New Assault map needs testing

[TexasGtar]

My second post here. I suppose that makes me a noob. I have an assault map that is in need of some testing. I look forward to your suggestions and appreciate your time and thoughts on this map. I am on a deadline of november 20 for completion and I know I am pushing the time limit but hoping that Assault lovers here will provide me with some insight on how to make this map better. Thanks in advance

--Tex--


Download link is here.

http://www.texasgtarbrown.com/unreal/assaulttesters.html

And i suppose it would be nice to provide a screenshot too huh? lol

Thanks again and I will check back daily for your ideas and suggestions. This map is about 85% completed. Best when played with 4 on 4 or 5 on 5 but can handle 16 if your computer can handle it.

 

[masterrr]

lmfao at this page!

 

[Ba]V[sE]

Oki I gonna test it!! The guitar player pwnz

 

[thePROPHET!]

Where are all those map-makers coming from? Is Epic making again a "Make Something Unreal" Contest??

 

[Ba]V[sE]

I tested it!

Its very big and I have 8 fps some spots need some tweaking for better fps.
Should be a big problem with laggers otherwise when you play online.

Its very dark map sometimes, should be much brighter to avoid to MUCH sneaky running.

Dunno if I like the jumping around with charged pads, but they may not be used anyway if we launch instead.

I cant play the map online atm, i get to low fps as it is...

 

[HUEY]

I like it...dunno tech stuff though

 

[TexasGtar]

WOW!!!!!!!I can't believe the feedback immediate responses. i'm thrilled to no end about it.

To masterrrr..... I always like to keep 'em laughin'.

To Ba[]vse.... You like that guitar head banger guy huh? lol I think he's pretty cool too. And he never gets tired either. The fps has been a problem since the beginning of the map. I have deleted a ton of stuff and am still deleting to achieve a fast play rate. I am trying hard to get it there. Was your main lag outside? That has been the area I have been concentrating on but I also have tweaked the first inside room you get to and also the second objective room and I have gotten a lot better fps there in those spots.

As far as it being dark..I suppose I can add a large blue moon to the skybox and put in a zoneinfo and add some zone light in a light blue to lighten things up a little.

To the prophet...... Where are we coming from lol..the dark side of the internet I suppose.lol Me and fragnbrag are part of the CTC team and we both like UT 99 a lot more than the new versions. Well I think he does. I do anyway. And most of the team is quite busy and we don't have a lot of beta testers available for help on these maps. We wish there was a million dollars on the line but NO we are just doing it for the love of the game and the enjoyment of a great community of UT lovers out there. Perhaps you saw our first release of the CTC (community tribute Classic) map pak??? This map is a work in progress for the second CTC release.

To Huey... Cool!!! I like it too. I like all my maps though.lol Even the ones everyone hated.Ha!

Thanks for the quick responses. I will continue to improve the FPS. This seems to be the main problem. I will also add zonelight to the outside as I am guessing this is where you think it is too dark.

 

[SX]

nice map, abit big but nice, outside -> fps drop to 14
inside, help me im lost, had to walk atound for quite some time to fin the objectives, the f3 info is abit to long should be shorter
the jumppads were confusing and a tad to stong imo
but overal a nice map

 

[Snuggs]

yip same here

fps killer

saw nice texturing

hehe...the jumpads...u get lost sometimes


keep up the good work

 

[jwer_NL]

I'm considered very critical on these forums, and i get loads of bad rep about it, so if you can't handle a bit of criticism (next to a lot of positive things) then don't read this. This counts for all the other tossers that whine about it as well...

First of all, OUCH on the fps, most parts of the map really amaze me how you manage to get the fps down to about 7, other parts it's pretty obvious how you manage it...

Some of the textures are very nice, others are really bad and it surprises me that you allow some textures to be pretty poor when you manage to get other parts so good-looking... because some parts are really nice! Why is the nicely Taj-Mahal shaped corridor at the sniper-end where people will hardly go and in the palace you only made straight square tunnels...things like that make me

Tech-wise i'm as poor as people get, so i can't help you on that... game wise you need to really imagine where people will play. In CTF people will go everywhere but in AS attackers need to go somewhere and defenders will huddle up at the easiest defendable spot. Use your mind to think where people will end up fighting each other, weapon placement and health placement will help to guide people but in the end won't determine where people will actually fire at each other. Make that part interesting with different heights, perhaps small jumppads or lifts and things like that but don't make it too large or make the fps drop below 10 even before anyone fires one shot.

This map is reasonable decent for the eyes, but not for playing. If you want to build something for the AS community then you really need to get to know the way we play a little better... thanks for making AS maps tho and showing them here, i like to see people at least still busy with them.

 

[TexasGtar]

To SX... I have this making maps too big problem. I don't know why I do it. It just seems right when I start then I struggle the rest of the way through to get it playable. I know the finding objectives is a little vague in the F3. Those F3 are from the first beta and definately need to be shortened and cleared up to better direct you where to go. Couldn't agree more with that. When you say the jump pads are too strong did you mean they are shooting you too far???? I have tweaked them for months trying to find the perfect place so they land you correctly every time. Obviously i need to tweak them some more. The distance is so large that you are traveling the kickers do not seem to kick accurately every time even tho the killvelocity is set to true. I first had the kickers do a one kick but they were very inaccurate and not at all dependable so I deleted them and created this two kick system which is a ton more dependable. If you do not touch the movement arrow keys when you hit the jumppad you will find that 95% of the time you land perfectly on or near the control points on the mountainside.The bots are only about 80% accurate as they tend to kick a little farther sometimes.So as far as confusing...just let the kickers do all the work and it should get you exactly where you want to go. When you try to adjust it will vary the spot where you land.Thanks for the input!!!I will try to address those things.

To Snuggs....I am working on the FPS big time!! Read above about the "confusing kickers" Step on them and relax til you land and you will find yourself a few steps from the objective.

To JwerNL.....Well you don't have to worry about me getting upset about critiques. That is exactly what I am looking for. If everyone liked everything then the map would be finished. Only through critiques can I make it better and I really appreciate all comments..good or bad! Please elaborate on the textures you don't like so I can rework them. I know some of the tile textures I made are not too good but I tried to use them in unnoticable areas where the flaws would not show but I would be interested in the textures you don't like as I have a bad eye when it comes to texturing.

I am also lost as to which tunnels?? The ones that go to the tower elevators? Are those the square hallways you mean? The taj tunnels I am assuming are way up on the mountainside in the control point sniper areas. Those hallways are poly intensive and so instead of having 4 polys for a square tunnel you end up with 30 polys. Might not seem like 30 is a lot but they add up. I definatly could make the tower tunnel hallways a better shape though as those are zoned off and wouldn't hurt the fps too much.

Yup..as far as I need to learn how you all play the assault levels and I probably do need to rethink my item placements. This feedback I have gotten so far has been incredible and I am learning as much as I can. This map will be playable because I will lower the FPS to acceptable levels before the release no matter what sacrifices I have to make. And your welcome. I like making maps and i like more that people enjoy them and have fun playing them. That is basically what drives me is to make a map that people will have fun playing. I have a lot of work left on this one and am cranking it out as fast as I can.

THANKS!!!! for all the help guys and girls. I shall return lol.

 

[HUEY]

Yeah I got lost as well

but then I get lost on my way to the bathroom

I got used to the jump pads..landed where I guess I was supposed to be, " where ever that was "



Just joking

 

[jwer_NL]

Okay, went over the map again... allthough some textures are not great, the greatest annoyance is the number of different colors per room, the textures don't suit each other at all which makes it look very crowded and the low flat ceiling doesn't help. Anyways, in order to make a playable AS map (for us that is) is that you learn the basics of how we play it...

The impact hammer and the rocketlauncher can launch a teammate all over the map, this is not used (illegal?) in CTF but we do use it as a feature, not a bug. That means that when you make a map, load the map first, then type "fly" in your console and that's about where any decent AS player can make his teammate go. The screenie will tell you the rest...

Imo the rooms are too crowded, mainly due to too many different colors (bad interiour decorator for that palace) and look cramped because of the low ceiling... imo this map will never be playable for top AS-players so it's up to you wether you want to continue this map for training or build a new map from scratch... if you do so i'd recommend you get a bit of help in getting to know the way we play AS (with launches) and especially when you build palaces, look at what you made and think "would i live in something like this?"

in this case my answer to that question would be... less colors per room, higher ceilings, smaller rooms perhaps... what is your answer to that question?

but like i said, AS players will hammer/rocketlaunch all over this map...

 

['//3iRd(o)]

You may also need to test this in an online environment; not only will FPS suffer even more, but a lot of the meshes are not replicated properly, and become invisible.

There is also an issue with the lighting online - it is much much darker at the top half of the map (you really struggle to see anything).

I always recommend you try running your own local server when testing maps; as it will give a more accurate feel of how it will play.

 

[pykenike]

well, first off all, very good you're making an assault map that's nice, and i can't agree more with the people already saying that the map tend to be confusing...

well the start is a bit dark, can be fixed fast, so don't worry about that.. and fps drops to 8 here when i go the route with the invisebilety... that's just to low, oh and invisebilety has nothing to do with assault, as you can sneak to the objectives... so i would say to remove it.

you've builded the first autocannon that i kinda like, it's not very powerfull and easy to avoid, so that's good

that yellow thingy before the normal door is kinda useless because (as iwer pointed out) players can hammerjump and rocketlaunch all over the place... and because that first run, (to the destroyeble wall) is kinda long, everybody is going to hammer over that yellow thing, however def can snipe them down all over the first run, so this will be a pain in the arse to concour.. this can be done by a double hammerjump, so people wil fly to the side entrance, but when they reached that wall, and destroyed it they will get 2 or 3 shockcombo's in the arse....

but because you can launch you can get (for instance with some practice) to those crosses where the jumpads are) and when you reached that point, defence is unable to get you because they spam in the main castle,.. maybe you should make a little room with some teleporters to some parts of the map, that makes it easier to define where you are and defence can defend lauches

your messages, are tried to be leet, but are more anoying, i mean, they cover my whole screen chain 1 is destroyed is good enough

that way (where the spider is) is easily spamed by 1 (or 2) persons, you will find it impoible to get trough. can be used as a sneaky way, but not as mainroute, like bots do, because you will get spammed

because the castle is 1 big room (kinda) some mid objectives will gain undefendeble status, as attackers can run all over the map


what SX means i fink, is that when you hit the jumppad you are in 0.00000001 second 100 meters in the air, it feels like you teleport into the air instead of jump...

and what about the ammo, i mean, there is so fucking loads of it, people will only use the good weapons, e.a. sniper, shock rocket and sniper, because they have enough ammo...


that's what i found for now, lightning needs to be better, and same goes for fps, but overall it looks, good, and original.

keep up the good work

 

[TexasGtar]

Again thanks for all he responses.

Huey quote"but then I get lost on my way to the bathroom"...

Well at least you are not like my grandmother used to be and THINK she was in the bathroom when she was actually sitting on my new sofa.

To jwerN

Great advise. As far as the launching..basically all i would need to do is put the two control points behind a door triggered by the objective prior and your launch would be useless. Also For the front door I merely need to add a cieling on the force field guarding the front door and then you can launch all you want and never get to any objective but the one that is next in line.I tried hammer jumping over that barrier and couldn't do it. I didn't think about the rocket launcher teleporter means of travel. I am now though. l


As far as textures.... I wanted this palace to be GAuDY. Afterall it is owned by a mad scientist bent on world domination and would be kinda unusal looking. I would think it would appeal to only him as far as living there. I have already tried to tone down some of the multi colored areas though. I try to make my maps "look" different than every other map you will see and therefore I tend to over do it sometimes. I am so sick of factorys and space stations. They all are starting to look alike to me. When I start a map... and the first thing I see is one of those metal boxes I just cringe. Another factory woohoo. So yeah it looks like a interior decorator that hated his job for sure.lol

I will finish this map even though it will never be played online because of the many online flaws it has that you and others have mentioned. I will try to build another one for online play one day though when I have more practice at it. Everyone has to satrt somewhere. Ha. When this pack was being put together no one was doing an assault map and people were complaining that the first pak had almost all deathmatch maps and they wanted variety in this one. So about 7 people said I'll do a CTF and we had a few DM ones already and since no one wanted to do a Assault I spoke up and said ..I'll give it a shot.lol...NOW though with FNB's map and another guys there are three counting mine. Sheesh. I would have built a DM map again as I did for the first Pak but now I am several months into this one and I have learned a lot about assault maping but I am still pretty much a noob in this area. I'll get better. And as far as your question...would I live in something like this..the answer would be Heck YES!My house is so small lol i could dig some tile too. And an indoor swimming pool???Bring it on!!!!With its own foundry Whoa baby.I didn't build the woodshop tho. I would have to do that. Ha. I might need a few belly dancers for ambiance too.


But all good points and I really not sure if they are possible in this stage of the game. Of course I can separate stuff for higher cielings and I can make less colors and the launching is not a problem as I discussed earlier.I will see what I can do with the time I have left. Thanks for the great insight.


To 3irdo... I don't have an online server. I never play online. <<<----dial up. Good idea though to test online if I could I would. I am going to add a zone light to the outside to make a nice bluish light for all the too dark areas. Should spruce up the mountains too.

To pikenike...Confusing yup i got it. That's something i know I can fix. Okay now as far as the invisibitilt.... Are you saying that you are as good a shot with the sniper rifle on a guy who is invisible as a guy who isnt??? Come on now. That invisibility is basically for crossing the trecherous valley unnoticed(hopefully) and safely arriving at the other side. It wears off pretty fast once inside the fort. So it isn't really for sneaking up on an objective but is more for traversing that first area safely to avoid some sniper fire. You are probably going to tell me that you would simply rocket launch all your teammates to the other side safely huh? lol I know how to use invisible collision hulls so watch out..lol I may incorporate a few blockers just for you rocketlauncher fanatics. Hehehehe

The auto cannon (flaming arrows..yes those are more for the look and eye candy more than deadlyness. I can't take credit for making them though. I had the idea and made the sound but a good friend helped me and put together some script to make those. Pretty cool though huh?

I am adding a top to that barrier so good luck hammer jumping or launching past it in the next version.

I try to add a little comedy amongst the fraggin' lol sometimes with movers sometimes with messages. I will probably remove those for the final version but I try to keep my testers entertained. On my spinner map I had these kickers and when you hit them it displayed a message in talk box (not all over screen)that said.."Aren't kickers great?" and "4 out of 5 Texans prefer kickers to hammer jumps" I swear I got more comments on that than almost anything else in that map. Too funny.

That spider route was supposed to be a alternative route as you say but I have a stoaschitic trigger and assault randomizer there and it is set too high probability and the bots use it too often I agree. I will tone down the probability and lessen the toggle cost on the assault randomizer to make that a rarely used route. Yes it is narrow. But you should have the rocketlauncher. Fire a few alternative fire up the path ahead of you to see if anything is down there or not. No spam rules.

The jumppads...well did you notice how far you have to kick/?????? It's quite a distance. And the z numbers although seem like BAM and you are there are all set to the minimum it takes to get you to that height. The only way to slow it down would be perhaps to add several up kickers at different heights in increments so you would only kick so far before the next kicker would kick you higher. That would probably slow down the effect of being here ...then there... so fast.I don't relish this thought though as I have spent tons of time geting these to where they are today. Long distance travel is best suited for teleporters but I like kickers.

You want lots of ammo everywhere???? I think you had a typo and I wasn't sure what you meant but I do know that there is very little ammo out there.


Okay well I guess that sums it up for today. I will get to work on these new and old suggestions and see if I can revamp it in a positive way.

You know,,,,maybe I wouldn't want to live there but a weekend or two might be nice.

Thanks everyone This is really helping a lot!!!!!!!

 

[Ulv]

and what about the ammo, i mean, there is so fucking loads of it, people will only use the good weapons, e.a. sniper, shock rocket and sniper, because they have enough ammo...

Basically what he's saying is that there's too much ammo
Too much ammo=spam... only look at AS-Rook for a nice example of ammo placing

besides, i think most of us have a ThrowWeapon bind in our user.ini's so whenever we get 1 or 2 ammo left we just toss the weapon and get a new one

I haven't tried the map yet, but will do and u'll get comments/suggestions rom me l8r 2day, k?

 

[sobo]

This is not ut2k3, dont use static meshes.

 

[TexasGtar]

too much ammo...hmmmm okay.

Don't use meshes???? Do you know how many polys would be in that first view without them? I would say over 1000 as a guess. I know meshes are not the answer to the poly count but sometimes a mesh can be better. Even in UT. I need to reread some info on them and see what I can get away with. Someone said Bot40 and EBD had some info on this subject somewhere. I guess I am off to google huntin"........to find out. Was that it as far as your thoughts? Don't use meshes??? Thanks for taking a look anyway. I appreciate it.

 

[sobo]

the key is not to make the round high poly objects meshes but to make nicely looking levels without over-extensive use of round surfaces.

"stat fps" in console can help you, a good polycount to live with is maximum of 300, meshes should be avoided in fighting areas.