PL Morrigan Alley B3

[tyler]

One thing -- make it "foes" rather than "foe"; you don't really pillage one dude.

 

[IrishTaxIDriver]

The sparks are placeholders. I will make a proper particle effect that isn't all over the place.

As for the track replacement i am going to make a worn path where the cart will be going on. 80% of the map the cart rides along the roads so it should be farly clear as to where the cart will be going and has gone but just in-case it isn't a overlay of a worn wheels path will mark where the cart will go. That sounds really stupid when i read it but you get what i mean right?

No! It should be 100%! One of the strengths of TF2 and Valve's design philosophy is introduce new mechanic, explain, and build on it. If you're going to do something like this, keep it consistent and it'll help players out in understanding. In my experience, if you change stuff about how players think the game works, they'll throw out the rest of their assumptions too and blindly wander around like a bunch of CSS players.

Also, good luck with this. I'm very interested in how medieval mode changes the game and I was thinking of how a payload map would work, unsuccessfully. I think your best bet is actually doing a 3 stage payload, unless you can come up with some clever folding design for a one stage. Just have the cart roll through a portcullis at the end of each stage, and put the final objective down a hill (through a gate I guess, which'd be the final checkpoint?). Don't have any ideas for the checkpoints though.

You've got a whole mountain of potential settings with a little town, definitely enough for a 3 stage payload.

One thing -- make it "foes" rather than "foe"; you don't really pillage one dude.

But I really fucking hate that guy

 

[treythepunkid]

No! It should be 100%! One of the strengths of TF2 and Valve's design philosophy is introduce new mechanic, explain, and build on it. If you're going to do something like this, keep it consistent and it'll help players out in understanding. In my experience, if you change stuff about how players think the game works, they'll throw out the rest of their assumptions too and blindly wander around like a bunch of CSS players.

Also, good luck with this. I'm very interested in how medieval mode changes the game and I was thinking of how a payload map would work, unsuccessfully. I think your best bet is actually doing a 3 stage payload, unless you can come up with some clever folding design for a one stage. Just have the cart roll through a portcullis at the end of each stage, and put the final objective down a hill (through a gate I guess, which'd be the final checkpoint?). Don't have any ideas for the checkpoints though.

You've got a whole mountain of potential settings with a little town, definitely enough for a 3 stage payload.

But I really fucking hate that guy

I see where you are coming from. I will try my best to keep i consistent but i am not sure how much i can do!

Now onto some info and updates!

Just wanted to run the whole idea by you guys before i put on the finishing touches and put it into alpha.

First off the layout.

What i can see (from the one map Valve gave us) is that Medieval maps are supposed to be fun fast and easily learnable maps.

To help fill my need for longevity on a medieval map the map has been separated into 3 areas. This isn't a 3 stage (I don't want to break up any gameplay pacing by making the entire team have to wait the setup time again). What i have done instead is make the teams move spawn every capture point that is caped. Each capture point is within very easy distance from the cart so there should be no long hauls like other payload maps have.

The way the spawning works is once Blu capture the first area reds first spawn becomes theres and red move to the court yard. Once the end of the court yard is captured then the blus spawn in the spawn down the road and red spawn for at the castle for the final battle.

To help really stretch out the battles i have slowed the cart very slightly. I am hoping this will cause the matches to be much closer and longer (But seeing as 90% of the combat is close range and assuming people will be on the cart is might not be needed).

Holy fuck this image sucks.

As well as the slower cart i have disabled healing on the cart. I know all of this stacks on top to seem like the attacking team is really underpowered. I just don't want to be adding in dispensers and stuff in medieval mode without proper testing.

Now screen shots of the maps areas.

Might have to work on sniper cover here. Gonna add boxes around there.

A place for the attacks to be very sneaky.

The courtyard, not the two side paths going left and right both ending up on there corresponding sides in near the fountain.

The start of the final stretch into the final area!

The final battle ground. Notice the side path leading from before the entrance to right under the bridge. An excellent place to avoid sniper fire all together, although i cant say much for the people dropping down right on top of you from above.

More shots of the final area.

I hope you guys can give some feedback to how this looks. Thanks!

 

[Mr. P. Kiwi]

I agree with IrishTaxIDriver. Although the map is rather linear and the cart's path is almost obvious it should be completely obvious where the path is. For example:

Where would the path go? It's a very important thing to know when defending. Except the worn path only, you might also want to make it clear - the cart goes here! Maybe adding rocks or displacement that curve around the path to make the feel of things should pass here...
Other than that, the map still looks great!

 

[Pocket]

Just wanted to clear up something. The map atm is AIMING to be balanced for Medieval mode (I have roughly analyzed cp_degrootkeep to try and get an idea of how to balance a Medieval mode map).

Well, if you keep the cart dispenserless (as it appears to be in the video), that's a good start already (since the lack of sentries puts RED at an automatic disadvantage).

 

[treythepunkid]

I agree with IrishTaxIDriver. Although the map is rather linear and the cart's path is almost obvious it should be completely obvious where the path is. For example:

Where would the path go? It's a very important thing to know when defending. Except the worn path only, you might also want to make it clear - the cart goes here! Maybe adding rocks or displacement that curve around the path to make the feel of things should pass here...
Other than that, the map still looks great!

How is this for clarity?

 

[littleedge]

I don't like the dashed lines around it, but the overlay makes it much better.

 

[treythepunkid]

Hey guys i am ready to put the map into a playable alpha!

Here is a download for it.

http://www.mediafire.com/?p6qd8hdtb4solbq

I have also put a download for it in the main post! I cant wait to get some feedback on it!

 

[tyler]

They're gonna be mad at you for using Mediafire

 

[treythepunkid]

They're gonna be mad at you for using Mediafire

Who will? Its just a mirror. I have it hosted other places, that was just the one i had copied.

I didn't use mediafire for the main post download anyway.

Please don't be mad!

 

[Mr. P. Kiwi]

Put it up on gameday, I would love to play it - not by myself.

 

[Randdalf]

Don't get me wrong, the map looks great, but I'm worried that well... it'll just be like medieval mode - lots of people running into each other flailing wildly, except those people will be flailing by the cart. There's not a lot of reason to not run into the cart, because there'll be no sentries, no sticky traps, no heavies, no proper snipers. If it was played in a more organised environment I could see it being interesting, but on most public servers it'll probably end up as some sort of zerg rush, not much tactics, just holding down w+m1 and hoping for the best.

All that said, I haven't played it; just theorycrafting.

 

[treythepunkid]

Hey guys, little update.

I am sure you have all seen those pesky little food items in the ye olde supply cabinet. I was wondering why on earth those had not been added as separate items of food so we could make a small, medium and large health packs with the ye olde meat. Well i went ahead and separated them from the model and make them there own separate models and gave them the old medkit spin animation.

I also put together a quick sack of arrows to replace the medium ammo pack. Its a little early texture wise
but its getting there.

I also have a video for ye!
enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvuDNmKvPkI

 

[tyler]

Awesome.

 

[treythepunkid]

Hey guys, here is a little preview of Alpha 2.

Mostly more routes added, and sniper cover improved.

One big change is the stylizing of the buildings. This adds more sniper cover and more space on the streets in some cases.

Another change is an extension on the route going around the court yard. This allows people to move to the far end of the court yard while avoiding the above snipers.

Another route is near the final battlefield, near C. It also allows a clearer route to avoid any snipers if you want to. I also noticed around that area a lot of tension, where the defenders where easily taking people off the cart. The long stretch is supposed to help the defenders get ready for the incoming push for the final point. To help attackers i have added a bit of elevation there as well as a full health pack. This should add some nice spots for spies as well.

Lastly i have added another help to one of the sniper friendly areas near the attackers first spawn. Going through the elevated area near spawn you can cut directly though to the balcony's on the other side.

I also lowered the court yards fountain to help players other than scouts to get to it. Also improved on some of the lighting by adding more lights in dim areas, and planed to fix some of the rought movement issues some people where having with the cart.

I plan on submitting version A2 for gameday so if there is any other feedback from you guys on A1 that you would like to see in A2 then post it now!

Thanks for your time!

 

[tyler]

One thing I want to say is that I noticed in your OP you say Degroot Keep is too small. I want to make sure you understand that it's small because it's primarily a melee battlefield, so it is small by necessity. I haven't had the chance to play your map yet, but I hope that what you mean when you say you want a larger version is just that you want a longer experience. Which I sympathize with. But don't make a big map for melee.

 

[Zhan]

I agree with yyler for now. At least from the screenshots, this map looks much too big to be fun as a medieval map, and could result in one long offensive slog that just tires players. I'm very interested in how this does on gameday though, from an experimental gameplay standpoint. If it turns out that everything works, more power to you!

 

[treythepunkid]

One thing I want to say is that I noticed in your OP you say Degroot Keep is too small. I want to make sure you understand that it's small because it's primarily a melee battlefield, so it is small by necessity. I haven't had the chance to play your map yet, but I hope that what you mean when you say you want a larger version is just that you want a longer experience. Which I sympathize with. But don't make a big map for melee.

Yeah, you hit the nail on the head! When I said it was small i was meaning length wise, but also in size as well but not in the way you make it out to be.

I realized that Medieval is supposed to be a fast paced small arena for melee duels. That was the whole driving force in my swapping spawn ideas. It might seem like a big map but its really 3 small areas to melee duel in as the attackers try to push the cart though all 3. Seeing as it IS supposed to be fast pace the idea of different stages (Like goldrush) just seemed so drawn out.

My moving spawn idea is to make it so you spawn quick and are almost instantly back into battle. Much like in badwater the attackers move spawn once they capture the second capture point, when ever the attackers capture a new capture point in my map the spawn moves to a relatively close spawn area near it and moves the defenders onto a new fortress like area to defend.

Its nothing revolutionary but it does really help to keep the flow of the map going. Or so i hope, thats the theory anyway!

Oh yeah, just a quick note. I have gotten the fire braziers to work to an extent. Some of them work 100% perfect, some don't work at all. Seeing as we are lacking the ent in out FGD i am finding it quite hard to get them working so you will have to bare with me on A1s gameday play in that respect! Sorry!

 

[Loc_n_lol]

You should adjust respawn timers so that RED has a bigger disadvantage (right now I'm wondering if they're not equal to or better than BLU's). While medieval removes a lot of advantages RED can gain from static defense (so you may not want to use the standard 2vs10 seconds spawn time for A/D), the fact remains that as the cart nears a checkpoint, RED has a lot less distance to travel than BLU, and they also have a battlement for archers that cannot be flanked.
You may try to adjust spawn times as the cart moves through each section, and maybe even divide them in two mini sections by adding a checkpoint in the middle that serves as a clear indicator that "from this point, BLU players have more distance to travel, but receive a better spawn time advantage".

Scale of the map looked alright to me, even though the server was underpopulated. I didn't get to see beyond the first checkpoint, though.

 

[treythepunkid]

You should adjust respawn timers so that RED has a bigger disadvantage (right now I'm wondering if they're not equal to or better than BLU's). While medieval removes a lot of advantages RED can gain from static defense (so you may not want to use the standard 2vs10 seconds spawn time for A/D), the fact remains that as the cart nears a checkpoint, RED has a lot less distance to travel than BLU, and they also have a battlement for archers that cannot be flanked.
You may try to adjust spawn times as the cart moves through each section, and maybe even divide them in two mini sections by adding a checkpoint in the middle that serves as a clear indicator that "from this point, BLU players have more distance to travel, but receive a better spawn time advantage".

Scale of the map looked alright to me, even though the server was underpopulated. I didn't get to see beyond the first checkpoint, though.

I agree. It really sucks that an update to TF2 just happened to get applied as soon as my map came up. This made the play test unpopulated and short. While you say the size is good i some what agree. The first point is my biggest concern as it does take quite awhile for BLUs to get to the cart once it has gotten close to the point and RED have such a small distance to travel makes it so the cart is almost untouchable (Well atleast in the play i saw, i have had other play tests that counter this argument but the fact remains), I cant remember who suggested it but i think a proper downsizing is a good idea. I will exaggerate the REDs spawn areas to give them a little distance to travel as well as cutting up the road BLUs have to travel in near the first point giving them less ground to cover. I think this will resolve many issues the map has so far.

Also i will look into changing the times for each point as both times the cart got VERY close to the point just as the timer struck 0.