PLR Manufactory

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
Thanks so much guys, this is really helpful! Had a good time this evening watching all of you kill each other in the recorded demo. I was slightly disappointed though that none of you were crushed by the falling elevator :)

I will probably have a05 ready in a couple weeks.
 
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Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
Why, it's a new release

== A05: 1/31/2011 ==
* Experimental new design of mid, with the hope of making snipers less overpowered
* Payload elevators are 33% faster
* Added planks to allow all classes to reach the roof of the middle structure
* Added stacked creates in a corner to give all classes an extra route into the upstairs room of each base
* Respawn time is shorter, which should hopefully offset above changes in keeping a good defense possible

Also, the cart asplodes
 
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Sep 1, 2009
573
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Gameday opinion:
I feel that adding that structure in the middle really blocked the sightline which eased up the amount of 'WTF' deaths via Blob. It was nice that you added the prop ladder in the drop down as it made flanking sentries that little bit easier. However I feel that two sentries can easily pin down all the entrances to the final cap and make it extremely hard to capture. The ammo and health fel like they are in a few random places and there is alot of medium health kits scattered round making it very easy to stay alive. Also the small balcony was very easily clipped and was pain if you got stuck near it.
Overall I feel that this is a vast improvement in the map as a whole you really need to reduce those sentry spots [pillars maybe?] and work on health and ammo placements and it could turn out even better than gameday.
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
New release:

== A06: 2/5/2011 ==
* Left-hand side ramp rooms modified to make them a safe place for demos to attack sentries in upstairs area
* New ramp to balcony in upstairs area
* A couple more small changes (health packs have been made smaller, added metal at mid, top planks wider)

Looks like a pretty mega sightline across the mid structure, to the payload lifts.

I don't *think* this was or will be a problem, although you're right to an extent. Here, I've doodled over the map overview, and marked the critical places with points A-D:

manufactorySightlinePaintover.png


Points B and C, if you recall, are at a slightly higher elevation than A and D. This means that a player at B can see a player at D, and a player at A can see a player at C. However, A and D cannot see each other, and I think that's the important one, since its more important for players to be stationed at A and D in the defense of the final point. Even when a BLU player is standing at B, they only have a pretty small window into the RED defensive area.

Overall I feel that this is a vast improvement in the map as a whole you really need to reduce those sentry spots [pillars maybe?] and work on health and ammo placements and it could turn out even better than gameday.

Thanks, and these were the same conclusions I came to after watching the demo, and so it's these things that I hope are fixed in a06. With any luck, I'll be moving on to detailing soon, and worry about really nailing down health/ammo placement once this map is in beta.
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
Impromptu testing bump, in case any of you have things to say that you didn't put in the feedback plugin or say in chat.

The carts moving past the elevator to the middle is a neat idea, I might try implementing that. I think ceiling of the downstairs area of each base is going to stay at its current height, because I think it would introduce too much vertical space into the map if I made the ceilings at 192 or something, because all the balconies in mid would have to be raised as well.
 
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Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
I think this is the first time I've been in this map, and I suppose this has been brought up before, but the final lift is very frustrating. Just about every round, we were able to push the cart to the end almost effortlessly, followed by an endless cycle of "run to the lift, get on it, get killed because you're outnumbered three to one, repeat" until we finally managed to ward them off long enough to get to the top in one go. Most of the time, the other team was already on their final lift as well by that point, reducing the whole round to a question of who could break the other team's turtle first.

I would recommend shifting the spawns so they're not right there at the lift. Even Hightower puts the spawns on the sides of the map (which leads to a completely different problem since they're right next to another rollback hill, but you get the idea). Seems to me that having spawns closest to the areas that are generally not chokepoints works best.
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
the final lift is very frustrating. Just about every round, we were able to push the cart to the end almost effortlessly, followed by an endless cycle of "run to the lift, get on it, get killed because you're outnumbered three to one, repeat" until we finally managed to ward them off
long enough to get to the top in one go.

Thanks for pointing that out. I think the main problem was that the respawn times for both were really short (2 seconds) in a06, so even if the offense was able to clear the upper room, they wouldn't be able to push it to the top before another wave of defenders came rushing out of spawn to stop the cart. I've increased it to 4 seconds, so we'll see if this is any better. If there are still serious problems with the balance on the last point, I'll consider moving spawns or other larger layout changes.
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
Das neue release!

== A07a: 2/25/2011 ==
* New routes to the middle structure, from the side balconies into each base, and to the right-hand side courtyards from each spawn.
* Ceiling is higher and height variation added on bottom floor of bases. This should make scouts and other people happier
* Additional staircase between top and bottom floors of each base.
* Longer spawntimes in general, with a spawntime advantage given to the team that reaches the elevator first.
* Modified health and ammo placement, notably now with no health on top floor of base to weaken players camping the last point.
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
Gameday bump, for those of you who played Manufactory today.

I know at least a few of you had useful and helpful things to say (TMP?), but almost nothing got through because we kept getting drowned out by that obnoxious guy who kept wanting to switch to Tidal and Egypt
 
Mar 23, 2010
1,872
1,696
it was heyo's suckbuddy.
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
It was a guy named FilledDude, but I think Heyo was there as well
 

Vincent

&#128296 Grandmaster Lizard Wizard Jedi &#128296
aa
Sep 5, 2009
912
684
Had a lot of fun playing this. At first it felt a tad open, constantly getting attack from nearly all angles, but as I started to learn the layout I really started to enjoy myself. I personally didn't use the side routes and kinda had a hard time finding health and ammo but I didn't need it all that much; ammo would be nice though. Even a small or medium off to the side.

A few more signs wouldn't hurt I suppose, once you detail it shouldn't be hard to remember where I am at all. Someone suggested that this would be a great construction theme map, I agree with that statement.

My only 'complaint' (if you can call it that really) was waiting for the cart to go up. It made sense gameplay wise but having to let it raise 5ft off the ground just to explode kinda baffled me from an aesthetics point of view.

Overall though I really enjoyed this map, great job.
 
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Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
Great, thanks to all of you for playing and helping test the map. If no one has anything they'd like to add at this point, I think I'm going to start detailing. The layout changes I'm thinking of are so minor that it probably doesn't warrant another alpha version and more gameday testing, we'll just see how it plays when I'm done detailing.

I actually considered the construction theme pretty early on in developing this map, and I decided it would be too weird to have train tracks set through unfinished buildings, and especially weird to have them running over scaffolding which would have no chance of being able to support the weight of a train. I'll make sure the detailing of the final cap point justifies having to push the cart up the elevator.

I intend to detail Manufactory in a style similar to that of pl_waste.
 
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nik

L12: Fabulous Member
Aug 14, 2009
987
564
I still like the older version better, where the side areas were enclosed :(
 

Zhan

L5: Dapper Member
Dec 18, 2010
208
244
The reason I connected the side buildings to the top flanking routes into each base was because the side buildings wouldn't get much use previously, since the only route out of there would go downstairs into the basement where there wouldn't be a good way to get back up to the top room. It was part of my effort to make it easier and more flexible when moving between the floors of the buildings. Do you not like this version as much because it's too easy to flank/get into the top room as an attacker?
 

Vincent

&#128296 Grandmaster Lizard Wizard Jedi &#128296
aa
Sep 5, 2009
912
684
Do you not like this version as much because it's too easy to flank/get into the top room as an attacker?

Actually I think that's what made the map interesting. The constant flanking I had to endure from a spy and two scouts plus fighting a pretty decent soldier on the other team made it so I was constantly in battle. It kept me enthralled to say the least. That's why I asked for a small or medium ammo placement somewhere around the middle of the map now that I really think about it. I know there's one on the top of the tower thing in the middle but off to the very sides of the map would be nice.