tbd_cave please give your impressions

[Karl]

On "Altitude Official #1" there is now a map called tbd_cave (Team Base Destroy). Please play test it and give your impressions.

Going to add ffa_cave (Free for all) soon... Will be almost the same map.

http://www.nimblygames.com/levels/tbd_cave.png

[Blank]

fun map. Few things:

1- poor turret cover fire of base, as in, it doesn't cover it :P You can sit on the runway shoot MG and literally not die unless someone turns around to kills you. Suggest a turret situated on the wall near the back higher up with a larger cone of fire.

1a- Turret HP partially obstructed by wall textures. Not a huge deal but worth fixing IMO!

2- Power ups on xtreme corners = worthless. Way to far out of the way. Powerup duration should be perma until someone picks it up to (mostly) ensure that going over there isn't a complete ****ing waste of time.

3- Not entirely map related, but game requires some sort of auto-balance when a team has +1 member on it. Faster respawn seems to be the obvious choice.


All that aside, it's probably my new favorite map ^_^

[DiogenesDog]

ditto to what blank said. and I'll go further with the upper left/right stuff... those areas were pretty much never used at all. actually, it kind of seems like there are a lot of sections that don't see much use (thinking also of top middle and those triple tunnels above the bases). hard to say so early tho.

also kind of awkward looping around back to pick up bomb.

and the game felt really low to the ground because your spawn altitude is set very low. but the ceiling is like right there already so I dunno.

[Karl]

edited yet again. See the pic or play and post impressions.

I have addressed all concerns thus far (i agreed w/ them all).

http://www.nimblygames.com/levels/tbd_cave.png

The two things that bothers me now is the asteroid field in the middle and it might be too easy to run the bomb.

[Snowsickle]

I like the look of the new map, my only concern at this point is that I feel that the bottom middle (the main "conflict point") is a bit too cramped. I agree that the asteroid field in the middle is kind of problematic. It's difficult to maneuver through it, especially at high speeds, and limits your plane to a certain path. If your enemy flies into one of the asteroid "rings" its very easy to predict where they'll be coming out and in my opinion, this predictability makes dogfighting less interesting and highly favors explodets/biplanes. Too many asteroids interferes with miranda laser/loopy tracking and makes it difficult to use bomber secondary. My suggestion would be to either remove part of the asteroid field, or to move it outward a bit (see attachment).

[lamsbro]

I think I prefer the first version if tbd_cave.

[Blank]

Originally Posted by lamsbro

I think I prefer the first version if tbd_cave.

Ditto this. Karl's newer version looks "okay" but I prefered powerups being in the center and not so team-side oriented. Team side oriented makes for much easier camping.

And I completely disagree with snow. Going through asteroids at high speed is a risk/reward thing. You run the risk of dying but that's where the powerups are, and if someone wants your kill he's going to have to chase you through it. I don't think loopy suffers from playing on this map because EMP becomes a great deal more useful (plus, offscreen shooting -> homing is ****ing bull**** no skill lamer **** anyway). Miranda will also be fine. More cover to hide behind hurts laser but boosts survivability since you can "fake out" planes super-easy with all the asteroids and ****.

Basically, I like how you actually have to know how to fly to play the map decently.

Bomber is limited to basically 2 areas (upper front of both bases) but meh... it's a ****ing bomber. You're already ****ed by being in one.

[DiogenesDog]

Thoughts from playing today after the edit:

- I like the higher up bases and feel like most of the map actually sees traffic now, which is a good thing.

- Turret placement needs some work. Maybe add a turret out on that chunk of rock that's in front of the base? (Probably needs to be reshaped a bit too.)

- Agree with Blank that powerups in the center would be good.


Basically, I think once the random small **** is fixed it'll be better than the version from a couple days ago.

[lamsbro]

I think the 2 "4 rock circles" should be at the same altitude, the one on the left is higher than the one on the right. The higher 4 rock circle allows for dodging at a higher altitude which is more advantageous than dodging at a lower altitude because you can convert that altitude into speed.

[DiogenesDog]

Btw, is the plan right now to have an FFA and a team version of every art set, or is that unique to Cave? It'd be kind of ghetto, but it's an almost-free way to double the number of maps you have. And since that's a major roadblock, that could be nice. The map layouts don't necessarily even need to be very similar even if they're using mostly the same art pieces.

[DiogenesDog]

couple more small things:

- the bases (at least the one on the right, didn't check the other) are very bakkable. you can probably fix it by just increasing the nearby turret firing angle.

- the lower right/left powerups seem a teensy bit too far away to me. maybe pull up that area of land so you don't have to dive so far?

[Karl]

New tbd_cave released. Join Altitude Official #1 server to download.
http://www.nimblygames.com/levels/tbd_cave_3.png

changes include:
Middle powerups
moved
now spawn health, shield, wall, missile.

Middle geometry changed quite a lot

Stalagmites near base have been changed...

[DiogenesDog]

feedback as asked for:

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it. There are some minor changes I could see improving it (see below), but overall I'm pretty happy. I would like to playtest an older version a little though... there was definitely something I really enjoyed about it before that seems to be missing now, but I'm not sure what it was. Might just be that it was new back then tho and now I've gotten used to it.

Oh, and I enjoy the tunnel, but the middle feels very claustrophobic now with that open area clogged up with the tunnel rocks. Honestly tho I'm okay with it either way.

Just want to repeat though that I think you'd be making a mistake to finalize the art now. If there's anything else you can find to put Steve on, that'd be preferable imo. While solid, the map could only benefit from more playtesting. Seems like there are enough little things that you could put him on to keep him busy this weekend... the afterburner flame, the base art, the plane selection UI...

Anyway, here's my photoshop:

[Blank]

the hump thing in front of blue base (probably white too) will damage planes fresh off the runway.

Kinda sparse powerup wise.

[Snowsickle]

Don't care for the tunnel. Hard to have any kind of meaningful fights in it due to space limitations and adding another route just further spreads out fighting on an already fairly open map. I was a big fan of the middle basin thing being a major point of conflict.

Powerup thoughts: 2 powerup spawns definitely doesn't seem to be cutting it. I would remove the bottom middle powerup, put one in each of the rock rings, and one at the top. If this ends up promoting powerup whoring too much, I would much rather have antiblank thrown into the mix than have fewer powerups on the map. Powerups tend to keep things interesting, and there are other measures to prevent people from whoring the spawn points.

Agree with Dio on reducing stalagtite size. Lobbing from the top route takes long enough that people can practically die and spawn and still have time to dick around before catching your bomb. Lobbing from the bottom is pretty difficult unless you either go in far or pull off a very low angle lob, which is pretty difficult in anything that isn't a loopy.

EDIT: I want to add that I think adding health to the rotation was a change that will likely go a long way in preventing people from whoring with 3 powerup spawns, and antiblank/other whatnot probably won't even have to be considered.

[Kildayen]

I agree with snow.

[DiogenesDog]

Originally Posted by Snowsickle

EDIT: I want to add that I think adding health to the rotation was a change that will likely go a long way in preventing people from whoring with 3 powerup spawns, and antiblank/other whatnot probably won't even have to be considered.

Don't forget that eventually there will be more powerups. So while right now it's health 1/4 of the time, that won't always be the case...

[Karl]

Here is a screenshot of the oldest version of tbd_cave we have in our source repository (version 1.1 we are currently on version 1.7)...

http://www.nimblygames.com/levels/tb...ersion_1.1.png

I guess I never checked in the first versions of tbd_cave ... oh well anyways I dont think version 1.1 is any good.

[Karl]

History of cave:
http://www.nimblygames.com/levels/tb...e_history.html

[Karl]

tbd_cave updated again see:

http://www.nimblygames.com/levels/tb...e_history.html

[Karl]

updated tbd_cave

1. reduced stalagmite and stalactite sizes around the base by ~50%
2. removed lip from base ledge so lower path is slightly easier to bomb from

[Snowsickle]

Perfect. Wouldn't change a thing at this point.

[Ajplagge]

Wow looks great!