Sundown

MVM Sundown a7

LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
Updated popfile
Updated Templates- needed for popfile!

To use these files, download them, upload them to your server, and then use ChangeMission vote to change to mvm_sundown_a4_nov17.pop. Wave one and two remain the same, wave three has been tweaked and wave four has been rewritten entirely. A few changes have been made- basically just look at turbo's post above. I did them.

I'm hoping to iterate through this popfile fairly fast, to have a "solid" file by the end of the week- not final, but good enough that i can basically ignore it and get on with the layout. Next week is the most likely time for a new bsp, as assignments have hit me hard.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
I'm hoping to iterate through this popfile fairly fast, to have a "solid" file by the end of the week- not final, but good enough that i can basically ignore it and get on with the layout. Next week is the most likely time for a new bsp, as assignments have hit me hard.

You should never have a popfile in a finished state before you are done with detailing. Details in some occasions make players behave diffirent since they look at parts in a diffirent way (if a doorway for example becomes more visible they will use it more often). EDIT: to note, this isnt the case for you since you only completed it up to wave 4, it was just ment as a hint ant confirmation that what you decided you were going to do is good.

Instead, once the popfile seems fine to test with it is. You can already start detailing on that point, in later tests you are able to adjust the waves so they will feel better for the map.

Most important however, dont use the same thing in waves over and over unless it is a key feature on the map. In your case, fire is a main hazard that defines the waves which for that reason can stay. Although it only costs $450 to make fire quite useless and $450 to also reduce the crit effects. For a normal difficulty wave this can be ignored but on harder waves this means that a team would start using them and is able to break the waves. Spreading hazards acros waves for that reason could be more welcome.

How i would see your waves from looking at the popfile:
igniting huntsman + axtinguishers.
igniting snipers + axtinguishers disguised as scouts + tank
heater heavy + pyro + igniting soldiers + axtinguishers
tank + axtinguishers and so on.

In isolation the team i played with already found the ammount of crit pyros a bit dull. To me this seems to be the same issue as all 4 have an axtinguisher or sun on a stick which is a weak axtinguisher on a faster class.

I think you should at least avoid having axtinguish like classes in all waves. Why dont you for example use a phlog pyro and give him 900hp to give him better survivability. Its again a crit fire hazard but it feels diffirent.
 
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LeSwordfish

semi-trained quasi-professional
aa
Aug 8, 2010
4,102
6,597
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/13673854/sundown/mvm_sundown_a5b.zip

a5b
bsp
-water now extinguishes you without crouching, and bots avoid it where possible
-bots are now a bit smarter, with extra flanking options
-removed places you can build away from SBs
-removed one bridge in the lobby because bots just kept getting stuck on it or falling off
-generally better bot clipping iirc
-new spawn for the bots
popfile
-added two new waves, making it a 6-wave normal mode
-should be easier than bigrock's "normal" but a tad harder than decoy's
-changed the giant soldiers from critting to spamming
-added tags to make use of the new navmesh
-added an advanced/expert mode, kindly made by alias! (he tells me to warn you it's in development, and also REALLY hard
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
Lets review some of the parts in your map that i felt containing issues. Some can be part of the map design but some also prevent decent gameplay.

2014-01-11_00001.jpg

First, the spawn. It looks good. And it feels as a natural spawn area. However, the space between that first wall is a bit short and makes them a bit crowded. To me that also harms the extra spawn in the back there as it has no use to spawn any bots there. They mix up instantly after leaving.
Another issue, bots dont jump down that well. Something i have noticed before on skullcove aswel was that the nav on those 45degree parts quickly mess up. Make sure to clip it in such way that the bots would have no issues on jumping down. Alternatively put in a section that makes the jump part at 0 or 90 degrees instead of 45 although that could be hard. On skullcove the issue was that there was a little ledge on which they jumped down and the nav couldnt properly connect. Clipping the area below to match the edge fixed it for me.

2014-01-11_00002.jpg

The next problem is this section. Its 1 narrow bottleneck and makes gamplay anoying there. Especialy scouts have no chance getting money there when bots are 90% of the time using that place. This becomes due to the area being angled at 45 degrees. That pillar below the wooden section isnt making it better either. That gives nav issues. This area needs some reworking to me. Best would be making them unable to walk under that wooden section and making it a bit wider to play on.

2014-01-11_00003.jpg

In earlier tests this section was used alot, last test it was barely used at all. Even if they had to use this path they still often used the bottleneck. Nav avoid areas should already be active just behind the spawn.
The pool itself also seems as a little issue since they use that one as main path. To me the bots should be spreaded a bit more often.

That the area is on 45 degrees shouldnt be an issue as long as you keep the paths wide. Thin 45 degree paths give nav issues and make bots get stuck.

2014-01-11_00004.jpg

Another thing i noticed was that people found the map short. While in length it matches decoy. But what i also noticed was that the battles only took place on 2 sections. The one on the screen was barely used for battle. And i think it has the following issues:
There is barely any room to navigate. The only path you can use is the path the bots take. This is for both the upper and lower level.
Jump height also is an issue since the area is quite flat. To me this realy needs a flank.

2014-01-11_00005.jpg

I like the placement of the deathpit, it doesnt hinder any gameplay at all. But it also has one issue. Its barely visible.

2014-01-11_00006.jpg

2014-01-11_00007.jpg

These are the 2 angles you approach the deathpit area usualy. But in both cases it isnt visible at all. I think that is a reason why it isnt being used. On the first screen it also doesnt give a good airblast position as the fence and upper hallway both block the bots from being pushed into it. Still, its good that they cant as otherwise resetting would be too easy. But it definitely should be made more clear that it exists.

2014-01-11_00008.jpg

During gameplay i rarely see anyone using this tunnel. Its only used by bots.
It might be a flank, but to me the other flanks already have a better approach as you can counter them on both sides. Something barely possible on this path. I think that its also an issue similar to the indoor area.

2014-01-11_00009.jpg

2014-01-11_00010.jpg

Once strong robots pass these points they will start spawnkilling into an anoying way. There realy needs to be better cover against it. The upper spawn might be better, but people arent being directed to it and natural behaviour makes them avoid that spawn. This means the inside of the spawnroom needs to promote the other gate aswel as alternative.

2014-01-11_00011.jpg

This is a layout i would suggest for the spawn. Both doorways will feel as more natural because the upgrade locker is between them. And since the staircase is aimed to allow walking on it from allmost any angle.

The right exit however could be moved more to the right if needed. This also could potentialy work for a fix on the spawnkill part.

2014-01-11_00012.jpg

See this as an example of what the exit could be like when moving the door and changing the ramp.
 

UKCS-Alias

Mann vs Machine... or... Mapper vs Meta?
aa
Sep 8, 2008
1,264
816
And here is the popfile from the last test (only wave 7 is changed after - but that was due to timing issues which i rather had hardcoded):

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/2070422/mvm_sundown/mvm_sundown_a5c_alias_v4.pop

The older popfile of me ingame is far too hard and is broken (deadlocks). So its better to use this one

The difficulty is arround mannhattan advanced (probably the difficulty from before the empire nerf).

The team we tested with (and with the key weapons):
Scout (mad milk, fan of war)
Pyro (stock flamer)
Heavy (stock)
Engy (wrench, wrangler)
Medic (kritzkrieg)
Demoman (stock stickies)
 
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Freyja

aa
Jul 31, 2009
2,995
5,813
He's still working on the map, the layout is still changing dramatically. It will be artpassed eventually, give it time. It's not as easy as just "adding textures" to get a good looking map.
 

henke37

aa
Sep 23, 2011
2,075
515
Huh. no updates in two years. On the day. What happened? This map was promising.
 

Crowbar

Spiritual preprocessor
aa
Dec 19, 2015
1,455
1,297
Did you really have to bump it? I guess you've waited half a year just to write about 2 years (and a month) in 30th Apr?
No offence, just asking is it necessary to say map was promising in a thread dead since 2 years ago? There are many promising, but abandoned&forgotten maps, really.
 

Gadget

aa
Mar 10, 2008
531
527
Hydrogen asked me to give some feedback so here's a few thoughts and ideas.

First of all, please use less bomb path arrows ;) You only need about half of them so just delete every other arrow.

You can find more on the attached images. I'm also quite sure it's going to need a little more cover in a few areas but that's rather hard to tell without playing.
 

Fillmore

L5: Dapper Member
Jul 20, 2014
224
137
We played this earlier on Potato's so I've got some additional feedback on the map:
  • Bots skip bombpaths a lot on this map. Probably every wave we played had the bomb carrier walk into the pool instead of walking around it. You might want to add some nav_avoid brush entities that go alongside the pool's edges so the carrier would go where he is supposed to go.
  • Gadget already mentioned it but yes, you seriously don't need that many holograms to show where the carrier is going to go.
  • It's an alpha map but I still want to mention that there's a bit of Z-fighting going on in that wall:
    E8AA99BC9EB5A8E18CAB75E2589C699D7E3FC071
  • This texture looks strange since I can see through the one at the far right but not through the others:
    C4FA1657DA3276BD429975512E6929364AD87653
  • I'm also not sure why does the lower part of the ramp have the same texture, it looks weird
  • These two teleporter spots are too close to a wall, Giant squads will most likely get stuck when they spawn on those:
    7A3550BC4A6FA5B821D5EBD16C8C72041D570330
    98277B5236A7B411D3B02C7E6BBDC1CFDB25B34D
  • The normal mode mission for this definitely isn't Normal mode due to the rather insane difficulty and low amount of money it gives you.
  • The .nav for this map looks like it's a fresh run of nav_generate and doesn't have been tweaked to fix a couple of spots that bots can get stuck in due to the wonders of the command and how much of a shoddy job it tends to do. Tweaking the .nav file probably doesn't fix the bomb carriers being assholes and skipping on the paths (which is why nav_avoid exists)
  • I'm not sure what was the idea on putting a deathpit right next to the hatch but we didn't really get to use the pit since we didn't have a Pyro and the mission is so spammy that the Pyro would probably die before airblasting the carrier down there unless he deploys a clutch Uber canteen to do so.
  • The bomb's return timer looks way too long for a map this size, what is it set to?
You can take a closer look at some of these with the demo file from our Normal mode run: http://98.115.121.151/Server/SourceTV/DemoFiles/mvm_sundown_a7_normal_1476023772.dem.bz2