Skyline

[MadsenFK]

Me, @Roald, @Twinnie, Laszlo & @g3om  are teaming up to make de_skyline, a bombsite defusal map set in a highrise hotel/resort, based around Santiago, Chile.

Artistically speaking, we're aiming to create modern and sleek environments with a lot of focus on emissive lighting, atmosphere and nice compositions to carry the visuals.

We know its a lot of interior spaces, but we'll try and break that up with courtyard areas, and one bombsite being set outdoors (its gonna be on a rooftop) 

WORKSHOP

Here's our current mood board

Edited August 4, 2024 by MadsenFK

[Jinqs]

rooftop gang 
looking forward to what you guys create, looks like a fun & colorful theme

[Atseek]

I love the theme a lot! Gl boys

[Lukyvald]

goated team and a sick theme, gl

[MadsenFK]

Try out our first greybox version of Skyline here!

[Roald]

Just like last time, let's share some progress of how it started and what the design intentions are. 
Now it will be time to playtest them and see if it works out and we can make it work at the end. 

First of all I wanted to design something less straight forward than the average layout. Something more into the direction of Nuke. 
After doing some reference gathering of our theme I came up with a 2D design of a layout that resulted in a map if Overpass & Nuke would make a baby
I wanted to have quite some elevation changes for the bombsites and a quick rotation options and combine more enclosed areas with open spaces. 
Here is what we came up with:


The idea would be that the CT's can have a dynamic set up where they either play aggressive and play for map control around the early chokepoints (blue). In this case they invest 3 CT's around the yard/secret/mid area to defend A site and the additional route to B site, where 2 CT's main task is to defend the lobby area and lock the door on that side. The risk is losing the fight and having to give up one side of the map early on while the reward is gaining early info and map control.

The other setup (cyaan) would be more passive where CT's on A play closer to the bombsite and give up control on the initial chokepoints and play for info peeks to anticipate on that. There will be less risk involved of losing control over big areas in the map. but they give T's more room to move around and use the flanks and overrun the defenders/getting the bomb down. 

The two key areas in the map would be the Secret staircase and the Elevator shaft (white), which allows for quick rotations for either team. 
What we hope to achieve is having bombsite B be easy to attack/retake while bombsite A is hard to attack/retake, because of the nature of the bombsites being closer and further away for the attacking team. 

Edited May 21, 2024 by Roald

[spa]

This looks incredible. Idea for alternate name: de_infinity

The CT's start next to an infinity pool and the T's start in a nightclub called infinity?

[MrTrane18]

The dance pad idea + materials could give so many possibilities. Creating an retro dance club? Modern one? 
 

The map it self looks stunning!

[Serialmapper]

3 hours ago, spa said:

This looks incredible. Idea for alternate name: de_infinity

The CT's start next to an infinity pool and the T's start in a nightclub called infinity?

Yea, and in the background to hear a loop of Josh guru's "infinity"

[NikiOo]

Very strong Nuke Yard vibes at Yard and very strong Nuke Ramp vibes at Lobby. It feels like the same cover pieces with the same composition and the same overall architecture. Even the routing seems the same. Too much of that Nuke DNA, you might lose originality points for that. I'd suggest that you take more inspiration from architecture and compositions that are unique to your theme, instead of trying to shoehorn your theme onto Nuke. Also, B site feels very cramped — too little space, too many close angles to clear. Maybe take some inspiration from Nuke's B site there — it has just one cube and one cylinder, and still the post-plant fights are super exciting and fun because of all the space and the wrap-around route. A site is really cool and unique. And, this could just be a me-thing, but the ceilings feel too low and claustophobic — you jump and you can almost bump your head into it. Everything except for site A feels tight and cramped, just like Anubis. Mid seems like it's gonna be really boring for the CTs, and a little less boring for the Ts. It's basically Anubis' mid but more boring. I'd shorten those organic-looking benches so that you can walk onto them, rather than having to jump, or get rid of them completely.

Edited June 24, 2024 by NikiOo

[Roald]

Hi there
We finally have version 2 on the workshop ready for tomorrow's playtest. 


Some pretty shots:




General
- We decreased the map in size by moving both spawn points 256 units forwards (-512 units decreased in length). 
- This automatically resulted in the outside/yard area being much smaller and no longer providing super long angles.
- This also resulted in the bombsites being close to one and another  
- Placeholder for the 3D skybox



A site
- A sites balcony has been lowered, reduced in size and is now a CT-controlled area. It has been connected to the elevator shaft and can be a rotation point from B to A. 
- We closed off the room below the balcony and reroute the T's main entry point to the outside area (in parallel to long). 
- The path from B main (above elevator shaft) to bombsite A has been simplified and connects to the pool it self. 
- Cover pieces have been moved around and we provided some more safe plant spots. 



B site
- We reduced the whole B main area in size. 
- We tighten the main chokepoint a bit and moved the covers around. 
- We blocked off some pillars on the bombsite and created more empty space to provide fewer hiding spots. 
- We extended the bombsite to provide a safe plant. 
- The double door has been opened up. 
- The 'orange' staircase has been simplified and only contains 2 height differences. 




Yard/mid
- We moved the secret stair closer to the CT side. 
- We got rid of the two connectors between mid and yard and added a vent system instead that is now more into CT control and also connects to secret for quick rotations. 
- We moved some covers around. 
- Mid has now two entryways for Ts, where squeaky takes a bit more time and gives a sound cue. 

Edited June 29, 2024 by Roald

[Roald]

We nearly reached the deadline to push out another update for Skyline to be featured on the Mapcore Hub this week. 

The overall experience of our last playtest was:
- A site too complicated/cluttered.
- Mid is boring
- Vent system (between mid & yard) too complicated
- Yard lacking good positions for CT's
- Elevator shaft too complex with the 3 floors
- Overall lack of short range angles.
- CT side is hard to know what is going on and respond to what is happening (especially on the other side of the map: B main vs Yard). 
- Overall B main & B side was liked throughout all versions. 

So we decided to do a major update. 
- We completely reworked bombsite A and separated it more from the Yard area to be a own area in the map and did a clean up/simplification. We removed the balcony entirely. 
- The balcony changed allowed us to simplify the Elevator room and make it easier to go up/down. 
- Rerouted the CT path to B main to shorten the angles that CTs can pick and also to easier fall back (timings are also more equal). 
- The secret stair to B and the mid route to A have been removed. Instead we have a stair/squeaky door going down in the secret area, that acts as a mid. There is a window for CT added to hold this angle passively and they can also push Squeaky. T's can use this space to go B or A and CT's have a new quick rotation route.
- We removed the second stair into B site which means T's will be stuck on site on the afterplant, but also don't need to worry on being flanked easily. 
- We opened up a second entrance into yard for T's. CT's could play for yard control and play a forward angle to spot T's going into mid. 

The Goal:
Is to calm down the gameplay, so CT's have a better understanding on what is going on and could more easily predict what the T's are going to do and to allow CT's to also play on a more passive set up and now forcing them to play agressive, but have it be more of a risk/reward gimmick and to increase their rotation options without adding extra complexity. 




1: A site


2: Elevator / CT lobby


3: B main


4: Bombsite B


5: New yard entrance + route to Squeaky/mid


6: New mid + Window room


7: Yard

Edited July 5, 2024 by Roald

[Roald]

Yea yea we are back at it. 
And I hate to say it, but I went full circle again and got back to some of our initial design decisions/philosophies. 


We have been watching the Faceit demos and we were quite unhappy with what I was looking at. 
We made CT side easier to play and calmed down the gameplay which was a good thing. 
But, it also resulted in T's having too few options and most of the gameplay fondling to aggressive plays around the squeaky area which wasn't fun to watch.

So, we decided to reintroduce the 'secret' staircase from Outside to B and rerouted this middle path to go to A as a direct paths for the T's. 
A big change is that the spawns are moved even more forward, making the map smaller and decreasing the CT timings.
CT's have time to smoke off chokepoints and/or push some areas such as Outside & Mid which should slow down the gameplay a bit and allow for more passive plays as well.  

T's now have the central lobby/tunnel system as a controlled area to hold pushes and to execute from. 
Having control over this area will disallow CT's to flank them and keep all their options open (B main, Mid / A main & Outside). 


We will have a few playtests this week to check if the changes bring the expected results. 
Oh, and we implemented the destructible pillars made by Lazslo! More destruction to come in the future! 

Here an album with in game screenshots of the changes: https://imgur.com/a/ylkPr2g (don't want to spam all the giant ass pictures in here :D)
But easiest might be checking out the changes in game: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3247917616

Edited July 22, 2024 by Roald

[MrTrane18]

Spoiler

The showcase video is off the map at 28.07.2024 state

Hey guys!
I've tried out your map. GTA Vice City vibes mix in with other things, nostalgia! Thank you for that! The contest has not reached half of duration time and you guys already delivering such a map, best of luck on the future updates and project it self! 

Spoiler

I've made a showcase video of the map. Hope it is useful in the future!

Spoiler

Stay safe and stay mapping!
#MRTRN

 

Edited July 28, 2024 by MrTrane18

[Roald]

Thanks a lot @MrTrane18

That's a great video and cool to look back at in the future and see how much it will be developed from this point on.