Work in progress - aty3dm10

[kaustic]

How's Everyone doing these days? I've had mappers block with this map for over 2 years and finally
over the last few days I have made some progress. There is nothing in the map yet,the lighting is
minimum and may be dark for some but should ok. Just looking for some input as usual. Thanks

Download link - maybe later.

[kaustic]

Still working on it.

[RaspAtan]

Looks neat! Do you mind sharing the file to have a proper look at it?

[kaustic]

Sorry ,been distracted from this lately. I'll have to put a pk3 together. I had been having issues with shadows not looking proper. At the moment I have a different skybox than the one in the earlier screenshots.

[kaustic]

This is where I'm at. Shadows look way better than previous compiles.
Download Link- https://www.mediafire.com/file/2aecgbgr ... 0.pk3/file

[RaspAtan]

This is where I'm at. Shadows look way better than previous compiles.
Download Link- https://www.mediafire.com/file/2aecgbgr ... 0.pk3/file

Thanks for sharing. My humble advice:

- Mark the spot of weapons with a nice texture and brush. At the moment they look like they were dropped by a death player.
- Location of weapons is not ideal. Railgun should be in the middle of the map where the quad is (its a map that benefits campers so you want it to be as accessible and exposed as possible). Put the quad where the MH is.
- There must be incentives for players to occupy all the space of the map. For this you can use items like MH and armors. The map is very open so a lot of damage is likely to happen (plus, there is a quad!). Thus, add one red armor and two yellow armors and place them in locations that force the player to move around instead of being parked at one place, and spaced enough so you cannot get the red armor and the MH in 5 seconds apart. Another example. The only high platform in one corner has no weapon. Why to ever go there? I would put the lightgun there, or maybe the granade launcher (which can then be nicely to attack the railgun room (where quad is) or the highest platform (where I suggest quad should be).
- Where the teleport is, add a bouncer so you can reach the platform immediately above. Currently, there is a big detour to get to it. Similarly for the room where the lightgun is (under the railgun), and every other corner. The more connected the areas the faster the gameplay.
- Too many random items laying around. They distract from gameplay. Items should be enough and strategically placed to motivate players to collect them. For instance, sometimes you have ammo for the RL, GL and SG. It's unlikely in this map that people will have all of them (its openness only means fast paced games). Instead you can have ammo + shards, for example. This gives incentives to go and collect them.
- Some items are not proper. You have 3 x 50 health together in one place, when all you could ever need is 2. Only have 1 in a given location, because that is enough incentive to get them.
- Add a teleport to increase connectivity and flow. For instance, one in the bottom floor (where the shotgun is, or where the yellow armor is) taking you to the high platform in the corner (where I suggest you put the grenade launcher).
- There is an unbalance in the current layout. You can get the quad, and then go up to the mega. but getting the mega is not quick in you are at the other side. So check the accessibility and items are well balanced, otherwise you end up with players in one side of the map only. A teleport can help here too.

Having said that, it's a cool layout. Looking forward to see a new version in the near future!

[kaustic]

As you can tell it took me less than 10 minutes to place the weapons and items. I didn't give it much thought knowing
I would have to move most of it anyway. Thank you for your time to give me some input.

[Fruity]

Cool, It's a pity that there are no bots because I would play, but the map is interesting, I'm waiting for updates (and bots :-D) if it works

[RaspAtan]

@kaustic Hey, no offense intended! I see now that you are an experienced mapper, so clearly most of the comments didn't make sense and could indeed look insulting. Far from the intention. I hope some comments are still of help (like the teleport suggestion), and you can still inspire item placement from my advice. In any case, looking forward to it!

[kaustic]

RaspAtan no offense taken. Fact is I should just label it as an Instagib Map intended for use with OSP, Beryllium,InstaUnlagged and Freeze Tag. Its suited to those those best I feel. I never was a big fan of Vanilla Q3 or CPM so when you look at any of my maps item placement has always been least of my priorities and mostly done with the help of other peoples input because my brain isn't wired for VQ3 since I really cant stand playing it because its too slow and always turns into a machine gun battle because theres never enough of anything to go around when you get past 2 or 3 players in a reasonable sized map.

[Mapsking]

I know it has been a year and a half since the last post, but if you still want any feedback, here is mine.

Feedback for aty3dm10

-Jumppad at approximately (-330 541 370) : 88 is unusually far away from the wall, compared to the other jumppads, and at least in OpenArena, when you hit it, it does not actually launch you onto the ledge in front of you unless you keep forward momentum. It should be closer to the wall, as most others are in the map.

-The area with all the health orbs seems out of place to me. There is nothing going from where I am standing to the corner, and as far as I can tell, there is nothing there. There should be some incentive to go there, like a weapon, or something. The launchpads are hit and miss with positioning, and also where the destination is. Maybe it is by design, but some of the angled launchpads push you all the way against the wall where you land, other ones barely put you on the platform, I think this needs to be more consistent. Also, the positioning of the launchpads and jumppads themselves are inconsistent. Sometimes, there is a border around it, sometimes there isn't one, sometimes it is right on the edge of a platform, sometimes there is space, sometimes it is against a wall, other times, a ways away from the wall.

-Ammo:
Rockets (3)
Shells (4)
Cells (3)
Lightning (2)
Slugs (2)
Grenades (1)
Weapons:
Rocket launcher (2)
Shotgun (1)
Plasma Gun (2)
Lightning Gun (2)
Railgun (1)
Grenade Launcher (1)
It may be fine, but from a technical standpoint, the weapon to ammo ratio seems a bit imbalanced.

-Also, regarding ammo placement, it seems weird, in several large platforms, there are three or four things of ammo, any yet, right next to it, in the corners, there are giant platforms with nothing. Perhaps separating the ammo, and using the huge corner platforms for ammo will be better? Here is a screenshot of what I am talking about, as there is nothing on this giant platform I'm standing on.

-The location of the plasma gun I like, as it forces you to go slightly out of the way.

-At appx. (251 -496 149), the jumppad does not propel you all the way to ledge above, in OA at least.

-I know you did not create a botfile yet, but I created one, and they all seemed to play fine, tested with 6 bots. There was no getting stuck, or doing anything weird that I noticed. However, in some cases, the bots would walk up the side of the steps, on the border on the edge, instead of going in the middle of the steps. In other areas, they went up the middle as expected.

-I like the skybox, I think it is a nice fit to the map.

Still, looks like a fun map, I had fun with bots, and I can't wait to play it with my family. Thanks, and hope you are able to finish this!

[kaustic]

Fact is I haven't touched this or any other map since my last post. Maybe I'll finish it. Remove all the weapons ,powerups ,ammo like I said in my last post
because any instagib mod wouldn't need them anyway.