Posts by Lykrast

Well here it is, updated the map to now have a mid once again, as always available in the workshop.

It draws some inspiration from Season (mainly the lower area that gives cover, and kinda the vent), but I hope it'll be different enough in its angles and such. I also removed the fancy stairs for now because they were a nightmare to work with on the navmesh.

Updated overview in case you don't want to open the workshop link :

Spoiler [Blocked Image: http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/489018224652391856/304A6E135AE5F86F29A613BA5F4321E8F51CD145/]

Quote from Vaya

2 hours ago, Vaya said: having no mid seems risky..are both bombsite openings dynamic enough to make the map fun?

Well that's kinda what I wanted to test... kinda hard to tell those things with bots and friends who are rarely available...

Quote from JSadones

53 minutes ago, JSadones said: I'm not too sure on no mid too.

What are rotation times? Because it looks like they take a while

I think it's like 12 seconds when going through CT spawn.

Quote from JSadones

55 minutes ago, JSadones said: Also for defending T's it's pretty easy to guess where the CT's come from. T's only have to push out a bit of the bombsite and they can just wait for the CT's to arrive and line them up.

Yeah, I see how this can be an issue

The main problem I had was that mid has always been badly done, mostly because I never knew what to do with it. Also as I said, it's quite hard to get things right with only the help of a few friends (that aren't good at judging this kind of thing either). What I probably need to do is also to get the mid/sites connector right, because I fear that, with the already existing 4 entrances to the site, a 5th one could become overwhelming (mostly thinking about Santorini A site and Nuke B site); although this is probably less of an issue with B due to how the arches area is made. I could overcome this by cutting down more entrances, but I remember people didn't like at all when Ts only had a single entrance to B without taking mid (they couldn't go directly to the arches at that time).

But still, thanks for the feedback guys. I would also gladly take any suggestion about mid, even if it's just a small one.

Sorry, I have submitted my playtest (Aftermath) a bit too early, would it be possible to just cancel it ? I'll resubmit it once I'm sure about it for good. Sorry for the incovenience.

Map has been updated, you can check the updated screenshots on the workshop page.

Most notably, mid has been completly removed, it was bland, it wasn't really good and the only purpose it really had was to be a quick rotate between A and B, which it did poorly. Both sites also got their share of changes : B got its cover remade (which includes a fountain/pool thing filled with water, which I'll remove if it hinders gameplay too much) and now sits on slightly elevated ground (like Cache B site or Inferno B site), the house entrance to B was greatly widened, T now have some cover to defend themselves against CTs that decide to push the arches entrance; while A was completly redone to not be basically a poorly reproduced Mirage A site, the apps route also no longer leads to a balconey, but rather to a drop down area that, once crossed, gives T another entrance that has some slight cover.

I'm a bit concerned about the long line of sight in CT spawn, but it was the only satisfying way I found to have rotate times not blow out of proportion (especially considering that mid and its fast rotate is gone), but I figured that other maps (like Cache) do have one so it may not be that big of a deal.

I also included the radar overview below so you don't have to open the workshop page to find it :

Spoiler [Blocked Image: http://images.akamai.steamusercontent.com/ugc/489018224645222359/8E59BB325F871095563A9C6A46FD1625F57C38E1/]

PS : I also included a tribute to the very first version of this map (it wasn't public at that time) in T spawn.

Quote from Vaya

6 hours ago, Vaya said: - You need to think about level flow- for example that counter out of T spawn- why is it there/what does it add to gameplay?

I think it was some decorating thing I put there in the very first version, and just kinda left there... I think I'll try to find a way to keep it there for the looks but like heavily break it so you can walk through it.

Quote from Vaya

6 hours ago, Vaya said: - I know you said the detailing is temp but I don't think you should be adding any yet. IknowIknowIknow its tempting but layout should be your focus just now

This detailling pass was mostly because I kinda forgot how the last playtest went and thought it was playing good. I was wrong but hey, at least I have a theme now.

Quote from Vaya

6 hours ago, Vaya said: - keep it simple and don't copy paste other maps bombsites

I know... this was kinda not intended but I didn't have many ideas at the time (old A CT entrances were very bad). The thing is since I sometimes have some shortage of ideas I just kinda see what "good" maps did to give me more inspiration, then trying my best to make it different enough (which didn't really work on this version of A, I hate myself sometimes).

Quote from Logic

6 hours ago, Logic said: As @Vaya said, focus fully on the layout. Use dev-textures and only create simple structures for now.

Here is some visual feedback:

Thanks for the feedback, although I think it's important to say that I just decided to remove mid altogether (its only real use was to quickly rotate between bombsites, and it wasn't done in a great way). Will try to fix the apps awkwardness (everything's gonna be different on the sites anyway) and put cover on T to B.

As for dev textures only, I still feel like putting textures in, just to make it a little bit less bland and because it doesn't take that much time to do; but it's my choice if I want to waste some extra time to make areas I'll probably rework later a bit more pretty...

Well it's been 6 posts in a row and more than a month without news, but I'm back with a bigger update.

Updated download and screenshots (including overview) available on the Workshop : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=659156801

This one comes with heavy partial detailling, setting the theme of this map to an old european city (like Inferno or Italy) that surrounds some modern facility (more details will come later). It's not really cohesive as of yet, but it does set the tone.

Gameplay-wise, cover have shifted around (mostly on T to B and on A), A was moved away from the T entrances, CT to A routes were changed and CT can now go mid once again, with access to a catwalk overlooking it (although they will take time to reach it). The vast majority of obvious AWP angles (those I could find with my friend) were also tested, and shouldn't be obnoxious visibility-wise.

Quote from 4qker

On 16/4/2016 at 2:45 PM, 4qker said: So i dug around some more and found that if it's happening to new demo files, the demo file must be corrupted. Ofcourse this is horrible news as i would either have to schedule another playtest and have the first go in vain

Don't worry, this also happened to me on my first playtest, as well to some other people if you go back a few pages on this thread. It sucks, but they are probably aware of the issue already.

Another big update made after the last playtest, check the workshop to see it : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=659156801

This comes with a bit more partial detailing, attempting to cut down some line of sights; but the main change is to completly close off the CT mid entrance. Taking mid as terrorists was just impossible once the CTs got their hands on an AWP, coupled with the fact that the only benefit to get mid was the ct flank, this didn't make it very appealing. Now, it's still possible for CTs to contest mid through the mid/A connector, although it's not as required, since the mid/B entrance only serves as a secondary entrance to the arches, and the mid/A connector is a very tight and exposed entrance. However, mid still serves its purpose as the fastest route to rotate from one bombsite to the other.

Big update to the map, which is now available on the Steam Workshop because it's much easier to update there : http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…s/?id=659156801

A lot of the changes were made with the feedback from the playtest in mind, including widening most of the corridors, removing the sniper nest on mid, changing the balconey in A (which is now extremly similar to Mirage's), allowing the terrorists to enter B via the arches without having to take mid, adding cover to B, and improving visibility as much as I've felt appropriate.

I also put some minor detailing by replacing the big orange squares with colored Nuke crates and putting some textures on the A ramp and on B.

I've looked around in the workshop version, and I have to say it looks really good and I can't wait to see its final version. However, I must also point out that the nav mesh didn't seem up to date (some areas of the nav mesh were like it generated around a prop that isn't there), and also that the map is huge and has a lot of pathways, which kinda makes it not that intuitive to navigate (although that's maybe my fault, since I prefer small compact maps).

Just hoping that there'll be a playtest of this, just to get a good feel of it, as I feel like this is the kind of map (open with large areas) where bots won't do any justice to it.

I went back on the map a bit, and so I have a few minor points of feedback :

• This, you should probably fix it before your upcoming playtest
• Radar is much cleaner, good job on that, although I would suggest (even if it's not the top priority) to highlight the buy zones in green and the plantable area of the bombsites in red (just some transparent plain rectangles will do the job for now)
• In the workshop screenshots, add a radar without the callouts next to the one with the callouts (just personal preference, as they make it a bit harder to read)
• The .kv file that is mentioned somewhere in the workshop changelogs is strangely not packed into the file
• The radar files are strangely packed twice into the file, maybe you had a little issue with the workshop publisher (which should pack all of these files on its own)
• The ladder isn't covered by the nav mesh (nav_generate doesn't do it on its own (and it's really annoying) in case you didn't know, you need to manually point at the ladder and use nav_build_ladder)

Also, you should probably update the radar on your post.

I happen to have some problems with my demo file too (de_aftermath_a5), once the warmup ends, everything stops moving, despite the chat, killfeed, bomb planted notifications and round win notifications still working. Also, it displays in red in the top right hand corner "WARNING: CL_FlushEntityPacket, Update delta not found".

Firstly, I want to thanks everyone who participated in the playtest and gave feedback, it was a great time.

Secondly, I started to work on the next update, which will come later because I want to check the whole list of feedback and the demo (which are not available yet as I'm writing this) to make appropriate changes rather than with what I remember from the playtest.

So, while it's not final, I thought it would be appropriate to show roughly how it's going via this overview (as most changes I made are visibile from it) : http://imgur.com/WAVrWEl

I've wandered a bit on the level, and I can tell the following things (couldn't do a match with bots yet) :

• The roofs are textured on their upper face, which makes looking at the map from noclip AND making the overview much harder, I suggest making them in nodraw since I couldn't find a way to see sadi faces
• Previous point also means that the overview is very hard to read on indoor areas, since all we see is a giant bloc of dev texture
• There are areas where you can take fall damage by jumping down (like the A T access overpass/bridge/thing)
• In general, the verticality seems to be too much, remember that most CSGO players have a very low sensitivity, and that having to move the crosshair too much up or down can be a real pain
• There's an ungodly amount of drop downs, which essentially prevents pushing terrorists from falling back should they fail their entrance without getting killed, and also prevents CTs from pushing the entrance, which in turn forces them to basically camp on the sites
• This is especially true on B where, unless they take mid, terrorists are forced to use drops
• There's a ladder in the A CT access that looks like it's accessible
• The T window with fences that overlooks the A T entrances is clipped off; this isn't a problem in itself, but the first time I saw it I felt like I should have been able to jump on the ledge, then on the fence then drop down from here; either remove the clip or make it a bit more obvious that you're not supposed to jump on that

It looks really good already, and I really liked the map in source (although I didn't play it that much since I couldn't find a server with it).

One thing I can suggest is to zoom out the radar, since there is a LOT of blank space on it that could be easily removed for overall better readability.

Quick update that I finished after the delay on the playtest : https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B83zt…N0JMQnZlRDJ2VDg

Updated overivew : http://imgur.com/8rsF20y

The changes are relatively minor, although it does fix some of my easily fixable concerns (fixed timings on A, widened B arches, changed the T mid entrance to be a little bit less awkward and allow faster rotations through T spawn, sped up A door opening amongst other details) as well as remove a big box on A that obstrued the view way too much for my taste.

This is starting to look really nice, although as RaVaGe said, it could use some more colors on the walls/floors and such, and maybe a non white lightning.

For reference, I suggest maybe you to take more looks at Nuke, which has some blue on the walls on the outside among other things (found an album here : http://imgur.com/a/bfN7S).

This map seems really cool.

However, I found a big problem on the current workshop version : http://imgur.com/WfQG5c5 T spawn is not linked to the B access on the navmesh, which means bots can't access it, it's easily fixed though.

This map is starting to look very nice, keep up the good work!

Although the workshop version still has problems with the custom models for some reason (and why the hell does CSGO have those huge black cubes as error models instead of that small glowing error sign in hl2 games ?).

So, after exploring around the map a bit, I've compiled an album of all the complains and nitpicking I could find : http://imgur.com/a/Cin1j

While not on the album, I also suggest putting ramps in playerclip on each stairs to smooth them up, as well as making a proper radar, instead of that noclip view in the screenshots.

After doing a small match with bots (for all it's worth), the map is quite fun and plays nicely (or at least the A site... the bots didn't want to go B often), I couldn't really find some big problem that makes it unplayable or something like that, so I guess it's fine. Overall, I'll keep looking forward to this map.

PS : I likes those arches you are showing off in that previous post, they look nice.