q4map - geit4dm3b39 - Tournament Facility - BETA 3

[Geit]

geit4dm3b39 - Tournament Facility

[lvlshot]http://goat.gamepoint.net/pics/geit4dm3b15-1.jpg[/lvlshot]

This is a small tourney map, one of my entries in the fragarcade.com map contest. I mainly need feedback on the layout and the item placement. The architecture isn't finished yet, grey concrete is unfinished architecture.

Items: RA+YA+MH
Weaponry: RL+LG+HB+SG+GL

and the download link:
http://goat.gamepoint.net/files.php?act ... fileid=129

[StormShadow]

nice

a) maybe put a ramp-like trim on the side of your stairs, so you dont have to risk losing your momentum by jumping on them?

b) doors to RA seem to open slowly. I always end up smacking into the wall resulting in a dead stop when approaching RA from that direction.

c) RA doors dont exactly look like doors It took me two or three times to recognize that they were doors and that was an alternate route to RA.

To be honest, I like the RA area BETTER before I figured out about the doors It made the path from MEGA to RA take a little longer (so you couldnt run both items as quickly) and made it a little more challenging to grab. Maybe try a version with those doors blocked off?

d) Most of your lights have a detail level of 10. This isnt necesarilly a bad thing, but it makes it hard for ppl like me (with lousy computers) to adjust lighting to make the game more playable.

Check out this thread:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=13335

It has become pretty standard for mappers making 'competetive' levels to set their ambient light on 10, and everything else lower. So when you type r_lightdetaillevel 10; only the ambient will be drawn, and the performance will be much smoother. Of course, whether or not you do this is up to you, but I guarantee some wanna-be 'pro' gamers will bitch about your map if you dont

e) There are a couple clipping issues:


I get caught up between these things


I get caught up on the corner


Again, caught up on the corner.

I dont think im missing any textures as the screenshots might suggest, Im using the same tex set for a different project and I think there may be some complications.

f) a lot of your ammo is located in corners.. it slows you down a bit when you need to snag something out of corners.

g) I LOVE the jump from the top down to the pillar, down to RA. Its very unique, I really havent seen a dropdown like this before. However, when I drop down to the pillar and jump to RA, unless I time it perfectly I tend to hit the wall above RA and fall to the ground. This is because the wall above RA sticks out farther than the ra platform. Maybe if you made the RA plat on equal length with the ceiling, it would be a more realistic jump.



h) The item placement is good as well, im just concerned that its a little too easy to jump from MEGA to RA. Also, Mega seems to be a more important item than RA in q4, so maybe switch ra and mega?

i) The ramps leading to the lowered foggy area that has large health are pretty steep.. maybe raise that area up a bit so you the ramps can be a little more even? I realise that the ramp to RA needs to be steep to make the jump, but the other areas dont need to be IMO.

Overall, the map is great It looks good, the flow is good and with some tweaking it could be very promising!

GJ, as usual.

[Geit]

Thanks StormShadow, that's some great feedback :P

nice
a) maybe put a ramp-like trim on the side of your stairs, so you dont have to risk losing your momentum by jumping on them?

Sounds like a good idea to me, I'll implement it in the next version.

c) RA doors dont exactly look like doors It took me two or three times to recognize that they were doors and that was an alternate route to RA.

I couldn't really find an obvious door texture

b) doors to RA seem to open slowly. I always end up smacking into the wall resulting in a dead stop when approaching RA from that direction.

To be honest, I like the RA area BETTER before I figured out about the doors It made the path from MEGA to RA take a little longer (so you couldnt run both items as quickly) and made it a little more challenging to grab. Maybe try a version with those doors blocked off?

I could also make the doors open even slower making it risky (And slower) to go to the RA through the door.

d) Most of your lights have a detail level of 10. This isnt necesarilly a bad thing, but it makes it hard for ppl like me (with lousy computers) to adjust lighting to make the game more playable.

Check out this thread:

http://www.doom3world.org/phpbb2/viewtopic.php?t=13335

It has become pretty standard for mappers making 'competetive' levels to set their ambient light on 10, and everything else lower. So when you type r_lightdetaillevel 10; only the ambient will be drawn, and the performance will be much smoother. Of course, whether or not you do this is up to you, but I guarantee some wanna-be 'pro' gamers will bitch about your map if you dont

setting ambient light to 10 and the rest lower sounds like a good idea and I need to optimize the overall lighting anyway. When I'm done with it, it should run smoothly on most machines.

e) There are a couple clipping issues:

[..]
I get caught up between these things

[..]I get caught up on the corner

[..]
Again, caught up on the corner.

Yep, the map still needs clipping. Might have been best to do that before having the gameplay tested though

I dont think im missing any textures as the screenshots might suggest, Im using the same tex set for a different project and I think there may be some complications.

If you're running a pure server the server will take textures only from the pak so I probably forgot to pak a couple of textures there.

f) a lot of your ammo is located in corners.. it slows you down a bit when you need to snag something out of corners.

Move them more into the path of the player?

g) I LOVE the jump from the top down to the pillar, down to RA. Its very unique, I really havent seen a dropdown like this before. However, when I drop down to the pillar and jump to RA, unless I time it perfectly I tend to hit the wall above RA and fall to the ground. This is because the wall above RA sticks out farther than the ra platform. Maybe if you made the RA plat on equal length with the ceiling, it would be a more realistic jump.

I'll try that.

h) The item placement is good as well, im just concerned that its a little too easy to jump from MEGA to RA. Also, Mega seems to be a more important item than RA in q4, so maybe switch ra and mega?

Either blocking off the door or making it a lot slower would increase the time between getting from the Mega to the RA.
If I switched the RA with the MH the YA and RA would be almost on top of eachother so I would need to move the YA somewhere as well.

i) The ramps leading to the lowered foggy area that has large health are pretty steep.. maybe raise that area up a bit so you the ramps can be a little more even? I realise that the ramp to RA needs to be steep to make the jump, but the other areas dont need to be IMO.

Is it a bad thing they're so steep? The one leading to the RL room also needs to be so steep to make the jump onto the RL platform.

Overall, the map is great It looks good, the flow is good and with some tweaking it could be very promising!

I'll do my best