UPDATE: People have been asking for more screenshots, I have been too busy to supply them but I have found a youtube video by ponihkio ( a recap of his TGIF lobby) containing gameplay from Catalyst. Here is the video, skip to 4:08 for Catalyst. YouTube- Forgehub TGIF 13 Recap This is a screen shot of my BTB map catalyst (my map). It emphasises vehicle combat but in a very different way to hemmorhage. Here is a comparison. Hemmorhage: very little vehicles vs infantry combat. infantry are helpless if caught in the open. vehicles are helpless if they being shot at from a ledge with a DMR or sniper. infantry's main weapon vs vehicles is the the DMR infantry combat is very long range. One large main area where all the combat takes place. Best for infantry to stay put and snipe. Some very powerful weapons like the sniper and wraith. Catalyst: lots of vehicle vs infantry combat. infantry and vehicles always both have a chance in a battle. infantry's main weapons against vehicles are grenades and hijacking. Infantry combat is nearly exclusively medium range. Several main areas which one can easily and fluidly move between. Best for infantry to advance and stay together. No very powerful weapons, there are revenants and rocket hogs but they are not as powerful as the wraith or sniper on hemmorhage. Teams: designed for 2 teams of 5 to 8 players each, but upto eight teams are supported. Gametypes: This map is prmarily designed for slayer with but assault, multiflag, invasion slayer and rocket race work well on it. It also supports oddball, crazy king, territories, race, stockpile and headhunter. Layout: The map has a central area (depicted above) connected on two (opposit) sides to a ring which ecompasses the map, the other two sides enter onto bases which favour infantry but can be entered by vehicles (the rest of the map is mainly vehicular). The backs of these are connected to the ring around the map. All the exits from the central area restrict sightlines (keeping comabt medium range), but not access. Spread out across each base are a revenant, 2 ghosts, 2 warthogs, a rocket hog and 2 mongeese. There are also smaller bases on the outside of the ring which contain a man cannon into the center and an assortment or warthogs, ghosts and mongeese. Information on testing: This map made its debut on the 29th April TGIF being played twice in Pinokhio's party (both times with slayer, once with AR spawns, once with DMR spawns) and it was generally very well received. I have since updated the map (no major changes but more gametypes supported) and the Berb has said that he would like to use it for his TGIF party on 13th May. Other than this the map has had not testing, so please download, test it and give feedback. other pictures: overview of the map Vehiclular area on the ring, tunnels lead to centre view from behind red base. Bottem left: red vehicles, right: another vehicular area on the ring the outside of red base (the map is symetrical so blue base looks the same) the inside of red base
You may want to add more pictures so we can see more of the map. The one picture doesn't really show us what the whole map is about.
Yup i agree with knight of 0rder! You should add much more pictures so you can see the map! I can't review it with one picture :/
Or maybe you could just download it and check it out in forge to get a better view of the map. Forge Through > Screenshots any day. So, I went ahead and checked it out in forge, and well, simply put, your map needs some work. First and foremost, smooth-out the floor. There's a few areas in the map where the floor is "bumpy" and is pretty annoying to walk around in. I understand that you're trying to get rid of "z-fighting" this way, but take in the time to make the floor smooth as well. It can be done. While I'm on the subject of "general layout" --Your layout is, well, simply put, it has too much. When you fly around it (or even sometimes walk around it) the whole map starts to flicker. That generally means you have too much objects on the map for the game to process at once. Personally, I don't have too big of a problem with this, but there are a few things with your layout that I do. Like the simple fact that there is very little railing on the outer-sides of the map. I do realize that your budget is low, but I also realize that the objects you use in certain areas could be re-done and you could at least have more railing in areas. Railing is good to have for the simple fact that people will walk/drive off your map. So try to look around the map, find ways to save your budget without totally redoing certain areas and also, work on those man-cannon flight patterns. They hurt. The second thing I noticed was the amount of vehicles on the map. Now, while this could be viewed as "fun"... it could also be viewed as "overkill" --like the one famous quote states "Too much of anything can kill you." In this case, the vehicles are killing the map. The amount needs to be reduced, and the placement needs to be better. Each team (red and blue team only) should get two warthogs, two mongeese, one ghost, and one revenant. If you feel like having more, you could allow having two more mongeese in neutral areas of the map. Like where you have green team and orange team spawn. Speaking of spawns, the starting ones need to be worked on as well. I noticed you have red/blue team in what I like to call "pocket-spawns". Pocket-spawns is pretty much having a group of spawns in one area. Normally, this is ok... but not when they're to do with starting spawns and not all in one general area. When you want people to spawn on your map (for the first time, mind you) You want them all to be together, as a team should be. With BTB this may be a bit more tricky to pull off, but it can be done. Now, since I actually haven't had the time to play, I can't really get too in-depth with them. But I can at least give you that. Finally, of course, is your weapons. It took me a while, but I found a few... like, the needler rifles and the focus rifle. After a few more minutes I found the plasma pistol, and then some DMRs. The concussion rifle in the middle was easy, I suppose. But regardless of all that, They need to be worked on. Find more "obvious" places for them, and put them there. Like, instead of just lying on the ground, lean them up against the wall. If there is no wall around to lean them on, then try to make them stand out. Make them say "I'm here! Come pick me up!" Oh, and with a BTB map like this, while you should have plenty of anti-vehicle weapons, don't over do it. Keep it clean, have a grenade launcher around each spawn area, a "heavy" weapon in the central area (like rockets, laser, or even the plasma launcher). I think having a concussion rifle would help too. Have it at green spawn. Also, putting a grav-hammer (which can be an anti-vehicle weapon as well) at orange spawn would be neat. I like the use of focus rifle, so keep them. Try to add some flavor and put in needlers, or spikers, also leave the plasma pistols in as well. They can be useful. So yeah. That's just about all the advice I can give you. To think, I'd be able to give you more if I actually played your map, but alas, I would never really have the time, or people to play it. So yeah.
thankyou for doing something sensible rather than just asking for more pictures (I'm working on that but have not been able to do it yet).[/quote] So, I went ahead and checked it out in forge, and well, simply put, your map needs some work. First and foremost, smooth-out the floor. There's a few areas in the map where the floor is "bumpy" and is pretty annoying to walk around in. I understand that you're trying to get rid of "z-fighting" this way, but take in the time to make the floor smooth as well. It can be done. [/quote] if you mean the little hills, those are to help infantry against vehicles when the spawn at green spawn and have to cross into the middle. If you watch the videos it does create good gameplay. If you mean some of the floor panels being a little too high or low, the difference is too small to be significant in gameplay. That only happens when you fly out and look at the whole map, when you are inside it and not looking at it all at once, the problem disappears. It is intentional that there is no railing, I wouldn't put any in even if I had the credits. No railings means that grenades can more easily push vehicles off the map. before playtesting I thought that I would need to change the number of vehicles, but after the test it became apparent that it wasn't a problem. This maps areas are mainly short to medium range (for a BTB map) and so vehicles do not have a huge advantage over infantry and the frequent vehicle vs infantry battles make the gameplay very varied and unpredictable. Speaking of spawns, the starting ones need to be worked on as well. I noticed you have red/blue team in what I like to call "pocket-spawns". Pocket-spawns is pretty much having a group of spawns in one area. Normally, this is ok... but not when they're to do with starting spawns and not all in one general area. When you want people to spawn on your map (for the first time, mind you) You want them all to be together, as a team should be. With BTB this may be a bit more tricky to pull off, but it can be done. [/quote] I need all the vehicles in the bases available from the start, but if the vehicles were together one team could camp all the vehicles and force the other team to all go on foot, so the vehicles, and the start points are spread out. There is already a grenade launcher at green spawn, but apart from that you found all the weapons. Firstly there are no very powerful antivehicle weapons because on this map the vehicles will always eventually be taken down by other vehicles (if they are on the outside) or grenades and concentrated fire on the inside. One vehicle never dominates enough to warrant a powerful antivehicle power weapon. The concussion rifle is actually more powerful than you would expect, the infantry vs vehicle battles are medium range and there are no tanks so it can easily flip most enemy vehicles. Thankyou for your constructive criticism but most of it does not need action as your assumptions do not take account of the unusual interaction between vehicles and infantry on this map.
I will play it next time in my lobby. I really hope it plays well with CTF which it looks like it will
This isn't a very critical analysis of the map but I loved the overabundance of vehicles, and the simple square layout that made up the exterior of the map. It made for a very relaxed game of vehicle nonsense that my friends and I all enjoyed. The interior was just complicated enough for people to escape into, but vehicles could still hilariously finagle their way into most places. I hope you don't take the fact that I enjoyed this as a very lighthearted map as a backwards compliment. But really, you set this up very well to accommodate simple, fun vehicle combat. Good stuff.
Im sorry but I agree that you need more screenshots for the map. People want to know what theyre downloading or a reason to put your map on the download que instead of another map. You do have a nice description and the picture does show some nice aesthetics to the map with an interesting layout but people are not very likly to download the map on that alone. The map also could have aesthetic problems or serious things that could affect the gameplay. From this picture the map could only be this one area. I know this is not true from the description and other evidence shown but I hope this will help you understand why you need more pictures or a video to show the map.
Added video Instead of adding screen shots I have embedded a youtube video containing gameplay of the map. The video is Pinohkio's recap of his TGIF lobby on 29th April and I thank him for including my map.
Too lazy to screencap? You know what I do when I'm too lazy to screencap? I hold off on posting the map until I've gotten the goddamn screencaps
BUSY, not lazy. I am revising for exams and don't have much free time. The video is embedded, easy to watch and shows the layout of map much better than screenshots could.
Damn, people need to stop complaining about pics and just play it already. Seriously, i loved this map, and like BattyMan said, it is a nice, fun, relaxing game to play and fool around in. Due to that, I think it would be better off in casual maps, but, eh. This was a blast to play on and i sure hope we can play this in the next TGIF. oh yah, and im the horrible driver in that video. >
This is a great looking map, I really like the changes in inclines and your use of the 2x2 into the inclines is so smooth...this has a really nice lay out, I like the open feel to outside and the structure inside is really good and a nice competitive lay out. A like and dl from me great job
Thanks for the positive feedback. I put the map in competetive even though it is not a very serious map because the casual category seemed to be for very casual semi-minigame sort of things. This map can be played in a competetive way. Also I HAVE FINALLY ADDED MORE SCREENSHOTS.