Chestnut

Okay so XBL is being glitchy and I couldn't get a chance to actually play a game on this map. I did get to go in Forge and look around though. I really like the look of it, the lines, and the colors. But a few things stuck out to me:

Some pieces are off-center/aren't oriented correctly. They could be rotated or nudged just a little bit with the Z Fighter to make things look cleaner.

IDK where I heard it, but it always made sense to me: floors, walls, and ceilings should all be a different color. This helps with player orientation and depth perception. It also just looks a lot better IMO. Some ceilings share the same block as floors do, so it may take a lot of work or be impossible. But maybe it's something to think about or incorporate where you can. Or maybe you're going for a more monochrome look. In which case, carry on lol.

And lastly what's probably most important: SPAWNS! You barely have any . Take a look at dev maps--they use a bunch. Give the system plenty of room to operate. Not enough spawn points may result in spawns that are seemingly random or unintuitive to players, just because the system had to chose a less than ideal spawn because there wasn't enough options to chose from.


I hope I'm not coming off as rude or anything. Just wanted to point out a few things . I do like the look of the map and I think it should play well.

 

The thing that I notice about very few spawns as the spawn killing loop can become way to easy because of reasons stated by Chef. I remember testing a 1v1 with 5 spawns before just to see the result. The result was all I had to do was run between 2 rooms and two spawns. 1v1's take less spawns than everything else but not that few. Basically, you want people to be able to spawn by teammates if safe that is why it is important to have quite a few spawns in team games. Try to have multiple spawn areas within each room.

 

I took a gander at this in forge yesterday, and I have to say that this really is a huge improvement on your forging, @Chronmeister. The angles, lines of sight, and general geometry and pathing all appear to be much more deliberate than many of your past works. The swiss-cheesiness which I have criticized some of your past works for is entirely absent from this map, and the geometry will promote all around much more interesting engagements as a result. I really can't overstate how big of an improvement this is from a geometry sense.

I have two concerns currently, though keep in mind I have not actually played the map just yet. First is readability. Chef touched on this above, but I think this is a big problem currently. The upper level's outdoor spaces are well-lit and should have no issues. However, many of the interior spaces on the lower levels are very dark and this, combined with the red walls, will make target acquisition difficult. I think that this issue could be solved with lighting alone. A lot of your lights mounted along the walls are facing upwards, illuminating the walls themselves but leaving the bulk of each room in relative darkness. Try adding more lights to the ceilings to illuminate the floors. Experiment with the color and falloff of the lights to make lighting transitions as natural as possible and to create enough contrast within each area for players to easily be seen.

My other concern is that the map will play rather slow for doubles due to its size and segmentation. I foresee players spending a lot of time sprinting around the basement, looking for ways up simply because it is so separate from the upper levels. I don't see this as an issue in Strongholds, but I suspect it will be in Slayer. I'll try to play it some time and see if that holds true.

All in all, excellent work, though.

 

Alright, two things from the game we played last night. The invisible barrier at the teleporter. That needs to go which I am sure you know. I also felt like the map played predominantly on the tele side of the map. I also think the map had some awkward flow but I will comeback to this point at a later time because I need to play it more and have to many things to work on at the moment to spend time running around on it.