[WIP]cpl_snaketemple

[Uriak]

Hello there, I've decided upon the definitive graphical theme of the map, the clash between the temple of desert spirits and rain spirits. That means "caves" in the drier area and waterfalls, mossy walls in the humid one.

But before, I have to settle gameplay once and for all. CPL mode may be said to be to ctf what payload is to CP mode. Meaning it can be enjoyable when both teams know what to do, but suffers the same needs for coordination as CTF, unless you want "camping".

With this in mind, I have a few options. Shorter rounds (10 minutes) and rules that lead to a slippery slope, a team gaining advantage should win if it does things right. Or maybe, I should set the über speed to be charged more slowly but being far more decisive... I can redesign the path to give players willing to defend a bunch of handy spots to do so.

As anyone run some gameplay tests ?

 

[Dox]

throw it up for the gameday on the 11th!

 

[UKCS-Alias]

I just noticed your circular payload map and im interested in how you did that hud (fyi, im the one that made pl_donut). I think myself that circular payload could be a seperate gamemode indeed so if we both already use the same hud it might realy become interesting to have it.

Btw, in my payload map i have 5 cps where 1 is hidden and uncapable which is used to let players push the cart without getting alot of bugs. In the playtests of my map it turned out to be alot similar in playing style to nippers hallofdeath (chaos but fun). But thats mainly because my map is very small in size (and its designed for 5 vs 5 but was tested with 16 vs 16 having instant respawn - yep, a heavy test for the map) Even though im taking a break at the map atm i still have some balance issues to fix also (as getting 2cps in a row of the enemy is allmost impossible - even keeping one that has been taken before is hard already).

The thing you should watch out most for is that the players dont reach the cart too fast with large groups. Its quite easy to take it back otherwise.

Anyway, i like to hear that im not the only one with the same idea ^^.

 

[Uriak]

Hello, I was told about pl_donut, even if it's not really the same gameplay. But you must have come across a fair amount of the same issues as I

Since there is no point in hiding it, I can explain a bit. I though of releasing a prefab anyway, but bugs crippled the process

I currently use 7 CP.
4 CP are the one visible to the players along the path. Their associated capture zones are disabled/enabled to show up to 4 different CP graphics, which help me create the central "ring"
2 CP are the capture zone of the carts. Again, I use their status to show the normal cart icon, the blocked icon and the uber speed icon
1 cp is there only to prevent one team from winning should it have all 6 CP of its color at anytime.

My main issue comes from blocking the cart. I can't use the capture zone, because, without a train_watcher, it's state can't impact the cart. There is only a OnBreakCap event available, so I can't "unblock" it. (maybe with StartCap ? dunno) Instead I use a trigger_multiple, which "switch" states accordingly (and allows me to disable the capture area)

edit, see below
But, I'm told that on rare occasions the cart can remain blocked without anyone. I can only presume the OnEndTouchAll event is not triggered on every case, (sadly enough). I could use a timer to regularily check for the state, but I dunno how not to interfere with über speed mecanics. What I don't like with game entities is that you cannot "check" their current state. I think I can only rely on using math_counter to "store" internal state and check them on a regular basis. This makes the scripting harder and harder to understand

@Dox : What should I do, for this ?

EDIT : I just discovered a OnTouching/NotTouching event that can be triggered at anytime with the trigger multiple. This should allow me to check for the blocking zone state and avoid hazardous situations !

PS : tested and approved. So I now have a double check : blocking/freeing a cart is done when some one enter the capture zone, and its state is checked every second, to avoid what could be called a "miss". I also discovered a "everything" flag checked on one of those zones, but since there was a filter team, I'm not sure if this was the cause.

 

[Uriak]

I'm going to make a gameday edition of the map, stripped of lastly resolved bugs. The über speed will be tweaked a bit, with longer duration and less damage inflicted.

The heatmap is available : http://psychostats.canardplus.com/mapheat.php?id=40
On thing is certain : following the tracks is the shortest route to death

 

[Uriak]

Here : gameday edition

Chagelog presented there.
I think I'm too late for the 11th, though

 

[MrAlBobo]

well...submit it and see what happens
http://forums.tf2maps.net/showthread.php?t=3897&page=3

 

[Uriak]

If you saw the heatmap, you may have noticed that the death are evenly spread along the path. and now ? I'm still stuck with feedback from canardpc, but I can imagine some future criticism. Since this game mode creates two main fight zone, I may as well consider 32 players servers and give them more ways to use the terrain. Also, I want it to allow for more defensive entrechend gameplay, if people want to.

Here are some though I've had so far, I'd like to submit them before takinf any action.



1 : a partially covered passage coming from the upper zone of the canyon, leading to the wood plateform (stripped of its roof). It allows to flank people downside with limited firing spots

2 : the spawn would be set in the end of the canyon, with exits at terrain level and upstairs, into the wood elements.

3 : a little catwalk here, with access from the internal corridors.

4 : this zone would be enlarged to let people have an upstair position without direct linesight from the temple entrance.

5 : I'd like to move the access to the little "bunker-like" structure from the canyon to the temple. This way, the 4 access to the central part would be more evenly spread along the route.

6 : I don't really know how to reshape this zone, but I've the feeling it's underused.

Of course those would be mostly symmetrical, but I'll try to introduce some kind of variation, provided it's not unbalanced. Feel free to comment or propose

 

[Uriak]

Alright, I've begun heavy detailling of the desert temple. Here's a sample of what it's gonna look like
The less frequently used part of the temple will feature a mix of collapsed/abandonned areas.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

About underused parts. many times people dont know they are there because they mainly follow the path of the cart. I think a arrow pointing at those areas makes them know that those exist. Further, make those areas slightly brighter inside (so the doorframe looks darker than the area itself) and give it more detail then the rest of the map (where the rubble would do well). It are tricks that valve uses alot.

In donut i used a diffirent trick. If a route is open all the time its spotted less and usualy less interesting also. By having it locked half of the time that area becomes interesting to engineers as there they can safely get a teleporter. So a thing i guess that is important also is to have it more attractive to engineers by having a few good sentry spots.

I must say those screens look awesome though even though its a bit dark at some places (which is a problem in donut also).

 

[Uriak]

Tactically speaking, the "underused" part are not so underused. People use them to avoid the main track and it's battles. That's why there is so few kill there. I don't think people don't know of there existence.

Thank you for the tricks though, because I'm considering giving a large overhaul to the sides of the tracks. I'm going to create some heavily protected zones, very defence prone. Of course I'm basing my reasoning upon our internal tests (since I didn't get any feedback from elsewhere ) This could lead to some tricky passages, that may require the details you spoke about.

Defence is crippled by at least 3 factors
->the team has to push its own cart. and therefore there will always be a lack of people to help engies (of course this could be slightly different on 32 servers but we don't play on one)
->the spawn is constantly advancing, and the defence zone has to fall back frenquently. Teleporters are of no use atm.
->ring nature of the map allows hostiles to come often from two directions.

So I think some spots with little acces and good line of view could be used wisely by enginneers (they could even lay a teleporter exist there). This should be coupled to new possibilities for vertical gameplay. While I am at it, I'll take the risk of doing things differently between the two sides. Swapping sides at the end of the round may balance things and help to see any unbalance (with help of stats)

Your proposal for closing the road is quite interesting. But I'll have to be cautious, because with two carts, many differents things could happen.

Finally I consider purging entirely the über gauge when one über speed is triggered. This sould turn it into decisive factor (maybe the gauge should grow slower as well)

 

[FLOOR_MASTER]

We've played several 15v15 rounds of pl_snaketemple_a7_d. I love the concept and you've done a great job making an intuitive HUD (though it can afford to be less cluttered - removing the "1x SPEED"..."MAX SPEED" text). It seems more often than not that the game stalemates when the teams are reasonably balanced, and unfortunately this frustrates players and a sizeable portion of them already have a distaste for the map from our limited playtests. If cart ubers don't already behave this way, I'd suggest zeroing out BOTH teams' cart uber charges when either team gets a cart uber. We have yet to run the latest version of the map where the opposite team's cart freezes when a team gets a cart uber, so I'll post again later.

 

[Uriak]

The last iteration fixes a number of bugs, but the other cart is not freezed. hence I don't think it may change many things. Your feedback goes along the same way as Flubber's one. So I'm going to effectively set both über to Zero to make them definitively decisive. But the stalemate issue will be always one. CTF and CP "conquest" map can often run into stalemates, so what would you suggest to ensure the map is enjoyable even in this case ? (or to avoid it entirely)

Do you think I should do a release with these modifications prior to finish my major graphic update ?
I really don't want this map to be eventually disliked

Thank you for the feedback

 

[FLOOR_MASTER]

I'd be happy to playtest any interim version before you invest time sprucing things up.

 

[Uriak]

I'll do a gde2 build with the following changes, then. I've invested quite a fair time into this,and I'll willingly do even more if I've got the feeling the map could get a good rep.

->Both Ubers set to zero when trigerred
->more ammo available on defensive spots.
->respawnWaveTime slightly modified along progress, say something like

1 spawn : 8 s
2 spawns : 7s
3+ spawns : 6s

 

[laghlagh]

the team to have moved their cart longest distance win or something like that?

 

[Uriak]

Actually, when the timer hits zero (after 20 minutes without overtime) There is no time addition at any moment.

If one team has at least one segment more (of the eight segments of the track), it wins. If both teams have the same number of segments, the game goes into sudden death.

Therefore, a real stalemate is not frequent at all.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Same as in donut even though there i have it with CPs. Note that in my map there is overtime to at least get the cart reach the next point (keeps the game interesting until the end). When its capped the timer gets extended unless it was the last point to cap to win.

Also, stalemates are ok as long as they dont happen all the time (the problem i have in donut when instant respawn is used - and yes, i find that a important thing to fix).

Btw, i can arrange a test in 16 vs 16 with instant respawn if you want (the ultimate test tbh to be sure the map allways runs smooth)

 

[Uriak]

New build : turbo edition

Both uber are zeroed, when triggered. More health and ammo available on the upper zones and central room. Respawn varies with number of CP.

@UKCS-Alias : I really don't know what instant respawn may do, but I'm afraid the map would lose most interest. But I'm highly interested to know how it behaves in 16vs16, though. Since teams have to split, it's an interesting possibilities that I can't test on my own. Thank you for your proposition

 

[Uriak]

I tried hopelessly to define a new layout, but I may have been too sleepy after our last map test. I found the result so hilarously inexploitable that I couldn't refrain to share it with you.

SO green are supposed to be new passages (aerial), blu, new aquatic/underground. Yellow are midly protected areas, and red are heavily fortified