Thoughts on Vents
So I'm struggling with a map I'm making. The two games that have been played on it with real players shows I need to add more vents, perhaps many many more vents.
I'm drawing out where I want to put them and debating one aspect of it in my mind. Do I connect most of them so it feels more like a network? You know a map within a map. Or should I lean more towards independent vents that accomplish the task of skipping over blocked lanes. Is there a best practice?
Also, lighting is on my mind. Why would humans put lights in a vent?
Also, access for Marines. Should I generally allow them to get into and use the vents or lean toward Alien access only.
Any thoughts or advice on vents is encouraged from you the reader of this. Especially you, new guy who has never posted. Go ahead and share your thoughts here. This is going to be a Vent heavy weekend for me.
I'm drawing out where I want to put them and debating one aspect of it in my mind. Do I connect most of them so it feels more like a network? You know a map within a map. Or should I lean more towards independent vents that accomplish the task of skipping over blocked lanes. Is there a best practice?
Also, lighting is on my mind. Why would humans put lights in a vent?
Also, access for Marines. Should I generally allow them to get into and use the vents or lean toward Alien access only.
Any thoughts or advice on vents is encouraged from you the reader of this. Especially you, new guy who has never posted. Go ahead and share your thoughts here. This is going to be a Vent heavy weekend for me.
Comments
Generally my experience is: If you have a vent network people will usually complain that they are too complicated (even though if players take their time to learn they won't bother anymore... it's just that they probably don't want to learn. nanogrid vents is probably the best example... or the right part of eclipse)
Personally I place vents to:
a) skip passages so resbiting becomes easier
b) provide a flanking possibility on strong marine positions (Organ Donation on Jambi is a good example for that)
The vent lights are for routing purposes. Meaning it will be easier to see vent entrances for both teams and also within the vent it is easier to see which direction to go (depends on how your vent is built here though)
Personally I'd like to have as much vents as possible marine accessible. The reason is that I try to avoid spots where aliens can't be reached (without jetpacks) and therefor can either wait for reinforcement or heal up using regen. This can break the flow of the game imo.
It is ok to have vents though that are hard to get in. Just make sure it is possible (thinking about trickjumps here)
Also make sure that if marines can use them that they will never get stuck within the vent or that they are faster than traveling the hallway. (The last one is personal preference but having a vent being the fastest route even for marines seems absurd for me)
Reactor core is very hard for aliens to engage into - they have to move through a bottleneck, into a very bare room, which actually is quite large. Marines LOVE to fight in there for that reason - the biggest problem is the vent. Its 3 entrances instead of two, complicating the matter of attacking it. Aliens can come from all directions and aliens can bypass (a very small bypass, which is the important part). The vent is used to balance the combat and allow for further strategic options. The decent monorail and launch control is how to do a bad bypass, but since the map is so big, the aliens need a safer way out of their hive loc. Its again a tradeoff, but small maps would be alot easier to balance, as it depends much more on teamwork and the options therein, rather than skill and winning an engagement, which then wins you half the map.
On the other side is crevice. There is a huge door, with very short line of sights, spaces where marines cannot shoot where aliens can hide, and much more cramped movement. This is much nicer for the aliens to fight in - still not nice enough to not have a vent though. That vent however, and the fact you have to stand next to the RT to watch it, makes it a very hard place for marines to move in - it would be alot more intelligent to cut the cyst, force a rotation, and then get out of there into summit reception, which has a nice bottleneck, and quite a bit of space to maneuver. If the vent stretched all the way to summit reception, marines would have a ton of trouble with ever touching crevice, mostly due to backstabs, which hits alot harder in crevice than in reactor core comparably.
Lets take a look at vents that allow more movement options rather than combat options as the before summit vents does. Tram mezzanine vent to north tunnels. It allows for VERY fast rotations, but it doesnt really allow for backstabs. It allows aliens to split past Hub without going strait to server on a warehouse spawn. It opens up the map for the aliens. It also forces marines not to go extreemely agressive up towards server as skulks easily can resbite behind them - it forces marines to use strategy, and the aliens to make great decitions. If it were not there, tram would be a boring map, much like docking near bar, but that is also for other reasons.
I suggest that all vents are acccessable unless very specific circumstances are met - all vents on tram can be entered by a marine, except the one leading to observation - if marines could get through it, it would be WAY too easy to defend. Let players be rewarded for getting past the front line - dont make it easy. But make it painful for the defenders to allow it to happen. Tram is IMO the best ns2 map. Veil is a close second for me. These maps have intelligent vents, where, using them, you have to weigh the risk/reward of not using them, but getting places faster. Topografical is another beautiful vent. Marines have to be careful of it, but they can check it, but at the cost of time - and time is exactly what the aliens need to get nano up and running.
If you want to investigate further i suggest looking at mirage's layout compared to dust 2. They are very similarely build up, but the small new nooks and crannies allow for an entirely new map.
I hope this might stir your fantasy, and I wish you the best of luck!
Ooooh what map? We need to playtest this thing on SCC!
But also, for vents, you should never allow vents to connect to one another too much, otherwise it allows aliens to move across large portions of the map without ever exposing themselves to marines -- regardless of how map-aware and lane-blocking-diligent those marines are. Really, the only map that comes to mind that has a large vent system is Veil, with the nanogrid vents, and really those cover only a small portion of the map and aren't too difficult to defend against.
The map itself has a lot of good ideas, but it falls into the same holes that so many custom maps do, a lack of cover. All in all the map is a very good starting point, Tincan just needs to add in all the divots, pillars and LoS blockers etc.
The map can be found here http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=479606468&searchtext=tincan
@TinCan please, don't make the same mistake so many people do, when you hear people say "the hallways are too wide, you need to make the smaller" this is a common miscommunication, it appears that way because there is no "macro-geometry" (which is a term I use to cover any detailing that makes up the majority of a room that isn't props).
More often than not, if you made the hallway LARGER but did it by extruding large, square segments of the wall (incredibly basic example) there would suddenly be ambush spots and progressive cover all the way down the hallway, and even though its technically bigger, people will stop making the complaint that it is too large.
Anyway, sorry for the derail, just thought i'd poke my head in and give some feedback based on the small amount of time I spent quickly running around it.