Any plans to simplify marine start? I think Zav raised a really good point there.
Also, I think you still nee to trim down vents. In fact, I'd approach the whole problem from the completely opposite direction. Remove all vents, except for the ones you really, really want to keep in, then readd/add vents as needed, based on gameplay and testing.
I agree, Shipping is in much better shape now, it feels like you've made some of the exits wider (not 100% if you have, but it feels that way... it "may" be the verticality that gets to me, having staircases that close to bottleneck doorways just feels awkward as hell.
The broken window exit on the west of the room is fine as is imo, its bright enough and draws the eye, the north and east exits can be seen relatively easily, but don't feel good to me, I immediately feel vulnerable going down the stairs.
Any plans to simplify marine start? I think Zav raised a really good point there.
Update:
-Removed 3rd exit of Control Room (Marine start); replaced it with window overviewing the Access tram tunnel
-Created more combat space around the stairs leading from Water Treatment to Maintenance
-Shrunk some broken catwalk pieces between Ore Extraction and Generator to improve navigation around the entrance
-Added a window in Computer Lab near Skylights to direct players coming from Marine Start better towards the green/open sky area.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
edited October 2017
Update:
-Fixes to lights that were or were not affected by power
-Detailed some of the empty walls in Computer Lab
-Added a few more walls and props back to commander view
-Widenen some doorframes by a few units (as much as was possible without screwing with occlusion culling or adjacent geo)
-Shrunk some crates at Cargo or moved them at the wall to provide more combat space on lower and upper level and make it a bit easier for Marines.
Thanks to Zavaro and the TA Server crew, I can finally watch more games of Origin to improve the map!
Firstly, the small and inconsequential gripes:
- The map likes to make people think that they can go to Access from the bottom of control. It looks like a door when it is not. I saw both aliens and marines get hung up on that many times. Obviously when you walk into that you realize it's a window, but it's not readily apparent when looking at your map.
- To that point I believe the bottom of Access needs to just be done away with all together. It's a pointless room and it serves almost zero purpose especially if marines can't even access it without a long walk.
Now to the bigger issues:
- There is far too much clutter and geometry for aliens to hide behind, not to mention how well they blend in to it.
- Marine movement around the map pales in comparison to the ability for aliens to get from point A to point B. Basically? There's too many vents. Just because marines can also get into the vents doesn't change the fact that there's far too many.
- Marines simply can't respond well at all to the type of harassment aliens can put out on this map, and quite frankly the lanes aren't defined well enough, if at all.
Basically what I'm saying is currently this is very alien sided. It needs to be balanced. I understand that in order for it to get balanced it needs to be played. But please keep in mind that when a server is giving you feedback, instead of debating why you put something in, try to understand why the players are saying what they're saying. Of course ignore the players who say "rubbish map, crap map, etc."
Other than that, I appreciate what you're doing and look forward to improvements!
ZavaroTucson, ArizonaJoin Date: 2005-02-14Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Yeah. I came to the conclusion that there is just too many ambushing spots as well during SCC. For example, the area outside of Laser with the lava river has a huge number of spots you need to check upon just entering the room. Several by the ceiling on the left, underneath the platform, etc. Take that number down a few notches, it's pretty rough.
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
First I'll say I think the map looks amazing, so I hope it gets played more so we can make it competitive.
Second, yea it's really hard to get around as marine. Getting into biodome, let alone actually shooting the hive is damn difficult. I didn't get enough time on the Furnace side but it seemed more forgiving. I didn't explore the vent system that well, but it definitely needs the old marine accessibility if it's going to stay as useful for the aliens as it is to breakthrough the left side. Like the weldable vent in comp lab is no longer there, so it should probably just be removed until weldables are added (lol).
I'll be voting for origin on TA whenever I'm playing there, but it did get the crying change map treatment due to people not knowing the map. Like the fate of eclipse. Sure it's alien sided but, so what.
And, not sure if there is even variable spawns for aliens; but, if there is, make it fixed spawns.. There's just such a higher chance you can balance the map to actually get played with fixed spawns. And that's infinitely better than having variable spawns and never getting played.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Thanks a lot Frozen, appreciate it.
I'm not a fan of fixed spawns like in Biodome or Nexus. Games get boring after a while. Making Ventilation the only Alien Start would be a really last resort measure.
Marines can get in most vents, just like in NS1 and when they realize how easy it is to get into the vents in Shipping/Cargo via the crates, for example, it's a whole other game for Marines. I've watched dozens of games, I've seen it happen and I've also seen plenty of marine wins in general. Aliens usually call it a marine map then and complain about lack of cover and hiding spots.
Nevertheless I agree that some vents might be too much and I might remove more in the future, if they remain too powerful after Marines got used to them and know how to enter them.
I updated the map the last two days with the following changes:
-Closed off vent exit in Computer Lab (Tram Tunnel exit might be next)
-Changed the vent entrance into Biodome into a water cave kinda area, so it's less abusable by Gorges harassing Biodome from above. Also added more verticality to that vent to increase travel time.
-Opened up Maintenance a bit (one less sharp corner/cramped doorway)
-Improved Lava Catwalk for Marines (less ambush spots, bit more open, brighter white lights)
MephillesGermanyJoin Date: 2013-08-07Member: 186634Members, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
something I noticed as alien in this map is that traveling through it feels weird and in a lot of places there is stuff I don't think it should be there and in cargo when I want to move to skylights (into that hallway I don't know how it is called) I really need to look at my map to find the entrance (yes I have been there like 10 times now and still need to). In the room is like no indication that you can go there since the entrance is in a blind spot.
I have you know that my alien vision renders pretty much all lights invisible for me so routing techniques you have used with lights don't apply to my alien
FrozenNew York, NYJoin Date: 2010-07-02Member: 72228Members, Constellation
So, I played a pretty informative game on marine last night on TA, 12v12. Marines were generally the better team, and I have NOTHING against a map being skewed toward either team, but.. plenty of people do. 6v6 will be another story, but I think the below comments will naturally assist 6v6 balance as well.
The aliens, having started in biodome, were able to hold 5 res nodes where their timings from their hive to the nodes were way quicker than marines. This made it impossible for us to maintain our res due to the distance of the 4/5/6 nodes. We even killed 6 res nodes in the first 5 minutes, which is very solid as far I'm concerned. But we couldn't hold our own despite some very decent laning and just player distribnution through the map. This works better on Tram where the aliens get their 5 "easy" nodes on north side, and the marines have a MUCH easier time getting to their 4th and 5th nodes in repair and elevator transfer.
So what I'm thinking is that because the map gives ALOT of strength to aliens based on geometry, they need to have a harder time getting their res so that lerks aren't any quicker than usual 3 nodes, and then fades being virtually invincible on the map will really need to fight harder as skulks to earn their fade. Would it be possible to ruin cyst pathing between the hives to some extent to make the expansion far more difficult?
Conversely adding access to res for marines would help too, I don't have enough experiences yet but I think Cargo can function well with a double res node on this map. Aliens don't have an easy time keeping the room, and some changes to geometry to make it more marine friendly to hold, would definitely balance the res game to be a bit more fair (but alien lifeform timings still being a problem).
Just some thoughts, because there was very little reason for marines to lose that round. I would love to see it more fair for marines and more challenging for aliens while maintaining how much fun aliens can be to play on the map, which it always has been and is now. It's far and away the "coolest" map, and probably the most cohesive I've seen in the way the visual design actually lends itself to the map's story.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Hey Frozen, thanks for the feedback and thanks to everyone doing these playtests on the map.
I watched 2 games on gauss' twitch, where each team won one round, so I'm not sure wether you are referring to one of those games.
The map is still new to lot of players. They don't know where to pressure or best positioning.
The winrate seems pretty even right now, but I agree that it's sometimes too easy for Alien lifeforms or too hard for Marines to come back and gain ground on either side of the map.
I tried Cargo double-res first, Ore and Maintance didn't have res nodes back then and it was very marine favored. Right now Cargo already gives advantage to whoever controls the room by being so well connected to the rest of the map and an additional res node would be just overkill and bring to many res nodes in general to the map.
From my experience Power Core and Scanning both need to be more marine friendly in order to shift the balance of the res game for both teams.
The recent updates include a lot of changes. I kinda went reverse-summit_andabove on the map, by removing/shrinking obstacles or moving them more out of the way.
Changelog:
-Created more space in Power Core around the vent exit, thus the vent exit is farther away now too
-Created more space around the area between Power Core and Biodome
-Created more space in Scanning by removing some pipes and moving various obstacles
-Removed a few crates in Smelting (room might still be too lerk friendly)
-Widenen corridor between Furnace and Ore Extraction
-Shrunk a few rocks in Ore Extraction, which were used as cover for floor skulks
-Widened area between Cargo and Ore Extraction near the popular PG spot on the upper floor
-Shortened ceiling pipes in Generator so the room is slightly more open
-Created more space in Water Treatment
-Improved the connection between Water Treatment and Maintenance so the long stairs and verticality is less of a problem
ZavaroTucson, ArizonaJoin Date: 2005-02-14Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited November 2017
Another round, though I have played it many times since my last post.
Both games are 2500 elo avg on both teams.
The typical "once Fades get up, marines can't combat the situation" happened the first game. I think it's due to the the excess in cover, whether that's 90 degree angles out of room, doorways, hidden stairways, etc, blah blah blah. It's really hard to kill a Fade, and a huge problem is that it feels like they can come from anywhere. We lost. Onos came up and we had nothing, as recapping Computer and Water felt like useless objectives, as we'd lose them instantaneously.
Second game started strong on marines, but as soon as Fades came up the game shifted. We held five RTs, and specifically, we held Cargo, but aliens continued to bite back res constantly. We attempted a push on Biodome before Onos/Exos, but were unable to push due to the tiny entrance and excess cover in front of the room. Many marines died, and no one mourned. We set up a gate in Ore Extraction (bad spot by the door,the cover in that room is pretty wild for aliens) several times and attempted several pushes on Ventilation, resulting in nothing but lost weapons. During one of our pushes aliens came through mid, got a tunnel and destroyed our base, relocating us to Furnace. Upon being forced to constantly rebuild back nodes and a sustained twenty (maybe more) minute push on Ventilation, Aliens began to recap the map. We used several ARCs (6?) to push Vent as well as Exos, but Aliens managed to hold their doorway (see images below) better than Pavlov's house. They had three gorges, a crag, a shade, and two Onos blocking the doorway. Several attempts were made to kill the Gorges with jetpacks, exos, etc, but the room is exceptionally cramped with objects and players, and the entrances tight, that Gorges outlasted everything. We lost a dozen Exos in the time at the doorway to Pavlov's Air Conditioning. There was no real way to back off the door, as soon as that happened aliens ran amok in Generator. We lost our ARCs twice, and then we were pushed back to Furnace again.
This process repeated three times. More on that later.
As Aliens and Marines were both able to hold four or more nodes, the game dragged on. Eventually Aliens killed me enough times in Control to warrant a Hive drop, which they did. After my frustrations, I suggested putting a sneaky gate in Water to bum rush Biodome. We did, aliens did the same in Furnace simultaneously, but Beacon is overpowered, and we had Obs everywhere (which didn't reveal as many aliens as we would have hoped), we continued this strat with Control, all the while players were ARCing Ventilation, and Exos were holding ground. Control down, Vent down, Biodome Hive rebuilding before a concede. They attempted the sneaky tunnel as many times, but again, Beacon is overpowered, and aliens aren't given such an ability.
Overall it felt frustrating, unable to hold nodes even with Cargo, Skylights being blocked by phase gates. This was exacerbated by being relocated later to Furnace, which made it so that our res was incredibly far away from combat.
This spot caused serious problems in pushing the Hive. It was just a constant stalemate where three gorges healed and biled in addition to a Shade and Crag. This was against ARCs (x6) in Generator and several exos which died over and over and over.
Hard to see skulks in this area due to the excess in deep orange light. It's a similar problem I've been trying to tackle in Refinery, I upped the white value of the light in Ref, but it's tough to fix this without making the room cleaner in general.
These vents (and specifically the drop) caused a lot of problems just due to their distance from the actual floor of the room. Players would see skulks on the minimap in Water and not know where the vent popped out due to their near hidden location. Players of both teams would accidentally fall down and have to spend time in combat to get back up to help buddies, or get annihilated due to the blindness they'd have from players who know their location. They're also incredibly irritating when trying to chase a skulk, as if he gets in one of these, he's gone and I have to use valuable time getting back up. I'd raise them up to be closer to the floor of the room.
Shipping just has way too much cover by the xeno exit. Pushing Shipping from Xeno is scary due to all the props, and killing lifeforms escaping this path is near impossible.
Currently skulks (and well, pretty much any alien) can just easily rotate around marines without even using vents in this area. It proved very, very difficult to keep res in late game due to this. Aliens can also just disappear into all the different paths in this area, making the harass almost never ending. Very frustrating.
I'd cut these plant areas in about half in every instance just due to their size. Skulks can hide easily in them, and at about half, a skulk is still mostly hidden, but it doesn't have the depth it would otherwise. It would also open up hallways better, which is important for combat.
Stuff like this is just crazy for vis blocking, though. I'd trim the plants a bit in areas where the foliage is crazy intense.
Getting stuck on these coming out of the infantry portal is awful. Pls kill. Especially during base rush.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
edited November 2017
Thanks Zavaro, this helps a lot!
I've pushed another update:
-Moved Ventilation location 256 units away from the map
This isn't much, but it adds a bit more traveltime between Ventilation and Biodome/Maintenance.
It also enabled me to create more space between Generator and Ventilation, where the ARC spot is
-Removed some pipes in Biodome/Watertreament entrance to create more space for combat
(don't mind some hanging cables ending in midair, which i forgot to scale with the transition of an whole area )
Thanks Zavaro, this helps a lot!
I've pushed another update:
-Moved Ventilation location 256 units away from the map
This isn't much, but it adds a bit more traveltime between Ventilation and Biodome/Maintenance.
It also enabled me to create more space between Generator and Ventilation, where the ARC spot is
-Removed some pipes in Biodome/Watertreament entrance to create more space for combat
(don't mind some hanging cables ending in midair, which i forgot to scale with the transition of an whole area )
Gen-Vent connection feels a lot better now, but the couple games we played had fairly unbalanced teams. Awaiting next TA match eagerly.
ZavaroTucson, ArizonaJoin Date: 2005-02-14Member: 41174Members, Super Administrators, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Map Tester, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Silver, Subnautica Playtester, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
edited November 2017
I had some ideas to make the central part of the map more utilized for both teams but less difficult for marines to essentially police the lane, which is very hard currently. In addition, the change benefits aliens starting in Furnace with rotation times toward the center, by connecting the east side of Cargo (instead of the west) to Lava. It definitely increases the value of Monitoring for both teams, which might be it's Achilles's Heel.
Pardon my terrible two minute Photoshop edit.
It does a few things.
It lowers the number of entrances to both Shipping (Industrialized Ante-Chamber, I miss you) and Cargo by one apiece, by cutting the middle section that connects the center of each room. This essentially forces marines to push hostile territory (Monitoring) or continue on the tram tracks if they want to rotate. This does not change early hive expansion, which is awesome, but does make Monitoring a much more important room to alien expansion from Bio or Vent to Cargo.
In addition, Lava-Cargo lane has been modified to streamline entrances toward the center of the map. There are two reasons. First, this decreases the travel loop around Furnace (which is nearly ten seconds difference from the other two Hives), allowing players to better rotate through from North-to-South through Cargo to other locations. This in turn makes the bottom right side of the map, which feels a bit isolated, a lot more reasonable of a distance to travel. Two, it essentially limits the number of entrances in Cargo to three, instead of the four it has currently. By marrying the middle of Lava to the upper area in Cargo, higher lifeforms can only approach from three spots: Upper Cargo, Monitoring, and Shipping. The vents stay, obviously.
The things I've noticed in this map is that it plays like Descent. The multiple rooms of that central hub, play very similarly, save for a lack of middle tech point, which severely limits alien desire to expand centrally. You can avoid combat, you can engage, there are choices. It's nice. These changes which I'm suggesting move Cargo and Shipping into.. well... Shipping and Water Treatment in a way. Lanes can be blocked, players can be ganked (though not as much as now).
Take these ideas with a grain of salt, because they're obviously untested. I have a feeling that they might turn Monitoring into another Power Sub Junction type location, which obviously, I would try to avoid.
The tram tracks thing isn't necessary, but it does take away pressure from the northern parts of Shipping and Cargo, which means that marines can't hide in the southern portion of the rooms much as a shooting gallery
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
The longer travel time around Lava Catwalk Furnace area was bugging me too, but I'm gonna try this first, since a more direct connection to Cargo would make a phasegate on the upper level too powerful with too many res nodes nearby.
This pipe across the Lava should improve traveltimes from Cargo to Scanning for Marines and Onos by a few seconds:
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Update:
-Removed vent from Monitoring to Ore Extraction
-Removed vent exit in Power Core (Aliens can still use nearby Skylights exit to flank)
-Removed vent from Skylights to Tram Tunnel
-Slightly moved the buckets in Scanning and Furnace to improve the areas for Marines
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Update:
-Removed a tree in Biodome around the power node to make the non-hive area more marine friendly
-Increased combat space in Maintenance area towards the vent entrance to Ventilation
-Added broken catwalk segment in Ventilation so Onos can get on the elevated catwalks on both sides
-Removed the taller crates in Tram Tunnel outside of Marine Start to improve this exit for marines
-Opened up Cargo a bit more to make it more marine friendly:
The map is played regularly on the TA server now and these games helped a lot to improve the map further.
Thanks a lot to Team Awesome again!
Always happy to help people who want to help the community, @pSyk0mAn
I watched a game a day ago that played far more balanced than when I first put it on the server. I’m impressed and will definitely say it’s being played more often.
I also may have been an evil dictator once or twice and forced the map...
(I’m [TA] Red even though my name doesn’t reflect it)
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Update:
-Opened up Generator area around the power node for better Phasegate positioning
-Moved the vent exit from Biodome to Maintenance more towards Water Treatment, this makes it a bit easier for Marines to laneblock Aliens coming from Ventilation to Biodome via the vent and it improves positioning for Marines pressuring the Maintenance res node.
-Blocked some space around the power node in Smelting for ARCs, so they have to be positioned closer to the Furnace entrance to hit the hive and thus are more exposed to bilebombing Gorges.
-Added descent space skybox as cinematic on top of the regular summit skybox to spice up the sky (experimental)
-Added secret room in readyroom and fancy cinematic (inspired by WALL-E)
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Update:
-Changed Laser Drilling visually to make more sense and be more part of the rest of the map
-Added a 2nd entrance from Lava Catwalk to Laser Drilling. This decreases travel time to Cargo (same time as via Shipping now) and Scanning for Marines
KasharicHull, EnglandJoin Date: 2013-03-27Member: 184473Members, Forum Admins, NS2 Playtester, NS2 Map Tester, NS2 Community Developer
I haven't looked at the most recent version yet @pSyk0mAn, but last night during an impromptu maptesting session, myself and Mephilles saw a pretty nasty Line of Sight in Lava Catwalk.
Basically if you're stood on the eastern side of the room (out side of it technically I believe) you can look through the fallen pipe/broken wall area, all the way to the other end of the room. If may not affect play all that much, but its worth keeping an eye on. I can imagine Onos having a very hard time in this area.
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
Update:
-Extented the hallway and added a broken window segment next to the exit on Computer Lab into Skylights.
This is mostly a visual change to Skylights, but also improves the doorframe chokepoint situation in various scenarios.
-Visual improvements to Skylights (another window coming from Xenoform, which shows a closed off Computer Lab part)
-Visual improvements to the area between Ventilation and Generator
-Added more collision geo in Generator to improve walking over the lowest generator parts
-Added more debris to the broken catwalk area in Ore Extraction at the broken wall entrance from Generator, which now acts kinda like a ramp, so an Onos can get up without going all around the rock pillar. Also added another rock to the rock pillar, which enables Onos to jump up there or attack a phasegate on the higher catwalks.
-Added collision geo around the exits of Biodome to reduce the need to jump into the exit hallways when you come from the side
pSyk0mAnNerdish by NatureGermanyJoin Date: 2003-08-07Member: 19166Members, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Silver, NS2 Community Developer
edited January 2018
Some progress of the last weeks (mostly detailing)
-Rebuild transition between Water Treatment and Biodome (less chokepointy and tight area and one less generic doorframe;
also enables aliens to turn to the left earlier when retreating from Biodome, since this is already a very long line of sight)
-Added lot of flower beds on top of Skylights (kinda like houses with grass roof)
-New lifeform containers and more lights in Xenoform Research
-Added more space and more unique visuals to Ventilation
-Changed lighting in Tram Tunnels and Access and added more details
moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
Some suggestions. Reposting what we talked about in discord, + some other stuff.
Increase the brightness and make the color warmer for the lights coming from the arches so they match the model better.
Add blue sky color omnidirectional lights to biodome to make the shadow color light blue. This will make the lighting there much more realistic. It simulates light coming from the atmosphere. It's to simulate the look on the right.
Increase the radius and brightness of spots in laser drilling so the center isn't quite so dim. Same for the hallway from lava catwalk to shipping. The ones in lava are a good model, though even those could be brighter.
Gamplay wise, open up marine start a bit. It feels really cramped. It's an ideal hive room right now, not so great for sightlines.
Comments
Also, I think you still nee to trim down vents. In fact, I'd approach the whole problem from the completely opposite direction. Remove all vents, except for the ones you really, really want to keep in, then readd/add vents as needed, based on gameplay and testing.
I agree, Shipping is in much better shape now, it feels like you've made some of the exits wider (not 100% if you have, but it feels that way... it "may" be the verticality that gets to me, having staircases that close to bottleneck doorways just feels awkward as hell.
The broken window exit on the west of the room is fine as is imo, its bright enough and draws the eye, the north and east exits can be seen relatively easily, but don't feel good to me, I immediately feel vulnerable going down the stairs.
you're doing amazing work on the map, keep it up!
Update:
-Removed 3rd exit of Control Room (Marine start); replaced it with window overviewing the Access tram tunnel
-Created more combat space around the stairs leading from Water Treatment to Maintenance
-Shrunk some broken catwalk pieces between Ore Extraction and Generator to improve navigation around the entrance
-Added a window in Computer Lab near Skylights to direct players coming from Marine Start better towards the green/open sky area.
-Fixes to lights that were or were not affected by power
-Detailed some of the empty walls in Computer Lab
-Added a few more walls and props back to commander view
-Widenen some doorframes by a few units (as much as was possible without screwing with occlusion culling or adjacent geo)
-Shrunk some crates at Cargo or moved them at the wall to provide more combat space on lower and upper level and make it a bit easier for Marines.
Thanks to Zavaro and the TA Server crew, I can finally watch more games of Origin to improve the map!
Firstly, the small and inconsequential gripes:
- The map likes to make people think that they can go to Access from the bottom of control. It looks like a door when it is not. I saw both aliens and marines get hung up on that many times. Obviously when you walk into that you realize it's a window, but it's not readily apparent when looking at your map.
- To that point I believe the bottom of Access needs to just be done away with all together. It's a pointless room and it serves almost zero purpose especially if marines can't even access it without a long walk.
Now to the bigger issues:
- There is far too much clutter and geometry for aliens to hide behind, not to mention how well they blend in to it.
- Marine movement around the map pales in comparison to the ability for aliens to get from point A to point B. Basically? There's too many vents. Just because marines can also get into the vents doesn't change the fact that there's far too many.
- Marines simply can't respond well at all to the type of harassment aliens can put out on this map, and quite frankly the lanes aren't defined well enough, if at all.
Basically what I'm saying is currently this is very alien sided. It needs to be balanced. I understand that in order for it to get balanced it needs to be played. But please keep in mind that when a server is giving you feedback, instead of debating why you put something in, try to understand why the players are saying what they're saying. Of course ignore the players who say "rubbish map, crap map, etc."
Other than that, I appreciate what you're doing and look forward to improvements!
Second, yea it's really hard to get around as marine. Getting into biodome, let alone actually shooting the hive is damn difficult. I didn't get enough time on the Furnace side but it seemed more forgiving. I didn't explore the vent system that well, but it definitely needs the old marine accessibility if it's going to stay as useful for the aliens as it is to breakthrough the left side. Like the weldable vent in comp lab is no longer there, so it should probably just be removed until weldables are added (lol).
I'll be voting for origin on TA whenever I'm playing there, but it did get the crying change map treatment due to people not knowing the map. Like the fate of eclipse. Sure it's alien sided but, so what.
And, not sure if there is even variable spawns for aliens; but, if there is, make it fixed spawns.. There's just such a higher chance you can balance the map to actually get played with fixed spawns. And that's infinitely better than having variable spawns and never getting played.
I'm not a fan of fixed spawns like in Biodome or Nexus. Games get boring after a while. Making Ventilation the only Alien Start would be a really last resort measure.
Marines can get in most vents, just like in NS1 and when they realize how easy it is to get into the vents in Shipping/Cargo via the crates, for example, it's a whole other game for Marines. I've watched dozens of games, I've seen it happen and I've also seen plenty of marine wins in general. Aliens usually call it a marine map then and complain about lack of cover and hiding spots.
Nevertheless I agree that some vents might be too much and I might remove more in the future, if they remain too powerful after Marines got used to them and know how to enter them.
I updated the map the last two days with the following changes:
-Closed off vent exit in Computer Lab (Tram Tunnel exit might be next)
-Changed the vent entrance into Biodome into a water cave kinda area, so it's less abusable by Gorges harassing Biodome from above. Also added more verticality to that vent to increase travel time.
-Opened up Maintenance a bit (one less sharp corner/cramped doorway)
-Improved Lava Catwalk for Marines (less ambush spots, bit more open, brighter white lights)
I have you know that my alien vision renders pretty much all lights invisible for me so routing techniques you have used with lights don't apply to my alien
The aliens, having started in biodome, were able to hold 5 res nodes where their timings from their hive to the nodes were way quicker than marines. This made it impossible for us to maintain our res due to the distance of the 4/5/6 nodes. We even killed 6 res nodes in the first 5 minutes, which is very solid as far I'm concerned. But we couldn't hold our own despite some very decent laning and just player distribnution through the map. This works better on Tram where the aliens get their 5 "easy" nodes on north side, and the marines have a MUCH easier time getting to their 4th and 5th nodes in repair and elevator transfer.
So what I'm thinking is that because the map gives ALOT of strength to aliens based on geometry, they need to have a harder time getting their res so that lerks aren't any quicker than usual 3 nodes, and then fades being virtually invincible on the map will really need to fight harder as skulks to earn their fade. Would it be possible to ruin cyst pathing between the hives to some extent to make the expansion far more difficult?
Conversely adding access to res for marines would help too, I don't have enough experiences yet but I think Cargo can function well with a double res node on this map. Aliens don't have an easy time keeping the room, and some changes to geometry to make it more marine friendly to hold, would definitely balance the res game to be a bit more fair (but alien lifeform timings still being a problem).
Just some thoughts, because there was very little reason for marines to lose that round. I would love to see it more fair for marines and more challenging for aliens while maintaining how much fun aliens can be to play on the map, which it always has been and is now. It's far and away the "coolest" map, and probably the most cohesive I've seen in the way the visual design actually lends itself to the map's story.
I watched 2 games on gauss' twitch, where each team won one round, so I'm not sure wether you are referring to one of those games.
The map is still new to lot of players. They don't know where to pressure or best positioning.
The winrate seems pretty even right now, but I agree that it's sometimes too easy for Alien lifeforms or too hard for Marines to come back and gain ground on either side of the map.
I tried Cargo double-res first, Ore and Maintance didn't have res nodes back then and it was very marine favored. Right now Cargo already gives advantage to whoever controls the room by being so well connected to the rest of the map and an additional res node would be just overkill and bring to many res nodes in general to the map.
From my experience Power Core and Scanning both need to be more marine friendly in order to shift the balance of the res game for both teams.
The recent updates include a lot of changes. I kinda went reverse-summit_andabove on the map, by removing/shrinking obstacles or moving them more out of the way.
Changelog:
-Created more space in Power Core around the vent exit, thus the vent exit is farther away now too
-Created more space around the area between Power Core and Biodome
-Created more space in Scanning by removing some pipes and moving various obstacles
-Removed a few crates in Smelting (room might still be too lerk friendly)
-Widenen corridor between Furnace and Ore Extraction
-Shrunk a few rocks in Ore Extraction, which were used as cover for floor skulks
-Widened area between Cargo and Ore Extraction near the popular PG spot on the upper floor
-Shortened ceiling pipes in Generator so the room is slightly more open
-Created more space in Water Treatment
-Improved the connection between Water Treatment and Maintenance so the long stairs and verticality is less of a problem
Both games are 2500 elo avg on both teams.
The typical "once Fades get up, marines can't combat the situation" happened the first game. I think it's due to the the excess in cover, whether that's 90 degree angles out of room, doorways, hidden stairways, etc, blah blah blah. It's really hard to kill a Fade, and a huge problem is that it feels like they can come from anywhere. We lost. Onos came up and we had nothing, as recapping Computer and Water felt like useless objectives, as we'd lose them instantaneously.
Second game started strong on marines, but as soon as Fades came up the game shifted. We held five RTs, and specifically, we held Cargo, but aliens continued to bite back res constantly. We attempted a push on Biodome before Onos/Exos, but were unable to push due to the tiny entrance and excess cover in front of the room. Many marines died, and no one mourned. We set up a gate in Ore Extraction (bad spot by the door,the cover in that room is pretty wild for aliens) several times and attempted several pushes on Ventilation, resulting in nothing but lost weapons. During one of our pushes aliens came through mid, got a tunnel and destroyed our base, relocating us to Furnace. Upon being forced to constantly rebuild back nodes and a sustained twenty (maybe more) minute push on Ventilation, Aliens began to recap the map. We used several ARCs (6?) to push Vent as well as Exos, but Aliens managed to hold their doorway (see images below) better than Pavlov's house. They had three gorges, a crag, a shade, and two Onos blocking the doorway. Several attempts were made to kill the Gorges with jetpacks, exos, etc, but the room is exceptionally cramped with objects and players, and the entrances tight, that Gorges outlasted everything. We lost a dozen Exos in the time at the doorway to Pavlov's Air Conditioning. There was no real way to back off the door, as soon as that happened aliens ran amok in Generator. We lost our ARCs twice, and then we were pushed back to Furnace again.
This process repeated three times. More on that later.
As Aliens and Marines were both able to hold four or more nodes, the game dragged on. Eventually Aliens killed me enough times in Control to warrant a Hive drop, which they did. After my frustrations, I suggested putting a sneaky gate in Water to bum rush Biodome. We did, aliens did the same in Furnace simultaneously, but Beacon is overpowered, and we had Obs everywhere (which didn't reveal as many aliens as we would have hoped), we continued this strat with Control, all the while players were ARCing Ventilation, and Exos were holding ground. Control down, Vent down, Biodome Hive rebuilding before a concede. They attempted the sneaky tunnel as many times, but again, Beacon is overpowered, and aliens aren't given such an ability.
Overall it felt frustrating, unable to hold nodes even with Cargo, Skylights being blocked by phase gates. This was exacerbated by being relocated later to Furnace, which made it so that our res was incredibly far away from combat.
Stuff like this is just crazy for vis blocking, though. I'd trim the plants a bit in areas where the foliage is crazy intense.
REEEEE
I've pushed another update:
-Moved Ventilation location 256 units away from the map
This isn't much, but it adds a bit more traveltime between Ventilation and Biodome/Maintenance.
It also enabled me to create more space between Generator and Ventilation, where the ARC spot is
-Removed some pipes in Biodome/Watertreament entrance to create more space for combat
(don't mind some hanging cables ending in midair, which i forgot to scale with the transition of an whole area )
Gen-Vent connection feels a lot better now, but the couple games we played had fairly unbalanced teams. Awaiting next TA match eagerly.
Pardon my terrible two minute Photoshop edit.
It does a few things.
It lowers the number of entrances to both Shipping (Industrialized Ante-Chamber, I miss you) and Cargo by one apiece, by cutting the middle section that connects the center of each room. This essentially forces marines to push hostile territory (Monitoring) or continue on the tram tracks if they want to rotate. This does not change early hive expansion, which is awesome, but does make Monitoring a much more important room to alien expansion from Bio or Vent to Cargo.
In addition, Lava-Cargo lane has been modified to streamline entrances toward the center of the map. There are two reasons. First, this decreases the travel loop around Furnace (which is nearly ten seconds difference from the other two Hives), allowing players to better rotate through from North-to-South through Cargo to other locations. This in turn makes the bottom right side of the map, which feels a bit isolated, a lot more reasonable of a distance to travel. Two, it essentially limits the number of entrances in Cargo to three, instead of the four it has currently. By marrying the middle of Lava to the upper area in Cargo, higher lifeforms can only approach from three spots: Upper Cargo, Monitoring, and Shipping. The vents stay, obviously.
The things I've noticed in this map is that it plays like Descent. The multiple rooms of that central hub, play very similarly, save for a lack of middle tech point, which severely limits alien desire to expand centrally. You can avoid combat, you can engage, there are choices. It's nice. These changes which I'm suggesting move Cargo and Shipping into.. well... Shipping and Water Treatment in a way. Lanes can be blocked, players can be ganked (though not as much as now).
Take these ideas with a grain of salt, because they're obviously untested. I have a feeling that they might turn Monitoring into another Power Sub Junction type location, which obviously, I would try to avoid.
The tram tracks thing isn't necessary, but it does take away pressure from the northern parts of Shipping and Cargo, which means that marines can't hide in the southern portion of the rooms much as a shooting gallery
This pipe across the Lava should improve traveltimes from Cargo to Scanning for Marines and Onos by a few seconds:
-Removed vent from Monitoring to Ore Extraction
-Removed vent exit in Power Core (Aliens can still use nearby Skylights exit to flank)
-Removed vent from Skylights to Tram Tunnel
-Slightly moved the buckets in Scanning and Furnace to improve the areas for Marines
Overview:
-Removed a tree in Biodome around the power node to make the non-hive area more marine friendly
-Increased combat space in Maintenance area towards the vent entrance to Ventilation
-Added broken catwalk segment in Ventilation so Onos can get on the elevated catwalks on both sides
-Removed the taller crates in Tram Tunnel outside of Marine Start to improve this exit for marines
-Opened up Cargo a bit more to make it more marine friendly:
The map is played regularly on the TA server now and these games helped a lot to improve the map further.
Thanks a lot to Team Awesome again!
I watched a game a day ago that played far more balanced than when I first put it on the server. I’m impressed and will definitely say it’s being played more often.
I also may have been an evil dictator once or twice and forced the map...
(I’m [TA] Red even though my name doesn’t reflect it)
I was literally just about to post the same thing.
Curse you, Meph.
-Opened up Generator area around the power node for better Phasegate positioning
-Moved the vent exit from Biodome to Maintenance more towards Water Treatment, this makes it a bit easier for Marines to laneblock Aliens coming from Ventilation to Biodome via the vent and it improves positioning for Marines pressuring the Maintenance res node.
-Blocked some space around the power node in Smelting for ARCs, so they have to be positioned closer to the Furnace entrance to hit the hive and thus are more exposed to bilebombing Gorges.
-Added descent space skybox as cinematic on top of the regular summit skybox to spice up the sky (experimental)
-Added secret room in readyroom and fancy cinematic (inspired by WALL-E)
-Changed Laser Drilling visually to make more sense and be more part of the rest of the map
-Added a 2nd entrance from Lava Catwalk to Laser Drilling. This decreases travel time to Cargo (same time as via Shipping now) and Scanning for Marines
Basically if you're stood on the eastern side of the room (out side of it technically I believe) you can look through the fallen pipe/broken wall area, all the way to the other end of the room. If may not affect play all that much, but its worth keeping an eye on. I can imagine Onos having a very hard time in this area.
-Extented the hallway and added a broken window segment next to the exit on Computer Lab into Skylights.
This is mostly a visual change to Skylights, but also improves the doorframe chokepoint situation in various scenarios.
-Visual improvements to Skylights (another window coming from Xenoform, which shows a closed off Computer Lab part)
-Visual improvements to the area between Ventilation and Generator
-Added more collision geo in Generator to improve walking over the lowest generator parts
-Added more debris to the broken catwalk area in Ore Extraction at the broken wall entrance from Generator, which now acts kinda like a ramp, so an Onos can get up without going all around the rock pillar. Also added another rock to the rock pillar, which enables Onos to jump up there or attack a phasegate on the higher catwalks.
-Added collision geo around the exits of Biodome to reduce the need to jump into the exit hallways when you come from the side
-Rebuild transition between Water Treatment and Biodome (less chokepointy and tight area and one less generic doorframe;
also enables aliens to turn to the left earlier when retreating from Biodome, since this is already a very long line of sight)
-Added lot of flower beds on top of Skylights (kinda like houses with grass roof)
-New lifeform containers and more lights in Xenoform Research
-Added more space and more unique visuals to Ventilation
-Changed lighting in Tram Tunnels and Access and added more details
Increase the brightness and make the color warmer for the lights coming from the arches so they match the model better.
Add blue sky color omnidirectional lights to biodome to make the shadow color light blue. This will make the lighting there much more realistic. It simulates light coming from the atmosphere. It's to simulate the look on the right.
Increase the radius and brightness of spots in laser drilling so the center isn't quite so dim. Same for the hallway from lava catwalk to shipping. The ones in lava are a good model, though even those could be brighter.
Gamplay wise, open up marine start a bit. It feels really cramped. It's an ideal hive room right now, not so great for sightlines.