PLASMACORE_v0.4 Close-range 3-tiered Slayer arena. Deadly Plasma Core centerpiece **************** I stumbled across your site a couple of days ago and thought I'd share a little map I've been working on. It was designed primarily as a Slayer arena but I had some friends bugging me so I added support for a few other modes too, although I feel it plays best as it was intended. The map is a simple layout spread over 3 tiers - **************** Ground floor - Exposed area, access to upper floors via Gravity Lifts and Man Cannons. Weapons: Energy Sword Shotgun Fuel Rod Grenade x2 1st Floor - A U-shaped perimeter walkway encloses the Core at one end, while the main Core monitoring platform dominates the other. Weapons: DMR Needle Rifle Plasma Pistol x2 Sniper Rifle Plasma Grenade x2 2nd Floor - Another U-shaped perimeter walkway that has a Man Cannon in place to launch players over the Plasma Core to the upper Core monitoring platform. Weapons: Gravity Hammer Rocket Launcher Needler Plasma Rifle Plasma Grenade x2 Gameplay: The arena promotes a good mix of close/medium and long ranged combat with a lot of verticality that results in some awesome scrambles around the viewing platforms. The Man Cannon over the Core has provided some entertaining highlights but I am yet to achieve the flying Hammer kill it was intended for (I have suffered at the hands of that move though!). Without a jetpack the ground floor provides the only routes to the upper floors (the 1st and 2nd floors aren't connected so you must return to the ground in order to bounce back up). I have been testing this quite a bit with friends, it has fairly fast weapon spawns that I hope stike a good balance for anywhere between 2 and 8 players. I'd recommend having at least 4 players, but it isn't huge so a 2 player duel works pretty well.
You know I really like this the concepts solid but the aesthetics of how you used the kill ball was the real eye catcher. Its small but feels right im gona download and try it out nice work.
looks good but the weapons seem to be overpowered acorrding to the description you gave...fuelrods, swords, rockets, ect...
Thanks for the positive comments! To expand a little on the weapon setup: The Fuel Rod and Rocket Launcher are both on 90 second spawns, and not available at the round start. Neither have extra ammo to prevent them becoming too overpowering. They are positioned at opposite ends, one on the top level and one at the bottom so camping both spawns isn't really an option. The map promotes movement, in all of the testing I haven't seen anybody compelled to hold position for very long. Due to the fast pace of gameplay and the sheer amount of verticality I feel that having both a Gravity Hammer and an Energy Sword works well, although as the name suggests this map is still in progress and the Energy Sword is on my list of "Things that may well change". Both of the melee weapons are also on 90 seconds timers, but are available from the start. In all honesty the weapon placement was largely driven by feedback I recieved while testing - initially I had a much more tame selection, but I had a lot of comments about weapon placement being stingy - not enough of them, and spawn times being too long. In this version (v0.4) I think the number of weapons and the spawn times feel about right no matter how many players there are. We were finding before that with 8 players and less weapon pickups it would usually deteriorate into an Assault Rifle fight, which is no fun. Thanks a lot for the feedback though, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts again after playing it! As for game modes... I briefly said in the main post that it was always my intention for this to be a Slayer arena and not much more. Oddball is a laugh, but right now I'm not at all happy with the KOTH and Headhunter modes - I definitely need to spend some time adjusting hill spawn times and positioning. I may rework some geo to better support other modes, or I may just cut support for other modes... We'll see...
Fair comment, but I've also noticed that most maps give those launchers reloads. I'd rather halve the respawn time and remove the reload, then potentially 2 players will get the advantage that otherwise only one would have had. It also staggers the availability of rockets better in my opinion. 2 rockets every 90 seconds as opposed to 4 or 6 rockets every 180... My own feelings of course, maybe this is a little different to the norm. The map was always intended to be small and hectic, and I find the weapon pickups in a lot of maps to be a bit sparse. Pinnacle, for example, seems focussed largely on controlling the sniper and rocket spawns, largely because of the lack of any other decent pickups. I want to promote movement, so the intention behind faster respawns was to remove a reason to camp. I agree it sounds like a short respawn time - initially I had all of the power weapons set high, rockets were at 180, but in practise this seemed way too long for a small map.
Willus Ive played it now and I've got some feedback. Firstly I think there's to many health kits you've got five but you should cut it down to four. Secondly I agree with anime halo the weapons are overpowered. Either have a sword or a Gravity hammer not both. Thirdly Why a sniper? seriously the maps a bit small for it. And lastly I noticed on the top floor that one of your cover glasses was orange instead of purple was that deliberate. Anyway just wanted to give you that feed back still love the aesthetics of the map Good job!
Thanks Fatman It's funny, I was having a little test with a few friends last night and we came to those same conclusions. The sword is going to be removed (because I like the hammer much more), the sniper rifle gets such little use I'll be switching that for a different weapon, or maybe move the rocket launcher there. Also, I noticed the orange window too, that wasn't deliberate, I must have missed it while playing around with colours - shame on me! EDIT: Oh yeah, health kits... I'm going to remove the ones in the middle on the 1st floor and see how that plays out... Thanks again!
Nice work! I'm generally not a fan of kill balls in competitive maps, but in this case, it works. For some reason the map reminds me of Midship... more in respect to gameplay than aesthetics. The map is well constructed and looks great. My concern is the same as many of the other commenters: weapons. I would suggest removing the fuel rod gun. Its slow-moving projectiles don't work very well in competitive games, unless it's an exceptionally large and open map. If you still really want a power weapon there, maybe try a grenade launcher instead. Also, I would suggest placing these power weapons to spawn at start but set them on a 120 second respawn. 90 seconds is pretty short, and not placing the weapons at start eliminates that always-exciting mad dash to grab all the power weapons. Just my two cents.
Great map! It's size is small but the form of it keeps a more open feeling while keeping people away from the middle. I can see this map being a large sniping fest going on, but I think it will work well with it. I love the kill ball u built in the middle definitely the main point of view, I find it interesting how you need to work around it. I hope to see more great work like this from you. Keep up the work! Everybody get this! DD
Wow, all so positive! I guess I must be a bit anal because there are a few things still bugging me. The z fighting on the 45 degree corners annoys the hell out of me, but I am yet to find a way around that which doesn't look out of place. Also - the built-in white lighting that is cast by the lights in the hangar wall, I feel it spoils the mood, and I'm seriously considering moving the entire map to fix that (oh Bungie, why didn't you give us group select?). Not a small job I've made a pass on weapon placement today, I cut the Energy Sword, Fuel Rod and Sniper Rifle, and I added the Covenant 6-shot pink launcher thing (I'm good at names). I rearranged the placement a little as well. I've reduced the Health Pack count, tweaked weapon spawn times. Seems a lot better for it, but haven't had a chance to test properly yet. I've also been playing around with a hacky fix for the janky kill ball. I set up a couple of kill volumes inside specifically to kill anybody trying to nudge their way along the supports. It works fine, players get a suicide in the same way they would if the kill ball did the damage, but the message reads "You fell to your death" rather than "You were killed by Guardians". So then, I think functionality wins over funky kill messages... I haven't uploaded a new version yet - I still have changes to make to the game modes and maybe do that crazy level shifting thing, but I think the updated version should address most of the feedback I have recieved.