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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A11D: It's nothing. Don't even worry about it
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A11D: It's nothing. Don't even worry about it
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A12: Experimentation
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A12: Experimentation
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A13: The Tunnel
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A13: The Tunnel
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A14: Slicin' and Dicin'
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A14: Slicin' and Dicin'
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A15: Throwing $#!& at a Wall
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A15: Throwing $#!& at a Wall
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A16B: Hotfixes
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A16B: Hotfixes
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A17: wood_fence_short_128.mdl
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A17: wood_fence_short_128.mdl
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A18: F*** the Truck
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A18: F*** the Truck
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- Sep 10, 2016
- 602
- 465
I can't seem to make anything worthwhile in Hammer today, so I felt like I'd direct my energy to the forums instead.
I felt like making a big feedback post for this map like I did with Midwest, because as with Midwest a lot of the opinions I have about this map are just way too big to voice in !gf.
I felt like making a big feedback post for this map like I did with Midwest, because as with Midwest a lot of the opinions I have about this map are just way too big to voice in !gf.
I don't actually have a lot to say about A. Most of my complaints are with this area.
A sniper standing at the top of the ramp can see you no matter where you go. There are some bits of cover, but ultimately you have to approach the sniper and expose yourself eventually. This means that pushing this area as BLU is mostly a matter of waiting for your teammates to push forward in a big group so that the sniper can't shoot you all at once, which isn't particularly fun.
Here's the comparable area on Badwater. The sniper is drawn in red, and has a few red arrows pointing at him.
The area I outlined is yellow is an area where BLU is always 100% safe from the sniper, and the orange areas are places that are sketchy since the sniper can *technically* see you with a bit of rotation, but you have constant cover in the form of height you can crouch behind on the cliff and the payload moving through the tunnel.
It feels like Nepal A tries to be similar, but instead BLU gets sniped before they even reach the cart, and as for the highground left flank - it's actually on the same height the snipers on the ramp stand on.
So, unlike Badwater, you don't get to pretend that the sniper doesn't exist and fight the enemies you actually enjoy fighting.
So how to fix this? Well, I reckon the easiest way is to just expand the fences on the left flank.
A sniper standing at the top of the ramp can see you no matter where you go. There are some bits of cover, but ultimately you have to approach the sniper and expose yourself eventually. This means that pushing this area as BLU is mostly a matter of waiting for your teammates to push forward in a big group so that the sniper can't shoot you all at once, which isn't particularly fun.
Here's the comparable area on Badwater. The sniper is drawn in red, and has a few red arrows pointing at him.
The area I outlined is yellow is an area where BLU is always 100% safe from the sniper, and the orange areas are places that are sketchy since the sniper can *technically* see you with a bit of rotation, but you have constant cover in the form of height you can crouch behind on the cliff and the payload moving through the tunnel.
It feels like Nepal A tries to be similar, but instead BLU gets sniped before they even reach the cart, and as for the highground left flank - it's actually on the same height the snipers on the ramp stand on.
So, unlike Badwater, you don't get to pretend that the sniper doesn't exist and fight the enemies you actually enjoy fighting.
So how to fix this? Well, I reckon the easiest way is to just expand the fences on the left flank.
I'm not gonna sugar-coat this - I've never liked defending B as an engineer. No wonder I resorted to the truck spot instead.
The main reason for that is this area.
The rocks and fences are both low, demomen frequently spam over them. This means they get to damage your sentry without any chance of it damaging them. While you and your teammates are trying to deal with that (and they can't peek the demoman cause he probably has a friendly sniper watching the cart path), you also have to deal with soldiers corner-peeking you from the tiny room, and a constant stream of snipers, scouts and spies coming from the lowground flank.
And all you get is one measly small health and medium ammo pack to deal with all that!? And you can't even build a dispenser because the same demo and soldier who're spamming your sentry can spam it too? I'm sorry if this comes off as rude, but this is like, optimally unfriendly to engi. At least A gives you some spots that are safe from the flank window.
Admittedly, there's also another area to defend:
I had a good defense here one round, but it has exactly the same issues as the other spot. And there really aren't any other options - if you try to build your sentry down on the lowground cliff route, it doesn't watch the cart path and is therefore pretty useless, and if you try to build it in the room soldiers corner-peek it from, they just get to start corner-peeking it faster after they cap A.
However, if you're lucky, your team will get a good forward hold going, and you'll be able to put your sentry in one of these locations:
Now, these are pretty good. But even they have their issues. Namely, the cliff flank - it happens to just skip all of them. A sentry placed close to the cart path could watch the cliff flank, but it can't watch the cave route that goes underneath it. No, in order to watch the flank you have to place your sentry here:
This, finally, is pretty foolproof. But it means that all of B only has a single good sentry spot. That, in turn, means that BLU can just hide behind the cart to bypass it, or uber into it, and you immediately stop having fun.
The main reason for that is this area.
The rocks and fences are both low, demomen frequently spam over them. This means they get to damage your sentry without any chance of it damaging them. While you and your teammates are trying to deal with that (and they can't peek the demoman cause he probably has a friendly sniper watching the cart path), you also have to deal with soldiers corner-peeking you from the tiny room, and a constant stream of snipers, scouts and spies coming from the lowground flank.
And all you get is one measly small health and medium ammo pack to deal with all that!? And you can't even build a dispenser because the same demo and soldier who're spamming your sentry can spam it too? I'm sorry if this comes off as rude, but this is like, optimally unfriendly to engi. At least A gives you some spots that are safe from the flank window.
Admittedly, there's also another area to defend:
I had a good defense here one round, but it has exactly the same issues as the other spot. And there really aren't any other options - if you try to build your sentry down on the lowground cliff route, it doesn't watch the cart path and is therefore pretty useless, and if you try to build it in the room soldiers corner-peek it from, they just get to start corner-peeking it faster after they cap A.
However, if you're lucky, your team will get a good forward hold going, and you'll be able to put your sentry in one of these locations:
Now, these are pretty good. But even they have their issues. Namely, the cliff flank - it happens to just skip all of them. A sentry placed close to the cart path could watch the cliff flank, but it can't watch the cave route that goes underneath it. No, in order to watch the flank you have to place your sentry here:
This, finally, is pretty foolproof. But it means that all of B only has a single good sentry spot. That, in turn, means that BLU can just hide behind the cart to bypass it, or uber into it, and you immediately stop having fun.
I like the concept of C a lot. But I feel like it falls a little flat. The idea, I believe, is that the turntable is so ridiculously long that even if RED can't get a forward hold on C, they still have two fight's worth of chances to keep the area under control. But on most rounds, it feels like RED never gets control over the area at all, or if they do after the first fight, they don't keep it for the second fight.
In other words, it's a point that's very capable of working, but the probability of it working is out of wack right now, and I believe it's the geometry's fault.
Here's the main area RED holds. A good hold will usually consist of a sentry on the high ground this screenshot was taken from, or a sentry and dispenser next to the point's other full ammo pack.
It seems like you've recently added a fence to the high ground, so I can't talk about how people outranging the sentry from the cave flank made that sentry spot irrelevant. Nice. However, the fact remains that RED has to walk across the entire area to get their hands on the other defensive position next to the other full ammo pack - this is desirable for them because the highground sentry is vulnerable to corner-peeking from the room with the windows.
The problem with that is that RED has to walk across a contested area to get there, they're rewarded with absolutely no health when they do, and when they get there they find themself taking fire from two angles - snipers, scouts and spies from the cave flank that're capable of outranging their sentry, as well as soldiers and demomen from the cart path who render their single little bit of cover in the form of the fence invalid because of splash damage.
This means that RED is forced to stick to the highground hold. And there, RED is taking fire from three angles (the cave flank, the window room and the cart path), and they also have little to no health. It seems like in the time since I've played the map, you also removed one of the only two places RED could go to get better health than a single small pack, which was the little grate thing just after C.
Not that holding back there was any good in the first place, because C just wasn't far back enough to justify it.
So, I would recommend hugely buffing the amount and proximity of health for RED. Think upgrading the medium health at the bottom of the ramp up to the D highground to full, and putting a full health next to the full ammo pack under BLU's window room.
Also, this point kind of has the same problem as Bruhstbowl 2-A. That being that in the time where BLU is stalled at the turntable, they're building Ubercharge, and if they get to use it, C is lost, no question.
When zythe was making zythebruh, I recommended a high-up room with windows that overlook the point to solve the uber issue.
So I'll recommend the same thing here.
If RED has defensive positions that are really hard for BLU to reach, they have defensive positions that are resilient to Ubercharges, but not to BLU snipers or spies who can outrange or infiltrate the window room, or BLU teams who make use of the cover the payload provides.
If you did that, I would also recommend doing this:
In other words, it's a point that's very capable of working, but the probability of it working is out of wack right now, and I believe it's the geometry's fault.
Here's the main area RED holds. A good hold will usually consist of a sentry on the high ground this screenshot was taken from, or a sentry and dispenser next to the point's other full ammo pack.
It seems like you've recently added a fence to the high ground, so I can't talk about how people outranging the sentry from the cave flank made that sentry spot irrelevant. Nice. However, the fact remains that RED has to walk across the entire area to get their hands on the other defensive position next to the other full ammo pack - this is desirable for them because the highground sentry is vulnerable to corner-peeking from the room with the windows.
The problem with that is that RED has to walk across a contested area to get there, they're rewarded with absolutely no health when they do, and when they get there they find themself taking fire from two angles - snipers, scouts and spies from the cave flank that're capable of outranging their sentry, as well as soldiers and demomen from the cart path who render their single little bit of cover in the form of the fence invalid because of splash damage.
This means that RED is forced to stick to the highground hold. And there, RED is taking fire from three angles (the cave flank, the window room and the cart path), and they also have little to no health. It seems like in the time since I've played the map, you also removed one of the only two places RED could go to get better health than a single small pack, which was the little grate thing just after C.
Not that holding back there was any good in the first place, because C just wasn't far back enough to justify it.
So, I would recommend hugely buffing the amount and proximity of health for RED. Think upgrading the medium health at the bottom of the ramp up to the D highground to full, and putting a full health next to the full ammo pack under BLU's window room.
Also, this point kind of has the same problem as Bruhstbowl 2-A. That being that in the time where BLU is stalled at the turntable, they're building Ubercharge, and if they get to use it, C is lost, no question.
When zythe was making zythebruh, I recommended a high-up room with windows that overlook the point to solve the uber issue.
So I'll recommend the same thing here.
If RED has defensive positions that are really hard for BLU to reach, they have defensive positions that are resilient to Ubercharges, but not to BLU snipers or spies who can outrange or infiltrate the window room, or BLU teams who make use of the cover the payload provides.
If you did that, I would also recommend doing this:
I like D a lot. (that's what she said)
However - and I could easily be wrong about this since my memory is hazy - I feel like it rolls pretty often.
This is a little bit of a shot in the dark, but it feels like D rolls the rounds C is defended, which would hint at C being too close to D.
But that would be - even if it was a real problem and not just my imagination - really hard to fix without sending RED's walk time to C or BLU's walk time to D all out of wack. Although, you could always move BLU's forward spawn for D further forward if you made the distance between C and D longer, and with some clever restructuring you could probably keep RED's walk time to C through the shortcut about the same.
However - and I could easily be wrong about this since my memory is hazy - I feel like it rolls pretty often.
This is a little bit of a shot in the dark, but it feels like D rolls the rounds C is defended, which would hint at C being too close to D.
But that would be - even if it was a real problem and not just my imagination - really hard to fix without sending RED's walk time to C or BLU's walk time to D all out of wack. Although, you could always move BLU's forward spawn for D further forward if you made the distance between C and D longer, and with some clever restructuring you could probably keep RED's walk time to C through the shortcut about the same.
Black brush here, in the building at B's forward hold
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This area looks awesome.
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The map's exteriors don't feel particularly dark or cold, when I feel like they're supposed to.
Here's a quick paintover I did in hopes of illustrating what I mean.
I suggest that if you're planning on moving the map into beta in the near future, you should lower your light_environment's ambient brightness, and make its direct light more blue, or fake the moonlight with some spotlights so that artificial lights are doing less of the work and it feels colder. It'd definitely be good to not have literally everything be lit by the same warm yellow lights!
(actually, I think there are two colours of artificial light on this map, but they're really similar)
As well as that, I reckon you should have a lot more towers above the playable space that are shrouded in darkness, like Pipeline has. The mountain looks awesome; it's dark, foggy and foreboding, but I never get an excuse to look at it from a good angle during gameplay. I hope the 3D skybox can create a similar effect, and I hope it won't be so complex as to destroy my framerate!
I think you should also change the shadow_control's pitch. It just looks weird with anything less than -50 or so.
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These walls, as well as many others across the map, could really use a lightmap scale of 8 - the edge of the light is really blobby.
I also don't agree with the use of point_spotlight on lights that are already casting a noticeable spotlight pattern on a nearby wall. It makes it look like the radius of the light is way smaller than it actually is, which is a weird effect.
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This area looks awesome.
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The map's exteriors don't feel particularly dark or cold, when I feel like they're supposed to.
Here's a quick paintover I did in hopes of illustrating what I mean.
I suggest that if you're planning on moving the map into beta in the near future, you should lower your light_environment's ambient brightness, and make its direct light more blue, or fake the moonlight with some spotlights so that artificial lights are doing less of the work and it feels colder. It'd definitely be good to not have literally everything be lit by the same warm yellow lights!
(actually, I think there are two colours of artificial light on this map, but they're really similar)
As well as that, I reckon you should have a lot more towers above the playable space that are shrouded in darkness, like Pipeline has. The mountain looks awesome; it's dark, foggy and foreboding, but I never get an excuse to look at it from a good angle during gameplay. I hope the 3D skybox can create a similar effect, and I hope it won't be so complex as to destroy my framerate!
I think you should also change the shadow_control's pitch. It just looks weird with anything less than -50 or so.
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These walls, as well as many others across the map, could really use a lightmap scale of 8 - the edge of the light is really blobby.
I also don't agree with the use of point_spotlight on lights that are already casting a noticeable spotlight pattern on a nearby wall. It makes it look like the radius of the light is way smaller than it actually is, which is a weird effect.
MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A19: I am running out of names for these update titles
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A19: I am running out of names for these update titles
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A21: Starting Over!
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A21: Starting Over!
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A21B: Rebalancing
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A21B: Rebalancing
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A22: More Fine-Tuning
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A22: More Fine-Tuning
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A23: Frankenstein's Monster
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A23: Frankenstein's Monster
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A24: Growing Pains
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A24: Growing Pains
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A25: Keep Out
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A25: Keep Out
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MC_Labs15 updated Nepal with a new update entry:
A27: bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
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A27: bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb
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