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(Pipeball) Pinball Madness B4B

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4
Saxt0n Hale submitted a new resource:

(Pipeball) Pinball Madness B2 - Pipeball Pinball chaos.

Welcome to Pinball Madness.

Instead of you playing the pinball machine, YOU are the pinball machine.
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Made by
Uncle Larry/ Saxt0n Hale (me)
Snickerpuffs (Gamemode Creator)
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Description
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RED and BLU fight in Pinball madness, where the bumpers are fresh-- and can launch you across the machine. However, you aren't alone in this...

Read more about this resource...
 

SnickerPuffs

(*single chuckle*)
aa
Apr 10, 2014
1,325
1,866
T

The Asylum

I've had a run though of the map, here's my thoughts from a single player experience:

  • The push triggers for the ball are a little too large. I've regularly had the ball jump into the air when getting close to the serving pipe. One thing I've noticed throughout years of making Pipeball maps is that trigger volumes for physics objects activate over a far larger area than their actual physical area of the volumes themselves.
  • To that point, scoring a goal through the flippers is nigh impossible. I was only able to score a goal by shooting the ball down the gutters, and even then it was 50/50. I think spacing the flippers out a little more is needed, as well as shrinking their associated push triggers.
  • Some textures are missing. I reccomend you use Compile Pal
  • Needs more cover. You know those triangular bumpers that you see on real pinball tables? Yeah. Those would do wonders. Also, make the existing bumpers taller so players can hide behind them, along with the serving pipe.

It really does have some promise, I hope you'll continue
 
Last edited by a moderator:

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4
I've had a run though of the map, here's my thoughts from a single player experience:

  • The push triggers for the ball are a little too large. I've regularly had the ball jump into the air when getting close to the serving pipe. One thing I've noticed throughout years of making Pipeball maps is that trigger volumes for physics objects activate over a far larger area than their actual physical area of the volumes themselves.
  • To that point, scoring a goal through the flippers is nigh impossible. I was only able to score a goal by shooting the ball down the gutters, and even then it was 50/50. I think spacing the flippers out a little more is needed, as well as shrinking their associated push triggers.
  • Some textures are missing. I reccomend you use Compile Pal
  • Needs more cover. You know those triangular bumpers that you see on real pinball tables? Yeah. Those would do wonders. Also, make the existing bumpers taller so players can hide behind them, along with the serving pipe.

It really does have some promise, I hope you'll continue
Thanks for the feedback, I'll get right to it.

I did however use Compile Pal, but I might have selected the wrong file or did it wrong.

I know I already mentioned it in the original post, but thank you for making this gamemode. Way better than passtime in a thousand ways.
 

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4
Saxt0n Hale updated (Pipeball) Pinball Madness with a new update entry:

Version b2b Released

(Thank you to @The Asylum for single-player testing the map to bring you almost all of these updates.)
Minor changes include:
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  • Added triangular bumpers near flippers
  • Spaced out flippers and their triggers
  • Fixed ladders not letting you climb them
  • Made existing bumpers taller
  • Removed credits room for optimization [big sad ;((((( ]
  • Resized trigger_pushes due to clipping bug

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4
Saxt0n Hale updated (Pipeball) Pinball Madness with a new update entry:

Version b3 Updated.

Minor Updates
----------------------
  • Fixed bug where respawns would last more than 10 seconds
  • Fixed ladders
  • Extra Props
  • Fixed missing door model
heavyupclose.jpg

Read the rest of this update entry...
 
T

The Asylum

I've noticed from the notes on the bot's maplist that you're asking server mods to adjust cvars? Or are you using vscript to handle them?
 

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4
I've noticed from the notes on the bot's maplist that you're asking server mods to adjust cvars? Or are you using vscript to handle them?

I have a script that automatically changes these Cvars. However, incase the script fails, they can change it themselves. That's why I said to make sure the cvars are set as so.
 

Saxt0n Hale

L1: Registered
Aug 7, 2022
22
4
Saxt0n Hale updated (Pipeball) Pinball Madness with a new update entry:

Version B4 Released (after a million years)

I remembered about this, so I decided to make some changes.


Major Updates
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  • Skybox Overhaul (no more crappy looking room, full on arcade
  • Added Pathways between spawns
  • Cover added for spawns (big problem finally fixed

Minor Updates
---------------------
  • Ladder hints
  • Early Multi-Ball fixed
  • Extra fixes to lag

Read the rest of this update entry...
 

asylum

L4: Comfortable Member
Mar 3, 2024
158
24
Some notes from my little run through:

1. It's prohibitively close to impossible to get the ball between the flippers. It's a veeeeeeeeeery tight fit between the ends of the flippers, and, couple this with how heavy and barely responsive the ball is, scoring goals is one hell of a chore to do just once, nevermind three times.

2. The areas around the spawnrooms are pitchblack. A little light goes a long way.

3. There's a few easy ways to mimic ladders in TF2. There's these ones here that are detailed in the Developer Wiki. Or, if you feel like making players work a little for it, as I did in Ladder Match Melee Fort, you can make small invisible rungs out of nodraw or playerclip brushes, and space them vertically just far enough that players will have to jump repeatedly to "climb" the ladder.

3. There's still the issue with the push trigger brush for the middle serve pipe making the ball pop up in the air when it gets close.

4. Use Vscript to set sv_turbophysics to 0. This will make the ball solid to players, and will deal damage if it hits them fast enough.

Now, this is just my personal philosophy on Pipeball maps, but I think it should be much easier to score, and the ball should be quite a bit easier to push. In my experience, if players are locked in an endless back and forth with barely any scoring, if at all, it just gets them angry and frustrated with the map, and they give up on trying. The way I look at it, scoring a goal activates that primal reward center in the brain, keeping players engaged and wanting more. There still needs to be a challenge, sure, but if 90% of the matches end in stalemate or sudden death, something has gone very wrong.

I think your map is still salvageable, but it's got quite a bit of work ahead of it.