Furnace Creek (cp_furnace)

Oh yeah, for anyone who was concerned about all the rocks and not being able to get ontop of them... as scout I managed to get onto almost all of the rocks and small buildings, including on top of B. It's also possible for most other classes to get on top of most of the rocks at A with some clever jumping, as well as a few of B.

We played a2 last night with around 6 or 7 people per team. While I can't really comment too much on the gameplay since we had some shenanigans going on (flaregun-only pyros and stuff like that), I can definitely say that it's a big improvement over a1. The amount of health on the map seems much better, the blue spawn area is significantly better, B is definitely more fun and easier to defend, and the cap times seem much better now.

I think C is a lot better now, but I'm still not sure if there are enough good sentry locations. More playtime will show that. My big concern is that it takes longer for the red team to get to the top than the blue team, since the two side routes up start on the blue side and there's no equivalent on the red side. I'm not sure it's that big of a concern since red can spawn and rj up immediately, but I found it much more frantic on red than on blue. Hopefully more testing will show if it's actually a problem or not.

i'm curious how you divide up the work in a collab.
also curious of the settings used to make the sunset/sunrise lightings

regarding the north point (from looking at the topdown pic you posted), it seems that one of the blu entrances is lined up with the path from that area to area C.
was that intentioinal? i'd wager that that will quickly become a favourite spot for snipers to sit on the red team as it has very good view of one blu entrance, and 1/2 the time attackers from the other entrance will run past the area of vision.

overall it's looking great with it's unique near-twilight time of day setting

at hojothegreat: those sunsets are epic. where were they taken? i've never seen a sunset even remotely as picturesque as those.

Ezekel said:

i'm curious how you divide up the work in a collab.

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So far I've done most of the work, Nine had lots of trouble doing layout with stovepipe and it took a long time from the start to the first playtest, so I've done the layout based on a sketch he did, this meant we could have the first playtest within a week of deciding to actually work together. Since then I've still done most of the work but once layout is sorted and playing well I tend to rebuild everything from scratch bit by bit so me and nine will be able to work more 50/50 on detailing it. At that point I'll be able to work on some L4D stuff since I'm pretty sure the SDK is coming with the DLC which is coming soon

Ezekel said:

also curious of the settings used to make the sunset/sunrise lightings

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I think I'm going to go ahead and say that we're not going to release the skybox and it's settings, even after release of the finished map. I will however say that for a good sunset light gets more orangey and (obviously) from a lower angle. I'll also need to bump up the abmient light to almost the same as the sun's light and make it a much richer blue. It needs to be brighter than it would be in real life so that you won't have to add 30,000 lights to the map. Cutting down cliffs and tall structures that block the sun is also important since it's at such a low angle even a small building casts a huge shadow.

One skybox thats gets NO attention at all is the granary skybox, its a really greay texture and the lighting is really nice, makes an epic sunrise.

Ezekel said:

regarding the north point (from looking at the topdown pic you posted), it seems that one of the blu entrances is lined up with the path from that area to area C.
was that intentioinal? i'd wager that that will quickly become a favourite spot for snipers to sit on the red team as it has very good view of one blu entrance, and 1/2 the time attackers from the other entrance will run past the area of vision.

Click to expand...

I am aware of this and the rocks in the places they are block of about half of the blu entrance, on top of this I understand that snipers are a part of the game - not catering to them would be stupid. However I'll make sure they can't just lock down an area themselves.

Ok heres the little test I just did for the mass of heliostats:

(click for larger)

I'm pretty happy with them now, but there are some things I'm considering for them:
-adding far more to the sides
-fanning them out so they're in a more circular arrangement
-staggering the heights they're at so the back ones are ~128 units higher than the front row.

Heliostats look great, I was amazed when I googled them for images and discovered there really ISN'T much else to them heh. I'm sure in game where you can see the details more clearly they look great.

Ezekel said:

at hojothegreat: those sunsets are epic. where were they taken? i've never seen a sunset even remotely as picturesque as those.

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hehe, a glorious place known as Google :lol:

I could throw some better ones your way that I took or was a part of taking though hehe. Canoe trips ftw.

Yay! Detail!

Youme said:

I'm pretty happy with them now, but there are some things I'm considering for them:
-adding far more to the sides
-fanning them out so they're in a more circular arrangement
-staggering the heights they're at so the back ones are ~128 units higher than the front row.

Click to expand...

For realism you'd adjust the angle of each so they'd redirect the sun exactly at the "collecting tower" (don't know the technical name for it). A circular/curved array is the most common arrangement, so that'd definitely be a good idea. You might want to consider putting them on a gradual upward slope away from the tower too. Although it's not as realistic as having them on flat ground, it'd allow people to see the entire array better. They definitely wouldn't be on a raised plateau like that, though.

Looking good.

I like this map. Good layout, seemed pretty balanced. Saw a bit of everything, steam rolling, good defense, good offense.

The lighting may be a bit too intense imo. it's very orange (at least the sky tex). I thought the build area on C was kindof small. I had to put sentry on one side and dispenser across the point. But I did defend with it to the end of the round.

Seemed like ammo/health had a good balance.

Sgt Frag said:

I like this map. Good layout, seemed pretty balanced. Saw a bit of everything, steam rolling, good defense, good offense.

The lighting may be a bit too intense imo. it's very orange (at least the sky tex). I thought the build area on C was kindof small. I had to put sentry on one side and dispenser across the point. But I did defend with it to the end of the round.

Seemed like ammo/health had a good balance.

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Thanks I think we're nearly there, just some small changes for _a3 like making A a more appealing point to defend, by next week's gameday after which I think we'll start the detailing blitz.
:thumbup:

Hmmm, I was playing this on Gameday and really liked it! Good job with it, can't wait to see what you do with the detailing later on.

Anyways, what I'd really like to suggest besides a few gameplay suggestions (which I might post screenies of) is that you should post this on the gotfrag.com TF2 sections (competitive players post there all the time). They've been looking for a Gravelpit style map that well, isn't Gravelpit (they hate Junction now), and this might turn out pretty good for them. Besides, it always helps to get the competitive opinion on a map.

A+++ for the layout.

also

Best freakin sun ever!!!

Why didn't you include this in any of your screenshots?

|Cerious| said:

Anyways, what I'd really like to suggest besides a few gameplay suggestions (which I might post screenies of) is that you should post this on the gotfrag.com TF2 sections (competitive players post there all the time). They've been looking for a Gravelpit style map that well, isn't Gravelpit (they hate Junction now), and this might turn out pretty good for them. Besides, it always helps to get the competitive opinion on a map.

Click to expand...

Done and done.

Icarus said:

Best freakin sun ever!!!

Why didn't you include this in any of your screenshots?

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Just happened that way.

So as a Soldier on top of B, I really found that I was vulnerable to Snipers. As a defensive Soldier on top of B, my job is to control that roof. It is mine and no one can get me off unless they're a Soldier, Demo, or Scout. Of course then you have Snipers, and they should be able to pop my arrogant ass off of it if I'm not watching for them. But right now on B there's 3(?) tunnels that I have to watch for a Sniper to pop out from. The only safe spot is near the back of the roof at the back corner the tall shaft, but when I'm back there I cannot protect the roof from any Soldier or Demo rocket/sticky jumping up too it.

I think to help what I see as a problem (others might not), I suggest that you add some cover at the front side of the B roof. Something like in the picture below, except....not as horrid looking.

Updated to _a3, increased cap times and hopefully shifted the balance a little.
Its in for gameday, so make sure you're there!

Link:
http://forums.tf2maps.net/downloads.php?do=file&id=978

Good, good stuff

Can't say I noticed any issues with balance today. Had fun for sure

drunkie said:

So as a Soldier on top of B, I really found that I was vulnerable to Snipers. As a defensive Soldier on top of B, my job is to control that roof. It is mine and no one can get me off unless they're a Soldier, Demo, or Scout. Of course then you have Snipers, and they should be able to pop my arrogant ass off of it if I'm not watching for them. But right now on B there's 3(?) tunnels that I have to watch for a Sniper to pop out from. The only safe spot is near the back of the roof at the back corner the tall shaft, but when I'm back there I cannot protect the roof from any Soldier or Demo rocket/sticky jumping up too it.

I think to help what I see as a problem (others might not), I suggest that you add some cover at the front side of the B roof. Something like in the picture below, except....not as horrid looking.

Click to expand...

Take a look at GPit for you anwser. There are 4 tunnels that snipers can shoot you from (2 Blu spawn, 2 from C) but most of the time you are exposed to only 2 tunnels. So you should be covered from 50% of potential spots. Also, if one solider can't do everything, maybe that's a good thing?

Also, I'm still not done reading the entire thread, but I hear a bit of complaint about sentry gun locations. GOOD! Sentry guns are what slow down the game and cause stalemates. Good player can destroy sentries any day, and they are cruteches for bad players. So knock out that CRUTCH! And in competitve 6v6 and 8v8 people don't use engies, you don't need engies, and sentries are bad for the flow of TF2 in general.

TLDR version: Don't worry about balancing sentries. Good people don't use them and they break the flow of the game.

Mar said:

Also, I'm still not done reading the entire thread, but I hear a bit of complaint about sentry gun locations. GOOD! Sentry guns are what slow down the game and cause stalemates. Good player can destroy sentries any day, and they are cruteches for bad players. So knock out that CRUTCH! And in competitve 6v6 and 8v8 people don't use engies, you don't need engies, and sentries are bad for the flow of TF2 in general.

TLDR version: Don't worry about balancing sentries. Good people don't use them and they break the flow of the game.

Click to expand...

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