CTF Snowdrift b4a

[A Boojum Snark]

Displace the edge! http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/98931/pics/ctf_snowdrift_b10000.jpg

Playerclip or nonsolid http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/98931/pics/ctf_snowdrift_b10001.jpg

half buried (just behind point 1) http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/98931/pics/ctf_snowdrift_b10002.jpg

I don't know if you meant for this to be possible or not http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/98931/pics/ctf_snowdrift_b10004.jpg

 

[Westerhound]

Some playerclippable support beams

Not all of them can be seen in the pic, but there was more in that area.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not%20to%20be%20deleted/asdagfw.JPG

I can walk on that spytech monitor or whatever it is
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not%20to%20be%20deleted/ctf_snowdrift_b10015.jpg
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not to be deleted/ctf_snowdrift_b10016.jpg

Would prolly look better if it would stick out of the wall a little bit at least
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not%20to%20be%20deleted/ctf_snowdrift_b10012.jpg

Playerclip maybe?
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not%20to%20be%20deleted/ctf_snowdrift_b10014.jpg

Small misalignment
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not to be deleted/awge.JPG

Just me or does this look really weird?
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not%20to%20be%20deleted/ctf_snowdrift_b10010.jpg

And this wall looks bit odd too
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/887468/Not%20to%20be%20deleted/ctf_snowdrift_b10013.jpg

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

We played this tonight and i was a sniper standing on the final point as red (literally ontop of the flag stand) and a spy walks up with the flag and caps the point even though i was standing on it and should have been defending it.
Their should be a defending status when red is in the capture area, this makes it to easy to cap for blu if all they have to do is touch it.

 

[littleedge]

Sausage, Jonah's spoke of that. I forget his reasoning, but that's how Snowdrift has been the whole time - a 4 point single stage no point blocking a/d ctf.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1490725/ctf_snowdrift_b10005.jpg
Shift your stair textures a bit. It's an obvious copy-paste

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1490725/ctf_snowdrift_b10003.jpg
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1490725/ctf_snowdrift_b10004.jpg
Outside RED's first spawn, I can get on these windows.

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1490725/ctf_snowdrift_b10002.jpg
That same problem. It took me five tries to get up there, but I did. I'm guessing you used a triangle playerclip? Try making the wood nonsolid. And do it on the other side as well with the similar wood-door thingy.

 

[jpr]

Yeah, like I said many pages ago, the idea is to stop the blue team, not to camp on the point, and it has been working pretty well so far.
Anyway, thanks for the screens everybody, they're very helpful

 

[Trotim]

Did you fix the one conduit prop_static not meeting the wall in Blu spawn?

 

[jpr]

Oh right, need to do that too

 

[Trotim]

Oh right, and about the detailing: I never noticed the map didn't have much detail. What I did notice in a lot of good other custom maps is TOO MUCH detail. arena_offblast got most parts right, but the spawn rooms seemed overly detailed to me. In my opinion, Badwater, Steel and Gravelpit managed to have a good balance in this regard.

I was half joking when I said medics have it too easy, but I think I might've figured out why: Short lines of sight. There's so much cover and changes of direction medics can hide easily while still healing their patient. This is why only short-distance-battle-snipers like Ravidge were doing well, too, and not their normal camping counterparts. Don't get me wrong, there ARE some sniper spots, but your map has like short- and midrange sniper spots while most other maps have long- and midrange ones. Just a random thought I had.

Where are you going to put the second Red exit now? Under the last CP, or somewhere completely different?

 

[jpr]

I figured I can't put it under the point, because the spawn exit needs to be behind the point... I'll do like in dustbowl, add another spawnroom that opens after cp2 is capped

 

[Uriak]

Huh ? There is no spawnroom change in the middle of any dustbowl round. Did you mean another spawn exit instead ?

 

[jpr]

In the last round, red has two spawns, and the other is disabled until blue caps the first point

 

[Uriak]

Mhh I recall that you can spawn from both at any time (since some times you have to travel to the other to use the short cut)
Well, since your map has 4 CP, it's another problem.

 

[Ravidge]

I felt that the last capture was extremely busy.

It was cramped and tiny, very few options other than a head on attack and yeah the spawncamping is a direct result of this.
You have to give defenders more space to work with, spread them out over the area and let them take on different roles (guarding a certain path, guarding the cap, controlling health pickups). If they are all scrunched up in the same place it just becomes chaos around the objective.

The attackers didnt get to use any other tactic than brute-force from what I could see.

I think the last point is a dissapointment to an otherwise excellent fast paced ctf a/d map.
The other points really feels fair and balanced and all classes can find a use.
Increasing the size of the last cap section and adding a real side route for attackers are my suggestions.

Well, good luck! I have a great time when I play this map.

 

[Zwiffle]

I was finally able to get it on a game with this map, and although I couldn't play for long, I did get most of a round on defense in. I thought it was a lot of fun, but the overtime is a bit unfair (as I have seen with other kinds of maps like this.) It either needs to end when the timer reaches 0 or another countdown timer of like 30 seconds needs to pop up, where if the countdown reaches 0 OR the flag is dropped, the offensive team loses. Or some other mechanic that fairly solves the problem. You could also change the flag return time to something like 2 or 3 seconds once you reach overtime.

I'm sure you're aware, but the overtime needlessly drags things on, potentially indefinitely, and that's bad for defense as someone said in the game because the flag carrier can just hide in the back, away from the attackers.

Other than that I thought it was a lot of fun and looked really good.

 

[jpr]

I'll do something about the last point.
Since the amount of changes needed is suddenly so big, before b2 I'll release a test version.
Edit: about the overtime, the flag's return time should change to 5 secs on overtime, but in future versions I'll disable overtime completely since it's now possible.

 

[Sgt.Sausage]

Yeah, like I said many pages ago, the idea is to stop the blue team, not to camp on the point, and it has been working pretty well so far.
Anyway, thanks for the screens everybody, they're very helpful

oh ok thats fine just wanted to let you no, it just seems to help bonk rushes with 2 scouts very easy, i think a very small defend area would be fine.

Either way just letting you no

 

[jpr]

Just finished a sketch of the changes I'll be doing for the last point area, here are my ideas:

-I'll make the area a bit bigger so that you can't guard the whole area with one sentry
-The alt route that goes under the point will go straight on the point
-I'll remove the balcony-thingy and add stairs to go down instead
-New red spawn at the right side of the point

I also did changes to the third point area, like I showed you before. I did something and the short route through the concrete building is now as long as the other one, since there's a shortcut for the longer route, which, without doing an U-turn you can't use if you take the shorter route.

 

[jpr]

I'm having mappers block, so progress is very slow. I should be able to make all the needed changes during next week though. If anyone has any further suggestions, tell me!

 

[Waif]

well the map looks nice. Ill say that.

Unfortunately after playing it for a while it either seems that blue steam roll or red absolutely locks the map down with sentries, especially at cp1 and cp4.

I like the theory behind the map, but it really doesnt seem to work- your long narrow paths seem very underused as red always just ends up camping the point.
This could have something to do with the game mode, if so theres not much you can do about it

Probably too late now to do any major layout changes, but to help: you could definitly expand the last point a bit, remove the sentry spot pictured and crack down on the sentry spot near the drop down at cp1.
I feel red need a closer spawn for cp3, its a long walk for a defending team and just causes engies to set up at 4 when they leave spawn instead.

Maybe the same for blue and the last point, their spawn is about ten times as far away from the cap as reds is for cp4, blue wipes out the defences but by the time they make it back red have fully rebuilt.

Hope you get use from some of this advice, I tried to cover the key issues

EDIT; And fix overtime

 

[jpr]

Once I get the inspiration, I'll definately be doing something about all those problems. On cp1 I've added more cover. The changes I'm planning for cp4 I told already in the post above, and I'll add a better shortcut for red to cp3 too. Not sure about a closer-to-cp4 spawn for blue though, during gameday the blue team was actually spawncamping red, so it might not be needed