- Thread starter TPC
- Start date
- Mar 6, 2013
- 1,045
- 625
TPC, I'm afraid your problem here is you are locked into "novice map" syndrome. Quite simply, what you have here is a box with no map inside. Take a look at any other Valve map or custom map... they have hallways, buildings, multiple routes. Here you have less variation, I'm sorry to say, than cp_orange. I'm sure you can do much better! You just need to rethink your design strategy. A good tip for creating your first map, actually, is to copy elements from your favorite existing maps. Look at any koth map you've had fun on, try to see what makes it interesting and adapt that into your own map.
I hope this helps with any frustration you have.
I hope this helps with any frustration you have.
PyroDevil
L3: Member
- Sep 19, 2014
- 123
- 141
I said this in the other thread, but I'll restate some points I made.
-The map is very flat. There is not much height variation besides the two levels
-Engineers really don't have a place to put anything. Sentires may have some ok placements, but they can be taken out easily because of the lack of cover
-upper floor is basically sniper heaven. each team has a sightline to the enemy's spawn
-upper door for both spawns (or at least red) can be opened by the other team
-point doesn't have any cover to it. A sniper can run out of spawn and take down those who are capping it
-The map is very flat. There is not much height variation besides the two levels
-Engineers really don't have a place to put anything. Sentires may have some ok placements, but they can be taken out easily because of the lack of cover
-upper floor is basically sniper heaven. each team has a sightline to the enemy's spawn
-upper door for both spawns (or at least red) can be opened by the other team
-point doesn't have any cover to it. A sniper can run out of spawn and take down those who are capping it
- Nov 7, 2015
- 33
- 8
So to explain This is TPC's WIP (formely known as el punto) verson 2
but the alpha of it
Read the rest of this update entry...
but the alpha of it
Read the rest of this update entry...
So I loaded up the new map, and noticed that it was still named koth_elpunto - you'll want to rename it to whatever the new name is. Keeping the old name will fuck with basically everything, and the only reason it's done for valve maps is because they can be guaranteed that no clients will have the old version of the map.
Anyway, it's certainly an improvement over the previous version - there's a rudimentary layout, and despite it having numerous problems we can save those for after we go over the technical errors. Most importantly, blue spawn doors are broken. Moving on, it doesn't seem you've playerclipped anything. Playerclip brushes are basically invisible brushes that prevent the player from entering a certain area. You don't want to use these in lieu of actual walls, but instead to take boundaries (such as a fence at the edge of a level) and ensure that players never cross those boundaries. Some places you'll want to use them are the roof on top of the building and around the level to ensure the player never enters the water. Now, you don't want to just have playerclip keeping the player from entering the water, but have some sort of visible barrier aided by the playerclip brushes. You can read more about them and other tool brushes here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Tool_textures. Additionally, it doesn't seem like you used any artificial light inside of the central structure. You'll want to use them to keep that area brightly lit and keep gameplay clear. You can read more about lights here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Static_light#Static_light_sources.
Now, about the layout: it's present, but could be made significantly more interesting and diverse. Let's go through it from spawn and to the center point - starting off, there are two main routes into the ground, and a third one off to the side. If a player were to ask themselves "what is the difference between these two routes," they would find nothing to distinguish them. This is bad both for gameplay and general aesthetics - if you look at any of the official maps, you'll find that each route is easily distinguishable from the other and would be even if all detail were to be removed. The routes in official maps offer much more variety than what's seen in elpunto. There's a third route into the ground off to the side, but there's no reason to use it whatsoever as it offers no tactical advantage over the left main route because it leads into the exact same area the main routes do. Secondary routes should generally have more cover than the main route, despite taking slightly longer. One last thing to not about this top area - there are direct routes from red spawn to blue spawn and vice versa. Those types of routes should never exist for any reason at all.
Once we get down any of the ramps, we can see that there's really no reason to go down any route over another - they all lead into the same area, and the defender can easily defend all routes at the same time. In fact, all routes can be covered by one sentry. These types of areas are boring, open, and generally bad for gameplay. The center area isn't really much better - it's hard to tell which side belongs to which team, and no variety of any sort exists.
If you want to build a decent koth map, try looking at some of the maps that currently exist in the game. Let's look at viaduct, one of the older and more popular koth maps - we can go through it in a similar way I did up above. Coming out of spawn, there are three, obvious routes - one main route, with a helpful arrow pointing into it as it can't be seen from all angles - and two secondary routes. If we go through the main route, we come out into an area between the central point and the spawn. The secondary routes lead to parts of that area off to the side. All of the routes feed into this general area, but each route comes out into a distinctly different section - there are height differences, there's cover between exits, and you'll notice there's no single sentry area that can cover all three routes. While it's an important area, it's definitely secondary to the control point to which the map funnels all players. The funneling routes, from the secondary area to the point, are all different - each one offers it's own unique tactical advantage over the other, from cover to height to pickups (by the way, I don't remember seeing any pickups in elpunto). When we get to the point, there's significant variety over which gameplay can occur in different ways - the rocks and signs provide cover around the point, each side has a little nook with an ammo pack in which engies can set up without significant worry of enemy players, and there are battlements for each side away from the point from which snipers can set up and players can come in to the point with a height advantage. All of these provide a fun arena in which gameplay can occur.
It's important to note that you shouldn't just copy viaduct. It's a damn good map and used as inspiration for plenty of koth maps, but it's not the end-all design and you should try to be more than a clone. However, if you look to existing, popular maps and try to use them as reference you'll go much farther than you will go by yourself.
If you want some more map development tips, you should be able to glean some from here: http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=8124. It's not all applicable as it's about a/d cp and not koth, but you should get some basic ideas from reading it.
EDIT: Proofread, cleaned some stuff up
Anyway, it's certainly an improvement over the previous version - there's a rudimentary layout, and despite it having numerous problems we can save those for after we go over the technical errors. Most importantly, blue spawn doors are broken. Moving on, it doesn't seem you've playerclipped anything. Playerclip brushes are basically invisible brushes that prevent the player from entering a certain area. You don't want to use these in lieu of actual walls, but instead to take boundaries (such as a fence at the edge of a level) and ensure that players never cross those boundaries. Some places you'll want to use them are the roof on top of the building and around the level to ensure the player never enters the water. Now, you don't want to just have playerclip keeping the player from entering the water, but have some sort of visible barrier aided by the playerclip brushes. You can read more about them and other tool brushes here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Tool_textures. Additionally, it doesn't seem like you used any artificial light inside of the central structure. You'll want to use them to keep that area brightly lit and keep gameplay clear. You can read more about lights here: https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Static_light#Static_light_sources.
Now, about the layout: it's present, but could be made significantly more interesting and diverse. Let's go through it from spawn and to the center point - starting off, there are two main routes into the ground, and a third one off to the side. If a player were to ask themselves "what is the difference between these two routes," they would find nothing to distinguish them. This is bad both for gameplay and general aesthetics - if you look at any of the official maps, you'll find that each route is easily distinguishable from the other and would be even if all detail were to be removed. The routes in official maps offer much more variety than what's seen in elpunto. There's a third route into the ground off to the side, but there's no reason to use it whatsoever as it offers no tactical advantage over the left main route because it leads into the exact same area the main routes do. Secondary routes should generally have more cover than the main route, despite taking slightly longer. One last thing to not about this top area - there are direct routes from red spawn to blue spawn and vice versa. Those types of routes should never exist for any reason at all.
Once we get down any of the ramps, we can see that there's really no reason to go down any route over another - they all lead into the same area, and the defender can easily defend all routes at the same time. In fact, all routes can be covered by one sentry. These types of areas are boring, open, and generally bad for gameplay. The center area isn't really much better - it's hard to tell which side belongs to which team, and no variety of any sort exists.
If you want to build a decent koth map, try looking at some of the maps that currently exist in the game. Let's look at viaduct, one of the older and more popular koth maps - we can go through it in a similar way I did up above. Coming out of spawn, there are three, obvious routes - one main route, with a helpful arrow pointing into it as it can't be seen from all angles - and two secondary routes. If we go through the main route, we come out into an area between the central point and the spawn. The secondary routes lead to parts of that area off to the side. All of the routes feed into this general area, but each route comes out into a distinctly different section - there are height differences, there's cover between exits, and you'll notice there's no single sentry area that can cover all three routes. While it's an important area, it's definitely secondary to the control point to which the map funnels all players. The funneling routes, from the secondary area to the point, are all different - each one offers it's own unique tactical advantage over the other, from cover to height to pickups (by the way, I don't remember seeing any pickups in elpunto). When we get to the point, there's significant variety over which gameplay can occur in different ways - the rocks and signs provide cover around the point, each side has a little nook with an ammo pack in which engies can set up without significant worry of enemy players, and there are battlements for each side away from the point from which snipers can set up and players can come in to the point with a height advantage. All of these provide a fun arena in which gameplay can occur.
It's important to note that you shouldn't just copy viaduct. It's a damn good map and used as inspiration for plenty of koth maps, but it's not the end-all design and you should try to be more than a clone. However, if you look to existing, popular maps and try to use them as reference you'll go much farther than you will go by yourself.
If you want some more map development tips, you should be able to glean some from here: http://www.teamfortress.com/post.php?id=8124. It's not all applicable as it's about a/d cp and not koth, but you should get some basic ideas from reading it.
EDIT: Proofread, cleaned some stuff up
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