Playtest #3 results

After some late nights, the third playtest is completed.
My main testing goals during this test were the following:
- do the players learn that the yellow diamonds mark destructable walls?
- is the sniper nest used more?
- do the players use the hellbender?
- do the players find and use the manta?
- do the boost pads now work on all vehicles?

The destructable walls had some issues. I had blocked off all the exits from the spawn base with destructable walls to teach players the marking and destruction mechanic at the start of the level. The walls have very low health and would be destroyed using minimal ammo as to provide very quick feedback to the players. However, it seems that the default UTdestructable objects are not synched. This means that while the walls are breakable, they don't appear broken to other players when you do destroy one. A way to fix this is to use kismet instead to scale the object when it has taken enough damage, tracking the damage in kismet.

The trash in some of the alleyways has collision, I don't know why epic did this but I can remove it.
I assumed small clutter props like that would not have collision, and have used them to decorate tight corridors. Collision on these props restricts movement through these spaces more then I want.

An armor pickup placed in an open-topped trash container was unreachable thanks to the container's box collision. This can be fixed by removing collision and adding blocking volumes.

The minimap is just a bit too dark and could use some better contrast.

The AI has trouble with vehicle pathing, I'll have to mark a lot of nodes as infantry only.

The large tree at the red base is placed at such a distance from a wall that is looks like you can just squeeze in between them, but you cannot. I'll move the tree a little further away from the wall to facilitate players.

There are small holes in the terrain around the rear of the map that people can fall through, this is obviously bad and these holes have to be closed.

The water under the bridge is a small seam where two static meshes connect, these need to be aligned.

These players are very good at moving around, and always seem to be able to find paths I did not plan. While I'd normally encourage such behavior, it leads to unintentionally good sniping positions and will have to be curbed by blocking off some rooftops.

Changelog for playtest #3

This post describes the changes made to the level, the graphic below shows some of the major changes made.


I've swapped the spawn position of the manta and the hellbender.
The manta is a very powerful vehicle in this map as it allows very fast movement, while the hellbender is a slower but boasts a larger arsenal and can hold two players. The hellbender's two person capacity means that more people can get carried to the front line and encourages team play.

The raptor has been placed in an obvious location in each spawn base so that it is visible when players spawn. I've opted to not go for an elevator as to stick with the 'ruined' theme of the map.
Also, stairs were adequate for the 2 meter elevation that had to be crossed.

The lighting and post-processing have been tweaked to create lighter shadows and a more natural hue in general.The image above shows the new lighting versus the old, note the black patches in the shadows.

As was much requested I added destructable walls to the level, these walls are marked with a yellow diamond and open up additional paths for players and vehicles. The path above is a major shortcut for tanks and other vehicles straight into the enemy base. After some testing I went for UTdestructable objects, these objects have customisable damage stages and thresholds perfect for this purpose.

The sniper nest entrance and other openings to the nest have been changed to have a higher contrast to the surroundings so that they are more obvious to the players.

The players requested i remove the fences on the sides of the main bridge, instead I added two holes in the fencing. This way the players can jump down the bridge, but only at a set location. Because jumping down the bridge provides a big shortcut there should be some risk connected to it, the holes let enemy players anticipate your movement aim for the chokepoint.

The Stall-Z level has been raised about 2000 units to allow the raptor to be flown more freely. However, this required me to also heighten certain buildings as I cannot allow raptors to land there. The buildings would provide too much of a well-hidden location to act as a sniping position or flag hiding place.

As requested, a ramp from the bottom to the top of the bases has been added, while not providing a great advantage it does add some options for combat around the base. Additional alleyways have been also opened up to infantry to allow more diverse paths.

The boost pads have had their vehicle restrictions removed, all vehicles can now use them. This was required to allow the custom Hesteem vehicles to use them.

Next up, playtest results.

Playtest #2 results.

Another playtest has finished, thanks to the great Hedsteem players, thanks!
I had several goals in testing this iteration, as follows:
- How do the players experience the new base? Is it easy to navigate and are all the paths obvious? Do they find and use the vehicles?
- Do they use the booster pads and ramps?
- Do they use the new pickups?
- Do they use the sniper nest?
These were the main testing criteria, but some other issues also came to light.
After a testing session of about 20 minutes, I can report the following findings.

It was hard to get the manta out of the spawn building. Players resorted to using flak cannons to get the vehicle outside before boarding it. This is very bad, it should be easy and fast to grab a vehicle and move into the fray. I will build a better and faster way to take the manta outside. The only problem is that I do not want the enemy players to be able to destroy a spawned manta that is not used by a player.

The new base was received well, apart from the manta issue players had no problem navigating it and often used the jump pad to get to the scorpion/goliath building as intended.
One issue that was brought up was the raptor path. Currently, players need to walk up a set of stairs to get to the raptor. It was suggested to create an elevator or jump pad to get to the raptor's spawn location.
My original intention was to create a small risk by making players spend time out in the open in order to get to their raptor.
This can be simplified by having the player stand on a somewhat exposed elevator that moves up into the raptor spawning chamber. This exposes the player to some sniper risk but makes the path simple.

Another issue was the lighting. In the editor, the lighting is different then in-game. I have to run the game at lowered settings to be able to cope recording the playtests at a normal framerate, and the lighting was especially dark with these lowered settings. It was far darker than intended, and some tweakings to the lighting and post-processing is required to lighten the mood.

Players did not like the fences on the side of the bridge, it restricts their freedom and limits options. While I understand, I'm not willing to remove all the fences but will add holes to the fencing. This will allow players to hop off the bridge, but only at specific locations, creating small bottlenecks.

The new building on the square was well received, but players suggested a vehicle be placed inside it. This is not a bad idea, a player making it inside the building is almost sure to be on foot, and could use a vehicle. There is already an EMP mine pickup inside so the vehicle can't be too powerful. Perhaps an SMPA or hellbender, as the map could use some troop transport.

The sniper nest was not used a lot, there are two causes to this. First of all, the towers were used a bit less this time. Secondly, the entrance does not stand out. I need to add some contrast to the nest entrance and interior so players know it's there.

The stall-Z of the level was too low to allow for nice Raptor flight, it restricts movement too heavily and required players to skim along some surfaces with the belly of the plane.
The solution of this would be to increase the stall-Z by about 1200 units to allow more freedom, but i would also need to heighten some buildings to block the raptor's line of sight and movement a bit. In case of a raptor duel i'd like to have some tall buildings for them to fly around, creating some fun dog-fighting situations.

Players requested some more infantry paths to allow infiltration and generally more freedom. This is a valid issue, without a vehicle players are mostly forced to use long paths without much cover. This makes them an easy target. A infiltration route to the top of the bases was especially requested.

The boost pads did not work as desired, the Hedsteem clan´s servers use modded vehicles and weapons. The boost pads were set to only respond to certain vehicles, but ended up not responding to any as the vehicles had different classes. I will simply make the pads respond to any vehicles that touches it.
The ramp was used a few times, but it proved hard to properly jump. I should add some indicators and smooth lead on to the ramp so it´s easier to use.

Some of the buildings used to block off the playing field could be landed on by players with raptors. This is not the idea, and creates a prime camping platform right behind the player bases. This should be corrected either with blocking volumes or by heightening the buildings.

I'm still meaning to add destructable walls to the level, I've set up a system for this but it requires some more tweaking. The system to mark destructable walls should be obvious and taught to the players as early in the game as possible. By blocking off the doorways from the spawn room with destructable walls the players should learn the sign that marks weak walls and use it from then on in.

Now it's time to implement these changes and do another test as soon as possible.
Till next time!

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!

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.