Amai (Stage 1)

CP Amai (Stage 1) A8

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
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Amai (Stage 1) - Pretty sweet

Even after all these years, completing a map is the one thing that constantly lingers on my mind. Sometimes I open up Hammer and start to place down a good idea, but I often end up closing the program before anything more comes out of it.

This time though, I stuck around long enough to see the completion of a 2-CP map. The first 2 points of what I hope will eventually become a 2 stage map.

I'm happy with how the A point turned out, but I kinda flubbed the B point. I guess playtesting will tell which parts are really good or not though.
 

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
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Alright gamers. Got Amai into an imp today, not able to participate myself cause I work night shift, but I can look over the demo and feedback to get an idea on how the map plays.

And it's honestly mostly what I expected. A is pretty decent, and B is terrible. The main issues I see are the map being a bit too small, some problematic sightlines, and a nasty choke in the connector from A to B.

My plan currently is to keep A relatively the same (though with a bit of size adjustments.), and remake B entirely. Not sure how long it'll take but I'm in this map for the long haul anyways.
 

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
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After having playtested A1 of Amai, I started work on remaking the B point. After having completed the B point and getting the A2 version completely ready, I wasn't very happy with what came out. The map as a whole lacked height variation and options, leading to a very linear map.

So I decided to remake Amai from scratch. This new map went through several iterations very quickly as you can see from the version number jump. I made a number of designs that didn't satisfy me. The old me would have released the first thing I had come up with, but I'm a much more patient mapper now.

This new Amai has a really cool A point, but I still kinda feel that the B point is weak. Once more, playtesting will decide what works and what doesn't.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
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Okay gamers, got the new version of Amai into an imp, and even got a chance to try it for myself. Much like last time, the playtest went more or less as I expected. A was solid, and the connectors and B were not so good. Something I forgot to change though was the respawn timers, and Blu team ended up waiting about 20 seconds inbetween deaths to attack again. The roof on A also ended up being more safe than I intended.

All things I'll be addressing in A7. I plan on cutting the spawn times, changing some things around A, and redoing B entirely.
 

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
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Well, I expected this to take a couple of days. But I was hit by quite a bit of inspiration earlier and spent a good couple hours mapping. The result is practically a new map, and a much improved B.

Changelog:

- Redid the entirety of the B point and the connectors from A. The new point has more options and height variation, as well as being a bit easier to defend without having unbalanced teams.

- Redid Blu spawn. The old spawn was functional, but oversized. It also had a habit of splitting teams up more than I liked. The new spawn is smaller and more focused.

- Improved the A point. Added extra cover around the point, and shifted some doorways into the point to make defending slightly easier. Also added a room to the left side of the point to force Blu to commit to pushes.

- Flattened the slop on the A point roof. This will stop players from using the side facing away from Blu spawn as cover. The roof now serves its original purpose as a powerful, but exposed and risky holding spot.

- Slightly raised the floor of the A point room, and slightly raised the sloped roof's height. This just makes it slightly more interesting to fight inside the A point building by adding a smidge of height.

- Set custom respawn timers for both teams. This was a major oversight on my behalf with A6. Blu's is around 5 seconds base time, and Red's is around 9 seconds base time. Times of course will vary by up to double depending on how TF2 feels at the moment.

And with that, I think I hit every major piece of feedback I got in at least some way. Thanks to all of you who played A6 earlier.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
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Yessiree gamers, a another day, another test. Well, yesterday anyways. Kinda had to leave in the middle of it cause I had to be at work by 2, but what are you gonna do. I'm just glad I got to play the map again.

The biggest thing I can see needing to change is the connectors to B once again. They're better than A6 but not by much, and Blu found themselves overwhelming spammed a lot of the time. It doesn't help that Blu didn't have enough healthkits to even be able to hold the connectors. I also didn't many people trying to use the sidehut at B, which was disappointing. I also saw that building on A was still a little too unsafe for my liking, so I'll also be making some more changes to the A point building.

Once again, all things I plan on addressing in A8. I plan on redoing at least part of the connectors, and adding some incentives around the map for players to congregrate at certain spots.
 

Moonrat

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Jul 30, 2014
932
585
Back here again. I guess the one good thing to come out of the time I was dropping a map a week was me being able to map very quick. But anyways, I got a new version of Amai here with some changes.

Changelog:

- New lighting and skybox. Kept a similar angle to the old lighting however.

- Did another pass on the connectors from A to B. Not a complete redo but a significant change. The left side gives Blu a better position to push into last with some extra health, ammo, and cover.

- Changed geometry around A, moved some doorways and made the A point slightly safer in general.

- Moved the full ammo kit and medium health kit at A point to the upper level

- Added a small health kit to the drop down room.

- Changed the small health kit in the B connectors to a medium kit.

- Changed small ammo kit under A point to medium health kit.

- Added patches under health and ammo kits, red for health and white for ammo.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 
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