure this in a way such that running around your enemy and capping the points will result in you losing. I want there to be combat involved with capping. Unless you're giving up a cap. In which case, whatever. Interesting tactic.
 
Aug 23, 2008
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Just FYI, I had a spawning mechanic very similar to that one for the initial versions of Standin (b1-b7 or so). The version that is in TF2 now (which is basically RC1) does not have that feature. While it might seem good to have a spawn timer which incentives the losing team coming back from a down and out position, ultimately it gave defenders way too much of an edge, especially considering they could still take advantage of their spawn advantage right up until they captured a second control point. Likewise, it incentives really absurd behavior with neutral capture points; maintaining the capture right up until it would be captured and then stepping off it, because you maintain a spawn wave of 2 (which seems absurdly low btw), the enemy team has to capture through your capture time on the point and then their own.

Someone put it to me like this: in a 5cp map, the aggressor gets a spawn advantage. If the defender got a spawn advantage, 5cp's would be even MORE stalemate prone, with a last point that would almost be uncappable. Its all well and good to imagine that giving the defenders a slight boost helps them get back in the game is good design, but ultimately TF2 has a whole host of defensive classes, abilities and weapons, that you don't really need promote defenders, but instead focus on giving the team which is in a dominant position the ability to push through and win a round.

Standin and rooftop both currently have a very simple spawn mechanic. Each point has red spawn adjust and blue spawn adjust set to -1, with a starting spawn wave of 7. If you cap a point, you get a spawn boost. If you leave a point uncapped, you are at a deficit (which means, you want to capture a point as quickly as possible). If you control more points than the opponent, then you spawn faster, which means you are more likely to win. By keeping it to a very low value of -1, you keep the focus on the teams and their coordination, rather than whether or not they are winning or losing, but give a slight nod to the attacker, whose previous success should be rewarded IMO.

Obviously, you might say "But koth!", and you would have a point. Except, that in koth if a team has control of the point they are going to win eventually, just due to the nature of the capture mechanics. 3 minutes, and they have a round. That means, the defenders have to push out and secure the koth, or they are screwed. The capture time acts as a incentive to push out and be agressive. In standin style maps, you can sit back and keep putting capture time on a neutral point for as long as you want, until you see an opportunity to move forward (which means, you can just cap the point and start capping the second point) and you are REWARDED for doing so with absurd respawn times. That strikes me, and the comp players who I was talking to as really bad design.

Obviously, its your map and you can do what you want. But, as someone who has been down that road, just thought I would point out some potential flaws with that style of design.
 

Bereth

L4: Comfortable Member
Dec 13, 2011
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Obviously, you might say "But koth!", and you would have a point. Except, that in koth if a team has control of the point they are going to win eventually, just due to the nature of the capture mechanics. 3 minutes, and they have a round. That means, the defenders have to push out and secure the koth, or they are screwed.

But with Koth, the defensive team does have the spawn disadvantage. There is nowhere further to push to other than the opponent's spawn. By capping you go from being the attacking team to the defending one. Seems consistent to me.
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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Thanks for the advice, Scorpio. Good to hear about the pitfalls of my current design. I actually didn't know Standin used to operate somewhat similar (Though I'm positive it wasn't as drastic)

Yeah, I was worried about the whole people choosing not to cap a point to retain the spawn times thing. I do have some worries about that.

The only thing is, I'm actually really prone to liking the whole spawn time of 2 for some reason in the beginning. It just makes things living hell, in a really fun way. So I don't know if I want to give that up. It's probably better that I do though.

In the end, the big thing I had wanted to accomplish with this is incentivising fighting around control points rather than endlessly backcapping. With a 2 respawnwavetime, you have almost no punishment for death, so fighting is more attractive. With a 5 respawnwavetime, my reasoning was that you'd feel more justified in pushing into a point that could be defended because you'd be up to save your cap probably.

But now that I think about it, there are probably more elegant ways of encouraging that rather than just making everyone spawn super fast when at a disadvantage.
 
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Aug 23, 2008
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But with Koth, the defensive team does have the spawn disadvantage. There is nowhere further to push to other than the opponent's spawn. By capping you go from being the attacking team to the defending one. Seems consistent to me.

They have a spawn advantage because they respawn faster. It has nothing to do with map layout, but with the way the map handles changing the respawn waves.
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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A4 Released. Reverted Spawn Times to 7-6-5 (based on number of caps). I think this will work out ok because of the scale of the map.

I'm pretty much done with this. I added in some lighting that I expect to be gone when the detailing starts. So have fun with the lighting! It's just a little guide.

Hopefully this map turned out ok.
 

TMP

Ancient Pyro Main
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Aug 11, 2008
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Renamed Highnoon, released B1

Download for BZ2

8Ioyn


I rushed to finish the detailing in the matter of about 2 days. (3 days, I took a break in between though). A is absoulte garbage in terms of detailing and the spawns definitely need work. The map feels bare. I'm going to be touching it up after Saturday occurs (maybe a bit in between now and then?) to get it to a state where it looks good.

I'm happy that I managed to push it to B1. I like the look of B and C. I'm going to be modifying the packs a bit and probably will redesign A a bit for B2. I like the feel of A but the gameplay just isn't quite there yet and the detailing certainly isn't.

The 3dskybox will look better too. B2 will be more polished, I guarantee it. I'm not going to release it until I'm content with it.
 
Mar 23, 2010
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proud of u tmp. now do this same thing for petrol
 

evanonline

L420: High Member
Mar 15, 2009
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Oh, this looks great so far! I was a fan of this during the first phase of testing and I'm excited to see where it goes from here.