KotH Ceasefire [Deleted]

[Viemärirotta]

I don't think the map is underscaled: judging from screenshots, it seems quite overscaled, instead.
Underdesigned?

I just misunderstood the picture on mid. I thought they were spawn doors because how off they looked from the wall. Anyways I highly agree you with the underdesigned part.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

The sections of the map are pretty bland, all areas are seperated by a big tall flat wall, and a few doors. Doors are easily spammable and using doors to block sightlines is a bad choice.

Then how do i populate the map to not make it look bland without using props? Just throw up for signs?

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

I don't think the map is underscaled: judging from screenshots, it seems quite overscaled, instead.
Underdesigned?

If it is not overscaled then everything will be too small and soldiers and demomans can spam if everything is too short.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

The sections of the map are pretty bland, all areas are seperated by a big tall flat wall, and a few doors. Doors are easily spammable and using doors to block sightlines is a bad choice.

How do i make this map not bland without using props? Using have more signs or building?

 

[Crowbar]

If it is not overscaled then everything will be too small and soldiers and demomans can spam if everything is too short.

"If it's not greater, it's lesser". There can be and is a scale at which everything is fine, but it's surely not easy to get a sense of.

 

[Da Spud Lord]

How do i make this map not bland without using props? Using have more signs or building?

A healthy balance of buildings, hills, tunnels, and props makes a good map. Look at some Valve official maps and see how they do it.

 

[The Guy You Know]

How do i make this map not bland without using props? Using have more signs or building?

When I map I try to avoid flat walls and rooms, like when looking at the spawn rooms on 2fort, they are "square rooms" but those rooms have many overhangs, indents, and walls that jut out to create unique archetecture. Im kinda being vague but still, add unique designs to your rooms to make them stand out essentially.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

When I map I try to avoid flat walls and rooms, like when looking at the spawn rooms on 2fort, they are "square rooms" but those rooms have many overhangs, indents, and walls that jut out to create unique archetecture. Im kinda being vague but still, add unique designs to your rooms to make them stand out essentially.

So just throw props in the spawn rooms.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

A healthy balance of buildings, hills, tunnels, and props makes a good map. Look at some Valve official maps and see how they do it.

But how do i do that with my style of map? Its base of the trenches of ww1 so how do i do that? And these places has flat land.

 

[Viemärirotta]

But how do i do that with my style of map? Its base of the trenches of ww1 so how do i do that? And these places has flat land.

I think it'd be the best if you wouldn't worry about the style too much. Just like play around in Hammer, try what works. Gameplay is more important than details anyways.

 

[iiboharz]

I said this before but a theme/idea doesn't make a map. That's something typically best applied after you've got a solid layout working.

In other words, don't make a map based around d-day or ww1 trenches, make a map based around a cool idea for a KOTH point and then find a way to apply your theme to that.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

I think it'd be the best if you wouldn't worry about the style too much. Just like play around in Hammer, try what works. Gameplay is more important than details anyways.

But I don't want to lose what my map makes my map. And that is the no man's land style.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

I think it'd be the best if you wouldn't worry about the style too much. Just like play around in Hammer, try what works. Gameplay is more important than details anyways.

Another problem for me is that I need that idea as a template and I have to follow it because if I don't. I get lost ever easly.

 

[The Guy You Know]

So just throw props in the spawn rooms.

ehh I more ment to say look at the func_brushes in the room and see how they were used to add detail


like say you removed everything of texture detail and model placement from that room you would still have shapes abd archetecture from the brushes and the room would have detail

 

[Da Spud Lord]

So just throw props in the spawn rooms.

Well, don't just chuck stuff around randomly. Look at 2Fort's spawn room again:

It combines good brushwork and props to create a scene, but the central area that players walk through is relatively unobstructed. Most of the details are off to the side. And the details aren't random, either- the map does a good job of creating a realistic scene, but the details don't interrupt the gameplay or layout of the map.

But how do i do that with my style of map? Its base of the trenches of ww1 so how do i do that? And these places has flat land.

You're letting your map style interfere with your gameplay. We cannot emphasize this enough: The map's gameplay is much more important than its style. Sure, it's okay to have a general sense of what you want your map to look like before you create the layout, but sometimes you will need to make sacrifices in terms of realisticness and design in order to make a better designed map. And sometimes, the design and setting that you want for a map just isn't compatible with TF2's gameplay. Large open spaces with no way around them are a big no-no in TF2; they make snipers overpowered, and thus put every other class at a disadvantage. For example, before the MvM competition I was working on an attack/defend map set in a ski resort. The ski resort in the map was based on a real-life ski resort, but many things had to be changed, and some of the changes that I made simply wouldn't make sense in the real world, but I did it for the purpose of creating fun, well-balanced gameplay.

 

[LeSwordfish]

Trenches aren't fun. They're designed to stop people from advancing, and to ensure that anybody who leaves cover gets shot by a sniper or a machine-gun before getting far. That's pretty good if you're fighting a war, but you're not fighting a war. You're making a computer game.

When making a computer game, you want to make it fun! Leaving cover onto no-mans-land and immediately being shot by a sniper isn't fun - and sitting in a bunker pointing your rifle at a corner and shooting people who come round it isn't fun.

Look at official maps. Look at viaduct: see how the ground slopes up and down. See how there are cliffs on one side of the point, with nice ramps up to them, and how there are buildings on the other, that break sightlines and funnel players to the point. Look at the cover besides the point: how it's not just props, but it's carefully built brushwork fences too.

 

[Crash]

Trenchfoot was my attempt to make some sort of trenches work in TF2. You'll see there really isn't much of them in there, and where they are are more just visually appearing to be trenches, but not actually like traditional trenches at all.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

Well, don't just chuck stuff around randomly. Look at 2Fort's spawn room again:

It combines good brushwork and props to create a scene, but the central area that players walk through is relatively unobstructed. Most of the details are off to the side. And the details aren't random, either- the map does a good job of creating a realistic scene, but the details don't interrupt the gameplay or layout of the map.

You're letting your map style interfere with your gameplay. We cannot emphasize this enough: The map's gameplay is much more important than its style. Sure, it's okay to have a general sense of what you want your map to look like before you create the layout, but sometimes you will need to make sacrifices in terms of realisticness and design in order to make a better designed map. And sometimes, the design and setting that you want for a map just isn't compatible with TF2's gameplay. Large open spaces with no way around them are a big no-no in TF2; they make snipers overpowered, and thus put every other class at a disadvantage. For example, before the MvM competition I was working on an attack/defend map set in a ski resort. The ski resort in the map was based on a real-life ski resort, but many things had to be changed, and some of the changes that I made simply wouldn't make sense in the real world, but I did it for the purpose of creating fun, well-balanced gameplay.

This map does not have any crazy sight lines for snipers, I even had a building like in harvest. The map even has a two cp to map the more fun.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

Trenches aren't fun. They're designed to stop people from advancing, and to ensure that anybody who leaves cover gets shot by a sniper or a machine-gun before getting far. That's pretty good if you're fighting a war, but you're not fighting a war. You're making a computer game.

When making a computer game, you want to make it fun! Leaving cover onto no-mans-land and immediately being shot by a sniper isn't fun - and sitting in a bunker pointing your rifle at a corner and shooting people who come round it isn't fun.

Look at official maps. Look at viaduct: see how the ground slopes up and down. See how there are cliffs on one side of the point, with nice ramps up to them, and how there are buildings on the other, that break sightlines and funnel players to the point. Look at the cover besides the point: how it's not just props, but it's carefully built brushwork fences too.

But the map has big tall walls so you won't be sniped from across the map. The longest sight line is the middle and that has a big building covering 90% of the point. So sniper will not be a problem. This is a trick that I have learned from cp well with its main building covering the sight line. So you can not snipe from one side to another side of the map.

 

[FishyUberMuffin]

Trenchfoot was my attempt to make some sort of trenches work in TF2. You'll see there really isn't much of them in there, and where they are are more just visually appearing to be trenches, but not actually like traditional trenches at all.

I love trenches. It makes you feel like you're in the frontline of a war between red and blue.