Posts by fewseb

Listen I never said at any point the that the map would vastly improve with these small scene changes, and youre right, @[HP] invisible barriers should always be minimized, but as was pointed out, there are several areas that already do blocked off out of map scenery, I also think you kind of missed the irony here

Quote from [HP]

1 hour ago, [HP] said: OW maps are very small, so any opportunity to show a backdrop is a golden opportunity because it makes the environment look bigger than it is, it makes it look expansive and vistas are usually a lot better to look at than a pile of rubble.

Quote from [HP]

17 minutes ago, [HP] said:

Exactly, it's relatively away from the gameplay area.

These areas are so far out of the way from being noticeable I dont see how it would be any different visually if you replaced the vista with a road, sacrificing one vista that is hardly seen for making a location believable is a fair trade off in my eyes. I could maybe see how the canyon could get messier, but if the fallen rock are the same shade as the canyon walls, I dont agree that it would be all that different form the canyon vista.

I also understand why the roads and streets and paths are like that, I get that its a guiding line for the players to follow, acting like any side path that branches out to nowhere will confuse the players just kind of seems like dumb logic, one of the most basic tenants of level design is drawing the players eye, I cant imagine a team of professional level designers couldnt somehow figure out how to make side paths that dont distract the player but add to the world of the map .

This is also a symptom a larger problem OW maps seem to have, and ive got to ask, why are so many maps seemingly set on a large artificial plateau with a death pit on all sides of the map, Junkertown, Oasis, eichenwalde, Numbani, Castillo and Black Forest to name the most obvious examples.

Quote from [HP]

1 hour ago, [HP] said: You're all about realism

No im not, im about details, details that make a world or a map or anything believable, when the gameplay stops being fun in any game I start to notice all the little things that make the world less believable, these arnt critical flaws in the maps, but its surprising to see the same mistake? design philosophy? art choice? done again and again and again.

I also dont want to come of as a douche here, you guys do this for a living, you know way more then me and probably put a ton of time into these projects to make them the best they can be, but this is my two cents here, as someone who really used to dig the game, it just feels like somethings wrong when Havana immediately blends together with Paris and Rialto in my head less then a second after I see it.

Quote from Minos

2 hours ago, Minos said: I like to think that Overwatch maps are abstract virtual spaces (though I do my best to imagine they are a real place to make them feel as believable as I can). If we would just make "realistic" maps (sacrificing gameplay so the roads can go where it "makes sense") these maps would have the worst gameplay ever Gameplay comes first, the map art is just a "skin" on top to make you feel like you are in a real place, but it's obviously not a real place, it's all smoke and mirrors and lots of little techniques to convey spatial awareness and navigation. Here's some food for thought:

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Some of your feedback is very valid though and we will keep it in mind

Listen, im not arguing that every building needs to be up to the structural code of the local area, or that realism trumps gameplay, to me however, an area should as the very least be possible.

Nobody looks at a counter-strike map, sees all the conveniently placed crates and thinks "yeah thats realistic", however in most modern counter-strike maps, while the crates are improbable, they are still possible. You take de_inferno for example, in older versions, none of the cover would be possible. You have player-height perfectly square wooden crates int he middle of an enclosed town with no feasible way of those crates getting there.

CSS version of Inferno, same story, except now the crates match a bit more thematically and now there's random broken down cars in the middle of stone footpaths, even the APC in the CT spawn area couldnt have feasibility gotten there because of enclosed the buildings are behind it.

Now you look at the latest version of Inferno in csgo, no broken down cars on footpaths, that meant also removing car from the spot called car because no car could actually get there. That apc in CT spawn now has an actual road that it drove on to get there. The man-sized wooden crates in A-site? They can be loaded onto a forklift, that forklift is able to get there from a wooden gate in the pit area, which is also used to explain how the hay cart got to the balcony boost. B-site, same story forklift can carry all the crates there, that forklift gets there from the road the apc came on.

Are any of those giant stacks of crates realistic? No of course not, in what part of the world would you ever see those giant crates, they'd be a massive inconvenience but they could exist. Would anyone stack those giant crates on top of each other out in the open? No of course not, but its still possible in the context of the map. Whiles its not probable, its still possible.

Here are three examples of what could be done to make a map more plausible, all of these replace what I believe are fairly useless death pits, of which the only one I believe has an affect on gameplay would be the Route 66 death pit because of the health pack, but im sure there are other ways it could be done and im not sure it really ever added to the fun factor of the map.

Also please excuse my photoshop paint skills.

Quote from SmityHead

6 hours ago, SmityHead said: Now im safe to say that the layout is final. No more changes except for covers and props. Im still thinking of a good theme. Right now im working on a Dust theme since the map almost look like Dust2's 4 square layout.

You sure thats really a good idea? Aside from how often dust-themed maps tend to bomb out of the workshop, if your layout is really similar to dust2, I dont think you'd want it to look like dust2 as well.

Quote from RaVaGe

9 hours ago, RaVaGe said: stfu ?

no

Quote from Interfearance

2 hours ago, Interfearance said: @fewseb I like it when they merge new and old; for christs sake you can play as a monkey, realisticity is not on Blizzard's radar. However, what I dislike is when they go too far to one side of the mix of generations like the helicopter pad in the final shot. Also Blizzard is super uncreative when it comes to having excuses for things to be where they are, reusing roads sandwiched closely by buildings over and over again for payload. In terms of actual map design, they are pathetic, considering that half the heroes can fly, yet 90% of their maps have no difficult skill jumps or really anything that makes a play on varied mobility. Its very call-of-duty esque, leveraging the tried and tested formula over and over, never pushing the envelope in fear of community push back:

http://# Reveal hidden contents

STRIKING RESEMBLANCE

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Listen I get its an appealing style, just why has it been that for the past 3 maps, there other things you can do with Venice / Paris / Havana other then "look old thing from the 50s!"

Im not asking why none of their door frames make any sense or why they dont have any actual doors, I get it they have to fit a wide variety of characters through those doors, so they have to be a square shape to accommodate those.

But why does a map called Route 66, not actually have a Route 66? I mean sure they can spam that sign prop all they want, but its not a route if it goes directly into a shipping warehouse with no other turnoffs. How hard would have been to get rid of that worthless and nonsensical deathpit over by the defenses first spawn, and just have the road continue on with a barrier in front of it. The road to the warehouse would be a turn off instead of being the one place the Route goes.

Why is Nubani set on top of an artificial plateau where the one road on the map literally only leads from the air port to the museum? It would just be impractical to design a city that way, instead of say having a layered city, which could make sense, they chose to have a giant concrete plateau in the middle of this city, that somehow houses an airport and the reason they did this was because that death pit on the right side of the map was so important to have in the whole two areas it was present.

Theres just these little things that you start to notice about every OW map when you arnt having fun. Good gameplay will distract you from how unrealistic a scenario is, but when your getting shield bashed by brigette every 5 seconds and youre spending half the time walking back to the battle from the respawn room, you start to notice, oh yeah how are people supposed to live and work in the map when theres only one road that goes two places and then ends, but theirs like 6 cars that could drive at most 8 blocks before hitting the other end of the road.

Id like to hear what their reasoning is on this, because based off their time-lapse vids from making maps, they seem to sacrifice grey box game-play for aesthetic a lot.

Also, slight tangent but what is with the naming schemes for OW maps? It seems like they dont want to name anything after real-life places, hence why its Kings Row not London, but then they have Paris and Havana, but they named the Venice map Rialto, even though Rialto bridge isnt even on that map.

Quote from [HP]

6 hours ago, [HP] said: New map is out boyz and gurlz

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Wowee once again we are treated to the "1920s-1980s building and fashion styles that would be over a 100 years old at this point in the game but hey its the 2070s just slap some blue lights on everything" style of map

All the cars look like older models from the 19th century, but now they float!

All the signs and ads are painted directly on the building, even though that style died out because of how quickly it fades and peals, but hey its now with robots!

All the buildings look they are from an age long since past, even though newer architecture tends to overtake older buildings fairly quickly in larger cities and this is set in 2070s (fair enough for Cuba though)

That said I appreciate that they actually seemed to figure out that roads are supposed to lead somewhere, not just from attackers first spawn to defenders last spawn, and while it is a bit too early to tell, they seemed to restrain themselves and only put the death pits in reasonable place that make sense in the context of the map.

Quote from Interfearance

2 hours ago, Interfearance said:

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Figuring out the stupid (but not really that broken) spots they used on my own was so gratifying. This map feels so good now, and it forces the CT's to move away from the standard configuration (2a, 2b, 1 mid). Also the rotation speed being nerfed by the noise makes it interesting because walking makes it like a normal rotate so you can choose. Using smokes to change the map and essentially create new rooms is also pretty sick. Thoughts?

New map bad, Tuscan/Cache/Cobble/Dust 1/Aztec good -Very loud people

Im hoping valve will remake the city scape, looking pretty blurry for how close it is.

Quote from blackdog

16 hours ago, blackdog said: I think its one of those cases where being too faithful to a reference hurts the final product, it’s waaay off the left field for people not to notice and criticise. It just looks dangerous, as in I can’t see how people wouldn’t get their foot stuck in there, so it’s not inviting to be used. I mean, in real life is not meant to be used, so the natural reaction in game is to stay away as well.

You can achieve the same intended effect of metal noise by using metal grills such as this heavy duty stuff used in building sites as well as public installations (catwalks leading to natural beauty spots for eg)

https://images.app.goo.gl/hyKEcqySkpkrUotx7

I would convert the left side to a concrete ramp (or wooden! if the map represents a site in early development). Or make a fully finished concrete set of stairs, but one side has wooden board on it to make a ramp. A ramp would make a lot of sense for moving heavy building materials up and down the height difference, and would be accessible if the final site is intended for public use (not moving goods). Ultimately I think would look more logic/organic.

~

I’d like to see this in context, as in: I’m a bit sceptical that such small positioning difference is so advantageous for one team or the other, it sounds wrong. Not that it’s a bad idea to differentiate peek spots, but the closest example I can think is underpass on Santorini and the two angles are separated by a wall and there’s an accentuated difference in the way you walk up to the spot that makes sense. If there has to be a clearly more advantageous way to peek, than I argue that you should have a clearly different variant (like forking the path to go indoor and come out from a window/door or you peek from a platform which you would have had to choose to get up to before getting here)

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The stair area overall isnt that big of a gameplay area. Its serves as a way for Ts t get to the area of conflict just ahead. (see picture) CTs arnt going to get to the stair area faster then the Ts ever. CTs are most likely to hold back on the exits to the area of conflict or stay on their side. Its not as important as the hallway in Santorini

The noise difference is mainly for two things.

1. The metal_grate landing sound effect is louder then the concrete landing sound, and more distinctive, if the cts can push up, they may be able to hear a lurker or an awper thats trying to speedily get to their best peak spot. Very situational though.

2. In the event that the ts rotate back through the stair well (see picture) a ct in the area of conflict would be able to push up and listen for them. In this scenario, having quieter and louder materials is good for both detecting the amount of enemies and as well as their positions.

I do agree that the bottom of the stairs do look fairly unwelcoming, this was the first time I compiled for that area and have since changed some things around and added ply wood boards. Though gameplay is obviously the most important, the unfinished stairs also served to help explain the stair area a little bit better in relation to whats going on in the map.

Id like to have been able to provide more context as to where everything is as well as the changes ive made to the stairs, however thats currently not possible, as ive run into a little bit of a snag where the game hard crashes the second bots/players load into the map (speaking off, does anyone know why that might be?) so ive tried my best to explain with this screenshot

Quote from Interfearance

36 minutes ago, Interfearance said: @fewseb Thats cool I never knew they used rebar for stairs

They appear to generally only do that in public areas where there will be a lot more wear and tear, from what I can tell private and domestic concrete stairs are either made in a mold or with concrete bricks stacked on top of each other, with a mortar finished put on the tops front sides.

Before and after for some stairs leading from T-spawn to a main area of conflict. The idea between the two separate stairs is that the farther side is more advantageous for Ts to peak with, but makes more noise when running, while the concrete side is quieter but gives the cts the advantage when peaking.

The right side was originally a bunch of metal grate textures and basic geometry, with a low res brick filling beneath. I managed to find a comprehensive guide on how concrete stairs are actually made and got around to reworking the right side as metal rebar used to reinforce the eventual concrete, with a plywood base. The rebar work was left unfinished as to explain why one side was already pored and set, while the other was still exposed.

Quote from UNREA1

50 minutes ago, UNREA1 said: This video from the 90s showcases some of the features. Lower your headphones sound because this shit might damage your ears. Sorry for the pixels!

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We're currently working on a gameplay feature that didn't exist in the original game mode, but that we believe might change the game for the better, pretty exciting one!

Interesting use of a cinematic type ending, does it only play for the VIP or does every player stop have to watch the take off?

Quote from UNREA1

16 minutes ago, UNREA1 said: You wouldn't be able to recall the name of one of those maps would you? I'd like to check out how they do it.

Head Quarters COOP STRIKE and VAULT COOP Strike by Moffien, personally I would contact their make Moffien to just ask him directly, he knows more about the coop strike gamemode and how the heavy armor works then anybody.

Additionally you should contact CTX, hes been making coop and other off-shoot gamemodes since 2014, he knows a lot about all the obscure entities, and has used the heavy armor without hud in some of his more recent maps. You can find both of them by searching coop on the workshop and sorting it by highest rated all time.

Quote from UNREA1

1 hour ago, UNREA1 said: @fewseb I've been looking into the item_heavyassaultsuit, it's got some limitations from what I can see. It only works if mp_weapons_allow_heavyassaultsuit is set to 1, which is alright, we could turn it on, give the item to the player, and turn it back off in one frame. It also replaces the world model and view model of the VIP, but we can just replace by resetting the model after giving the item.

Unfortunately the item changes the players speed (which you can also customize using mp_heavyassaultsuit_speed but that makes the players speed the same regardless of which weapon he is using), makes the footstep sounds very distinctive giving away his position, it also tints the vision to a weird blue color and the voice pitch changes as well.

Unless I'm missing something here I don't know what you meant by being able to dynamically change heavy armor, could you elaborate?

They way valve implements the heavy assault suit into the coop gamemode allows for the hud filter to be turned off, as well as the voice distortion. Ive seen community maps that arnt coop gamemode but use the heavy assault suit without hud tint. Additionally, though weapon speed might be a problem, if the VIP is only using pistols I dont see that much of problem, all pistols allow you to run at 240 units a second, the knife is 250 not that big of a difference since those are the only weapons he can use. The voice pitch shouldnt mater much unless your making him a sub-class of an existing faction, and even still it will make it easier to hear the VIPs status if their using radio commands.

As for implementation, I would try and play round with having the heavy assault suit be item be randomly spawn on the player who is selected to be the vip, through the same methods as the selection process.

Quote from Se7en

6 hours ago, Se7en said: Hello hello, wannabe modder here that happens to know a thing or two.

Unfortunately valve completely butchered the professionals, and by that I mean it's filled with clipping issues, tiny waists and horrible posing. But I'll let HLMV do the talking

[Blocked Image: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/325322519777378306/564940573383852041/sLW7Esc.png]

As you can see from the filenames, the one on the left is using the new animations, it's unusable when decompiled too, idk what valve did to this class, but they really need a revamp ASAP

Im not really seeing anything different between the one in the picture and an in game version, Im not really sure how bad their posing couldbe either, considering they use the exact same animations et as the rest of the t-models, clipping issues are not great either, but almost every faction has them somewhere.

Basically I need red circles and arrows along with a 5 page explanation of what I should be looking for.

Quote from UNREA1

13 minutes ago, UNREA1 said: Thank you for pointing out the heavy armor thing, I was kind of away from CS:GO during the coop operation thingy so I didn't know about that, we'll look into that! About the VIP skin, yeah, we had the professionals body before, but when we decided to add the new head model, we realised the new rigs are different from from older models so it wasn't so simple of a task. So we just went with this for now. But I do plan to bring back a suited VIP with kevlar and helmed with better color scheme.

Thank you again!

How different? I ask because there are 2 different sets of models for each faction, one set is a legacy set left over from before the 2015 animation and hitbox update.

the older legacy set is under

models\player\tm_professional.mdl

The new set currently used for old an updated models is

models\player\custom_player\legacy\tm_professional.mdl

The solution for above 100 armor would be to use heavy armor, just without the speed reduction and hud filter. Valve made it possible to dynamically change heavy armor when they released coop_cementplant on the workshop.

Also, while editing the heavy ct model with a t-face is a good place holder, if you wanted to have the VIP look similar to the old cs game id recommend editing one of the professional models. Add on the bullet proof vest from the danger zone jump suit models, maybe the helmet as well.

Alternately if you want to maintain the heavy armor look to explain the VIPs higher health and armor, editing down the extra padding on the heavy armor and changing some colors would do better to distinguish it from the regular heavy ct model.

Trailers a big eeehhhh, for me dog

Quote from Ringel

17 hours ago, Ringel said: Do you also got a hard time picking the right CT model for your map?

The most CT models don't seam to be suitable. The T models are more suitable.

I guess because they could make them wear whatever they want. CTs are based on true units.

They wear clothes who are not made to make them as visible as possible.

The newest model -FBI- does a better job than most of the others.

But they are also not perfect for this game. The upper body is great. But the trousers don't match up.

Valve should make the trousers match up with the jacket. This would help to make them more visible.

For my map cs_tori I could not use the FBI because the trousers made their lower body almost disappear in some areas.

So I chose GIGN instead. Not perfect but ok. All the other models were less visible.

What Valve could also do is to make the models colorable. At least some parts.

This would help to fit them into every map as good as possible.

Some maps need brighter and some more or less saturated or darker colours.

They could also create a new CT model. A private security guard team.

They would have every freedom to make them most suitable for the game. In real life some of them are very eye catchy like those security guards. They don't have to be that eye catchy. Would be a touch too much.

They also would fit into the world of cs:go. Because private security guards are heavily used in many areas around the world. But I guess to improve the FBI model would be fine.

What do you think?

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First of all, holy shit could you not with all the the spaces.

Second, CT faction is literally the easiest one to choose, What country if your map set in? In or around France? GIGN In or around Germany? GSG-9. Israel, IDF, The British Isles or the EU? SAS

South America, Japan, Canada or Military bases in America? Seal Team 6

If it set in America is it meant to be a fast response? If so use the swat team, is it crime related or a hostage situation, use the FBI.

You should know where your map is set way before you start detailing it, so that you know which factions your going to be using so that you can detail around their color palettes and visibility.

We stand here, we die here! It has been a honor!

Secret War best short, dont @ me.

I bet its nice when half of the responses on reddit were telling you that the visuals weren't good enough (despite you saying multiple times its a work in progress) and that it would never make into the faceit hub looking like it is (despite already being in the faceit hub)

Aside from that, good work on the map so far, I hope you'll retain the orange-yellow in the color scheme when you get around to the art pass.

May the best map win

Quote from blackdog

10 hours ago, blackdog said: I dunno, it’s just infuriating that they implement changes like this and still can’t fix the fucking gun-reset spawn bug in DM, or clip properly the most used maps. Why can’t you surrender a game unless people drop out the game, it’s a vote, if 4/5 say yes I don’t see why not. Etc etc.

I dont think mm games would be very fun if people could just surrender as soon as they start losing, ive personally never experienced the gun reset bug on DM can you explain?. Also while I agree on clipping, I dont really expect much considering even after they updated Office and clipped the main stairs, most of the side stairs and crawl areas are still unclipped, its bizarre they dont have an eye for that sutff yet.

Also, nice to see HLTV and Reddit are already having a meltdown about the -Cache +Vertigo change. Best part alot of the players are using the 1.6 version of Vertigo as their reason for why the map shouldnt be in the active duty.