TF2Maps and Potato’s MvM Servers Present: Mappers vs Machines

[UKCS-Alias]

That seems rather questionable since Nightmare is easier than advanced in my book. The real struggle with Nightmare difficulty most of the time is to find teammates who know what they're doing.

First, there are 2 diffirent difficulties of advanced. 1 of them is pre-bigrock and the other one is bigrock+2cities. In bigrock advanced became significantly more difficult due to using more spamming methods. They arent essentialy harder for a skilled team. But on teams struggling with pre-bnigrock advanced, they simply get dominated as they can handle the huge projectile count. Nightmare is at the bigrock advanced level.

The only real problem in ghost town is the spy+tank wave. Thats where you get a DPS test and when lacking players to attack the tank, you are not going to beat it. Without those tanks, or when they have less health, the mission is easier than advanced.

The real struggle with Nightmare difficulty most of the time is to find teammates who know what they're doing.

Thats actualy the struggle you will face in bootcamp. Many of the more skilled players will not care about bootcamp since they want the loot from completing missions. The moment you even get just 3 of these, nightmare is significantly easier, and depending on the classes you use can even be a cakewalk.

Does that mean Nightmare difficulty was actually intended to be its own full thing and not just some sort of flavor text for a halloween update?

Well, nightmare became the community standard for single wave missions. Although its not the best mission setting, it can be good for some random fun games and allows you to perform things regular missions often dont give you (you rarely will see 10+ giants outside of nightmare modes).

And this is also why you often need 6 players. The high health values combined with tanks are simply a DPS test which with less than 6 players can quickly become problematic. Against 22 giants at once you can just use 1 heavy to stall most of them them, with a tank you can not.

 

[Ælement]

I feel like we need a master difficulty.

Expert is not as hard as it used to be, and nightmare is, as it has been mentioned, just flavor text for an endurance mission that isn't actually particularly difficult.

 

[Izotope]

I feel like we need a master difficulty.

Expert is not as hard as it used to be, and nightmare is, as it has been mentioned, just flavor text for an endurance mission that isn't actually particularly difficult.

I don't think we need more difficulties beyond Expert and I think it's entirely up to us to make our missions live up to its name.

 

[Da Spud Lord]

A tip that I recently discovered for those who are tired of generating and editing their navigation mesh with every update, there's a much easier way to go about it: when you make a new version of your map, open the last version of your map with a proper navigation mesh in TF2 and delete every part of the navigation mesh that covers an area of the map that was changed or edited. (You may wish to make a backup of the old navigation mesh before doing this.) Save the changes, then go into your tf/maps folder and find that .nav file. Rename it to match the newest version of your map. Then open the newest version of your map in TF2. Use nav_mark_walkable to mark the areas of the navigation mesh that you deleted, spacing them every few hundred hammer units. Once you've done that, use nav_generate_incremental. This will generate a new navigation mesh in the areas that you used nav_mark_walkable, but will not overwrite the existing navigation mesh- in fact, it will automatically link up the newly generated areas to the old areas. Once that's done, do a nav_analyze. Now you only have to edit to the part of the mesh that you deleted and remade, instead of the entire thing.

I don't know how many people know this- maybe most people already knows this, maybe nobody else knows this (probably not), or maybe everybody already knew this and I'm an idiot for just now discovering it. Hopefully I helped somebody out.

 

[That Hat Guy]

Now that I finally have the time (and slight lack of nervousness) to start working on my mvm_coastal map, using Crash's tutorial as a base, I've now made a little spawn/upgrade room. Now that it functions like it should, I can start working on the area outside the door, which is planned to be a boardwalk. Which is probably just going to be a narrow pathway with a lot of water around it and some platforms jutting out for sentry placements. It's a start, and it is my first map, after all. I'm extremely nervous right now, to be honest.

 

[Prosciutto]

Sadly i don't have idea how to make an mvm map

 

[Muddy]

Sadly i don't have idea how to make an mvm map

Neither did I until I entered the contest

 

[McLovin]

Now that I finally have the time (and slight lack of nervousness) to start working on my mvm_coastal map, using Crash's tutorial as a base, I've now made a little spawn/upgrade room. Now that it functions like it should, I can start working on the area outside the door, which is planned to be a boardwalk. Which is probably just going to be a narrow pathway with a lot of water around it and some platforms jutting out for sentry placements. It's a start, and it is my first map, after all. I'm extremely nervous right now, to be honest.

Good luck! It's my first map as well.

 

[Bogdy]

Question: Does someone who makes promotional SFM posters (doesn't contribute to level design) for the map counts as being part of the collab group?

 

[Freyja]

I would not imagine so, however it probably comes under the custom content rules

 

[LeSwordfish]

Question: Does someone who makes promotional SFM posters (doesn't contribute to level design) for the map counts as being part of the collab group?

I agree with freyja - unless custom content is so prolific and so vital to the map's theme that it would be very different without it (like Manor, for instance) then the creator is not a collaborator.

 

[Asd417]

someone might have asked this already and I might have missed out but
how about robot_standard.pop and robot_giant.pop? Are those count as standard pop file from another map which I am not allowed to use? Or is this a stupid question because every mvm maps use it?

 

[Freyja]

You may freely use any publicly available assets to build your map, including Valve pop files or decompiled maps, though you may not directly copy brushwork or waves.

 

[Fillmore]

someone might have asked this already and I might have missed out but
how about robot_standard.pop and robot_giant.pop? Are those count as standard pop file from another map which I am not allowed to use? Or is this a stupid question because every mvm maps use it?

It is a bit of a silly question, since those don't really count as .pop files in the context of the contest rules (which define .pop files as missions, robot_whatever only contains bot templates)

 

[Hydrogen]

We're now halfway to the deadline; only 2 months remain. I hope to start seeing the alphas become betas by the end of this month. If you have not started working on your custom pop files, I suggest you start thinking about ideas for your waves as soon as possible. If you have not even started and would like to start, the remaining contest time is roughly the full timeline the 2012 MvM contest gave, so it's not too late to have a map done by the deadline.

A friendly reminder on a commonly overlooked rule for this contest: Unlike most map contests, this one has a much stiffer bar to meet: Your map should be nearly completed by the deadline - we will not accept incomplete, fullbright, and/or non-functional maps for the contest (that is by no means a complete listing of maps we will not accept). Similar to the policy for the 72hr TF2Jam medal, you will not receive the participation medal for just turning in "something"; your map should be a nearly polished product to get the participation medal. The judges will decide what is considered "incomplete" and ineligible for the medal, but you should have a good idea on what is considered "completed" for your own map.

This means if you do not finish detailing, lighting, clipping, navigation, pop files, logic, etc by the deadline, you risk 4 months of work being disqualified. Don't procrastinate - plan your work accordingly for the next 8 weeks. We provide ample gamedays for you to get your map tested; take advantage of them to receive feedback on your map and pop files and correct any problems that come up.

I look forward to seeing your maps and waves morph into their final form as we get near the deadline!

 

[Hydrogen]

Double posting this so it doesn't get lost in the giant wall of text above:

Courtesy of @Void, @fuzzymellow, and @SedimentarySocks, we will be creating a showcase website (similar to this) that will list the winners of the MvM contest. The TF Team has approved a blog post for this and will post the showcase on the TF2 blog (similar to this).

Every submission that wins a map maker's medallion will be mentioned on the showcase, and all submissions will be featured on a steam collection that will be linked on the showcase website. In light of this, I ask that every contest submission be submitted to the steam workshop as soon as the contest results have been released (i.e. you do NOT have to submit it before the deadline).

Due to the way map popularity works on the workshop, I strongly recommend you hold off on submitting your map to the workshop until your map is at the very best state you can get it to be at (ideally you should have it be in this state before the deadline, but you have until the results are released to have it uploaded). Instructions on how to properly submit your MvM map to the steam workshop will be given at that time. Maps not submitted to the steam workshop will not be showcased, regardless if they earned the participation medal or not.

Just to be clear: We will be using TF2Maps for officially submitting your map to the contest and earn the participation medal (steam workshop entries do not count). The contest submission thread will open on July 1st, one month before the deadline.

 

[Yabayabayaba]

so I have a problem with pop files. RC+ and I are collaborating, and when we had a problem where no popfiles worked on my map on his computer. This was solved when he reinstalled tf2, but now it dosn't work on my end. the map is mvm_chase_a2, the popfile is mvm_chase_a2_advanced.pop . When loaded I get a wave 0 message, and no money. Using the command tf_mvm_popfile mvm_chase_a2_advanced.pop gives me the message:
Could not find a population file matching: mvm_chase_a2_advanced.pop.
This happens with every popfile I try. typing tf_mvm_popfile gives me:
Current popfile is: scripts/population/mvm_chase_a2_advanced.pop

Any suggestions? I know the files are in the correct spot because they used to work, and I have not moved them. I have also attempted restarting tf2. Thanks, Yaba

Edit: other maps work, and I can load the popfile through other mvm maps, and a old version of the map (under a different name) will load it's popfile, but refuses to load mvm_chase_a2_advanced.pop

 

[Qohen]

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=948537520 still early release but if you could check it out it would be much appreciate it

 

[MoonFox]

okay, I'm going to enter... but I need to relearn hammer... then also learn how to mvm... I will do it though!

 

[DeathAnimations Team]

Hey boys, anyone knows the bomb model? I tryed "models\props_td\atom_bomb.mdl" but it didn't work. This is pretty much the last thing before posting my map so... anyone knows how to fix it?