PL Boundary rc

[grazr]

It's strange, usually i don't like use of precipitation in a map, but i think this could use some snow particles. I think maybe it's just the short fog settings which make the map feel flat; realisticly you don't get fog at sub zero temperatures because the moisture in the air freezes (IE frost).

The only time you have "fog-ish" atmosphere is in blizzards, but you don't have falling snow. This map needs either a sunny skybox and clear/lengthy fog fade distances or snow to justify the fog setting. Sun would certainly bring out the colours in your map and help the HDR and cubemaps pick up contrasting light.

 

[honeymustard]

I originally had snow particles (from Viaduct). I might add them back for rc2. Still, most people I know play with them off anyway

 

[tyler]

Consider them a bonus like HDR.

 

[honeymustard]

I just spent about an hour trying different combinations of the viaduct snow and coldfront snow and various positions. It really isn't going to work, they always clip through buildings or walls and it just looks horrible.

 

[IrishTaxIDriver]

Pair them up with a skip brush that shows their range. I found it a lot easier to place particles when I knew exactly how far they were going to go.

Also, 100% coverage is a pipedream. Look at Sawmill and Viaduct and where they place the particles.

You can do it snoweymustard

 

[honeymustard]

That's what I was doing, but there are areas of open space with a building on either side, and putting snow in the middle means that it'll fall into both interior spaces, and there's no room to move them. The only solution is to make a half size version of the current particles, which I had a look in to, but the particle editor goes over my head a bit.

 

[grazr]

I'm sure you'll be forgiven for not placing snow particles in a narrow alley, snow wont normally get in between buildings unless it's blown in. How wide are they? 256? 512? 1024?

 

[EArkham]

You don't need it everywhere anyway. Just enough to hint; just enough for players to think, "Oh, it's snowing." Most areas should be skipped, with the snow in the largest, most open areas. Right at the exit of the spawns and nowhere else works surprisingly well psychologically.

Kep

 

[honeymustard]

They're surprisingly wide. For example, putting one coldfront snow particle outside the blu spawn will put the wind effect at the last point. I realise I don't need it everywhere, but there are extremely noticeable gaps that make no sense when placing the particles so they do not clip into interiors.

Edit: here's a rough overview of what I mean. The red area is good coverage (except clipping into the last point) and the purple is where there should be coverage but it clips inside.

 

[Kebyh]

Hi,

We ll be playing Pl_boundary tonight (sunday) from 7-9pm GMT along with undermine (vtf) and bazillion (cp) for our 3 maps rotation weekly event on our comunity server, everybody is free to join and honeymustard please, join us too you ll get loads of live feedbacks if you want some

IP address: hh5.thehh.co.uk:27055

 

[ShamanBond]

PL_Boundry is in the rotation on the FreeFrag 24/7 Payload server as well, feel free to come by FreeFrag.com and join in.

 

[honeymustard]

May as well release rc2 as it was tested on the HH servers tonight, which seemed to go well. I'm also stumbling across a lot of other public servers who are testing it (from tf2stats.net) which also seem to be going great (big thanks to the Necrophix community for playing just now and being super nice). Updated the pics in the OP.

13 Dec
- rc2 released - http://dl.dropbox.com/u/6591985/maps/pl_boundary_rc2.bsp.bz2
- Widened the catwalk on the last point
- Boarded up a window on the last point
- Improved detailing in numerous places
- Fixed (or lessened) a bug where stickies could go through setup gates
- Fixed some clipping

 

[ShamanBond]

I will get RC2 on the FreeFrag server today sometime.

 

[RawrSpoon]

I'll go ahead and put it up on the other FreeFrag server

 

[ShamanBond]

RC2 is getting good ratings on the Payload server at FreeFrag, it's already higher scoring than RC1 and going up every day.

Good job honey, looking forward to a final.

 

[honeymustard]

Thanks. And thanks for the gameday test last night, went pretty well and helped find a couple of bugs that I need to fix. It's funny how first time players make some pretty weird judgements in comparison to people who've played it a few times.

 

[MarshalN]

I've played this map multiple times now on the No Heroes Payload server. I have some thoughts as to what can be done to improve it - as it is right now, I think the map has some big flaws.

The biggest problem with this map is that the second cap point is almost impossible to get with the right team mix/people. Teams were NOT stacked in any of these cases, so it's not as if the teams were badly imbalanced -- BLU has a lot of trouble trying to cap the 2nd point.

With the judicious placement of 3-4 sentry guns at the second point, both inside and maybe one outside guarding the rails, the point is next to impossible to cap. The main way up, through the long tunnel with the cart, is obviously pretty dangerous. I think the map maker's intention is for BLU to control the room through the two back stairwells, and then to push the cart up.

This is where the problem is -- with two or three sentries guarding the back door, I've seen BLU fail more times than not in capping this. Even with one or two ubers, the BLU team can probably take out the guns guarding the back, but not the one that inevitably remains in the front. With 3-4 active engineers building up a new set of sentries is very fast and easy, and there's more than enough metal in the room to achieve that.

I've also seen cases where a team successfully pushes the cart up the hill, but can't quite cap it. Then in the interim between them all dying and coming back up again, the sentries are all back up, and the cart inevitably rolls down the hill, and you're back to square one.

Also, if the RED team has any decent pyro, the ubers inevitably get blown off the back into the woods -- I've been in games where the entire back area was guarded by just two pyros and a gun, and it's more than enough to hold off a team of BLU players.

I think instead of tinkering with the last point, what needs to be fixed is so that the second point has a slightly more viable back way into the room. Right now, the second point almost always results in RED successfully defending it.

 

[honeymustard]

Thanks for that. The idea is that blu has to clear out the room first, using the flank, and then push the cart up. In the games I've played, blu haven't had much problem with it, but I've never played with so many engineers, so what you're saying seems fair. Is the No Heroes server 32 players?

I'll probably move cp2 back a little bit so it's at the top of the ramp, as it's a bit unfair to have the cart roll all the way back down, though I've only seen it happen maybe once.

 

[MarshalN]

Yes, NH is 32 players, although in the times I played the player count was closer to 20 than 30.

All the regulars who've played this map before now know to just go engie as Red -- I've played games where we had 5-6 engies on a team of 12. If your test game involves players who, for the most part, have not seen the map before, then this point doesn't get held as easily. Once everyone's played it a few times, the engie strategy on point 2 becomes really obvious. I think putting the CP2 a little closer to the ramp might help. I can tell that BLU's supposed to go through the back, especially through the ladder side (instead of the middle stairwell). Problem with that I think I've already noted -- two sentries and you're in a lot of trouble.

The once or twice when I've seen BLU break through with a fully built RED base, BLU had multiple ubers ready and was able to get through without much pyro interference. It takes a lot of things falling into place for it to happen.

 

[ShamanBond]

And this kind of thing is why I limit engies to 3 and sometimes 2 for payload maps. There are inevitable places where a mass-sentry nest can just stop Blu in their tracks, it's the nature of payload maps.

We haven't had that difficulty.