pl_waste

[uma plata]

I'm very interested to try this. Visually it's looking good

Curious though, in CP push maps, back-capping is always a threat to a team pushing too fast, and can give a team on the ropes a little breathing room. It seems like with a push/pl, coming back from disadvantage would be more unlikely, so teams with momentum would have a tendency to keep momentum

Could this be balanced by having the attackers limited in their forward spawn locations?

Or, by doing that, would you make stalemates more likely?

 

[Icarus]

I just had a 2-hour long play session on Waste with a full 24man server, and it seems I may have found a good balance. There was lots of back-and forth action, plenty of comebacks, and the map never stalemated. Rounds lasted around 15 minutes. The players described the action as "intense" since the cart always was so vigorously contested.

What allows defenders to regroup and stop the attackers' momentum is the alternate paths. Defenders have an inherent advantage when in their own base, and using these alternate routs allow you to flank or even get behind the enemy. Attackers will find themselves surrounded if they focus too many of their men on the cart.

There was this moment where the cart was bordering on the final CP for a good few minutes and both teams were totally flipping out. The defenders survived the ordeal, and quickly capped the next CP.

You probably have many assumptions about a tug-o-war payload but, like me, you'll be surprised to find out it plays marvelously <3

 

[Scotland Tom]

Icarus, if the gameplay is anything like what you just described above, this could possibly become my new favorite map. You may want to take some new screenshots before long, because I have a feeling that when my Promising Upcoming Customs for February are posted I'll need a new image to use for Waste.

 

[Icarus]

I'll whip up an attractive presentation image when I release Beta 1 next week, along with some action shots (I'll be spectating for a while in gameday to take shots).

Smile for the camera!

 

[Icarus]

My Observations from gameday:

At first neither team wanted to push the cart. People were understandably preoccupied with learning the layout and mechinics of the map. Unfortunately, no medics were present at all, and the map was at a standstill for the first 15 minutes in BLU's base. This could be due to many RED members not realizing that they were not on defense, and were holding back.

After a while, after players have a better feel of the basic layout of the map and it's alternate paths, BLU made a comeback and pushed the cart all the way to RED's side. Shortly afterwords, with medics this time, BLU pushed the cart to the end and successfully destroyed the enemy base at 25 minutes into the round.

I will not be making any noticeable gameplay changes to the map for Beta 1. As for the round time, I might reduce the time added for capped points to 5 minutes, rather than 10. I don't want to reduce it any more as I want to avoid stalemates. After Beta 1, if the rounds do seem too long, I will change the layout of the map rather than making the timer shorter.

As for the cart speed, It will remain uniform throughout. No team will push it faster than the others. Complaints I have received in older versions were that it is very difficult to make a comeback if you were losing.

Thank you for the opportunity to playtest. I am extremely confident that Beta 1 will be a smash.

Hope everyone had fun. Does anybody else have anything to add?

 

[uma plata]

Great work on this. I had a hell of a good time

I like the cart speed, I think it's about the perfect balance, allowing you to cover some ground if you wipe out the enemy team

Thinking about Waste as compared to CP push maps (Granary and Well are probably the most similar), I don't think it will be more prone to stalemate than those. The big problem is the same thing you'll see on other payload maps, where players don't focus on pushing the cart, especially when they're at risk

I didn't run into any technical issues at all (sticking in doors, sticking on the environment), and the framerate seemed good throughout

Gameplay wise, I'd say the final point is just where you'd want it as far as how easy it is to cap

The second point seemed to be where a lot of the back and forth came into play, which is fine, just an observation

Attacking snipers outside of the enemy rollup doors seemed to have an easy time, and likely because the sentry setup right outside the door cut off a lot of the flanking opportunities. Maybe some more props in that corner by the right door to expose the sentry a little more?

Overall, it feels like you're deep into beta already. Very, very polished, and a blast to play

 

[Rexy]

Icarus,

The map feels well developed, you've taken time to worry about correct scaling of players vs. the environment, and it plays very well. The stalemate issue is just part of the gameplay of having a pl map that pushes both ways. I don't have a problem with stalemate gameplay; a lot of times, ctf maps can stalemate, the same as maps like cp_well (I'm not saying they always do, but sometimes). If anyone has issues with stalemating, it's a personal problem I think.

However, there's nothing wrong with cutting down on respawn times and such, as you told me you have done, but how much is up to you. You know the map better than anyone else does, you should be able to think objectively and critically about how to fix what needs to be done.

I think the only thing left is the cart model!

I am hoping your cart model will look symmetrical, so it doesn't look like the bomb is pointing a specific way down the tracks. That would really help the overall look and polish of the map.

Hopefully after this gameplay type becomes more popular, we'll see more maps like this!

 

[GrimGriz]

I thought I saw the bomb spin around at one point, which was a little odd.

The only thing that concerned me is that you could theoretically never run out of time since blue and red could push it back and forth over a point and keep the time maxed out. I'd recommend setting the timer to however long you want matches to be and not adding any time for points being "capped" since they aren't really being capped.

 

[Baysin]

I'd recommend setting the timer to however long you want matches to be and not adding any time for points being "capped" since they aren't really being capped.

That's not a bad idea... worth considering, at any rate. Just set it to 20 minutes, for instance, and you've got till then to win. If you haven't got it by then, it's probably gonna be a long match.... at least based on our run through it today.

Really, though, it's a blast to play. It's essentially a new game mode, or really more like a hybrid mode, but it's intuitive, so someone who hops in not knowing anything about it will pick it up right away. I just had fun the whole time, great job!

 

[Dox]

I think if you really don't want it to stalemate make it work like real tug-of-war: you don't need to get the other guys all the way to where you are, just get the flag over the line...
I think rounds would be a lot faster if you removed the final cap points so the secondaries were the finals, and move the secondaries closer to the spawns by just a bit.

 

[Icarus]

I realize that stalemating could be an issue, but I'm thoughtful of giving the defenders a chance to make a comeback (which is what happened on gameday). I'm concerned about the 'learning curve' of maps. The thing is that players tend to play more defensively in a new environment, especially since they don't have any form of a basic game plan yet. When I had that 2-hour long session on Grimgriz' server, both teams were full of high-level players that form the Q regulars, and had enough time and communication to learn the basic tactics around the map (that upper level of the second caps is crucial to holding the point). What I need is players who know the map more so I can get a more accurate representation of real gameplay.

I suppose what I'm trying to say here is that my map has indeed grown out of it's alpha phase and needs to move on to a public beta in order to continue development.

Thank you everyone for your assistance and helpfulness throughout the alpha!

 

[MangyCarface]

Icarus,
this map shows how much you've grown as a mapper. The individual awkward parts visually of observatory are nowhere to be found in this polished map. I love it.

 

[Cerious]

Commentary Time! Image captions are on top of the image it is describing. Here are my suggestions, hopefully you'll take these into account by b1.

1. Disable fog in your map, it looks so much better without it. To see what I mean:

With fog. Notice how the smoke is not fogged, which makes it look odd, unnatural, and plain ugly.



Without fog (achieved with fog_override 1 and fog_enable 0). Looks MUCH better, however, now some of the things in the skybox render as black from afar (which can be remedied easily). See for yourself.



Yeah, some stuff fades to black, only if it's in the skybox however. Experiment with it.



2. The cart should do a 180 degrees turn when it switches sides at the middle point. What I mean is that when it gets to the middle point the cart will turn around (gradually, not instantaneously flipping over) and then keep going. You can also have this in the beginning at the middle so that the cart starts turning to the opposing base as you cap it. This means that the cart will start off horizontally and neutrally, facing no teams base, and as one team starts capping the middle point, the cart will gradually rotate to face the opposing team's base. This will mean you'll have to create a model and functions for that kind of stuff, I suppose. However, it would make your map a whole lot better.

3. The cart is skinned blue in a6. Whoops!

4. Disable the shadows for these props in the following pictures, or check your lighting on the walls in these pictures. Some of them have unnaturally weird shadows. (oh, and check the same places in the opposite base as well, they might have the same problem).





This is a double-whammy: The garden hose and the shadow underneath the loudspeakers.



5. I've seen a red version for these turbines in your red factory pic (copy-pasted here just for reference). I don't know if they're official or not, but I've seen them, and I'll look for them.

I'll update this post with more things I find.

 

[Icarus]

1. :drool1: Wow it looks a LOT better without fog! It even looks dirtier!

2. I'm not sure how to go about this, but you have a very good idea.

3. I got Z33's multiskinned cart a bit too late to compile the map with it. But no worries! I have the gray one ready for B1!

4. I don't know what to do about that first pic. I want to keep the round corners

 

[Sgt Frag]

Yeah, no fog makes it look alot more ominous
Not quite as hazzy maybe but a very good trade off.

Are the round corners displacements? Maybe if you make the wall inbewteen and on sides displacements also the light will blend better. Otherwise you have to make the curves from alot of brushes (ALOT) to make them round and light nice.

I did mention your map at the 2fort2furious forums Icarus. The few people that responded said it sounded cool. We play Frontier there alot along with a wide variety of maps. They also play alot of betas and some maps with dev tex, so I know it's not too early for this one. I told them I thought you would be out of alpha pretty soon (based on recent plays I've participated in).

If you want I can try and get ahold of Floor_Master and see if he'll throw it on. He's posted here in the server forum. Think he's on the lam currently. But the server is usually full 32 players and I think they'd pick it up quick, it is alltalk so it's easy to spread the word on what the map is about.
I can't think of a better test server. The map would probably play at least 2 times a day and it goes a full 2 rounds minimum.

 

[MangyCarface]

For what it's worth, I don't agree with the removal of fog... fog helps transition the entire map to the skybox, and as the map is supposed to have a smoggy feel, the heavy fog always immersed me a bit... I'd be sad to see it go, things look unnaturally sharp without it...

 

[Icarus]

I wouldn't be removing it, per se, just reducing the thickness of it. At least enough to make the smokestacks not look so unnatural.

 

[NoHeroes]

Hello,

We ran this on our "Payload Extreme" server all weekend. Unfortunately, we ran into some issues. Specifically, the map was crashing the server when a overtime/stalemate would come up. I'm still not sure what the exact issue was, but I've taken it down until a future version.

I will say that people really liked the new style of play once they learned how it worked, and enjoyed the map immensely overall.

 

[Rexy]

For what it's worth, I don't agree with the removal of fog... fog helps transition the entire map to the skybox, and as the map is supposed to have a smoggy feel, the heavy fog always immersed me a bit... I'd be sad to see it go, things look unnaturally sharp without it...

I agree with this as well, except for the fact that with the fog, the black smoke is unaffected by the fog. Maybe write to Valve and ask for gray smoke along with a neutral bombcart? That would keep the fog from ignoring the rules of visibility.

 

[Icarus]

Hello,

We ran this on our "Payload Extreme" server all weekend. Unfortunately, we ran into some issues. Specifically, the map was crashing the server when a overtime/stalemate would come up. I'm still not sure what the exact issue was, but I've taken it down until a future version.

I will say that people really liked the new style of play once they learned how it worked, and enjoyed the map immensely overall.

Thanks, I've had this problem before and it was resolved by toning down the # of dynamic entities, something that was most likely increased when I was finishing the detail work.

Would your server happen to be a 32-man?

I've simplified the goal entity system a bit and toned down on some of the frills, so I should have a good one out as beta 1 sometime this week!