CP Furnace Creek rc

[3Suns]

So, I just jumped into Furnace Creek for a bit. As I was the only one on the server, I cannot make comments as to how it will actually play. From running around by myself, I did notice a couple of things. Please note that I realize you are detailing it now, though it already looks incredibly finished.

1. The setting sun is very pretty. BLU will stand out beautifully, I am sure, but I am concerned about REDs visibility. With orange rock and red lighting, will RED team be almost invisible at times?
2. Those little machines in the tunnels that hum. I like that they hum and that their sound emanates from them. Cool. I am assuming some sort of decal will be placed on it so that we know what it is.
3. Coming from B base, several of the paths out are raised up and at least one required a very skilled scout jump to access. I like. Took me about 10 tries to make it because I don't have skillz, and I wasn't sure where I was supposed to start my double jump.
4. When I respawned as RED (having captured all three BLU), the announcer told me to prepare to attack.
5. The rock spires? will make wonderful points from which the soldiers and demos will be able to bring the pain. TONS of gameplay potential.

I look forward to trying it with other players.

EDIT: I just realized that I was probably playing an older version. I think it was b2.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Here's one problem I'm having. Look at the area in this pic (between B and C):

Each time I've played, Blue builds up at least one sentry, dispenser, and teleporter in this hallway. It's not surprising, since it's probably the most convenient path to do so in. But, it gets so cramped there. It would help if the wall in the pic with the arrow on it was pushed out to make a small room. It shouldn't impact Red's defence at B, and it'll make Blue's staging area for C a lot less clusterfuckish. You may consider doing the same for the other tunnels leading into C, although I don't tend to see blue building in them, so it might not be necessary.


I've also got a couple criticisms of the gameplay after playing B3 a few times. First off, there really isn't much of any long range combat. The A,B, and C areas are all filled with lots of cover, and they lack sizable open spaces. It's fine; it's not ruining the map or anything. But I can't shake the feeling that the attacks on A,B, and C are a little bit same-y: ie its generally close-quarters combat across the board. There are a few interesting spots that shake it up - the building above point B comes to mind - but they are the exception, not the rule.

I think this has also contributed to A and B falling to blue too quickly; likely because sentries are easy to take down in close-quarters. It would be nice to have big battles at A and/or B before moving to C. But in the 3 games I've played on B3, it seems like blue innevitably captures A and B without much trouble, and you just have to wait for the epic battle at C.

 

[Vinni3]

MY GOD. This may be the perfect GPit style map so far. +1

 

[The Political Gamer]

Any news on B4?

 

[Nineaxis]

If all goes well, there will not be a B4. Testing showed B2 was balanced near perfectly (http://stats.tf2maps.net/map.php?id=80), and we didn't change anything major layout-wise in B3, so we're sitting on it and cleaning up minor visual bugs. Might have a B4, next version might be RC. We'll just have to wait and see.

We've also gotten near zero feedback from competitive communities, and since we'd like this to play well in comp and be accepted into comp leagues, we're kind of waiting for some of that to show up.

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

as for the competitive side i will see if i can get this played, we played yukon in a bunch of matches and it played nicely.

Glad everything is looking good

 

[iQue]

I have only played this in one pub so far I think, so I haven't gotten a proper chance to play it in an organised team yet, but here are just a few of the things I've noticed. Again, my experience with the map is very limited so I won't say much about balance, even if it plays very well already. Right,

You can get stuck on this little piece of metal on the wall, usually you will slide past it but it gets annoying after a while. I could see it becoming an annoyance for soldiers rocketjumping off the wall, and I see no real reason for not fixing it unless it is very time consuming. Just enable players to clip through it.

This section in particular surprises me a bit, I personally don't understand why there is only one set of stairs up to the actual point. Once the blue players are on the point, there is no way for the red players to get up there other than the stairs, which are easy to sticky trap (even if the point is exposed for good snipers). The only other otion would be if a soldier/demoman jumped up there, but to me, this makes A a bit easy to cap.

Again, my playtime is very limited so I would like to see some response to this. Thanks for the wonderful map.

Also, I might add that a few areas of the map feels slightly cramped, in particular the connectors between A and B and the actual capture point at A. It works, but would feel better for me personally if they were opened up a bit.

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

As we testing tonight, we all came to a conclusion of how to make it easier for red and/or harder for blu. I am sure you have probably tweaked them a bit but juts wondering what are the current re spawn times in b3.

In comparison to gravel pit, A and B are hard to take, when on the point you are juts waiting for the cap to finish worrying that red will stop you. It is very easy for red to take back points on gpit. On furnace however (more so A then B) Once blu is standing on the point, sniper and demos and soldier can pretty much cover from the point the main entranced to a for red and it is very herd to take back A, though spys have done it a few times but it only stalled us and didn't last.

I am really not sure what to change, though more ways onto the point have been suggested. As for C i think the capture zone should be extended to the flat area up top excluding the stairs so red can hopefully no be blocked from getting to c once blu has invaded it as easily.

I hope these changes help and you find a way to give red a better chance. Good luck.

Al

 

[Guardian]

HUZZAH!!!

I recently registered just to give you some feedback.

I'm come from the ville customs server and we've been looking far and wide for a gravel pit styled custom and so far we've been using this. However a few of us dislike it.

Not because it's bad but because it feels like it's missing something.....

I couldn't figure out what it was missing for a while but then it hit me. C just doesn't feel like a cinematic finish, it feels like A and B and thus leaves you a bit underwhelmed when the map is over.

Gravel pit has a giant tower that often Soldiers and demos will rocket jump to the top to and have epic skirmishes onto (that's in fact the common plan in comp tf2).

Dustbowl has a powerful fortified defense you need to push through.

All payload maps have that moment where everyone from both teams are jumping on the cart (because it's 1 inch from the final point) and pyros are buring everything and everyone is dieing while people are screaming "JUMP ON THE CART!" you know.


But cp_furnace just seems to missing that and despite it's perfectly balanced gameplay, it seems to be holding it back from being perfect.


Basically what I'm saying is that C needs something to make it feel a bit more cinematic. To do this you basically need something that forces Red and blue to use a specific strategy to win or... something along those lines.

Maybe (I'm making this up as I go along so just take this as an poor example from someone who doesn't know how to map), red could be given a "look-out point" over C which snipers, heavies and other camping classes can park and blue has to rocket jump/ sticky jump/ FAN jump up there to take them all out before they cap the point in an epic showdown.


Hopefully this feedback helps you, I'm honestly not sure how to fix that problem and I'm even less sure that I properly described it.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

It was played yesterday on ukcs (you are a member also there youme so maybe you can ask for more comments there). Anyway, as usual the test situation was 32 player IR.

- It was quite easy to take both A and B. It was allmost impossible to defend against it even with sentry spam. Only at the last point it was effective where we camped with 5 sentries and were able to block it off (and even then they allmost managed to break the defence). This can give steamroll issues. I think this is ideal for the real publics without teamwork .
- People loved the looks of the map even though they said its a bit too gravelpit like. In gameplay it was diffirent however which i think is an ideal situation. As its close to GP people keep playing it only to find out it doesnt play like it but they still like it.
- I realy liked the map unlike hoodoo (which is simply too campy and bottlenecked) as it supports all playing styles, there is enough cover everywhere and easy to find your way arround it.
- Also, that laser beam on capping/defending C (dont know when). Add a flash somewhere close to it (so you see it even when not watching to it) so people see its activated. Its a nice and simple effect but it simply is quite unnoticed (the sound doesnt do enough).

Great work on the map.

 

[MangyCarface]

- It was quite easy to take both A and B. It was allmost impossible to defend against it even with sentry spam. Only at the last point it was effective where we camped with 5 sentries and were able to block it off (and even then they allmost managed to break the defence). This can give steamroll issues. I think this is ideal for the real publics without teamwork .

More than any other gametype, 3 cp a/d requires defense to know their territory in order to defend it well. A server like 2f2f that has played the map excessively can usually hold the points down

 

[YM]

More than any other gametype, 3 cp a/d requires defense to know their territory in order to defend it well. A server like 2f2f that has played the map excessively can usually hold the points down

But is that instant respawn, and has F_M got the percents for _b3 if you've played it much?

 

[UKCS-Alias]

On that server it was the first time played. Only a few knew the map already making barely any diffirence. In test we often notice that the attackers win in general and after a while it will be harder (only in goldrush and hoodoo - a beta version, not the final - that wasnt the case).

These signs make it look like its perfectly designed.

 

[Nineaxis]

Because Gravel Pit style maps require RED to defend two points and not just one, greater teamwork and coordination is necessary to hold off BLU. Generally, it seems BLU has a greater advantage because they can focus on one point then the other and generally work together more. Also, as Mangy said, RED needs to know the map, and know it well. We tested the hell out of B2, and the stats for it show near perfect balance. All this testing was done in a short period of time with the same group of people. With beta 3, we've been testing with a new group of people who aren't as familiar with the map, and the stats show it. I'm fairly certain if we play it as extensively as B2, that stats will reflect it by an increasing number of RED wins.

 

[Waif]

Thats interesting nine, but I'm wondering that for the stats to even out, wouldn't that mean red would have to start winning more often, so the map would seem to be in favour of them once it is well known?

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

A simple request is that you could get on the roof of A. In gravil pit you can get on a and b but b is actually a useful spot, as with furnace. A on gpit isnt very useful but sometimes people dont notice you up their, but if they do you wont last long as you can only get to a small portion of the roof. A is very easy to cap as blu and this might help red defend a little.

 

[MangyCarface]

But is that instant respawn, and has F_M got the percents for _b3 if you've played it much?

Do you really think I'd play on an instant respawn server? Like, exclusively?

 

[Fearlezz]

:unsure:

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

:unsure:

Ahh nice chat logs, good times.

 

[YM]

Do you really think I'd play on an instant respawn server? Like, exclusively?

No no i know you wouldnt, it was a reubuttal to your rebuttal of the previos comment, which was based around IR, you cam back and provided your observation that didnt match, but your observation is from normal spawn times, so your stuff is uncomparable to the other guy's.
Both stuff is still relevant and useful stuff though

http://files.getdropbox.com/u/826204/cp_furnace_b30001.jpg

:unsure:

Thats a glitch in tf2 itself, happens in all maps, i believe if you sit on where it spawns, it spawns and dissapears but the shadow remains..