De_tuna

[Simpajo]

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/filedetails/?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. 

 

 

 

 

[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.