Microcontest #17: Earth, Wind, and/or Fire

14bit

14bit

L14: Bit Member
aa
Oct 5, 2014
661
2,121
Hello again, it's time for feedback! This time, we got a nice round 20 maps from mappers of every skill level. Of those 20, 13 maps had "earth" mechanics, 18 had "wind" mechanics, and 15 had "fire' in some form. And how were those maps, you ask? Well, here you go:

A pretty solid KotH map! I like the design of the point; the curves around it are really cool and the fire hazard is well-implemented. The jump pads end up being more annoying than useful in a lot of cases; you can get shot out of the air because they throw you past the team's bridge to the point, and they are raised off the ground in such a way that the holograms they case get in the way of visibility onto the point. I'd lower them a bit to take care of that issue. The shutters are a bit annoying at times as well. It's more appealing to jump through the window and take the jump pad than take the center shutter, which feels strange since the window then becomes the main route in a way. Creative use of fire, decent use of jump pads.

I'm not sure that 1CP A/D works, it really feels like it needed another point/more space to allow battles to push and pull around the map. Right now it just feels like a bit of a meat grinder around the point instead of there being coordinated pushes. The "fire" route is interesting, but I don't think the execution works. My main complaint is that it's possible to get trapped there without enough health to get out; even a small health pack would help fix this. While I understand that it's supposed to be fast, Red really needs more setup time. Perhaps have a lower spawn entrance for Red so they can get back and resupply without having to run through the fire would help? Not sure where to put it though, since spawn is quite far from the rest of actual gameplay space.

This is a really interesting map to me. I love the cable car! Once you find a way to fix it, I think it'll be really neat. A works, but it's very Blu-sided. I think this is because of two things: 1) Red's only reasonable place to set up a defense is just behind the point itself, and 2) the low route allows you to get almost all the way to the point without being seen by defenders. Blu's forward spawn kinda sucks; I'd keep it on Blu's side of the point rather than on Red's side. The routing for Red to A from spawn is off as well; the geometry points you to use the jump pad to get onto B, then fall to the bottom and take the tunnel since the other route is through a small, uninviting door off to the side. It just feels strange. The final point sucks for defenders, since there's no way off B once you're on it except falling to the bottom as most classes. Your earth and wind elements are used nicely, however your use of fire leaves a bit to be desired. It doesn't effect gameplay much, and it's more annoying than interesting since falling into it is the only way off of B as a non-jumping class. It not being as central of a focus as the rest might be fine though, honestly.

I am honestly surprised this works as well as it does, I guess all that time working on Guava Gulf really did make me alright at designing PLR layouts. The big gambles were starting the carts on the enemy side, having half the track dedicated to bringing it towards your own base, the elevators, and the death tunnel, and I'm happy to say I think those all sort of work? Final did not work as well, but that was to be expected since I had no ideas for how to make it work while building it. I'm happy with the structure I settled on overall. While the broad strokes of the layout do in fact work, a bunch of little things add up to frustration when actually playing: being able to build on the lava, sickies not being removed by the elevators, the large ammo in the cave, some areas around the cart path being too narrow, and more. Thankfully, that's all fixable, so maybe I'll keep working on this (I say for the 30-somethingth time as usual). I think I managed to use all three elements (earth, wind, and fire) pretty well, each section of the track is designed around one of them and people seemed to like how the areas were split up in the feedback.

I like mid/the capture zone on this, there's a neat dynamic of both teams setting up to rush it from either side when it opens. Some people seemed to think that was an issue, but I thought it was fun. I will agree that there's too much focus on the high ground overall; the lower levels are underutilized. There's just not much of a reason to fight anywhere except at the top since all you can use the bottom for is flanking. A potential fix would be a second capture zone at the bottom or having jump pads that lead onto the point from the very bottom level maybe? Not sure, there just needs to be something to draw attention down there. Unfortunately, I don't think the fire is used well since it's all out of the way, though both the wind and earth elements are there and feel well-integrated and natural parts of the layout.

I think this microcontest made the two best microcontest Arena maps we've ever gotten outside of the one entirely about Arena maps (this map and the next one). It's quite small, but it's fast and fun with the jump pads giving it just a little bit of spice to make it memorable. It's aesthetically pleasing, fun to navigate, and the fights through mid works well. I'd have to play it more to be able to find any meaningful flaws to give feedback about; the only issue I really have is the misaligned texture on one of the jump pad holograms. Great work!

I think this microcontest made the two best microcontest Arena maps we've ever gotten outside of the one entirely about Arena maps (this map and the previous one). I love the lighting though it could stand to be a bit brighter in some spots. The layout is quite neat; rotations are fun and there's enough room for both teams to keep their options open when doing so. Something interesting I noticed is that there's a lot of health packs for an arena map here; you might want to try it out without any for a test. The jump pads work well, but I have to note that the fire gimmick doesn't count since there's no way out so it's just a death pit. I really like this one, great work!

This one is weird. In a good way, maybe? Not sure. I don't like it, but I also don't dislike it. Something about the point feels off, it might be too exposed? in any case, there's weird spots where heavies can hide with a clear shot onto the point, and approaching it when the other team holds it feels very, very unsafe. Overall the layout is well-constructed and works, but doesn't feel particularly special for some reason. The jump pads don't contribute much to the gameplay; they could easily be replaced with ramps and the map wouldn't really change much. The lava fall near the point is the more impactful use of fire of the two in my eyes; while the flame jets on the high ground are neat, they are easy to avoid and don't really clear out the area on capture like it seems like they're trying to.

Neat idea, poor execution. Racing though the track feels unfortunately slow (outside of the switchbacks in the hallway and the jump pad section) and you don't interact with the other team at all. The bit without grapples and the slow falling section are the worst parts. It's unclear where the start/end of a lap is, too. I think the idea of a grapple hook race could work, but it needs to have more going on. The solution might be moving obstacles , jets of flame you need to time, enabling PVP, targets you can grapple to open and close routes, just scaling things down to make the frequency of grapples higher, or some combination of those. All three elements are here, though the fire and earth things don't contribute much; the jump pads are the part that stand out.

Impressive for a third map! The point itself isn't terribly interesting to attack or contest, and all approaches feel pretty much the same. The side routes around the point are interesting, but don't feel particularly necessary to pay attention to since holding them doesn't help hold the point. They feel a bit disconnected from the fight, but I'm not sure how you'd solve that. This technically passes the microcontest requirements as the disappearing floor does in fact move down to disappear, and the map is built around that fact, but it doesn't really change much of the gameplay until the final ones on each side disappear. It's a neat idea, but it could have been pushed farther by actually opening and closing routes or something. I think this was the only pure "Earth" map in the contests, so congrats on being unique!

The is the second attempt at the idea of having a point on an elevator going downwards that I've seen, and unfortunately neither has worked terribly well. Overall, it seems to suffer from the same issues as most of your other A/D microcontest maps that I remember: the final point feels too cramped and the spawns are confusing to navigate. In this case, I think you've tried to keep the layout too compact; it needed more space to spread out and spiral down to the next floor since at the moment there's no clear direction to push in to move to the next point and the number of sheer drops into unknown territory make it hard to push. See asdcpelev (the other one that does an elevator point, or at least did originally it might have been removed) for a similar idea done with more space that I think worked slightly better. The wind elements are fun though it's hard to tell where some of the jump pads will send you, the earth element of the elevator work (but not really the random other moving platform that I didn't know existed until flying around in spectator for this feedback), and the fireball on final is really fun.

I like this, it makes great use of the jump pads to do a layout that would otherwise not be possible. It's hard to rotate quickly between points (particularly C), but that might be fine in this case? 3CP Domination is all about anticipating the other team's movements and picking what point is the most important to attack or defend in a given moment, and having one point being much more disconnected from the rest is an interesting twist on that idea. Regardless, longer cap times seem like a good move since teams need time to be able to recognize that they're about to loose if they give up a point, then get all the way over to it before all hope is lost. Some sections need a bit more space overall as well; everything's a bit cramped around A. The jump pads are done well, though moving platforms are a bit strange. I like them and think they make C quite unique, but it might be better for the map to try it without them for a version?

This map doesn't really work in my eyes. The carts don't interact at all, and aren't even in the same area until the very end of the track. This means there's not much actual gameplay that happens around 80% of the track. The jump pads are easy to miss; please use either the glowing spytech ones I do or the air vents with particles that yrzzy champions. Many of the spaces around the cart feel too cramped, so in the unlikely event that fighting does break out around one of the carts there's not much space to have that fight in. This, coupled with the fact that there's no real "arenas" for fight to take place in makes the map feel unfocused. All three elements are technically here, but only the lava is used in an interesting way (with the carts going though it) the moving platforms and jump pads could be removed and the core gameplay of the map would remain unchanged, which makes it feel like they were just added since they were required and not because you wanted to.

Certainly unique, and hits all three requirements! This might be the craziest thing we've had submitted all season. Fall damage is a huge issue at the moment, and ends up ruining some of the fun. The jump pads on the sides are also a bit of a problem since they keep shooting you off to your death. I think the issue is that you have the launch targets too close to the catapults, making the location that you enter the jump pad greatly influence which way they toss you. I'd look into setting them to directional rather than being in target mode. Overall it's funny, but wears off quickly. A good 50% of launches kill you immediately if you're a non jumping class, and it's very hard to get into the sphere. I think your fire aspect is the weakest of the three, but the use of earth and wind more than makes up for it.

I was very excited about this, but it doesn't seem to work. There's a neat idea buried in here, but it's not there yet. Players just did random DM for the first half of the match until it was explained to them. I feel bad that I'm not saying much here other than sharing my initial notes from the test, but we already had a lot of discussion on the the mode and how it might be changed to work in the Discord to the point that anything I suggest here would just be repeating myself or suggestions others have made that you already implemented. I know you were focusing on mechanics, but for layout suggestions maybe take a look at the map "Slide Hill" in the Mario Chase minigame in Nintendo Land for the Wii U; I think a high center with lower outsides could be a neat thing to explore in a mode like this.

There's some neat ideas here, but we had to skip it since it was broken and Red couldn't win. I like the area before A for Blu, though I didn't see it much since I was on defense and most of it doesn't matter since the shortest route is also the easiest route to attack the point with. Final is wide, flat, open, and hard to attack; I'd move red's spawn back, make the point capture zone larger, and add some cover. All three elements (earth, wind, and fire) don't really work. The bridge lifting is a neat idea, but since the jump pads aren't disabled Red can just jump across and forward hold. The jump pads are also missing their hologram, they've only got the particles. Finally, the fire at final is neat, but since it's so hard to approach the point it never really came into play. The use of lava elsewhere is alright; nothing to write home about.

It feels very safe for being a microcontest map, which might be because of how little time you made it in. You've already said you don't plan on continuing it, so I hope you don't mind if I save us both a bit of time and skip doing a in-depth analysis of the layout (I do find the point being surrounded by a pit kind of neat?) and go directly for discussion on the use of the earth/wind/fire elements. The wheel is slow and not in a place that sees much action, and as a result gameplay would not meaningfully change if it just stood still. The lava feels like it's just there to be there; it's not integrated into the layout in an interesting way. The jump pads are alright.

Far too dark, but I like this! It looks very nice, and I've not really seen a layout like this before. That's both a good thing and a bad thing; the areas around Blu's spawn and the first two points are really cool, but red's spawns and final are confusing, cramped, and I had no idea that there was a log to cross to avoid dealing with the lava rocks when exiting via the forwards door until I was double-checking there wasn't another way for this feedback. Final not having a hologram and being so far out of the way is a bit of a problem; neither team could really figure out where it was for a while, and getting there was a hassle for both sides. I think final might need to be gutted and entirely rebuilt with more space and a clearer objective. In terms of elements, all three are used well; I particularly like the use of the jump pads, but the fire and earth work very well together.

Having an always-open PD point is never a good idea, and hiding it underground only accessible via moving platforms is even worse. PD works best with arenas designed for combat to flow in and around inside of them, but here you've set up chokes like it's a koth map with one team holding mid. This leads to, you guessed it, one team holding at mid. As PD is essentially TF2's Deathmatch mode, it doesn't work. All this leads to it falling into the trap that all PD maps with a single always-open point have, being that it just becomes "KotH with extra steps," as people like to say. There was lots of good discussion about the map and layout in the later rounds via in-game voice chat, so I highly recommend finding the demo and giving it a watch. It needs more space and better defined combat arenas, because as it is it all the combat just happens around doorways. I feel bad that I keep linking my PD theory document every time someone makes a PD map for one of these, but I feel like it would be a good read for you if you've not seen it before: CLICK HERE! Your use of moving platforms just let to frustration as they were easy to camp and prone to killing players, and your use of jump pads, while fun, led to frustration since there was no way to return to spawn to resupply and pyros could camp spawn and just airblast anyone jumping to the main tower.

I like this a lot actually? I think it might be the more entertaining of the two maps you made, even though it was intended as a joke and didn't take very long. I think that might be my preference for goofy Arena over regular CP in microcontests speaking though. Overall it's a bit too open to be anything other than a joke, since there's only one real bit of usable cover on each side (the only buildings). If you added a bit of cover to the middle platform it might play a little better, but it's fast and fun and that's what matters. Excellent use of jump pads; I like how you can chain between some of them to stay bouncing around!

And as usual for Season 2, here's the mode breakdown:
Code: 
KotH        5
A/D         3
PLR         2
PD          2
Arena       3
Race        1
Domination  1
CTF/CP/PL   1
Hot Potato  1

Thanks for playing along! Whether you're a mapper, tester, or observer, your participation is greatly appreciated.

I'll see you all next month for another microcontest! Or maybe there will be another one this month? Who can say?
 
Squaggies

Squaggies

L2: Junior Member
Jan 31, 2016
71
70
i took the prompt insanely literally, but i wanna keep trying since these are fun and help me quickly shove out a map, even if they might not be the best around. it's a good way for me to just make stuff instead of having something on the backburner that never gets finished
 
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