Anyone else think having 3 rt's that close together is ridiculous? I mean that long hallway might as well be a double RT room.
*EDIT*
Hopped into the map to check out how bad it really is... tbh it might as well be a triple rt room. Standing inbetween all three of those rts, you can have LOS on the Hub and Bridge RT's, and you can get to the Gate RT in literally 2 seconds.
I already told evilbob to make some resnode changes. The Gate RT will be moved into Gate and Tech and Cargo RT's will be moved so they are not snipable from that corner. We had no problems killing hub even though a marine was standing in between those two RTs, when we played it.
So we just played Scurvy vs Singularity on Turtle and Tanith.
The consensus from both teams is that both maps are rank unplayable.
Tanith has a massive marine bias -- The only winnable spawn for aliens is Waste, and you can probably 100% marine if you just check hives and go to central if waste spawn.
Cargo is too big and wide open.
Chemical doesn't have enough cover.
Fusion spawn is instant loss for aliens because of cargo. You literally cannot hold more than your single base RT as aliens.
Satellite is okayish if you turtle the fuck out of chem, maybe with 2 gorges.
Waste is the only playable hive and is sad if marines go for central and cut off all your res because west is dumb(2 direction long hallways with minimal cover).
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Turtle is retarded. Full stop. We all streamed it and it's probably the most awful map we've ever played. It even beats the old NS2_Caged for retarded bullshit. At least 10-20% of the map you can't drop meds on, including the entire south entrance to cargo, and random vent props on the ceiling all over the map.
The map is ridiculously tiny and there's so many entrances to every single room in the map that even when we were committing to "standard as fuck" games, we were still extremely tempted to drop everything and just base rush for victory.
I couldn't see games on turtle ever getting to W2A2, or 2hive aliens, without both teams committing to "Standard", no-cheese play. Which you will never see because cheesing is so ridiculously viable.
We also lost an excessive number of engagements as marine because "we weren't aware of the geometry of the map". Especially the parts of the map where there's a fucking vent prop in the fucking veiling stopping fucking medding.
Several of us agreed that we would rather not play in the ENSL than play those maps as is.
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I have strong opinions on this because these maps are, as of this time, completely not ready for competitive play.
ns2_turtle:
map is pretty dumb. it's like playing combatmod. If marines can shoot, they win pretty easily. everywhere is too close. Marines can pressure way too easily. so long as marines plant like 20 mines or even turrets to avoid baserushes, there is literally no way for them to lose. aliens can't get res.
other issues:
-map is rediculously dark.
-things block meds.
-vents aren't properly commander invisible.
-minimap and routes are stupid convoluted.
-line of sight on everything. why can you shoot half the rts from halfway across the map.
ns2_tanith:
- rooms are too marine friendly (way too open)
- cyst paths are absurd
- alien natural nodes are too far/too easy to snipe.
essentially chem/cargo is too easy for marines to fight in, and blocks off all the alien expansion. If marines get in and set up, aliens just starve. Then we sit there for 20 minutes while one marine 1v1s on the west side for nodes.
Turtle might the worst map I've ever seen for NS2. The map is a giant blob and plays like it. You can't even remotely try to lane, cysting is challenging due to the subpar architecture, medpacking is a nightmare and no it's not remotely acceptable to say that you just need to know where medpacks fail.
Singularity played a couple rounds against Scurvy tonight on Turtle and then Tanith (Kaneh, Packars, and Decoy streamed it) and Turtle was awful. The rush distance from both sides is an absolute joke to the point where you don't even need phase gates as marines. Marines can hold Hub, Bridge and defend base with 1 marine because of how close they are. The fact you have LOS from base RT to Bridge RT is a joke. This map is so small it feels like you're playing combat. The only positive thing I can say about Turtle is that I got a steady 200 fps.
Caged was ok to play on but it was obviously marine sided and a lot of the flaws can't be easily fixed, such as the middle of the map or the abusive arc positions. There is also very little cover for skulks compared to any of the official maps or Jambi.
Docking is fine, it's not perfect but it is playable. I have no idea why you would remove the 2nd best new map in the pool and leave in Turtle.
Tanith is almost as unplayable as Turtle. The right side of the map is an absolute joke. Both Chem and Cargo are way too open and way too big for aliens to profitably fight in, especially Cargo. Also the fact you can arc out Fusion from Cargo is a joke. Cargo has to be drastically changed for the map to be playable. Also it is comically easy to prevent aliens from getting cysts out of their hive if they spawn on the right side.
Biodome is fine, except for the medpack bug between Falls and Agri and the invisible wall on Bridge. It's not incredibly high FPS with the nsl version, but it's playable.
Turtle and Tanith aren't even fun to play on and Caged is almost as bad. I would much rather play Mineshaft, Refinery, or Docking than the two NS1 maps that don't work in NS2 (crazy how that works) and Turtle. These maps have obvious flaws that can't be fixed in time for the weeks teams have to play on it.
I feel like anything I have to say after playing Turtle has been covered by Kaneh, Pakars, and Iron. Kaneh particularly covered all my complaints as a commander. At this point it's just beating a dead horse. We should just bury Turtle for this season and try to get it up to snuff for NEXT season.
Swalk, you tell us we have 3-4 weeks to practice Turtle, but then you say that evilbob is making changes? When will we see the map we'll actually have to play? I really think that this map should not be played this season.
Legendary Snails and Titus played it this evening, and that seems to be the general consensus from them as well.
I really hope you're not going to attempt to force teams to play this map when the overwhelming consensus seems to be that this is not ready for the season.
Caged & Tanith I can live with, but literally anything would be better than Turtle. I'd even take Refinery over Turtle. If you're insistent about adding YET ANOTHER new map to the map pool, then swap out Turtle for Docking. Or just let us play Descent twice.
I am going to have evilbob make much more stuff commander invisible. Some resnodes will move a bit and more props will be added for cover. Unfortunately I can't promise you a deadline on a new version. It's just one guy making it. But it shouldn't be too long, no major geometry changes. It's still possible to get familiar with the general layout of the map.
@Decoy We played against a team that slightly outskilled us, we lost in the end, but we were able to kill most of the marine resnodes and protect 3 RTs and 2 hives for most of the game. I am not going to force you to play on turtle as long it has this many problems, but I am not going to remove it without giving evilbob a chance to make fixes either. You can leave it on hold, I think I've got plenty of feedback for now. I'll post here when there is an update out.
This is however why you make, test and balance a map before you give any consideration to skinning it - and the reason you should have given consideration to the maps I had suggested.
Skinning a map is the last thing any competitive map should concern itself with. You should consider Fracture as a replacement
I totally agree with Rios about Turtle, and will add : no way it can be played in officials. Swalk said there are no need to make huge changes, but hell it must have big changes before reaching a balanced shape. This map doesn't suit well with ns2 gameplay. It needs more space, the map is just too small. It can be played in combat mod, but no way in matches.
Asking for feedback is great, taking them into account is another thing.
About Tanith : it is still marine favoring and doesn't suit well with ns2 gameplay. Big changes are needed. You can block the path to rts too easy as marine.
I would understand if people don't want to play turtle for official leagues. Quake-selection ain't for everyone :p
Thanks for the feedback guys! After the league I will modify it to make it more balanced according to the feedback. The recording of matches is best feedback for me. I have already started with what has been given but mapping takes a lot of time and I can work on it only in my after-hours.
Quake-selection is new to everyone and needs some refinements. I had to start somewhere and this is my reference. I am very happy with it and the feedback I have got already.
Again, thanks for the feedback, good bad and ugly ;)
No, xtc. Don't mind at all! It's too powerful a path for marines w/o jetpacks imo. PG in skylights currently gives access too fast pressure on both Organ and Oxy and it's fairly easy to hold a PG there.
Sorry if i ve been rough to you evilbob, was not my intent.
But to be honest, Turtle is not playable nor viable in competitive match. Its balance hasn't reached a certain level so organized teams who play it can benefit its awesomeness.
Really, the entire map is a good idea and is quite innovative. But multiply levels doesn't suit well with ns2 gameplay. The small size of the map is, moreover, disturbing and makes marines easier life. If aliens had faster spawn time and faster egg spawn time it could be a good map. But it's not the case.
Moreoever, being able to shoot harvesters that easily and from this far is ridiculously bad for the gameplay.
Nearly every room in the map isn't adapted to NS2 gameplay during fights. Either there aren't any cover areas, either it's too much claustrophobic. Hive spots seem to be dropped randomly. Being able to siege Tech from Hub is aweful. The fact you can't have more than 1 harvester, at start, as alien, is also quite bad for the gameplay. You can't struggle on 1 constantly aggressed RT as alien... It's just not viable.
Moreover, cyst chains are too much exposed to marines (because of the multiplied entrances for a harvester spot and corridors). Check out summit : as marine, you can't cut the cyst chain until you go farther the RT spot, near the hive.
I admire the fact you are making a new map, it's total GG, but there are so many things to take into account so it can suit well for competitive gameplay, that it seems to be impossible to balance, sometimes.
Just check how even devs' can't balance a map for competitiveness... Descent, Mineshaft, Refinery are unbalanced. Tram, Summit and Veil : i d like to see statistics about hive spawn % win... It might be really interesting :O
No worries dude. Its my project and I know it will work great. And sometimes you just have to throw things out there to see how it works. I know myself enough that harsh critiques make me laugh rather then hurt my feelings. It was funny to hear someone say they were going to puke or another stating he is allergic to purple :p Its the way of things, you just can't do something that will please everyone and if some people don't like and some do, it means its already got personality ;)
Localized cover, such as crates and such is very situational. Its one of those things where the players can help a lot depending on the experience of a match. So if anyone has ideas bring them on.
The harvesters are definitely the thing that works the less at the moment. I sort of imagined that the multi levels and flanking possibilities would give aliens a chance to protect them. At this point is does seem as aliens need to have much more awareness of marines than marines need to care where the aliens are.
I know it will get balanced. It might seem difficult for you but this is one of my 'jobs' that I've been doing for over 15 years. And it is not my first "out of the box" map. Somehow I know what I'm doing :p I've had a match on it with 'less competitive' players and it was already working pretty well (as aliens were able to secure rts) but it does seem competitive players push things much harder ;)
Like I said, recorded matches are such a great resource for me. Because I can analyze the flow of all players and have an idea of everything going on and how the whole match proceeds. In a sens, recorded matches are my raw material. With enough of it I am sure I can make this work just right with just a few well placed tweaks. But I need to really understand how it works already otherwise changes just to change or hot-fixing just makes you go round in circles and balance is always unsure.
So bare with me and turtle with its rough edges for a bit. I take things slow with a lot of reflection. There's no due date so I can take the time to really pin-point what I need to tweak. And I am sure you guys will be pleasantly surprised. For the time being, don't take it too seriously and just have fun. Exploit it, cheat it, push it to its limits and make it cry! Because this is where it's going. The far extents of NS2 gameplay, which will come to show how much potential there is with this great game. Just don't forget to recorded it and pass it on to me :D
yeah we aren't particularly angry at the mapper. We're just pissed that something that ridiculously imbalanced and not strategic is being forced as a map to play on. Its like we don't care if you want to make siege maps or whatever. Just don't put them into the map pool.
Changing the topic entirely away from turtle: is there any word on ns2_caged? It has been broken since the 15th and is one of next week's maps. We're trying to scrim it a at least a half dozen times or so before we have to do a match that actually counts for something, but are completely unable to do so.
I got the new ns2 caged working on the TWAT server using the "ns2_raged" workshop mod. I removed the original ns2_caged mod id from the command line and mapcycle json and it seems the map is still named ns2_caged, so your mapcycle json should point to that:
I've been trying to think of ways to fix Caged for days, but everything I try fails. There is apparently a workshop issue that also affects ns2_fusion and a number of CS:Go maps also no longer want to publish.
For now I suggest you use the temporary fix that Cognito mentioned. I sent my Caged files over to Howser and he published them as ns2_raged, though indeed the files in the mod are still called ns2_caged.
All right, it looks like I fixed Caged again. I don't really understand how I fixed it, or perhaps they fixed a Workshop issue, but I just successfully published it, successfully downloaded the mod via the Workshop, and got it to run normally on our SCC server.
Please let me know if you run into any remaining issues.
EDIT: Also, anyone organizing a PCW on Caged is encouraged to add me to their Steam friends (search for Flaterectomy) so I might witness and possibly record these events. ;)
Really nice xtc and Flat! Organ seems better in terms of LOS blocking now and it looks great as well!
Due to turtle having issues that will likely take evilbob too long time to sort out, I am considering switching turtle with ns2_fracture like Bonkers suggested. See fracure played here: http://www.ensl.org/topics/926
Currently it has 11 RTs but that will be boiled down to 10. From what Bonkers told me, Howser(the mapper) is already working on changing that. Let me know what you guys think of fracture. I haven't had a chance to play it myself yet.
I will also try to get Jonacrab, the mapper of tanith to move the tech point in Fusion so it's not siegable from inside Cargo and adding more cover/props to Reactor Room, Cargo and Chemical.
