R&D details

In my last post I pointed out some issues i found with the map during playtesting. In this post i will endeavour to go a bit more in-depth.

- Most of the map was used, the middle band and area under the bridge a little less so. The middle band is mostly an area that is travelled trough and not designed for encounters. There's some cover in the form of trees but no pickups. The trees make you obvious but still provide enough cover to make it a worthwhile path as it offers lots of possible routes.The single raptor in the middle of the map was deemed unfair, while most players will be carrying an AVRIL (guided anti vehicle rocket launcher) there are lots of buildings to hide behind and it would be awfully easy to pester the enemy team with one raptor. 
By removing the single raptor and giving both teams one we have more balance. Because the raptor has proved to be a popular vehicle in the forum poll I would rather give both players a raptor and create some fun place for them to fly then remove them all together.By placing pickups on top of the towers where the raptor used to sit and under the bridge where there was nothing we create some incentive. On top of the tower should be a 'berserk' powerup (increase fire speed X2 ), this gives the player an incentive to get off the tower and seek some players to kill. Under the bridge should be an invisibility powerup, giving the player some freedom to make his way and giving players incentive fight for the powerup.Perhaps it would be fun to have some hazards  hanging from the bridge that can be shot down to liven up a bridge standoff.

- People would fall off the map. Because of some props without collision and little tunnels that lead off-map people would fall forever and had to suicide using the console to respawn. This is of course very bad.
Changing the  KillZ will make sure that any player that manages to fall off the map will die in a timely fashion. The solution to this is of course to block any routes that should not be taken. I will replace props that do not have collision with props that do have collision and block off the exterior of the map using blocking volumes.

 - Was suggested to place vehicles and spawn points more spread out from the flag bases. This will allow players to catch up to the flag carrier, even one using a hoverboard.
I need to change shape and size of the base, it should house the vehicles and spawn points properly and be interesting in shape. I'm thinking about separating the flag base and spawning base as it makes it much clearer for players where to go. 

- Players used both the inside and top of the tower, just as intended.While this is good, the tower interior is still rather empty and boring. Architecture that creates the possibility for interesting encounters would increase the value of the towers.

 = Vehicles could get stuck on the one-way ramps, no one likes being stuck, this needs to be fixed.
I'll add blocking volumes to make sure players can't get stuck on the ramp. I'm also going to add a breakable wall next to it to provide a shortcut at the expense of the time required to break down the wall. Breakable buildings where a requested feature. 
Requested to add some destructible buildings, see above.

 = Terrain was too steep to climb in some instances, this makes paths that look doable a struggle as the player attempts to find a way up.
Smoothing out the terrain should do the trick here

. = Terrain that was equal height with the concrete banks caused collision glitches. 
Upon further inspection is was actually the collision of the river banks. They are custom meshes I made in Maya, but without a collision model they could only use per-poly collision. This is heavy on the engine and provides shoddy collision, especially with these large faces.
After messing with the collision options and in-engine collision mesh generator I made a separate collision mesh in Maya. After a few attempts I managed to get Unreal to recognise it. This fixed the collision issue.

 - Some meshes had either no or bad collision. These meshes, for whatever reason, were never provided with collision meshes or primitives when they were shipped.
Using blocking volumes shaped to fit the meshes fixes this.

 - Foot transport was a little slow. The map, being VCTF is a little bit larger then one of the poll favorites: "VCTF-Off the rails". This makes for good vehicle movement but makes it a little big for traversing by foot. While everyone spawns with a hoverboard as is custom in VCTF, hoverboard transport is dangerous as a single hit can be your downfall. 
I have attempted some radical redesign for this problem, and changed the layout heavily. In this new layout the highway cut straight trough the square, resulting in reduced travel times. While this was a little bit better for infantry it made the highway too much of a target for campers with sniper rifles and AVRIL's. I might try to open up the road a bit more after the next playtest. Instead I made the highway cut a corner and added jump pads and booster pads.

- Players could use the Manta to jump from the crashed towers onto a building and into the flag bases, this is too powerful an ability. The manta is already a powerful vehicle with it's ability to jump, people riding on the manta's wings could too easily ride to the flag this way.
I noticed players walking on the bridge's supports, these supports end close to the building that the manta is able to jump on. I made one floor of the building accessible from these supports, the building serves as a sniper nest with some ammo and a helmet. The nest can be used by attackers to harass the defender's base, but only has a small window to shoot from, leaving him a prime target. The nest can be used by defenders to defend the square and their base, but it leaves the sniper vulnerable. The increased height of the building makes sure that players piloting manta's cannot jump straight into the base.

Playtest #1 results

After some late nights we finally managed to do a playtest on the Hedsteem servers.
The players were Hedsteem clan members and were all online on Teamspeak, this provided a nice direct line with everyone while i spectated the game to be able to see how the players used the environment and vehicles.

These are the testing results so far:
= Most of the map was used, the middle band and area under the bridge a little less so.
= The single raptor in the middle of the map was deemed unfair.
Solution: place 2 raptors in the map for balance. Place power-ups both where the raptor used to sit on the top and under the bridge to create travel incentive.
 - People would fall off the map.
Solution: Change KillZ, also just block off parts of the map. Replace props that do not have collision with props that do have collision to block off the exterior of the map.
 - Was suggested to place vehicles and spawn points more spread out from the flag bases.
Solution: Change shape and size of the base, create more locations that allow safe spawning.
 - Players used both the inside and top of the tower.
Add a little more interior to the towers, perhaps increase width by 256 units?
 = Vehicles could get stuck on the one-way ramps.
Solution, use blocking volumes.
 - Requested to add some destructible buildings.
Look into implementing interesting destructibles.
 = Terrain was too steep to climb in some instances.
Solutions: Smooth out terrain.
 = Terrain that was equal height with the concrete banks caused collision glitches.
Solution: edit terrain to make sure it's either terrain or mesh, not both.
 - Some meshes had either no or bad collision.
Solution: use blocking volumes.
 - Foot transport was a little slow.
Solution, add jump pads and hoverboard boosters to speed up movement.
 - Players could use the Manta to jump from the crashed towers onto a building and into the flag bases.
Solution: Make building usable by infantery only.

Seems like i've got some work to do, see you all at the next playtest!

After trying about 4 different designs in-game i'm settling with the design below. It gives a lot of opportunity for extra paths and destructibles. The centre towers may proof too good of a shortcut but i'll have to review that during playtesting. When i get my tablet working again i'll add some annotations to the map for your viewing pleasure.

Moodboard

I thought i'd post some of the images i'm using as inspiration for this level.

I've always loved the post-apoc theme so when it turned out this idea was shared by the Hedsteem clan i was happy to oblige.

For now i'll be going for a green and grey theme with lots of trees and grass on the roads. It would be great to do some buildings that infantry can enter but those do tend to take quite a while to build so i'm a bit hesitant about placing too many of them.

Another thing I'm still not sure about is destructibles, while the polls showed a craving for maps with destructible objects this is not something common in multiplayer maps.

Prototypes

Some designing and prototyping has been done, i've gone with a post-apoc themed environment that's being taken back by nature. This city is covered in moss and grass, slowly being reclaimed.

I'm currently testing some top down designs in the unreal engine and seeing what i can do with layouts.

Right trough the city lies an old canal, now a thriving forest. Having a large tower snapped in half over a suspension bridge would serve as a infantry arena that allows people to cross the canal in relative safety with the risk of encountering other combatants.

I'm not sure if i'd like to leave the top of this construction empty to server as a sniping platform or to also place a raptor there, otherwise i might place it under the bridge.

I'll make a few prototypes in the next days and see what one works best, i hope to begin playtesting on monday.
Cheers,
Nathan