Changelog for playtest #2

This post contains the changes made to the level before playtesting it again with the Hedsteem clan.

I've handled most of the issues that were brought up in the last playtest and made some other changes I deemed necessary.

The reasoning behind most of my design decisions have been given in my last post, here i will show the solutions and will explain the reasoning behind changes that were not part of the last playtest.

Overview of the big changes below.

I'm only showing 50% of the map here, the other half is a mirror image on the XY plane, use your imagination.
The flag base upgrade was one of the biggest changes I made, and features completely new buildings.

The old spawn base was only a placeholder for something more substantial.

The old spawnbase was plain and boring, it was badly designed as the attacking player would need to move right trough the enemy spawn room to get to the flag. It was also very vulnerable to raptor attacks (the vehicle, not the animal).

The new base consists of two seperate buildings, the large one contains the spawn points for players an the smaller one spawns the goliath heavy tank an the scorpion car.

The raptor spawn requires the play to climb some stairs, making themselves vunerable to sniper fire from outside. In contrast, the raptor is a very powerful vehicle, especially on this map, so a little risk is not bad. The only problem with this is that the raptor could be attacked before anyone is even in it.

The smaller building to the left contains the scorpion on the top level, and the goliath on the bottom. The building can be reached by foot or can be jumped to using the jump pad in the main building for speedy movement. They were placed in a separate buildings to not clutter the spawn point.

The flag has been placed in an obvious location that offers a little cover, this gives the flag runner a little protection but also allows for an ambush by the defenders, creating some interesting play options.

The builing on the left allowed a manta to jump on in and serve as a shortcut to the enemy flag. I found this to be way too easy of a path and blocked it by making the building higher. However, during the last playtest some players used the building as a sniping nest. So i decided to make the building into a nest proper.

The single vantage point over the base ensures that base camping is hard, as the camper only has one place to fire from, making him an easy target for counter snipers. (or anything else for that matter, one could spam rockets at the single winow from the relative safety of their base) The vantage point over the square is a lot bigger, allowing a sniper to move around and avoid shots. The rear entrance makes it hard for a camper to be safe, as they need to be facing away from it to snipe, further increasing the risk for the camper.

The highway has also undergone some changes, the corner has been cut to shorten the entire structure, an several jump pads and booster pads have been added to increase traversal speed for infantry.

The square has undergone a major overhaul, a new building now stands at the once boring empty lot, creating a more interesting environment with multiple routes. The building is hollow on the inside and could be used to hide a tank, it also allows infantry to move through it.

The jump/ramp to the left has been changed to make it a lot easier, and now has signs next to it to indicate when the booster should be activated (with some margin for error) to achieve optimal jump eight.The large signs help the player orient by telling them what half of the map they are in by the sign color. The signs in the back also help by catching anyone who overshot the jump in a vehicle.

As you can see, there is now a little bridge that allows players to move from the lower building to the left onto the higher one to the right for some extra freedom.

Hedsteem's players like maps with a lot of little routes and secrets to explore, so who am I to say no?

The tunnels were a bit too hard to quickly navigate and too dark. I've move objects around to allow large vehicles to pass trough but still have enough cover to accommodate infantry combat. The lights in the tunnels are tinted to allow instant area identification. The red team's tunnel uses orange lights, the blue team's tunnel has teal lights.

These are the biggest changes to the level, next up. Playtesting!