Forged Alliance Forever

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v2000)

2015-04-29T22:47:16+02:00

Whatever your arguments for gameplay > aesthetics, the fact remains that the argument is irrelevant. People will not play on an ugly map. Sorry, but that's just the inconvenient fact. There's a reason that there are VERY few highly played custom maps: Making something people will agree to play takes skill, input, and a mind-numbing amount of time. I put well over 100 hours into my map, and it's not even CLOSE to ready yet, pretty much abandoned in fact. There are no shortcuts.

Statistics: Posted by IceDreamer — 29 Apr 2015, 22:47

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v2000)

2015-04-19T15:40:01+02:00

speed2 wrote:

This is how nice cliffs looks like, not those slopes you have.

That does indeed take time - time I haven't had yet q.q

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 19 Apr 2015, 15:40

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v2000)

2015-04-19T15:35:51+02:00

This is how nice cliffs looks like, not those slopes you have.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 19 Apr 2015, 15:35

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1006)

2015-04-19T15:37:01+02:00

speed2 wrote:
You need to pay attention more to negative feedback. Because if some people find things to improve, they might be right. Feedback like "wow, cool map!" would make you improve. And just from the visual sight of map. This map doesnt look that cool.

But I actually asked for feedback on bugs and imbalances not so much on "hey what do you think of the beaches?" .

From this you can see that there are people that care about how the map looks.

Now I finally had time to closely look at the map. So lets start with heightmap
I dont like this big height differences, just painting a plateau with one move of a brush. All the cliffs are ugly and unnatural.

Cliff will block a lot of navy fire, so no point of building that. Also by splitting all the starting positions you made it 4x 1v1 on 20km map. Pretty much only thing worth fighting for are those mexes on plateaus that can be accesed just by air.

If you want to make team game map, you should do it so team play actually matters. Its harder on 20km map since there is much more space. By doing only one land bridge to your opponent you have no chance of moving units around, no raids anything. This will be only static battle decided by early drop. Who secures more mass at the beginning. And then Eco fest.

Generally this is very bad map design and I cant imagine any good game on it.
This heightmap looks like 20min work, 40 if you didnt mirror it in photoshop. Good heightmap takes much more time to make.

yeah i began retexturing this morning

looking a lot better now.

about the height mapping:
sea can actually access a lot of areas. In theory you might be right about that one path between the outer spots. But a lot of playtesting showed that sea can still be very very dominant on this map. The land path simply adds a little more complexity to the fight. I wanted to encourage sea raiding over land raiding across the outer map.
Although i haven't seen a dedicated sea spammer yet i fear cruisers might dominate this map.
It's a delicate balance I'll certainly keep my eyes on

Land raiding is still very much possible and rewarding between front players in the inner ring ( i experienced so first hand a couple of times :[ ). I even added slopes at the back of the bases now to encourage it even more. - i might even add tiny path to the sea at the sides where amphies can crawl up ... not sure about that yet.

But I am thinking about ways to smoothen out the terrain a little more without compromising even more sea area within the middle part -I'm very satisfied with the general difference in height tho.

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 19 Apr 2015, 15:19

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v2000)

2015-04-19T15:05:32+02:00

v2000:
- smoothened textures
- more complexion
- terrain should now accurately reflect impassable terrain and where you may move units / build stuff
- the green stuff stays ! xD but its a lot prettier now
- mid wreckage should now be distributed more fairly / theres also some complexion around reclaimable rocks ^-^
- added ramps at the backs of front main base. now raiders can sneak along walls to backstab enemy base.

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 19 Apr 2015, 15:05

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1006)

2015-04-19T13:07:30+02:00

You need to pay attention more to negative feedback. Because if some people find things to improve, they might be right. Feedback like "wow, cool map!" would make you improve. And just from the visual sight of map. This map doesnt look that cool.

But I actually asked for feedback on bugs and imbalances not so much on "hey what do you think of the beaches?" .

From this you can see that there are people that care about how the map looks.

Now I finally had time to closely look at the map. So lets start with heightmap
I dont like this big height differences, just painting a plateau with one move of a brush. All the cliffs are ugly and unnatural.

Cliff will block a lot of navy fire, so no point of building that. Also by splitting all the starting positions you made it 4x 1v1 on 20km map. Pretty much only thing worth fighting for are those mexes on plateaus that can be accesed just by air.

If you want to make team game map, you should do it so team play actually matters. Its harder on 20km map since there is much more space. By doing only one land bridge to your opponent you have no chance of moving units around, no raids anything. This will be only static battle decided by early drop. Who secures more mass at the beginning. And then Eco fest.

Generally this is very bad map design and I cant imagine any good game on it.
This heightmap looks like 20min work, 40 if you didnt mirror it in photoshop. Good heightmap takes much more time to make.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 19 Apr 2015, 13:07

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1005)

2015-04-19T11:57:56+02:00

Kopia wrote:
It's not shit if 3 of the best map makers in FAF take time out of their lives to tell you what you did wrong.

It's your attitude that bugs me. You say stuff you probably haven't even tested out and then assume you have to be right.

besides: when three people tell me my map looks bad and everyone else says "wow, cool map!" when they play it I stop caring about what 3 people say. I know the textures are still messy on some areas - i have eyes too.
But I actually asked for feedback on bugs and imbalances not so much on "hey what do you think of the beaches?" .

v1006 out:
- somehow top sea was missing 2 mexes loll... fixed
- improved AI markers

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 19 Apr 2015, 11:57

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1005)

2015-04-19T10:48:28+02:00

If you can't take critisizm of your work, don't make it public asking for feedback. In my previous post I was trying to explain how to do your idea better. If you think it looks nice, good for you, but keep in mind that other might have different feeling about it and Im gonna repeat it, you asked for feedback.

First version of my first map also didnt look THAT good, but all the people saying what was ugly, and then the small part telling you how to do it better, helped me to improve look of my map so now no one can complaing about ugly textures or badly used ones. And having nice looking map is a bit important.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 19 Apr 2015, 10:48

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1005)

2015-04-19T04:43:56+02:00

It's not shit if 3 of the best map makers in FAF take time out of their lives to tell you what you did wrong.

Statistics: Posted by TheKoopa — 19 Apr 2015, 04:43

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1005)

2015-04-18T17:56:13+02:00

v1005 out.

Added AI markers. SOrian still complains about missing markers but behaves a lot better now ^-^.

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 18 Apr 2015, 17:56

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1003)

2015-04-18T03:52:46+02:00

and the shit won't stop raining down... anyone got an umbrella ?

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 18 Apr 2015, 03:52

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1002)

2015-04-18T01:31:34+02:00

Even sand beach can look awfull if you dont do it right in editor and thats relatively easy to do. And you choose some weird green one with textures FA just dont have, so don't be surprised when people dont like it when it looks ugly. Maybe if you use some your custom textures, you can make it look good, but thats gonna require more work. Anyway good luck with it.

Statistics: Posted by speed2 — 18 Apr 2015, 01:31

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1002)

2015-04-18T01:14:59+02:00

Even if such beaches existed it still looks very ugly to do so.

Would be much better if you made where the sand is now maybe a light green of sorts and where the "algea" is now just regular sand. I can tell you now, people won't be joining because it looks very very incomplete (as well as the imbaness in symmetry).

Statistics: Posted by TheKoopa — 18 Apr 2015, 01:14

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1002)

2015-04-18T01:05:25+02:00

First one is a picture of a tourist spot (being the only green beach in the world or so) and the rest are pictures of algae. Very impressive argument.

Statistics: Posted by Blodir — 18 Apr 2015, 01:05

Re: [MAP] epic battle (v1002)

2015-04-18T00:16:08+02:00

btw some research for you sir... so you get somethign else to fap to other than porn

Spoiler: show

Statistics: Posted by andybe — 18 Apr 2015, 00:16