[Mangachu]

QuaintHazard, on March 21 2010 - 11:50 AM, said:

Mangachu, on March 21 2010 - 08:50 AM, said:

QuaintHazard, on March 20 2010 - 11:20 PM, said:

I have to say, a2 is definitely a huge improvement.
I got an idea though...maybe everything can go warp speed at the end of a round? Or somehow make the skybox move at a really slow rate during the match? Seems a bit strange when its standing still.

kinda like convoy? i hate that map btw.

Pretty much, though I hope that's not your reason to hate Convoy

HAH..
thats the one thing i will ever hate about that map

[SirKillingston]

Something else I just noticed while playing are the back fins. You have an exit out of spawn to get onto them, but they're entirely useless and nobody ever goes out there.

[Jason]

SirKillingston, on March 25 2010 - 07:57 PM, said:

Something else I just noticed while playing are the back fins. You have an exit out of spawn to get onto them, but they're entirely useless and nobody ever goes out there.

It's a sniper deck

[Smyther]

Played it last night and it's VASTLY improved from alpha 1. A very fun map (well, maybe not so fun for the team we steamrolled . . .)

The only improvement I can imidietly think of, is while love the nucleus-style point, I think it should somehow be more of a nucleus. At the moment, whoever controls the fin, controls the point, and whist the tail spawn provides a nice safe walk for the winning team, it's a deathwalk for the opposition. Maybe you could remove the barrier to see what happens, or move the point to between the fin & the tail, or add a 3rd spawn option to the very front to make it easier to access for the enemy team, or maybe, for something new, put the point on the tail, but don't remove the barrier so that either side can cap it with safety if the can keep the enemy at bay, or they can force the enemy to return to their side of the point to prevent caps when one side is dominating the head.

But after writing all of that, it's become clear that whalerocket just needs an alt route of some description. Like nucleus hadthe back roads, sawmill has the waterfall/shed, viaduct has the over hang (not much of as alt route, but it provides cover from the ledge and anyway, bother sides cannot block the other's route to the point) and harvest has the buildings to the left of their spawn.

[nosoop]

Jason, on March 25 2010 - 10:02 PM, said:

SirKillingston, on March 25 2010 - 07:57 PM, said:

Something else I just noticed while playing are the back fins. You have an exit out of spawn to get onto them, but they're entirely useless and nobody ever goes out there.

It's a sniper deck

Doesn't seem to be working out too well as a sniper deck, yesterday the snipers just stayed inside the back fin spawn, stepping outside just to fire, then stepping back having the force field take all the damage.

[RickAstley]

This would be awesome if you could go in the hull and there were alt-routes there. Or something anyways.

Still, cool map.

[Wraith]

I'm considering just starting from scratch with a whole new layout, since a) it needs alternate routes, b} it needs to be bigger (and resizing it while keeping everything on the gridlines for future work is a nightmare) and c) goddamn everyone wants to go inside the whale (you sick bastards). right now it'd be virtually impossible for me to build passages into the interior of the whale, due to the way the body is built, without just coping out and using teleporters. and with the current layout i can't really see any useful way of making an interior section anyway.

maybe koth is the wrong format for this. maybe it should be pl_whalerocket or cp_whalerocket, with a track that goes through the interior or a point on the back and another in his belly. trying to separate the whale into left/right halves is kinda hard to work with when all the space is back to front.

[Kingdom's Sword]

I don't get why people actually want to go into the whale.inside would be just too damn cramped and then one rocker inside would explode everyone in there.

[Jason]

it'd just add more dimension/alternate routs to the point.

there's only one way to get there now, and everyone can see you

[Wraith]

Kingdom said:

I don't get why people actually want to go into the whale.inside would be just too damn cramped and then one rocker inside would explode everyone in there.

watch out.

back on subject, i really don't know. normally i wouldn't consider caving to popular demand but its virtually unanimous. hell i showed one of my irl friends who has tf2 the map and the first words out of his mouth were 'it'd be cool if you could go inside the whale!'. so I dunno.

[Jason]

well wraith, just because it'd be cool doesn't mean it'd be good for gameplay, you see

[Mars]

heh I can't wait for the inside the whale thing to backfire, I honestly don't.
Anyway, cool map, needs more space, and make it not so easy to spawn camp, you can easily get right in front of the other teams door at both sides, with little to no opposition.

[QuaintHazard]

Well, I do wonder about the inside, but personally the outside is the most important...I mean, you're on a whale.
I did suggest about going inside, but the current version made me realize that the outside really is the best part.

However, if you're looking for alternate routes, maybe you should build a few more ships to go along with the whale?
Also, if you do that, maybe you can make it a 3 cp map, sorta like this general layout:

               [RED SPAWN SHIP]

               |-------------|
               |-------------|
               |-------------|
               |-RED CP SHIP-|
               |-------------|
               |-------------|

         {-SAME WHALE HERE ----------------------}

               |-------------|
               |-------------|
               |-BLU CP SHIP-|
               |-------------|
               |-------------|
               |-------------|
               

               [BLU SPAWN SHIP]

(Those aren't the fins of the whale, they'd just be a completely separate ships holding the outer control points.)

That way, maybe you could balance it a little more, and expand the map without destroying the whale in the process.
The other ships then could have an interior part everyone wants, and everyone is happy, right? Also, maybe you could also get rid of some of the barriers on the whale's back.

Finally, since the spawns will still be separate ships, you can still bombard them at the end.

[Smyther]

Quaint's reminded me of this old post.

Quote

As an example, at one point several sessions in, it felt as though the player wasn't being given enough of a "cool-down" period after being in the action at the control point. The pacing was actually too intense. In addition, teams that captured the zone felt they had no space in which to keep control, due to the continuous stream of enemies pouring into the space. This devalued some classes significantly, like the Engineer. We were able to address both of these issues through the creation of an area in front of the respawn rooms. This allowed us to push the spawn points further away from the control point.

Quaint's got it nailed with the extra ships idea, but not with moving it to 3cp. Remember carpo? That was a small 3 cp map, but even then it's bigger than whalerocket. If you change whalerocket to a 3cp, either those 3 cp's are going to have to be close together, or you'll have to push the spawns even further back. I think you should stick with the koth theme because it is a fun map as it is, but it could use some tweaking for balance. I'm also with quaint when he said the outside's the place to be, but there just needs to be a little more outside.

My own idea:


Red/Blue = Spawns
Light grey = new ship hovering infront
Purple = one-way doors
Light Blue = barrier/wall

The grey area in front is a roofed platform/ship about the same height as the rear spawns that provides neutral high ground above to point to clear the point from and provides a 3rd spawn for both teams to embrace the centralised, clusterfuck nature of the map, yet make it a bit more managable for players. I tried to optimise its floor plan myself (sniper lines, cover, spawn-to-spawn killing, health etc.) but after half an hour I decided to leave it up to you.
The areas labeled A & B are the sniper decks, which should be more usefull now that snipers can view a larger area with combat on it, but to counter this, I think you should allow players to walk over the rear jets to allow access between A and B so that snipers are vunerable to more than just counter snipers (who would be putting themselfs in the middle of the battle just to do so), generally doesn't let snipers have a free snipe and even lets them snipe the other side of the map if they dare, yet doesn't affect the rest of the map's routes.

EDIT: Also, do something (not much, but something) about the stairs from the fins to the point, they're a bit of a choke point, which probably isn't so good right outside spawn.

It'll also be interesting to see how the new platform will affect the fin, because it's a bit of a cool down zone at the moment . . .

[Vide0Gam3r]

Smyther, on March 29 2010 - 12:49 PM, said:

EDIT: Also, do something (not much, but something) about the stairs from the fins to the point, they're a bit of a choke point, which probably isn't so good right outside spawn, and

And what? Did Candlejack get you? Oh, cra (LOL DUMB MEME)

Anyway, haven't gotten around to trying it out, will let you know when I do.

[QuaintHazard]

I encountered a glitch.
When I was engineer, I ran out with a sentry gun PDA in hand, and I somehow got stuck when I took the left teleporter out.