Iranex

Cool story bro.

But really, this map is a blast to play on. Gameplay tends to gravitate to being a tug of war over the center bridge, but the whole map gets used all in the same. Good job with this man.

 

This is a blast to play on 2v2 and 1v1. We totally tied.. My pick for the throwdown, though I only played 4 others submitted. So far this has the best gameplay, i'll go through more and see

 

Oooooh! Oooooooohhh! I'm in the videos. Yay! I only played one game. One game in which I was lagging like a boss. but whatever, it was fun anyway. The railings are pretty sweet, and the gameplay was quite fantastic. Great job, and good luck in the competition.

 

Hopefully its not based on looks and leans on 90% gameplay. I still think the map looks damn good as well so it should fair well against the competition. The railing ideas seem to have been stolen by a few people since you've posted this up.

 

I'm impressed by the layout, and the clean forging approach you took. Consider it DL'd, and I'll be back with some legit feedback after I get a game in. It looks like you have a real winner here.

 

This is a strong map. It just looks and plays strong. The layout is interesting, offering several strongly defined ways across without being the least bit confusing. You really offer a lot of map for such a relatively small budget. As I'm sure you already been told, your use of the long tunnels as railings is very cool, creating a ramp look we haven't seen yet.

I checked it out in 2-player spit screen and noticed no hits to the frame rate whatsoever. My only suggestion might be to place some kill boundaries at the non-map side of the backstops behind each team's base. I didn't test it out, but it seems like a jetpacker might be able to fly around back. Again, I didn't test it, so it may not be a problem or you've already done something to prevent this that I didn't notice.

Great map, Nyte.

 

Could you explain that a little bit more in depth. I'm nun nonplussed as to how you can find a layout interesting yet simple. To me, at least, something interesting is inherently complicated and not well understood, which makes it interesting. Something simple, on the other hand is easily understood, which wouldn't make it interesting. It might make it play well, but it wouldn't be interesting.

Anyways, came in to comment about the map after watching the vids. First off, simple layout leads to obvious points of contention with pretty much fair and balanced game play. What I also noticed was how boring it looked.

It was top control oriented with players killing each other, spawning to clamber up top and if victorious go to the other side to kill the freshly spawned enemy players. (You can even see the spawn trap in one of your vids.)

Others have stated that this sports some pretty amazing gameplay. I really didn't notice it in the videos. Nothing really stood out except for marching back and forth across the bridge and some stupid decisions to give up high ground.

 

I'm trying to figure out where I said the layout was simple? "Strongly defined" and "without being the least bit confusing" don't mean I think it's overly simple. I'd actually say there is a complexity, although a minor one, to the layout. It is that minor complexity that I find interesting.

Since we are harping on definitions, something interesting is not inherently complicated. Often, things that are complicated are nothing but frustrating. In architecture, you want to strive for the complex, not the complicated. The complex is something made up of numerous components that are brought together to form a readily identifiable whole while complicated things are not as easily understood, if ever understood.

As for the definition of simple, there are thousands upon thousands of architectural examples throughout history which might be regarded as simple forms that are at the same time widely regarded as being the most interesting.

The mistake you make, rusty eagle, stems from your narrow definition of interesting.

 

I don't even know who you are. My thoughts certainly weren't a reproach against you in any way. I talk about maps, never egos. It's rather silly to take anything personally.

Anyways, height advantage is important, but used differently in each map. On this one, it is the entire focus of the map. I can think of many maps, competitive maps, where the central focus was not on controlling the top. Anyways, comparisons don't really prove anyone's point here. I can't exactly measure out how many units you're using for top center, but it's quite a lot of floorspace up there. It doesn't have any effective counter-point. That especially makes the sole focus to get to the top.

So off of any spawn, my directive does not change. Make it to the top. That's boring. As a player, my directive should change somewhat over the course of the game. Maybe, it's too secure a power item, but the map should offer counter-areas as well. Make it dynamic.

 

I think both sides bring a palpable opinion to the table. Gameplay is always subjective though. In my opinion, I am less concerned with the layout and geometry of the map. I am more concerned about the respawns on it. From my observations, there was a lot of overlap from gunfights. That's why it's tied a lot of the time because, as soon as one dies, another spawns to continues the battle.

Rusty brings up an interesting point. Although, you venture off to pick up the Sniper Rifle, or the Invisibility, you go straight back up to the top. I think that if the bottom "Invisibility" lobby was sectioned off, it would add a lot of distance and thus prevent respawn wars and top domination.

However, I must also dissent. I am a firm believer that simplicity does not equate to boring, especially in the case of competitive play. In addition, I think "top-heavy" maps have a lot of potential. For example, look at Halo 3's Narrows.

TL;DR - It has potential but the respawns seem to need some work. I think additional cover on the bottom area would really help combat the non-stop war too.

Good luck in the 2v2 Competition!

 

I wouldn't say it's entirely subjective though. If we allow game play to be entirely subjective then we must admit to ourselves and each other that we can't be critical of each others works.

Game play should be dynamic. I should be able to engage in multiple scenarios as the map sets them up, from close to mid to long ranges. I also believe a map should have counter points to itself to promote movement and different strategies.

I never said simple was boring, I said simple wasn't interesting. Take Onslaught for example. It's simpler than this map, yet it offered dynamic game play and fast paced and intense action. Like I said though, it's not good comparing one map to another. Yes, the core idea behind narrows and this one are similar "Top Control". Their implementation of that idea are vastly different. One thing to note is that Narrows is a "top control" map it is also "center control" of the map. That is a key difference as well as some others that makes Iranex and Narrows vastly different from each other.

 

From watching the video, I'd say that the weakest part of your map is the top level. There is far too much incentive to control it. Having only two paths to get to the top level makes it too easy to guess where the enemies are coming from. You have the right idea to add mancannons, but from watching the second video, they are used rarely for the reason that they're too risky.

The main problem I find is that there's not much weapon variation. Every weapon on this map is a rifle; battles are almost exclusively on the top level for this reason (long LOS, easy to control with range). Mixing the weapons up would help to fix up the problem of the top level's dominance.

Also, and this is more nitpicking, I found that the Active Camo was rather ineffectual to gameplay. It creates some reward for the bottom level, but ultimately it's pretty useless for 2v2. Besides replacing it with a Overshield, have you considered putting an Armor Ability? Perhaps a Jetpack or Evade.

Other than that, this map is very, very promising. I'd consider it to be a good contender for Throwdown, with slight improvements to flow and weapons.

 

I think jetpack would be really odd on this map and evade for 2v2 is waaaay over-powered. I'd say try something else if the ov isn't working in the throwdown version unless they update it. Don't take out top mid