Problematique (circuit payload)

[Dr. Spud]

Okay, I've got a playable build ready. Hit the DL link on the first post.

FYI: the timer is set to 10 minutes at the beginning, with a max time of 10 min. Each capture point adds 2 minutes. I'll see how well that works for now.

The HUD is at the mercy of the default payload display.

 

[DrHaphazard]

Hey I checked it out real fast, the scoring seemed off on the version i downloaded.

The first cp awarded a point to blu, but the last 3 awarded one to blue and red. Then it stopped giving more points after the first lap, so it ended 4-3 blu. Ironically I had switched to red before the end just to explore a bit and at the end of the round it still gave me the YOU WIN message.

Speaking of which not sure what to do about the end of the round win/lose since really you cant tell who won/lost till both teams have had a go.

Also when I got off the cart as blu I was past the 1st cp again (2nd lap) and it rolled all the way back to the final cp and stopped there.

Oh and since I have never made a payload map before I have started to make a very rudimentary one just to see how the HUD works and if you could actually do what I described earlier.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Oh, damn it! That's why you always test every build.:facepalm It worked last time.

I have the cart set to capture a point, and revert the previous point back to red. But it seems making a point red will automatically add to the score and lock the point.

Plus it looks like the timer is borked as well.

I'll get a fixed version up ASAP.

 

[Dr. Spud]

I uploaded alpha 2. It's actually not broken this time, so go ahead and try it.

Everything works fine now. Basically, you could run the map as a beta, but I'm calling it alpha anyways since the layout is still subject to change.

Capturing a point now sets the previous point to neutral. The default hologram for the neutral capture point is a stand-in for a custom "recharge station" hologram I'll make later.

I changed the timer again. This time it's a 10 min starting time, no time ceiling, and 1 minute is added per capture.

 

[grazr]

A couple problems you may need to overcome.

Players getting stuck in the previously faught over area when the round progresses. Unless a round is actually implemented rather than one long race.

One of the problems with a mode like this is engineers and their buildings. A map like this is usually too dynamic for an engineer to keep up. Infact Badwater is prone to steam rolls because of this. Rounds would help this, but then the A/D might be lost in the short/small combat area's.

Bare these in mind.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Those two issues, getting stuck and engies being screwed, were some of the trickiest to solve. I'm pretty sure I've put them behind me though; despite just recently showing the map, I've already re-iterated on the layout many times. In any case though, I'm not considering dividing the map into rounds because it would defeat the purpose of the looping track.

People can't get stuck when the spawns switch. let's say blue captures point 2 (refer to the overhead screenshot): when that happens, the indoor half of the map opens up, and the spawns switch sides, so that blue is spawning near point 2, and red spawns near point 4. However, a wall pops up behind red's spawn to keep them from flanking blue. Anybody that's hanging around the outdoor area can still run along the track to where the cart currently is.

Basically, nomatter where the cart is, you can run wherever you want, except through the wall behind red's spawn. Of course, a red or blue player might run out of spawn right before the spawns switch, but that could also happen to red in the third section of goldrush, and it wasn't a big deal there. Plus, if your smart you can wait in spawn a few seconds until the point is captured, and then just run out the other side when it unlocks. Since each team has one spawn zone with locking/unlocking doors, you don't get isolated on the wrong side of the map by waiting.

As for engies, it's just going to be a difficult map for them. It shouldn't be unfair, though. I've given red some easy spots to build up near their spawn, and if they're quick they can build up closer to blue. I don't want engies to be as effective as they are in goldrush anyways, but they should still have a fighting chance.

For blue, engies aren't any worse off than they are in goldrush. They just need to delete buildings when the next half of the map opens up.

 

[DrHaphazard]

Yeah i played the newer version and it seems to score correctly now, and the cart stops rolling back on the previously capped point.

As to the timing, if you just have a scout sitting on the bomb the whole time the map will never end. I do kinda like the idea of awarding more time, but maybe it should be like 20 seconds or something, since at x2 speed a lot of the points seem to be only 1 minute away as is.

I am not sure what to do about the HUD, perhaps it doesnt need to be fixed at all. As far as i can tell the team_train_watcher entity seems to dictate using the payload hud and is required to make the cart run. Plus my solution was not perfect either, it was only better at showing the circular nature of the layout. Even if you could, I dunno that youd want a circular version of the payload track hud since it would take up a lot of the screen.

 

[The Hunter]

I think this game should go like this:
1.Blu is trying to capture as many points as possible.
2.Red is trying to stop Blu (of course).
3.Every time Blu team captures a point, they recieve a point and additional time. Once they complete an entire "Circuit", they can continue capping the same points for 2 points instead of one (so if there were 4 points, and you capped them all, the next time you cap the same points, you get 2 points, then 3, and so on.).
4.Red team should have many windows and buildings to make for the fact that time is extremely crucial, since the other team could play indefinitly.
5.To make up for "Unlimited" Blu can get, every cap they make after their first circuit will give them less and less time (if there is 4 caps in a circuit, the 5th cap will be 5 or 4 minutes, then the 6th 2 or 3 minutes and so on.).
6.The cart follows the same capping rules as Capyure point, where every cap increases the speed of the cart, up to the 4th cap (it stays the same throughout the game until its over or gets sent back to any point).
7.The cart will have "life" as in it has alimited amount of damge it can take. If it loses all of its "Health", it will get sent back to its last capped point (if the cart is already sent back, and nobody moved it ahead, killing it will do nothing.) Blu team can heal by standing next to it (basically iy heals you, and itself).

I know its a little too much, buts its still good.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Thanks for the ideas. We'll see how it plays on gameday this Sunday. If I can, I'd like to keep it as simple as possible. I'll take the design in crazy directions only if I need to.

@Dr Haphazard
I know Blue can go around infinitely, but I'm assuming Red is going to slow them down enough. I'm going to see how many captures blue gets on average and adjust from there.

 

[Dr. Spud]

gameday bump.

Yeah, so the map never ended. Oops. I'll definitely lower the starting time and award less time on each capture. Plus, I'm going to add another way out of the base before the 4th point, it was an uber-choke point.

And there are a few other problems/exploits I'll fix as well.

Let me know what you guys thought of it.

 

[Hanz]

The map was wonderfull. Can't find many other problems except the awarded time, etc. I just loved the gametype, and the details were also very good. Keep it up!

 

[III_Demon]

i said it in-game, but i'll post the notes here too.

needs a bit of optimization, but not much. looks VERY pretty. i was impressed with the look, all around.

needs arrows. even after playing for a while, i was still pretty lost. it was hard to get a sense of the arrangement of the thing, and where i was supposed to be going at any given time. black arrows just showing the direction of the cart all around the track would help a lot.

the big doors covering the track were a bit annoying... in combat, having them pop open and closed all the time, and also just navigating the map, there was no indication that they'd be open or what... i'd say consider putting lights or something to indicate the locked/unlocked status, and have them just stay open whenever the cart is close.

 

[santoriin]

Hey, we tried this out on my server, we had fun and really liked the idea and how it played.

Thoughts:

The doors that open and close blocking parts of the map. Maybe make them move slower, like the speed that the doors open for the attacking team on cp_steel? Heck even have them open slower, could help prevent steamrolls.


At 10 min start +1 min caps, a good team on my server got waaaay to many chances. Thought suggested, were definitely lower the time you start with. Think about how long you get to take the first cap on goldrush, only 5 mins or so should be needed if you want it to add 1 min.

Another thought, is since the cart moves faster with more people, and hence bigger teams more likely to rack up extra time than smaller teams, maybe modulate the time added by number of players on the team?

Lastly, the inside area is a little cramped, esp. around the door at the end of the circuit, perhaps it would play better a little more widened like the first half of the arc. Also, Maybe put some boxes on the bottom floor of the hallway there so scouts could jump up them to the higher areas without running all the way back to the start.

I can't wait till the next version though, keep up the good work.

 

[VelvetFistIronGlove]

Isn't this supposed to be a symmetrical map? I can't find the Origin of Symmetry anywhere!

Ahem.

For scoring, how about incrementing the team scores on every point (or on every lap perhaps)? If you distributed your map with a custom config script for people to put on their servers (basically that increased the max team score), that would provide a good way of keeping a tally of which team was winning.

 

[santoriin]

Isn't this supposed to be a symmetrical map? I can't find the Origin of Symmetry anywhere!

Ahem.

For scoring, how about incrementing the team scores on every point (or on every lap perhaps)? If you distributed your map with a custom config script for people to put on their servers (basically that increased the max team score), that would provide a good way of keeping a tally of which team was winning.

why does it need to be symmetrical? You take turns playing each side, its attack/defend that happens to go in a circle.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Isn't this supposed to be a symmetrical map? I can't find the Origin of Symmetry anywhere!

Ahem.

For scoring, how about incrementing the team scores on every point (or on every lap perhaps)? If you distributed your map with a custom config script for people to put on their servers (basically that increased the max team score), that would provide a good way of keeping a tally of which team was winning.

Of course it's not symmetrical, wrong album. You'll have to wait for cp_newborn for the symmetrical one.:thumbup1: (edit: that's a joke, I'm not working on a third map).

What do you mean by the scoring? Make caps worth more points as the cart moves further? I'm not sure I get what your saying, because that wouldn't make it any better of a tally of which team was winning.

 

[The_Ulf]

So, first off, I love it. Great concept, great execution, great environment and detail.

I gave this a run around today, and noticed a couple possible issues.

I think one of the round doors to the inner, missile area around the third cap was always enabled - dunno if this was intentional or me not fully checking it.

Can players get trapped by the gates shutting? I like how they contain the arena of playability, but maybe add trigger_multiple brushes to allow players to move forward (but not backward) through the gates and catch up to the cart. Again, I couldn't really examine this alone so I wouldn't be able to fully say whether it's necessary or even a good idea.

Also, certain indoor areas were yet rather dark. One of the stairwells leading into the inner missile area gets nearly pitch black.

I'll edit this post with pics of a couple of other minor things I caught.
EDIT:
It appears that the displacements aren't fully sewn together for the roof of the cave:

By triple jumping from the rocks next to the uphill ramp (the position this shot was taken from), a FAN scout can trap himself in here (other mobility classes could jump into the area as well, I assume):

Just throw up some noclip around the fenced off area.

I can't wait to see this one hit standard server rotations.

 

[Dr. Spud]

An update approaches! Action?

Since I'm working on HAARP already, this is just a modest update. Keep the feedback coming on the layout and leave any suggestions you have. I'm not ignoring it, I just don't have time to make sweeping changes at the moment.

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pl_problematique_a3
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Gameplay Changes:
-The timer now starts at 5 minutes, and 25 seconds are awarded per capture.
-When the Blue team moves into the next half of the map, all engineer buildings in the approaching half will be destroyed. This is to prevent Blue from leaving sentries behind that can ruin Red's defense on the next lap.

Layout Changes:
-Added an additional bridge in the indoor portion of the map. This bridge makes the second path leading toward the 4th CP much easier to get to.

 

[Dr. Spud]

Gameday bump.

The gameplay is a little off, but I felt like it was mostly good. Drop any suggestions you guys might have; they really help give me ideas of how to improve the gamemode.

Also, the direction I'm shooting for right now for the gameplay is: blue pushes the cart quickly, and red attempts to slow them down and do better next round. As opposed to Red stopping blue, and blue pushing through solid defense over time. If that sounds fun/not fun, or if you have ideas of how to help make it happen, let me know.

Thanks!

 

[Geit]

I think this is the one of the most fun custom maps I've ever played in TF2, i can't think of any bugs short of those that were mentioned during the Gameday, such as the gaps in displacements and people getting stuck in certain area's of the map.

Great work. Keep it up!