[Contest Entry] pl_cashworks

[bob+M|M+]

I've been playing this map on the 32man no heroes server lately and it's been great. I have some suggestions for you.



I was wondering why it was so hard to get up there... OH that stupid little ledge!

Overall the third and fourth area are a little too difficult to cap from my experience. Hope my pics could you give you some ideas. Keep up the good work man.

bob+M|M+

 

[eerieone]

great advice, thx m8
i´ll start working on that tomorrow

 

[S3BB0_L1C1OUS]

Well, most of the stuff has already been mentioned. I just got one more thing. Coming out of the first red spwan is really surprising if you played a4 for the first time. I advice to add a balustrade on the long side, so players stop at first and have to go left to jump of? I don't have a screenshot right now, but I think you'll get the idea. I think as scout I sometimes also lost health because of the fall and had to look for a health pack and thats just sth you don't want to do when you spwan.

I really liked the changes you made. Great map man!

 

[TheDarkerSideofYourShadow]

So I like this map. It looks very good as well. The only feedback I can really provide is visual, as I noticed some displacements where either the alpha doesn't line up, or the base texture didn't. This was mostly on the area around the first capture point, on the red spawn exit side of things.

The water in that blu spawn exit, it could be lowered a few units to it isn't flush with the sides. Maybe 4-8.

The first red spawn, since it is impossible to get back up there, is a little lame. I didn't think about building a teleporter there and having to go back in before jumping down. Maybe it just that I need to get used to the map some more.

Finally, the SG that I believe you built that covered the red spawn when going for the second point. That was a little much, but you said there was a second exit. Still, not sure how I feel about that.

 

[FLOOR_MASTER]

I've been playing this map on the 32man no heroes server lately and it's been great. I have some suggestions for you.
...

...

I disagree with changes being necessary to the drop-down. The height advantage already gives BLU a commanding advantage in clearing out the immediate area for the main push to deal with any sentry that remains in the drop-down (and I've had very little trouble taking out sentries solo as a demo from the top). There's also the other alternate path that leads to the entrance to the 3rd CP area.

Comments on A4:

The following ramp is a major obstruction for BLU and I believe it should be removed. You can just have a solid edge as indicated (no ramp) to give that corner a very slight balance edge towards BLU:

The first point area is fairly well balanced now. However, when teams are a bit lopsided, it's very easy for the superior team to camp BLU in its spawn. I think the spawn timers are fine now and wouldn't recommend tinkering with them. However, one thing that could help significantly is blocking the ability for stickies to enter the spawn area (hopefully, doing so won't block stickies from LEAVING the spawn?):

This area is *very* difficult for RED to defend. I've never seen it happen. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's such a unique area that it deserves more gameplay focused in this area. The ledge on the right makes it too easy for BLU to clear out any REDS in the track below. Two ideas to improve this: you cold simply block off that section:

Here's a second idea I think is more interesting. Expand the building at the bottom of the hill to allow RED to somewhat counter BLU's height advantage on the ledge I mentioned:

I like the changes around point 3 and they play well, drawing players deeper into the CP2-CP3 area than before. There's a doorway that's a bit problematic, though:

RED can too easily keep an eye out on ledge that BLU drops down from. RED typically camps that ledge with a pyro or demo directly under the ledge (where the health pack/ammo are), and it's very difficult to ferret out campers as BLU. A straightforward solution would be to move the doorway so that its exit is further off and lower:

There are a lot of small clipping issues - things that stick out that are easy to get stuck on. I'll try to catalog some of them but I hope you're looking out for them.

I hear a LOT of complaints about framerates in the main CP1 area just outside of BLU spawn, and I experience extremely low framerates in that area as well. I hope there's more optimization that can be done in there.

Looking forward to a5!

 

[S3BB0_L1C1OUS]

As I mentioned before:

The balcony is nobuild, which is good, but its always nice to get back into the spwan. I think you remove that ability because it gives red a big advantage. This way it wouldn't:

the first 2 jumps are already possible

 

[eerieone]

i´m gonna go out on a limb and do some bigger changes on cp2

move the cp nearer to the winding path, making it a nice optical goal which you want to reach
and making it easier to cap for a team that nails the serpentine and take their momentum around the turn


to give Red a chance to defend that point, i´ll add an defensive structure covering the rocks
and i´ll alter the existing building to a more solid sentryposition



this changes will hopefully have the effect that
1.cp2 is a little bit easier to cap
2.once captured red has a little more time to set up some defense around cp3

 

[S3BB0_L1C1OUS]

Man, do I love your map and did I just rock it

You might want to lock into this:

- demo down there:

Well I played as sniper and I have to say you managed enough cover for both teams up to the second last point. On the upper part (at the vault) where the long walk is I think you should make the one-way-door come out in a covered area, because I pilled a big stack of bodies there. As soon as the door opened it was really easy to take them out. Also I managed one time to shoot through the door and was instantly accused of cheating. I think the rest of the map was laid out fair except for the second red spawn. I got killed coming out there a lot and I returned the favour even more often.

 

[eerieone]

thx for scrolling down so far, pretty many pictures on this page... and there are 5 more to come

I got a problem, the framerate at the first section is dropping dramatically,
i optimized as good as i could (func_detail, func_lod, viewdistances, hint-brushes, areaportals, nodraw)

what else can i do?
i am willing to restructure parts neccessary to get it running better

i´m running low on mental stamina atm, so plz gimme a hand with some tips

here are some screens from the 1st section

 

[Apom]

Use showbudget and wireframe to see what's expensive to render, it should give you a starting point!

 

[S3BB0_L1C1OUS]

I don't have anything for the framerate thing (really busy @ the moment), but this you should fix:

 

[eerieone]

KABOOM!!!

(you can´t measure how happy i am now

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeJjfTvnf38"]YouTube - :: pl_cashworks_a5 explosion ::[/ame]

it will be refined, but i´m glad with the outcome

 

[ProfFiendish]

The explosion looks wonderful! Nice job with that.

 

[FLOOR_MASTER]

Looks great!

A4 is in my regular rotation now. Here are some cursory win stats:

pl_cashworks_a4:
  None                                     7 (24%)
  #Badwater_cap_1                          6 (21%)
  #Badwater_cap_2                          1 (3%)
  #Badwater_cap_3                         15 (52%)

In other words, in the course of 29 rounds, no team has ever captured the final point (!).

A few suggestions off the top of my head to alleviate this:

Players can build sentries under the thin, wooden bridge. The sentries can be hidden in the trees. This should be disabled:

Eliminate the RED sniper window (add glass) in the small "toll booth" at the RED end of the main bridge.

It's way too easy for RED to flank BLU setting up in the large room to BLU's right of the main bridge (with the two one-way doors). I'd recommend eliminating the RED path up to that area:

Also, there's a weird sentry position shown here:

Optimization is a huge concern and should also be a top priority. I'm sorry I don't have any expertise in this area but hopefully others can chime in with some tips.

 

[eerieone]

working on optimization right now, blocking of some routes for red too, moved up blu forward spawn, will add another for when 2nd cp is taken

thx for the update

 

[Baysin]

Right then, I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, but you can build in the back of the initial blu spawnroom...

There's also another teleport exploit I've seen. An exit can be placed on the other side of a grate in the sewers by the initial blu spawn. Players who take the tele are trapped in the tunnel area. It looks like maybe this could be solved by having the grate go all the way to the floor, rather than stopping at the water...

 

[Dox]

over on the stno server people usually end up winning... but we kinda suck

 

[Chilly]

We've never had a win with a full server. I like floor_master's suggestions... hopefully whichever ones you implement will be enough to give BLU more of an advantage in that area. We have seen BLU win with fewer players (6-6), but never 10-10+.

 

[flubber]

Hop heatmaps : http://psychostats.canardplus.com/mapheat.php?id=144

 

[eerieone]

PL_CASHWORKS_A5

http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/69298

FIXES:
* ADDED CUSTOM EXPLOSION / VAULT IS OPENING NOW (explosion will be improved)
* ADDED GOLD (will increase the amount of gold if its not to fps-expensive)
* optimization pass 2 , getting +20-40fps on 1600x1200 full details
* adjusted viewdistances (too short ones will be readjusted)
* moved up cp2 to the rocky turn to make it easier capable, added some more architecture there
* moved door leading to right route to cp4 to make the opening less campable
* moved up right ledge at cp4 to concentrate more on final area than cart at bridge
* one-way door where you could get stuck corrected now
* added and varied orientational signs (slide up like in badwater)
* cut the stairs and connection to upper area at cp4
* added glass in tollbooth
* corrected door to cp4 where you could get stuck
* long tight bridge to cp4 is now an instable looking primitive rope-bridge
* reconstructed red forward spawn to make it less campable and less attractive for snipers
* playerclip-ceiling is now higher, allowing higher rocketjumps
* deleted some fps-hurting props
* red cant directly access blu´s alternative route to cp2, gates open after cp2 is taken
* added blu forward spawn, after cp2 is taken
* moved up blu forward spawn, after cp3 is taken
* changed layout of red forward spawn, too sniperfriendly
* various clipping-optimization