PL snowycoast B6

[EArkham]

Percentages are already fixed since the map has been accepted, so content made by other people can't be added, sorry. Plus I don't feel it's necessary to add an aurora.

As it stands now, I don't have any plans to add any more flanks. The problem I've been seeing are people not even using the flanks that are already there (and then complaining that there are no flanks).

I'll be waiting to see what happens with this latest version before making any further changes.

 

[ics]

Btw, Zahndah, that stairs issue never appeared for me, and the wall is like 16 HU with the stairs fully on the opposite side... I think this might be something to do with your config settings.

About those stairs, it's not actually the stairs that gets displayed through the wall, it's that overlay of snow. Thats why the upper part of the stairs isn't visible. I've seen this effect in other maps with overlays. They might just show slight crack through wall but this was new to me. It's just visual glitch. (ZOOOOM)

 

[Werewolf]

Just curious what the damage value the trigger_hurt zone around the final stage is set to, cos I just managed to do this:

 

[EArkham]

10,000 damage, to ensure insta-death to ubers that fall in.

I think that has more to do with contract issues than the map, since you can kill yourself as engineer and get your sentry points very fast, or have a medic shoot you with a crossbow when you're doing a black box contract and get the points for that, etc. You can probably do the same thing with a dead ringer contract on any death pit where it was triggered right before hitting the trigger_hurt.

 

[Izotope]

That's nothing, I completed my entire wrangler contract including bonusducks as a MEDIC.

10,000 damage, to ensure insta-death to ubers that fall in.

How does an uber make you survive a trigger with less damage output? I'm pretty sure 1k should suffice.
Even though I'm always setting mine to 99999

 

[EArkham]

Ages ago, you could survive trigger_hurts sometimes if ubered. I don't remember the details (other than seeing heavy med pairs in death pits) so it might have just been an update bug or maps that had really low damage trigger_hurts. Ever since I always opted for overkill (10k).

 

[Yrr]

Hey so I don't know if it was passed on to you but I found this last week:

When you jam yourself in here as soldier you are still considered airborne, allowing you to spam the shit out of the door with the airstrike.

 

[EArkham]

Can you get out of there without suiciding?

If so, I'm... kind of okay with leaving that, until I find a solid way of tweaking it so spawncamping in general is toned down.

 

[Yrr]

Yea you can surf out when you're done. I wasn't really sure if it was good or bad but I guessed it was unintentional so I figured I should tell you.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

I think that has more to do with contract issues than the map.

A trigger multiple with !activator SetHealth -1000 doesnt work in killing the player that way? Or does that one still use the regular way of damaging an enemy rather than just altering his health without any damage being applied? Its at least one of the methods mvm uses when killing players. it first does sethealth and then applies a regular trigger hurt. And the triggers only starts 16HU earlier.

Also, for those barrels where he got stuck. just clip it off so you can still walk there (about 16hu above the prop collision box). No one will notice it.

 

[EArkham]

I dunno, I never compared the two. Upward and doublecross both use a trigger_hurt (9999 dmg fwiw), but no trigger_multiple w/ sethealth. I didn't check any other maps.

I think the trigger_multiple might be necessary to ensure mvm bots get killed perhaps? Though the bots are clients technically, so you'd think trigger_hurt would work fine on them as well.

And yeah, that's how I'll fix the barrels obviously, but leaving it so they can fire off the air strike there is fine by me for the time being.

[Edit] Public note to self, if you have thoughts on this, feel free to comment:

Last point, doorway that leads to RED's last spawn when you walk up the yellow/mobile staircase -- what if this door CLOSED once BLU has pushed the cart far enough to make the giant door open?

This would remove the primary route BLU uses to spawncamp RED here, while still allowing RED to drop down for flanking attacks on BLU as well as still allowing them to return to their spawn through the small spawn exit.

I think this might be something interesting to test in a new version.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

I think you would heavily restrict chances to reach the red defenses there when you do that though as then there would be only 1 staircase there and there is barely any chance a spy would get past that decently (and thats still a class you should not forget). Also, i think it wont realy fix the spawncamping there unless it closes as soon as it touches the gate rather than waiting for it to fully open (allowing red to rebuild a little aswel). Especialy since once the blue players are already spawnkilling there, you are too late anyway. Maybe make it a 1way door that closes on reaching the gate. At least that reduces the chance for blue to walk in.

My guess once its closed would be that red would become limited to just 2 paths they can attack rather than 3 weakening the defense there (the inside area becomes out of reach which can be a quite decent build up point before the final push), but it would stop the major spawnkilling so its a tradeoff that probably will end up on the better side there. I would like to see this change. Especialy since a red player can still attack that area from 2 sides.

The new right side spawn exit to me however does also feel a bit weak. You take a quite big detour compared to the old exit and you get put into a corner that isnt realy giving any advantage compared to the old exit. So if you close of that exit maybe reopening the old location could help. I also would put a height advantage there since as red player you are already at a distance and suffer from damage falloff which for defending isnt realy recommended. And if its a 1way drop (only rocket jumping etc can bring you back up) its again a anti-spawncamp measure (you then get 4 spawn exits).

 

[GroundCode_]

Cutting off the exit when BLU reached the area would be nice for anti-spawncamping, but it would bring up many problems for RED on last. You would be leaving two spawn exits for RED, neither of which lead directly in to the battle, and the routes for a resupply become a lot longer. This also puts the RED team in a bad position for turning the tide of the battle; it makes the ability to do so harder and more unlikely. Placing another one-way window in the RED spawn could help, but not if RED players can't see it from where they spawn. If you do end up closing the exit off, you should make it a one-way entrance into spawn for RED so that accessing the resupply doesn't take longer to get to. Also if you removed that exit putting in another one in the right position would help also.

 

[EArkham]

After taking a few days to ponder things, review some more videos/etc, and talking to a few people in the community, I've come up with some ideas for changes to snowycoast that I like.

I'm mostly happy with how 1st and 2nd play at this point after the last update, but now I feel that 3rd and last really need to be tweaked and should be better/more fun to defend. I'll be doing other small tweaks, but the following changes will have a bigger impact. They're undoubtedly inelegant and ham-fisted solutions so I'd like some feedback before I implement them.

The first and most significant change is that I want to change where RED ends up once BLU captures 2nd. Right now, RED gets moved to their last spawn -- this means RED needs to hustle to set up a defense at 3rd, and as a result, BLU tends to get 3rd for free most of the time.

RED's SPAWN LOCATION CHANGE

Instead of landing in their last spawn, I would move any lingering RED players in their 1st spawn to a new spawn seen above, and respawn any dead players here as well. This would happen as soon as BLU captures 2nd. Once the gates open up about 16 seconds later, RED would begin spawning in their final spawnroom.

What I want this to do is to get RED in a perfect position to begin setting up on 3rd. It's a short window, there will be no resupply locker inside, and the door will be one-way, so spawncamping and hogging a resupply to sentry the place up won't be an issue.
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BLU's LAST SPAWN EXTRA EXIT

Self explanatory, already done in Hammer. Not hugely necessary, but everyone still ignores the 2nd exit so why not.

THE MAJOR FLANK ON LAST

I'm VERY iffy about this change. Right now, BLU pretty much gets the run of the place thanks to this flank, so I'm considering sealing it off until the large bulkhead opens. Focusing the fight out here instead of splitting the fight between the spaceship area and the large warehouse.

The downside is that this could make pushing into the large warehouse too brutal and chokey.
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SENTRY SPOT ON LAST

Very likely adding this. This was always intended as a strong sentry spot on last but because of the doorway, it just doesn't work like that (too easy to spam the doorway and wipe out any sentry nest in the area). This little door will close, making the platform on the other side a better sentry spot.

Alternately I could just seal it off entirely and make it a window, but it's a really good spot for soldiers and demos to attack from before the bulkhead opens so I'd rather not do that.

----

I'm also strongly considering adding a one-way door above the yellow stairs at last (not pictured but basically your back is to it in the above image).

Thoughts on these possible changes welcome.

 

[Izotope]

I have my concerns with RED's short time forward spawn.

I would move any lingering RED players in their 1st spawn to a new spawn seen above, and respawn any dead players here as well. This would happen as soon as BLU captures 2nd.

So you're saying any RED players who died just before 2nd is capped will respawn instantly at the forward spawn when 2nd is capped?
If so, that's not a good idea. RED usually has a respawn time of 15-20 seconds and nullifying this would be a huge disadvantage for BLU.
On the other hand, leaving the short time forward spawn enabled for 16 seconds might not be enough if somebody has to wait 20 seconds only to be respawned at the last spawn.
---
Oops I think I misunderstood something. Do you mean the 16 seconds apply when the doors are fully open, so a total amount of 20+ seconds when 2nd is capped?

hmm I don't know. I think RED should be able to setup a strong pushback-defense, not having to wait 20 seconds after death only to find BLU 5 meters away from 3rd, and possibly be greeted with a Kritzkrieg combo like me and my friend

Maybe change the respawn wave time to 1 second when 2nd is capped and change it back to normal time when the forward spawn is disabled again.

 

[EArkham]

Timing for snowycoast goes more or less like this:

1) the side door near RED's 1st spawn opens as the cart is about 1/2 way to 2nd from 1st cap (lets RED players start falling back)
2) BLU caps 2nd
3) RED's last spawn is activated, RED's 1st is deactivated
4) RED left in the 1st spawn are moved to the last spawn, RED gets a respawn wave for their last spawn
5) side doors at 2nd open allowing ambitious BLU players to move forward
6) 16 seconds later the main gate for the cart opens
7) BLU's 1st forward spawn becomes available

By the time the cart comes out of the kennels, it's at least 20+ seconds. Longer if BLU decides not to push it immediately.

Btw Barnblitz does something like that when 1st is capped btw. It slays the RED left in spawn, then respawns them at their 2nd spawnroom.

I was doing this on snowycoast's previous versions, but because the fight for 2nd brings BLU right to the 1st spawn doorstep AND because the spawnroom is so much larger than on barnblitz, it was a lot more common for people to be in spawn and get slain for no good reason. The respawn force was completely necessary when slaying players to move them. It is now only necessary because RED's last spawn is so far away.

One of many reasons why I'm bringing this out for discussion.

I think this new plan could work if I handle it correctly. Maybe split who goes where. Like move RED left in the 1st spawn to last, but respawn the dead at the new quick spawn. Or maybe 16 seconds is long enough for most RED to respawn naturally at the new one without a respawnwave. Or maybe that but I let them spawn there until the cart comes through the 2nd gate in the kennel. I dunno. I need to sit down and do the math on this to see where everyone ends up.

I know something definitely needs to be done to help 3rd because usually BLU just blow right through it. Except for the 3rd exit from BLU's 2nd forward spawn, all of this is still in the theory and testing stage.

 

[GroundCode_]

I like a lot of the changes here, the BLU spawn looks nice along with the 16 second red spawn and the last flank opening up after the bulkhead. There's a nice strafe jump you can do to get to the open door on last, but in most situations it's trivial. I'd say remove it completely if you're planing on it being closed off after a while and replace it with a window or two. The door is pretty much trivial, and having a lot of closed doors around last would make the aesthetics of the map more "closed off." One way windows there could feed information to red about the whereabouts of BLU and vise versa. I don't think putting a one way door above the yellow staircase would do too much good either. You'd be limiting BLU players to one great flank and you would be trapping red players in a high traffic area, or you would prevent RED players from reaching the battle faster and you still wouldn't be contributing too much to solve the spawn camping problem. The problem is still apparent, but in my personal opinion, that's not the best solution. Also another opinion of mine is the third BLU spawn could use some "sprucing up." It seems to be just a few blank walls currently, to me at least, and I believe a few interesting props could make it look more interesting. Thanks!

 

[EArkham]

After sleeping on it, I think the one way door is a bad idea if I'm doing the RED quick spawn at 3rd. A one way door there would mean RED would have only one way to retreat back to spawn from 3rd, which is bad.

Also, just to be clear -- 16 seconds is the timing of the gate at 2nd cap, not RED's respawn time. RED's respawntimer is a little longer, so I'd have to give it a little more time before disabling it if I'm letting RED naturally respawn. The position of the cart is probably best to determine that, since a passive BLU team that leaves the cart unpushed will result in RED better able to defend (as it should be). It may not be intuitive when the spawn ends however which is another issue.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

 

[GroundCode_]

To make the RED spawn in the mines easier to set up at, you should consider switching the full ammo pack by the track into that room looking over it. It would let RED engineers setup faster and it would make it harder for BLU to push through that area (although ammo isn't too much of a problem with the cart acting as a dispenser). I would agree that the door opening to C from the first RED spawn isn't used as well as it should be, most players prefer to attempt to stop the cart or RED is being spawncamped. You should also try to make more players retreat to C from that flank.