Looking great, remember not too go too overboard with all the details as you want to make sure the map is playable (in relation to tech points and rts). If you find an area is wrong, then you will need to un-do all your work and start over just to modify a section of the map.
Most map makers will grey box the lot and play test, once the build is approved by the community then the detailing is started.
To Whitedevils defense he did contribute a build to Howsers sunday map test, and from what I have seen, he took alot of the feedback into the recent changes
Colony is a great map with a lot of potential, its an original design and even in these early stages a lot of fun. The scale of the map was the most prominent problem with the first build and it was addressed in second release. Unfortunately re-scaling the map caused a few issues with RT placement and made the last play test unrepresentative of an actual game.
I personally felt the spacing was solid with the latest release and I look forward to playing a proper game on it tomorrow.
Also Sundays aren't 'my' play-test; but they are a mappers meeting point to learn and share.
This redesign had actually very little impact to the spaces, I used the same shape as in the first build but I also narrowed the street down to the same proportions what I had in the re-scaled version, there's only the props that make all of the blocking so it's easy move them or get rid of them. I'd agree with billet that I probably wasted too much hours on it since I still might have to change it later but it was a good test for me to see where to go with the visuals.
@howser the re-scaled version should be fully playable now since I had fixed the bugs that plagued it in the last playtest.
The latest playtest was awesome, the map was playable now and it showed me that the club vs uplink bases are too close. It gives a upper hand for the marines to rush in early so this gave me an idea. Since the first build had a pretty nice distances overall, 3rd build had good places for battles but was easy for just to rush in to the alien base. I'm going to try to combine the best of the both builds for the next version so I'll be remaking the whole map. Hopefully I can nail down the overall shape for good so I can start going for the small scale stuff which people have been nagging me about all the time :P
Most of the time this mapping process has been: 'I have no idea what I'm doing' I hope I will some day know what I'm going when I'm making this map.
Club got a little facelift. I swear the shape of it was totally unintentional
I might have seal off those upper levels with glass since it gives an open view to the hive + base. Could be too easy to bile and snipe buildings but I'll keep them open for now.
It might not look like much has changed but all the distances have been tweaked. All the rooms, corridors and streets have been either re-scaled or remade. I also did some experimenting with the routes and some cover so those either work or they suck. But hopefully I've done more good than harm and the map isn't completely broken. At least I'm now getting more annoyed why my corridors are so empty. That might be a sign that I actually like the map now.
Most noticeable changes:
- All the streets have been overhauled
- Garage base is now totally new
- Club base has been reworked
- Uplink base routes have been changed
- Center RT area is fully reworked
- Some name changes of the areas
I didn't add any vents and I got rid of the most unhelpful vents because I don't want to make any useless holes in my walls anymore. I want to see where a vent might be useful now.
hey man, the changes sound awesome. I look forward to playing it on sunday.
I decided to apply the sloop diagram to the latest overlay:
Not sure if you've been following this and excuse me if this comes along as cheeky; its not as if this is a science or anything. Just a design aid.
Basing it off the assumption that official maps are 'right' There's a few routes you could remove to reduce complexity and improve flow... according to the sloop's anyway.
I did a paint over to remove any areas that the sloop's suggested weren't necessary:
Obviously we should play this build sunday and get feedback on how this goes.
The club area and the uplink/garage areas have been on my mind what I think needs improving on the layout side but it was hard to see what the problem there might be. And you spotted problems there right away using those sloops so it clearly tells me that they do help a lot. They are a excellent way to illustrate the complexity of the layout and I will definitely use them on my design. Though I will probably try removing something else. While your suggestion is good, it would need a lot of work on the level side to make it work.
New layout looks good, though I haven't played it yet.
My thoughts about the sloop thing: don't make it too standard. Maps with a bit of asymmetry und uneven hive rooms are more interesting that the standard wagon wheel. Though garage should not have 3 entrances when everything else has 2.
Well the playtest showed there are problems with the layout which did not came by surprise. Some of the areas are also too easy for the marines to just spam phase gates and storm the hives. I don't know if this is necessarily a bad thing since the map doesn't have much resources and it might have this double edged sword effect if it fails. Last time in pub play this happened and it cost the marines their game or at least a part of it which was also the first alien win with the new build
The bases are very hard to defend now so I'll probably get rid of all of those 3rd routes and go with just 2. I'm also changing the club <--> infirmary routes completely which are currently just a complete mess.
@hozz
Yeah I won't mess around with blindly relying on those sloops. They are a good way to show that there might be something wrong with the layout but they don't show how to fix it.
Have more vents to the bases, that'll make it easier to take down. ALso, choose carefully which bases get 2 access points and which get 3, that'll make both teams decide depending on how the game goes, giving them the option card. Maybe marines go to the 2 access point base to secure themselves, maybe they go for a 3 access point base to expand whatever the risk. Give the players the choice.
I really like the layout, the connectivity is enormous and it really looks it has a great flow. Nice work.
After actually playing the map, I changed my mind - except for Uplink Stairs and maybe the Garage - Y connection (keep those!), simplifying like Howser suggested would probably benefit the map - the south east area is needlessly complicated.
And having 2 two-entrance and 2 three-entrance TPs might be good after all, that could provide some asymmetry to spice things up. You could additionally think about setting spawns so both teams start in a TP with the same number of entrances, if needed (but I guess it might just work with fully random spawns).
Also, I found some of the hallways a bit confusing to navigate as Skulks, many protrusions that seem random. But I can't say too much after only one game played so we'll see.
Layout changes:
- simplified the routes leading from club to infirmary
- added some vents
- prevented ARCing from U street to uplink
- prevented ARCing from center rt to infirmary
- enlarged Orbital communications base
Other tweaks:
- toned down the lights so the map is not so bright now and more pleasing to the eye
- hydroponics is now called recreation and there's some plants
- glassed up Club since it was just a snipe fest for single marines to deny the alien upgrades
- put some cover behind garage window so you cant shoot from up there so easily
My biggest concern now is how good or bad the backalley & SE RT spot is now since there has been so much changes. I might have to redo those places as well since the backalley desperately needs a ramp for the marines.
The route going from club to U street should be the quickest way to center RT so that might have more use now.
Thanks for giving Colony a run for no apparent reason. I got to see it in a new light since I haven't touched the map for a while. I was so happy for the big layout changes from the last builds that I started to get blind for the more obvious flaws. So it's back to the drawing board for me, there's a shit ton of work ahead.
About half of the map went to the trashbin, been banging my head to the wall of thinking how to make things better than last time.
In the mean time I made a texture with the help of this free program called Knald. It's a program for generating normal maps, ambient occlusions, and other maps. Works almost the same as crazybump. I like the 3d preview which updates in real time.
Anyway, I first made it brown. Looks pretty nice with all that tessellation and all.
Brown didn't look like much, so I made it green.
I'll probably start making few models too at some point. Maybe after I got this build published.
I awesomed the wrong post! whoops. As i said before love the texture and I look forward to seeing some more of them ingame.
Have you managed to get a model ingame yet? I recommend getting a simple test one in as it can be quite fiddly, PM me if you need any help with that, I believe i made every mistake along the way, but once you get one in its easy from there.
Sorry, haven't had the time lately to update my progress here. I basically remade the whole thing and only kept the same distances from the last version. With these changes the map currently has almost symmetrical travel times in all the axis. 15 seconds to the closest RT and 30 seconds to the closest base, only travel time which is different is the routes going to the middle.
I added one more RT for test sake today, ready whenever we get testing the map again.
Screenshots:
If this layout does it's job well, I'll start redesigning the areas to suit for better gameplay.
Looking good! I love the new stripped down layout.
By the time we got to play colony on Sunday the noob levels had reached critical mass, so I cannot say much about the gameplay unfortunately.
I think 7 (8 now?) RT's might be a bit shy for the maps scale. As the alien commander starting command center it felt like could only expand to center and club, as the distances to the others would be a heavy investment in cysts. I am not against a 7 rt map but no one (that i am aware of) has made one before, it might require some experimentation to figure out the best way of pulling this off.
Also the elevation change on the sidewalks and roads makes cysting really hard, maybe add some more slopped sections or decrease the drop.
keep at it man, the new players will soon figure the game out and we can all get back to actually testing maps soon!
SamusDroidColoradoJoin Date: 2013-05-13Member: 185219Members, Forum Moderators, NS2 Developer, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Gold, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited July 2013
@Howser I would be interested in joining a few play sessions, now that I know it's Sunday.
Definitely hard to do anything with rookies, especially testing maps or balance
We played this last night on the SCC server. First time for me with the new layout(I'm liking the layout, but missing some of the old places like clubs layout) and it started off as 3v3 so not a real test, but from what howser said it does seem marines have it a little easy. I commanded marines so can't say from aliens side but as i always say needs more game time!
Yep, definitely needs more game time, hard to say much from 2 games of noobfests
It's leaning to marine side at the moment mostly because the areas are too open for the aliens. I noticed there was a lot of fights happening where the marines sniped skulks from the other end of the room.
I also might add that the map doesn't have close spawns any more but they are still random. Meaning that the enemy spawn is always directly at the other side of the map.
Comments
Most map makers will grey box the lot and play test, once the build is approved by the community then the detailing is started.
I personally felt the spacing was solid with the latest release and I look forward to playing a proper game on it tomorrow.
Also Sundays aren't 'my' play-test; but they are a mappers meeting point to learn and share.
This redesign had actually very little impact to the spaces, I used the same shape as in the first build but I also narrowed the street down to the same proportions what I had in the re-scaled version, there's only the props that make all of the blocking so it's easy move them or get rid of them. I'd agree with billet that I probably wasted too much hours on it since I still might have to change it later but it was a good test for me to see where to go with the visuals.
@howser the re-scaled version should be fully playable now since I had fixed the bugs that plagued it in the last playtest.
Most of the time this mapping process has been: 'I have no idea what I'm doing' I hope I will some day know what I'm going when I'm making this map.
I might have seal off those upper levels with glass since it gives an open view to the hive + base. Could be too easy to bile and snipe buildings but I'll keep them open for now.
So what is new?
Everything.
It might not look like much has changed but all the distances have been tweaked. All the rooms, corridors and streets have been either re-scaled or remade. I also did some experimenting with the routes and some cover so those either work or they suck. But hopefully I've done more good than harm and the map isn't completely broken. At least I'm now getting more annoyed why my corridors are so empty. That might be a sign that I actually like the map now.
Most noticeable changes:
- All the streets have been overhauled
- Garage base is now totally new
- Club base has been reworked
- Uplink base routes have been changed
- Center RT area is fully reworked
- Some name changes of the areas
I didn't add any vents and I got rid of the most unhelpful vents because I don't want to make any useless holes in my walls anymore. I want to see where a vent might be useful now.
I decided to apply the sloop diagram to the latest overlay:
Not sure if you've been following this and excuse me if this comes along as cheeky; its not as if this is a science or anything. Just a design aid.
Basing it off the assumption that official maps are 'right' There's a few routes you could remove to reduce complexity and improve flow... according to the sloop's anyway.
I did a paint over to remove any areas that the sloop's suggested weren't necessary:
Obviously we should play this build sunday and get feedback on how this goes.
The club area and the uplink/garage areas have been on my mind what I think needs improving on the layout side but it was hard to see what the problem there might be. And you spotted problems there right away using those sloops so it clearly tells me that they do help a lot. They are a excellent way to illustrate the complexity of the layout and I will definitely use them on my design. Though I will probably try removing something else. While your suggestion is good, it would need a lot of work on the level side to make it work.
My thoughts about the sloop thing: don't make it too standard. Maps with a bit of asymmetry und uneven hive rooms are more interesting that the standard wagon wheel. Though garage should not have 3 entrances when everything else has 2.
The bases are very hard to defend now so I'll probably get rid of all of those 3rd routes and go with just 2. I'm also changing the club <--> infirmary routes completely which are currently just a complete mess.
@hozz
Yeah I won't mess around with blindly relying on those sloops. They are a good way to show that there might be something wrong with the layout but they don't show how to fix it.
I really like the layout, the connectivity is enormous and it really looks it has a great flow. Nice work.
And having 2 two-entrance and 2 three-entrance TPs might be good after all, that could provide some asymmetry to spice things up. You could additionally think about setting spawns so both teams start in a TP with the same number of entrances, if needed (but I guess it might just work with fully random spawns).
Also, I found some of the hallways a bit confusing to navigate as Skulks, many protrusions that seem random. But I can't say too much after only one game played so we'll see.
Layout changes:
- simplified the routes leading from club to infirmary
- added some vents
- prevented ARCing from U street to uplink
- prevented ARCing from center rt to infirmary
- enlarged Orbital communications base
Other tweaks:
- toned down the lights so the map is not so bright now and more pleasing to the eye
- hydroponics is now called recreation and there's some plants
- glassed up Club since it was just a snipe fest for single marines to deny the alien upgrades
- put some cover behind garage window so you cant shoot from up there so easily
My biggest concern now is how good or bad the backalley & SE RT spot is now since there has been so much changes. I might have to redo those places as well since the backalley desperately needs a ramp for the marines.
The route going from club to U street should be the quickest way to center RT so that might have more use now.
Badum-tish.
I added one more RT for test sake today, ready whenever we get testing the map again.
Screenshots:
If this layout does it's job well, I'll start redesigning the areas to suit for better gameplay.
By the time we got to play colony on Sunday the noob levels had reached critical mass, so I cannot say much about the gameplay unfortunately.
I think 7 (8 now?) RT's might be a bit shy for the maps scale. As the alien commander starting command center it felt like could only expand to center and club, as the distances to the others would be a heavy investment in cysts. I am not against a 7 rt map but no one (that i am aware of) has made one before, it might require some experimentation to figure out the best way of pulling this off.
Also the elevation change on the sidewalks and roads makes cysting really hard, maybe add some more slopped sections or decrease the drop.
keep at it man, the new players will soon figure the game out and we can all get back to actually testing maps soon!
Definitely hard to do anything with rookies, especially testing maps or balance
This map looks HUGE BTW.
It's leaning to marine side at the moment mostly because the areas are too open for the aliens. I noticed there was a lot of fights happening where the marines sniped skulks from the other end of the room.
I also might add that the map doesn't have close spawns any more but they are still random. Meaning that the enemy spawn is always directly at the other side of the map.