Meridian

TC Meridian rc3

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mariofan38

L1: Registered
Nov 14, 2011
13
0
I know this is an old thread--but I have something to say about the map.

First off, this map hasn't been discussed in a while, and something has changed greatly since the final post here by Nerdboy--bots.

Bots have been updated several times, and are better than ever, and because of this, having bot support is more and more important. After all, map w/ bot support > map w/o bot support. So, based on this, I have just a few suggestions, as well as pics to show, to the best of my ability, what is going on.

Not sure what's wrong:here, here, here, or here.

This is more likely the bots' fault than the map's fault.

Have a suggestion:
This could be fixed by removing the pipes here, or maybe making them completely solid. Maybe the bots think they can go through?
This is a VERY bad problem area for bots. Bots are all the time falling into the water and getting stuck, with the intel going with them. I have some suggestions for it.
1) Put larger ramps out of the water near this wall, perhaps making the wall more open as well.
and/or 2) Make this island access able from the water.
Hopefully, these changes should make this chokepoint more bot-friendly.

Not sure which category
Can't tell if the bots here are stuck on map geometry or just confused on where to go. This and the pipe one earlier, I've had both teams get stuck at the same time in those two spots.

And, if you no longer wish to support the map at this point, I understand.
 

Yacan1

D I G I T A L I N F L U E N C E R
aa
Nov 7, 2010
411
793
I know this is an old thread--but I have something to say about the map.

First off, this map hasn't been discussed in a while, and something has changed greatly since the final post here by Nerdboy--bots. etc.
It seems to me that you're talking about bots. Maps really arn't made for strict bot usesage only. Meridian pre-dates bots I believe, so making minute changes for bots isn't really needed if you can just go into the nav mesh and edit it yourself.
 

mariofan38

L1: Registered
Nov 14, 2011
13
0
It seems to me that you're talking about bots. Maps really arn't made for strict bot usesage only. Meridian pre-dates bots I believe, so making minute changes for bots isn't really needed if you can just go into the nav mesh and edit it yourself.

So... I'll have to do this myself if I want to play with bots, huh...

Bots wouldn't work with these gamestyle. Its CTF/A/D/TC ... They don't understand any of that.

They understand it fine. When they don't get stuck, they capture the flag. It's the fact that they have issues with exploring the map, and getting suck on objects in the process.
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
So... I'll have to do this myself if I want to play with bots, huh...



They understand it fine. When they don't get stuck, they capture the flag. It's the fact that they have issues with exploring the map, and getting suck on objects in the process.

This happens on a number of official maps, most notably 2fort where they can't navigate the drop down in the grate room. This often leads to the intel getting stuck here.

As Frozen stated, this is not a problem with the map but bots and the generated nav-mesh. Removing entire features like drop downs would be the only solution and would largely alter a maps gameplay. Which, for the sake of making bots appear less dumb, is a bit much.
 

mariofan38

L1: Registered
Nov 14, 2011
13
0
As Frozen stated, this is not a problem with the map but bots and the generated nav-mesh. Removing entire features like drop downs would be the only solution and would largely alter a maps gameplay. Which, for the sake of making bots appear less dumb, is a bit much.

It's actually for the sake of making the map bot-compatible. With these bots, the map is completely unplayable, with bots, of course.

The only feature I asked of to be removed are the pipes, and they appear to serve a much more minor purpose than the grate in 2fort.

I also made some suggestions to change the map, do you believe that they would negatively affect gameplay? If it had a(n) unnoticeable/positive effect on gameplay, then there would be no reason to implement them, as it would give the map the option of bot support that couldn't hurt it, certainly.

Am I making sense to anyone? Am I following a lost cause? Is this map abandoned?
 

grazr

Old Man Mutant Ninja Turtle
aa
Mar 4, 2008
5,441
3,814
recompiling an RC map with this much custom content is a massive chor for an author. Shmitz doesn't frequent this site anymore, or at best lurks in the shadows. Unless he shows himself and directly anwsers your enquiry then it's probably a lost cause.

That a-side, i think you missed the point. The map needn't be changed at all if you edit the nav-mesh. But i don't know anything about that, i'm only going with what Yacan suggests. If you can't edit the nav-mesh then it's a matter of whether an ancient custom map with a MIA author will be recompiled with such changes. There's also the problem, for the author, of recent reductions in the engine limitations which may require more work on his part to resolve.
 

English Mobster

L6: Sharp Member
Jul 10, 2011
355
299
Part of the problem lies in that bots don't quite think things all the way through when it comes to navigating around doors that can either be open or shut based on what happens during a round.
They understand setup doors, or rather they APPEAR to understand (if you forget to put setup doors, attacking bots will not leave the area marked by visualizers or shoot anything until the end of the setup period). In reality, the nav mesh assumes all doors that can be opened are open at any given time, so bots like to walk into closed doors expecting them to open.
They also do NOT like to go into an area where they will even come close to taking 1 HP of fall damage by holding their version of W.

For some problem areas, you can manually edit the nav mesh to cut out pipes and the water areas from their pathing; as there is no pathing for them in that area, they won't go through it.
But round-specific doors are unfixable, to my knowledge. They can't comprehend or tell the difference between a closed and open door from one round to the next.
 

mariofan38

L1: Registered
Nov 14, 2011
13
0
Part of the problem lies in that bots don't quite think things all the way through when it comes to navigating around doors that can either be open or shut based on what happens during a round.
They understand setup doors, or rather they APPEAR to understand (if you forget to put setup doors, attacking bots will not leave the area marked by visualizers or shoot anything until the end of the setup period). In reality, the nav mesh assumes all doors that can be opened are open at any given time, so bots like to walk into closed doors expecting them to open.
They also do NOT like to go into an area where they will even come close to taking 1 HP of fall damage by holding their version of W.

For some problem areas, you can manually edit the nav mesh to cut out pipes and the water areas from their pathing; as there is no pathing for them in that area, they won't go through it.
But round-specific doors are unfixable, to my knowledge. They can't comprehend or tell the difference between a closed and open door from one round to the next.

Ok--I see. I don't know how to mess with the nav "mesh", so I'll just leave it be.

Also, since that is a bot problem, I'll probably leave a thread pointing that failure out. It will probably be trolled with "lol TC sucks dude", but, maybe Valve will see it. :\

Thanks, guys.
 

Dr. Spud

Grossly Incandescent
aa
Mar 23, 2009
880
854
But round-specific doors are unfixable, to my knowledge. They can't comprehend or tell the difference between a closed and open door from one round to the next.

Lesser-known I guess but marking those door paths with nav_transient should fix that. nav_transient tells the bots that a space may or may not be blocked. Valve uses it for the randomly open/closed paths in cs_havana.
 

mariofan38

L1: Registered
Nov 14, 2011
13
0
Lesser-known I guess but marking those door paths with nav_transient should fix that. nav_transient tells the bots that a space may or may not be blocked. Valve uses it for the randomly open/closed paths in cs_havana.

This inspired me to actually look up what was required to edit meshes, and found that it may be a lot easier than I expected. I will experiment and see if I can fix the problem. However, I just got an error, so we'll see.

Wish me luck.

Edit: If someone could tell me how to remove that green line that means to jump, would be appreciated. Having trouble finding that one. For now, I'll just manually recreate the area.

Edit2: No matter what I do, the bots insist on getting stuck here. No idea on what to do, help?

Edit3: Giving up for the night.
 
Last edited:

bobotype

L1: Registered
Sep 24, 2014
39
5
Apologies if responding to old threads is taboo here, but I really think an updated TC_Meridian, with a little less chokiness, would be a wonderful candidate to go in the Jungle Update. Visually it's one of my favourite custom maps of all time.
 

ingiman1

L1: Registered
May 14, 2017
5
2
can i use this map for a sfm? (i will give credit.) if yes, then do you have the asset for the map that pops onto the screen when a territory is captured?
 

SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,314
1,856
The author of this map hast been on this site in over 3 years. I'm pretty sure you can use it. Just give credit.