Screenshots of pl_rooftime (in progress)

[Eviltechie]

A few of you know that I'm working on pl_rooftime. I made some decent progress on the map this evening (and morning) and I took a bunch of screenshots.

http://perp.wikicomphelp.com/pl_rooftime

You can view the whole directory there. The first five are old, but the rest are brand new.

I hope to get a workable alpha on tf4 soon. The map itself works, but there is no sniper cover so it wouldn't really be worth playing.

If you have any feedback based on these screenshots so far, of if there are any special features you want included in this map, let me know soon. Try to provide sketches if possible.

[Wolsk]

1) Lefty.
2) This isn't much like rooftime, so I'd suggest a different name; maybe rooftops.
3) Looks good.

[Axis Denied]

A several things that I noticed:

- Turn off shadows on the rails.
- On the pl_rootime0019 one, it seems like RED cannot go back to their spawn. IMO, this is bad for the defending team due to engineers not being able to go back for the resupply, etc.
- Try "splitting" your map. Since right now it looks like it will be optimization hell since you can see the map end to end. This may be fine on simpler maps with not a lot of props or smaller maps, but on a map this size, it MAY cause some performance issues.


Nonetheless, it seems kind of fun.

[Eviltechie]

Don't worry, I'll put a path back up to the spawn. It's not intended to be that way. I just didn't get around to putting a ramp back up because the car doesn't go there.

And what do you mean by splitting? Putting a large divider in the middle so it will split the map into two large visleafs?

[Axis Denied]

What I saw:

- Attacking team should always have more than one exit that are decently far away enough from one another. Velp and I were camping the blu exit from the beginning as demos and if we had one or two more demos, they'll be effectively stuck inside spawn.
- Another area I see a problem is how there's a place where RED can just spam pipebombs into the spawn doors. This won't be a problem if you solve the above problem.
- I hadn't run around this in a local server yet so I can't say much about visleaf (to test it, you'll need sv_cheats on).
- It appears that you can't fall off one of the sides at BLU spawn. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but if it is intentional, it'll be nice to have some sort of indicator you can't fall off there.
- Seems to be lacking in health packs and ammo packs.

What I'd recommend for the BLU spawn is move back the spawn and create a spawn room similar to Dustbowl stage 1 or something - that is you walk a little bit to where the doors are. You should also do this since if the doors are open, no one can get damaged if they just spawned. Since the way you have it now, if a crocket or something happens to enter the spawn room as the doors are open and a group of people just spawned, they'll be killed or almost dead.



I hope I don't come out as being harsh, just wanted to tell you some of the issues of this map so you can make it better.

[A Ninja]

It looks like there will be a lot of instances of just 1 red pyro coming by, and airblasting everyone off the cart to their deaths in one swoop.

[Axis Denied]

Oddly, that really didn't happened when we play tested his map. It might be because the teams were quite unbalanced and when we were on BLU, we steamrolled them (the cart didn't really even stop), and when we were defending, they couldn't really get out of spawn. On a more balanced team match, I can see that as being a problem. Then again, it's supposed to be like rooftime so.....

[Eviltechie]

What would I use to block stickybombs, rockets and bullets? I tried the clip texture, but it didn't seem to do much of anything except be solid to players.

[Axis Denied]

There's a block bullet thing, but IIRC, it also blocks players.

[Eviltechie]

I gave up on finding a creative way to block the red team from camping, so I just decided to fix the problem at the source. Blue team will now have a much higher spawn, with access to the cart level and the top of the roof, so they can deal with pesky sentries without trying to move along that narrow path upwards.

One question though. How would I make it so that the cart can't be pushed until the round starts?

[Axis Denied]

Have the cap of it disabled and enable it with a trigger.

[pepper]

I have no problem with your designing skills for I am in no position to make comments but it's just I FUCKING HATE ROOFTIME. All you're gonna get on that damn map is a bunch of airblasting pyros constantly stopping the cart until time runs out. Gonna turn into Avanti time.

[Axis Denied]

An issue I saw in your newer one is that air blasting BLU off is really easy from the start. Also, the way the BLU spawn area is set up, it seems like it encourages BLU to stay within the spawnroom visualizers, especially from the second floor. Sure, they should have a decent view of what's ahead, but there's this one spot in BLU spawn where you can snipe the only path RED has to get to the building next to BLU spawn. And people who stay inside their spawn room sniping from that far back inside their spawn room so that the only other option is kill them is another sniper is kind of annoying. IMO, either make an alternate path for RED to get to that building or angle the exits to discourage sniping from within spawn. This issue I am talking about is shown below:



One solution may be this - create a hallway type passage that leads to that door such that if they want to snipe within spawn they have to move next to the door and the sniper is more susceptible to splash damage type weapons. Now, I do not know the exact specifics of how your map is so this is a very, very, very, rough sketch of what I recommend (now, if you do take this recommendation, of course don't copy it exactly, like I said, it's really rough and you need to the tweaking of the LOS stuff (also, my wall drawing should go all the way to the top):

[NightFantom]

what i would suggest is at least 3 roads to anywhere from anywhere
you can keep a chokepoint here and there but having a cart to push makes other roads unefficient anyway so on pl maps chokepoints aren't really needed (much)

also make an edge so pyros can't airblast you off too easily, and a few walls (neighbouring buildings?) so at some points you can't get blown off at all and a few places without even an edge, so there are harder and easier places

[Eviltechie]

What's the best way to get red team out of their spawn when I disable it? Otherwise they will be locked inside?