Vocht Castle, my first siege scene, feedback requested

[Teeth]

I have made a siege map for the first time. During the making of this map some questions arose, which I will ask in this thread as well as requesting some thoughts and feedback of my fellow mappers on this map, before uploading a final version.

The main feature of this map is an underwater tunnel straight to the flag.

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This tunnel has portcullises at both the start and the end, which require opening before this quick way into the castle can be used. Opening these is intended to be quite easy and it will probably happen within the first minute of the map. After which the attackers have a 30 second long route to the flag. However there is a risk of drowning if you can't get through fast enough and the defenders should be able to close the gates with some effort. Also, some defenders in the tunnel can cause some serious drowning.

I tested drowning in cRPG and it takes 20 seconds. The scene editor character takes 14 seconds to get through the water, which seems like a good time to me, leaves you 6 seconds to fight your way to oxygen. Which brings me to my first question.

1. How does the speed of the scene editor character compare to your average cRPG character and does 14 seconds sound good to you?

Here is an overview of the map:

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The yellow dots represent spawn spots for defenders, this is very approximate and there are some which aren't visible topdown. My intention with placing the spawn points though was to always have the flag reasonable close. Personally I hate nothing more in siege than spawning at the arse end of the castle when the flag is being taken, making you have to walk almost as long as the attackers to get there.

There are 4 routes to the flag, the tunnel, a jump over some water for the players that opened the gates, a side ladder and a backdoor. I have listed the the time it takes the scene editor character to get to the flag with each route. I hope the 10 second difference gives enough of an incentive to use the tunnel at a risk of drowning.

The two small red arrows represent the spots where defenders can jump down to defend the winches or close the gates, this is a one way jump.

Moar questions:
2. What is your impression of overall balance, does the map seem to favour attackers or defenders to you and what would have to change?

3. I started with a too big map size, does having quite some empty useless map space decrease performance significantly and if so, is there a way to change it without ruining your map?

4. Do I have too many trees?

I have 2 more general questions:

5. I found a sweet scene prop called box_dynamic, which functions as a box you can push around.  A wall of boxes that the attackers have to knock through seemed cool, but I expect it to be buggy or laggy. Do you recommend using them?

6. I would love to test this siege map by hosting it, to at least make sure the doors, gates and ladders work, but I do not really get how. I have a cRPG Mapmaking module, but if I try to host any siege map there I get error opcode 16 and my game crashes. In which module should I host and how do I host my map specifically?

If you could answer any of these questions I would appreciate it.

[Ronin]

Based on what you wrote it seems like an interesting idea, but I need the full vision of the map. Because some of these features you have added might be severely unbalanced based on how it is handled. Maybe upload it so I can see it in full detail. Can only answer those questions after I see the map.

[Jarold]

Looks like a fun siege map. I can't really tell what it would play like from pictures but it looks like it favors the attackers a little. Just my two cents.

[no_rules_just_play]

i love the underwater way

[Teeth]

Right, managed to host the map in battle mode as siege mode just does not work for me. Allowed me to test the doors, ladders and gates at least and they all work properly now. The only thing I haven't tested yet is the flag, but the entry point is correct so I wouldn't know what could be wrong. Removed all the dynamic boxes for now.

So I am going to upload and submit it anyway and see how it does balance and lag wise.

http://www.mediafire.com/?b4plfj2johkr1iw

[Fips]

[...]

Uff, could be very close, i find the speed of the edit-char average. There are a lot slower people and cRPG and  a lot faster people. Maybe you could compare it with another castle...which i don't know the name of xD
Something like port assault, i guess. You have this big port with the gate and a backway, backdoor and the flag is surrounded by buildings. I hope you know what i mean. When you go from attackers spawn close to wall in direction of the port and then just straight to the backside of the castle you will drown everytime, it's close, though. Maybe that helps.

2. Seems good to me. Though you should probably add/change some more defenders spawns to the ground on the flag and around it. So people don't just spawn at the walls once the attackers are close to flag.

3. Nah, that should be just fine, performance issues are mainly caused by lighting such as torches, or smokes and flames.

4. Lol, heck no. On my first map i used probably at least double than what you have (maybe even more) and now when i'm on the server i have no fps-issues at all, so yours should be fine.

5. I wouldn't do that, seems like something that can cause a lot of trouble.

6. Use Deathmatch. As long as you use the blanks as your ingame-name of the map (In the scenes.txt or whatever it was) you can just host this map in your mapping module.

[Teeth]

2. Seems good to me. Though you should probably add/change some more defenders spawns to the ground on the flag and around it. So people don't just spawn at the walls once the attackers are close to flag.

The walls are not that high and there is a lot of jumping spots where you can safely jump down, so the people spawning on the walls are not that much further away from the flag. Above the tunnel exit you can jump down, at all of those buildings next to the wall.

Thanks for the input, it is reassuring.

[Viriathus]

I think its a bit of a bold call, lets test it and see how it goes.

[Fips]

The walls are not that high and there is a lot of jumping spots where you can safely jump down, so the people spawning on the walls are not that much further away from the flag. Above the tunnel exit you can jump down, at all of those buildings next to the wall.

Thanks for the input, it is reassuring.

Then it should be fine i guess. But as already mentioned, that will only really show once it's on the server.

[Ronin]

Checked the map finally. To answer your question regarding balance:

I examined the battle in two fronts. I did a small analysis of the things overall.

First, the spawns:

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The castle from the point of view of the attackers. The routes they will follow generally. (you might want to test that spawnpoint, I just spawned there as an attacker. Maybe it should be entry point no 33, not 32.)

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Now from the point of view of the defenders. Red lines are infantry, green circles are archery spots and blue lines are cavalry.

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The scenario and analysis:
The attackers will simply rush to the both of the gatehouses and will open the gate. Since their spawns are very close to the walls and much more concentrated, the chances for them are they might break through the weak resistance of the defenders. If this happens, they will open both of the gates. There is a chance that this map can finish it's first round very quickly. But defenders have very good reinforcement paths to the gatehouses, so the gates might not stay open for long enough. If the defenders prevail, the chances of the attackers won't be much. But there are side/backladders for that, and the defender's good reinforcement paths also has a natural weakness. Once they are in gatehouse spots, returning back is no easy feat; which is also a con for the attackers as well. The battle will be in two fronts at minimum. One in the gatehouses, one in the other places. The gatehouse front will affect the other fronts. Yet, there won't be a way of force transfer to the other fronts. İronic, simple and pure brilliant.

That is how it seems when we only look at the gatehouse front. However things might not work as intended, as that tight underway has it's own problems without the gates and even without the water. I once played a fire&sword siege map including a tight passageway like this (with no gates and water), it was no easy feat to break through that passage; considering the enemy was welcoming us with a shield&pike wall. In this map's passageway the water also slows you down to be easy prey to enemy missile, and gets you drowned obviously. The defenders can stay in water, and step back for a while to breath up. Which means they can meet the attackers in a position where attackers can't breathe and stop them there simply by holding a simple shieldwall. As long as they hold their ground for 5-6 seconds, the water will do the job. Not to mention the attackers will have to go full force to hope to break through that underway, which means they might not maintain to keep the gatehouses open. As 10-20 defenders can stop a force of 40-50 attackers there in the current conditions, the defenders can spare more men to the gatehouses. Moreover, the defenders can still win with ease if they don't care about the gatehouse and camp the underway.

There is one more factor to take into consideration. Even if the attackers break through the defence of the underway, they will still have to fight to get to the flag a bit and they need to hold it afterwards to get down the flag hopefully. All in all they will have a hard time, even after they are close to the victory. I think this is a bit unbalanced.

My suggestion would be, doing some rastical changes to the underway passage. Maybe add a couple of objects to cover a part of the watery areas, so the half of the attackers can go while they can still breathe and others simply passing under the water to increase the concentration of the force. The length of it also might be shortened. Last but not least, some objects to give the attackers some cover from ranged might be useful too; though I don't think that might work as intended. The decision is up to you of course, these are the only ways that I can think of. Just not add another-easier way to get into the castle, as all of the attackers would have use them and make the underway (the epic feature of this map) will be pointless.

Here are a couple of screenies. I especially liked how two gatehouses connect to each other. And the broken bridge is a complete trap

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All ladders/gatehouses are working fine by the way. There is only a problem with backdoor. It is impossible to jump that much of a distance. I'd suggest making it much much more easier, as attackers will suffer in this map already

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[Teeth]

Wow that is a lot of effort you put into that, thanks. Really glad you pointed out the spawn error, I thought 32 was defenders as well, it is indeed not. That would've created some messed up situations. I reuploaded a fixed version.

Attackers can get to the flag rather fast, if they encounter no resistance it is either 30s or 40s, which is pretty fast compared to a lot of other siege maps where the quickest way to the flag is 40s+ at least. Yet attackers somehow win those so I really think they have good chances here.

I think you overestimate the defenders chances at 'the first front' though. The attackers spawn like 10-15 seconds away from the gate winches, every single attacker does, whereas the defenders have a 30 second respawn and most of them spawn not that close. The defenders will in no way be able to hold the gatehouse area, they will be wiped away from there after the first minute due to attackers coming in fast without  the defenders really having time to set up maul squads at the ladder.

The defenders have very easy access to the gatehouses though throughout the entire round. I did this so closing one of the gates would have a chance of happening during the round, which would cause hilarious mass drowning and panic. What balances is out though I hope is, that it takes the attackers about 20 seconds from spawning to be able to open those gates again.

The underwater passage is a tough way to get through for the attackers if it is properly defended, but it is also very fast. If attackers die in the underwater passage, they can get back in there faster than the defenders, which will slowly give the attackers an advantage. Also, using both the side ladder and the broken bridge jump, you can attack the defenders holding the passage from the back. If a lot of defenders camp the passage, then I hope attackers will naturally shift to the other two fast routes or even the fourth slow route. The more I think about it, the more the map seems to favour attackers to me than defenders.

Gash, I don't know. My biggest worry at the moment is that the broken bridge jump route is too fast for the risk it poses, and that it will be too strong for both the defenders and compared to the underwater passage. The ladder is a more natural chokepoint so I think that one will be okay. I can put some obstacles on the wall which would slow the attackers down but I think I am just going to wait and see before doing anything.

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This I find very weird, cause I checked it in the map which I have in the scene editor and it should be the same one and it was in fact jumpable. It does look like an impossible distance on your screen. In the new upload I made the jump a little bit smaller, I can jump it with quite some room to spare now with the scene editor character.

[Moncho]

Looks pretty good. Is the submerged passage high enough to jump? Because people might be able to jump and avoid drowning, which would defeat its whole purpose

[Zlisch_The_Butcher]

Teeth, the bridge really isn't giving the attackers to much of an edge, all you need is a defender or two willing to stand there and push any jumping attacker into the water.

[Ronin]

You're welcome teeth. This map was quite interesting that I could not stop exploring it

As for the balance, you might be right. I might have been overestimating things. As things tend to differ from game to game. I just thought that this castle would be very hard for attackers, if the defenders are very well organized. Since the HRE factor is a big factor in siege maps, this seemed possible. The castle gives more advantages to the organized team, than the other maps. It might be an easy win or an easy lose in some occasions. All in all, we can't be 100% sure without the map is played. Will have to see, I am really looking forward about what will happen

For the broken bridge, that one poses too much risk to be an effective attacking position in my opinion. Crossing it is possible, but there will be some casualties in either case. Some players will simply fell down. I fell down 3 times myself

[Teeth]

Yes, if the defending team manages to distribute itself properly and hold 3 choke points, ladder, tunnel and bridge, attackers are in for a really hard time. Which is how it should be. Defenders really have very little time to do that though, because the attackers will have arrived at these chokepoints within 20-30 seconds, so a deadlock by the defenders seems rather impossible, even then a good push could still break through and there is always the backdoor.

For the broken bridge, that one poses too much risk to be an effective attacking position in my opinion. Crossing it is possible, but there will be some casualties in either case. Some players will simply fell down. I fell down 3 times myself

The character you used though is probably while hosting it, which is a 0 athlethics and 0 agility character. The jump was a pretty safe one with the scene editor character at the best spot, and that was without attempting to jump from the railing to the base level, which gives you some extra distance. I expect that most characters will have to be in sprint mode before attempting it, which is something I like, otherwise it is useless as a mechanic. That route is 40s to the flag, and doesn't have any other chokepoints than the jump, which if it was too easy would make that route incredibly fast. As for defenders stopping them from jumping there, there are also railings so you would need at least 3 people to pull it off, and I am not so sure defenders really get there first, and after the gates are opened the defenders will probably rather hold the flag. Otherwise I think it is fair if they are able to do it, forces attackers to go somewhere else which is fine.

It is hard though to balance speed/distance based things with just the scene editor character, so I really need to closely watch it being played and then do adjustments accordingly, sadly I missed the great map patch, so who knows how long it is going to be.