Let's talk Doomsday.
- Thread starter tyler
- Start date
When i played, those platforms from which you can perform very long snipes was constantly SWARMED by a clusterfuck of people from both team. It would be impossible to snipe from there. Granted, you could shoot at the rocket from the other side, but the walk time over there would be hideous if you need to defend quickly.
MarcoPixel
L1: Registered
- Apr 22, 2012
- 33
- 54
I made a little prefab for the new gamemode. Works pretty well with some minor console errors when the rocket launches.
Download: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27682432/Tf2/sd_prefab.vmf
Pictures:
A little thanks wouldnt hurt
Download: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/27682432/Tf2/sd_prefab.vmf
Pictures:
A little thanks wouldnt hurt
Last edited:
MarcoPixel
L1: Registered
- Apr 22, 2012
- 33
- 54
Seems so, didnt tryed it.
Trotim
aa
- Jul 14, 2009
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I think maps like ctf_converge would actually profit from the cap zone being an elevator/CP that requires you to be in it for a few seconds instead. Not as long as on Doomsday, but long enough so that you actually have a chance to block it when you're nearby (~3-4s).
Trotim
aa
- Jul 14, 2009
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MetalKev
L2: Junior Member
- Mar 5, 2012
- 70
- 23
Player-wise: This map reminds me of plr_hightower so much, in that its a ton of fun to go around killing people as the objective stalemates for 20 minutes. Probably my favorite spy map in the game right now.
Mapper-wise: I wonder if one could change it from a platform and rocket to a payload cart needing to be pushed a few dozen feet up a slightly steep hill so it rolls back? I think that would give future mappers more freedom to design without having to worry about where to stick a rocket.
Mapper-wise: I wonder if one could change it from a platform and rocket to a payload cart needing to be pushed a few dozen feet up a slightly steep hill so it rolls back? I think that would give future mappers more freedom to design without having to worry about where to stick a rocket.
- Sep 28, 2009
- 3,075
- 2,778
:words:
Doomsday introduces us to the new official gamemode, Special Delivery, which is basically King of the Hill with a flag in a separate spot that you need to bring to the point. On paper it sounds like a map that creates two fighting areas but you end up concentrating your momentum around the point anyway. Two major flaws in how it was implemented: once picked up, the flag must return for the other team to pick it up and the point I mentioned before about how everyone ends up at the rocket anyway.
When one team picks up the flag it's theirs until the "short" 10-15 second timer resets it, at which point someone has to go back to the spawnpoint and pick it up again. As long as your team keeps touching the flag you can't lose. I don't mind this, but it makes it very hard to lose once you pick it up the first time. It provokes a lot of fighting around where the flag is, rather than where it's going to go if it was dropped to neutral. Not to mention, it puts more emphasis on controlling the flag zone. It could be improved.
But the two point system also fails because most players will go to the rocket anyway. Once the flag has been picked up there's no use waiting around the flag zone anymore. Most of the routes out of the flag area are all cramped and easy to be killed in, but there's 4 routes that don't require jumping and 2 additional ones for soldiers and demomen, meaning that if someone gets the flag they're probably also getting out. Since the goal is to bring it to a control point, the flag will likely be there, and once it's dropped, it will stay there. It adds a small dynamic of flowing gameplay, but it makes it a little tedious to have to go back and get the flag when you've returned it (and usually there's little resistance there, even if you walk from the point to the flag zone.)
Let's talk Doomsday in particular: the control point is an elevator, much like hightower, and also like hightower it gets annoying. It's a long slog to get to the top, but once you're there, it's very hard to access it. Having even 2 players at the top of the elevator makes it very difficult to jump onto it and defend.
The map also feels unfinished and untested. There are some large sightlines and a lot of paths go unused because there are much better routes to take or they're just not visible. For example, there's a spawn exit here:
I had no idea this even existed for most of the rounds I played, and even when I discovered it, I still never used it because the elevated area to the left has another spawn exit that puts you in a much better position above any enemies that might be in the lower area. Not that there would be any enemies there because that's only used for going from the flag zone to the rocket, and usually only used by one person. But why didn't I know it was there?
Because this is how you approach it. You have to make a left around this corner and then make a right in order to get to the door. However, any player coming through would immediately see the other door and walk through it before they notice the arrow. The tunnel is slanted so that you come out walking in one direction, and continue to walk that way because you don't see the other door and the other door is useless anyway.
I do like Doomsday because of its large arenas. The rocket area is great to fight in.
It's open but it doesn't feel like you're exposed all the time. There's plenty of height and plenty of space for soldiers to jump around in, a few side routes for scouts, spies, and pyros, and some good corners for engineers to set up teleporters and dispensers, while very few places to put a sentry gun that can lock down the point without contest. However, it suffers from a bunch of problems. For one, this sightline:
This sightline can see all the way from the entrance to the flag zone to the rocket's cap point. There's nothing you can do about a sniper standing here while you're fighting near the rocket, and it provides a lot of vision. This could have been fixed by adding a grain elevator between the blue building on the left and the gray building in the middle, which retains the open feeling of this area and the rocket while cutting off this line.
Furthermore, I've mentioned in the past that Arena and KOTH are opposites in how they use pickups: Arena maps have very sparse health to promote hot spots, while King of the Hill has a lot of health with little ammo to promote offensive pushes and slow down engineers. It looks like Doomsday has made another entry in this:
These are right next to the rocket area. There are 3 full healthkits and 2 small healthkits within a short walk of the rocket. There's also two medium healthkits between the flag zone and the rocket. I think there's more health on this map than there is in all of Badwater. I think there's more full healthkits than in any other map to date. This could have been a medium health kit and it would have the same draw, but because it's full it makes it disheartening to nearly kill an enemy and then pop he's full health again.
And speaking of that second screenshot: that is a deathpit. You will get tricked by this deathpit at least once. You will pick up the healthkit and walk straight into it. Why is it there? Because behind me is an exhaust pipe that flings players into it when a team launches the rocket. Does this work? Not really. More often than not you'll get stuck on the sides until the trigger_push turns off.
Here's the flag zone. I like this area. It's great to fight in because of all the terrain and junk. I'd like it more if you spent more than 30 seconds here. Once the Australium can be picked up, you're not coming back unless you're here to pick it up after it returned, in which case there will be no fight. Everyone's at the rocket. You might bump into a scout or a soldier, but usually there will only be one guy, and even then it's smarter to just take the briefcase and run. It's hard to contain the enemy in this space when there are so many ways out.
Also, see that pipe? I never went through that pipe. I saw other players take it (and then murdered them because it's very cramped.) Why didn't I ever go through that pipe? Because the middle route leads to a bridge that is high up and gives you a massive advantage, is shorter than the pipe, leads directly to the rocket, has a full ammo pack and two small healthkits, and it's not a pipe. I don't like pipes. I didn't like them in 2fort and I don't like them here. If you recall earlier, that pipe lets out here:
The problem is that it takes longer to go through the pipe to get there than it does to go through the higher routes. So if you do take the pipe and someone sees you, they can meet you at the exit and kill you because you idiot you're stuck in a pipe! The only advantage you get is that the pipe has a medium healthkit in it. But the two smalls heal you for nearly the same amount and aren't as dangerous!
Doomsday: gamemode needs some work and the map needs some finishing touches. It's very barren (as has been pointed out) and there's a lot of useless routes. Pickups could use some rebalancing especially. At the moment everything feels very rushed. Still a good map, I like the dynamic element the flag brings. If it were a little better it'd be my favorite map in TF2.
Doomsday introduces us to the new official gamemode, Special Delivery, which is basically King of the Hill with a flag in a separate spot that you need to bring to the point. On paper it sounds like a map that creates two fighting areas but you end up concentrating your momentum around the point anyway. Two major flaws in how it was implemented: once picked up, the flag must return for the other team to pick it up and the point I mentioned before about how everyone ends up at the rocket anyway.
When one team picks up the flag it's theirs until the "short" 10-15 second timer resets it, at which point someone has to go back to the spawnpoint and pick it up again. As long as your team keeps touching the flag you can't lose. I don't mind this, but it makes it very hard to lose once you pick it up the first time. It provokes a lot of fighting around where the flag is, rather than where it's going to go if it was dropped to neutral. Not to mention, it puts more emphasis on controlling the flag zone. It could be improved.
But the two point system also fails because most players will go to the rocket anyway. Once the flag has been picked up there's no use waiting around the flag zone anymore. Most of the routes out of the flag area are all cramped and easy to be killed in, but there's 4 routes that don't require jumping and 2 additional ones for soldiers and demomen, meaning that if someone gets the flag they're probably also getting out. Since the goal is to bring it to a control point, the flag will likely be there, and once it's dropped, it will stay there. It adds a small dynamic of flowing gameplay, but it makes it a little tedious to have to go back and get the flag when you've returned it (and usually there's little resistance there, even if you walk from the point to the flag zone.)
Let's talk Doomsday in particular: the control point is an elevator, much like hightower, and also like hightower it gets annoying. It's a long slog to get to the top, but once you're there, it's very hard to access it. Having even 2 players at the top of the elevator makes it very difficult to jump onto it and defend.
The map also feels unfinished and untested. There are some large sightlines and a lot of paths go unused because there are much better routes to take or they're just not visible. For example, there's a spawn exit here:
I had no idea this even existed for most of the rounds I played, and even when I discovered it, I still never used it because the elevated area to the left has another spawn exit that puts you in a much better position above any enemies that might be in the lower area. Not that there would be any enemies there because that's only used for going from the flag zone to the rocket, and usually only used by one person. But why didn't I know it was there?
Because this is how you approach it. You have to make a left around this corner and then make a right in order to get to the door. However, any player coming through would immediately see the other door and walk through it before they notice the arrow. The tunnel is slanted so that you come out walking in one direction, and continue to walk that way because you don't see the other door and the other door is useless anyway.
I do like Doomsday because of its large arenas. The rocket area is great to fight in.
It's open but it doesn't feel like you're exposed all the time. There's plenty of height and plenty of space for soldiers to jump around in, a few side routes for scouts, spies, and pyros, and some good corners for engineers to set up teleporters and dispensers, while very few places to put a sentry gun that can lock down the point without contest. However, it suffers from a bunch of problems. For one, this sightline:
This sightline can see all the way from the entrance to the flag zone to the rocket's cap point. There's nothing you can do about a sniper standing here while you're fighting near the rocket, and it provides a lot of vision. This could have been fixed by adding a grain elevator between the blue building on the left and the gray building in the middle, which retains the open feeling of this area and the rocket while cutting off this line.
Furthermore, I've mentioned in the past that Arena and KOTH are opposites in how they use pickups: Arena maps have very sparse health to promote hot spots, while King of the Hill has a lot of health with little ammo to promote offensive pushes and slow down engineers. It looks like Doomsday has made another entry in this:
These are right next to the rocket area. There are 3 full healthkits and 2 small healthkits within a short walk of the rocket. There's also two medium healthkits between the flag zone and the rocket. I think there's more health on this map than there is in all of Badwater. I think there's more full healthkits than in any other map to date. This could have been a medium health kit and it would have the same draw, but because it's full it makes it disheartening to nearly kill an enemy and then pop he's full health again.
And speaking of that second screenshot: that is a deathpit. You will get tricked by this deathpit at least once. You will pick up the healthkit and walk straight into it. Why is it there? Because behind me is an exhaust pipe that flings players into it when a team launches the rocket. Does this work? Not really. More often than not you'll get stuck on the sides until the trigger_push turns off.
Here's the flag zone. I like this area. It's great to fight in because of all the terrain and junk. I'd like it more if you spent more than 30 seconds here. Once the Australium can be picked up, you're not coming back unless you're here to pick it up after it returned, in which case there will be no fight. Everyone's at the rocket. You might bump into a scout or a soldier, but usually there will only be one guy, and even then it's smarter to just take the briefcase and run. It's hard to contain the enemy in this space when there are so many ways out.
Also, see that pipe? I never went through that pipe. I saw other players take it (and then murdered them because it's very cramped.) Why didn't I ever go through that pipe? Because the middle route leads to a bridge that is high up and gives you a massive advantage, is shorter than the pipe, leads directly to the rocket, has a full ammo pack and two small healthkits, and it's not a pipe. I don't like pipes. I didn't like them in 2fort and I don't like them here. If you recall earlier, that pipe lets out here:
The problem is that it takes longer to go through the pipe to get there than it does to go through the higher routes. So if you do take the pipe and someone sees you, they can meet you at the exit and kill you because you idiot you're stuck in a pipe! The only advantage you get is that the pipe has a medium healthkit in it. But the two smalls heal you for nearly the same amount and aren't as dangerous!
Doomsday: gamemode needs some work and the map needs some finishing touches. It's very barren (as has been pointed out) and there's a lot of useless routes. Pickups could use some rebalancing especially. At the moment everything feels very rushed. Still a good map, I like the dynamic element the flag brings. If it were a little better it'd be my favorite map in TF2.
Could the lack of detailing be because it needs to be pyrovision friendly? I know certain items change, like the health packs turning into cakes. Maybe they didn't have time to create PV versions of a lot of props. Rather that having an old barrel or a beat up crate ruin the look of the PV changed level, they just left them off.
- Feb 26, 2008
- 1,626
- 1,325
OK obviously I just need to play the map but this is basically restricted KOTF, no? That new entity sure would have helped 2/3 years ago when I asked the devs for it
TBH the whole map doesn't seem well designed for this gamemode. I'm already thinking of possible map retrofits to try it out elsewhere, does anyone have any ideas? What map would this fit best in? The biggest issue is that the mechanic restricts the layout to only bilaterally symmetrical maps, or else there's no fair spot to start the flag. And I think the flag start position is probably way more important of a choice than this map makes it out to be.
Of course, we can double up on the mechanic in rotationally symmetrical maps; start the flag in the middle and have a rocket at each team's base. Rocket/whatever the hell you want, really. Guh, having experimented with CTF so much this just seems like a really bland permutation
TBH the whole map doesn't seem well designed for this gamemode. I'm already thinking of possible map retrofits to try it out elsewhere, does anyone have any ideas? What map would this fit best in? The biggest issue is that the mechanic restricts the layout to only bilaterally symmetrical maps, or else there's no fair spot to start the flag. And I think the flag start position is probably way more important of a choice than this map makes it out to be.
Of course, we can double up on the mechanic in rotationally symmetrical maps; start the flag in the middle and have a rocket at each team's base. Rocket/whatever the hell you want, really. Guh, having experimented with CTF so much this just seems like a really bland permutation
- Sep 28, 2009
- 3,075
- 2,778
The issue is that both objectives are neutral, so the dynamic element that comes from most assault gamemodes isn't here. In any other game, you have the potential of suddenly being defending when you're attacking, meaning you need to focus on either stopping the carrier or defending your base rather than waiting around the capture zone. Because there's only one capture zone here, if the flag is returned you don't have a reason to leave because the flag will just come back to the rocket anyway.
Easy fix is to give each team their own rocket with the objective being to launch your opponent's (or blow it up or whatever) and putting the flag in the middle. You could let either team pick it up when it's dropped this way, or just stick with a short return time (maybe 5 seconds?)
Easy fix is to give each team their own rocket with the objective being to launch your opponent's (or blow it up or whatever) and putting the flag in the middle. You could let either team pick it up when it's dropped this way, or just stick with a short return time (maybe 5 seconds?)
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- Jul 22, 2009
- 1,874
- 1,257
I was going to say that you do need to leave the rocket, because at some point you'll have to grab the flag so that it's bound to your team for a bit, but good players will just camp the rocket and let scrubs relay it down the map I guess.
Not a huge fan of the dynamic this map presents, the more I play it. I expected the flag to at least drop in semi-random locations. I'm disappointed that the HUD doesn't show the state of the capture and you have to actually look at the rocket, and about 25% of the rocket cap time is just the top spinning so you can't even know.
I think Rav was right: this is a map that couldn't have been made here. But that's because it's bad.
Anyone notice the timer hologram over the intel at the start? I want that in my KOTH maps.
Not a huge fan of the dynamic this map presents, the more I play it. I expected the flag to at least drop in semi-random locations. I'm disappointed that the HUD doesn't show the state of the capture and you have to actually look at the rocket, and about 25% of the rocket cap time is just the top spinning so you can't even know.
I think Rav was right: this is a map that couldn't have been made here. But that's because it's bad.
Anyone notice the timer hologram over the intel at the start? I want that in my KOTH maps.
Trotim
aa
- Jul 14, 2009
- 1,195
- 1,045
...so, make ctf_converge