Reactor V2 A6

[14bit]

Last test was really useful, let's see how this one goes.

Changes to Blu Spawn:

• Flipped the direction you spawn in, so you no longer have to do a 180 to leave

Changes to Red Spawn 1:

• Shortened exit to A
• Rebuilt sections to better direct players to A
  • Getting to A is also much, much faster
• Gave the D door windows

Changes at A:

• Changed some one-way glass to be regular glass
• Added a blocker so you can't rocket jump over the shortcut as easily
  
  • Blu was reaching the point way too fast with jumping classes, this should slow them down
• Changed Red's spawn area to work with the new spawn layout

Changes at B:

• Removed some cover on the point
• Moved the prop jump up onto the point to a different spot not right on the point
• Added more cover for Red
• Brought back the truck from V1

Changes at C:

• Replaced the vent nearest Blu's entrances with another turbine
• The remaining vent activates the first time someone walks over it, and stays on forever
• Increased cover
• Increased door speed from 2 to 4
• Changed Red's entrance to the area
  • They're much closer to the point, and have a new route to the back/battlements
• Rebuilt the C-->D connector due to changes at D

Changes at D:

• Removed the extra door that closes when C is capped that was added in V2 A2
• Gave Red's final spawn highground over the point
  • This highground is harder to access once C is capped

Changes at Red's Final Spawn:

• Unblocked access to the final spawn before B is capped
• Completely rebuilt the spawn
  • It's faster to get to C, and losing C is more harmful to Red

Overall Changes:

• Lowered Red's respawn time to 7, from 10
• Fixed some missing patches
• Improved cubemaps

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[14bit]

Changes to Blu Spawn:

• Fixed a gap in the func_respawnroom that allowed building inside the spawn
• Changed the paint can to not be marked as debris, so shots move it in addition to explosions
• By popular demand, you can now go swimming in Blu spawn
  • There's a ladder to help you get out once you are done
  • There's truly instant respawns in the water as well

Changes to Red Spawn 1:

• Rebuilt the spawn
  • Players spawn directly in front of the chalkboard now
  • D now has two doors and a window, which should reduce camping
  • The entrance into B has been moved slightly
  • Players now spawn facing A until it is capped, then they spawn facing B

Changes at A:

• Removed the ammo box near Blu's spawn
  • Red was using it to camp
• Replaced said ammo box with a new prop jump up to Blu's upper exit
• Stacked a box and a plank on some barrels near Blu's spawn to block a sightline
• Added some more space on Blu's side of the area, including a new building
  • I'm hoping this makes the opening more fun for both teams, and pushes Blu further to the outer flank

Changes at B:

• Expanded Blu's space at B by adding a new room to the side
  • Hopefully this extra space will let Blu push out a bit better
  • This may turn into a new route in the future if this isn't enough
• Red's spawn exit into the area has been moved back further into the base
  • This is intended to make Red hold further back in their base, rather than pushing forwards and camping Blu's spawn exits
  • This also stops the sightline from Red spawn directly onto the point

Changes at C:

• Replaced the boxes with some temporary walls
  • I wasn't a fan of Blu being able to hide behind them for cover, nor how much space they took up
• Increased lighting on the upper catwalk
• Added a medium ammo pack to the upper catwalk
  • This should encourage engineers and snipers to use it more, which was my original intention for the catwalk
• Improved the steam vent/launch pad
  • Increased size
  • Improved visuals
  • Added a sound when players are launched
  • Vent now also enables when Blu starts capping, since people seem to miss that it exists
• w i d e d o o r
  • Made Blu's entrance ridiculously wide
  • Also gave Blu some weird highground in the B-->C connector room. It's real awkward but it might work?
• Added a new gate to the B/C/D connector to prevent entry into the C-->D connector until B is capped
  • This is to prevent Red from setting up in the new highground in the C-->D connector early

Changes at D:

• Increased final cap time from 25 to 35 to match Steel
• Narrowed the bridges back to how they were until V2 A2
• Expanded the area near Red's final spawn exit on the A side of the Reactor
  • This should let Red hold from here easier if they want to
• Reworked Red's first spawn exit into D
  • In addition to the changes mentioned above, there's now a really big door that closes once the spawn moves, which should make it very clear that you can't get in anymore

Changes at Red's Final Spawn:

• Added another Resupply Locker near the C exit
• Tweaked the triggers on the D Blocker doors

Overall Changes:

• Brightened dynamic shadows slightly
• Small details here and there
• func_detailed some things that really should have been from the start
• Added cubemaps to locations that were missing them
• Increased cubemap scale in key areas
  
• Lighting tweaks
• I was doing experiments with adding proper bot support and accidentally packed a broken .nav, please ignore that

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[TheFluffycart]

Hey, I found 2 bugs in Reactor. The first one is to do with the water in Blue Spawn, and the fact that the respawn visualizer isn't solid if you're in the water, and let's you escape the bounds (Not too big, but still a bug). Second bug is that there's a door that teleports blue team into red's last spawn (I think it was to help red being stuck, but you forgot to set it to only red?).

Wanted to point it out before the playtest, sorry to bug ya

 

[14bit]

Second bug is that there's a door that teleports blue team

Your image is broken, can you describe which door?

Edit: Found it, Thanks for letting me know!

 

[14bit]

• Fixed being able to swim outside the bounds of the map
• Fixed being able to touch the teleport brush from outside Red's first spawn, which allowed Blu players to get into Red's final spawn
• Didn't pack the broken .nav this time!

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[14bit]

While I didn't play in the test of A4A, results were promising. I like Red's new starting spawn, A and B are closer to working, and I like how C looked like it was playing as well. I'm mostly going to leave them alone with some minor tweaks this time and focus on D.

Red's defenses at final are awful, and it's easy for Blu to camp Red's spawn after C. I'm hesitant to gut final completely, so I've just tried to repair what I have. If it's still not enough I do have plans for what else I can try, but it requires significantly restructuring large portions of final.

Changes at A:

• Made the cap zone smaller
  • This should help with Red's defense, since Blu has to commit to pushing around the corner onto the point

Changes at B:

• Removed the small health pack near the point
• Removed the crate that could be used to get up to the point
• Increased cap time from 20 to 22
  • All these changes should help Red have a bit more time to contest/hold/set up during the A-->B transition

Changes at D:

• Removed some supports at final, and made the rest smaller
• Replaced the supports on the point with non-solid cables
  • These changes should help make the room feel a lot less claustrophobic, and easier to fight in
• Added a railing to the final platform
  • This makes it so it's harder to make the jump to final early as well. Heavy will need the GRU to reach it now!
• Flipped the B/C bridges back to how they were in V1
  • The A bridge extends after B now, rather than the C bridge
  • This is to push Red defending from a different direction, and allowing Blu to attack from that direction earlier instead of having to pass directly past Red's final spawn
• Fixed some visual issues with the bridges
• Increased bridge speed from 10 to 15
• Lowered cap time from 35 to 30
  • I over-corrected last version, this should be a lot better
• Fixed an exploit where you could hide buildings behind the door to Red's first spawn before it closed
• Opened up the small diagonal staircase into usable gameplay space
  • Final is more symmetrical again, but I'm hoping that's not an issue now that routing is different
• Rebuilt Red's final side, notably expanding the A-facing spawn exit area
  
  • This now has high ground over the point, which closes after C is capped
  • There's a bunch of sightline issues with this spot, but it's better than nothing so I might as well test it
• Modified cover and pickups around the point

Changes at Red's Final Spawn:

• Lowered the D exit again, but kept the same spawn layout
  • Red's upper area at final was leading to spawn camping from Blu, so I'm lowering it back down

Overall Changes:

• Small details here and there

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[14bit]

I'm still mostly watching how D plays at the moment, but I need more testing before I do any sweeping changes. No screenshots this time; most of the changes are small enough that you can't really see them.

Changes to Blu Spawn:

• Adjusted some things to make the path towards A more obvious.

Changes to Red Spawn 1:

• Rotated spawns to face A even more at the start of the round

Changes at A:

• Fixed a stuck spot
• Adjusted some cover
• Rebuilt the interiors of the buildings leading up to the point
  • These should feel better to move though, and give Red a bit more room to defend with if they try to hold the sniper deck across from where they spawn.
• Fixed some missing overlays

Changes at B:

• Smoothed out a sharp corner near Blu spawn to make the area feel larger and flow a bit better
• Clipped the roof of Blu's spawn exit

Changes at C:

• Made the upper medium ammo pack into a small
• Lit the upper walkway a bit more
  • Both of these changes should make the sentry spot up there a bit easier to deal with
• Red spawn times now change from 7 to 8 when C is capped
• Tweaked cover around the point to block a sightline

Changes at D:

• Increased the jump to last by 32 units
  • This should make it harder for Blu to reach the point early on
    
  • All classes other than Scout need to crouch jump to make it now, and you have to do it perfectly if you want to make it. Heavy and Soldier can no longer make the jump.
• Added more railings to the point

Overall Changes:

• Improved lighting in some darker areas

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[Idolon]

I've not played this a ton to have a great feel for how it all plays, but I have a few notes:

First, D is really big, and it hurts the gameplay. While the scaling of the pathways, deathpit, and platform are all relatively similar to Steel / Upland, those two maps put the point up against the wall and the pit surrounds the point mostly on three sides. This map surrounds the platform on all four sides and the final room ends up being almost twice the size as those other maps, which I think really hurts with the scaling - most fights feel very spread out and its just not very fun.

Second, I'm a bit confused on the role of C. With Steel, E is always the "distraction play" up until C is capped, at which point it feels like E becomes the main point and D is the distraction play. Capping D gimps the defense on E so hard as to almost ensure victory. On the other hand, with Outflow, C is always the distraction play, and defense is never gimped - it basically plays as an A/D CP map with a distraction play element added in.

Reactor kind of feels like it's trying to be both - Capping C gimps D defense really hard as to make C essential, but for some reason (The routing for blue? Red respawn locations? Player assumptions? I've no idea) defending C still feels like the essential push and D is still the distraction play. I think you need to make sure you're going fully one way or the other - either C is out of the way and relatively easy to shut down as red (and D becomes the main focus after B is capped), or capping C needs to make a blue push finally viable instead of inevitable.

EDIT: A number of people have been suggesting that you switch around A and B for reasons of navigation. I think this change would have the added benefit of making C not the natural progression after B, so that blue is forced to treat it as the distraction play.

 

[14bit]

[Useful Feedback]

First up, thanks a ton for taking your time to write some thoughts for me!

I agree that D is too large, and am/was already planning on reworking it. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do with it yet, so I wanted to get one more test in.

Years ago someone (you or Egan I think?) gave me positive feedback about how C and D felt in the map, with Red having to participate in a frantic two-pronged battle holding both points. I've been trying to keep that feeling of urgency in the map since, but I think the issues with D have muddled that intention. I think with the new D I will have to give Red a central location that they have to try and hold both points from, rather than connect them with a strange small hallway.

My goal is to have C to be the natural progression after B. C's design here is mostly a reaction to Sulfur; I think it's a great map but I really dislike how C is handled. It's so far out of the way, and I think that's a huge wasted opportunity in terms of gameplay potential. Steeltype is interesting to me since it can create scenarios where teams have to fight on multiple fronts at once, but if you can lock once point down so easily you don't really have to fight on multiple fronts.

With that goal in mind of forcing multiple fronts, I do feel like currently that's presented too early in the round. It's far too easy to go for D right at the start, instead of slowly getting easier with each point until both C and D are equally viable while in play. That's my ultimate goal; D is a distraction all the way up until the end, since if C is capped it's almost all over. I just need to figure out how to make that work, or even figure out if that is viable as a design.

I'm really not sure what people mean by switching A and B:

• I want Blu to set up and hold in the B/C/D connector. That's where the map already funnels people, so I'm confused as to why people are saying to flip things for navigation. I guess I'm just not making it clear that that's the intention, or that it's just not good enough of a place to set up in during the C/D fight?
  
• Mirroring them wouldn't stop people from going to B/D at the start rather than A; that's an issue with my spawn design. If it's to put the focus on D instead of C, then the issue becomes people finding C at all. It's diagonally across the map from B then, which would be a nightmare for navigation. Mirroring the opening of the map also makes it significantly more Steel-like, with A and B in the same places as on Steel. I intentionally flipped them back when I started in 2015; I don't want people to feel like it's a steel rip-off.
  
• Just switching the point names and order without changing geometry is even worse, since A was designed to funnel players to B after it's capped, so making that B would confuse everyone without major reworks.

 

[Idolon]

If you want a more difficult hold on C then I think the current flow is just fine; I mostly was suggesting it under the notion that C would be mostly a distraction play.

If the intended is to make a split defense between C and D, where both points are equally viable, then I have a weird suggestion: Skip the C bonus and just make it end the round. Assuming this could be communicated effectively to players (and that's a big if), then I think it would help be very clear about how Reactor and Steel are different. It would be my preference as a red player - that split defense is stressful enough that I can't see it as anything but the climax of the defense "story" so to speak, and I would much rather lose immediately than go through the extended humiliation round that is a D defense. (It would also make it easier to design the layout!)