Lux

[Roald]

I think you are on to something here

Maybe creating Anubis was one big troll to the CS community. 

Let's see what Skyline will bring. 

[NikiOo]

15 minutes ago, Roald said:

I think you are on to something here

Maybe creating Anubis was one big troll to the CS community. 

Let's see what Skyline will bring. 

You're putting words in my mouth. I never implied anything like that. I meant that you're trolling me with these comments. It kinda looks like you're trying to rally the CS community at me, because I off-handedly said a bad thing about Anubis. So please stop.

Besides, the fact that Anubis won the last competition doesn't mean that it's infallible, nor that it has won some sort of undisclosed glazing rights. I hope Skyline brings good things. It already looks more interesting.

[Roald]

I don't think my input changes much, but oke. Thanks for the nice words. I think Skyline has potential, but it just misses some Flare if you know what I am saying 

[NikiOo]

It does miss some flare in that T spawn ngl. I don't get enough vitamin D there and my anxiety is flaring up. Maybe that's why the hallways feel claustrophobic.

Edited June 25, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

As part of my design process, I decided to rank all the maps in the current map pool, based on how good their layout is. Here's the ranking :

I'll have more stuff to show you soon.

Edited June 29, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

Here's a view through the airlock —

I've been playing around with different kinds of silos, to see what works and what doesn't work.

Here's Mars silo —

Here's (purple) Neptune silo —

Here's Saturn silo —

Everything is soaked in a massive cooling pond, which means you drop off the silo wherever you like.

I know everyone likes to post their mood board, so here's mine —

Here's the spray pond pipe —

This pipe above is specifically made to counter zont1x — it's impenetrable and it covers your upper legs and torso so he can't shoot you in the body. It's also just tall enough that you can jump onto it without crouching, but only if you time it right, so all the noobs will be left in the ditch.

[NikiOo]

What I meant by "operation maps"  is — among other things — maps that seem to reduce the amount of team-play and tactics and general pro-active thinking that's required to win, in what seems to me like an attempt to increase the feeling of agency and reduce the feeling of frustration when playing the map with random teammates. I'm not talking about Anubis. You know which maps I'm talking about. You play the map and you get a general operation vibe.

Also, I find it really condescending when mappers place invisible walls in places where you should be able to jump off the map and die. You know the saying, the cream rises to the top, and the dregs plunge to the bottom and die from the kill trigger. Imagine if Vertigo's ledges were clipped off. That would be so pathetic.

Edited July 5, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

Art Update

I made this cool custom skybox using GeoGen. It took 2 iterations to arrive at something I'm satisfied with. The white substance is supposed to be sand, not snow. I don't know if it's maybe looking a bit too snowish. I switched to the other Italy sky texture, because the one I was using previously looked a bit too surreal.

[NikiOo]

Here's some data from existing maps which I collected when I started designing my layout —

Spoiler

Tick is mean across all maps, error bar is 2 standard deviations. I haven't collected any data from bad maps like Anubis or Vertigo. I haven't collected data from beloved community map Cache, designed by Sal Volcano Valarante, because I just needed 7 maps. A loopdy-loop is a closed circuit that takes 8 or more seconds to go around. Choke is time the moment where players will physically touch, which is not the time it takes to first engagement but it's a proxy. I have hypotheses about how some of these metrics affect gameplay. The most useful ones are probably number of loopty-loops, time to choke, choke to site diff, and A to B though T/CT spawn. If you do some arithmetic, you can determine where the post-entry fights / fights with rotators will happen.

Edited July 16, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

I like long-ranged fights. Long-ranged fights show who is the better aimer. Map renamed to Lux.

Site A

The idea here is that the site is very defender-sided if the attackers are coming from only one of the entrances, but the balance skews more towards the attackers if they're coming from two directions at once, so tactical decisions are a strong determinant to winning. The entrances are at opposite ends, like A site on Train. I want it to work such that players can have strong positions but need to be aware of what's going elsewhere on the map, otherwise they'll get shot in the side of the head. You have to coordinate to watch each-other's backs and trade quickly.

Site B

Secrecy is pathetic, so I will show you how far I am into the construction of site B. This is it, not much to see. Just a pipe and some catwalks.

Connector

This is the first of the two routes between the sites that will be contested by both teams. It has an emerald green color for the same reason terrorists spawn underground in Terra -- because it looks cool.

Control Room

This is the second of the two routes between the sites that will be contested by both teams. It has computers that run Windows XP.

Tower

The solar receiver tower used to be one of the bomb targets, but that was too constraining, so now it's just sitting in T spawn for eye-candy.

Yard

Crossfires. Deep crossfires. Many of them. Layers upon layers. Brat/brat-tamer dynamic. Teamwork, utility. Win fights, pounce on space, shoot guys in the side of the head. Clear left side, get backstabbed from right side. Etc.

I call this composition The Transmission. It's super hardcore. Super frustrating, it's designed to maximize frustration. It's masochistic. It's anti-consumer.

Edited July 30, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

I haven't made a proper radar yet, but the layout looks something like this --

And here's some more screenshots --

[NikiOo]

Connector

Connector is themed after a surgical room, because you have to be surgically precise with your decisions and your shooting.

I want to subliminally suggest to the players that everything is on the line. And if you fail, it's over, your license will be taken away and you will be sent off to a prison on an abandoned mining colony to serve your sentence among the worst of the worst.

Radar

Look at this ugly ass radar. I'm embarrassed to put my name on this. I should have listened to Razzle Dazzle and started by drawing interesting shapes on a 2d canvas. Now look what I ended up with. Oh god!

However ... notice how original I was with having two separate A sites: first A and second A. Then notice how originally shaped B site is. This is something that's never been seen before.

Edited August 3, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

The final version is on the workshop. I hope I didn't break something with these last few changes.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3302009197

[NikiOo]

Layout Update

In the last day I rerouted control room into middle / short B, and I shortened the back CT route into A. This will help CTs more safely rotate between the sites, and will also help the Ts more more sneakily around the map. I liked having the long sightline cutting the map in half, like Dust2, but It didn't contribute to the overall idea of the map and it was constraining it in other ways so it had to go. I also reworked the vents. The radar looks much prettier now. I don't know why. Maybe I have evolved as a mapper from the intense stress of the crunch time.

I think this is a pretty good foundation. On a macro level, the concept of the map is that there are -- apart from the routes through CT spawn -- two rotation routes between the bombsites, which are initially controlled by CTs but can be contested by the Ts, and they are connected by a risky vent route. On a micro level, the concept of the map is crossfires and rock-paper-scissors positioning. I will write more about it if it works as I anticipate. I need more playtesting to determine this. I also wanted there to be interplay between the different areas, think how B short on Mirage is a vantage point towards both B and A, oftentimes people connect zones by snakey pathways which inhibit this kind of dynamic.

I had to revert some of the art to make it easier for me to make these changes.

I think the vents are really cool and original. Here's the vents --

The signs on the walls were also a last-minute addition, and some of them are just plain wrong, so don't trust the signs! If they say you're going B, there's 20% chance you're going A. This also contributes to the fun factor, so I expect to get points for it.

Edited August 5, 2024 by NikiOo

[NikiOo]

I don't know if I'll go to the 2nd stage, the layout is still very undercooked. But, anyway, here are some changes I'm working on, which will come in the next update.

Yard

I did some decorating at Yard. The car parking is now a garage and the long sightline at the outer route is gone, making it safer for Ts to stand in the alley, but more dangerous for them to walk out into yard. There's also this elevated platform before yard, from where Ts can throw molotovs into yard.

Reference --

Spoiler

I shortened the buildings as much as I could, to make it as easy as possible to throw utility over the walls. I don't know which side this will favor but I think it will only serve to increase the tactical depth.

A Site

I'm making A site smaller and changing the entrance. The entrance is essentially the same, but with different architectural elements and a bit less concealed. There's only one steam condenser on site now and I reverted it back to the way it was before, high above the ground. There's a really cool parkour section here. Once again, the sky has been made as unobstructed as possible.

Reference --

Spoiler

 

Edited August 12, 2024 by NikiOo