Preface
Procedure
I began by, obviously, playing the maps as much as I could. Then I spent an average of 52 minutes per map doing an in-depth technical examination of each map by myself using a plethora of console commands while taking notes and screenshots. After that I moved on to writing the gameplay analysis and turning the technical notes into something usable. My ratings began with assigning an overall grade for each category, then deducting or adding score depending on the number and importance of specific points.
Not all points are important enough to have played into score, but they will still be mentioned herein.
Gameflow
• Is it obvious where the player should go?
• Is there anywhere the player will get caught?
• Are there too many or too few routes?
• Is there anything that disrupts the player's normal actions?
• Is important information conveyed to the player?
Balance
• Is any class over- or under-powered?
• Does each team have a fair chance of winning?
• Does each team have a fair change of recovery? (PLR)
• Is there anything that needlessly tips favor?
Detail
• Is there enough detail that the map does not feel bland?
• ...or too much to the point of clutter?
• Does the detail look good?
• Any "finishing touches" that are not necessarily world detail.
Optimization
Framerate is a poor, inconsistent and incomplete measure of optimization, I went for the technical approach. I want to mention that players in the rendered area require more frequent updates and are one of the primary reasons you need to keep the amount of rendered area low.
• How much is being rendered?
• ...that is not visible?
-- These encompass many aspects, AP use, func_detail (over)use, excessive detail, fades.
• Is custom content used for noticeable things with a sensible filesize?
• Is there any lightmap optimization?
-- Valve gets away without it, but filesize is a factor in custom maps. It is a positive to have it, but I do not mark off for not having it (exceptions noted).
• Crash issues?
• Extraneous entities. Primarily an issue with PLR due to the edict limit dance.
Style
• Is the detail cohesive and logical?
• Does the map feel like it belongs in TF2?
• Do the visuals of the entire map flow together?
• Spytech usage?
Things I need to explain for several maps so I am writing them here once.
A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered.
Doing so forces dead players and spectators to view a specific camera. Goldrush and Badwater use this when the finale is triggered to make sure people can see it. It is accomplished by sending (at time of finale!) the tf_gamerules an input of SetRequiredObserverTarget with the name of an info_observer_point as the parameter.
Non-dynamic capture point signs.
The props_gameplay/sign_gameplay01.mdl "Capture Point" sign and it's variations should change color when a point is taken. This is a convention established by Valve and while it partly falls within detail, I place it under flow as it is conveying information about the state of the game to the player.
Lack of final rollback zones.
PLR maps should always have a small rollback zone before the end. This was established in Pipeline to prevent victory from repeated suicide runs nudging the cart forward. Without one it hurts the balance as there is no concerted effort required to get the cart to the end.
Precipitation with collisions.
Nearly always when the map initially loads I suffer extreme stuttering (5 seconds frozen followed by 1 second normal) for about 20-30 seconds. About a third of the time it will
never cease and I have to restart the client and try connecting again. Though I do not know the exact reasons, I am quite confident in saying the precipitation is the cause as I have only ever experienced it on Bayou, HAARP, Nightfall and Slate. At one point HAARP was switched to use the non-collision Valve snow and it has never occured there since.
Everyone chided Valve for rain coming through the roof, but perhaps this was the reason behind it.
The trigger_capture_area are accessible.
While having these at the point can provide useful information to the player such as "defend this point" or "previous point not owned" I believe it is outweighed by the confusion caused by the capturing player count appearing on the hud icon. Therefore I feel they should be kept out of reach.
Horizontal hints.
When visleafs extend high above walls they can see each other, meaning stuff on both sides of the wall will be rendered even if the player can never see over the wall. Place a hint at the height of the wall to chop the leaves and prevent this.
Picture!
Because I know people will ask...
Total word count of this post is 12790. Raw size is 93731 characters (including BBcode).
A list of the commands I used during the technical inspection.
+showbudget
cl_showents
developer
ent_fire func_lod color "0 255 0"
ent_fire func_illusionary color "0 255 0"
(occasional other uses of the color input to determine entity type)
map_showspawnpoints
mat_leafvis
mat_luxels
mat_wireframe
mp_showrespawntimes
r_drawbrushmodels
r_drawclipbrushes
r_drawdisp
r_drawfuncdetail
r_drawlightinfo
r_drawportals
r_drawstaticprops
showtriggers_toggle
Payload Race reviews
Animus
Gameflow: 2
The first stage is too long, but almost so much so that "long" doesn't even apply anymore. You spend huge amounts of time just walking to where you need to be. The actual flow from place to place within the stage is logical and obvious, but that only serves to make the length "tolerable". Were it long
and complicated there would be no hope for unfamiliar players.
Another issue I've seen arise is the center water pool. The death trigger is quiet deep in the water leaving players confused and looking for an escape route that doesn't exist. Death pits should do their job, not dance around it and trap the player.
Stage two is considerably smaller but while the size is acceptable, the linear cart path and overall layout is less than ideal. The building
[AN32] in the center along with the cliffs it provides access to are largely unused. There isn't any real purpose to going up there except for the occasional sniper or engineer hiding a teleport in the corner. There is mostly only one way to the middle of the stage, because not many people will use the upper exit from spawn due to the time they lose while still ending up nearly in the same place upon reaching the center (you head back down again).
There are also insufficient spawn points in stage two. Only 12 each.
[AN34]
While I was writing this review sitting in stage two the timer ran out, and I tabbed back to find the anti-stalemate had not triggered. There also appears to be issues with this that sometimes cause the carts to be left behind in when you advance to the third stage. Upon pushing the cart to the end there was still no victory.
[AN35]
The third stage is mostly straightforward along the main routes. However some of the lower passages are confusing and fairly useless, taking lots of time to get somewhere of little importance. In such a short and fast playing stage this is not helpful.
• Carts should have space for a player on all sides at all times. There are several locations where the player is knocked off if riding, and a few side-clearance issues in stage one.
• The short setup time can cause confusion, and is entirely useless since there are no gates.
• PLR convention is to demarcate crossover and roll zones with hazard tape. This is missing from the stage two crossover and stage one rollbacks (both center and final).
• This beam is unclipped and can catch the player while going up the stairs.
[AN24]
• This displacement is all but hidden except for the corner sticking out, which can cause players to get stuck.
[AN15]
Balance: 2
Here again the length of stage one is an issue. Time you spend traveling is time you are not guarding or advancing a cart. This makes it substantially difficult to attempt a victory if the enemy gets ahead of you, and can lead to a stalemate very easily.
Teleporters could be useful here but there are few safe places to leave an exit that makes leaving your sentry an uninviting venture. Snipers have some fairly significant sightlines into major areas, making them a little
too useful.
In stage two there isn't much issue in the way of balance. Engineers don't really have anywhere useful to set up a gun for defense, as the enemy has numerous routes to avoid, outrange, or flank.
• Lack of final rollback zones. (see preface)
Stage three has nearly always been a streamroll when I've played, in stark contrast to the often slow attrition of the others. The spawns are at one end of the track so whichever team comes out of the initial battle with the upper hand has a very easy and unrestricted time to reach the end. A major factor in this is the complete lack of any rollback or slow zones. Moving the spawns to a more central location would also help.
Detail: 3
The overall quality of the detail is fairly good. However there are still numerous dev textures along with large undetailed walls with real textures.
• It seems little or no effort was made to line up track models in a sensible way.
• VRAD was not ran with -staticproppolies leaving many bad shadows.
• There are a couple ledges
[AN01] [AN25] that should be playerclipped and are not.
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface)
• The cart has no interaction with what occurs in the finale.
Stage one:
• Weird crack
[AN30]
• The info_observer_point over the blue water never disables in later rounds.
• The ugly door APs in spawn.
• The respawnroomvisualizer texture is on the outside of the doors.
• The imperial mining overlay on the central building changes render order with the blue paint depending on where you stand.
Stage two:
• I have no idea why these brushes are here.
[AN16]
Stage three:
• Bad texture choice/alignment.
[AN17]
• Unsewn displacements.
[AN19] [AN27]
• Obnoxiously short fade distances on all the rocks.
[AN26]
• Horrible water rendering
[AN18] in here that spits out some errors in the console. I suspect either you have the concrete on the other sides of the brush or a custom water with VMT problems.
No such variable "$bottommaterial" for material "concrete/concretefloor003"
material "0" not found.
No such variable "$fogcolor" for material "concrete/concretefloor003"
No such variable "$fogenable" for material "concrete/concretefloor003"
No such variable "$fogstart" for material "concrete/concretefloor003"
No such variable "$fogend" for material "concrete/concretefloor003"
Optimization: 2
Stage one has significant issues
[AN05] with over rendering. There isn't much that could be done to fix this due to the two large sightlines down either side. This is another thing restructuring the stage would help with.
These double-layered APs
[AN07] are redundant and here
[AN06] you have some merging that creates a useless AP.
The roof overhangs
[AN20] [AN22] and shack
[AN23] are not func_detail and will create unhelpful leaves.
Stage two has less severe render distance issues
[AN13] which could probably be helped with an AP above and below the large concrete beam with the arrow sign on it.
The two APs
[AN11] within the spawn area are useless.
Stage three has good render culling due to it's more confined design.
• The cart has no level-of-detail. For such a high-poly object this is a must. I realize you did not create it but model detail is the mapper's job to pay attention to and bring up if a modeller does something poorly.
• There was some luxel optimization done, which is good, but there is much more that could have used it to help with the large filesize of the map.
• Two info_particle_system (particle_soul_red/blue_cp1) that have no particle defined and two extra spawn points
[AN33] [AN34]. With a map this high in edicts such extraneous things are important to find and remove.
Style: 2
The overwhelming colored tint of the map separates it from the TF2 normal. Valve has created many different themes but they all keep and overall neutral tone that balances out between the two team's colors.
The blue brick buildings that exist in a few places contrast heavily in a bad way with the rest of the theme, which is consistently wooden with subdued colors. However, this could just be a relative effect of everything else being red tones.
As an experiment I switched the sky to badlands
[AN37] and the results are interesting. It seems the color that causes so much controversy is entirely the sky's fault.
It's just
too dark, red and gloomy. Perhaps lighten it up and make the reds rich instead of drab.
Lack of spytech.
Other notes
• The crossover failure is due to both Valve's strange coding and the extreme length of stage one. Raising the capture time on the cart trigger will prevent it, but ideally the stage would be shortened as well.
• There are several places in this pit that are missed with the death triggers.
[AN31]
• In stage one, there two physics-simulated pumpkins on RED's side while BLU's are static.
• There are numerous props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
Arctic
Gameflow: 3
I have not seen any major issues with stage one. Everything is straightforward and easy to navigate even without any directional signs. There are enough alternate routes while not having too many, so there aren't any unused areas and players don't get spread too thin.
However, none of the edges or beams are clipped off, and you can get caught on them.
Stage two on the other hand has a main route and too many other routes. It's not entirely clear where you will end up when heading into a side path, with many of them having u-turns in the middle.
There is a single spawn point
[AR03] for each team that faces the corner, somewhat disconcerting if you spawn there.
The routes in stage three aren't considerably good or bad, but the main problem is the size of the stage. It always felt like I was taking too long to get where I wanted to go.
There is also somewhat of a disconnection between the upper and lower parts of the map, without any real direct path between them except at the ends.
• The func_respawnroom in stage two and three do not fill the entire room. Players expect to be able to change class once they pass the door.
• Stage one and two have the crossover and rollbacks properly marked with hazard tape and on the hud, however stage three is lacking hazard tape.
Balance: 3
Again, stage one is just about right. No complaints about recovery or class ability. The only issue is the ledge
[AR00] you can get up on, but it's a fairly vulnerable location without much advantage.
Stage two has a horrible sightline through the center that always results in too many snipers camping it, let alone spam from anyone else.
All the under-used side paths make a good place to hide a teleporter exit, and because you can build the entrance within the spawn room where it can't be killed, you can quickly flood the enemy base and overrun them.
Stage three suffers some balance issues due to the length of the stage and the spawns being situated at one end. It takes too long to catch the enemy to stop them, though the large slow rollback zone at the end does alleviate part of the issue with it.
We also have the safe-entrance teleport problem here, if an engineer manages to secure an exit in the final room it can be extremely difficult for the other team to recover.
Detail: 1
Not much to say here. Two of the stages are mostly dev textured and that which isn't generally has large plain walls without detail. The two or three spots that have detailing done are good, but not enough to have an impact.
• You can see through
[AR15] the sky brush here.
• In stage one the upper spawn exit visualizer is on the outside of the door, which is ugly.
Optimization: 2
No APs anywhere, the natural occlusion due to the layout isn't bad, but there are still some issues
[AR01] [AR02] with how much is rendered in certain spots which APs could easily help.
There is some mysterious issue causing clients to crash at random times. It's never obvious who will crash, when, or why. Sometimes it is one here one there and others half the players go at once, but I've never seen it crash the server itself. This is a pretty significant bug that
needs to be tracked down and squashed.
Style: 2
It's hard to grade style when a map is so lacking in detail. But I see nothing wrong with what has been done so far. The coloring and lighting is pleasing. The metal and wooden buildings fit the teams and feel right for the cold wasteland environment.
Lack of spytech.
Other notes
One thing to consider to help with the flow/balance of stage three might be to completely remove the area where the carts currently start. Then put the starting points
[AR05] where my buildings are in this shot.
This gives a two-win advantage similar to pipeline, in that you bypass the entire first hill. After reducing the size of the stage this way the spawns could be moved to a more central location to provide equal access to all areas of the stage.
• There are numerous props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
Cornfield
Gameflow: 2
Stage one is easy for a player to learn. This is partly due to the smaller size, but all routes are obvious, they are all useful.
The crossover isn't wide enough and the carts will physically collide and cease to move.
Stage two also has a simple layout but several areas feel under-used. The routes that go from behind the cart, behind spawn, under the CP and up into the building are extremely out of the way and rarely are used. I would be surprised if many players ever discovered them.
Here again the crossover fails to function at times, except it's a logic issue rather than physical.
The ability to shoot over the dividing wall during setup is annoying and unneeded. But setup time itself is nearly useless, as there is nowhere to go and little reason to build anything.
These door frames
[C37] are not playerclipped properly and will catch the player in a number of ways.
Stage three is decent though some of the side routes don't see much action, but they seem needed to allow flanking of the top of the hill. The main complaint I have is the double-ended arrow sign you see upon spawning. An indication of which way is towards the hill would be better.
The building behind where the carts start seems entirely useless, as the action moves away from there very quickly.
• For some reason when spawning in this spot
[C07] I stick to the floor and need to "jiggle" myself free.
• PLR convention is to demarcate crossover and roll zones with hazard tape. This is missing on all.
Balance: 3
Stage two has a single spawn exit, this is never a good thing. The rollback zone is also quite large and too close to the point. Once you get up the hill you will probably win. However at the same time it's too far from the point for this to be allowable.
• Lack of final rollback zones in stage one and two. (see preface)
On stage three once the cart gets past the large rollback hill there is little chance to recover for the other team, even though there is a fair bit of distance left. Again this is probably because the spawn resides at one end of the map.
Detail: 2
Stage three detail is solid, but lacks that final polish. I especially liked the displacement flaps
[C03] on the box conveyor.
• The angled wood
[C02] is just weird, nothing would be built like that.
• The second stage red control point print name is typoed causing the localized name to not be displayed.
• The carts float above the track.
• The ground in the 3D skybox is not properly aligned and you can see it parallax with the cliffs when you fall off and then fall through the sky-ground.
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface) It's not a real fancy finale, but should probably be done anyway.
Optimization: 3
Stage one has slightly excess rendering
[C33] which could be helped by placing an AP above and below the main gate, along with some horizontal hints. (see preface)
Stage two renders nearly the whole place
[C35] at once, largely due to zero APs in the area, but also lack of horizontal hints.
Stage three also renders nearly everything
[C36] but there isn't any obvious solution, it's just a result of the open layout.
• Several of the custom textures are extremely large due to being uncompressed formats when they do not need to be. This is bloating the map by 15 MB or so.
• Extraneous spawnpoint entity.
[C01]
• Some minor luxel optimzation was done.
Style: 3
Another case of difficult style evaluation due to dev texturing. Stage three has good TF2 detail styling. However I feel there are too many different types of textures, particularily on the red side. There are two different major kinds of wood, several metals, conrete block and old brick. This can work if they make sense or are using for accents, but they are used for the major textures of different buildings that are all stuck together, and gives a discordant appearance.
Minimal spytech with no progression.
Other notes
• The main gate in stage one is a grate material that explosive damage will pass through.
• There are numerous props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
• Easter egg ahoy!
[C32]
Highwind
Gameflow: 3
Obviously, there isn't much confusion in where to go given the small size of the map. However it's considerably chokey with only one route through the middle. While there is the underground route, if you take it you'll still end up having to walk back into the middle if that's where your cart is.
It might be good to make the side passages connect all the way across in some way or another.
The result is the map gets boring far sooner because you have limited options.
I find that it's easy to get turned around in the center room during battle and there are no color markers to quickly orient yourself, and more than once I've ended up walking back into my own side. The only defining thing is the tracks, but since both colors go out both doors it isn't very helpful.
A similar issue exists with the underground when teleporting in. Players don't know which side of the map they arrived on.
The scoring system is flawed somehow. It's very inconsistent in when it hands out points for capping.
A player can get jammed between the wall and the cart here
[HI26] resulting in niether being able to move until the player dies.
Balance: 3
There isn't a "recovery" aspect to look at like in normal PLR when the enemy team capping doesn't make you lose, but the carts could use a checkpoint or two that they cannot roll back beyond similar to standard payload. That would help prevent "anti-recovery" of losing all your progress.
• There is no ammo box here
[HI17] on the red side, but over on blu's there is. This is actually advantageous to red as their engineers can set up outside blu's base easier.
• This ledge
[HI19] is pretty ridiculous looking to stand on, and is too advantageous of a camping spot, especially right in the corner above the main entrance.
• It is possible to get up into the tower
[HI16] as soldier/demo and rain down death.
• This window
[HI22] and the door frame
[HI24] should be playerclipped, again because it gives an excessive height advantage (and it's just awkward).
Detail: 3
The detailing is good, though sparse and empty in places. Lack of a 3D skybox hurts.
• The control point names are fake localization strings, kinda ugly.
• There is a displacement crack on both sides of the map.
[HI09]
• This roof has no wall under it!
[HI11]
• These windows are not embedded
[HI18] but it seems weird to have windows inside a building anyway.
• This detail room is completely empty, how lonely.
[HI20] Except you have a lock on both the inside and outside, tricky door to open.
Optimization: 3
Pretty much the whole map
[HI04] [HI05] is rendered at all times, except when in the center area. This is because there are extremely tall leaves
[HI06] [HI08] that can see each other over the roofs and so the engine thinks it must render everything at the bottom of the leaves. This could be easily fixed with a few layers of horizontal hints. (see preface)
There is a bunch of dead space
[HI12] amongst the center buildings. Including this deeply buried pitch black room.
[HI13]
Also some unused random spawns.
[HI25]
Style: 3
A very different theme attempt here that actually is quite refreshing and nice. It fits with the fanciful stereotypical themes of TF2, and could easily go all the way if finished in the proper direction. The addition of spytech devices would be the most significant factor, as it is the uniting factor of all the themes.
I would, however, recommend ditching the palm trees or the snowy mountain. Either one could fit with the building style, but both together clash.
Other notes
Looks like you missed a func_detail here, the trim by the door and corners.
[HI10]
Nightfall
Gameflow: 4
Overall good layout that is easy to learn and navigate. The edges are well playerclipped.
The first stage seems a bit too wide however, with too much neutral ground that removes action from the base areas. All the routes seems to be used often except this one
[N14] which I rarely see used, and doesn't provide any particular advantage.
The second stage is similarly wide, but the base areas are smaller and the neutral ground is more elaborate and complex, so it plays out better.
Stage three is interesting, one enormous arena much like Pipeline, but it has no real urgency until the carts reach the downward hill.
If in the rare case both carts reach the crossover in sudden death mode, the second one will not stop and will ram into the first. Usually they seem to slide out and continue, but it might be worth accounting for so there is no chance of a deadlock.
• These func_lod are not playerclipped and provide an edge to catch on.
[N09]
• PLR convention is to demarcate crossover and roll zones with hazard tape. This is lacking on the stage two crossover and all of stage three's roll zones. It would be especially useful on the front roll zone as it seems a lot of players don't realize that exists.
Balance: 4
Recovery balance is fairly good, as is class balance. Demomen and soldiers are a bit strong on the last stage because of the carts heading down into a hole they can spam.
The sudden death mechanic is not the best solution and remains slightly unbalanced, but it is certainly better than a round that goes on forever.
The main issue I have is with the lack of a final rollback zone in the first two stages (see preface).
Detail: 3
High quality detail in the first two stages, though obviously the unfinished third hurts the grade.
• Wrong color sign pointed the wrong direction.
[N08]
• Door half embedded in the wall.
[N12]
• The dump trucks in stage two don't make any sense. Everything is surrounded by cliffs and the only place they could drive out is through the door the cart enters, but that leads up a hill to where the truck would be stuck.
• Unaligned visualizer.
[N13]
• It feels like there is an overall excess of company name overlays. They are everywhere, and every individual structure block is apparently owned by different people.
• Unaligned starting block overlay.
[N06]
• The small pool of water in stage three seems out of place.
Optimization: 3
Good render culling in most places. Decent amounts of luxel optimization.
Precipitation with collisions. (see preface)
• A strange tiny AP here
[N03] which I believe is to help preserve view over the top when blast jumping, however you end up seeing pieces of stuff missing on the other side anyway.
• These large APs
[N04] serve a similar purpose, but from the ground they only allow you to barely see the tops of trees in exchange for a lot of extra rendering.
[N05]
• Extraneous spawn point.
[N11]
• This func_lod
[N07] seems it could be left as world brush since it's flush with the walls.
Style: 4
Excellent execution of the sawmill theme.
Unfortunately the spytech is quite lacking.
Other notes
• The carts produce penetration errors
[N10] when the map starts and are then put to sleep. Might consider adjusting their starting position to see if this can be remedied.
• One time the red cart began moving by itself on the second stage, but I do not know why nor has it ever happened again.
• There is an extraneous displacement buried here
[N15] that is producing the following error:
SurfFlagsToSortGroup: unhandled flags (4000808) (nature/blendgroundtograss008)!
- This implies you have a surface (usually a displacement) embedded in solid.
- Look near (-128.0, -8832.0, 192.0)
• An idea that I think would balance overtime better would be for the carts to only self-drive when niether one is being pushed. That way if you are actually on your own cart pushing you cannot lose to the ghost cart. This means maintaining the "farthest pusher wins" aspect along with the ability for players to influence the outcome (as standard PL/CP overtime allows) while not making players feel cheated.
Panic
Gameflow: 4
The only real complaint I have about stage one is the low doorways that prevent cart riding. Players enjoy doing so and hindering it without good reason should be avoided.
Stage two feels a little large but I usually see all routes being used though area part opposite of the cap points merely serves as a flanking route and really doesn't see much purpose. Overall it's pretty good.
The spawn rooms could use some signage indicating which door leads to the cart and which to the point.
Stage three is straightforward in where you need to go since it uses the large single arena method, however it has some unused areas like this one
[PC10] which I didn't even know existed until my inspection and the little C shaped hallway behind the point. Given the urgency of the stage players either need to be pushing or stopping a cart, there is no time or reason to wander off in these side halls. Trying to use them to gain a tactical advantage is useless since by the time you get through them the cart very likely will be nowhere near anymore.
It is also entirely too dark in stage three. The others are dim but there are places here that I have actually been unable to determine team color. This is mostly down in the crevices to the sides of the track.
Balance: 3
The sudden death mechanic is not the best solution and remains slightly unbalanced, but it is certainly better than a round that goes on forever.
Lack of final rollback zones in the first two stages. (see preface) In particular I feel it makes recovery in the second stage harder than it should be, with the relative closeness of the one rollback and the rollback-less control point.
The third stage obviously has an extremely erratic balance that is difficult to figure out. The primary issue I have with it is how sometimes the stage will end within a minute.
It also has some class balance issues given the nature of the system, anyone that can knock people off the cart is substantially stronger here.
Detail: 4
Detail is exceptional and distributed well, except for the upper hallways of stage two and some halls in stage three that are devoid of any detailing.
• The stage one info_observer_point over the center is still active in later stages.
• The starting point overlays in stage three are 1 2 3, while convention is 0 1 2.
• Wrong arrow.
[PC06] This would be flow if not for the fact that you can't follow the arrow.
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface) Since there are actually two different finales, I would suggest having a camera for each, especially as people can be confused about what happened when a cart falls off. Having a camera that shows it happening would help.
Optimization: 4
• A little too much is rendered
[PC00] while standing in the lower parts, could probably be fixed with a horizontal hint or two. (see preface)
• There is a lot of debris that gets hidden under the surface
[PC05] but is still rendered.
• It would be a good idea to put an AP under the center
[PC07] to reduce some of the over rendering in the stage.
• The main support beam prop for the nucleus objects is so far back and in shadow that it might be good to replace it with a handful of brushes since the prop is very high poly with no level-of-detail (most of it can't even be seen).
• The water in the 3D skybox should be removed. It is rarely ever seen and is a pretty expensive thing to have rendered at all times when it doesn't add to the map.
• Significant luxel optimization was done. Nearly every dark ceiling, several roofs, the 3D skybox, and some of the pit.
Style: 3
Overall it feels a little drab and depressing, it's all brown tones and feels old-fashioned like there is a sepia filter on the game. The old industrial style fits with TF2 good though. A few of the wooden objects feel out of place.
Not much in the way of spytech.
Other notes
• There are numerous props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
• This error:
SurfFlagsToSortGroup: unhandled flags (4000800) (swamp/nature/blendswampmudtomud001)!
- This implies you have a surface (usually a displacement) embedded in solid.
- Look near (6448.0, -6320.0, -112.0)
• An idea for the third stage balance and early-end issue. Adding a progressive rollback speed that starts out slow and increases every 30 seconds or so could do a lot. It would prevent the stage from ending right out the door if one team gets rolled or doesn't get to the cart soon enough. For conveying this mechanic to the player it would probably be good to have the alarm sound again every time a speed increase happens, and perhaps have a custom model in spawn indicating the current speed.
Rollout
Gameflow: 3
Nobody really got enough playtime due to the crash to accurately judge this. But some of the things I did notice...
• The center of the middle stage is too dark, can't descern team in places.
• The carts are too tall to be jumped on from the ground.
• Stage transitions are really jarring since there is no indication there was a victory, even a capture sound would help with this.
• The storage stages have too many routes going every which way over and under each other.
• Door triggers are too small, I ran into the door before it opened even as a heavy.
• Lack of final rollback zones. (see preface)
Balance: 3
Again, little playtime to judge. All I noticed was the storage stages can be spawncamped from up on these crates.
[R07]
There are also no playerclips over the pits in the base stages and you can sticky jump up and around to the enemy spawn.
[R08] [R09]
Detail: 1
What can I say? There is nothing here. The fake skyboxes really don't work since the parallaxing is obvious and they are extremely low res.
Optimization: 1
Edict overload really seals the deal here. Completely unacceptable. In addition to that the whole middle stage is rendered
[R01] unless you are inside the buildings. This is because of the tall leaves
[R02]. Could be remedied with horizontal hints. (see preface)
The storage stages have a similar though less severe issue.
[R05]
Style: 1
Again, nothing to go on.
Other notes
The really really dark windows are pointless. Either make them walls or make them easily seen through.
Scoville
Gameflow: 3
I don't have any huge issues with the flow, most of them are small things. But then you've gone for an approach that uses large open arenas. The most significant issue I see is stage two. The whole thing is just
big and your walking distance to anywhere is just a bit too long.
• The wall behind the stage one point is too close, and players can become jammed between the wall and the cart preventing the cart from reaching the final path_track.
• Too many low doorways in stage one will knock you off the cart.
• Stage one spawns need some sign differentiation
[SC38] indicating which way is the point you need to defend.
• Four of the spawnpoints are obstructed
[SC35] in stage two, even when fixed there is still only 14.
• Also in there the func_respawnroom only covers the back half of the room.
[SC36]
• There needs to be clearance for a player between the cart and walls at all times.
[SC42]
• Again the signage needs to indicate which exit goes to the point.
[SC33]
• If you spawn in the middle locations
[SC34] you are just facing a wall and can't see either door. It might be better to move them all back with some on the raised platform so that you can see the doors upon spawn from all locations.
• The big elevated conveyors running down the middle of stage three need a playerclip between them, as it is possible to fall in and get stuck up there.
Balance: 3
Stage one seems much too easy to defend. It is almost always a tooth and nail struggle to move the cart once it enters the enemy yard.
Stage two has the spawn and point entirely too far apart making it hopeless to try to respawn and stop people nearing the point. The spawn needs to be moved to a more central location.
Stage three has the weirdest imbalance I've ever encountered, one usually associated with sports. The sun.
[SC43] [SC44] The angle and location puts it right in Blu's face since they need to look upward to their destination and the enemy.
It is also possible to get on the roof of the spawns
[SC37] and camp people as they exit. Also those little triggers sticking out are the func_respawnrooms, and yes you can change class using them, even on the enemy side.
Detail: 2
Stage one's detail is solid though a handful of walls are a bit bare.
• Silly pipes,
[SC45] the walls are 16 units thick that they disappear into.
• Do not use the silhouette models without a night skybox, it just looks bad.
• Crate clipping into the pipes.
[SC00]
• One of the finale sounds does not turn off when the map resets.
• The visualizers are stretched.
[SC25]
• This texture just feels out of place.
[SC39] Strikes me more as an interior texture.
• These A signs
[SC40] are really high and cluttered, and then this one
[SC41] just seems to serve no purpose.
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface)
Optimization: 1
[SC27] [SC29] [SC31] This goes beyond lack of optimization into anti-optimization. Stuff is being rendered that has absolutely no logical reason to.
There is also the giant skybox around the stages, biggest nono there is.
Stage three could use some areaportals or hints near the end to prevent the high poly Nucleus props from being rendered unless you are above the pit.
[SC32]
Style: 2
What exists adheres to the TF2 conventions, but there isn't enough to judge anything beyond that.
Other notes
None.
Solitude
Gameflow: 3
The stage one spawn room is really cramped, perhaps move it to the other side of the hallway where there is room to make it larger. Stage two has blocked spawns
[SO33] for Blu. In stage three there is a large spawn room but for some reason all the spawn points are crammed together in a corner, as well as there being only 15 of them.
Stage one just feels too large and open with too many routes. Teams spread out all over the area. Though it's obvious why, it's a little unnatural to be separated from the cart.
Stage three is entirely unobvious. There are no signs in spawn telling you which way the to the cart, and it is in fact the least obvious route. The outside areas feel a little too separated from each other and with doors that may or may not be open due to previous victories or cart progress leads to a fair amount of confusion for new players.
PLR convention is to demarcate crossover and roll zones with hazard tape. This is lacking on stage two's rollbacks and further the hazard tape is merely used as detail
[SO15], appearing on all of the Blu side slopes and on none of the Red side slopes.
The third stage's main rollback zones are not marked on the hud.
• The duct needs to be playerclipped so you won't get caught going up the stairs.
[SO05]
• These halls (and the red counterpats) all have tiny edges you can get caught on.
[SO24] [SO25] [SO26]
• The func_respawnroom in stage three doesn't fill the room
[SO18] let alone the halls
[SO17].
Balance: 4
Not a lot of complaints, but the one that came up the most was in stage two. One spawn exit is too close to the point and the other is too far. This leads to the last bit of the track being fairly steamrolly since the attacking team can just spam the one exit and anyone coming out the other is too far away to be a threat.
Minor issue in stage one. There isn't enough clearance here
[SO38] for a player to hide behind the cart as the push, making a sentry over to the right a little too powerful.
Detail: 3
Good execution of detail but a handful of buildings are bland blocks. I like the little island building in the 3D skybox.
• There are dynamic props all over the map that should have their shadows disabled. A few examples:
[SO23] [SO35] [SO36]
• Missed a texture embed.
[SO00]
• Don't use silhouette models without a night sky, it looks bad.
[SO19]
• The visualizers are outside the door rather than behind.
[SO21] [SO22]
• I have no idea what's causing this anomolous lighting but it is hideous.
[SO27] [SO28]
• These lights could be improved, the spot on the floor is strange.
[SO32]
• It seems the same pipe model is being used as both pipes and supports which just doesn't work.
[SO34]
• Captures and who made them are not reported in the death notice area.
Optimization: 3
Stage one has just too much
[SO12] [SO13] rendered at once but there isn't an easy way to solve it without restructuring things.
Stage two has bad AP merging
[SO14] and for some reason they are only on Blu's side.
[SO16]
There are also 18 spawns for each team that should be trimmed down to remove extraneous entities.
Stage three is good except for where the carts start, which render together because of the tall leaves.
[SO20] Fix with some horizontal hints. (see preface)
Style: 3
Good industrial theme but there is a lack of color variance. It's overwhelmingly yellow/brown, especially in the first stage.
The Nucleus beam textures clash and don't fit with anything in the map.
[SO30]
Not much spytech.
Other notes
• I would playerclip this area straight up and not allow standing on the edge of the train.
[SO29]
• This detail area is accessible but it doesn't do anything to gameplay.
[SO39]
• These windows can be blast jumped through before all the doors open.
[SO31]
• There are numerous props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
• It seems a PCF was not embedded. This is not the precache error that shows up for all custom particles.
Attempting to create unknown particle system 'env_buoy_flash'
Attack & Defend Capture the Flag reviews
Bayou
Gameflow: 2
Much of the map is convoluted and awkward to navigate with lots of small routes and stairs. Everything feel like an extra route, the only major route is the big hall in front of point D.
Signs. There are lots of signs, but this is something often misunderstood. Signs can not and will not
make people understand where to go if a layout is confusing. The purpose of signs should be to
confirm that which the player
already assumes.
• The player will get caught on this ladder
[B07] when trying to walk onto it from the boat.
• A jump is required to get off the balcony
[B03] which is bad for a required route. I've seen people confused about where to go because they don't think about jumping off.
Balance: 2
The overall win balance feels about even, though it has been difficult to discern because of the learning curve of the layout affecting how well the players strategize. However the difficulty of taking each point also seems out of order.
Point A nearly always gets taken, which is good. Point B is defended often though can be easily taken with speed if the point is not being blocked.
Point C seems to be the hardest of the four due to Blu's assault route confined to a lower level, or coming through a window, both of which do not allow for much strategy other than brute force.
Point D quite often falls quickly after C, possibly due to a steamroll effect originating in the large amount of force required to take C. This tends to make C the pivotal point of the map.
• There is no visualizer on the Point A spawn room. Red may enter and spawncamp if they sneak through the doors.
Detail: 3
The detailing is a mixed bag. Individual pockets of detail look good, but overall it flops between over-detailed and noisy to sparse rooms and bare walls.
There are not too many specific issues because as a whole everything is a little "off".
• The visualizer textures are outside the doors
[B08] at red spawn and are stretched to ovals in all locations.
• This support
[B09] is floating.
• The large ship inside the cave is strange and seems wasted, along with the water looking poor.
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface)
Optimization: 1
The level structure and AP use is actually quite good at keeping unseen things from being rendered. However there are some significant issues that undo all of that.
Firstly, a second sky_camera exists in the playable zone. Normally this would prevent any leaves from being built causing the whole map to render at once, and then again in the sky. This case is unusual though, in that leaves were still generated meaning only part of the map was doubled in the sky, along with allowing the normal render culling to occur.
The sky_camera is in Blu's starting boat so only the first area and part of the second are doubled, thus these areas had the worst issues for players (due to each player being doubled).
Precipitation with collisions. (see preface)
The entire sunken mansion is func_detail. Now while this may seem the sensible thing to do I believe it is actually detrimental. It causes the entire area to be rendered as well as the areas in front and behind of it to render each other.
If the main dividing walls of the building were left as world brushes the leaves would not be terribly messy as convex shapes could still be fit within the rooms, they would merely have angled sides. All that may need to be done is encasing the outside of the building with hints that are aligned to the grid to prevent the skewed leaf splits from extending farther out.
• There is some really strange AP merging/construction here.
[B02]
• Lots of extra faces that will never be seen.
[B04]
Style: 3
The map pulls off the swamp feeling quiet well, but there is no real cohesion or sense to the areas. It just feels like random buildings with illogical relationships.
The rocket makes for a good TF2 aspect, but aside from that there isn't much in the way of the spytech theme.
Other notes
• The bottles
[B05] in the boat curiously disappear
[B06] at various viewing angles.
• The particle manifest specifies PCFs that are niether included with the map nor used.
HAARP
Gameflow: 5
Congratulations, the only 5 point gameflow I awarded.
Not much to say here. The map follows a very straightforward layout with a pattern of two equal and obvious routes from place to place. It's almost impossible to take a wrong turn.
Everything you could get stuck on while in battle is properly playerclipped.
The only issue I've seen is a few people running up the stairs away from the point when using the entrance next to the helipad. An arrow of some sort on the support beam
[HA15] probably wouldn't hurt.
Non-dynamic capture point signs. (see preface)
Balance: 4
The second point in stage one seems too easy to hold at times, but conversely Red only has one spawn exit which can be spawncamped. However I wouldn't say these counter each other, because niether is fun for Red.
In stage two I feel the first point is more of a throwaway than 1-1 in this map
or Dustbowl. It's just so close to Blu spawn that it is extremely difficult to defend.
Stage three has two highly unsual points. The first is so elevated it can be tricky to assault it, but as it's the final stage I feel this is ok since it usually ends up falling eventually.
The second point is just one giant hallway. Usually this would be bad for sniper balance, but it doesn't seem to be the case since 100% of the action is focused in the area. The real problem I feel is the number of sentry nooks in the second half of the area. They are extremely inviting to players and it is not uncommon to find a sentry in all three of the main nooks, if not more.
That last issue is probably the only thing preventing me from marking a 5. It
is the last line of defense, but it is more the class balance here than red winning that is the issue. Too sentry friendly, I've never seen the point held because of too many or too skilled of another class, it's always the sentry guns.
Detail: 4
Wonderful detailing, feels like a quality Valve map. The only complaints are a bunch of minor issues but to me they do add up (just like Valve!).
• This generator
[HA05] is extraordinarily bland and dumb looking. This wouldn't even exist at Black Mesa back in Half-Life.
• Where do these wires go?
[HA06] Deadending into a floor plate is strange.
• The extinguisher is designed to to mount in the middle of the case, not sit on the bottom.
[HA07]
• The texture seam in these pipes
[HA00] is pretty ugly and could be easily remedied by rotating them.
• Displacing concrete
[HA09] into such an organic shape is strange. Especially when the surrounding building is structually sound. This was done next to point 1-2 as well.
• My word good Sir, I do believe your toolsnodraw is showing!
[HA16] (Red's first spawn)
• This seam is obnoxious.
[HA17]
• As is this extremely dark lit patch.
[HA11]
• The visualizer material tiles.
[HA12] This is the case on pretty much all of these shape spawn doors.
Optimization: 4
Rendering occlusion is excellent.
I have issue with the way the 3D skybox clouds are implemented. Two or three env_sprite could accomplish the same effect with a third of the sprites being rendered. Additionally, the first cloud should turn off when the third stage is reached, and the cloud by the large dish should be off until then.
Faces exist under the catwalk displacements
[HA08] which means wasted lightmap data.
Nearly all of your indoor areas have very dim to near black ceilings. These are extremely good canidates for aggresive luxel size optimzation but none was performed. This is significant enough for me to consider it a negative, as opposed to seeing no luxel opt as neutral and having some being positive.
Style: 4
The styling is exceptional. My only qualm is the
over-use of the spytech theme. There is little thematic progression over the course of the map. From the begining to the end there are many spytech elements present, the only change is transitioning from rough and functional to fancy and clean.
Other notes
• There are a handful props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
• I think you missed this glass when doing func_detail.
[HA01]
Panamint Springs
Gameflow: 3
A big flow issue is the first point. It's very easy for people to miss it and go through the tunnel to the second point. The rest of the map is fairly straightforward and simple to navigate with the except of the area around the final point, which seems to have too many routes.
The spawn spawn room between stage one and two is very disorienting. There is no defining marks aside from one door being marked with the no entry hand, which you can't see from the angle you spawn. Plus there are spawns on both sides of the room. All of this means players are continually confused as to which way is the exit.
• This spot
[PM03] has a strange "stickiness" to it. When walking across the spot in certain directions you will get caught and be unable to move without jiggling yourself free.
• These signs
[PM16] are redundant, there is no need for arrow signs when you can actually see the control point.
• Non-dynamic capture point signs. (see preface)
• The trigger_capture_area are accessible. (see preface)
Balance: 3
The main problem is that stage two is easier to defend than stage three. Quite often I see red win on stage two but I have never seen them win on three.
In stage two the point is extremely elevated giving red a huge advantage, and in stage three there are so many routes to the point that it is impossible to cover all angles of attack since the point is out in the open.
Also, the spotlights on the final point shining at the computers are distracting/blinding to players trying to stand on the point and defend.
Detail: 1
• Most of the textured parts are bare walls with little to nothing on them.
• No soundscapes.
• Big nodraw hole
[PM36] inside the stair building with a bridge to the first point.
• All the visualizers are stretched.
[PM06]
Optimization: 2
Stage one has some issue
[PM00] with this rendering sightline which could probably be fixed with a world brush behind the dividing wall in the tunnel.
Likewise in stage two the whole area is rendered
[PM02] because there is no world brush behind the large cliff separating the first and second areas.
There are giant boxes of sky around the second and third stages. This is simply unacceptable.
• The laser cannon and computer console below it have no level-of-detail. For such a high-poly object this is a must. I realize you did not create it but model detail is the mapper's job to pay attention to and bring up if a modeller does something poorly.
• Minimal luxel optimization is present, though some of it in bad places that blur shadows too much.
• All three tonemap inputs are sent
nine times.
• These support pillars
[PM04] the canopy
[PM07] and the small walls around the point
[PM08] are all world brushes. It would probably be good to func_detail them.
Style: 1
There really isn't enough to go on here.
Other notes
Rather than trying to fix the stage two/three balance (though the third does need less routes), I would suggest trying out the map with the stages switched. The rock spire is difficult to capture but it would make for an interesting final defense point.
Additionally, the placement of the laser cannon at the end is very underwhelming and boring. If the last point was the rock spire, the spire/platform could be made larger (don't use the badlands prop, it's just ugly in other maps) and the laser could be mounted on some heavy duty framework above the point, which I think would look much better.
Premuda
Gameflow: 4
The overall flow feels good though a few routes feel under-used or awkward. The side route in stage one that leads up to the metal walkway above the point is a little hidden and dark so most people tend to charge through the main door. In stage three the upper one-way gate path for Blu just seems off. The other team can easily spam the exit because of the tight corner, and while the other route is low elevation it ends up more advantageous because it gives you more options, including the small building that quickly gets you up top.
The small building to the right (from Blu's perspective) of the first point in stage one seems to go unused as well. It's too convoluted to get up there as Blu to fire on the point and after the initial battle Red doesn't usually bother going back up.
• Things that could use playerclipping: the door frames
[PR25], support beams on the sides
[PR27], and the framing on the wall
[PR30].
• On occasion when spawning in the lower final red spawn I would be stuck to the floor and have to jiggle myself free. Possibly due to the playerclip or the glass. (similar happens in Steel when you spawn over the grating on Blu)
• The trigger_capture_area are accessible. (see preface)
• The little window looking onto the flag at the begining is a clever way to get players to notice the flag.
Balance: 4
Overall win balance felt good, no major complaints. The bit in the gameflow section about the one-way route in stage three applies equally to the balance aspect.
The flag return time is too fast, another 10-15 seconds might be good because right now it feels like everything has to be done with repeated staccato rushes because the flag returns so fast there is no way to get back to it in time.
• The sides of the building
[PR20] need an info_no_dynamic_shadow linked to it, as the anomolous shadows give away defense positions.
• This rooftop
[PR18] seems like it could be too advantageous, though I haven't seen it used much. It is possible most players don't except it to be accessible and don't try.
• This perch
[PR10] is above the stage two entrance.
Detail: 3
At first glance the detailing looks superb, but the more I continued my inspection the more glaring issues I found. It seems as though there is lots of good solid detail there is a lack of attention to detail. Unfortunately there are more unsightly flaws sprinkled throughout this map than any other in the competition. It feels rushed. The following is somewhat in order of severity up until the bullet point list.
Cracks between displacements all over. In stage one at the corner of the side path
[PR08], under the bridge near CP 1
[PR22], and also these
[PR24] [PR34] [PR35] [PR41] which should be in obvious locations. Then some more in stage two.
[PR26] [PR39]
Numerous displacements stretched beyond acceptable at the edges, two I took shots of are here
[PR37] in stage one and another
[PR01] in three.
A few strange texture seams. The vertical one here between two different colors of wood
[PR36], another here in stage two
[PR40], and I'm not sure if this is a material difference or not
[PR29].
• The stair texture isn't offset on each step.
[PR04]
• The ropes for these lights are not set to rigid
[PR12] though it has been done on all the others I noticed.
• Barrels this large seem out of place in such a small nook/building.
[PR23]
• The detail area behind the grate is odd.
[PR28] The keg is too big for the door and a heavy door is odd when the other side is mesh.
• The top stair texture is stretched out.
[PR31]
• It seems odd for these support pillars to be here when all around the map there are similar rock formations without any.
[PR32]
• This building is curiously skinny for it's height and presence of windows.
[PR33]
• The net material is concrete.
[PR21]
• Particle effects show up through the canvas.
[PR00] I had no idea why until I finally noticed they have about 5% transparency, either raise or remove it.
• The respawn room visualizer material is visible outside the doors, it should be behind them.
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface)
Optimization: 3
Stage two has a little too much cross-rendering between the areas, but nothing specific or obvious enough to pin down something to screenshot.
The custom model texture data is excessively large for what it provides.
Using up the entire world grid size is never a good choice, it's why 3D skyboxes were created, so I'm not sure why you chose to use the normal world zone for the ocean panorama.
There is a lot of luxel optimization which is good, but there was a lot overlooked. Some of the islands in full sun could have had their luxel size turned up further, and the ocean floor can't even be seen through the water, and could have had an enormous luxel size. Though that would not matter as much had it been done with a 3D skybox.
Style: 3
The main problem with the new theme is contrast. The difference in brightness between the shade and the sun is tremendous and enhances the overwhelming yellowness. I think turning the brightness down a little and the ambient up would help alleviate the eye complaints without actually changing the color scheme.
Minor thematic progression and moderate spytech use. Though it doesn't feel entirely like a TF2 map but I can't quite put my finger on it. It might be the clash of the island fishing village aspect and the spytech, as each area has both heavily present rather than a progressive transition.
Other notes
• For some reason the flag appears to have fell through the world
[PR14] [PR15] [PR16], note the compass direction in each of the shots. It also partially fell through over here
[PR17] though both of these only occured once, so I'm not sure what to make of it.
• One of your custom models or materials is throwing the error
ShaderAPIDX8::CreateD3DTexture: D3DERR_INVALIDCALL
• Self explanitory error:
SurfFlagsToSortGroup: unhandled flags (4000848) (nature/blendrockwallpremudatogravel001)!
- This implies you have a surface (usually a displacement) embedded in solid.
- Look near (-37.0, 854.0, 994.0)
• and another, there is one for each dish:
!! ERROR: bad input/output link:
!! momentary_rot_button(rotate_dish_03,SetPositionImmediately) doesn't match type from logic_relay(rotate_relay)
Slate
Gameflow: 3
The two main issues I've seen in stage one are for Red. When they head through this tunnel
[SL10] the natural choice is the wrong one. Not only is the proper route obscured from vision when entering but it is a complete u-turn.
Similarly, due to cliff shape the natural route out of spawn
[SL01] would be to the right.
Something feels off about the upper route between areas, perhaps it is too skinny and convoluted for a primary route, characteristics suited to an auxiliary pathway.
The buildings near the point
[SL11] are cramped and awkward to navigate with so many doorways to get caught on.
The first area in stage two feels oversized compared to the rest of the map, which could be a result of the effectively dead space between the point and the dividing cliff. There is no purpose to that space other than delaying Blu, and it might be better to shift the cliff and give the second area more space to defend in.
The long side route between areas is considerably less useful than it's Dustbowl inspiration, which is the only entry to an elevated position and the gate makes it a good prep zone. Slate's has niether of those, and are in fact accomplished by the opposite route through the building that has a one-way gate of sorts due to the tall ledge. The tunnel is just redundant and time consuming.
No significant complaints about stage three, though it's far more linear and restricted than the others.
• This beam needs taller playerclipping, occasionally it catches you.
[SL00]
• The playerclip here should be extended to the edge of the cliff.
[SL09]
• Shift this displacement up so jumping isn't required.
[SL13]
• None of the four doors in this hall are playerclipped.
[SL15]
• Disabled spawn doors in the third stage spawns aren't marked.
• Non-dynamic capture point signs. (see preface)
Balance: 3
The only major issue I have with balance is the blocking zones. They are entirely useless and favor Blu far too much. Rarely have I seen Blu fail to take all 7 points.
Perches, here and on the power conduit.
[SL21]
Detail: 4
High quality detail for the most part, though ironically the absolute worst visualizers of the contest.
[SL02] [SL05] [SL06] [SL07]
Stage three has some bland walls around the second point.
• The lightmap bleeding by the beams is horrible.
[SL03]
• Wooden framing around a concrete block looks all wrong.
[SL14]
• How did these get under there?
[SL16]
• Window frame construction is all wrong here, sides should rest on the bottom.
[SL17]
• Missed a face.
[SL18]
• What water?
[SL19] The spigot is much more difficult to see compared to the sign, which is also excessively large.
Optimization: 4
Good render culling except for this one location.
[SL20] I'm not sure if this is a side effect of viewing through two APs, or because both sides of the building are in the same "area" (see mat_leafvis). Could be diagnosed by placing APs somewhere long the path around the building to split the area.
Precipitation with collisions. (see preface)
• The barrels and tires under here are too dark and obscured to see. Wasted rendering.
[SL04]
Style: 4
Excellent execution of the Sawmill theme, though I question the presence of blue buildings in stage two and three.
No progression, little spytech.
Other notes
• There are enormous amounts of props set to Vphysics that lack collisions spewing errors to the console.
Snowdrift
Gameflow: 4
The map is fairly linear, overall the routes are logical and obvious. One issue I've seen are people going the wrong way when exiting Red spawn at the begining, the big arrow on the far wall just doesn't work. Perhaps a wooden barricade sign right here would be better.
[SN22]
The other thing is people running past the point or back to spawn while carrying the flag. This is made slightly worse because of the single stage factor allowing much more area, consider adding some of the "no intel" barriers like other maps have.
• Edges are well playerclipped except for this tunnel which is devoid of any.
[SN10]
• The orange cones should be debris since they will trap a player if they come to rest inside of one. I thought this was done but I find myself colliding with them now during my review runthrough. Maybe something is up with them.
Balance: 3
The blocking zones are too small to be of use, making the balance very strange. Each point is best defended at forward chokepoints, rather than on the point. However doing so means you leave the point
completely open to slip-through captures because it is effectively impossible to block by someone running back or one player guarding.
This leads to excessive amounts of engineers, as they are the best chance for stopping the flag both through damage and knockback.
Detail: 4
It feels like there is an excess of windows and not enough other types of objects breaking up the walls. This could be the result of so many being illuminated, making them stand out.
• The snow to concrete transitions around the map are too sharp.
[SN09]
• The visualizers are stretched.
[SN04] [SN08]
• The skybox half of the rocket isn't aligned.
[SN11]
• An ugly line that looks to be made from tiling bleed.
[SN23]
• Most of the horizontal beams should be straight, having them all at angles would be weak.
[SN24]
Optimization: 5
Congratulations, you are the only one to pass the Boojum Technical Inspection™ well enough to receive a 5 in optimization. There were no significant issues, only a few minor render culling issues. The silo tanks by point two are rendered
[SN00] when outside Blu spawn. Some of the higher objects
[SN05] at point four a rendered on the other side of the wall. Two or three leaves below point four will render the pathway
[SN06] on the other side, though it is rare you will be looking that direction while in those leaves.
All three of those could be easily fixed with a horizontal hint (see preface) to chop the tall leaves.
[SN07]
Style: 3
The map feels like TF2, but it is repetitive buildings the entire length of the map with various construction materials and colors all mixed together at the same place.
There is no progression and the aside from the rocket there isn't much in the way of spytech.
Other notes
• The top of the door needs to be playerclipped, but it doesn't have any gameplay implications.
[SN01]
Vector
Gameflow: 4
Good amount of routes, all of which are easy to navigate and mostly obvious.
Main complaint is the inconsistency of the flag respawn. The first two stages it respawns in the original location, but at the third it respawns far forward. This might be helpful for balance, but it causes excess confusion since Blu players may not even get to that room to find it since Red can hold it fairly well. Some method of indication would be good, perhaps something on the desk where it originally spawns.
The control room itself is awkward. Fairly large when the main battle zones are in front and behind it, while the computer consoles just feel in the way and taking up space to make you walk further. The position of the flag in it's new location is itself strangely out of the way.
Cramming everyone through one area at the beginning of stage three is a bit awkward.
The first two stages flow well though.
Balance: 4
Stage two point two, it is way too easy to defend. There are so many very effective entrenched sentry positions that are too enticing for people to resist and the point gets sentry farmed. They are also spread out enough that it is difficult to take them all down in one push.
The final point seems a tad hard to assault, I think mostly due to all entrances to the area being small and tight. However the point is also less likely to be blocked, since it's far out of Red's way.
• This perch is a little too useful for Red.
[V56]
Detail: 4
Detail is outstanding, but like with HAARP I find too many small flaws to award a 5.
• Displacement crack.
[V57]
• For some reason shadows cast on the ceiling in the cave.
[V01] (far left, the engineer)
• Why would anyone hang tools on such a high beam?
[V39] (why are the pyros there...)
• This puddle makes no sense.
[V44] It is bright and sunny, nothing is wet, there are four drain pipes, yet water is pooled.
• All the paper lunchbags are set to metal property.
[V36]
• The metal/fibreglass paneling seems strange to have around concrete things on the outside. Though it looks perfect inside the setup area.
[V37]
• Two different kinds of beams at two different heights and none hold up the roof.
[V45]
• This texture is obnoxiously flat white
[V46] and has a really tiny repeating pattern on it. When a texture is this flat it ends up showing the fog opacity layer lines.
[V47]
• These lightmaps are too low res, perhaps tip the light outward.
[V00]
• The concrete block is inaccessibly trapped.
[V48]
• Floating motor in stage two/three spawn.
[V38]
• All the red/silver beams are brushed out into an I-beam shape, yet the ones with the texture meant for doing such are flat.
[V50]
• The only thing supporting the device is the tiny beam running under the catwalk.
[V51]
• I think this beige rectangle is due to the "red carpet" design but it looks out of place here.
[V55]
• A required observer point is not set when the finale is triggered. (see preface)
Optimization: 3
Render culling is great. Except for parts of stage one that will render things around the corner.
[V35] Possibly fixable with some horizontal hints. (see preface)
I am still deducting a point for the edict overload of the initial submission. Such things are entirely unacceptable and easy to check and it was submitted a week before the deadline so there was no rush to blame.
Luxels. The most significant waste of luxels I've ever seen. While toolsblack may be unaffected by light, it still gets black lightmaps generated. By their nature of being solid black, the luxel size could as large as is allowed (not sure if there is a limit or not). This means there is a tremendous amount of extra data for the black ceiling
[V52], and more importantly the final chamber
[V54] which apparently is yet further doubled by a layer of toolsblack func_illusionary
[V53] over most of it.
Style: 5
Congratulations! The only map I see worthy of 5 points in style.
Great execution of the Hydro style. Thematic progression from outskirts, through more industrialized areas, into a spytech base. 100% TF2.
Other notes
•
material "sprites/obj_icons/icon_obj_vector_blu" not found.
•
[V41] Oh
[V43] my,
[V66] what
[V62] the
[V63] hell,
[V64] have
[V65] you
[V59] heard
[V60] of
[V61] texlights?
