[WIP] tc_meridian

Personally I didn't notice bland hallways. And if there is one, it has to be there, it shouldn't be all eye candy because then you wouldn't know where to look at. Shmitz did a great job, I went trough the entire map a few times and I didn't see things that I don't like. Sometimes bland is good.

God this is a terrible explaination of what I mean :/

I played a few rounds on this, here are my thoughts again.

For some reason, even on servers I have no lag on, this map makes me lag like crazy. For instance, I'll be walking down, and suddenly my screen shakes and I'm back where I was 10 seconds ago. Its annoying and frustrating. It happens in particular near the custom models/textures, which are everywhere.

Also, I noticed that the flag dissapears in 30 seconds. This really unbalances gameplay, as players will drop the flag, and before they even spawn the flag is gone. This causes more stalemates than control point, actually. Even the concept of going into the base to get the intel and going out makes it much, much tougher with 30 seconds only. This is basically telling engys to camp in their base. I've seen most stalemates and games go like this:
One team makes push with uber
Defending kills some of offensive.
One person runs out with intel, dies.
Offensive team respawns, flag returns before they even make it.
I don't understand how this ctf method was supposed to make stalemates less likely, because with ctf it is near impossible to cap, forcing the opposing team to camp as well.

|Cerious| said:

I don't understand how this ctf method was supposed to make stalemates less likely

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With ctf you just grab the intel and run away, with a CP you have to stand there in the enemy base for a while and defend yourself on the CP.

In ctf though, you still need a huge offensive to break through the campfest (if they've set one up, which happens in the majority of matches I've played on this). In cp, with the offensive you've made you could already have won the game, since with the offensive you killed the defense (and have to stay there to hold them off), making huge pushes worthwhile. I've found that in ctf, it is pretty much near impossible to grab the intel, and make it out. Ctf doesn't really reward big pushes, only defending the guy on the way out, so why even bother with ubers, medics, and the like? Even then it is pretty hard, so much that players HAVE to defend the intel. The only victory in any game that I played on this map yesterday was me going spy, and making it out with 7 health. All previous attempts had me dying and the flag returning before I could make it back. I decided to turtle the next game because it was so hard to do anything.

Another issues: This map doesn't reward teams for controlling the middle ground. In Hydro, any team controlling the middle usually won. In this map, the middle is basically 3 tunnels/caves/whatever and you're at the entrance to the enemy base.

What's the biggest challenge to overcome when facing a turtling team? A: A lot of sentries. But not just any design of sentry location. When you have 6 or so sentries grouped together, a single demoman uber can take them all out. When, as in Hydro's "Dam" point, its "Bridge" point, and its " Satellite dish" point, or in dustbowl 2-2, there is enough space to spread the sentries out in a pattern that covers each one, stalemates arise because it is nearly impossible to overcome the knockback to destroy all the sentries. Now look how the intel rooms were designed in Meridian. Sub: Tight area around the intel, lots of entry points though. Temple: Same. Village: Same, especially on Volcano-Village. Boat: Same. Volcano: A different challenge for both defenders and attackers, because it is at once the largest and most open area. Now that the windows on the intel room are removed, there is no one effective sentry location. Defense has to get creative to turtle on this one, especially as a single sticky jump can get the flag carrier up and out of the base.

Red's lair is pretty balanced as far as wins/losses go. However, it is definitely the most effectively turtled- but hell, taking the last point in a TC map should be difficult anyway.

We're not ignoring your criticisms out of ignorance, rather sticking to intentional design that has proved itself in playtesting.

By the way, Shmitz or I usually lead our teams to victory when playing. Coincidence? No, we know how the map works. Strategy IS needed. So no, bumrushing into the base without a plan will get you nothing. Getting an uber in there, hitting the sentries while a spy helps you, having a heavy cover the spawn exits and allowing your scout to jump in there to grab the intel will result in a successful capture. At least, so says 132 rounds of playtesting.

some points:

1. some servers dislike spawncamping but your spawns are almost too close to the intel to avoid it
2. some people on the the server i was playing on were upset over the lack of railing in the uberbot room

I'd like to pay some tribute to the autors, a bit later, but I felt it was compulsory to do so.

Unfortunately, the combined territory control mode, the lack of HUD and some level design decisions made this map unpopular on our servers, which I regret. So I want to say this don't alter the whole awesomeness of what you have done there, pushing far beyond the limits this game had in the first place. I don't know what the whole feedback has been for you, but let me express that we still need mappers wanting to dig themselves into this kind of hazardous and crazy projects, however the welcome may sound like. Thank you.

I thought the 2nd one would have been more important, IE, "Added check in CTF HUD to make sure it doesn't point at disabled capture zones when the player is carrying the flag. Allows map authors to have more than one capture zone for each team in the map"

The first one is much more important for Meridian...

Suh-weet.

YEAAA THIS IS AMAZING!!! :lol::drool1::thumbup: but what is the flag? i cant find it anywhere. :crying:

\o/

So, Shmitz - you said before that the tc_meridian team would try to push the map as a possible community map in the next class update. According to the recent blog post the Scout class pack is quite close BUT the changes in this hotfix patch seem as if they finally heeded your requests, so I wonder if there's any (non-classified ^^) info on whether Valve contacted you back and considered this possibility?
I don't know what the community map selection/nomination process looks like.

Wow, this would solve the biggest gripe that I have of this map - being unable to find the intelligence. Awesome.

[SpA]Lim-Dul;49074 said:

I don't know what the community map selection/nomination process looks like.

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Valve run weekly play tests of cutsom maps (I guess they all do some recon throughout the week looking for new maps) if they like it they'll play it some more, and then some more, and if the liky it enough I think the next move is them sending you an email, after that I've no idea what goes on.
There isn't any formal nomination process, but if you want a map made official badly just send robin walker an email telling him so, or find one of the many threads in the steam forum about favourite custom maps.

Also, EPIC NEWS! :thumbup1::thumbup::thumbup1::thumbup::thumbup1: