Q4 Alpha :)

[A1yssa]

http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=96084

This only for gameplay

How about items?

[+JuggerNaut+]

uh.

*edit* no, it's not ugly, i've not even looked at it. i was directed to the login page when i first clicked on the link.

[A1yssa]

I know...it's really ugly...

[pjw]

uh.

Pure eloquence. Bravo.



I took a look at it, and I think the layout is off to a good start, and item placement seems reasonable as well.

Suggestions/Observations:

1. For an alpha test, use two different textures, one dark and one light, for walls and floors. It keeps everything from blending together.

2. Throw in a few lights to avoid relying entirely on ambient--I know it's an alpha, but this can be quick and sloppy for now.

3. MH is too hard to get. (Yeah, I know, I suck. ) In my opinion, there should always be an easy way to get major items, even if it takes a little longer. Maybe leave the strafe- and tele-jump as they are, but make a stairway around the back or something?

4. Overall, the scale feels too big to me--not everywhere, but in a lot of places. I would try to squeeze everything together a bit more and make rooms a little smaller and walkways/hallways a little narrower in places. Load up some of the maps that you like and compare the "feel" of moving through them...things feel a bit too far apart here, in my opinion...

Hope this helps!

[A1yssa]

Thank you very much pjw!

*brainstorming*

^^

[+JuggerNaut+]

uh.

Pure eloquence. Bravo.



I took a look at it, and I think the layout is off to a good start, and item placement seems reasonable as well.

Suggestions/Observations:

1. For an alpha test, use two different textures, one dark and one light, for walls and floors. It keeps everything from blending together.

2. Throw in a few lights to avoid relying entirely on ambient--I know it's an alpha, but this can be quick and sloppy for now.

3. MH is too hard to get. (Yeah, I know, I suck. ) In my opinion, there should always be an easy way to get major items, even if it takes a little longer. Maybe leave the strafe- and tele-jump as they are, but make a stairway around the back or something?

4. Overall, the scale feels too big to me--not everywhere, but in a lot of places. I would try to squeeze everything together a bit more and make rooms a little smaller and walkways/hallways a little narrower in places. Load up some of the maps that you like and compare the "feel" of moving through them...things feel a bit too far apart here, in my opinion...

Hope this helps!

re-read

[wviperw]

uh.

Pure eloquence. Bravo.



I took a look at it, and I think the layout is off to a good start, and item placement seems reasonable as well.

Suggestions/Observations:

1. For an alpha test, use two different textures, one dark and one light, for walls and floors. It keeps everything from blending together.

2. Throw in a few lights to avoid relying entirely on ambient--I know it's an alpha, but this can be quick and sloppy for now.

3. MH is too hard to get. (Yeah, I know, I suck. ) In my opinion, there should always be an easy way to get major items, even if it takes a little longer. Maybe leave the strafe- and tele-jump as they are, but make a stairway around the back or something?

4. Overall, the scale feels too big to me--not everywhere, but in a lot of places. I would try to squeeze everything together a bit more and make rooms a little smaller and walkways/hallways a little narrower in places. Load up some of the maps that you like and compare the "feel" of moving through them...things feel a bit too far apart here, in my opinion...

Hope this helps!

Wow, I need to lay off the drinky drinky here at work... coulda sworn it was Foo who posted this originally. All of a sudden the name switched to pjw!

[pjw]

re-read

Ah, sorry. You don't have to login to download. Just click "download file", give it the generated code and "get". Easy-peasy.

[wviperw]

Ok, so I just ran around in it, and as always (or most of the time, or maybe some of the time... ok, never) pjw is spot on. Gimme a dark floor texture for some kind of contrast, yes, even though it is an alpha.

Biggest issue, BY FAR, is the scale. Unlike what pjw said, I feel like it is in fact too large everywhere. Now don't get too down about this, proper scaling is one of the hardest things to pull off successfully and I *still* have problems to this day. For reference, right now you can fit about 6 instances of my map, Placebo Effect, into your single map (I know, I checked). You should be looking to scale the whole thing down by at the very least HALF, if not a THIRD of what it currently is. As for numerical guidelines to go by, I just checked Placebo and my average hall/walkway was 192 units, the distance from floor to floor was about 160 units, and the distance from bottom to top floor was 368 units. Remember though that Placebo is a pretty small-ish map so these numbers are just guidelines.

Oh, and yes this means you'll probably have to rebuild the thing from scratch, and yes that does suck but it's gotta be done IMO.

[v1l3]

Is this alpha for Q3 or Q4?

[wviperw]

Q4. Probably should go in title...

[pjw]

I don't know what you guys are talking about...

[A1yssa]

Ok, thank you all, I'm trying to resize it a bit.
I made it so big becouse I'm claustrophobic lol(for real!).
I'm not satisfied with the RA zone, I think most of the frags time will be in the MH+RL_Gl zone.
The tp trick is from Lukin(moonson map) and it's just jump&strafe!
I was considering a jumpad for the MH, but things will become too easy, or maybe some rounding steps, but those ideas are already used...too much times!

For the items placement, I read some guides...and I placed spamming weapons near mighty items(PG near RA and GL near RG), just to vex(to irritate?) the player who took the item.(but now I'm considering to switch PG and GL).

My fear is that if I watch some other maps...Illl start to copy...cut&paste...and I like Lukin's maps too much!

Anyway, this is my first alpha ^^!

[A1yssa]

Due to my poor english I think I did not understand the stairs problem!
Do you mean that they are too long or too high? Or maybe are the corridors too large?

[pjw]

Due to my poor english I think I did not understand the stairs problem!
Do you mean that they are too long or too high? Or maybe are the corridors too large?

Hmmn. The only one who mentioned stairs was me, talking about a possible alternate/easy route to MH? Is that what you mean? You mentioned "rounding steps"--yeah, maybe that. Some easier and longer way is needed to reach MH.

I wouldn't worry too much about copying from other maps. It's good to look at others' work. As long as you don't want to copy, you won't copy. Plus, it's fun to take an idea someone else used and make it better.

[A1yssa]

Please don't tell me that now is too small!


http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=97109

I'm not happy with the rg corridor and the connection between RA and quad...I think I'll put a lower level with stairs...

[wviperw]

Ok, well scale feels a little better in some areas, but it's still your #1 problem unfortunately. Your central arena fighting areas (like MH atrium for example) are just too wide open and large for their own good. Fighting tends to stagnate when there isn't a lot of interesting geometry nearby. For instance, stand in the middle of the lower floor in the MH atrium, now imagine you're fighting somebody who is on the 2nd floor. What are your options? It'll take about 5 seconds to get to the nearest stairway/jumppad. What you end up getting is 2 players dancing around out in the open with the railgun which lends to not-so-fun gameplay.

Similarly, the stairs in the level demonstrate the scale issues as well. All your stairways are very wide and very tall because you're trying to fit them to the width of the walkways and trying to fit their height to the heights of your floors. The problem here is that excessive amounts of stairs, especially long staircases, tends to abrupt the flow of a level. The generic staircase you use in your level is 384 x 384 x 192--now this may be okay for a single large "centerpiece" staircase if you will, but it's not so good when used throughout the level. In general, stairs are best for smaller level transitions--i.e. - 32, 64, 128 units at most. Again, every once in awhile you can get away with a lonnng staircase but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Overall, the atriums need to be compacted down and the adjoining hallways still need to be trimmed, otherwise the vast openness of the map will detract from what looks to be a pretty solid layout.

[A1yssa]

Ok, well scale feels a little better in some areas, but it's still your #1 problem unfortunately. Your central arena fighting areas (like MH atrium for example) are just too wide open and large for their own good. Fighting tends to stagnate when there isn't a lot of interesting geometry nearby. For instance, stand in the middle of the lower floor in the MH atrium, now imagine you're fighting somebody who is on the 2nd floor. What are your options? It'll take about 5 seconds to get to the nearest stairway/jumppad. What you end up getting is 2 players dancing around out in the open with the railgun which lends to not-so-fun gameplay.

For the MH area: for me it take 2-3 strafejumps to cover all the floor, anyway I'm considering to place some "case"(chest...box?) to fill the area or to hide...and maybe to let the player to reach the mh. I'll put some columns to add more geometry, I did not put them in becouse I thought I shouldn't do it in an alpha...lol

Similarly, the stairs in the level demonstrate the scale issues as well. All your stairways are very wide and very tall because you're trying to fit them to the width of the walkways and trying to fit their height to the heights of your floors. The problem here is that excessive amounts of stairs, especially long staircases, tends to abrupt the flow of a level. The generic staircase you use in your level is 384 x 384 x 192--now this may be okay for a single large "centerpiece" staircase if you will, but it's not so good when used throughout the level. In general, stairs are best for smaller level transitions--i.e. - 32, 64, 128 units at most. Again, every once in awhile you can get away with a lonnng staircase but that is the exception rather than the rule.

Overall, the atriums need to be compacted down and the adjoining hallways still need to be trimmed, otherwise the vast openness of the map will detract from what looks to be a pretty solid layout.

you won't belive this, but I first made the stairs and than the upper floors... lol
^^
I made them 128 becouse I was fearing that the level was not so "vertical". How can I make PG room the upper level? This is a really big problem becouse I builted the map thinking that room as the highest...Another problem is that if the stairs are shorter, it is easy to hit an upper room from the lower room.

[A1yssa]

My map won a free ride on the wather-machine at 90.C and this is how it came out!

http://www.wikiupload.com/download_page.php?id=98694

It's really smaller now. I'm not happy with the ra zone, I'm trying to find a way to connect both floor...
If you have any ideas...I appreciate! ^^
I tried to resize the rail corridor, but it became too small...so I'm pretty sure this is the right size.
I think the PG area is still big, but resizeing would mean rebuilding everithing...
:\


I'm not happy with the weapons...it seems to me that the left part of the map has much more weapons than the right...have to work on it...
:\

I'm changing too much lol

[pjw]

It shrunk!
It feels better now.

The RG corridor is not too small.

The PG area isn't too bad, but it and the RA area still feel a little too open to me...

The biggest problem, IMO, is still the Quad room--it's very big and open still. I would consider adding some walls or barriers or pillars/columns or something in there.

I like the crates up to MH--that's a good extra way.

Maybe think about launch ramps as a way to cross big distances quickly? (Like the Quad room?)

[wviperw]

Yes, it did shrink! Some areas feel pretty good now, for example the MH room is nicely sized. Like pjw said, the quad room still sticks out the most as having too much empty floor space. In general, there is just a lot of empty floor space spanning across the entire map still. Maybe you could throw in some health and armor shards and ammo to fill things up a bit?

So now that the map is now in a closer condition to giving feedback, I ran around it a bit and here are some suggestions:


-this is in RA room--1) there is still a pretty big line-of-sight (LOS) from one corner of the room to the other. This means rail will be very effective. I would try to get rid of these long LOSes. 2) The stairs to the left of me are very steep so they look odd. Try to make stairs more gradual by spreading them out horizontally along the slope.



-This is the HB room I believe? Anyway, it is an example of an area that just feels kinda boring--lotsa floor space with not much going on. Since this is more of a transitional area (taking you from 2nd floor to third, it shouldn't be this large.



-Ok, the GL room. Right now it is kind of a dead area and it is really not worth it to try to grab the GL. My proposal is kind of bold, but it is to get rid of the RG hallway altogether and move RG to where GL is sitting. Also, remove the jumppads. To get out after jumping and grabbing RG, there'd be a teleporter down where the current RG hallway entrance is, and that tele would take you up top like in the picture. If you wanted to make it even more dangerous, you could put lava/slime down below the RG platform. I think this solution would make this area a lot more interesting and would make the RG a challenge to grab (which it should be IMO). Oh, and you could move GL to a better position like the 3rd floor overlook I originally suggested.



-MH room--to go along with the idea of removing the RG hallway, I don't like where the current teleporter location is at all the way over in the quad room. It doesn't really make sense there because you won't even know if the MH has spawned. Plus having teleporters teleport you to far off unseen locations is usually a bad design decision since it promotes running away gameplay. So my solution is to end the RG hallway prematurely and add a teleporter that takes you to the current teleport destination near MH. Of course, you'd also remove the tele from the quad room.



-I'm standing on the curved stairs near MH room. There is another huge LOS here spanning from one side of the room to the other which means more sniping with the railgun.



-Right now the quad and MH atriums are primarily connected with an S shaped jumppad connection in between them. I feel like the connectivity could be better and propose that you join up the lower hallways that currently have jumppads in them.



-Ok, here's quad room. It feels like something important should be out on this peninsula platform--perhaps quad? ;P But then you'd have to come up with something to put on it for tourney... you do need another armor.. could put YA on it, although YA isn't all that huge. Oh, and all that red I scribbled out is referring to the excessive floor space in the quad room. There's just so much of it!



-No need to have this dip down here with the stairs. It just slows players down if they miss the strafe jump over it. I'd completely remove the stairs and make it flat ground.

[A1yssa]

First of all let me thank you for the time you spent debugging my map, and also thank you so much fho the screens!

-this is in RA room--1) there is still a pretty big line-of-sight (LOS) from one corner of the room to the other. This means rail will be very effective. I would try to get rid of these long LOSes. 2) The stairs to the left of me are very steep so they look odd. Try to make stairs more gradual by spreading them out horizontally along the slope.

If I'm right those are the stairs that connect RA to Quad, I forgot about that lol. Maybe some columns or boxes will reduce los.

-This is the HB room I believe? Anyway, it is an example of an area that just feels kinda boring--lotsa floor space with not much going on. Since this is more of a transitional area (taking you from 2nd floor to third, it shouldn't be this large.

Yes, it's the hb room...don't know hy I continue in calling it PG...lolsorry!
My prob there is that is not so easy to change it becouse it's in the middle of the map...so I was thinking of filling it with something eyecandy or a kind of obstacle...

mumbling...

-Ok, the GL room. Right now it is kind of a dead area and it is really not worth it to try to grab the GL. My proposal is kind of bold, but it is to get rid of the RG hallway altogether and move RG to where GL is sitting. Also, remove the jumppads. To get out after jumping and grabbing RG, there'd be a teleporter down where the current RG hallway entrance is, and that tele would take you up top like in the picture. If you wanted to make it even more dangerous, you could put lava/slime down below the RG platform. I think this solution would make this area a lot more interesting and would make the RG a challenge to grab (which it should be IMO). Oh, and you could move GL to a better position like the 3rd floor overlook I originally suggested.

ouch...you broke my dream...I builded that room with a clear vision of a player spamming granades(or plasma) to reject the other player with railgun...How about a long stairway that starts from the right jumpad, make the corner to the gl, make the corner to the top of the floor(on the left)? something like |_|

-MH room--to go along with the idea of removing the RG hallway, I don't like where the current teleporter location is at all the way over in the quad room. It doesn't really make sense there because you won't even know if the MH has spawned. Plus having teleporters teleport you to far off unseen locations is usually a bad design decision since it promotes running away gameplay. So my solution is to end the RG hallway prematurely and add a teleporter that takes you to the current teleport destination near MH. Of course, you'd also remove the tele from the quad room.

again, you're right! The teleporter trick is copied from lunkin's monsoon, which has the teleporter where you want it...I think I placed away just to change it a little bit...but that is definitely where it should be!

-I'm standing on the curved stairs near MH room. There is another huge LOS here spanning from one side of the room to the other which means more sniping with the railgun.

I'm considering to move the stairs and build a wall or a column there.

EDIT: or maybe, removing the stairs near the wall(or placeing some boxes to let the player quickly jump on it), building a column with the teleporter near the base!

-Right now the quad and MH atriums are primarily connected with an S shaped jumppad connection in between them. I feel like the connectivity could be better and propose that you join up the lower hallways that currently have jumppads in them.

I'm not sure if I understood well...you say that you want that a player, coming from the quad, could take the 1st jumpad or go on ahed and take the 2nd? how about los in this case?

-Ok, here's quad room. It feels like something important should be out on this peninsula platform--perhaps quad? ;P But then you'd have to come up with something to put on it for tourney... you do need another armor.. could put YA on it, although YA isn't all that huge. Oh, and all that red I scribbled out is referring to the excessive floor space in the quad room. There's just so much of it!

yep, I was considering it as a "jolly" lol...to let players to jump from the 3rd floor without loosing health or to place something...not healt, becouse I'm thinking of doing a map without health...and maybe make a trigger all over the map that hurts every player, not too much...maybe 1-2 every 5-10 secs...to stress the game and to increase the MH value.

^^ stupid idea?(or already seen in too much maps?)

-No need to have this dip down here with the stairs. It just slows players down if they miss the strafe jump over it. I'd completely remove the stairs and make it flat ground.

yes you're completely right. I use to forget that part lol. I made tham underground becouse los from the quad to the ra!

I have sooooo much work to do, but I really apprecciate your help!(even pjw's, of course!)

so again, thank you very much!

[pjw]

I'm thinking of doing a map without health...and maybe make a trigger all over the map that hurts every player, not too much...maybe 1-2 every 5-10 secs...to stress the game and to increase the MH value.

In my opinion, the trigger would be a bad idea, and just be annoying.

A low-heath (or even no-health, other than MH) map might work, but it would be very unusual...and yeah, it would certainly make the MH the most valuable thing of all.

I'm guessing a lot of players wouldn't like it. Note that I didn't say "don't do that".

[dichtfux]

I'm thinking of doing a map without health...and maybe make a trigger all over the map that hurts every player, not too much...maybe 1-2 every 5-10 secs...to stress the game and to increase the MH value.

In my opinion, the trigger would be a bad idea, and just be annoying.

Absolutely right. I would refuse to play a map of that kind, and I would rather say it clearly: that idea sucks.

I'll give the map a try in a few minutes and hopefully return with some more usefull comments then. ;-)

[A1yssa]

I'm thinking of doing a map without health...and maybe make a trigger all over the map that hurts every player, not too much...maybe 1-2 every 5-10 secs...to stress the game and to increase the MH value.

In my opinion, the trigger would be a bad idea, and just be annoying.

A low-heath (or even no-health, other than MH) map might work, but it would be very unusual...and yeah, it would certainly make the MH the most valuable thing of all.

I'm guessing a lot of players wouldn't like it. Note that I didn't say "don't do that".

what about a trigger that hurts for only 5 secs(1hp every sec) before the MH respowning?
To give the idea of stealing life and put it into the mh.