Map Testing Program General Discussion - Games

[QUOTE=EArkham;45437607]I posted this on TF2maps in the rd_asteroid thread, but I thought I'd dupe it here. These are my suggestions on how to alleviate the current bad choke at mid. Now with cheesy paintovers![/QUOTE] Boy, you literally nailed these changes (which I really like, btw). Were you read by someone at Valve?

[QUOTE=Kidofthecentury;45496269]Boy, you literally nailed these changes (which I really like, btw). Were you read by someone at Valve?[/QUOTE] Valve said in the beta maps blogpost that they'd read any discussions linked to them, and I know someone linked this thread to them. Even then, Facepunch's TF2 forum is probably the largest source of bug reports, suggestions, and contributed content for TF2 on the internet, and Valve probably does glance here every so often. Anywho, while I haven't been able to play the new Asteroid, the fact that they moved the robots up and readded an underground path is proof that a higher power exists

I checked, and I'm pretty damn sure that there is now no secure sentry placement that covers every entrance into the base. You [I]might[/I] be able to get one on ground floor that could "cover" them all, but it would have to turn around to shoot people half the time, and a pyro could probably just M1 it to death around a corner without any trouble.

Definitely looks like they saw the paintovers I did, heh. Almost worry they were watching me while I played, too, cause they fixed a spot I would sit on as demo above the balcony, and fixed those stairs (which I think I got knocked back into the water EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I tried to use them). I understand why they combined the two new route ideas from the paintovers -- the large-window entrance and the tunnel. In my paintover, the tunnel would have been almost as fast to enter through as the main ones, and I think the Valve's philosophy is that flanking routes have the trade off of more travel time invested.

[QUOTE=EArkham;45497516]Definitely looks like they saw the paintovers I did, heh. Almost worry they were watching me while I played, too, cause they fixed a spot I would sit on as demo above the balcony, and fixed those stairs (which I think I got knocked back into the water EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I tried to use them). I understand why they combined the two new route ideas from the paintovers -- the large-window entrance and the tunnel. In my paintover, the tunnel would have been almost as fast to enter through as the main ones, and I think the Valve's philosophy is that flanking routes have the trade off of more travel time invested.[/QUOTE] On the plus side, we know that they are genuinely listening to our feedback.

Asteroid is really good now. I'd like robot's corresponding letter to be added to their killfeeds, and maybe to have the cave tunnels widened some.

[t]http://i.imgur.com/Uadqxen.jpg[/t] Not sure how this guy managed to do this, or if it's even capable of being reproduced. I just noticed it when cycling through waiting for respawn.

[QUOTE=Steel & Iron;45528865][t]http://i.imgur.com/Uadqxen.jpg[/t] Not sure how this guy managed to do this, or if it's even capable of being reproduced. I just noticed it when cycling through waiting for respawn.[/QUOTE] I've tried to get to that spot the furthest i could get to not using noclip was this [t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/46478771240277719/565499C9F5F82725437FB9B8987D12B590B9BE50/1024x576.resizedimage[/t] However you can actually build buildings in that same spot.

I just had the strangest bug where both teams managed to win in RD. The enemy team won by collecting the cores, but we won by having our core return at the same time, triggering both the winning and losing sound effects. Also, it would be greatly helpful to add a dropped power core timer to the HUD instead of having to look directly at the core. It's probably recycled from CTF and it often it bugs out anyway so you can't tell how much time is left until it resets.

[IMG_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/6PtNJ9O.jpg[/IMG_thumb] Not sure if this has already been posted, but this railing on Cactus Canyon doesn't clip. Confused the hell out of me when I just walked through it on accident.

[QUOTE=ihatecompvir;45694451][IMG_thumb]http://i.imgur.com/6PtNJ9O.jpg[/IMG_thumb] Not sure if this has already been posted, but this railing on Cactus Canyon doesn't clip. Confused the hell out of me when I just walked through it on accident.[/QUOTE] Actually, I've noticed a couple props throughout the game letting you pass through them in a buggy sort of way. I walked right through a bunch of planks on upward, and there's one pile of snow with some wood around it near viaduct spawn which I could actually jump off of, but if I stood on it for too long I'd sink through. Might've been some weird fucking server glitches, or maybe TF2 is just messed up right now.

[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;45694475]Actually, I've noticed a couple props throughout the game letting you pass through them in a buggy sort of way. I walked right through a bunch of planks on upward, and there's one pile of snow with some wood around it near viaduct spawn which I could actually jump off of, but if I stood on it for too long I'd sink through. Might've been some weird fucking server glitches, or maybe TF2 is just messed up right now.[/QUOTE] I can safely say this isn't just a server glitch. I went back on Cactus Canyon in my own game, and surely enough it doesn't clip. Bullets and projectiles also just pass through the railing. I'd imagine the glitches you discovered aren't server glitches either. It is, however, possible that Valve broke certain stuff with a change they made.

I orginally posted this over in MUS but I figured I'll post here too in case Valve is reading: Cactus Canyon has gotten a lot better but I do think it still need some work, for example blu spawn on the first stage can be pretty hard to push out of sometimes since it's just the two entrances very close to each other, I would like to see them add another entrance a little further away (maybe on or by that little wooden platform near blu spawn). Also it seems like on the last stage it's very easy for blu to cap once they get to the last point, I almost never see red defend that. I would like to see that last point reworked a little.

RD_asteroid issue: Just played a round on red team, we won by capping out the robots (it was a close and fun game for what it's worth). During humiliation, [b]time for the map ran out[/b] and instantly it said BLU won due to having more points. This didn't change humilation status (BLU was still in scaredy mode, and RED was still crit-boosted, etc) This might be an issue on other maps & modes, but this is the first time I've seen it happen so I'm reporting it here.

I feel like if you're going to make the robots run around haphazardly after being damaged, you might want to make it so that friendly bullets and projectiles can pass through them instead of blocking shots at the enemy. Sometimes I feel that the beep-boops just get in the way and function as the equivalent of a moveable chest-high wall.

The one thing that really gets me about Cactus Canyon is how the stages are set up in [I]reverse order[/I] of how difficult they are to attack. Which is the opposite of how it usually goes, right? Normally, as BLU pushes further and further into the map, it gets harder to attack, starting off pretty easy but getting more challenging as time goes on, culminating at the final point where BLU has to push through the most defensible area of the whole map. Cactus Canyon kind of turns that whole thing on its head. [B]Stage 1[/B] is a cramped Goldrush-style setup with one chokepoint after another. It doesn't help that half those chokepoints have rollback zones in them, which just makes them even easier to defend since a single slip-up on BLU's part means the cart rolls all the way back down to the bottom. In a lot of games I've seen, BLU will spend like half the round just trying to get up the first ramp, only to have to deal with another chokepoint just around the corner at the first control point. [I]This is at the beginning of the map[/I]. This stage is the easiest to defend by far. [B]Stage 2[/B] is a lot less cramped than stage 1, and actually has some open space for players to move around in instead of funneling everyone through a corridor all the time. It only has two major chokepoints: the area by the first control point, where you have to get the cart through the archway, and the area in front of the second control point, before the cart goes up the ramp. The stage also doesn't have any rollback zones, which makes it a [I]whole[/I] lot easier on BLU compared to stage 1. [B]Stage 3[/B] doesn't even have a setup time, which instantly starts RED off with a disadvantage. If they don't immediately clear off the cart and buy themselves some time to set up sentries, BLU can easily steamroll across the whole first part of the map up to the first control point, possibly even past that, since BLUs can just cut across the tracks and harass the REDs as they come out of spawn. The final cap on the tracks with the weird tug-of-war thing is really open and hard for RED to lock down with sentries, which basically makes it the opposite of stage 1. It's more about the combat classes all coming towards the middle of the map from their spawns, and the back-and-forth action of the two teams fighting. Except, you know, RED has to lock down the tug-of-war area for 10 minutes to win, while BLU only has to hold it for a minute or so until the train comes. It's a lot of fun, but I don't think I've ever seen RED actually win this stage.

I have been working on this for a few weeks. Basically it is an archive with all the Mann Co. Beta Map builds from when they released (Build 1) to what they are now (Build 6/6.5). All the maps have been renamed so they will work with the normal TF2 versions. [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81688479/tf2/TF2%20Beta%20Maps%20Evolution-Archive-Release%201.rar[/url] Hope someone would find this interesting and resourceful. :wink:

[QUOTE=Bitl;45786616]I have been working on this for a few weeks. Basically it is an archive with all the Mann Co. Beta Map builds from when they released (Build 1) to what they are now (Build 6/6.5). All the maps have been renamed so they will work with the normal TF2 versions. [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81688479/tf2/TF2%20Beta%20Maps%20Evolution-Archive-Release%201.rar[/url] Hope someone would find this interesting and resourceful. :wink:[/QUOTE] If I recall correctly, renaming .bsps makes them unplayable.

[QUOTE=DrPyspy;45786947]If I recall correctly, renaming .bsps makes them unplayable.[/QUOTE] It'll mess up cubemaps, intro screen photos, and bot nav meshes, but it should still work fine.

[t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/27340285087939546/5688AC69D26B844142348E1A3846D542D8DA044D/[/t] So when Valve raised the ceiling height in this flank, they forgot to move up this light with it. pretty annoying when you're trying to jump around there

So is asteroid not proving popular? It's been my go-to when I look for a server to play on, but over the weekend, I never saw any servers with asteroid that had players on them. Lots of cactus canyon ones though. :P

Asteroid doesn't even show up in the beta quickplay for me, just Random and Payload, no Robot Destruction.

[QUOTE=Bitl;45786616]I have been working on this for a few weeks. Basically it is an archive with all the Mann Co. Beta Map builds from when they released (Build 1) to what they are now (Build 6/6.5). All the maps have been renamed so they will work with the normal TF2 versions. [url]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/81688479/tf2/TF2%20Beta%20Maps%20Evolution-Archive-Release%201.rar[/url] Hope someone would find this interesting and resourceful. :wink:[/QUOTE] Awesome stuff, nice to know there's some more people saving the maps as they progress along out there! Was just wondering, would you happen to have the .vpks from when the July 8th update hit (when the maps were first introduced)?

[t]http://puu.sh/btS1h/2055c004bc.jpg[/t] Red side small healthkit seems to have been duplicated.

On "lower" settings, I get this huge sun sprite which washes out one entire side of mid: [t]http://cloud-4.steampowered.com/ugc/531745346270694919/A83947A2D722FC784B284A7A9832B349ACF14A27/[/t] This makes it fairly difficult to play in mid since looking to one side obscures enemies. I say "lower" in quotes because I run TF2 in two different settings - one for gaming, and one for taking screenshots. My computer is reasonably powerful (GTX 680 w/ 4GB, Intel i7 4770K, 32GB), so there's not a huge difference in the two settings I use. I don't have forced LODs, lower texture quality, etc, mostly just removal of things like motion blur for the gaming setting. This screenshot is from my gaming setting. The excessive bloom does NOT happen in my "high quality" config -- in fact, I don't even see the glow at all in the high quality config. Naturally it must be a setting that I have turned off in the lower quality gaming config. However notice that the sprite is off center from the sun in the skybox, which makes me wonder if it's also to do with something incorrectly set in the map itself. So two goals with this post: 1) if Valve is reading, maybe take a look at whatever env_sun is in the map, make sure the HDR settings, etc are intentional 2) if anyone knows what config settings control something like that, let me know -- I've already tried several that I thought might affect it

[t]http://i.imgur.com/KoRs0uC.png[/t] What irks me is that there's barely any difference between the location of the Core Carrier while on the core and out of the vents past the lasers. Since the Core Counter and the distance gauge seem to be used for the same purpose, you'd think that they'd have the carrier icon start at the far left. Yet it starts arbitrarily closer to the middle, reducing the visual effectiveness of a very short distance gauge. Some landmarks would be helpful: out of the vents, past the pillar, etc. As comes with visualizing 3D space on a 2D line, when the Core is carried through the zig-zagging vents, the icon moves oddly back and forth Also, the same problem is present in CTF, but here, timing of dropped Cores is sometimes crucial to victories. So some sort of timer on the HUD would be really helpful.

[QUOTE=EArkham;45982127]I say "lower" in quotes because I run TF2 in two different settings - one for gaming, and one for taking screenshots. My computer is reasonably powerful (GTX 680 w/ 4GB, Intel i7 4770K, 32GB), so there's not a huge difference in the two settings I use.[/QUOTE] Then why do you use it? That build seems powerful enough to run on ultra.

Because the "lower" config makes things a little cleaner for identifying enemies. For example, shadows on high quality look amazing but IMO are too dark for easy target recognition in gameplay. And I still do actually get fps drops on high when there's a lot of action going on in one area. Little minor reasons like that. I'd be fine with ignoring the bloom/glare as a map issue if I could find what setting controlled seeing it.

I think it's been mentioned before, but the current iterations really feel like 2Fort Redux; two identical bases where you have to capture something that's deep inside. The robots and points add a little bit of variety, but it needs something to make it stand out. There was a step in the right direction with the teleporter in spawn that allowed for redirection of gameflow. However, now it's just a linear push towards the enemy spawn. Here's hoping that they do something with the little room/elevator inside spawn.

<kicks off the dust from this thread> So here's a couple of minor issues regarding jumping in rd_asteroid. This one is probably temporary, but just in case I felt I should point this out. It's important because if you're used to backing towards the narrow stairs (either as a defender reacting to a jumper/scout coming in on the sniper deck, or an attacker trying to jockey against a sentry nest), that jump on RED's side can be a killer. To fix this, I'd keep the aesthetic but just playerclip it so you don't have to jump. [img]http://i.imgur.com/hYKXddl.jpg[/img] This next one is an issue I meant to bring up a while ago, and honestly I just forgot. The series of jumps isn't bad, but it's very much unintuitive to have to reverse your jumping direction at the top. My suggestion on this one is to just reverse the brushwork blocks so you're jumping in the same direction all the way up. [img]http://i.imgur.com/3Q7ZDCS.jpg[/img]