KotH koth_building [Deleted]

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Da Spud Lord

Occasionally I make maps
aa
Mar 23, 2017
1,339
994
Some tips from one noob mapmaker to another:
20170403204719_1.jpg
When I first spawn, the first problem I notice are these ugly white circles on the wall everywhere, which I assume are your light entities. You can remove these white circles by moving your light entities away from the walls. In fact, throughout the map it appears lighting was just chucked around the map randomly- and I mean that literally.
20170403205433_1.jpg
However, I will say that so far, your map looks pretty solid for a first map, until I walk out of spawn, and oh boy, where do I begin...
20170403211202_1.jpg
Let's start with the obvious, the fact that the map is one giant sniper sightline. A sniper can literally walk out of spawn and instantly headshot someone coming out of the opposite spawn. That's not usually a good thing.
While the most obvious way to break up sightlines is to chuck some props or walls around, another way to break up sightlines is by adding hills, as seen below:
Untitled.png
This will also create height variation, which can kill two birds with one stone- just be careful about where and how you add your height variation, as you (usually) don't want players fighting their way out of spawn with a height disadvantage. Think about how you want players to play on your map, and how players will react to changes in your map. Play some Valve maps to get a good idea of how players interact with height variation and how it affects your map.
20170403205930_1.jpg
There is TONS of health and ammo on this map. Perhaps reduce some of this a little.
20170403205942_1.jpg
Not to mention floating health and ammo, which is useless to everyone but soldier and demo, and gives these classes a huge advantage.
20170403210102_1.jpg
Having 3 spawn exits is a good thing, but having them all this close together, and making all of them this small, kinda negates that.
20170403210207_1.jpg
Oh, and this spawn door doesn't close all the way.

Aside from the control point, there's little height variation on this map.
20170403210652_1.jpg
It's also difficult to tell which side is red's and which side is blu's.
20170403210408_1.jpg 20170403210415_1.jpg
The map is not perfectly symmetrical. The capture zone is slightly closer to blu's side than red's, as seen in the above screenshots where I'm standing at the edge of the capture zone on each side of the point.
20170403210526_1.jpg
And both large health packs are facing red's side.
20170403211202_1.jpg
There also appears to be a bug where when a player opens their spawn door, the same corresponding spawn door on the other team's side opens as well. There is nobody else on this server- only me- yet when I stand in this door's trigger area, the enemy team's front spawn door opens, and when I leave this door's trigger area, the enemy team's front spawn door closes.

Also, the map file is named wip. Just wip. Not koth_building, or koth_wip, but just wip. Perhaps you should change that?


Welp, that's my 2 cents. While I have 1000 hours in TF2, I only have 1 map released at the time of writing, so you can take some of my tips with a grain of salt. Hopefully this will at least help you in some way. Good luck in your future mapping endeavors!

EDIT: Added a tip about height variation and sightlines, and mentioned that the map is currently just named wip.
 

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[G.E.W.P]Alepro

L1: Registered
Apr 3, 2017
9
1
thanks so here are some answers:
i actually did put light props randomly just by clicking around.
i will try to solve the sniper sightline.
change ammo and health packs`s positions
i was having trouble with the spawn doors now i will use prefabs
Thank you!
Some tips from one noob mapmaker to another:
20170403204719_1.jpg
When I first spawn, the first problem I notice are these ugly white circles on the wall everywhere, which I assume are your light entities. You can remove these white circles by moving your light entities away from the walls. In fact, throughout the map it appears lighting was just chucked around the map randomly- and I mean that literally.
20170403205433_1.jpg
However, I will say that so far, your map looks pretty solid for a first map, until I walk out of spawn, and oh boy, where do I begin...
20170403211202_1.jpg
Let's start with the obvious, the fact that the map is one giant sniper sightline. A sniper can literally walk out of spawn and instantly headshot someone coming out of the opposite spawn. That's not usually a good thing.
While the most obvious way to break up sightlines is to chuck some props or walls around, another way to break up sightlines is by adding hills, as seen below:
Untitled.png
This will also create height variation, which can kill two birds with one stone- just be careful about where and how you add your height variation, as you (usually) don't want players fighting their way out of spawn with a height disadvantage. Think about how you want players to play on your map, and how players will react to changes in your map. Play some Valve maps to get a good idea of how players interact with height variation and how it affects your map.
20170403205930_1.jpg
There is TONS of health and ammo on this map. Perhaps reduce some of this a little.
20170403205942_1.jpg
Not to mention floating health and ammo, which is useless to everyone but soldier and demo, and gives these classes a huge advantage.
20170403210102_1.jpg
Having 3 spawn exits is a good thing, but having them all this close together, and making all of them this small, kinda negates that.
20170403210207_1.jpg
Oh, and this spawn door doesn't close all the way.

Aside from the control point, there's little height variation on this map.
20170403210652_1.jpg
It's also difficult to tell which side is red's and which side is blu's.
20170403210408_1.jpg 20170403210415_1.jpg
The map is not perfectly symmetrical. The capture zone is slightly closer to blu's side than red's, as seen in the above screenshots where I'm standing at the edge of the capture zone on each side of the point.
20170403210526_1.jpg
And both large health packs are facing red's side.
20170403211202_1.jpg
There also appears to be a bug where when a player opens their spawn door, the same corresponding spawn door on the other team's side opens as well. There is nobody else on this server- only me- yet when I stand in this door's trigger area, the enemy team's front spawn door opens, and when I leave this door's trigger area, the enemy team's front spawn door closes.

Also, the map file is named wip. Just wip. Not koth_building, or koth_wip, but just wip. Perhaps you should change that?


Welp, that's my 2 cents. While I have 1000 hours in TF2, I only have 1 map released at the time of writing, so you can take some of my tips with a grain of salt. Hopefully this will at least help you in some way. Good luck in your future mapping endeavors!

EDIT: Added a tip about height variation and sightlines, and mentioned that the map is currently just named wip.
 

Kyzer

L2: Junior Member
Apr 29, 2016
75
26
Something I recommend as an experienced mapper is to make a .vmf with a lot of prefabricated objects. I use one constantly when mapping for Portal 2. Though, its a lot less useful for something like TF2, since map design isn't so oriented around generic elements.

Don't get discouraged if you don't like a map you've made, either. We've all (especially me) have thrown away literally thousands of maps over the years. I still haven't released anything close to finished for TF2, since it's extremely difficult for me to adjust to the scaling (since I started mapping with HL2 / gmod / portal) and TF2's playermodels are about 1.2x the scale of those games. It doesn't seem like a lot, but it's enough to screw my scaling up almost 60-80% of the time.

also im not really good at designing things i feel work gameplay-wise
 

[G.E.W.P]Alepro

L1: Registered
Apr 3, 2017
9
1
So this is the first update and its pretty big
changelog:
reduced sniper sightline
added 2 props (yay)
made sniper/sentry spots
removed flying health and ammo packs for soldiers,demos or scouts
used prafabs for doors
remade spawns
changed positions of light props
added images
added spectator cameras
(end)

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Da Spud Lord

Occasionally I make maps
aa
Mar 23, 2017
1,339
994
You've made plenty of progress in improving your map, which is great. I got some more feedback for you:
20170516171033_1.jpg
Walking up these stairs feels bumpy, and that feels weird for players. I recommend clipping them. Clipping them basically means covering them in a ramp made of the tools/toolsclip texture. This texture is invisible in-game, but is solid to players. By doing this, players will walk smoothly up the stairs as if they were walking up a ramp. Here is an example of clipped stairs in my map koth_cliffside:
Untitled.png
A couple notes:
-Don't worry about clip brushes overlapping other brushes. This is fine and will cause no problems.
-Clip brushes do not block weapon shots, like rockets and bullets.
-Make sure your stairs are func_detail; that is, select all of them by ctrl-clicking, converting them to a brush entity with the "toEntity" button, and selecting func_detail as the class. func_detail brushes don't cut visleafs, which saves time when compiling.

20170516171047_1.jpg
This prop is solid, allowing players to stand on it. Not a problem in and of itself, however...
20170516171050_1.jpg
...This prop does not exist on the Blu team's side, making the map favor Red as Red has another "perch point" to stand on and shoot down on players below. This "perch point" especially favors soldiers who gain great power in a fight when they have a height advantage. You can fix this by adding the same (or similar) prop to the other side, removing this prop, or making this prop not solid under the "Collisions" property.

20170516171154_1.jpg
This prop is also not mirrored to the other side, again creating imbalance.

One of the walls surrounding the battlements on Blu team's side is shorter than the others, as seen below. Although this isn't anywhere near game-breaking, it can create a slight imbalance as it gives Blu players standing on this battlement slightly less cover.
20170516171116_1.jpg 20170516171129_1.jpg
Left: The short wall on Blu's side. Right: A normal wall. Every wall except for the wall on the left has the same height as the wall on the right.

20170516171222_1.jpg
These doors are incredibly small, effectively acting as a chokepoint. Players don't like chokepoints as they bunch players together, making them easy targets- especially for explosive classes. Not saying you should never use chokepoints, just be careful when using them, and always have a few routes going around them to give players choices.

20170516171614_1.jpg
This white circle hurt my eyes when looking at it.

20170516174934_1.jpg
This drop is kind of tall. Remember that any drop taller than 256 hammer units causes fall damage, so drops above 256 hammer units should be used sparingly as players generally tend to dislike these drops. Again, consider how this will impact gameplay when designing your map. It doesn't help that the other main route to the control point from spawn is a chokepoint.

20170516180551_1.jpg
Red players can stand on top of the Blu team's respawn room visualizer. This especially makes spawncamping easy. Slide the respawn room visualizer closer to the door so that this can't happen. This is especially problematic as Blu cannot stand on Red's respawn room visualizer, further creating imbalance. (Gee, what do you have against Blu?)

Anyway, that's what I have to say for now. Keep on mapping and improving!

EDIT: Added a note about Red being able to stand on Blu's respawn room visualizer.
 
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[G.E.W.P]Alepro

L1: Registered
Apr 3, 2017
9
1
Hello. so this map has been sort of abandoned but im happy to say that it wont be anymore.
im going to try to make an overhaul using all the feedback i got. (well most of it anyway) i will be waiting a bit if someone wants to make another comment.
Thanks to everyone
 
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