Forged Alliance Forever

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-16T00:00:26+02:00

biass wrote:
Decals: big decal thing looks okay most of the time but i would have liked to have seen some more smaller ones to compliment it, also looks strange on ramps

I tried to use regular decals as well, but was not really satisfied with the result. So I skipped it to save time.
What is strange about the ramps?

biass wrote:
Reclaim: was ok, boat wrecks in middle might suck on lower game counts

I'm glad the overall numbers and distribution is okay. It was really exhausting to place the tree groups in a way that all trees touch the ground.
I could replace the frigate with sub wrecks to lower the reclaim value.

biass wrote:
Gameplay: should be okay, probably need to make ramps brighter because some judges needed to ask if the corners were passable

hmm, I already did a rework on them to make it more clear. Are you sure its the color of the texture and not the lighting/shadow

Statistics: Posted by svenni_badbwoi — 16 Feb 2020, 00:00

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-12T13:58:50+02:00

Jip wrote:
I can't find the replay where you played on the map against other players. In my own test sessions people enjoyed the map a lot because it seems at first that the middle is important, but the sides of the map turn out to be a lot more critical not just because of the mass but also because of the hill behind the base.

Even with a cadre of 1500s and up players, we wouldn't be able to play enough to form a decent opinion and get the results out in a timeframe, so we make very reasonable assumptions that likely wouldnt change after a few games anyway.

I took a second look and it seems you are trying to push players in this direction, perhaps?

If true, you need more incentive for players to go there. I feel like once the 2 mex expansions are given PD's and such, there isnt really much point to fight over them instead of just trying to brutalise the base.

About the hills / mountains, I'd love to know how to do them right. I found that to be quite difficult. In a map such as Flaming Saddle (that I expected to be here too) they are done beautifully and I would love to know how. Anyone has tips / tutorials about how this can be achieved?

Flaming Saddle and Highway to Hell were made by the same author.

You're probably talking about erosion, and most people use worldmachine, or import pre-existing heightmaps from google into their maps to make that. I paint mine by hand because i'm lazy.

And I'd love to know what the other testers though (you mention a pool of people in your first post). I'm trying to improve and it seems my idea of what makes a map good differs from yours ^^.

I don't see what you find different about what makes a good map.
They can talk here if they choose to do so.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 12 Feb 2020, 13:58

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-12T13:48:22+02:00

Expanding on the notes again:

Lighting: was good
Textures: very good use of mutiple texture sets
Decals: big decal thing looks okay most of the time but i would have liked to have seen some more smaller ones to compliment it, also looks strange on ramps
Reclaim: was ok, boat wrecks in middle might suck on lower game counts
Theme: again, good use of tundra to create theme
Gameplay: should be okay, probably need to make ramps brighter because some judges needed to ask if the corners were passable

Statistics: Posted by biass — 12 Feb 2020, 13:48

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-11T21:46:51+02:00

I am very happy that Salt and Pepper has won

Thanks to all the contenders for their contributions and the time invested.
It is definitely sad that "Highway to Hell" could not take part in the tournament. Great idea.

Again, thanks to biass for the opportunity.
I would also appreciate a short feedback to find out where I can improve.

Statistics: Posted by svenni_badbwoi — 11 Feb 2020, 21:46

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-11T20:00:00+02:00

biass wrote:
Jip wrote:I'd love to hear the feedback and what I could've done differently.

Yes, i'll expand on my notes:

Lighting: was fine
Textures: Also fine, though they were painted onto some mountains in a way that appeared generated/pixelated
Decals: The best in bracket, though I disliked the way you traced the mountains like you did and other people judging agreed.
Reclaim: Nice, but putting down so many tree groups or whatever in the middle could have an adverse gameplay effect.
Theme: Solid
Gameplay: Seemed unclear, we felt it might be fine early but the mex placement being so sporadic and disperse that players would end up just playing tug of war thru the middle.

My note about the middle stuff was that while I was testing midmass, attack move engies were not responding occasionally when they were told to reclaim thru the middle.

Thank you for the expansion.

I understand most of the feedback.

biass wrote:
Reclaim: Nice, but putting down so many tree groups or whatever in the middle could have an adverse gameplay effect.

I was thinking about that too, thought that it'd be nice to have single trees instead of groups of trees. On the other hand: in practice some bot may run over it and destroy the groups. This is what happened in the majority of gameplay sessions that I had. And since you start with so few mass / power, the little boost was nice according to people (and even requested by someone, though not in the middle).

biass wrote:
The best in bracket, though I disliked the way you traced the mountains like you did and other people judging agreed.

Cheers, I didn't like it a lot at the end either but couldn't switch back anymore.

biass wrote:
Gameplay: Seemed unclear, we felt it might be fine early but the mex placement being so sporadic and disperse that players would end up just playing tug of war thru the middle.

I can't find the replay where you played on the map against other players. In my own test sessions people enjoyed the map a lot because it seems at first that the middle is important, but the sides of the map turn out to be a lot more critical not just because of the mass but also because of the hill behind the base.

About the hills / mountains, I'd love to know how to do them right. I found that to be quite difficult. In a map such as Flaming Saddle (that I expected to be here too) they are done beautifully and I would love to know how. Anyone has tips / tutorials about how this can be achieved?

And I'd love to know what the other testers though (you mention a pool of people in your first post). I'm trying to improve and it seems my idea of what makes a map good differs from yours ^^.

Statistics: Posted by Jip — 11 Feb 2020, 20:00

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-11T12:56:54+02:00

Jip wrote:
I'd love to hear the feedback and what I could've done differently.

Yes, i'll expand on my notes:

Lighting: was fine
Textures: Also fine, though they were painted onto some mountains in a way that appeared generated/pixelated
Decals: The best in bracket, though I disliked the way you traced the mountains like you did and other people judging agreed.
Reclaim: Nice, but putting down so many tree groups or whatever in the middle could have an adverse gameplay effect.
Theme: Solid
Gameplay: Seemed unclear, we felt it might be fine early but the mex placement being so sporadic and disperse that players would end up just playing tug of war thru the middle.

My note about the middle stuff was that while I was testing midmass, attack move engies were not responding occasionally when they were told to reclaim thru the middle.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 11 Feb 2020, 12:56

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-11T08:25:33+02:00

biass wrote:
These are the winners for this tournament:
Happy to defend the choices made here, so feel free to post comments.
Contact a mod for your allocated prizes. Thanks for entering.

I'd love to hear the feedback and what I could've done differently.

About the shield structures in the middle: there's no interaction with them as long as you don't directly click them. In my own tests, the units did not auto-engage on them.

edit: and congratulations to the contenders! I'll join in for the next one too

Statistics: Posted by Jip — 11 Feb 2020, 08:25

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-09T14:55:06+02:00

For synthetic, to expand on what biass said i'd recommend shifting the 1st 2 spawns from where they are to around where my cursor is

Spoiler: show

And sadly river just kind of ruins the map, should just replace it with a flat beach with maybe a few terrain anomalies to keep aurora from being too op in the middle, and yea the textures look very good zoomed in but very contrasting and not good zoomed out/in the preview. Otherwise imo map has the most potential gameplay-wise of the bunch. I havent checked if the plateaus can be dropped consistently tho, the small one looks like any non-aeon transport will refuse to drop.

Also sad that highway to hell got DQd, should fix the mex and should fix the spawns to be mirrored

Spoiler: show

then I think the map would be perfectly qualified to be played in ladder.

Statistics: Posted by Petricpwnz — 09 Feb 2020, 14:55

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-09T14:38:45+02:00

These are the winners for this tournament:
Sadly, Highway to Hell; a crowd favorite and podium contender, had a broken mex and was disqualified.

Also, no credit was given for a map being adaptive or not, but checks were made on different mex setups.

Spoiler: show

Happy to defend the choices made here, so feel free to post comments.
Contact a mod for your allocated prizes. Thanks for entering.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 09 Feb 2020, 14:38

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-08T13:03:54+02:00

We're closed, and i've downloaded each current version of the map as to avoid sneaking in extra changes.

The results will appear in a few days.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 08 Feb 2020, 13:03

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-08T12:35:32+02:00

OP: Maps already in the vault at the time of posting may not be submitted.

25 minutes.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 08 Feb 2020, 12:35

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-08T12:31:51+02:00

Eh? Hello.
Seems I haven't got enough time to present my map properly. So here I attach some screenshots.
Here's my map I made a couple (or more?) of months ago:
-Exterminator Has Arrived

Spoiler: show

-Adaptive Exterminator Has Arrived

Spoiler: show

Main Features:
-Lots of paths
-4 Hydros
-Huge Reclaim on the middle
-2 mex openning

Statistics: Posted by SPL — 08 Feb 2020, 12:31

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-08T09:17:11+02:00

Submissions close in a couple of hours.

Statistics: Posted by biass — 08 Feb 2020, 09:17

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-05T15:10:39+02:00

Fairview

Statistics: Posted by Emperor_Penguin — 05 Feb 2020, 15:10

Re: Mapping Tournament 3 (AU Summer of 2020)

2020-02-08T11:31:43+02:00

I'm submitting Adaptive Salt and Pepper
Additional information can be found here: viewtopic.php?f=53&t=14976&p=181691#p181691

Thanks for the opportunity.
Good luck to everyone.

Edit:
I just uploaded v2 to the vault. It contains an improved custom decal with better resolution and lower loading time 2-5s ̶8̶-̶1̶0̶s̶ (once transit screen freezes). I also tweaked the settings of strata 6 (6.0 -> 10.0)

Edit 2:
v3 ensures symmetry for all wrecks. the naval wrecks got somehow moved by 1 game unit while mapping.

Statistics: Posted by svenni_badbwoi — 03 Feb 2020, 00:14