Cella Cella began as my first attempt ever at a floating asymmetrical map. Almost every time I started up a fresh new clean Forge World, I would always try to lay down basic structure for a floating asym, however, without fail, I would soon get frustrated or displeased and just delete the entire thing. About a year later, I have completed Cella and am ready to release it. When building Cella, I took Guardian as my main inspiration, however, like any "inspired" map that I make, I try to pinpoint the major design flaws (see -> Cladite). I do this by dissecting the design, watching a ton of gameplay, and asking others. The following is a very brief version of the two major flaws of Guardian: -Lack of Viable Routes : When you look at the two strongholds, Sniper Tower and Gold, you will find that there is a lack of viable routes in a competitive setting. There are two lifts, Bottom Green to Camo and Bottom Blue to S2, both of which are less than ideal routes for a competitive map. Other than the lifts, you can go across the top or bottom of the middle of the map. -Lines of Sight: Remember all those times you were at Snipe 3 looking at a guy at Top Blue who just sat behind the Glass and teabagged, daring you to do something? Or when players would slowly move up the S2-S3 spiral and headglitch with a Sniper while you tried to shoot your spread-ridden BR from Top Gold? How about when in Oddball when the entire other team would set up in Top Blue and Gold? I think you get my point. So after identifying these two issues and getting a basic layout of the map, I whipped out some pencil and paper and drew out 3 different designs that I could go with. The one I eventually went with was forged within a week and gametesting began. I was quickly bombarded with feedback concerning the overabundance of routes, so I went to work and redesigned the map (huge shout out here to Levvi and Bretamaled). Alright so I just got sick of typing stuff up. That came quicker than I thought. On to the screenshots. Overview A view of Red/Snipe and Blue Gold side view of Camo A look at the backside of Snipe Tower Here is Elbow, a required entity for any floating asym Bottom Mid aka GL Spawn (It's on a 1 min drop spawn with 1 spare clip. MLG weapon standards can eat a wiener.) Huge thanks goes out Levvi for playing the most amount of games on the map and providing great feedback. Bretamaled and Hulter also deserve a cookie for playing all of those 2v2s and providing feedback. Shout out to Waldo for showing me places where he could get out of the map. And like always, I'd like to thank Spaceneil, Solo XIII, and D00man for being the reason I got into forging and remained dedicated. Download Cella
wow this is badass, reminds me of Guardian sorta but with more routes like your saying. how the rocks merge with the walkway looks perfect. good job! download
This is a very nice map it really reminds me of guardian with the middle platform and some of the ramps I like your placement with rocks the seem to looks great and well thought out. My only problem is the middle platform it looks like there is no rails which means there is a high chance that players will fall of and die in the middle of a battle. Great map
Lol polish posting his map on forgehub!!!!!!! I kinda want to take a picture... Edit: lol forgot I'll get banned from this site unless I post something constructive. Your map is good but I honestly had a hard time with orientation. I'll admit I only played the map once, but everytime I spawned I was like "where the **** am I?". But other them that it was fun.
yeah maybe put upside down struts around the edges of the middle where u could jump off them onto the walkways, and would provide some railing while still looking aestheticly pleasing
Mammoth Post yay Note: I haven't played a game on this yet, but I ran on it a couple times and still want to give my opinion. Plus...I'm bored at the moment. I understand why you tried straying from Guardian, but the huge problem is you strayed completely from lockout too. Though the points you included about guardian make sense, I personally believe you took away aspects that still made the map great. The design idea behind guardian and lockout are nearly the same: A tower with the power weapon, a larger/safer tower, and a small/concealed area for transitioning. With that said, it would hope for unique lines of sight and adequate flow/connectivity. As obvious, Lockout succeeded and you're right...Guardian failed (but to be fair, guardian came 2nd). I'm not trying to say that you should go with the exact same philosophy for Guardian and Lockout, but you should differentiate the areas of your map a whole lot more than it is now. To me, it looks like a 4-base asym map. Every tower looks near the exact same; like mulelish said, the orientation is beyond difficult. There is one tower that holds snipe and another that is close to camo, but it doesn't look like there is any reason to go to the other two. The map doesn't have the asymmetric feeling Where I'm getting at is that if you decide to vary the map, it will improve drastically. It will make areas vary by power, safety, and transitioning; and it will help players orient themselves upon spawning. And most importantly, it will create more unique oddball setups (Hint: That is why asyms are best for asym gametypes ). I'm not saying this to be an ass and want to put the map down; I heard this map played decent in Oddball, but it could be better. Honestly, I want to see if you can warp the map to being truly asymmetric. With your object coordination, you're probably one of the only people can make a floating asym map look decent, and the map would receive lots of support to motivate you to keep going with the design. If you want me to give constructive notes about the map, here are a few. The first one is that the connectivity on this map is still too much IMO. I realize you did cut some routes from before, but you still have more than enough ways into bottom-mid and/or out of the bottom towers. This recently began to surface for me, but if you restrict the flow well enough (without breaking the map with Reach's mechanics), then it will strongly emphasize the need to control a power position/hold a ball setup. With too many routes just makes gameplay too random and unorganized. Maps just need a middle ground between strict and free flow. Some other notes are that a couple doors have a thin hole to peek-shot through (which you're probably aware), and also I think that your camo is simply way too exposed. This kind of goes back into the 4-base feeling that I have for it, but the top level of the map is frankly pretty small and too open for camo to be effective (again, I haven't played the map though). I would suggest either switching camo with grenade launcher so players with camo and sneak up to the top, or you could replace camo with a Custom, which doesn't sound too bad. Well anyways, not enough text. You still deserve props for making a floating asym map that is one of the better oddball maps, but I think you can still do better with it. I'm not sure if the majority of this post is old news to you, but I still hope this helps. Let me know if you want to run games on this at all. I haven't made a post this big since I criticized Oasis.
So.. it's your version of guardian.. I like all your maps but this one doesn't seem so original, I know what you mean though of not being pleased by starting off a new forge over and over again. Layout looks simple, I guess I'll get a game on it.
I still think you should make lift room yellow instead of green. You know: lift room ≈ gold. I don't think this plays particularly much like guardian at all. What I and Alex usally did when playing against you and Brett was that we tried cathing you in cross fire and just flanking. The flow is really circular, unlike guardian and lockout. I always thought the bottom section was a bit too segregated from the top level. There never were any encounters between the different floors, because the sight lines are so restricted and quickly broken that people ended up either dropping down to chase or just letting the opponent get away. It's sort of like on zealot, where you never go down to the bottom floor because that just puts you at a disadvantage, except for when you're after GL. The major difference in that aspect is that you can essentially roam completely freely as no one on the top floor can see you, whereas on zealot the entire bottom part is really exposed. But yeah, this map actually resembles zealot more than gaurdian in my opinion,
This was the map that I messaged you about Polish. Very good. Love the aesthetics of, and it plays pretty damn well also. As for possible complaints, RiP hit the nail on the head. The map feels too free flowing. You can virtually go to any location from any location without much trouble. What really made Lockout and Guardian what they were was that the maps funneled players into specific routes, but also didn't lock them down with too few movement options. Also, I don't care for how exposed invis is opposite snipe perch.
Thanks for the kinds words. Regarding top-middle not having railings: It is an issue and I am trying my best to fix it. I guess you missed my first 10 or so maps I've posted here over the last year? Orientation off spawn in the bottom bases is another issue I am aware of. The newest reforge will attempt to address this as best as possible. Dunno who told you it played Oddball well. There is no ZB Oddball gametype in existence, and I just added Oddball support 10 minutes before this thread went up. Regarding your feedback, I highly appreciate it. Like, I REALLY appreciate it. However, I cannot agree with you in saying that Lockout was a good map, let alone a better map than Guardian. Look at the two strongholds, BR Tower and Snipe Tower. Now think of all the possible routes between the two. What you should come up with is across Top Mid or through Bottom Mid. The pic above is Lockout at its core. Not good for competitive play, no matter how much nostalgia distorts the perceived competitiveness. Thanks for the feedback, and your points are valid. I will say that the goal was to make the bottom more mobile and safe for traversing while the higher levels were meant to inhibit set-ups. Thank you for the kind words. Regarding Lockout in any positive light is silly outside of fun casual time nostalgia time. Refer to the picture above in response to Rest's feedback on why Lockout is a failure of a competitive design. I don't know if everyone has forgotten how Guardian TS (or Lockout TS) played, but to refresh your memories, it was a worse stalemate than The Pit. My goal was to remedy the floating asym category from this terrible pattern. Seeing as how ZB Oddball doesn't exist to this point, TS is the only gametype floating asyms should try to satisfy. Regarding the openness of Camo, I can see where you're coming from. What I was trying to accomplish with that openness is having less instance where a player can just grab Camo and get out without having a team. Thanks mayne, means a lot. Cella's design is being completely reworked and it will change significantly. I'll try to post progress pictures soon. Thank you everyone for the great feedback. Like always, your suggestions are always considered and I try to be the least bit defensive about feedback.
Polish, wtf? that pic was feedback from Solo for a symmetrical Lockout that a new forger made. That pic is not an accurate representation of the routes available from Sniper/Br Tower. I completely disagree with your opinion on Lockout Oddball. Oddball brought out the best in Lockout because of how each side was used. In Slayer, one team would control Sniper, and the other would control BR Tower. It was a standoff. In Oddball, The Sniper and Br Tower were imperative for map control, but it was much easier to protect the ball carrier in Lift/Library.
Well, I liked it. Seeing as how you are changing it though, I guess I will hold my thoughts. I am a fan of your work and even though you had somewhat of a template to go off this time, I still think it resulted in a map I would like to play and keep on my harddrive. But I guess I cant wait to see the newer version. Sweet map bro.
Name me ONE route from BR Tower to Snipe Tower or vice-versa that isn't across Top Mid or Bottom Mid. Just one. Thank you for the encouraging words. The map will still be itself at the core, it's just necessary at this point to make some design changes because there are certain parts I am not pleased with. As anyone knows, every single one of my maps goes through a very significant change between v1 and v2. Examples: Preserve, Sierra, Cladite, Decay Basically what I'm trying to say is: It's only going to get better
True, the only way from BR to Snipe is top and bottom mid, but it was just horrific for that inverse map because bottom mid was a two way and top mid was a two way. That said, there were no towers on the sides. As for lockout, the middle's are a 3-way. I realize it's still the "bottleneck" situation, but players can easily flank the sniper from lift/elbow if they make their way over through the bottom or have spawned there. Knowing it's 4v4, there is too much going on and too large a map for players to pin others down at one of the towers. - [oddball] I'm not sure it was oddball or slayer. I may have just been hallucinating. [Lockout >< Guardian] I was comparing them in the context of the flaws you mentioned on guardian. I'm not concerned as much about the flow (though the lifts would be more dangerous with a DMR/H2 BR) as I am with the lines of sight. Guardian had that glass wall, the headglitching S3, and blue side was overall concealed. Lockout, on the other hand, was much more open. The most concealed area was the dropdown to green and the lift, but the drop down is at bottom mid and the lift sends you towards top mid. As for other areas, there are unique lines of sight among the bottom, such as elbow <> BR 1-2-3 ramps and Sword <> S1 walkway, and Library had that window. The openness and the LOS helped force movement in Lockout's case IMO. And now with that said, using free/circular flow to avoid standoffish games while restricting the flow more to make the gameplay more organized with more emphasis on control is a hard balance to strike. So best of luck because achieving that will be very rewarding for this map, assuming you differentiate the sides (3 or 4 distinct positions) K well I'm off to bed because I love school
Meanwhile at MLG, we've got players arguing over whether or not The Pit is a good map, and how slow campy maps with choke points are actually a good thing.... Essentially what I'm saying it, there's no rulebook on what makes a good or bad map. Some people stand by designs that are ultra-free flowing like Cella is currently, others prefer maps that funnel players along particular routes. No one take on a design is correct, but I do believe there is a firm middle ground between the two which works better. There has to be positions or areas which help control the flow of movement, other wise you might as well be playing on a plane surface.
Looks like a good map, without the people to play test it, I've given it a few run around's. Found a gap between a 2x2 bank and a ramp on the back side of green; easy to notice when looking down while you walk. Nades get eaten. o.o
Cella v2 95% completed. Cella v2 is a co-forge with my pal Waldo the Lemon, and he has brought A LOT of great things to Cella. Release this weekend. Again, huge shout out to Waldo.
This is forged really cleanly and I'm looking forward to seeing the newest version. I think really, as mentioned, the biggest issue is definitely orientation. Everything seems to be made out of the same pieces in general, (which I don't blame you for, those 4x4's are pretty addicting), but it's definitely too repetitive. The coloring also confuses me. I feel like in general where the team spawns should be that team's color, but I suppose that falls down to the opinion of the forger since it isn't as though any of the rooms are being used as legitimate bases. I hope the orientation issue is solved in your next version, but good job :3.
Yeah it got completely reforged from the ground(water) up with aspects of both my design and APKs design. I might put updated pics up tonight. Unfortunately APK's been moaning about his TV giving him headaches So I had to do most of the forge dirty work. XD