Star in a pond
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- Dec 3, 2019
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Microcontest #3: Pick It Up, But Faster!
- Thread starter 14bit
- Start date
TheFluffycart
L3: Member
- Jul 6, 2019
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Aapelikaeki
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- Feb 24, 2018
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Microcontest #3 Results
Here we are! Due to this leading into a larger contest, we are not doing public voting and there isn't really a true winner. Still, here's a top three entirely decided by me, with a bonus honorable mention!
1) Skylark/Help! Raccoons took my penis
2) halfcircle
3) Startacker
Honorable mention: Idolon
2) halfcircle
3) Startacker
Honorable mention: Idolon
When I started doing these microcontests, the intention was to get people to rapidly prototype maps with as little investment as possible. All my feedback is phrased as if you were asking me what I would change for the next version, but don't be afraid to take the feedback, learn from it, then throw the whole map out! You've only invested a single day into these. Some things worked, some things didn't, and now you can move on a little more experienced than your were before.
With that being said, here's the feedback if you do want to keep working on these, or just want to see my thoughts!
Feedback
The mode itself is the biggest flaw here. It's far too easy to grab the ball and camp at spawn, but you already knew that. A lot of people were suggesting that you make it so the ball doesn't leave mid, but I think you'd have more success adapting this into a regular PASS Time map. You've already got the bonus goal, you just need to add a throw-in goal and a run-in goal to the end and you're golden. I've been wanting to see a more compact PASS Time map compared to the official ones, and I think this might be the right size.
The mode doesn't feel thought through, since again you can just grab and camp. Combining PD and SD might be your best bet, having to hold the Autstralium in a capture zone to score, with that zone moving around the map. That way you can keep the three point design, but force teams to fight over the flags in the center to score, and force them not to camp. Might be a bit over-scaled, but I'm not sure.
I like this one a lot. It's doing the same thing mine did with trying to make getting in easier, and getting out though a cut near the enemy's spawn. The spawn times are a huge issue, and I'm curious as to how it plays with more standard spawn times. Mid is very, very small, so I'm also interested to see what happens if you move the bases a bit farther apart. It's fast and fun, but maybe too fast.
Unfortunately this one broke, so I don't really know how it was supposed to play. My best guess is that you're supposed to grab the dough, bake the bread, then do invade CTF, but the van colors are backwards, so maybe you bring it back to your own base? Both of those seem a bit confusing to me, and maybe standard invade CTF would be better. There could be more going on that makes it work, but I have no idea. If you are meant to push into enemy space, it feels a bit big and like it would be hard to push. Again, can't really make any big conclusions from what I saw though.
Solid entry. Not a fan of mid, since whoever rushes first gets high ground, but I guess the alternative of grabbing the flag at low ground would be worse. Unless that low ground is in a building with an accessible roof? I'd experiment with enclosing the flag more but providing places that give good positioning without the flag. There were a couple of nasty sightlines, and engineers setting up at the cap zones is really powerful. Overtime feels like it could be an issue, but it might be fine.
Best looking map in the microcontest, but only got about half a round of play before we had to skip. I love the big hill, and having access to extreme highground on the roofs is refreshing since most mappers would instantly clip that kind of thing. There's a nice variety of routes and Blu successfully tricked Red into defending the wrong one to try and slip past, which was really neat. As red, it felt like the best take on PvP MvM I've ever played, it's just a shame the logic seems to be a nightmare to get functional. Sorry for not much useful feedback on this one, I'd need to play it more to get a feel for it.
Second seemed pretty fine, but first has a sever flaw: There's only one viable bit of cover to defend from, so the entire Red team crowded behind it and didn't let a single person past. You're probably going to have to either completely gut first, or significantly rework it. Give Blu a good flank on the defending position--maybe with some higher ground--and give red another seemingly viable defense position to break them up and it might work. At the moment it's a shooting gallery with only one real route that all of Blu has to take.
I'll be honest, I'm not sure what's going on in this one. I assume there's four point that need to be capped with the bomb, but I can't tell who's supposed to be doing what. I'll chalk that up to broken logic though. My real biggest issues is the spawns and player routing. A is a nightmare to find, and even when entering the room it's in from the most direct route from spawn you can't see the hologram since the tree is blocking it. The spawn exit into the basement isn't well-designed since it immediately involves a 180-degree turn, and I accidentally went up the enemy's one time and hit the door as a dead end. It feels like it's a route out of the basement from below! Pulling spawns back and out to the sides of the map, then spawning players facing a left for B, right for A, and down a ramp inside spawn for the basement choice seems like it would do a lot for the navigability of the map as a whole.
Blu's spawn and setup gates are an issue, but you already know that. I like first, though I'd look into playing with the height variation a bit more and make the lower route even lower, could be an interesting dynamic. Final feels like Egypt's 2-2, which could be a good thing if you can pull it off and convince Blu to push from two directions at once: the fast way from Blu spawn and the longer way with the flag. The big issue is Red's spawn placement, looking right out on the farther routes for Blu. Pulling back the spawn behind a corner, or even just a bit farther back and blocking up the big sightline into the tunnel would work wonders for letting Blu push a bit more.
Oh boy, mine failed spectacularly, and I'm very excited about that. I've made 3 CTF maps in my time here: Underpass, Holcan, and now this. Underpass accidentally was really, really good, and now I've tried twice to use its ideas in different layouts. Holcan was horrible to play, so I decided to use this microcontest to try and see if I could figure out why Underpass worked when Holcan didn't, so I mixed some of the original layout ideas of Underpass with Holcan's routing choices. Watching it fail was super useful, and now I'll be able to use that info going forwards with other door-based CTF maps in the future.
I'm confused on the design of this mode. It seems that you need to take flags from your side and deposit them in the center, which is really, really easy to do with instant captures. If you want to keep the mode, maybe make it so you have to spend time capping the point in the center with a flag in order to actually enable your flag deposit zone to score? The design just seems to encourage camping the center point until your scout can run back and forth a bunch, which is just KotH but more confusing and not as fun.
My notes say "lacks gameplay focus," but I'm not sure that captures my thoughts. This is another entry that seems to have mode design issues. I seem to remember the flag going neutral the moment it drops, which is an odd choice since dying basically just hand a point to the enemy team. It might not do that and I might be misremembering. Making it act the like the SD flag and be team-locked until it returns I think would help rally teams around a central objective, rather than one team playing offense and one team playing defense. Once I started playing as if I only had to defend it was more fun, so turning it into KZ with a flag might also be fun. The second flag didn't do it any favors either.
Didn't get to play this one much since it didn't follow the rules and was DQ'd really quickly. Seemed to be a pretty standard KotH map with not much to write home about. Parts of mid feel a bit wide and open, but honestly I don't have much to say. I struggle giving KotH feedback in general since it's not a mode that really interests me since it's really hard to do anything new and unique with it at this point. Sorry for the lack of useful feedback.
Quite fun, feels like a "Landfall Lite" from the theming, though the gameplay is quite different. I feel like mid could stand from being expanded a bit, since it's quite a narrow stretch of land both teams need to push through. I think the clear separation of the left and right routes was a great decision, since it's hard to hold two equally viable routes at once so both teams could both attack and defense at once. The lack of resupply lockers absolutely kills the map though, and I'm not sure how you can add them without making the flag impossible to cap. Perhaps pull back the upper spawn exit, and leave the lower one so it's inconvenient to get to the lockers, but not impossible? Just avoid a straight line between the spawn doors and the flag and you should be fine.
I'll be perfectly honest: SD is probably my least favorite mode in the game, surpassed only by Medieval. The pickup zone has a billion sightlines that don't let you set up/fight around the Austrailium while waiting for it, and the lift is impossible to reach as most classes once it gets off the ground. The lift in SD is supposed to act as the central focus for most of the map's playtime, and that just doesn't work if the attackers can't get onto the point. Give some high ground with some places for people to set up and it'll work much better.
I really, really like what I'm seeing taking shape, it's just a shame that it's impossible to cap first. Red's got high ground and a full Ammo kit, and Blu's jump routes are inconsistant. The fallen pillar to get onto the point is inconsistent, and I saw several Blu pushes die from not being able to make it up onto the ledge. The capture zone is also really tiny, making it far too easy to stickytrap. I'd remove the small health/ammo from the side pillar room at first, and reduce the upper ammo pack to at least medium. I can only speculate about final, but it looks really hard to reach as Blu. I'd lower the bit it's on to the floor, and rebuild the battlements that Red has to kind of surround it. Alternatively, emphasize the left (from Blu's perspective) route and force them to do a sweeping push from the side up to the point while also applying pressure from the right side's higher entrances. Red's got resupply lockers in their spawns too, so remove that ammo right at the point. Make the point bigger regardless.
It's big. You already know that. It's also quite flat, with no meaningful height variation, so it's just people running down massive hallways. I know it's a swamp and there's a water level you have to pay attention to, so build upwards where you can. Consider making the main fighting plane of the map on a level higher than the water level, and make the lower water bits into the low ground. Since there's only two doors into mid and they're directly next to each other it's essentially one big choke, though it's so overscaled it didn't act like one. Shrink it, add some flanks, add some height variation.
Hm. The idea of vertical SD is intriguing, but I don't think this layout works. There's too many opportunities for fall damage, and it turns into just everyone piling into the pit. There's only two ways out if you aren't a jumper, and one goes towards friendly territory and one goes towards enemies. I get that the friendly one is closer to the enemy side at the bottom, but if you just wiped the enemy team for the flag it doesn't matter. I think mirrored vertical SD on the side of a cliff with the Austrailium at the bottom and a capture zone higher up would work better.
Good luck to all those who plan on using the start of your map here for Pick It Up, and I hope everyone had a good time! The next Microcontest will take place in May, after the end of Pick it Up. See you then!
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