ZF Hard Rain: Sugarmill Escape V3

[Miki]

Come Hell and High Water

Get some gas for Virgil's boat but be careful on your way back. Sugarmill Escape is the final part of 2 maps trekking over the entire Hard Rain campaign in a Team Fortress 2 x Left 4 Dead 2 crossover in Super Zombie Fortress.

Features:
* Mill Escape, Return to Town, and Town Escape combined as one super level!
* 2 stages with a finale showdown!
* Virgil NPC interaction!
* Dynamic stormy weather!

szf_sugarmill_storm_v3
May not be compatible with Zombie Fortress due to multi stage

You can play Sugarmill Escape on Redsun's map rotation:
Red Sun (Multiple Gamemodes)
EU IP: 95.172.92.5:27015
US-East IP: 66.206.13.139:27015

Spoiler: Credits

Thank you to these UGC contributors:
Dr. Face - Arctic Assets
boomsta - Neon Alphabet props & cash register
squeezit - fire hydrant prop
Pear and Crash - Overgrown props
Mikroscopic - Office props
FGD5 - Diner props and vehicle models
Rexy - File cabinet props & portable toilets
MuxinMuffin - graffiti overlays
fuzzymellow - urban textures
Alexcookie - Wallpaper textures
Zeus3005 - lights off props
fubarFX - Occult props
Yrrzy - modular weather particles
Egan - Watergate assets
Valve - Left 4 Dead 2 original map
Bulletcrops team - props
Berry / Autumnal pack team - Autumnal assets
End of the Line team - textures
TF2Maps Frontline!, Swamp, and Construction team - props/textures/models/skybox

Hard Rain: Sugarmill (part 1)
Linktree (my links)
Throw me money of your own free will
Gamebanana Mirror

(v I can't erase that text)

 

[Miki]

Hey folks,

I'm writing a quick update on the situation where Sugarmill Escape had major issues that were not caught in testing. For one, the rain has been the suspected culprit behind severe performance hits. This can be evidenced by these screenshots (click to enlarge):

1. particles visible 2. particles not visible

These particles trace for collision each frame, making them far more expensive than anticipated when used in a full server which was not evident with a small handful of testers. For this reason, I recommend not hosting this map until a patch is released resolving the issue (weather effects can be disabled in the options as a consolation).

Additionally, here is the heatmap from a recent playtest of RED survivor deaths:

And the loading screen photos that unfortunately had a typo which made it an error in V2:

I apologize for any inconvenience the map has caused, right now I am contemplating to replace the particles either with Yrrzy's modular weather or attempt a cheaper no collision/less accurate collision edit of the swamp pack rain particles for convenience.

 

[Miki]

szf_sugarmill_storm_v3
Patch notes

Spoiler

- Water slowdown reduced (from -62% to 30%). Average speed classes are unaffected barring certain movement altering weapons
- Environment brightness has been increased
- Reduced minimum random interval for storms from 90 to 60 seconds
- Elevator has been widened
- Fixed performance issues caused by old rain particles by replacing them with no collision
- Fixed missing menu photo error
- Fixed stage 1 final point spawns being killed
- Elevator spawns moved outside the mill
- Pipeyard CP spawns moved beside point
- Pipeyard defense spawns moved back near offices
- Garage Sale spawns moved further back to burnt house
- Lowered amount of unnecessary edicts
- Minor fixes, adjustments, and optimizations
- Stage 2
- Added the Soda Popper, Brass Beast, Huntsman, and Diamondback to initial weapon choices (replacing Scattergun, Natascha, Sniper Rifle, and L’Etranger)
- Guaranteed Sniper Rifle and Jarate spawns inside Burger City

Today’s update fixes some bugs and the performance issues allegedly caused by the swamp pack weather effects. These similar particles were not a reported issue in the first map, but were in the second, so they’ve been replaced.

In between updates, I’ve been solving the FPS issues, making balance choices, and lowering edict count. This update took longer than expected because I had to figure out many things on my own that were unique challenges with the dynamic weather. I made Granary Storm as an experiment to sandbox my ideas, and Sugarmill Escape was redone with what I learned.

To lighten the edict stress, I made the compromise to disable the random storm until the second half of the map (Milltown). This ensures we keep quality without the overloaded cost of extra edicts. Lore wise: the storm coincidentally does not pick up until you return to town. If TF2 ever adds the “sound_mixer” entity like with Vscript, this compromise can be reverted.

Could this have been avoided? Maybe, but it was still a hassle to be walking on eggshells where making changes were very delicate to the edict limits. It can also be seen as a balance patch so Survivors reach the second stage more.

The final stage was changed to remove endless hordes. Hordes are called at the finale start, when a Tank dies, and when a storm strikes. The Infected have plenty of opportunities to attack full power, endless hordes on top of that was just overkill. Waves transition faster as well.

The Survivors also get a new weapon lineup in the Stage 2 safehouse: The Soda Popper, Brass Beast, Huntsman, and Diamondback. And from feedback, two guaranteed drops were added to Burger City: the Sniper Rifle and Jarate. It lets Snipers choose between two primaries with Jarate serving a buff against Tanks.

 

[Miki]

Today's update comes from the recent playtest on Sugarmill Escape. I'm presenting you good news and bad news, but I'm letting you pick which one to read first in the CYOA spoiler below.

Spoiler: Good News

The FPS issues are gone, nobody reported massive lag unlike the previous version.

Spoiler: Bad News

Balance took a heavy slide towards RED, and the map difficulty has went too far down for my liking.

Here are the heatmaps from the V3 playtest, keep in mind it's a big multi stage map, so this reflects I think 2 rounds played (and I forgot to record the 3rd round). Also, the server had about 15-20 players, and a reminder that RED are Survivors, BLU are Infected.


If I can take something away from this:
1) If you insist on giving RED rare weapons, give Infected a massive buff to compensate.

I took away the infinite horde after watching a gameplay video where a team of 10 or more wiped after a single Tank in the finale. My reasoning was that Tanks were just so strong that one was a death sentence, let alone a second. So, the difficulty on infinite hordes were reallocated to the two Tank fights, with the third mostly for show unless only one or 3 survivors are left. The storm would call a horde too anyway, so I thought Infected would still get buffed often enough.

2) Infected spawns matter, and you should err on close rather than far spawns.

The best way to adjust difficulty comes from spawn points and distance from the action. Spawns change frequently for Infected, but I try to keep these spawns "natural" and without invisible triggers or "hidden knowledge" as much as I can. For example, I often use capture points as the trigger to change spawns, as players want to reach them quickly to begin with. One-way doors are great candidates too.

In newer maps, I've been using game_forcerespawn to instantly respawn dead Infected to get back to the front faster, without relying strictly on forward spawns points (which eat edicts, that had an influence on my decisions). I aim for a max of 2000 HU distance away from Survivors when choosing spawn point positions. I want to revert some spawn point changes that in hindsight, did not need to be removed or nerfed.

3) Tank spawns are inconsistent.

From my interpretation of the SZF plugin, forcing a Tank to spawn picks a random player to spawn as a Tank on their next respawn. In one instance, two Tanks spawned in succession long after the call was made (the first Tank just never spawned, so that chosen player must have been AFK until then?). Those two simultaneous Tanks also died without much struggle by the Survivors, who used the Brass Beast and the newly added medium ammo kit on the Burger City roof (which I think should be reverted to mini).

4) Ammo management needs to be a player skill.

Ammo is a golden droplet in SZF because it's effectively infinite ammo over time against melee only enemies. You need to share this ammo with your team, but if the pacing isn't fast enough, even medium ammo kits can replenish a whole team like a dispenser. Item placement in general is a mapping skill, they are deliberate and can turn the tide of a battle. Max ammo kits need to be off the table really, they get abused (usually by Heavy) even when there's no progress to gain from camping them.

It's why I use mini ammo/health kits often because they replenish less ammo/health over time while still being an ammo/health source. Sometimes there are complaints that there isn't enough ammo, which influences me to add more. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad, but I have to make a decision. For example, in Sugarmill, on the 3rd floor of the mill there is a medium health with two medium ammo kits because of how brutal that section was. Survivors just have to get past it and down the elevator. I think that was a good change.

Sometimes I give too much, to which diminishes ammo management skills: just shoot everything with the Minigun or Flamethrower. Overall: I think it's safe to err on smaller ammo kits, and bump up their size only when it seems absolutely necessary. Conserving ammo is a player skill.

In Conclusion

I want to take a hiatus from SZF maps. I still have many SZF ideas other than the L4D2 conversions (which are fun), but I want to get back to standard gameplay types. Hard Rain was a big project that taught me a lot, and I want to use what I learned in new and original ideas outside of SZF. Thank you for reading.