Dropdown

Hi again - this is my new Foundry map, called Dropdown. It consists of three towers (two are the bases, one is neutral) connected by a courtyard, two tunnels, and a ceiling-high enclosed ramp. From the ramp you can drop into the bases from the top, or drop down a pair of chutes, each containing a different power-up. It's a complex map that completely raped and pillaged my budget in a hurry, but is ultimately very small and intense - intended for not more than 6 players. Should be great for quick and crazy CTF and assault games.

Special credit to squidhands, who gave me the core idea (the towers) that inspired this map. Thanks man!

Download here: http://www.bungie.net/Forums/posts.aspx?postID=16359583

Screenshots:


The front of one tower, taken from the courtyard area.


Entering the neutral tower where the grav hammer rests.


The power-up drops. Decisions, decisions...


A look down into the defensive base tower.


A cross-section of part of the map with key scenery removed. You can see the offensive base (right), the courtyard (lower left), the power-up drop boxes (left), and the ramp that connects the tops of the two bases (top).

 

Re: Dropdown - frantic tower battles and crazed corridor crawls

Here you go. This is a good idea, I should do this for more of my maps- the way they are designed it's hard to communicate the layout with just a description, or even with lots of screenshots.

The first of these is mainly showing level 1, and a bit of level 2 (as noted on the right). The second is showing level 4. There's very little of the map that plays on level 2 and none on level 3. Basically you're high, you're low, or you're moving between the two. And sorry for the tiny text - that looked a little clearer in the bitmap version.

Map notes: the towers are more octagonal than square but I didn't bother depicting that accurately - this gets the idea across. Other notes: Each tower has a teleporter to the top level. Weapon notes: The shotgun is in the top right corner at the foot of the stairs. There's a mauler on the top ramp around the corner from the offensive base, and a brute shot closer to the defensive base. The mini-armory contains a plasma rifle, spiker, and two spike grenades. There's a BR in each base. In the courtyard there's a carbine and a power drainer. And finally, the powerup drops empty into the lower left part of the courtyard, closer to the offensive base. Objective notes: each base has a door suspended above one of the open boxes on the first level where the flag spawns and must be returned to. You can crouch-jump to this platform from the ground, or drop there from the top of the tower. In assault games, the bomb set point is on this platform, but the bomb spawn is on the floor underneath it for easier pickups.

 

Re: Dropdown - frantic tower battles and crazed corridor crawls

Yeah sorry, I did those in a rush in Paint and saved pretty crummy jpegs - I could have done a better job in Gimp and/or by taking my time. Maybe next go round.

 

Re: Dropdown - frantic tower battles and crazed corridor crawls

Thanks - that's all on squidhands, who came up with the general tower design. I shoplifted his tower (with permission of course), made three of 'em, and then added a bunch of stuff connecting them.

 

Re: Dropdown - frantic tower battles and crazed corridor crawls

This map has been updated and reshared - the link in the original post is edited. The geometry is basically unchanged but I added a third teleporter to the top level, and a couple more spawns up there as well (both to help with camping); and changed a few weapons and weapon locations around.

 

Yeah, I'm not sure how much fun a FFA would be. I think the ideal games for this map are team slayer, CTF (2 flag or 1 flag), assault (2 bomb or 1), and maybe oddball. It's a bit too tight to be effective for KOTH or territories though it is set up for both. FFA slayer I imagine would just be kind of hectic and repetitive, unfortunately, due to the limited weapon selection and the fact that it's all tight spaces. This map is not nearly as various an experience as my previous one Fractured, which I still think is my best effort at making a flexible, fun-for-most-gametypes type of map.

Yep, sad to say. I would have loved to have another way or two to the top but budget ended my exploration (c'mon, Bungie - throw me a bone with a ladder in the next Foundry-type map! and make it easy on the budget and physical space, eh?). It was actually painful just to add a third teleporter, I had to go around the exterior of the map looking for any object I could replace with a cheaper one (like doors with window panels, fence box with double box, etc).

I don't know which version you played, but the current one has three teleporters to the top and a sprinkling of spawn points as well; in addition I moved the teleporters as far against the back wall as possible so hopefully you won't get smacked coming out of it. In one of the towers, also, you should be able to physically see anyone camping the teleporter by just looking up before you go through. In the other one they can step back to avoid being seen, but that should also be a grenade hotspot. That's the best I could do under the circumstances - unfortunately an organized team of at least three players can still control that top level pretty effectively. But if they ever want the power-ups they have to come back down at some point. Also, the most dominant weapons (the shotgun and grav hammer) are on the bottom floor to help counteract this.

I believe so, but the respawn time on them is high enough that a person doing that would be hanging their teammates out to dry for a while. Not to mention inviting anyone looking down from the top to have a free kill.

My biggest problem doing this map was that the three towers were such a huge drain on available objects, budget, and space. It kind of limited what I was able to do with the rest of the map. My original ambition was a little grander - a physical way to get up to the top level rather than just teleporters, and I was hoping that both the top level and the courtyard area would be more spacious. On paper it was mad genius, I tells ya. ;D As is I think it's a fun, intense map for the right gametypes. We played 3 on 3 single flag CTF as well as 3 on 3 team slayer and both games were very entertaining, though not especially lengthy.

 

Which spawn points do you mean? I tried to place most of them in or around the two base towers, facing in the general direction of the other base (for objective games), or down the hallways that lead to the other base. A couple of spawns are behind other ones but that's not uncommon on a Halo map, especially smaller ones. It seemed to me like the alternative was to have more spawns out in the open where an enemy moving through a neutral area would have a clear shot at the newly spawned player, which I'm also not crazy about... I was also concerned that if I put spawns (other than starting points) in the middle of the bases, anyone in the courtyard or coming down one of the tunnels would get a free shot at them... anyway if you could single out some specific bad spawns, I will certainly take another look at them. Thanks!

(edit - I also wanted to mention that a big concern of mine on this map was spawn disorientation, since so much of the map is tight and enclosed. so I tried to place each one in such a way that the spawner would see a landmark, or if they moved forward just a few steps would immediately realize where they were. The rough draft of this map had some pretty awful and disorienting spawns, so if the current ones are bad, they're at least not as bad as they used to be. )