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SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,315
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L7: Fancy Member
Jan 16, 2017
404
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hi, i got some feedbacks for the layout (with some shitty mspaint on screenshot for demonstrations):

1. The spawnroom only has one door out and it's pretty small too, would cause some spawn camping problem. I feel like you should extend the spawn to the building right infront of it, not just because it makes sense, but also to avoid confusion (at first i thought that the whole building is a spawn, changed class and died). Furthermore, it probably would not affect the gameplay too much, cause i don't see players pushing all the way up there, UNLESS they want to spawncamping the enemy team.

2. Related to the spawn area, imo the route on the right would be very underused, because of the angle of the spawnroom and the middle door, which is more convenient and closer than the 90 degree one. On top of that, it doesn't give players any advantage over the middle door, maybe even disadvantage because of its height.
AahIisr.jpg

3. The Sniper deck is pretty overpower:
- The Snipers are completely safe upthere, the enemy can't reach them while the small windows act as a cover from hitscan, additionally the platform is a bit too big for them move around dodging pipes and stickies (also the jumpad could also alert any enemy Spy attempting to take them down, if the Sniper has good ears)
VOv0hJA.jpg

- Also the windows also provide them a very good sniping angle across the whole battlefield
SAvzIM9.jpg

- About the jumpad, a Heavy can abuse the jumpad just by a little strafing and keep landing back into it, he will become a 300hp bunny with a minigun
qx4fWUZ.jpg

- Regardless the locations (Blu or Red), a Demoman could be insanely effective on the deck. Again, the windows allow him to spam free on the CP zone, thus prevent any capturing attempt. If on the enemy's deck, he could shutdown this whole route with stickies.
0m2URBu.jpg
NMWc9n3.jpg

- This crate on mid is quite ridiculous imo, not just that it blocks almost half the lowground entrance, but also put up a pretty strong hiding spot, which allow the player to hold 2 routes at once (especially Soldier), you can also hide behind it instead of on top
CseQivs.jpg

- Lastly, the highest platform on mid is also another strong holding spot, mainly because it allows the in-control team to watch every entrances that lead to mid (not counting the fact that it's huge). In my layout suggestion below, it provides the attacking team more options to push, while prevent the defending team to hold the entrance without having to enter the building, and furthermore reduce the moving space of the highground platform
hwXziju.jpg

hcZdQ4x.jpg
 
Last edited:

SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,315
1,857
hi, i got some feedbacks for the layout (with some shitty mspaint on screenshot for demonstrations):

1. The spawnroom only has one door out and it's pretty small too, would cause some spawn camping problem. I feel like you should extend the spawn to the building right infront of it, not just because it makes sense, but also to avoid confusion (at first i thought that the whole building is a spawn, changed class and died). Furthermore, it probably would not affect the gameplay too much, cause i don't see players pushing all the way up there, UNLESS they want to spawncamping the enemy team.

2. Related to the spawn area, imo the route on the right would be very underused, because of the angle of the spawnroom and the middle door, which is more convenient and closer than the 90 degree one. On top of that, it doesn't give players any advantage over the middle door, maybe even disadvantage because of its height.
AahIisr.jpg

3. The Sniper deck is pretty overpower:
- The Snipers are completely safe upthere, the enemy can't reach them while the small windows act as a cover from hitscan, additionally the platform is a bit too big for them move around dodging pipes and stickies (also the jumpad could also alert any enemy Spy attempting to take them down, if the Sniper has good ears)
VOv0hJA.jpg

- Also the windows also provide them a very good sniping angle across the whole battlefield
SAvzIM9.jpg

- About the jumpad, a Heavy can abuse the jumpad just by a little strafing and keep landing back into it, he will become a 300hp bunny with a minigun
qx4fWUZ.jpg

- Regardless the locations (Blu or Red), a Demoman could be insanely effective on the deck. Again, the windows allow him to spam free on the CP zone, thus prevent any capturing attempt. If on the enemy's deck, he could shutdown this whole route with stickies.
0m2URBu.jpg
NMWc9n3.jpg

- This crate on mid is quite ridiculous imo, not just that it blocks almost half the lowground entrance, but also put up a pretty strong hiding spot, which allow the player to hold 2 routes at once (especially Soldier), you can also hide behind it instead of on top
CseQivs.jpg

- Lastly, the highest platform on mid is also another strong holding spot, mainly because it allows the in-control team to watch every entrances that lead to mid (not counting the fact that it's huge). In my layout suggestion below, it provides the attacking team more options to push, while prevent the defending team to hold the entrance without having to enter the building, and furthermore reduce the moving space of the highground platform
hwXziju.jpg

hcZdQ4x.jpg

I'll address each point of your feedback in order, so you can see my thinking process.

1.) I put the spawn in the smaller building because I felt putting it in the larger building was a bad idea. Sure, there'd be more exits, but I worried it was too close to the point in some spots. I'll try moving it up in the next update to see if my fears are justified.

2.) The door offers a slight advantage for players wanting a quick route to the higher path, but mostly I put it there so that the only other exit wouldn't be the one-way small exit. Perhaps a spawn room redesign could be done in the next update to make this side door a bit more important.

3.) I knew the Sniper room was strong, but I didn't realize it was *that* strong. I'll try a number of things in the next update to see if that'll make them less strong. Moving one of the windows, making the windows larger, making the room smaller, adding more lights so those up there are more visible, and other things.

4.) Same as above

5.) I put the jump pad in as an experiment to see if one could work in a serious map. Maybe a smaller pad, combined with an additional exit/entrance to the room, would help combat this sort of thing. I'll try that in the next update.

6.) See 3 and 5

7.) Whoa, I didn't even realize you could do that! I mostly left the crate there because iibo had it there, but I did realize that having it block most of the doorway was probably a bad idea. It does look nice aesthetically, so I might keep it while moving it back some to open up the doorway. In addition, I'll make it a half-crate so that players doing this will have their feet visible from inside the big building.

8.) I really like this suggestion. I'll add it in!

---

Expect to see a2 (with your feedback addressed) sometime after I have the map playtested on the TF2M servers.
 

SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,315
1,857
- Switched out the HL2 skybox for a TF2 one
- Changed the world lighting
- Adjusted the interior lighting
- Made the "sewer" behind mid more sewer-like (lower and lightly flooded)
- Fixed BLU's backward door frames in the brick building
- Made the crates blocking the door frames of the brick buildings half-crates
- Increased the height of the brick building Sniper windows by 16hu
- Made the brick building sniper rooms smaller, from 340hu to 192hu
- Removed the jump pads, as during development they stopped working as intended
- Added some signs around spawns
- Moved spawn to the large building in front of it
- Other various changes

Not too happy with the current layout in some spots, namely with the brick building and around the point. It'll take me a bit longer to push out A3 because I want to take my time making these reworks as good as they can be.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,315
1,857
- Reworked much of the layout
- Added a drop-down from the high ground to the sewers
- Added a new skybox, sky_soft, from the Autumnal Content Pack by @Berry

Mid still remains largely untouched, which is fine for now. I planned to fix more problems with the map, but I also wanted to push out an update before I went off to Uni, which is in a few days. The new layout is a little flatter than I'd like, but it might not be as bad as I'm thinking.

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,315
1,857
- Fixed missing textures and models

I chose a different, "faster" compile method to make the last hotfix update. I failed to realize that it didn't pack the models/textures

Read the rest of this update entry...