That looks fullbright. Did you include lighting?
Microcontest #7: Soaked!
- Thread starter 14bit
- Start date
Pioneerskydiver
L1: Registered
- Dec 23, 2018
- 15
- 10
I did not add light I just did not have time 
@Pioneerskydiver Yes, we can't test maps without lighting. Feel free to recompile and update your entry.
Pioneerskydiver
L1: Registered
- Dec 23, 2018
- 15
- 10
Once again, it's time for feedback! The maps are listed in the order they were tested in.
As usual, thanks everyone for participating! There were a good number of cool maps this time around, I'm really happy with how far people pushed the water ideas. This time we got 18 (mostly) functional maps!
Remember: There's no Microcontest next month because of the Jam. I can't wait to see what everyone makes for that, and I'll see you all for Microcontest 8 in October!
As usual, thanks everyone for participating! There were a good number of cool maps this time around, I'm really happy with how far people pushed the water ideas. This time we got 18 (mostly) functional maps!
I really like the use of the waterfalls for the intel rooms, and the back route in is also very welcome. The drop out of spawn into water is a good use, but my main issue is the rest of the water; you can't see though it so you can hide stickies and minisentries, but you have to walk though it. Something like Moonshine with buildings and ramps outside of the water would work well here. Deepen some of the water so you can get under it to look for hazards and add some routes on dry land and there's an interesting map here!
Way too small. Double the size of everything and it might work. The rivers are neat, but they're not used well, making the short time to the point even shorter. Using them to make long routes shorter seems like it would be a better use for them. Pull the spawns back and emphasize the non-river routes and I think it'll work a lot better.
It's absolutely exhilarating to play medic while trying to keep a Neon Anihilator Pyro alive in the water. It feels like a racing game! Shame then that it's a bit confusing. Seems that Red has a far easier time getting out of the water at the start of the round, and there's no stalemate mechanic to force an end to a match. I'd force eveyone into the water for the first minute no matter what, then let people out to fight over a central point after that. Get rid of the duck; it just made things worse.
Neat concept! I think the water moves a bit fast though; it's hard to keep up while fighting, meaning you end up starting to drown. Making the map a bit shorter and slowing the water to a pace that can be kept up with would make fights more interesting by keeping teammates closer together, rather than splitting up vertically to either fight or go for air.
I like the opening, even if it's a bit small. Another route might work, but Blu capped first every time so you can probably leave it. There's definitely some interesting stuff with the final point too, but I think it's too much of a pit of chaos. People just pile in and die, there's not really a good way to push or defend due to the water breaking both sentry and player visibility. Maybe raise the point out of the water and make the underwater route surface near the point? Maybe expand the whole area? Maybe remove the water?
The water does not meaningfully contribute to the gameplay. Your speedboost-invicibility powerups completely ruined the map once more, just as they did in the PASS Time Microcontest. There's a spawn-to-spawn sightline, the point is very hard to get to, and it's way too easy to spawncamp. Your brushwork is impressive, but even for a jokemap there's some basic gameplay theory you're missing. Players need to be able to safely leave spawn without getting instantly killed, or nobody's going to have a good time. We ended up having to skip the map early during the test since the invincible players and one spawn exit eventually make it impossible for any kind of gameplay to happen. It's just not fun. Please add more spawn exits, block the spawn to spawn sightlines, and remove the invincibility powerups for your next map; they're just not fun.
Mine! Not bad. I like A, though there's too much of a choke before it. Red is holding too far forwards, so I'd need to either make holding back more appealing, holding forward harder, or both. Closing up the hole in the floor for Blu's upper floor at A and pulling the ramp up there out of the hallway would probably work. B needs better routes for both teams, there's not really a clear place for Red to hold or Blu to push. Expanding the back area with the dropdown into a more gradual route to push down is probably the play. I probably won't continue this one myself, but if anyone wants to work on it let me know!
We're going to ignore A and B since you've already told me they were last minute additions and have already been removed. I don't like final, it's too hard to get onto the point as either team. There's only one ramp to it out of the water, and if the door is closed there are only two routes onto the point at all; the tiny ramp or the conveyors. Blu's side of the A-B connector is confusing; coming from A it's not obvious where you are going or where to go once you're under the water, and coming from B dropping underwater doesn't seem like a good move when you could just stay on the platforms and get behind Red's A defense. When the door at C is closed, Red can only reasonably defend from the B side, and only though a single hallway that also is near the only way to get onto the point if you're in the water. It concentrates the fighting far too much, and it's not fun to me. Making a defense from A's side be actually viable would be a nice way to combat this.
You've somehow managed to make a map with too much water in a water-themed contest. It's not fun to navigate from spawn to the point since you are forced to swim, and you can't see what's under the water. Underwater sentries are a nightmare, and most of the ways to approach the point make them quite effective. Most of the map is never used as well; the spawns are in the corners and direct you right to the center, so the other corners aren't every really used. I'd make the underwater routes more obvious, deflect players into the corner or under the water, and make the center route less appealing.
If you end up in the water, there's basically no way out. You can swim to the top and slowly surf out on the ramp that is too steep to climb, but by then there's enemies up there and you're screwed. The water is a death sentence, and that's not a good thing in Arena. Add some more routes out and make it so you can actually get out at the top and there's a really neat layout here that I'd love to play more of!
I like the height variation and the use of water to nullify fall damage. A is a bit cramped overall, and could do with some widening and making the far door bigger. I enjoy the general flow of the layout, but B isn't great. It isn't fun to attack or defend since it's just in a big flat space in full view of a billion long sightlines. Pulling it to the inside edge of the final curve might be interesting, or you can build more stuff around where it is now. I don't have much else to say; I liked this one and I hope you keep working!
Very pretty, but the water wasn't really impactful. Final might be too hard for Blu, since it's got so much low ground and Red spawns so close. I'd pull back Red's spawn doors just a little bit. Blu's spawn is way forwards for a 2CP map, I'd consider pulling it back a lot and reworking the existing spawn into a forward spawn. It's possible to make it work without one though. Very fun, great work!
I like the idea a lot. One of the most interesting Arena maps I've seen in a while, even counting the Arena microcontest from a few months back! The big issue for me is that players don't ever want to leave the ridge right out of spawn, since it's hard to see the underwater routes from the surface. Looking towards mid from spawn, I'd consider moving the spawns to the down and off to one of the sides so there's more decisions to encounter before reaching the highground-with-cover-right-outside-of-spawn spot on the ridge that everyone gravitates to.
This one's pretty neat! I wish the flags didn't return so fast though, it makes it hard to get much done. We talked during the test, but I think shotclock mode would work well for this map, along with a 30 or so second timer. The tube you go down while grabbing the intel is very fun, reminds me a bit of my 2015 CTF map, where I made it hard to get the intel but easy to escape. Neat! The slide is a fun touch, though it probably needs to be made more consistent. Overall it's a very solid start to either a regular or invade CTF map, and I'm interested to see where you take it if you continue.
Shame this one broke. Overall I think it's too large, and the routing is not very good. I'm not sure if this was supposed to be Gravelpit, Steelpit, or linear CP. Blu team needs to go past Red's spawn in the low ground to get to A, and A is the farthest for Blu to reach. B's too easy for Blu no matter what, since defenders can't reach it without passing through the choke they are supposed to be defending. I have a feeling C would have been impossible for Blu, since the only route for non-jumping classes is to walk all the way over to A, take the ramp, walk all the way back towards C, pass through Red's spawn courtyard, cross a bridge, then take the ramps up to the capture zone. It doesn't feel like much though was put into how players reach places; instead it feels like the individual areas were designed separately and stitched together. This was a collab so that kind of issue can and does happen, but it's still a good idea to work out the general flow pattern of players before starting to knock out spaces. Moving Blu's spawn to being between A and B is the move I'd go for, which would allow you to start looking at the routing and planning how you want players to attack final.
I like the geometry, though it's a bit chokey overall. The Gatorade is quite fun, though having some bigger spaces to take advantage of it more would have been interesting. Red spawns too close to the final point for anything to get done, even if they weren't able to easily forward hold. The multiple floors of the first point is really interesting, but it didn't really feel like it came into play much since it was always lost so quickly. Might be because Blu spawns so close?
Goofy fun! I love the idea, there's just some things that irk me about the implementation. It's hard to see outside of the ball, and it's hard to get into it at times; both of these are noted as fixed in the current, non-microcontest version though. You've noted that you lowered the cart in places to make it easier to get into, but I'd rather have seen some kind of trigger_push or trigger_catapult parented to the cart to allow players to jump up into it instead. Seems like a more fun implementation that would allow you to keep doing crazy stuff with the height variation, though I might be wrong about that. It's a bit easy to forward hold after A is capped, though it might have been teams. I'd also look into finding a way to indicate the cart path; ropes/wires might be a good idea, or marking on the ground if you don't want floating wires all over. The raising/lowering water/spike room is funny, but the way the layout is set up it seems like it's supposed to be Blu's flank into final, which makes it awkward to do a push while everyone has to swim while timing their movement. That might be intentional to make it not act as the flank, but then the other side requires you to cross slightlines so that's not really a great place to push either. This mechanic and layout is so unique that I'm not really sure if any of this is actually useful, either. Really neat, good luck!
We played this a few days later than the rest, since when you fixed it you edited the @ into your other, existing post. Editing in an @ doesn't ping someone, only new posts with @'s. Sorry about missing it! Overall the map has a fair bit of technical issues, but it's really solid for a second map! The water seems to be from HL2 so it has an error texture if you're under it, which can happen if you crouch or die in it. All of the spawn doors open at once, meaning they aren't uniquely named. Layout-wise it's not bad, though there's a lot of sightlines across the point room making it very chaotic to play in. It's really easy to hold the point, meaning it doesn't switch teams much. All the rounds I played lead to one team running the clock into overtime before the other team had even hit 2:00 left on theirs. That's a sign that it's too easy to defend; the only way to cross mid is though the point room, so you just need to set up and hold that one room. Add some other places to move through and/or hold, and I think it'll work a lot better. Maybe some kind of extra room from each team's side room with full health to the other team's highground at the top of the angled ramp?
Remember: There's no Microcontest next month because of the Jam. I can't wait to see what everyone makes for that, and I'll see you all for Microcontest 8 in October!
Hope everyone who entered had fun. And that we can all now understand how hard it is to make water fun to play in.
