Elindor's Maps Feedback & Updates Thread

[Elindor]

ah cool....

there is a sally door version of the viking door....we need one shaped like that that can be opened by defenders from either side (current ones once you go out, you cant get back in...its a sally door)

also, would be cool if you could assign HP to some objects, like tables, benches, barrels, etc or if they just had a predetermined amount of HP which was appropriately low (like the same as construction sites or less) that would function as "temporary defenses" ....something defenders threw up in a last ditch attempt to slow them down - which is always popular in films ;)

[Elindor]

Ok basically just made those entrances 2 of the smaller doors.

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Tweaking some stuff tomorrow but should be ready to submit soon!


...not like we can put them up anyhow...whats the ETA on that?  Do we know?

[Elindor]

Devonshire Keep submitted, first post updated with info...

[Mustikki]

Crpg_Construction_sites at Devonshire's first gate doesn't work. As Ozin said in some another thread certain crpg_ props are loaded only in certain cases, this one is when a player sets ground the construction site.

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You might also want to finish the back of the inner castle. The invisible walls wouldn't be so urgent then.

Imagine a bow on character hands and group of enemies infront of the gate trying to break it, while couple would try to get to my character while bashing their heads on the invisible wall. -> Prevent defenders abuse possibility like at the pic.

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[Elindor]

Ah, yeah the wood pile there is supposed to be just the non-crpg one - wood_heap_b (non functional) its just there as another obstacle basically....debris if you will.

And on the invisible wall - that's a good point.  I will work on that and resubmit.

[Elindor]

Try this one (updated submission link too)

- removed the crpg props and just left the regular non-interactive prop at the broken gates
- added walls around the back and revised the terrain there

https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B0bUrKT_N7X4cHVwYlppRXBsVkk


** Still not sure if Devonshire is gonna be a bit too easy for attack and/or Rochester a bit too easy for defense....kinda just need to see them played in game unless you have anymore thoughts Mustikki (or anyone else)

[Elindor]

According to post by Mustikki, Devonshire and Rochester are up on NA2

So please let me know any constructive feedback I can use to refine these two maps!

[agile]

A couple of us were playing Rochester castle today, maybe 12v12 I think? I believe each side won at least one round but I would like to see it with more people.

[Elindor]

yeah, thats too small to know unfortunately, thanks for feedback though!  def give more if you see rochester or devonshire in a bigger group.

although it being even with a small pop might mean its too easy to defend, since usually with low pop defense loses most everytime....but we'll see

[Elindor]

OK I PLAYED ROCHESTER AND DEVONSHIRE TONIGHT

- Rochester I think is pretty even, most people thought it would be slanted towards defense, but it went 3-2 offense - and no one has used the siege tower yet.  I want to see this one more before revising anything major.

- Devonshire with the door bug first round and some spawns operating differently than i planned is WAYY too easy for offense currently.
I will solve this with a breakable door at the main attack spawn to slow them down, and maybe even adding gatehouses with ladders into the flag area.  Some have suggested moving the flag into the keep, that is also an option.  I WILL BE FIXING THIS ASAP

QUESTION
I have spawn points in some places (offense) that are not being used at round start....does it utilize the lower numbers first?

[Branches]

I played Rochester Castle today with roughly 58 people and just wanted to share my view on the map and perhaps some of its possible issues.

- Spawning as an attacker across the bridge can lead to a bit of a walk (At least compared to other routes).
 I was a little sad each time I spawned there and while the distance isn't anything ridiculous, it might be nice to shorten the bridge somewhat.

- I noticed as attacker that there are at least two roofs that many people jump onto from the wall which perhaps cause a small issue.
 [one is shown on the left side of the below picture]

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The problem is that many people naturally jump onto these roofs to get to the ground but then realize that the fall is farther than they had expected.
 There is then no way for them to get off the roofs other than jumping down and taking fall damage(a fall from the roof shown above took around 50%
 of my health, while wearing basically no armor[if that matters...]). I realize that if you are very careful you can fall down right onto the steps below or
 next to them and take no fall damage. However, many people don't realize this and I witnessed numerous occasions where people hung around on
 the roof looking for a safe place to jump off.

- It would be great if you could think of a way to encourage more people to use the rear path to flag. This would require defense to spread their forces
 a little more and basically it's just really cool having to watch both ascent paths. Though, this slight issue may deal with itself after people become
 more accustomed to the map.

- While climbing the main stone stairs to flag as attacker I found that defenders often dropped down behind attackers from the 4th flight of stairs to
 the 3rd. I believe this was a mixture of people who intended to flank attacking forces and those who fell off the relatively slender 4th flight of stairs.
 The only reason I'm mentioning this is if it turns out that people see this map as favoring the defenders (which seems possible) you could perhaps
 place a railing on the 4th flight of stairs like you did on the 3rd. It seemed to me that many pushes to flag were stopped at this point.
**EDIT** After further consideration I now believe that the above suggestion could probably be disregarded. ^^

- Another possible issue is that once attackers get to flag they are very nearly completely surrounded by hard to reach archers. making it difficult to
 hold the position. Honestly, I'm not sure how I would suggest you solve this problem as I really like the current layout of the flag area. I believe a
 greater emphasis on the rear path to flag would clear our most of the archers, but this didn't seem to happen very often and certainly not in force
 (at least the times I played).

Overall, I liked this map A LOT. It has a great sense of scale and I very much enjoyed playing on both attack and defense. It's also original and
therefore is a welcome change of pace within the current rotation.

[Elindor]

Thanks Branches, yeah I liked how Rochester played out.

Did you get to play on Devonshire?
Devonshire is a victim of the door bug big time, and also is just too easy for offense right now overall, so Im adding the "earth sally doors" at the bridge so the attackers have to take some time there to hack them down, i will also add a ladder probably there.

I might also make the entry's into the flag area gatehouses with ladders, not sure.

Do you know how spawns work?  It seems it uses the lower number ones first, so I may need to move some around on both maps .  On Rochester it was not spawning people by the siege tower until later, and on Devonshire it was not spawning any defenders in the lower village till later.

[Branches]

Nope, I haven't played Devonshire yet, but I'll let you know what I think once I do.

==============================================================================================
I was also curious about the spawns so I tested them out a bit and there seems to be no preference for filling lower numbers first.
It does however prefer to spawn teammates together. So spawning 10 players on a team will tend to spawn a large group in one area
(with perhaps a straggler or two in another location) or two medium-sized groups. These groupings seem to be mostly formed at
locations of a certain distance from enemies.

In fact, during my testing in many cases it seemed even the distinction between attacker and defender spawn points wasn't well
enforced, instead preferring a grouping of teammates at a desirable distance from enemies over players spawning at their teams
spawn points...

This is weird and was maybe just an issue with the map I was using? It would be VERY strange if spawning was actually handled this
way(intentionally). That just wouldn't make any sense...
===============================================================================================

It seems possible to me that a greater number of spawn points in another location other than at the siege tower could cause the main
body of the attacking forces to spawn together at that other location most of the time, leaving the siege tower area largely unpopulated.

If you think about it most siege maps have the attackers spawning in one large clump, instead of spreading them out across an area...
perhaps this is why? Maybe after you put so many spawn points in one spot the trend is tipped towards spawning mostly everyone there.
This possibly wouldn't be as big an issue for defenders as their spawn points are generally more evenly dispersed.

**EDIT**I wonder if it would solve the issue if you had a more even number of spawn points at the siege tower as at other major spawn locations
(You may already I'm not sure ^^), or if you made the dispersion of attacker spawn points more uniform?

Maybe this also plays a role in the Devonshire defender spawns? DUNNO! Hope this helped at least somewhat! ^^

[Elindor]

Interesting branches...

Mustikki (or anyone) maybe you could give us some insight here?

On ROCHESTER I have attackers spawning half across bridge and half near siege engine, both big groups of spawns.  At round start, ALL spawn across bridge, no one spawns near siege engine.  After that occational people spawn near siege engine but still 80-90% spawn across bridge despite HALF of the spawns being over by siege engine....

On DEVONSHIRE I have many of the defense spawns down in lower village but at round start NO ONE spawns down there, all spawn up in keep area...after round start occational people spawn in village area, but not as many as should. 

WHY is this?

[Mustikki]

The spawning is very complicated. There was somewhere at taleworlds forums someone trying to figure it out. Cant find it now.
But it basically reads the range from entry point (0 def, 32 att) & enemies around (so lower chance to spawn next to enemy group), how close it is to friendlies..

Ps. Found, here: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,113298.0.html

Also at round start every attacker spawns at entry point 32.

Ok so the spawner was designed to move spawns around an area.
This works great for most game modes and even for siege when all the attackers are coming from 1 side.

However if you are working on large maps or if you have spawns on 2 sides then it probably won't work.
The spawn script takes distances from the friendly base and the enemy base and does calculations around those.
It doesn't care if spawns are friendly or enemy.

Another thing, at devonshire atleast some of the destructable doors are placed upside down. When they break, they raise up instead than drop down.