THE ARK Forged by The Fated Fire Weapon Set: Rocket Launcher (180s) Sniper Rifle (120s) Scattershot (90s) Tons of other random weapons
ur boat is bad jk bro, looks cool, but i'm pretty sure those rocks as floors mess with nade bouncing. I think that's why army put that artifact base under the rocks on the park. When's the next testing lobby btw, have you announced anything yet?
The artifact base is even more bumpy than the rock 5. Rock 5s have an invisible barrier that keeps player movement and grenade bouncing consistent for the most part. I haven't noticed any issues with grenade bounces in beta testing so far, but this is still the initial stage of testing and everything is subject to change. I will be gone this entire week, so I will not be hosting any lobbies. I'm sure Chef Linguini and a few of my other forge crew will be running lobbies and testing The Ark for me while I'm gone, so hit up the usual people.
Really liking how this is coming along... If I get into a party with you sometime soon, I'd like to see.
[video=youtube_share;wYto22dxAng]http://youtu.be/wYto22dxAng[/video] This is looking much better than I was expecting from the pictures. I feel like I'm always asking people to use rock pieces to create elevation changes rather than using them as 'lazy cover'. This is definitely one of the best attempts I've seen at doing that. There were only really 2 things that stood out to me. First, the ramp on the top of the boat. I'd rather see a block used there, just because ramps are always awkward to jump off of. Then, near the blue teams initial spawn, there are 2 artifact base railings that don't quite meet up, but don't quite leave enough room to move between them either. I mean, technically there's enough room to walk through there, but it's pretty cramped. There's a gap of 1 unit or less there, I think. That gap should be opened up more. You can't see the area I'm talking about in the video, but it's in the area at about the 1 minute mark. If you're not sure what I'm talking about, let me know. Other than that, there are a few transition areas where rocks meet that are not the smoothest, but I don't really think there's much you can do about that. You've actually pieced it together quite well considering what you're working with. I'm looking forward to seeing how this one evolves.
Thanks a ton for your feedback and for capturing that TS gameplay Chunk. I agree that a block may play better on the boat than the ramp. The ramp serves multiple functions. The primary function is the jump up to snipe bridge, and the secondary function is to give players a slanted platform to use to gain a peak shot line of sight on to rockets and big door. A block placed at the correct height may be able to serve both functions as well, so ill see. Also, Nitro pointed out the artifact base placement at blue spawn as well. I plan to address it by either lowering the artifact bases by .1 or by moving the entire blue base over a few clicks. The weapon placement in that gameplay is very experimental, especially the suppressor. I may place speed boost in that tunnel or transform it into a wind tunnel with man cannon sound effects and increased speed traits. I am also planning on reforging red base to make it look more similar aesthetically to blue base. The reconstruction will give me several rock pieces back that I can use to polish off the terrain. I won't be able to make any of these changes for a week - it's driving me crazy!
I was a bit skeptical of the map design when I first saw it, but i am quite enjoying it. That new tower looks great. The only issue was spawning on the enemies side of the map. Was that intentional?
Thanks man. Yes, dynamic spawning is intentional. The Ark is an asymmetrical map designed to play with dynamic power positions that you must watch from all sides to control. If static spawning was in place, a team setup on the bridge and at the main building could lock down a spawn trap on one side of the map with little effort. The red and blue symbols on those two structures is in place only for orientation and call outs, not to signify a team's possession of that structure. I have a lengthy list of edits I plan to do when I get back from vacation, including setting up The Ark for extraction which will be one of the big hit or miss opporunities for the map in competitive play.
Go for a big hit. (y) Looking forward to the changes you make to this map, so far it looks promising bro.
The crack between the boat and the shore is hard to see while playing and took my life several times during the matches I played. If you want a death trap it should be a little more obvious. If not, pull some blocks up to just below the surface of the water. Maybe I just suck but th is was really a frustrating spot for me.
Thanks for the feedback Chron. The version you've been playing is outdated and I have remedied much of the issues around the boat in my current build. There is now a ramp that leads from the boat to the dock on the ocean side, and a series of railings has been implemented around the shore to keep players from walking right off. I'm within a day or two of releasing a v1. Major changes have been implemented over the last few days.
If there's any map with less white than any other color, it's this one. The aesthetics look great and the map plays fluid.
This map is just refreshing, simple as that. A nice asymmetrical design that not only plays well, but actually looks like a real map too! Solid piece of work Fated.
I haven't played the map so my suggestion may be completely irrelevant/isn't necessary/doesn't work well. I think that you should move either the sniper or the hardlight shield to on top of the bridge. It is really open so I people won't want to use it and they would always go below across the boat whereas if one of those two power weapons was there it would give them more of an incentive to use it. Also (this is juts personal preference) I would make it so all of the weapons were ordinance or all of them just pick ups but its not really a big deal.
Thanks for your feedback man. People want to use the bridge. The bridge is a risk vs reward power position - elevation and dominance over the entire map at the cost of being exposed to every tower and line of sight on the map. It is worth the risk to control the bridge without a power weapon. The sniper is at the edge of the boat to draw a ton of attention to that part of the map. If there were not a power weapon on the back side of the boat, that area would go very underused due to how risky it is to be there in the first place. The hardlight shield was placed on the boat with Extraction in mind. The first extraction point is on that area of the boat and the hardlight shield placement allows teams to work in pairs, sending one teammate to board the boat first and grab the hardlight shield, and then send the second teammate to make the extraction behind the first player's shield. As far as Ordnance vs pickups, I wanted to draw a ton of attention to the sniper and rocket location. The sword however, by nature, is a stealth weapon. I kept the sword off ordnance to reward players for gaining map knowledge and retaining the stealth play style. If you get a game on here let me know. I'll be interested to hear your feedback after you play.
This was fun to play on. Sadly we got wrecked, mostly because of me. It was interesting, although I felt the sword was pretty much useless because the large majority of the map is open. I'd rather see something else there that would promote more movement / be more useful. I'll hold off on further feedback until I get more games on this. Good stuff.
Thanks Spin. I agree that the sword felt useless in that 2v2 game you played, but you've yet to see how it is used with 4v4 Extraction / KotH. It becomes a great back pocket weapon to keep hidden until players charge the hill, especially the center hill at rockets.