Rump3L

Time for some update.

So I applied some custom made textures from SD across the map and revisited the lighting (best to check ingame)

updated v. =>  https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111814809

Nxt up interiors and models

Knock knock, who's there?! Freya ressurected.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2111814809

Started messing again with this baby, some time passed and after series of playtesting and iterations I can very happily say that the layout got stabilized. Thought it might be cool if I just summerize here the process of layout refinement (WARNING, lots of reading ahead!).

Main versions of the past (radars in relation to 1. - 3. phases described below)

The layout journey

The map started out with its key idea that I fortunately managed to prevail until the end of layout process, that is.. providing a higher amount of routes for Ts, while having a large plantzone area and CTs spawning on the site. The aim with this was to address an issue often found in a lot of defusal wingman maps - maps becoming sth like simple simulators of pure elimination rounds due to its lack of plant & retake scenarios resulting in a pretty bland gameplay and repetitive plays with a small amount of actual options.

1. Into the unknown

First off the map had 5 routes to the site (2 top, 2 bot, 1 mid). This showed itself too much in the early playtest. Even though the mid route was not really being used that much by the offensive team, it still forced the CTs to just stay camping on the site because Ts had way too much map control for free right away and their enemies would just find themselves dead pretty much every time once they chose to move out of the site. Another issue was the bombsite itself, it was overpowered but in a bad way.  It had way too much weirdly placed full body cover causing it to generate a bunch of weird angles and making it for the Ts almost impossible to take the site. Lastly, the upper part of the map was way too disconnected from the rest of the map, taking it too long for both teams to justify the commitment there. Despite all of this the gameplay was not terrible, but not great either.

2. Metamorphosis

Now, the second + third main version was pretty much the heaviest change for the map. Taking seriously the feedback from previous testings I moved the whole upper part of the map closer to the rest of the map and its objective (except T-spawn and their staging area). I also adjusted the bottom part of the map, the site area to be exact. So now there is no overpowered line of sight all the way from bombsite to the spot where the bottom T main route branches out into 2 subroutes. This forced CTs to make a choice to either stay more passive and deal with more entrances, or push out to hold an earlier chokepoint before Ts can branch out. In the feedback from the first version people repeatedly suggested to remove the mid-route due to its lack of usage. Here I have to say that Im happy that I kind of went halfway against that and changed the route into a connector instead. This connector got improved in 3rd version to not have such a cheap U-turn and being less quick. The reason for this is that by removing the thing completely it would just destroy the maps flow making upper and lower map halfs way too disconnected forcing overcommitment upon Ts each round. Cover on the site was redone and reduced. Lastly, I added some elevated positions around the site to add a little more depth. These positions are there to generate high-risk high-reward scenarios, but the way they are built into the map they dont force you to use them neccesarilly. With these changes the gameplay significantly improved, though it was still not sufficiently great to settle down for - yes the flow improved greatly and the map was much more dynamic, but now the site went from overpowered to too weak (this was actually a good sign though). This caused the map to be sort of a lurk and retake map. The cool thing though was that the plant scenarios started to occur pretty often now and it got to a fun experience on a regular basis.

3. Land ahead!

I think the most accurate word for this phase is "depth". Because the site got too weak and the map changed to be way too mobile inviting CTs to be very offensive too easily, I spent days and weeks of just flying & dancing around on the map thinking, brainstorming possible solutions that could be simple enough to be justified without having to change too much or becoming too powerful. This came down pretty much to an addition of several essential cubbies across the map and on the site + some angle adjustments & cleanups + expanding plantzone area further. I started to have a really good feel about the map and the playtests started to show this. Once there started to appear a certain balance between the sites regained defensive strength, maps mobility and flow, the gradual progression of areas and routes, the gameplay shifted to another level. Residing now in the domain of very pleasurable experience you could really tell the players started to truly enjoy the level pushing themselves to be more and more competitive. The site gained an interesting dynamic, where because of its size and angles, you do not neccesarrily have to take over the whole site as a T, but can work with locking down its subareas. Some areas though were still a bit unfinished, namely the droproute being still kinda too hard for Ts each time they chose it, backsite being too opened up to the site producing some unnecessary angles and too quick timings for CTs if going from spawn to the upper part of the map on the lower route. The teams balance was around 60:40 (CT:T, this is without considering a good utility usage that can get really strong on the map and can end up mixing cards for both teams).

4. The Arrival

As the phase name says it all, this is the point where the layout got finally stabilized and where the map is at right now. In this phase I adressed the remaining opportunities for improvement from the 3rd phase. To address the timing suggestion on one part of the map I have moved around a bit the spawnpoints for both teams, fortunately this didnt negatively impact any other timings on the rest of the map. The backsite area received more depth, now it is divided into 2 subareas - the inner stairs part and the entrance to site part. This isolated a lot of angles from the inner part to site, where you still have a line of sight to site and droproute entrance, but its more tight and you have to walk into the backsite-entrance part to get more view. The droproute and the area just before it also received its depth and dynamic. Now Ts have a staging room with window for utility usage before the actual drop and the drop is made so that Ts do not have to neccesarilly commit dropping down, they can be peeking and open up more angles but can still reroute or split before actually droping down. This change also removed a very powerful camping spot in the area that CTs had before. Last thing to note here is that the bottom edge shape of droproute changed into a sort of flipped "V" making the box on entrance to the site free stading - this gives options for both holding and taking the site.

People were having a blast on the latests version, the matches showed themselves in a wide variety of scenarios, rounds for early chokepoint controls, plenty of plant & retake rounds, rounds with split tactics, quick rounds, slow rounds, mindgames with utility usage and elevated positions. The balance ended up on pretty much around 55:45 - 50:50 scenarios. Though, it was really hard to tell if the map has a true ideal of 50:50 perfect balancing, because it became pretty much round-dependent based on the executed strats and utility. You could say that CTs will still have a very very slight advantage on this type of the map no matter what, given the fact that they spawn on the site having plenty of options and freedom to go for and Ts being the ones that have to push every time, but that is something that I cannot change unless I totally rebuild the level into a different map. Because of this I do not see any point of endlessly pursuing the cosistent 50:50 ideal and so I called it a day with this process.

Recent Version

Just a few pics showing some edited areas

If you have been going up until here I congratulate you lol. Guess now it's about right time for me to start biting the nail and jump into a new world, that is.. the creation of custom assets from scratch (not just editing stock stuff). This might take me while but I hope that one day I'll reach the finish line eventually. Wish me luck and persistence!

@Lizard Thanks man, means a lot to me.

Just had an idea to throw in a cheesy aim map to play around with theme setting and ideas. 
Though, I don't know if its just me but can't help it, still feel like the lighting is not completely done, 
like to me it still feels a bit flat as if a bit more of a contrast was missing somehow (feeling it the most in the 3rd picture f.e.). 

Or maybe I just keep staring at it too much and need to take a step back lol. Tbh Ravine has an epic job done to it on a similar weather & time setting

@Radu @Lizard  I decided to keep the snowfall at all costs now and trying to balance between the two approaches. So still keeping just a bit the warmness of snow, yet having this contrast of colder unlit vertical surfaces and warm streetlights, therefore reducing the strain. Nice ref pic though too warm env for my map imo, but the lights seem cool, might play around more with those street lights (and maybe a bit different type of indoor light sources too).

So I landed here so far as Ive shown in my last post and will try to tweak around that

3 hours ago, Rump3L said:

Thanks a lot for the support so far guys,  cool stuff !

@Freaky_Banana Thanks for your input man   So I took your advice while still wanting to keep that snowing effect. Made the brightness light less saturated, ambient colder and lamps boosted up a bit more. Kind of merging both approaches into eachother. Its just like Im really reluctant to let go of the snowfall idea and try to find ways to keep it 

Ola, so I did the comparison and decided to do a little theme basis too. Might be using mixed inspirations from Bergen and Stavanger. Still feel more leaned towards the warm approach. What and why would your choice be here?

@Lizard I think I get what you mean by that. Took a look around on de_rails and yeah its having this forementioned cold-oriented contrast that makes one feel its super bright, but I feel like it still doesnt have such a strong visibility anyway due to the chosen wall textures when in the shadow.

Actually the first image for Freya that popped up in my mind was having  'snow on the ground & some horizontaly oriented surfaces + night snowfall + street lights + variations of white wooden textures with red/blue wood trims & frames' that would give you this 'orange-pinky' warm snow feeling instead of a cold one. So by combining all of that I thought I might get away with it, even if having less bright env light than in the 'cold' approach. Personally, couldnt find any 'truly night' urban snowfall map so far, so thats what got me up.

Sth like this (right pic is from a street in Stavanger in Norway, where you have quite an amount of bright wall materials and street light sources) 

I think for the fun of it the best will be to take a small outdoor part of the map, apply both approaches of env setting separately, quickly texture snow and white wood textures, add a few street lights and compare it. Based on that eventually making a decision.

Anyways, thanks a lot for taking the time and expressing your suggestions! Regardless of which approach I'll choose eventually, already turned up a bit the env brightness and updated imgs in the first post. Feels a bit better already imo. For comparison, here

Cheers

4 hours ago, Radu said:

Maybe you should do a collab with @Freyja

If you're on the Mapcore Discord, drop a message in the Playtest channel. One of our qualified playtest engineers will be with you shortly.

@Radu  well, actually there is a possibility of a collab with someone if the time starts pressuring me. Aight, will do once ready, ty!

1 hour ago, Lizard said:

Layout looks interesting. If you are going for a winter setting with snow I would recommend a bit brighter environment light. Moon light bounces of the snow on the ground making everything looks a lot brighter. You can use this to your advantage because you have a night map (should be dark) but the snow will reflect the light around making everything look almost as bright as if it was a day map.

@Lizard Thanks man, nice tip. So my guess is basically to either stick with snowfall and make env light a bit brighter but also depend more on the warmness of street lights or to abandon the snowfall effect, have an actual moon and make env light a bit more brighter but colder? Because I feel like a certain deal of moonlight gets lost in the density of snowfall and sky. Atm the pitch is on -90 btw

Workshop link

Theme setting => snowy, night, scandinavian (most likely Norway)

Layout theory:

Starts out pretty simple for Ts, upon progressing more possibilities open up. CTs can play this in numerous ways, ranging from a back defense to an offensive chokepoint hold. Connector crossing the middle part of the map provides fast rotates and flanking options for both teams, starting with CTs initially if they choose to hold offensively. Skybox is currently open for the most part.

Previous version showed up in the playtest as heavily CT sided despite the number of entrances. The problem was that the site was way too strong to hold from (too many camping spots, a bunch of weird angles for the pushing team, entrances too close to another). CTs were pretty much forced to stay on such a site since they had a hard time holding further away from the objective. Ts had way too much map control right from the start. Uppermost route took way too long and was too exposed to the site. This version tries to address these issues.

Thanks for stopping by and also, how does playtesting specifically a wingman map on mapcore work?

NEW WORKSHOP LINK

Quite a few stuff were added and tweaked opposed to the initial version posted here. Some places were too open and empty, exposing too many angles or being fully vertically disconnected from below (f.e. the bridge "cat" without potential boosts). The layout did not change much, however certain areas were given some variability and depth. Detailed info in change-log on the workshop page.

New and improved radar (additional illustration of all possible spawns atm for the sake of this report)

IMGs showing some of the applied changes

So far I'm enjoying this and hope you do aswell

@blackdog yeah, all affected by the brush disease for now  I have no experience with custom prop creation yet nor a buddy like this, so I decided to land down the complete set of ideas and their quick iterations/try-outs for aestetics first, before moving into the technical aspects of it and learning the whole prop creation process.

EDIT - Afterthought: There are roughly 8-9 different placeholders, rest is just a quick replication across the lvl that takes like 30-60mins, its for the sake of seeing the bigger picture now.

All right, so the map is finally released on the workshop for playtesting purposes.

Steam Workshop Link

Full Imgur Album

Njoy

Hey there,

So after some time I decided to share the layout overview and some images based on the applied changes. I'm planning to tweak some things and finish up the clipping layer in the upcoming days prior to releasing the map on the workshop.

BEFORE

....

AFTER

A few screenshots

@NikiOo ..yeah they are, lots of stuff changed in the meantime! Once the playtesting phase will near an end, I will surely pack in some fresh custom textures and props (like fish/fruit baskets/crates, custom arches/ windows/ domes , maybe a boat and so on..). If it gets too time expensive or tedious for me, I guess I will have to invite someone aboard.

Yeah, imo overall its best to just leave all those icons out Nice idea/theme/layout btw. Stoked to see where this one goes!

Love it! Clearly an eyegasm right there. 

Definetly looking forward to public beta 

@Roald So I took your advice and gave it a go by simplifying and balancing the layout. Seems to feel better and work pretty well. Its kinda more balanced and that mid to A route connector for Ts revives mid and river pretty nicely . The CT-mid to A connector/entrance I added seems to work as well. 

I haven't yet gotten to B site and its routes, however I came up with one OK-ish cover spot on the site and removed that unnecessary cover on B bridge for Ts. Now it feels much more natural and it kinda explains the idea why there is a main B bridge route and another B river route to the site. 

Also that cover on T river-mid was not necessary so I removed it as well.

Here some screens..

mid to A doors and heaven connector

new B site cover

CT mid to A connector/entrance

@Roald really appreciate your advice and opinions man !

Since this is my first map that I'd like to actually finish, seems like I still got a lot of things to consider now..

Thanks a lot for your feedback Roald !

Concerning the layout, I feel pretty similiar about this. However the whole problem is, having a straight river placed in the middle of the map kinda changes the meta of using a beneficial layout when it comes to LOS and timing. It ends up either having the mid-to bombsite-connectors too early or too late for the T's thanks to the river itself and also due to uneven distances of the bombsites . At first I have already tried to use the usual 3lane 4square layout here but it didn't work out that well here so to make it work I'd have to change the map completely.

When it comes to simplifying the layout perhaps one alternative way to go could be like this..

- since bombsite A is further away than B from T's and lower door entrance to A for T's is kinda chokey therefore easier to defend for CTs , I'd still keep that upper right route to A as well, otherwise taking A for T's could be like entering hell  

- the 2sec boost spot on CT spawn gives an option to CT guy going on A where he can suprise T's by popping out of A doors where meanwhile Ts would be just about in the middle of the bridge, this could patially compensate the 2 T routes to A thing

- removing the ladder/broken window connector would simplify the local area nicely, however not sure how it would play since CTs would have now only 2 actually usable entrances on A retake

- not sure how would B play for Ts, since they would have to pretty much fully commit themselves to B bombsite now and choosing to go mid when there is no other option left would cost them too much time, perhaps reestablishing the T side to mid connector could solve this 

I am messing around with the layout itself for about 3months now and try to ''outthink'' it by making a deviant layout work, however as you've already stated it's quite hard to execute. The more I think of it the less I know it seems  Definetly will have to see how the layout as it is right now will play out in the playtests..