de_Victorian

Csgo is a very competetive game where prediction is key. Players should have a clear understanding of when they could possibly meet a enemy and where to aim at, how to use grenades and stuff like that. This means, till an certain level, the map should be a static and predictable environment for the player, where in they could experiment, out smart the enemy and outskill them.

When making maps for csgo you need to know this and know the game and probably have thrown away x ammount of greyboxes to get to something that works well and played x ammount of hours.

In your design it seems players can be anywhere, so you can be shot from anywhere (no prediction). This is no fun and will anger the player. There are many areas where a player can be on two different levels, so where to aim? Up or down? A game of chance, again frustration when you die. The map seems very small, which probably makes it very hard to clear out areas because players can always flank at any point during the game. Again, no prediction. There is almost no negative space, which makes it very easy to hear enemies, something which is a key element of csgo, listen and get info. Do u want players to get so much info always and anywhere in the map?

Honestly this looks more fitting for a halo deathmatch kind of map than for a competetive game like csgo and the bomb defusal gamemode. Innovation is nice, but do not lose seight on the core meta of the game. Try to understand the meta first and then try to experiment a litle, not the way arround

This would be a really cool map for deathmatch and/or Arms Race if it gets detailed nicely.

Quote from Soldat Du Christ

6 hours ago, Soldat Du Christ said: I think the real problem is that you don't know where to expect players (yet) and because of that lack of knowledge you assume they could be anywhere.

You need to understand, the majority of the csgo player base will quit playing your map less than half way through the game if they don't understand it right away. A map needs to be intuitive and understandable from just viewing one frame of gameplay. When a player sees a passage they should be able to guess with out going down it to what other part of the map it will connect to. Even when playing Roald's Anubis, I've had players on the other team quit (this was in MM) because they were frustrated with the way my team was able to control the map. A good map can have a high skill ceiling while also being immediately intuitive to players.

Quote from ThunderKeil

13 hours ago, ThunderKeil said: I want to say you're right . . . but at the same time I can't help but feel that a problem that could be solved by allowing players to freely run around the map for 3 minutes needs hardly be a problem at all

Wouldn't be entirely crazy if Valve implemented something like . . if any player on the server is playing the map for the first time, disable weapons during warmup & let it run through its full duration regardless of how fast all players have connected. Yea they still might not know which corners to peek but at least they'd know where they are.

You could say players should just play a few rounds on casual once before jumping into a proper match, but - well - I know I don't.

The only real answer to this argument is that almost all of Valve's maps already make it obvious from the moment you enter the map, how it plays and where you'll encounter enemies. There's no need to just run around the map without weapons, because even in warmup it'll become obvious where you can go and where not. This is what Roald was trying to say from the beginning. The moment a map needs these sort of investments from players aka. being forced to watch without weapons or 'suffer' an -unnecessary- learning curve, it's already too late and no one in his right mind would go through that.

Valve is most likely very aware of this because:

1. They have more than enough maps. Adding new maps from the community is purely suplemental (they're not even required to do it, and would they stop one day no one would complain hard enough).
2. It's been working this way with the right type of community maps for over two decades. There's no reason to change a succesful formula.
3. Arms Race, Demolition and Dangerzone exist to explore more open-minded maps.

I like how it looks, and the least to say is that it does look very different from the traditional defusal maps. However, due to the greybox it currently looks like it feels there's little to no player guidance, hence why one would get the feeling of being lost (not knowing where they are and where enemies can come from). In any event, I'm looking forward to future improvements and hopefully you'll be able to turn this into something quite surprising!

[Blocked Image: https://i.imgur.com/rATjGDM.jpg]

The map lacks structure. Competitive CS is all about control and information. Both teams are trying to either defend or attack one or both bomb sites at all stages of the game. Knowing where the enemy is, what options they have to reach their objective and how you can stop them is key to the cs experience. It allows all players to make meaningful decisions about where to push or where to hold. It removes unpredictable kills and allows each players decision making and aiming skill to decide the match. On the level design side, maps should be built to enable and emphasize this. The official map pool has a number of different takes on how a cs layout can look, but they all share some common design ideas, because they are simply necessary to allow for players to take control over their match. such as:choke points Pretty much all maps have roughly 4 choke points that seperate the T and CT side of the map. Controlling these choke points means controlling which team has access to what area of the map, so they are key in giving matches structure and players control.setup and rotation areas

Bomb sites are a given on any defuse layout, but these always need to be connected to a network of setup and rotation areas, that allow teams to prepare their attacks and move to other objectives and choke points on the map. Level designers need to make sure that the amount of options in these areas are fine tuned. Teams only have 5 players each, so for example, if each bomb site would give terrorists 3 options to attack from, the CT team will simply not have enough players to watch all of them even before any CTs have died. At that point, it becomes more about the luck to choose the right entry to defend rather than the skill to set up a proper defense.

number and type of angles Say you need to defend any given area. The number and type of spots you can position yourself in and the number and type of positions you can be attacked from need to be fine tuned. There is only so much that can fit on your field of view, so too many positions already remove control from the player, as there is simply no way to tell angle to hold. Verticality can add to this problem. Having to move your crosshair large, vertical distances is difficult. Having to do so gives the attacker pretty good advantage.plant zones

Plant zones need to be set up so that Ts get a good chance of planting when attacking the site and CTs get a good chance of defusing. Otherwise the game can end up very stale, where almost no bombs are planted or almost all bombs explode as they cannot be secured and diffused in time.In regards to your map: The ability to walk on almost all walls and roofs removes all that. Choke points become meaningless and rotations become unpredictable as players can move very freely across the map. At the same time, players moving on the walls are exposed to unmanageable amounts of angles from all directions. This is very high risk, high reward without much influence over the outcome. Neither team can really control when or where they will be attacked from. Skill, prediction and planning and overshadowed by trying to rush your enemy from behind with a p90 or jumping on their head with a shotgun. This also means angles all across the map are just unpredictable. You cannot properly defend any area, as you can never be sure where you can even be attacked from. Smokes and molotoves lose meaning, as there are no clear choke points you can block off. At the same time, flashes become overbearing as just throwing them towards the center of the map will flash 3/4 of the server. The plant zones dont encourage skill either. Having plant zones on multiple heights on both bomb sites makes it very easy for Ts to sneak in a bomb plant, as CTs simply cannot watch all possible points of attack at once. It also makes defusing hard and frustrating, as you first have to figure out where the bomb is even planted. Wasting 10-15 seconds just on finding the plant spot will doom most retakes, as there just isnt enough time to clear the site and diffuse the bomb anymore.

No, my objections do not come from a lack of comfortability. They come from years of level design experience in cs, playtesting experience, running playtests for another community for about a year and hundreds of hours of match making. I'm wondering where your confidence is coming from. Anyways, it playtested the exact same way as one would imagine. There was little to no structure each round. Chokepoints and meeting points of the teams are not really defined, so setting up a real attack or defense is pretty much impossible. In most areas, you are open to about half the map, so instead of methodically clearing areas, you are just kind of running through, running and gunning. The map feels much more like a general shooting arena, rather than a comp layout. Theres really not much more to it.

You really hit the nail on the head, @csWaldo .

My initial impressions of the map are that it's extremely open and has too much height variance for players to manage. It all looks way too unpredictable. I imagine players will die to AWPs in really frustrating ways because they will be exposed from so many directions and at varying distances, many of which appear to be really long. The window that goes out onto the rooftop in particular seems dangerous as it exposes the player to so many angles around the entire map. Overall, there are too many angles—you're giving players a lot of freedom and choice but it's overwhelming. If you're claiming that it's possible to clear all of these angles one by one, then I have to say there are way too many angles to clear. If you compare the average number of angles to clear on any given part of your map to what you see on existing active duty maps, this is orders of magnitude higher.

I also think there is too much height gradation with all the slopes. It's okay to have some but it needs to be more controlled than this or else you're introducing too many potential headshot angles. All the rooftops enable players to position themselves for headshot angles as well and it's especially problematic given how much freedom they have to move about the rooftops.

Lastly, the map's design seems to give players an incredible amount of mobility. Call it breaking the mold, but to me it just breaks the CS experience.

The verticality is interesting, the random parkour jumps are not. So much of the map is designed around climbing up to the upper most levels and being exposed from all angles. The benefit is obviously that you can see most of the map. However this isnt really all that fun. You either die trying to climb and now youve wasted your life for that round, or you get up there and get assaulted by someone else who made it to the high levels much quicker. If you do get up there and dont die you then get free rain on anyone taking the main paths down below, who have to deal with all the angles they are exposed to down there, and now have to deal with some guy on one of the half dozen roosts taking pot shots at them. Its high risk, high reward but its not actually all that rewarding and being on the receiving end is frustrating. The map also feels stretched, like all the buildings are way to tall, I feel like a lot of the issues with fall damage could be resolved by compressing the buildings height. The map goes in out of being in proportion with players.

Theres way to many areas that you can get onto, but have no way of getting off of without taking fall damage. The fastest way to get to upper a when your under it is to climb up the scaffold and jump onto the signpost, which takes health away. That is also assuming you dont get killed in midair or fail the jump and lose a massive amount of health. Planting on B is just bizarre, the bottom zone would seem to make more sense then the top, but somehow your more exposed planting on the bottom. This is mainly because all the plant cover protects against the main t paths, meaning you have to secure the area outside of b main in order to get a safe plant. Meanwhile outside of being on one of the roosts, theres virtually nothing a ct can do to stop a plant on the top zone. And once its there, the fastest way for cts to get up there is to climb the 2 giant ladders and make a jump which has a fair chance of failure. Not only a ladders poor for gameplay in general, but having 2 long ones with no cover for the occupant is just not fun.

Theres a whole lot of useless stuff that doesnt really need to be in the map. The entire water area, the exit tunnel on the back of train yard, that pier looking place off to the side of docks. The most bizarre of them though is the crate with a plank ramp right in front of t spawn. The only purpose I can think of is that youre meant to do a run boost to get onto the catwalk, but thats not all that worth it or useful when the main entrance to the building that catwalk goes to is right next to the crate. I guess its meant for if someone is watching the main entrance so you can sneak up on them, but theyll hear you do the run boost and the landing sound.

And lastly I really got to ask, what was your plan here? You came here and said you wanted to make a cs map by first making the layout in forge and some people dismissed it, some people thought it was neat. Then months later you come in guns blazing and start calling out everyone here for one reason or another because they arnt "innovating enough". Then you revealed to us that your making a cs map, having never played the game, having never seen anything substantial about it and having never worked it with the editor before but its somehow going to be the most competitive map ever. Every time someone with experience tried to give you feedback or constructive criticism you dismissed it because you know better? Whats the point in continuing to ignore everyone trying to extend an olive branch to you and help you improve? Why keep coming here if youre just going to keep sticking your head in the sand? Did you think you could just walk over everyone else and just crap out the best thing ever with no experience?

You cant say you can compose better then any every other established composer just because you watched some videos on how music is written without ever having played an instrument and never going to a concert. And you cant act like your first map made in an editor you've never used before, in a game youve never played before is going to better then anything thats come before it.

Other people have pointed this out, but this map could be turned into something interesting by just trimming a lot of the fat and moving the spawns and sites. Listen to them so your map can go somewhere thats actually unique and not just uniquely bad. I hope you take their advice and change the map for the better.

I can't tell if you're trolling everyone or not @Soldat Du Christ but I had fun playing it last night. It's a cool wacky map to have a laugh over as some people have pointed out. Is it viable for competitive? Not really. But there are some interesting ideas for sure. The main issue is that you don't understand how the game plays and why the existing maps are designed the way they are. Every game and mode, not just for cs, has its specific elements and requires a certain design. That's what makes them unique. Once you get the hang of the game and its quirks you can begin to experiment with breaking some rules, but you need to understand what rules you are breaking for that to work.

I hope you'll dig through the feedback and improve on some things. Even if it doesn't end up as a viable competitive map, it can stand on its own as a casual fun map. Good luck!

I find the overview map really sexy, interesting geometry and layout. From that it feels the spawn points are in the wrong place somehow...

Anyway I'm not sure if is worth spending all these words on map design theory, it would be clear to anyone that doesn't know Soldat's background in Halo mapping that the map doesn't follow the common conception of a CS map.

What I'm really interested to understand is what you want to get out of this @Soldat Du Christ. I think you can tell from the feedback here and previous discussions that you can't expect to put this out in the workshop and become the most played custom map. So what do you want to get out of it, is it just a learning experience for the tools?

I can see this working well in a fun mode (Flying Scoutsman, Arms Race, DM) as it is, if you want it as a viable de_ map there's no way you are going to convince players with words. You either build it for a small community that is open to try wacky maps (3Kliksphillip has created a whole new mode and his community has been having fun building and playing on his server) or you are going to have to compromise and leverage some of the interesting concepts you've got going on. For example, reading about the rooftop gameplay makes me think it would be interesting having movement happening on two distinct layers of the map, ground floor and rooftops; it could be interesting to reverse the current state of affairs and make the rooftops the main way to get around (read: add appropriate cover, vantage points) and having to drop and expose yourself to plant the bomb. I could go on

You should honestly reconsider what you want this map to be. Your're hardly pushing boundaries and inspiring others here. Verticality, free movement and jumping puzzles are nothing new to cs so much so that the community has made entire game modes around those things and they have been popular through multiple instances of the game. Many old cs layouts feature large verticality, uncommon layout structures and other novel ideas. None of this is news to us. The idea of a fun, casual map is nothing new either. People have been making them to play with their friends and on LANs since forever. We have playtested maps like this here before. And they can be good fun. However, none of these maps claim or try to be competitive because they simply are not. What you are doing with this map in regards to competitive is pushing boundaries in the same way that playing chess with only kings would be pushing boundaries.

It was obvious that this would be the case with your level from the start to a lot of us but when we told you, you acted like you know better than all of us despite barely ever having played the game let alone made maps for it. We still playtested it and everyone at the playtest gave you the same feedback: It was kinda fun, because it was very chaotic and wild. But it also didn't even rate as a competitive layout. The concepts youre trying to add to the game simply don't work on a competitive level on the scale you are trying them. If you want this to be a competitive map, you need to actually understand how competitive is played and build your level towards that. Dismissing this feedback from the entire professional community as "you guys just didnt learn the map well enough and you just dont care enough to figure it out" is silly and arrogant. So, figure out what your goal is here. Wanna make a crazy, fun map that has all the features a competitive layout is generally missing? Go for it. Just dont keep telling us about how it is actually the best competitive map ever and all other maps are stale and generic. Because by your own admission, you know nothing about that. Or try to make a unique, well working competitive layout. There is always room for innovation and new ideas. But if you want to subvert the rules, you must first properly understand them. People here are generally very helpful and give you tons of great advice and feedback. Just stop dismissing everyone and take some of it.

If a map isn't intuitive, it's bad design. If by the end of a match players still haven't figured out where the encounters points are, it's bad design. If players need to watch a video to understand how to properly play it, it's bad design.

Mark Rosewater, the lead designer of MTG coined a game design philosophy that I think applies to all types of competitive games: lenticular design. It's the idea of creating something that on the surface is seemingly simple but as players understand it more they become more complex. This approach produces designs that have depth while also creating an intuitive learning curve. In contrast your map is just outright complex and doesn't have the elegance or simplicity that you see in active duty maps. I don't think you're placing enough value on making design decisions that guide the player and set them on a path to discovering depth.

The biggest issue to me is that you're giving players way too much freedom, to the point where the checks and balances of the game begin to fade away. The incredible amount of freedom players have is also what makes it so unintuitive. Players need constraints. The art is in giving them constraints that still allow for a lot of expression.

I think it's also terribly misguided to chalk it all up to a lack of patience on the mapping community's part. If you think we're impatient, wait until you hear what players say. A lot of players will make their verdict within the first few rounds of playing a map for the first time. If they're dying to AWPs on rooftops halfway across the map, that's GG.

It honestly doesn't feel great to see everyone pile on you like this. Seems like you put a lot of thought into your level designs, and you've probably done some good work for Halo, but you've come here with a whole lot of bravado for someone who has barely played any counter-strike. It would behoove you to play the game more if you aspire to make something that works.