- Thread starter Ravidge
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tf2withbeer
L1: Registered
- Aug 29, 2009
- 8
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This looks great, downloading now.
BrokenTripod
L5: Dapper Member
- May 11, 2009
- 248
- 65
I can't believe I missed this =(
If you find out the solution to carts occasionally not winning, [CA] Taco! (I can't really remember his forums name) is also having a problem with his arctic map.
If you find out the solution to carts occasionally not winning, [CA] Taco! (I can't really remember his forums name) is also having a problem with his arctic map.
- Apr 9, 2008
- 1,706
- 1,491
Gameday thoughts.
I'm not 100% clear on the mechanic but I find the anti-stalemate system a little unfair. A team can pull really far ahead and when the timer ends the chance of them winning is ridiculously high. You might as well just say that team wins because the other team will never catch up in time.
I suggest that the losing team gets a slight speed boost (through SetSpeedModifier) so they have a chance of winning if they co-ordinate well and get to their cart in time to tighten the gap before it's too late.
Only other niggling problem was the bottom segment of the ramps where the track ends on Stage 1. You can't walk on to them from the side so you have to move all the way around the side. Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot handy so here's my super awesome paint image.
The height is greatly exaggerated but in-game it looks you'd be able to walk onto it from the side. (Red is the clip brush you should add.)
Aside from that I found it a lot of fun. Getting 5 dominations with a single Level 1 sentry on Stage 3 was a particular highlight.
I'm not 100% clear on the mechanic but I find the anti-stalemate system a little unfair. A team can pull really far ahead and when the timer ends the chance of them winning is ridiculously high. You might as well just say that team wins because the other team will never catch up in time.
I suggest that the losing team gets a slight speed boost (through SetSpeedModifier) so they have a chance of winning if they co-ordinate well and get to their cart in time to tighten the gap before it's too late.
Only other niggling problem was the bottom segment of the ramps where the track ends on Stage 1. You can't walk on to them from the side so you have to move all the way around the side. Unfortunately I don't have a screenshot handy so here's my super awesome paint image.
The height is greatly exaggerated but in-game it looks you'd be able to walk onto it from the side. (Red is the clip brush you should add.)
Aside from that I found it a lot of fun. Getting 5 dominations with a single Level 1 sentry on Stage 3 was a particular highlight.
The anti-stalemate system is not meant to be a "next phase" of the stage. The time that both teams had to secure victory is ended. Whichever team performed the best will most likely win that stage.
Pushing the cart, even with 1 person makes it go much faster than the autorolling, so if the losing team can lauch a successful attack they have a good chance of winning, provided they didn't suck horribly in the first 7:30 of the round
I can just increase the round timer with a minute or two if it felt too short. Peronally I think it went well. and the autorolling only occured once.... when both carts were just a few feet away from their goal.
You're absolutely right about the ramp clipping, I noticed that too.
Pushing the cart, even with 1 person makes it go much faster than the autorolling, so if the losing team can lauch a successful attack they have a good chance of winning, provided they didn't suck horribly in the first 7:30 of the round
I can just increase the round timer with a minute or two if it felt too short. Peronally I think it went well. and the autorolling only occured once.... when both carts were just a few feet away from their goal.
You're absolutely right about the ramp clipping, I noticed that too.
Uriak
L8: Fancy Shmancy Member
- Apr 27, 2008
- 543
- 70
GameDay feedback : played pyro/heavy/soldier
I really love your layout, far more than pipeline. There wasn't that "huge corridor" feeling that I dispise on this map. The action was far more balanced accross the map, and I had fun by playing with both short and long raged classes.
Its unfortunate that the end is broken but I really want to give it a try on our regular server, to see if my guess was right :blushing: Talking about the last stage, on don't know how it will play in the end, but you avoid the mass murder/no brain carnage the official map features on its last stage : thank you, mister.
I really love your layout, far more than pipeline. There wasn't that "huge corridor" feeling that I dispise on this map. The action was far more balanced accross the map, and I had fun by playing with both short and long raged classes.
Its unfortunate that the end is broken but I really want to give it a try on our regular server, to see if my guess was right :blushing: Talking about the last stage, on don't know how it will play in the end, but you avoid the mass murder/no brain carnage the official map features on its last stage : thank you, mister.
I forgot to ask: Did anyone have any performance issues in stage 1 or 2? (haven't got around to stage 3 yet). APART from the stage2 explosion ruining everyones framerates for a few seconds.
I think I've eliminated the worst fps traps with some nice vertical hints, but I can't judge it properly... since my shitty computer has crap fps at all and any map(s).
Uriak: I'll have a new version early next week. Your feedback is great, so I'm looking forward to having it tested on that server!
---
Bonus: Here's a picture of me critrocketing the entire blue team: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1281220/SS-2009.09.12-00.10.13.jpg
I think I've eliminated the worst fps traps with some nice vertical hints, but I can't judge it properly... since my shitty computer has crap fps at all and any map(s).
Uriak: I'll have a new version early next week. Your feedback is great, so I'm looking forward to having it tested on that server!
---
Bonus: Here's a picture of me critrocketing the entire blue team: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1281220/SS-2009.09.12-00.10.13.jpg
Zwiffle
L6: Sharp Member
- Jun 24, 2008
- 269
- 161
Bonus: Here's a picture of me critrocketing the entire blue team: http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1281220/SS-2009.09.12-00.10.13.jpg
That would be really impressive if we knew that you actually critted them all to death. Right now it's just sort of impressive and I'm only sort of jealous.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1281220/SS-2009.09.12-00.12.59.jpg
soldier and medic barely survived and died within seconds. Don't know what happened to the heavy, but he somehow died too after the medic was gone.
Edit: Oh no! my important post about fps is almost being pushed to the dreaded "previous page" that no one ever reads!
soldier and medic barely survived and died within seconds. Don't know what happened to the heavy, but he somehow died too after the medic was gone.
Edit: Oh no! my important post about fps is almost being pushed to the dreaded "previous page" that no one ever reads!
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Played some rounds just now:
(stage 3) I think the problem with teams losing within the first 30 seconds is a lack of strategy and teamwork mostly. This isn't pipeline, and having everyone rush the cart just doesn't work. Soon as people figure that out and the team actually has players willing to defend the round is much more fun.
I'm still looking for the right speed balance between the two carts. I really like the system where the losing cart is faster. It helps keeping the game alive, if they had no chance of catching up they might aswell give up...
You guys had some nice improvement suggestions and I will see what I can do. If you would like to mention them again here in the thread that would be lovely, because then I can properly thank you
Also I'll be working on lighting up a few areas I found covered in shadows where the new detailing is blocking the sun.
(stage 3) I think the problem with teams losing within the first 30 seconds is a lack of strategy and teamwork mostly. This isn't pipeline, and having everyone rush the cart just doesn't work. Soon as people figure that out and the team actually has players willing to defend the round is much more fun.
I'm still looking for the right speed balance between the two carts. I really like the system where the losing cart is faster. It helps keeping the game alive, if they had no chance of catching up they might aswell give up...
You guys had some nice improvement suggestions and I will see what I can do. If you would like to mention them again here in the thread that would be lovely, because then I can properly thank you
Also I'll be working on lighting up a few areas I found covered in shadows where the new detailing is blocking the sun.
Jindo
L3: Member
- Aug 6, 2009
- 121
- 123
Played this earlier today, I have to see this is without a doubt the most original and at the same time playable PLR map I've played so far!
Having the cart roll in from a hill at the start was a brilliant decision, likewise having a bunch of walls blow apart on the second stage was awesome.
And the entire 3rd stage was brilliant, although it seemed really unbalanced in variable conditions.
My only real advice would be to experiment with the 3rd stage, it's a brilliant idea but the general decisions (losing team moves faster would be the biggest issue) did lead to a somewhat unbalanced game, another certain suggestion would be to decrease the downhill speed on that stage, maybe even have the cart stop briefly before rolling back, as suggested by someone else during the playtest.
Overall, this was an incredibly fun map, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad that I had a chance to play such a wonderfully well thought out map, keep it up!
Having the cart roll in from a hill at the start was a brilliant decision, likewise having a bunch of walls blow apart on the second stage was awesome.
And the entire 3rd stage was brilliant, although it seemed really unbalanced in variable conditions.
My only real advice would be to experiment with the 3rd stage, it's a brilliant idea but the general decisions (losing team moves faster would be the biggest issue) did lead to a somewhat unbalanced game, another certain suggestion would be to decrease the downhill speed on that stage, maybe even have the cart stop briefly before rolling back, as suggested by someone else during the playtest.
Overall, this was an incredibly fun map, I thoroughly enjoyed it and I'm glad that I had a chance to play such a wonderfully well thought out map, keep it up!
Stage 3 is one hell of a bitch.
Everyone agrees that it needs tweaking, and then I get a bunch of suggestions, all different from eachother
I've put a lot of though into the system, and the current one (a7) is the one I like the most so far. It does what I originally wanted it to do.
The carts rolldown with a high speed for 2 reasons: 1. the people who just killed all your mates can't easily follow the cart and ruin all chances of comback. and 2. because getting the enemy cart to fall should feel like an accomplishment, further fall = happy attackers.
The carts move at different speed (depending on who is in the lead) because: There must be a chance of comeback or else the game will end with the initial attack. This is very important. It also helps people on defence feel like they are actually contributing something to the team.
The carts move faster backwards than forwards because I want the option to end the game either way (pushing up or down). Also people are kinda forced to push the cart here, so it will inevitably climb higher along the path. The backwards speed increase is there to counter that progress somewhat (or it will always end by reaching the top).
I don't expect you guys to take all factors in consideration when making suggestions, it would take much longer than a 30 min gameday test to figure out how one speed change would affect everything else. So instead of pointing out what values I need to tweak, telling me what you feel is wrong is actually a lot more helpful. (the number feedback is also nice, more than once someone has reminded me of tweak options/methods I completely forgot about)
For example I think I can solve a lot of peoples complaints if I can make it easier to defend at the bottom of the hill. No one has specifically suggested this. But as far as I can tell... that's what most number tweak suggestions actually want.
Messing with the numbers is useless if its a layout issue.
TLDR; Stage 3 is fucking complex, don't even try to make sense of it, everything implemented so far has a reason, to make it fair and fun for both teams.
It seems no matter what numbers I edit, people still have problems with it. So I believe the problem maybe lies in the brushwork.
...
Everyone agrees that it needs tweaking, and then I get a bunch of suggestions, all different from eachother
I've put a lot of though into the system, and the current one (a7) is the one I like the most so far. It does what I originally wanted it to do.
The carts rolldown with a high speed for 2 reasons: 1. the people who just killed all your mates can't easily follow the cart and ruin all chances of comback. and 2. because getting the enemy cart to fall should feel like an accomplishment, further fall = happy attackers.
The carts move at different speed (depending on who is in the lead) because: There must be a chance of comeback or else the game will end with the initial attack. This is very important. It also helps people on defence feel like they are actually contributing something to the team.
The carts move faster backwards than forwards because I want the option to end the game either way (pushing up or down). Also people are kinda forced to push the cart here, so it will inevitably climb higher along the path. The backwards speed increase is there to counter that progress somewhat (or it will always end by reaching the top).
I don't expect you guys to take all factors in consideration when making suggestions, it would take much longer than a 30 min gameday test to figure out how one speed change would affect everything else. So instead of pointing out what values I need to tweak, telling me what you feel is wrong is actually a lot more helpful. (the number feedback is also nice, more than once someone has reminded me of tweak options/methods I completely forgot about)
For example I think I can solve a lot of peoples complaints if I can make it easier to defend at the bottom of the hill. No one has specifically suggested this. But as far as I can tell... that's what most number tweak suggestions actually want.
Messing with the numbers is useless if its a layout issue.
TLDR; Stage 3 is fucking complex, don't even try to make sense of it, everything implemented so far has a reason, to make it fair and fun for both teams.
It seems no matter what numbers I edit, people still have problems with it. So I believe the problem maybe lies in the brushwork.
...
- Apr 9, 2008
- 1,706
- 1,491
Meh. I still think it moves to fast backwards. Backwards speed should be controlled by how far up the hill it is. The further up it is, the more momentum it gains when falling down. The lower down it is, the less momentum it gains and the slower it rolls backwards.
GrimGriz
L10: Glamorous Member
- Jan 2, 2009
- 774
- 133
I just played this in the calculated chaos server, and I had to come by to see who made it. I'm a big fan of the rolling down the hill at the start and the explosion for stage 2. It seems odd that the cart doesn't roll down the hill by itself at the last part of stage 1(until overtime)...i guess because of how steep the hill is.
- Apr 19, 2009
- 4,460
- 1,724
And GrimGriz is back from the dead!
I dont have a slightest idea how to implement something like that. It would be cool but I can't help think it's more work than it's worth.
I'll try a speed decrease of 20% on stage 3, and see how that plays out.
Glad you like it. I wanted to give each stage something memorable and I think it worked out pretty well
I watched the demo from cC, I'm really happy about how stage 3 played out. It looked like a lot of fun!The carts doesnt roll in stage 1 purely out of gameplay reasons, it's just more interesting this way.
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Also, I can't for the life of me reproduce that bug that happened on gameday. And it's only happened that one time... it's driving me mad
You could try fiddling around the SetSpeedModifier. That can scale the acceleration of the cart though I assume you already know that.
Yeah, and I'd have to figure out a way to determine the modifier depending on where on the hill it started rolling, and then update that modifier constantly.
... wait, SetSpeedModifier will alter both forwards and backwards speed... hmm.
It sounds like a fun challange to build, and it's probably not too complicated.
But I think panic is working fine without it
(Who knows... I'm not even in beta yet!).