MVM Havana B3 Contest Final

[Moonrat]

I find it a bit off-putting visually that there are so many materials and styles used for buildings. Like you have the plaster and medieval textured beach side buildings, which is fine. Then you a wood shanty looking building next to a brick one. And in the skybox you have brick skyscrapers. The brick matches the Mann Co building, but not the Caribbean beach side buildings at the start.

I think you should go with a more natural transition between the two, kinda like how Watergate has the plaster on the brick buildings fading off. Replace that wood building right past the beach with a plaster building that transitions to the brick on besides it, and maybe do something to make the skybox less jarring with the several styles within the map.

Also, something far more minor, but I find the lighting to be kinda flat in the map. I think you should remove some of the many lights around and let some of the map be a bit darker than it is now.

 

[signalmanx]

Hey, something you should probably know, but as of right now the nav is totally borked up.

This is because you didn't run nav_analyze - whenever you edit the nav manually, nav_analyze needs to be run so that the game can register all the changes you made. Otherwise it will save a totally messed up version of the nav, where bots wont shoot at you, and the bomb carrier acts oddly. You don't need to rebuild the nav from scratch though - just go ingame and run that command, and it should fix everything.

Also, I noticed that on advanced, you use a ton of giant medics. Like an absolute shitload. I haven't played the mission properly, but just keep in mind that this is probably not the greatest thing in the world to do. Giant medics are a force to be reckoned with, and as such are generally used quite sparingly in waves. This is mostly due to the fact that when they reach low health, they will pop a quick-fix uber that heals them and their target instantly, effectively making them invincible for a short period of time. So stacking them the way you are currently is a very risky move, especially since if a giant medic pops at the hatch, its essentially game-over, with almost nothing players can do to stop it.

And in general, mission variety seems to have some room for improvement - a lot of the same bots are stacked over and over. Keep in mind that variety is key to a good mission! If you just throw the same bots at the players over and over again, they'll quickly get bored. If you're having trouble coming up with ideas, I'd recommend looking at advanced versions of official valve maps. They're useful for getting a good gauge of how much money you should be giving your players (Keep in mind that Bigrock and Two Cities pay more money and have more bots than the stock MVM maps, but nonetheless are equal in difficulty), and are great for getting inspiration. I used a lot of the same principles and very heavily referenced them to create my missions.

Nonetheless, the map itself looks pretty darn great! If you guys have any questions on MVM design, feel free to message me, I'd be happy to help!

 

[Muddy]

Thanks for letting me know about the nav file. Somehow this happened without me noticing...

Anyway, until Nicky can update the thread (which may not be for a few days), here's a download for the fixed nav mesh.

 

[Freyja]

I realised one of the main reasons I feel this map could be improved aesthetically is this:

This is the first impression a player will get of your map. And I don't really think it's a great one. These buildings have an incredibly boring silhouette and it makes your map from the get go kind of feel basic. Honestly, putting an interesting architectural building here with some impressive brushwork would probably go really far, even if you didn't touch the rest of the map.

 

[nickybakes]

@Muddy and I have redone a lot of the visuals, changed a bit of the layout, and she has done a lot of work on the Missions.

Here's her more in depth change log for the missions n stuff:

Spoiler: Changelog

mvm_havana_b2
by Muddy and Nicky

General:
* artpass & clipping improvements

Beach:
* fixed the dodgy texture transition from beach to concrete (finally lol)

Tank:
* fixed one of the tank paths not working
* fixed the tank clipping through the ground when going up a staircase



Advanced Mission:
General:
* reduced RED team respawn time from 10s to 4s
* fixed Fan o'War Scouts not being able to pick up the bomb
* made the whole thing way easier (below are the most significant changes, including them all would've made this changelog ruddy massive)

Wave 1:
* reduced number of Pyros and added Shotgun Heavies

Wave 2:
* removed Spies

Wave 3:
* replaced SMG Snipers with Shotgun Soldiers
* reduced Giant health

Wave 4:
* removed one of the Tanks
* removed Giant Scouts
* removed the Heavy spam at the end

Wave 5:
* reduced bot count all around
* removed Giant Demomen
* increased amount of currency from 2300 to 2600

Wave 6:
* made final boss smoler


Normal Misson:
Wave 1:
* reduced numbers & spawn rates

Wave 2:
* decreased amount of Snipers

Wave 3:
* reduced amount of Giant Pyros from 3 to 1

Wave 4:
* reduced amount of Steel Fist Heavies
* decreased Tank health from 22000 to 20000

Wave 5:
* replaced SMG Snipers with regular Soldiers

And heres the screenshots (also include in the zip, in case you want a new desktop background or something ). Click for larger images:


Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Muddy]

Completely forgot to mention: many, many thanks to @Freyja for help with the missions!

 

[nickybakes]

Havana is now on the Workshop! Go subscribe, rate up, and favorite, as it really helps us!
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1089026871

 

[nickybakes]

-Fixed an improperly packed texture (thanks @Bakscratch for pointing this out)

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[nickybakes]

mvm_havana_b3
by Nicky and Muddy

General:
* artpass improvements
* layout changes to make navigating the map easier
* added more robot class icons!
* fixed an exploit that let players escape the map boundaries
* fixed Engineer buildings floating slightly

Streets:
* added a bomb-reset pit

Spoiler: Mission Changes

Normal Mission:
Wave 4:
* reduced number of Steel Fist Heavies

Advanced Mission:
General:
* lowered overall amount of money earned

Wave 1:
* removed Shotgun Heavies
* reduced general count of Pyros
* fixed Pyros erroneously being named "Crit Pyros"

Wave 2:
* vastly reduced the number of Giant Shotgun Heavies
* removed Engineers

Wave 3:
* reduced number of Escape Plan Soldiers
* increased move speed of Escape Plan Soldiers
* reduced amount of Medics
* reduced number of Giant Soldiers/Medics from 3 each to 1 each
* replaced Giant Heavies with Semi-Giant Shotgun Soldiers

Wave 4:
* reduced number of Battalion Soldiers, Medics and Giant Pyros
* Giant Heavy/Medic pair appear later in the wave now

Wave 5:
* removed Tanks
* buffed robots to make up for the lack of Tanks

Wave 6:
* made final boss a bit smaller so it doesn't get stuck on things if it gets teleported in

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[nickybakes]

Hey folks, @Muddy has got some last minute changes made to the advanced mission for Havana. Here are the changes:

* Lowered payout on Wave 4 and 5
* Fixed final boss not attacking properly

The names are the same, all the other files are the same. But if you don't feel like downloading the entire zip, you can download the advanced popfile directly here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z59i6q9dfjudfhz/mvm_havana_b3_advanced.pop?dl=0

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Fillmore]

noticed a rather ugly clipping problem on this map while running missions today:

There's a rather huge hole in the clipping there so bots can somehow get flung there (and players can build up there, leading to some Snipers exploiting some easy sniping grounds)

 

[Muddy]

Cheers, maybe one of these days I'll get around to updating this map lol