KotH Lovely a5

[Idolon]

Lovely - Still lovin'

Cliffside KotH map set somewhere in the Balkans. Adopted from Ibex.

Custom assets:
Dr. Spud's ivy
Heyo's Borneo trees
Frontline windows

 

[Ælement]

Damn son. That architecture is straight up sexy.

 

[Bakscratch]

lovely

 

[Idolon]

Future changes for a2:

Make this exit more useful by raising the door and creating a platform outside. Effectively moving the dropdown from inside to outside because the current setup can trap retreating players and the attacking team could use some help.

Remove this health because it's already in a really powerful spot. Lakeside gets away with it because it's side area is less important to hold.

Remove this porch. All this really does at the moment is give the defending team more room to run around and flank attackers trying to push out of spawn, and the attacking team needs some help.

Remove this inset (or at least make it much smaller, 64-128 max). The defending team doesn't need a place to ambush. To compensate, add some cover between these two columns. This gives the point and the outside area directly adjacent more cover.

Remove this health or make it small. Same with the ammo. This shouldn't be a place to hold, but it is.

Make this cover complete. When players see gaps, they take advantage of them. Usually snipers. Getting shot through cover sucks.

Move the octagon in to get it away from this sightline. This will also make it more relevant to attacking the point. May also reposition the stairs to make the octagon route more useful (might wait a version to make that change).

Something needs to be done about the lower route, as it is the most central to the point but also pretty much useless because its farther away and lower than either of the other routes. Not sure how that will happen though.

May also shrink the map a bit, as it feels a tad too large.

 

[ibex]

Theme and architecture feel a lot more cohesive now, can't wait to see where you take it!

Something I contemplated was flipping mid along the mirrored axis; while helping the garden transitions/sightlines it would certainly change how the map/height functions, so idk if it's worth attempting. Scaffolding on mid was another thing I considered, and would actually work with your theme!

I should orphan more of my alphas..

 

[Idolon]

Changes:

-Removed full health from mid
-Shrunk small ammo pocket at mid
-Added scaffolding platform/cover at mid
-Removed medium health from platform near mid
-Moved small rock between circle/octagon gardens to be more useful as cover
-Made trellis on octagon garden complete
-Gave cliff spawn exit a raised platform instead of an interior dropdown

Concerns:

-Lower path still needs to be more effective. May add small health, raise ground, and/or move it closer inwards. Leaving this as a less effective route is ok as long as the other routes can support the bulk of the fighting, which they may need to.
-Sightline across the circle garden is still pretty extreme. May add more cover inside.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[JeanPaul]

Architecture A+++

 

[Idolon]

Alpha 3

Most of the work on this version is from making the map smaller. Specifically:

-Mid is 128 units less wide
-Shrunk mid connector by 192 units
-Lowered circle garden by 64 units
-Moved octagon garden (and adjacent building) back 64 units
-Shrunk yard adjacent to mid by 64 units
-Shrunk other yard by 64 units also
-Raised low route by 128-ish units
-Shrunk small flank by a bit, added pergola

Other changes:

-Moved small flank health and ammo indoors, changed health to medium
-Moved other medium health/ammo combo outdoors to octagon
-Removed medium health from cliff route
-Nobuilt tops of scaffolds
-Expanded capture zone to include lower scaffold

Concerns:

-Low route is probably still not that effective
-Small flank (pergola route) is rather far away from the point
-Will likely move low route over to line up with the scaffolds (and raise it accordingly - it will probably exit onto the small platform) so that the low route is more effective and the pergola route will be closer to the action.

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Idolon]

-probably missed changes from months ago
-changed connector buildings to make more than just the octagon a relevant place to attack the point from
-added upward-esque cliff flank route to allow access to the rotunda out of view from the point
-redid spawns and exits to provide spawn more of an advantage towards the point to help fight spawn camping
-rescaled mid to bring rotunda 64 units in, making it more usable as a flank to the point (also shifted octagon back to prevent sightline between the octagons)
-rescaled yard by point to bring connector 64 units closer
-added more plants to the octagon to make it less useful for spawn camping

edit because i forgot:
-moved health/ammo from octagon back indoors

Read the rest of this update entry...

 

[Idolon]

I decided to pick this map back up again because I felt like the theme was too good to waste, and because I wanted a relatively simple project to work on.

I've scrapped pretty much the whole map besides mid and started over. The old layout was scaled and structured sort of like a "lobby koth," but the lobby split teams up too much and made it too easy for defending teams to dive deep into enemy territory. I'm redesigning the lobby to look something more like Bagel, where the attacking team has a more concentrated lobby with two direct options to the point and a low ground flank to the side. Hopefully this concentrates the fight more on the point and makes flanking still a valid strategy, but less trivial.

This is kinda in line with the most recent changes to the map, where I was trying to make the middle low ground and "pergola" route more relevant to the point, as the octagon platform was too powerful. This new version ditches the high ground platform entirely and puts the focus on those two routes. Now that the octagon has been repurposed as the low ground route, the rotunda room has returned to its status as a flank route. This should be fine, as the routes that go directly to the point are much better for attacking.

This change also helps aesthetically, as it makes more sense for the land to slope towards the cliff edge rather than the other way around.

Will hopefully have an a5 in a couple of weeks?

 

[Idolon]

a5
-pretty much redid entire map besides mid to have a more coherent lobby and focus fighting more on the point.
-reduced cap time from 12s to 6s

Read the rest of this update entry...