CTF The Damned. Blockmeshed and in need of feedback.

Castle

L1: Registered
Mar 5, 2014
5
3
The Damned

Hello everyone.

Latest version _b3 is now up and ready for play testing.
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Watch me build the map on castle does!

Part 05
http://youtu.be/bhA9ifw5nqI

Part 04
http://youtu.be/yLBRL4VQ7B4

Part 03
http://youtu.be/_ZkQMtsS1qY

Part 02
http://youtu.be/2O7ljRXSoOA

Part 01
http://youtu.be/mtryzLGEXjo

This is a level I am creating for a personal project where I pick different games and engines and build content for them. In this case i have a CTF map for TF2.

All feedback is welcome!
Even if the suggestion is that I need to redesign a chunk of the map from scratch I want to hear it.
 
Last edited:

Trotim

aa
Jul 14, 2009
1,195
1,045
http://feedback.tf2maps.net/ is where you can look up all of the feedback that's been left ingame (via !gf (general text) and !fb (text + gives location))

Compiled maps need version numbers. If you recompiled this map and uploaded it again with the same name, things break - map conflicts, clients may not be able to download the map and so on. Generally it goes map_a1, _a2... for alphas, _b1, _b2... for betas (layout mostly done, detailing started), then _rc for release candidate and then only the final version gets either no suffix or _final.

Other than that it seemed fine from a technical standpoint. I know I had plenty of trouble making doors and spawns and such at first so kudos there

Now for some of my personal opinion:

I see you've referenced 2fort but that's not recommended. It's a very old map and its popularity comes from it being very narrow and very easy to defend which ultimately makes it a simple mindless TDM.

That said, the dam/bridge in the center has no good spots for Snipers unlike 2fort's Battlements. I'm not saying you need them, not at all, but it does point out a different problem - the sightlines are actually overall too short in my opinion. There's cover littered everywhere and TF2 doesn't require that. Why all the random boxes in your map sketch? Open it up a bit.

It feels too small in scale in general. It might just be the fact there are walls and blocks everywhere but the hallways are barely big enough to walk through let alone fight in. Turbine has corridors like these but they're vents and a tertiary route.

Additionally there are routes and flanks? everywhere. Again, look at Turbine rather than 2fort. Maybe even look at Sawmill. 2fort is the odd one out here with smaller routes than normal. And the entire sewer route in 2fort is pretty much pointless as well because it's a longer way to reach the same place. (Plus since release maps seem to have grown larger and more open due to more mobility options having been given to players.)

I think you're a grown-ass level designer so I'll be frank and say it's a nice first draft, and I like the ideas (especially the idea behind your Youtube series), but I'd prefer to see a simpler, bigger blockout with fewer routes. You may want to consider restarting from scratch if it turns out simply removing boxes and widening some walls won't quite be enough to fix it. It's a solid start, not trying to be polite here despite it being terrible, I just believe this can be turned into something much better relatively easily

Here's a thread with links to decompiled versions of all the official maps. This lets you open them in Hammer and more easily judge scale and so on:
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=5952
 
Last edited:

Castle

L1: Registered
Mar 5, 2014
5
3
Awesome thanks for the feedback!

I am not afraid of reworking giant chunks of the map if I have to so no worries there. I have some ideas on what I want to do and they all involve moving around some areas and opening up connections more. I was too worried about sight lines and overcompensated further increasing the maps overall mazey feeling. A lot of work needs to be done!

I also have quite a few bugs to fix.
 

wareya

L420: High Member
Jun 17, 2012
493
191
Hi!

I consider CTF to be my favorite gamemode, and I mostly understand how it works in tons of different games, and what makes it one of the worse gamemodes in TF2.

CTF doesn't work like any of the other gamemodes in TF2. Like, at all. Chokepoints and flanks that would make the best KotH map in the could would make the worst CTF map in the world for the same reasons that make them great in KotH, and no other gamemode is quite like CTF in that regard. Sure, payload and arena put the focus on different parts of areas, but with CTF, it's not about areas at all -- except *maybe* the intel room.

I feel like what trotim says about routes being too small and there being too many is justified, but I feel like it's not as bad as I feel like he's saying it is. Having tons of equal routes on a CTF map is actually a good thing, as long as none of them are overpowered like that one on doublecross and they're not all terrible like the ones on 2fort. And, I don't feel like there's anything wrong with having really skinny byflanks if they're not too long and not too many.

I counted about two major and one minor route in a given base, and that's great! The problem is there are so many byflanks and you can't really tell which ones are byflanks -- it makes the map feel "spongy". There's nothing wrong with a spongy map in CTF like there is in push CP, but it can't feel spongy, because it only confuses the player. Also, a lot of your minor hallways are really long. Like, junction long. Like, meandering like the lines in the letter G, but ultimately going in a 300-500 unit straight line long. It would be a great idea to shorten some of them and pop out the rooms next to them, but I don't really have any concrete ideas where to do that.

There's nothing wrong with having small rooms where connectors connect to eachother in a CTF map. That said, it would be a lot better if you picked a couple, but not all of the, main routes into the base so that classes that rely on open spaces would have a place inside the base to have fun. The main, primary route into the intel should be nice and big and fat and have interesting geometry that can fit tons of players. The area between doublecross's spawn and bridge is a great example (even if I don't at all ilke the fact that the spawn is right there at all)

Also, your vent's bottom should slope up earlier than it does. You'll have to pull the back's slope earlier too of course.

When people make the misconception that CTF maps are fine with the same style of flanks and chokes as cp or pl maps, bad things happen. Even if it's TF2, the nature of the gamemode object being a thing that moves so rapidly through any part of the level makes zoning function differently on a fundamental level. You can't put the gamemode object in a place where it functions well and build an area around it. I mean, you totally can, and you might get somewhere like that, but you need to think about the ways that connectors work so differently too.

There's a GG2 map with a tower in the center that functions as a chokepoint so strong that it's basically a KotH map with a skill-based timer. It's like turbine, but orders of magnitude worse. Turbine is tolerable. Maybe half way to being untolerable. But on turbine, the CTF part of the gamemode still happens somewhat normally. On the map I mentioned, the mid advantage defines whether you can get the intel or whether you can defend with near perfect accuracy.

It's not about connectors where people block them off against pushes unless the push is an uber, or that people use to jump on other people from the side. It's about routes that people can take in and out of the base to avoid conflict, what kind of conflict they're going to run into, people being forced to take longer routes because of all of that and being cut off from the connector from another route.

The turbine re-artpass is great, it's amazing, and it's all because they added a bypass from one of the routes to another one of the routes. Instead of having these two connectors that connect together like an H, it has three connectors that connect together like an A with an extra line down the middle, and the connector that's most useful for rotating into the other connectors is the connector that's the least useful for doing anything else. It fixes the problem that TF2's had with CTF ever since it was released, and that is that a vast majority of classes are too slow to cut off other classes with brute force -- they need geometric, tactical, whatever you want to call it in this case advantages.

The reason I'm going on ranting like this is because you have all the concepts there -- minor connectors between major routes, few explicit chokepoints -- but things don't really add up. The easiest to find and widest connector into the intel does a little zigzagging in boring hallways, then ends up right above the intel with a height advantage against players and a distance advantage against sentries. By all means, you should totally be able to walk in the front door, kill everything, take the intel, and leave, but the people in the other parts of the base should be able to cut you off when you leave, too. I don't see any byflanks from the other routes into the main route, and it comes out by far the shortest of all the routes. If you make it have better rooms along its hallways, and make it meander a little more meaningfully, and pull back where it comes out outside, and make the other routes shorter but not too much less cramped, it would be great.

I think I'm procrastinating.
 

Castle

L1: Registered
Mar 5, 2014
5
3
wareya

I like all your suggestions! I have already rebuilt the entire map to address these concerns about the dog legged mazy feeling the map had. Its a huge improvement from the previous version yet it retains most of the original concept. Once I setup the video for my next episode and such I will release the new version. I have new screenshots up of the map now on my imgr to show it off.

Also all of the bugs that were brought up have been addressed too.

http://thestonecastle.imgur.com/TF2_ctf_map_the_damned
 

Castle

L1: Registered
Mar 5, 2014
5
3
I will be coming back to this level very soon. I have been very distracted from UT4 level design and having to find a new place to live!
 

Bakscratch

Finisher of Maps
aa
Oct 29, 2010
714
1,492
I will be coming back to this level very soon. I have been very distracted from UT4 level design and having to find a new place to live!

Nice, Iv been watching your videos about UT4, It is very interesting. wish I had money for ue4.