Microcontest #10: Spiritual Successor

14bit

14bit

L14: Bit Member
aa
Oct 5, 2014
642
2,068
Well, here we are. The final microcontest feedback of the year! Thanks for playing, complaining, testing, and partipating over the course of the year. We got 12 maps this time. Without further ado, it's time for the feedback!

I had much more fun on this than the original SD one. It's doing something interesting I haven't really seen before, a sort of twist on 2fort's routing; instead of both routes going through the center with spawns on both sides, it's got one spawn in the middle and both routes go around it. I think it's a neat idea, and there's some potential here. Intel rooms need some work though; I'd take a look at Doublecross for inspiration here, since they remind me of they map. Mid's not fantastic; there's a spawn-to-spawn sightline, and crossing it doesn't feel great with the highground enemies have. Having a pulling spawns back more, and adding an additional route under the tracks might be interesting? Rotational symmetry and having a second rail line though the center might be cool too.

Not bad, not great. Pretty solid start to a KotH. There's a lack of micro cover; it's almost all just empty spaces. A few crates, barrels, or doorways would help I think. The underground bit feels underutilized; I really like how it feels, but the upper route is more often a better option. Might be fine? The main issue I was seeing was that teams don't hold on the point, rather they tend to hold behind it and just peek out and kill people. All the ideas that come to mind on how to address that would undermine what I felt worked about this map, so I've got no clue. Maybe flip the walls on the sides of the point? Also, I'd pick a different sun angle or add some more lights; a lot of the map is bathed in darkness.

I like this! It might be just a bit too small. The underground bit is a really fun and refreshing take on KotH, almost like Lakeside but with the side area under the point rather than next to it. I'd look into making the point wider, and adding just a little bit of cover between the point and the doors into mid. The spawn buildings are a bit dull with all three exits in a line, but they work for now. Very nice!

Not sure why, but this strongly reminded me of norfolk terrier's 2016 MTK (Minute to Kill) map Moonmoon. Not a huge fan of a the pit? There's some interesting distance fights across it, but it's weird that jumping classes can use it to get behind the other team right at the start. It's a solid start, but I'm not sure if there's enough going on. It felt like it stagnated a bit quick to me, other than strategies that involved attempting to cross the pit. I like it, though, not a bad arena map!

Mine! The idea for mid was the most interesting part of the original, and I'm happy to report this new version seems to work just as well as it did in 2015. Reworking it into a sort of spiral rather than, well, whatever it was before seems to have fixed some of the issues. Moving the spawns helped, too. Not sold on the roof; might cut it and see how it works without it. The side points are far better than they were in the original, though entering the areas from the sides is a bit clunky. Might add an additional route to help teams entering from the lower side, since the doorway is too easy to lock down.

I like the concept, but the execution leaves a bit to be desired. There's a lot of sightlines on the point that get blocked by the tree, but to get enemies off the point you need to walk around it and expose yourself. The point just feels feels dangerous to approach, there's so many corners and levels that death comes from all sides. I almost think removing the right ramp up onto the point and instead adding a basement in the side buildings with stairs up to point level would work. There's just an overwhelming amount of angles you can get shot from on the point; simplifying it would help in my eyes. I like the upper level, I think it's less of a problem than people seemed to imply during the test.

First of all, I'd like to apologize for not being able to give much feedback on this, I had to ban three people during the test and I type slow. They said some pretty nasty stuff in voice chat, so be warned if you watch the demo. Seems pretty solid, but nothing really stands out. Pulls off the 90 degree thing well! There's some fun routes and interactions, but I'd have liked a little more cover on the point itself. I like the route around the underside of the point, it's both out of the way but still central enough to be useful. The inside edge with the indoor routes are probably the weakest? I didn't get enough play time to really tell though, sorry.

The point is quite flat, and the whole thing feels empty. The dropdown is weird? I didn't notice it until the very end, and having players take fall damage for a weaker position for attacking the point doesn't seem to be worth it. There's just not a lot going on here; it's a pile of routes that don't have any trade offs since it's all level around the point. Cut the far flanks to focus the fighting and add some spice to the control point to make it interesting to push and hold and it might work better. At the moment the fight just kind of wraps around the point haphazardly; fights are happening in spite of the layout, rather than because of it.

Some neat ideas here, but I'm not sure they all work. It's really hard to round the corner into the intel rooms, since it's just two doorways right in front of an enemy spawn. I do like how close the rooms are to mid, thought! There's some nasty sightlines in that trench in the center as well, meaning snipers can peek into the spawns. Not sure how you'd reconcile all these things without sliding the spawns closer to the outside bit.

Really neat idea, I like this a lot! Red's routes feel a bit odd at times, and Blu has a short walk, but it's tolerable. I'd have to play this a lot more to really be able to tell if it's working or not, since it's such a unique layout. There's also not a lot of options once you get under the point, having another way back up I think would help. I like the inside route, less enthused about the routes on the outer edge.

Interesting layout, I like this! It fixes the issue I have with Lazarus, since the upper routes near the point aren't one-way drop downs. I hate the Mayann control point model since it breaks the established design language, but that's not your fault. Honestly pretty solid; I don't have much to say about this. I'd need to spend more time with it to give any more layout feedback.

One of the most fascinating ideas I've seen for a Microcontest, though the execution falls flat. I like the ideas of fighting up a building, but the routing isn't great. It needs more signage, and the routes need to be easier to map in your head. Steel does a neat thing where you can just keep walking forwards and the map guides you to where you want to be, but this twists and wraps in a way that doesn't guide you. The forward spawn is questionable as well, since it just dumps attackers right in front of the point. Granting easy access to the second floor after A, then faster routes from that entrance to C after B seems more reasonable than a forward spawn to me.

I'm astounded that a throwaway joke about starting a 0.72 hour timer in the Discord spiraled into a project that has resulted in 146 maps new maps. It's been incredible to watch, design, and play along with you all!

With that being said, what's the future look like for Microcontests? While the current Microcontest format works well enough, I can't help but feel there's a better way to both present and run these. Because of this, there's no concrete plans for a "season 2" at the moment. There's some ideas in the works, but it'll take a bit of time before Microcontests will be ready to return to the spotlight. For now, I'm taking a break. Thanks for playing, and see you in 2021!
 
ibex

ibex

aa
Sep 1, 2013
308
528
Thanks again for organizing and hosting all these (and providing feedback)! They've helped reinvigorate my desire to map, and also provided fun motivation. And the sort of gameday after is a good mashup of low expectations and experiments.

I do hope you continue these in some form or another, so I wanted to offer some thoughts. Maybe create a springboard for discussion here or in the discord. As always, these are quick opinions, so take what you will.
  • I think the prompts work best when the gamemode options are more open ended.
    • Not that I didn't enjoy the arena month (took mine to beta), but I liked seeing all the variation in the water and limited-space months. I think this sentiment comes up for regular contests too, but that might be more related to the testing burnout.
    • I think I'd also enjoy seeing the prompts promote more experimentation like the water and limited-space, but I can understand that it's hard to come up with those open-ended themes.
  • I think having the prompt further ahead of time could help us develop our ideas.
    • Having more time to at least plan our ideas would potentially help with encouraging people to follow through day of, but also build something that they are interested in continuing to develop. Not seeing many entries get much, if any, development after the fact, but for my own I either don't like some of the choices made spur of the moment or simply didn't have a plan before putting brush to world.
    • You were pretty successful with your passtime entry. Was that a reflection of all the effort you put into researching the released maps and building the prefab?
  • I think the 3-4 hour time frame limits our ability to execute on some of the more complex gamemodes.
    • Of course this doesn't mean eliminate 3-4 hour entirely, just hoping we could see opportunities for the complex gamemodes.
    • This maybe plays into my own desires, but even with BATT I was only able to barely make a third point (pretty poor one). My personal bests were absolutely tiny spaces for arena and koth.
    • Maybe the post-mapping gameday could move to the following day to allow for longer prompts.
  • Personally, I prefer the organized, but non-competitive style you've current implemented. Feels a bit like the old 72hr without so much time investment. Maybe if the format pushes toward being a springboard for maps aimed at further development, more people could offer to write feedback like you do (without the messy voting that comes from contests/the old 72hr format).
There's probably more thoughts, but I just wanted to put this down before I lost the motivation to post. Thanks for reading!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom