New Summit changes.
Papayas
Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
Join Date: 2010-07-01 Member: 72219Members
<div class="IPBDescription">I have a few problems with it.</div>Build 180, a lot of disappointment but then again some of the things are AWESOME!!!
The map changes are cool but I had one very irritating problem with it. Us alien had the hive in the crossroads and they kept on attacking us from 3 of the 4 angles you can. We managed to defend it quite well though but the thing was.
The new door that allows people to go from Ventilation to Crossroads allowed them to grenade us and rifle our hive and if they got attacked they would just run back through the door (Then the door would close and lock) and go heal.
I am not saying that this is bad I am just saying that getting Crossroads is kind of a bad choice in the Aliens side as there are so many siege areas there. I would like to see some kind of map change to favour the aliens with this hive. I would suggest putting a wall there so they can't see the hive from that area.
The map changes are cool but I had one very irritating problem with it. Us alien had the hive in the crossroads and they kept on attacking us from 3 of the 4 angles you can. We managed to defend it quite well though but the thing was.
The new door that allows people to go from Ventilation to Crossroads allowed them to grenade us and rifle our hive and if they got attacked they would just run back through the door (Then the door would close and lock) and go heal.
I am not saying that this is bad I am just saying that getting Crossroads is kind of a bad choice in the Aliens side as there are so many siege areas there. I would like to see some kind of map change to favour the aliens with this hive. I would suggest putting a wall there so they can't see the hive from that area.
Comments
Any suggestion how to solve this? i actually have none..
It's a rather big change after all and the map has to get there with furher patches.
Marines needed another route into crossroads, because they only used that huge tunnel entrance before and there were dots all over that place in that one statistic (Marine/Alien kills/deaths).
Anyway, let's go by it step by step:
The route was added because:
-The map should also work for a few more players (more routes and space)
-Map needed a weldable door
-Decrease possible choke point value around Ventilation and with that:
-Give marines the option to have another route into crossroads or deeper into alien territory
-Give aliens another route to attack base, if marines hold Ventilation
The problems so far:
-Can shoot hive from too far away
--This happens from the other entrance aswell, but with the new route marines can't challenge crags, gorges and lerks that should be able to hold the location especially with hive heal. At least that is the idea, because it's not the only location is a NS2 map, where you can see the hive from farther away and/or the entrance (Tram Alien Start, for example). But aliens probably need another way to flank marines on that platform, we'll see about that.
-Door "exploits"
--Currently the doors aren't working as planned in the final stages of the game as far as I know. Aliens don't have any means to open locked doors quickly afaik, commanders can lock/unlock without any cooldown(?).
As of now there seems to be no downside for marines to whatever state the door is in.
You can also siege Crossroads rt from behind the door. This has to be adressed eventually aswell.
Possible solutions:
-A vent behind the crossroads node from tunnel entrance to the door entrance (crossroad side). Gives aliens a good option to flank, regardless from which side marines are coming from.
-A route below the platform between rocks for skulks and lerks (and suicidal fades) to pop up through a gap in the rocks from behind.
-Moving the door more towards marines, so you can't siege node from behind door and marines have a longer way to retreat.
this, or make it obvious that it's not functional, like some rocks in front, or a buckled door (that's harder, I know)
I have tried many times to get through that door but it is always closed. Which is annoying since that means Marines can easily get to Crossroads but Aliens can't easily get to Marine Start/Ventilation. If they remove the door it won't be so bad but it still means that they can snipe the hive.
But the sniping part won't go away. Really not sure how to solve it. Or we just have to accept the fact, that crossroads is a extremely risky hive to take? but so is heliport, and the best and most secure way for aliens to expand is surface access. It has a great ramp to defend and can't be sniped like crossroads and heliport.
This works for that ramp entrance.
The fact that they have to come up the ramp gives the aliens a chance to respond.
I find the ramp frustrating but if I time it well I can take them.
We still are going to make ladders work again, eventually, just not top priority. Don't want to go removing them all from the maps, though.
--Cory
Back in 179 you could just jump over to the ledge from the railing, bypassing the need of the ladder, but now that room was enlarged so that the jump is too big for a puny marine.
I never see Tram on map rotations now, and only occasionally Rockdown.
Aliens get SA, marines get their asses handed to them.
Marines rush SA and kill the hive. Aliens don't get fades and get their asses kicked via phase tech and ARCs.
Tram is a fine map, but it's buggy as hell, that's why no servers run it. It crashes and give players graphical artifacts that don't exist in Rockdown and Summit.
Whats happening with Tram?
I really liked summit for not having any doors for that reason. Oh well.
Whats happening with Tram?<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Tram is getting another pass on it, at the moment. Mostly some layout adjustments and some visual improvements. Unfortunately we aren't entirely sure why its causing so many bugs and graphical glitches, we haven't experienced many of those ourselves. We've mainly been focused on overall game performance improvements, like the occlusion culling, which should help out the game in general. Tram should improve in performance due to those changes, but beyond that we haven't had a chance to really get into troubleshooting the map to figure out exactly what is causing a lot of the issues.
The other maps are still coming along well. "Mineshaft" is just waiting for the new occlusion optimizations, so that can be released, and "Docking" is getting into the final stretch of polish. "Refining" is also progressing, though it doesn't have a fulltime mapper on it, so its coming along more slowly. Sorry, no real ETA's on when those will be released, though.
<!--quoteo(post=1860427:date=Jul 13 2011, 08:17 PM:name=twincannon)--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE (twincannon @ Jul 13 2011, 08:17 PM) <a href="index.php?act=findpost&pid=1860427"><{POST_SNAPBACK}></a></div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sadly doors are one thing that won't be balanced properly until Onos is included... as they are supposed to be able to break through it.
I really liked summit for not having any doors for that reason. Oh well.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Actually, the Onos should only be required for breaking down welded doors, and we currently don't have welding in the game yet. We'll probably have Gorges and maybe infestation be able to open locked doors, that just needs to get implemented. So, theoretically, the aliens won't need to wait until the Onos is added in order to deal with locked doors.
--Cory
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Was it removed? Because last I checked (179) I was able to weld doors shut.
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE </div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Dynamic as in 2 things happen:
Aliens get SA, marines get their asses handed to them.
Marines rush SA and kill the hive. Aliens don't get fades and get their asses kicked via phase tech and ARCs.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
There's some truth to this. As you go down the list (SA, crossroads, heli) those three hive locations feel both further from Alien Start, and harder to defend. It doesn't feel like there's a real tactical advantage to NOT going to SA first, as heli is too easily forced into from the Marine side, and the open layout of crossroads makes defending it hard. If the hive was buried under some architecture (up inside a cooling tower or something, or just having less angles where you could hit it from long distances) so that you needed to approach it a little more in order to injure it, that might help, but engaging it from way down the hallway coming from Crevice/Heli by just having a few marines pour LMG fire into it seems a little too easy.
Ah, my bad, I forgot that was added a while back, for commander.
--Cory
By the way, not meaning to hijack the Summit thread, but if anyone can take some screenshots and write up more detailed descriptions of the kinds of specific bugs and graphical artifacts that they are encountering on Tram, that would be helpful (maybe in another new thread).
Thanks.
--Cory
At the moment both heli and cross are too exposed to be a good choice to expand to. Get up some walls/geometry that blocks some of the long view distances to the hive locations.
Also moving the door closer to marine start sounds like a great idea.
I think you need to make a longer hallway leading from flight control to heliport. And maybe some geometry blocking the view to the hive.
Maybe switching Crossroads hive and harvester is a good idea. When you have moved the door out of siege range.
I also noticed that the cables in reactor(why the change from the name generator? :) imo gen was a better name) are alot thicker (hitbox wise) then they look. I could not sit in the vent and bile the phase gate ;)
Hope you can use the feedback! :)
I'm not sure what other people are seeing on tram, but for me tram is especially prone to occlusion culling errors that happen only rarely on the other maps(after a long time of playing, maybe an hour, various small areas of the map, entirely at random, develop a culling error where nothing gets drawn; pitch black screen).
I believe this bug is very likely to be related to the catastrophic degradation in occlusion culling over time. I shouldn't nag about this, but if the occlusion culling performed as well as it does in the first ~minute when playing indefinitely, I would see no need for a new method of occlusion culling and the game would be very playable(as it is in the first minute or so after starting NS2). If you ever find this bug I'm very curious to see what it was.
Thanks.
--Cory<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
don't know the location names, so i'm going on description.
if you follow the main tram rails from MS, you come to a stationary tram wagon (tram hub?), continuing on the rails there is a bend before you reach AS.
in this bend specifically (and only in this area) i was almost guaranteed to get a black screen when this was an issue. don't remember what builds, but was several.
if i "backtracked blindly" or moved randomly i could get out of the buggy area and restore vision to normal.
when the black screen happened, it seemed as the "camera" flew away forward VERY fast, to like outside the map for example (where it's pitch black).
this happened so fast i maybe saw some residual polygons of the map for 1-2 frames (after normal frames, and before pitch black ones) with ~20-40 fps.
this happened as i went into "the bend" both from AS side and MS side.
other than this, haven't had any glitches on tram.
LOL this! so many times ...siggh..