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Thomas Mink
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I so much of a purist that I like keeping little quirks of a map perfectly intact when I remake that map.. like some of the low doorways in my version. That said, I'll agree with ReBoOt in regards to the MH/RL door.. at least for the purist version. In modified versions, changes can be made. But if you're going to actually change the layout of the water area at some point to be more true to the original.. you may as well keep the door camping in there as well.
As an alternative, you could change the respawn timer on the MH to reflect the original Q1 item.. which was a whopping 120 seconds. In Q3, I think it's something like 40 seconds.. I may or may not be wrong.. but it's definitely shorter than in Q1. Why it was that long, I doubt anyone will ever know. Just tossing it out there.. I mean someone could still hide in the door, but more health will erode away before the MH respawns. Might be an awkward adjustment to make, though, from a player standpoint.
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Phoenix
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Bots do behave a bit more sane in this version. I'm still getting the occasional hitch, but the bots appear to not be completely stupid about navigating now.
I'd leave the respawn time alone for the MH. Long MH respawn time in Q1 was due to the fact that you could uberstack your health with multiple MH's, and you got a lot more armor as well. Map scale being larger is OK by me. It is quite a bit large compared to the original, but all Q1 maps were so damned tight that rocket spam equated to instant death.
As for door camping... well, grenade launchers work pretty good to empty rooms of campers. Lobbing a few in front of the door, hitting the switch, then lobbing a few through the doorway tends to decamp small rooms, so perhaps letting the players solve it would work best? Besides, if you just camp that room, all the frags are going to take place elsewhere so if people avoid the room you'll be kind of low on the scoreboard.
Speaking of grenades, I do have one suggestion to a change in items. I noticed that as an Arena Gladiator, there are 3 rocket ammo boxes, but no grenade ammo boxes. Slipgate won't see a difference, but Strogg and Arena could definitely use some grenade ammo. I propose changing the ammo box on the walkway above the button from a rocket box to a grenade box.
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Tabun
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I'm going to keep the door working as it is now for the pure version -- pure will work exactly as bad as I think the original did. ;] I'm talking about the Q3A-default version. Camping is not just a lame tactic, it actually slows down gameplay, something that seems to be seriously frowned upon by the professionals in the mapping scene. I'm already 100% sure that a common comment I'm going to see is "take out the button, keep the door open always." I won't do that, but I will make the room more of a powerup-spot, not a weapon niche, and certainly not for the most powerful weapon! Anyway, my point is that camping shouldn't be all that safe in the non-pure version.
A further consideration is that this is such a small map -- which makes me worry about tourney play aswell. The default version will be more balanced with that in mind, too.
Scale is final. I made it this size on purpose. The usual reasons for changing scale to get Q3-playable results apply.
I'm not going to mess with respawn timing. I don't do that as a rule for normal items (real timed powerups are a slightly different matter), since people have come to get used to default respawn times, and will get upset if something is throwing their intuitive play off. And rightly so, IMO.
Good idea on the RL=>GL ammo change, that makes sense to me, as it's just as "pure," anyway.
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Tabun
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Here's "alpha 3": tabq1dm5_alpha3.zipThis should be the real "pure" version. Also new: ambient sounds. |
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Thomas Mink
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Now that one actually felt like the Cistern I know. I even think the bottom-most area looks better flooded like that. It was a treat to run through this and play a quick Slipgate deathmatch with the bots. Seemed like the clipping wasn't fully complete yet, so I'll leave out those issues with the bots. They took some weird and interesting paths though.  |
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ReBoOt
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Have to agree feels alot better with the water flooded might do a switch between BFG and LG gun if you feel "normal" quake 3 players get bored just getting an LG as reward with the work swimming to it. |
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Tabun
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The botclipping is complete, so please report any seriously weird issues (like bots running into walls or not able to leave the water, etc.). Playerclip is also done, so also be on the lookout for places where you can run into things that you wouldn't expect, especially where this is annoying in combat.
Also, I'm not going to put a BFG in there, I think. The PoP should be reward enough, basically. The whole water-thunderbolt-death thing (as Pho described) is Slipgate-only, anyway. I've pretty much written off the pure version as anything but a funny gimmick for nostalgic Slipgate games. Serious, balanced gaming is what the non-pure version should be all about.
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« Last Edit: 2009-10-10, 23:28 by Tabun »
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?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Thomas Mink
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I wouldn't call it serious.. but there's a a couple very slim 'lips' along the walls in places that I saw the bots use. One is by the grenade launcher, where during a fight I saw a bot take the scenic route to get the weapon instead of using the normal floor. ( Screenie) The only other that I saw is directly under the button to open the door. A bot jumped down from the button and landed on the narrow lip, then walked along the wall to the stairs. ( Screenie) In both cases, a player can do the same.. if they chose to anyway. Not anything major.. just made me look twice when I saw the bots running across them is all. |
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Tabun
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Yeah, I deliberately didn't clip those, so players can use them.. Maybe I should bot-clip them, though. Didn't expect them to use it. I did notice they use the small ledge in front of the curved wall near the three doorways, but that's actually neat. :]
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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I just downloaded the map, and I'll give it a run in a bit.
I would say no on the BFG as well. In normal Q3 the BFG is enormously hated by players. That was a large part of the reason the weapon was changed in Gen. I have not to this day heard a single complaint about the revised Arena BFG, even from hardcore Q3 players. For the non-pure map it would be a definite no-no. The lightning gun, on the other hand, is a very favored weapon with Q3 players and it will definitely draw people to the underground area.
As for the pure version, it wouldn't make sense to give everyone a BFG and Slipgate only the Thunderbolt, especially spawning next to the invulnerability. That's giving Doom and Strogg too much of an advantage on a Q1-themed map. Besides, if someone does a remake of Lava Tomb for Q2 (assuming someone ever does) we wouldn't swap out the BFG10K spawn with a lightning gun, would we? 
Tab: I wouldn't call anything you do worth "writing off", especially concerning nostalgia. That's the whole point of the project, no? I take the pure maps as serious for gameplay as any balanced versions because the purists (like myself) will want that as much as the "normal" Q3 community would want "balanced-for-Q3" maps. I see both as equally important.
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Tabun
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Hmm, yes. Somehow I see the important part of the pure version to be as close to the original as possible, altering only things that destroy gameplay in ways that weren't an issue in the original game/level. I guess I'm not too interested in how the pure version comes out in the end, because I'm just not a fan of core elements of the map: a big water pit, two item spawn combinations of a strong weapon and a powerup and an almost completely useless section of the map due to item placement (upper walkway corner near the GL). Changing any of those would be a requirement for me to consider the map to play as enjoyably as it could be, and I think that nostalgia wins out here and such changes are simply ruled out for a version true to the original. That doesn't mean I'm not willing to tweak the pure version -- indeed I hope the feedback here will lead to it being the best it can be. (I'm already happy to note that the bots actually go for the PoP, while they don't in alpha2, so the change to the water section has already paid off. ;]) It just means I'm going to focus on actually get more out of the basic layout of the level, which is a hard enough task, anyway. Edit:Speaking of which, here is what I'm currently planning to do.  This is based off of (just slightly) a design guide for tourney, my wishes to make players really roam the map and be able to have a fighting chance against players who are in control of one of or both the MH & RA. Not sure if I want to keep the door button as it works now. I kind of like the idea that you have to risk something (taking the room with only one easy exit, or going for the button to enter a dead-end room) to grab a powerful item. Weapon placement will probably require most testing, because I'm just not sure how that will work out. I do think the shotgun will be an important weapon here, with the many ways one can get close to the other players and the extra shell pickups I'm planning to add.. The "h" indicates not all, but just the bigger health spawn points. |
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« Last Edit: 2009-10-11, 21:33 by Tabun »
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| Tabun |
?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Tabun
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Double posting to add this link: tabq1dm5_alpha4.zipIncludes latest (alpha3) pure version as tabq1dm5_pure. Default version now added as tabq1dm5. One change that I'm already planning to do is to remove some of the health near the teleporters. I'll probably move that somewhere else, or maybe even take it out entirely. Another thing I should probably do is add bot_roam entity to give bots a stronger pull to the MH. If anyone sees bots pick up the MH, let me know -- that would be good news. :] |
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?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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On the non-pure version, I saw a bot take it exactly once in a 20-minute span (I timescaled while observing). On the pure version, the lightning platform was accessed 7 times - 6 times by Hunter, once by Uriel. I had Ranger, Wrack, Uriel, and Hunter playing. Since Hunter prefers the lightning gun, the weapon priority in the bot code seemed to be at work there. Overall the bots accessed the water area more in the pure version. I only saw bots use the platform on the non-pure version once while spectating. They did not overuse the water on the pure version like they tend to do on some maps, but I was a bit disappointed they did not use the underneath on the non-pure.
The pure version plays fine to me in Gen. Regarding Gen play, some of the problems inherent in the map in Q1 are diminished. For example, access to the rocket launcher is not entirely dependent on the button thanks to Earth and Doom being able to get one at the Grenade Launcher spawn. Anyone taking out a Mortar wielding Earther or a Doomer that's using a Rocket Launcher will claim the weapon. That takes a bit of the camp-factor off the button room for Gen's sake. A Slipgater, Arena Gladiator, or Strogg Trooper lacking a rocket launcher can technically acquire one anywhere on the map so long as an Earth Soldier or Doom Warrior is present. In Gen, I absolutely love the pure version. I like it much better than how it plays in Q1, but then, I like Gen better than Q1, even playing Slipgate-only. I have not tested the Pure version in normal Q3.
Per-Class breakdown on the Pure map:
Earth has it pretty tough since the only place he can pick up a Gatling Gun is at the Lightning Gun spawn, so he'll have to rely on the MP-40 and mortar a lot and the Napalm Launcher to a large degree as well. The hand grenade pickups help a bit there. The lack of armor also means Earth will have to watch his health and not depend on armor stacking.
Doom lacks his signature double-shotty, but he's better off using plasma and rockets anyway, with single-shotty for long-range work. He can get a double shotty off of an Earth Soldier if Earth picks up a Gatling Gun at the Lightning Gun spawn. The Doom Chaingun's usefulness is hampered by the teleporters and the lack of raw open space. It's possible to chew an opponent down, but they duck behind walls a lot or teleport out so it's not much gun for the grabbing. The lack of armor also means Doomers take a beating. That's not necessarily a bad thing.
Slipgate can be damned near all-powerful on this map. Get a hold of a rocket launcher or the Thunderbolt and you can kick serious ass. Avoiding accidental, non-protected water discharge and running the walkways using the Thunderbolt will result in a lot of frags. The grenade launcher is immensely useful around the spiral stairs, and any place where you can have altitude over other players. Nails make a good backup for fighting until you can get a better weapon. Since opponents lack armor, the SNG is actually quite useful for skirmishing since there's a lot of nails laying around. The lack of a double shotgun really doesn't hurt Slipgate that much. If you have trouble getting to the rocket launcher, get topside, lob some grenades, drop down and hit button. Odds are you'll get in the door, or just use Mr. Thunderbolt on a Doomer or Earther and pry it off them. Once you do get the Rocket Launcher, you're guaranteed frags, especially if you manage to snag the MH as well.
Strogg's saving grace is the Chaingun and grenade launcher availability. There's no shortage of ammo for the Chaingun, and the grenade launcher can make quick work of the spiral area and is good for mining the teleports. Hyperblaster is good for suppressive fire on the catwalks, but Strogg will definitely want that Chaingun. It'll be a short fight for Stroggers most of the time unless you're a damned good shot with the machinegun. The ability to toss hand grenades helps, but not much against a rocket-wielding Slipgater.
Arena does well on this level mainly because some of the other classes have some difficulty. Plasma and lightning with some grenades thrown in works fine for the bulk of the fighting.
On the non-pure version:
I'll test in Gen tomorrow, out of time tonight. I did test in normal Q3 though, and here's my thoughts.
Placing the Red Armor in the door room was an excellent idea. That's one thing this map is very short on is armor count. In Q1 the yellow armor gave you 150 points, so it was the #3 area for contention in Q1 besides the Thunderbolt and Rocket spawn, whereas in Q3, yellow armor is only worth 50 points. Moving the Yellow Armor to the ledge corner makes it more accessible and the corner is not totally useless now. The pillar area isn't as desirable an area to visit now, but it always was a bit odd having the armor there. The staircase will still get used, but the area's importance has been shifted to the catwalk. That's not necessarily bad though.
For weapons, I found myself wanting a railgun owing to the long halls. I was thinking, if you really want to make the Red Armor room a reward for risking the button, replace the two health globes with a railgun spawn. You have to fight in and out to get it, and the spiral stairs is not the optimum place to use a railgun, so it would require a little strategic thinking to save it and keep a different weapon out so you don't just hand it over to a player with a lucky rocket or grenade. I don't think it's an absolute necessity, but I do think it would be worth play testing and it's not nearly as good a weapon to camp a small room with compared to the rocket launcher.
The plasma gun up top feels slightly odd there. I think putting the plasma gun where the shotgun is, putting the shotgun where the grenade launcher is, and putting the grenade launcher where the plasma gun is might be a more logical arrangement. The reason for my thinking is the plasma is useful for long corridors, which is presented at the current shotgun spawn. Shotgun is more useful for tight spaces, and getting one near the spiral stairs would be of more use than the grenade launcher there. Right now it's pretty easy to bounce grenades back onto yourself if you grab it and then attack up the stairs. The shotgun would allow for some dirty fighting around the button room. Putting the GL up top would let you lob 'nades below anywhere on the map, including right through the button room doorway or at people pressing the button. The rocket launcher and lightning gun feel fine where they are. I like the lightning ammo being moved into the water as well.
One option with the MH spawn might be to teamchain it with a regen powerup so that they alternate. It would add a little spice in the form of a powerup but not an overbearing one. Otherwise, I like the MH placement and swapping out the in-water health with lightning ammo gives a reward for venturing under water. The water texture moving also looks better now. It looks more like muck and less like stone.
Where you have the 5 point health globes 4 in a row on the long catwalk is nice, but I think on the opposite side of the connecting hall 4 shards would be nice there too. It would add some symmetry and make that area a little less boring item-wise. I do agree on nixing a health globe near the teleporter by the spiral stairs. I'd leave one in place there and remove the other. Mega health placement balances out the sewer area nicely with the other sections of the map.
I did see one visibility glitch and that was as spectator I can fly to the top of the map and see the rest of the map through the tops of the wooden beams running along the top edges of the walls. This is really only noticeable as a spectator so it's not absurdly bad.
That's all I've got for now. I'll do more playtesting tomorrow. 
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Tabun
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Excellent feedback, as always, merci. Non-pure: ---------- The graphical glitch surprises me - I thought I'd nixed that! Apparently not. Is that in the long hallway near the 4 small health globes? I've added a lure that should draw more bots to the MH platform, but still have to test whether it has any effect. It may also lure too much bots pointlessly and helplessly into the water -- if that happens, there's not much else I can try. So we'll see. Adding in a RG seems like a good idea. I'm slightly hesitant to put it in with the RA, but what you say does make a lot of sense (a lot more than the health globes, at least  ). Without further ammo in the map (or perhaps a box in the water), it isn't that big a danger. Worth a try, if anything. About the suggested three-weapon swap: that does a few things I wasn't hoping to do.. 1) make the weapon spot near the water entry less important, 2) make for a high concentration of powerful weapons near the best spot to be to get the powerups, 3) make the upper walkway easier to control (and even give it double-RL-pickups in Gens). The swap does make sense in the way fights work in the staircases and around the button.. So I'm not so sure what to make of it. GL on a nice high & spammy spot is very tempting. Would it also be a (big enough) improvement to just swap the GL & PG? I don't think I'll add in that teamed Regen just yet. It seems like a nice enough idea for FFA. It doesn't seem to add all that much, however, and would certainly be considered disrupting to tourney. If it turns out that the MH-spot is just too annoying to get to for such a small reward, I think I'd sooner consider swapping it with the RA. But that doesn't sound like too hot a plan, at the moment. I've moved the shards from the teleporterroom (with the Q decal) to the walkway in between the PG-to-be-GL spawn and the corner. I've also added some health globes between the other teleporter and the YA, for it seemed empty there, too. Finally, I've changed the rocket ammobox into a bulletbox (as a placeholder, mostly, probably will take that out eventually). Seems to make more sense to make people actually go for the RL itself if they need rockets, and make that area of the map more important for the player. Pure: ----- I'm glad this version plays so well in Gen! I too prefer Generations Slipgate only over Quake, so it's not entirely unexpected, but I had feared that the differences wouldn't work out too well for this particular map. In normal Q3 the reward for swimming is a bit too low - it takes a lot of time to get the powerup/LG and it's very dangerous if opponents are savvy. There are other, more minor annoyances, but then, _pure is for Generations, anyway. |
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?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Phoenix
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Blargh, my post got eaten! And it accidentally attached my pic twice. Oh well. The problem with the wooden beams was fixed. I found exactly one missing texture in the non-pure version. The crosshairs show it in the pic, it's on the top of that column. The non-pure version does not have this issue.
On the GL and plasma, I think that would be good. I also realized there's a plasma ammo near the weapon spawn by the drop down, so some distance between the PG and the ammo pack makes sense. I'm kind of mixed on removing the rocket box... Some classes, like Strogg and Earth, don't get as many rockets. Perhaps if the box were placed in the water and replaced the shotgun ammo down there? At least I think it's shotgun ammo... either way, the non-lightning ammo box near the MH is the one I mean.
I did find one glitch that I'm not sure if anything can be done about. If you push the button and someone immediately runs through the door before the door fully opens, the door will close again. I believe this is because they are hitting the door trigger before it's reached the end of its motion. I don't if this happened in Q1 or not as I was always rocket fodder on that map. To reproduce the behavior, I set g_speed to 2000, timescale to 0.5, hit the button and ran through the door.
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« Last Edit: 2009-10-12, 18:52 by Phoenix »
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Tabun
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Hah, I actually found a spectator-ceiling glitch that I thought you meant: you could float up between the beams near the button-door and look through their topside. Missing texture now added to the column indicated in the screenshot.
Not sure what I can do about the door-closing error.. Maybe I should team, then relay the switch and the door trigger on the inside of the room, then delay the function for some more seconds. Not sure if that would work, though. I could also make the door open a lot faster, but that would look a bit weird.
Also, it amused me that I did exactly what you suggested with the RL ammo (there were plasma cells in the water) before reading this. Probably means it's a pretty good idea.
Still running some tests to see if I can lure the bots to the MH area some more. I've already been able to make them go for it more often (and less awkwardly), but not quite often enough yet.
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?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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Thomas Mink
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The door thing didn't happen in Q1. I played a bunch of bot-matches on it to try and get a feel for how the map played, but the bots got hung up on the door quite often. Dunno why, but sometimes I opened the door for them instead of just gibbing them on the spot. Anyway, I noticed that happening on my own Cistern remake as well. Didn't happen often though, so I left it alone for whatever reason. I ran through the non-pure version and played an all-arena botmatch, and I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I guess I need to play the map a bit more. Felt so foreign running around with the layout after playing the original layout, and original-themed layout, so often in the last two months or so. The only lightning ammo box on the map is underwater. Might just be me liking the lightning gun too much, I dunno. Guess that's what I get. Adding a railgun would be interesting, but I'll remain skeptical in my thinking. Might be worth a test though. And I'll agree with the PG and GL swap. Small aside, I also prefer Gen Slipgate matches over playing Q1. Spawn protection is a huge plus. Getting insta-rocketted after spawning was never my idea of fun. Guess that's why most of my Q1 play time was done in TF.. the original, and still the best. |
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Tabun
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I guess the bots aren't really programmed to deal with paths that are only available after doing something as complicated as pushing a button (the door is opened by a func_button that targets "func_door1" -- the targetname of the func_door in question). There seems to be no way for the bots to link their going for the button (which they do "on purpose") with the actions/areas triggered by the button. They are just "pulled" by the item weights of the items behind the door, and go for it. They can't even detect whether there is a path to the item or not, and just give up if they keep running into the door for a few seconds. I don't think this can be fixed by just changing the map, sadly.
I'm currently cooking up new versions of the map, with some layout changes. _pure is close to final, with only minor clipping tweaks. Nonpure version has changed a bit more. Calculating the light on both versions will take a couple of hours, so I'll upload alpha5 tomorrow.
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?Morituri Nolumus Mori? |
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