Posts by Simpajo

This is the layout again, sort of explaining what I'm trying to go for. The blue box contains the core-gameplay, approximately 90% of the action. It is just a little bit smaller than some of the more compact levels, but again, I felt that the map needed to be slightly larger for this layout to play the best.

The orange arrows are sort of the main playstyle that I want to encourage and it could've been pointing in the other direction. The T's begin pushing mid, the CT in the other middle begins to rotate and attack from behind, and the T's can then attack either site. This creates a sense of urgency, as the T's really need to push quickly and the CT's have to decide on which way to rotate immediately.

The Purple arrow is the sort of X-factor of the map. It multiplies the opportunities for "mindgames" and while it is crucial in "controlling" the map, you could also just ignore it completely.

The yellow arrows should be slightly longer, but they are sort of why I feel like the map needed to be slightly larger: to make these areas work the best in that 10% of action.

Here is some "blog-ish" update about the changes I've made so far based on feedback

The larger issue was simply that the map was out of scale. Too large in all directions. I ended up remaking the entire in correct scale and that time I kept everything somewhat clean. So I remade everything, but these are some of the more noticeable changes

Main problem: too many angles.

This isn't the best view for this, but I've somewhat straightened the upper path, moved around cover, and slimmed down the upper side. This is a really tricky site to balance, it's meant to be quite CT sided, as that player will probably be alone and probably won't have time for a proper rotate. There's definitely more to balance out here.

A huge line of sight problem fixed, also much narrower/ more cover going towards the site.

Entrance by the stairs removed completely. The visual theme here wasn't interesting enough and though this change the play will first and foremost be concerned with what happens within the blue square like they should. I worked a lot on how to balance that entrance out as it always ruined the timings towards either second-mid/long. Until I realized that it wasn't necessary.

Terrible picture, as they are from the opposite side, but, I remade this lane completely, It ended up playing like a third "awp" duel, which wasn't my intention at all. And the door towards the alternate middle now faces the CT's, the lane still has some of the old "diagonal road" that guided you in the right direction, and the same up and down slopes but they are all much better defined now.

I might be forgetting something, but this might be it for now.

Hey, honestly fun to see a map based on a place so close to where I live (Lund). I'll to try to run around for a while tonight, all I can say right now is that the layout does seem to be a little confusing and have you thought about the possible issue around differentiating footsteps when the sites are geographically so close?

This is my first serious attempt at completing a level for csgo beyond merely the gray-box phase. I began working on it in March and through the various setbacks and struggles I've had with the SDK engine, I wasn't able to share anything for a long period.This was first designed to be set in Lisbon until I found out that Catfood was working on that theme and thus I accepted defeat and set it in the Old town of Stockholm. Now the only lingering problem with that switch is that I haven't yet found a good substitute for the iconic tram cars in Lisbon which I had designed into the layout, but I'll probably think of something appropriate. This was only one of the smaller setbacks that I've faced so far, and I'll go into more detail about them later, this has still been a surprisingly fun to work on so it definitely won't be my last.

This map will enter the mapcore competition.

Ref / v1 / v2

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=945424591 I'll update this within a few days with a radar.

This below is sort of what I am trying to accomplish in this level and what I am now focused on rather than perfect detailing and exact timings.

Design goals:

In this project, I wanted to push my level designs skills: decide on something that seems to be lacking in the general csgo-map-pool and design the layout purposefully after those specific goals. So I wanted to try and design a rather simple level where the CT's start off with a very strong high-risk/high-reward position that overlooks much of where the T's would set-up before pushing and this would make the first phase of each round CT sided.. I think this might seem counter-intuitive, and not what you would assume to be a good thing for csgo. But I think that it could potentially offer interesting gameplay decisions, partly because it isn't common and goes against how most teams tend to play on most maps.

This area would play out as an alternate "mid", connecting all three lanes (Also overlooking the T's set up area) and providing both teams with a great route for rotations. To balance this out, For CT's, the bomb sites are slightly further apart for a functioning post bomb-plant rotate. And the T's would have a hard time faking an attack and then having time to transition to another lane, without controlling alt-mid. This means that sitting back on a site as a CT until you are certain where the bomb is, is also a high-risk decision. The CT's have a really strong flank/disrupt possibility, so to balance that out, they'd also have to rotate faster than normal to have enough time for a retake.

The goal of this is to try and hopefully blur the existing phases in the "typical" round of csgo, there might not be a twenty-second delay until the CT's start to retake the site, but sometimes just a few seconds. Having this as a possibility might result in more interesting gameplay.

Another principle I wanted to design around, is giving each lane a "passive/aggressive" position for both sides with each of them having clear pros and cons. The key her is to make sure that the passive position, also has a huge downside as it is easy enough to give the aggressive position one. For the T's this aggressive position is necessary to gain control of the alt-mid and the CT's need to play aggressively to defend all entries to it.

I also wanted to have to separate AWP-meetings, each with two different possible positions for each side (where the AWP player will peak from) but both would be within flick distance. I don't want the AWP duel to be just about perfect spawn/ping, as it sometimes does on say, inferno or mirage. But the fact of the matter is that csgo maps need to have definitive "middle", for players to meet up around so I also tried to make one appear "the real middle".

I also think that having a very logical lane for eco-rushes, also might benefit the gameplay, because it opens up opportunities to play with expectations.

The bomb sites.

The goal of the bomb sites was to have them mirror each other. Both visually and also in terms of gameplay. A white-blue, B red. A open, long. B closed, short. A Easy to take. hard to hold. B Easy to hold/hard to retake. One lane that might purposefully be neglected in most games, the lane furthest to the right and another route below A site. making the CT retake easier from B->A but not the other way around.

I think that this is what makes levels fun in the long term: planned out logical paths for each playstyle and weapon that are easily understood within a few games and when everyone is on the same page, you'd hopefully have the players starting to play against each other, as the break the expectations on how you "should" play from any given position.

Another point about the aggressive/passive positions is having one the bomb sites being more suitable for explosive, aggressive plays. So the B site is supposed to have the most logical route for eco rushes. And having the A site being more suitable for a fully geared out T team. Again, this is to hopefully make the map more fun in the long term.

As the B site is harder to retake. It is also meant to be easier to get exit-frags on, as you have to exit that section to be cleared from the blast. This would also be more difficult than most maps, on the A site, but I think that is a good thing. it means that the round doesn't stop until it really has stopped.

Errors: For people just starting out, this might be good to consider to avoid problems further on. Something I now wish that I'd followed from the start.

You should always Alt-P before compiling your map to make sure that there aren't any serious brush errors. Sometimes that's the only reason the map doesn't load/open/takes too long to compile. "Failure to find dedicated server" - Reinstall the game, Copy-paste project into a new SDK window and recompile, then verify game files, don't publish your map with uppercase letters/numbers or spaces. it probably doesn't have anything to do with your internet/router. I really can't believe that the client doesn't just do this automatically. "Playable area extends too far!!!" - This sometimes happens accidentally when moving around the entire level, that parts of the level pass through the skybox and sometimes the error remains even after fixing it. So copy paste into another window, redo the skybox and it should work.

if compiling takes too long, you might just simply need to compile in a new window. and again, no draw the inner sides of the brushes, remember to build complex brushes in the no-draw texture and really make sure that you don't have balls of brushes overlapping. In the early part of development, compiling will be quite fast either way, but I now know that smaller issues can add a disproportionate amount of time to the compiling and this definitely starts to add up quickly. So don't get too lazy with the no-draw texture and strictly square brushes.

Now in the next post, I'll go over some of the design decisions and changes I've made so far.

All I can say is that I like to see some sense of "visual" ambition, and this seems to have it. Just remember not to add detail where the players will be and to only do it in places that you can/move/change should the layout change later on. There is always something you'll want to alter later and should change once you balance it out.

1. Definitely, don't spend time on it in the beginning, and as sirk said, they shouldn't draw away attention from where the players should be focusing, that's why they work best in the middle of corridors, in slightly closed off/darkened rooms.

Yes, finish it for socialism!

Yes, I don't think think that it will be very complicated once you have a radar and play it once, but why make another cache or season?

Hey thanks for taking the time.

Yes, I have been worrying a little about the "slants" in terms of optimization but this is largely a mock-up, so I haven't tried to make them optimized yet, particularly on the "long" route (the farthest right on the overview) which also is too open at the moment. The thing is that I want it to feel like a "real" city once it's all detailed and thus avoiding too many squared-off sections and corners. But yes, I might have taken that too far.

The "1-2 long lines" per site, is definitely the largest problem at the moment, but I wanted to design around a proper usage of smokes and a coordinated team, maybe more so than that in most maps.

But the main idea behind the map is that the CT's are supposed to have a very strong way of counter attacking or flanking the T's (the "apartment" section in the middle of the overview) so that if they're there, then the rotation would be quick but to balance that out, I figured that the "standard" rotation between the bomb sites needed to be slightly longer. Basically, I want the CT's to have aggressive positions to hold that are very high risk/high reward while sitting back in on the site would also be unfavorable in some situations.

So, I'd appreciate any more thoughts on these "explanations", if you think that they hold up at all and such.

This level is set in the "old town" of Stockholm.

Now hopefully with this competition, I'll finally have the motivation to stop lurking around here and actually complete a csgo level for once.

I'll go into more detail behind the design progress and my thoughts on this level in a separate post in "3D" with an updated radar but if you have any questions - feel free to ask anything here. I will keep this thread sort of "clean", with just substantial

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=940473120

I just want to say that I'm really happy that you organized this

What happened to this thread? Such an sad thing to not see this map finished. Despise not having posted anything yet, this thread really got me interested in mapping/leveldesign.

Things I picked up on playing them map.

1. Why is the Terrorist part of the minimap so big? Most of it will not be used in 90% of all games. It makes the minimap more confusing, as none of the objectives are in that area, even though it's the largest, and your eye focuses on it right away. it would make more sense if the big starting area were on the counter-terrorist side of the map.

2. The color scheme, most of this map, is really white. as most walls and the sky is white. So if you added some Red/blue colors on the map, for example. it would really give the level some life. you have some light blues going on in some areas, maybe you could try and enhance that, and make the sky slightly orange-ish.

Why did you change the mid from the last thread "WIP.playtest" or something similar, I don't really see what you gain from it.

Ï think the bomb site on B, should change. Firstly, the actual bomb-area is really small, which means that it doesn't offer a lot room for strategy in where you plant the bomb. The second thing, is that it is in a corner, further limiting the possibilities of ninja-defuses and things like that. I'd put the bomb site straight from where the T-s enter the site. or right on the far-right 'encounter point' on your last picture.

On A site there is a small window looking over one of the entrances. I think it's really too small for an CS map, it's not fun to play against, as you cannot smoke it without being in vision by it and it is at the same time a really good holding position without an clear weak point. Super easy for the CT to hold, and unsatisfying for the attacking team.

I also think the map would play better in an deffuse map, if the Ts cannot jump up to the CT-mid area. Maybe if it required boosting. but as it is now, I would bet most games on this map would just be the t-s rushing mid every game, as it is easy to take, and offeres alot of opportunities on attacking both sites.

I will come back with more things, but this is what immediately struck me.

Man, I love the brushwork and color theme you have here, it's clean and simple, yet doesn't look bland. Even in this early state. Keep up the good work. Will playtest it and maybe I can give some comments on the layout.

Well I didn't mean to say that it is confusing because of lack of detail, rather, you have certain aspects of detail where most people would assume they represent something and they don't.

At the door connecting Mid to B, on the left, there are these stairs, you can't go up on, but they very much look as if you can, there is something similar going on from the Ts path to B, just a short cut, where you think you should be able to walk on, but can't.

The player should never have to be confused about what's what. And about the confusing area, if you place each prop, with an specific reasoning (this goes here to defend against people taking this path, but is weak if they go this way) I don't think you can make it messy, unless you just put too much of it.

Hey first time posting here now aswell, I just appreciated the effort you made thus far, looks really solid for an first version. The rest is just my honest opinion.

The middle is great, don't change the idea of that too much.

There is alot of visual clutter even in this early state, both on the way to A aswell as B.

The room connecting middle to A, has an small path right above the entry to mid, which you can't enter,then why have it there?

The area between B-site and middle has tons of stairs, doors, that don't lead anywhere, and as an first impression, you really think they do. They look good however, so maybe you should use them for real somewhere else, like instead of the slope from tspawn to A.

The whole B area is really messy. and having the bombsite in the corner doesn't provide as much strategic options compared to if it were in the center, around where the small pillars are. that way the terrorist would have alot more ways of defending it, and more ways to attack it.

A- really far too open, it just looks plain boring and has very little to create some stragetic depth. I think you should create an much smaller entry from T, (still big, just not enormous) and add an smaller entry to the far right of the A room. And something else for the actual bombsite.

T-spawn has some silo's and an door behind them, seeing this on the minimap, with the very close middle just above it, you naturally think that the door connects them, and it doesnt,

just confusing.

Mainly, make the rooms connecting the middle to both the bombsites less confusing and smaller in size and more about leading the player straight towards the bombsite. There should be nothing happening here, just crystal clear that what's important is ahead, not here.