Posted on 24 June 2017 - 08:53 PM

Hi,

In the first CTF tournament, the maps were generally garbage in terms of gameplay. One map I made, Impact, was one of those maps (although it was heavily edited for the tournament without my discretion). Along with that, the gameplay quality of CTF in the tournament was also pretty garbage - It was basically respawning and painlooping for the flag, even in the finals with many very skilled and experienced players. There was very little focus on organizational or communication elements; teams sort of just were like 'well we're going to melee them and hopefully we will get the flag haha'.

With Impact 2, my goal is to fix both of those problems as well as breathe some life back into CTF before the upcoming tournament.

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If you want to take a look, here is the:

Imgur

Map Download (.zip)

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In the Imgur I wrote a bit about each map design choice, but if you have any further questions feel free to ask. Thanks!

Posted on 24 June 2017 - 09:04 PM

Looks rly good

Posted on 24 June 2017 - 09:07 PM

Hi matt lol

Last edited on 25 June 2017 - 04:20 AM by Kiivo

+1

I love how you have thought thoroughly about every different element of the map in order to maximise teamwork
The map itself as with the current Impact is also great aesthetically with the colour scheme and design
Map submissions are rarely implemented I believe, but I think / hope this definitely deserves a try on the scrim servers
P.S I never knew you made Impact, obviously it has been changed but I still like it

I'm going to tag some people who I think should see this and get their opinions and possibly help this be added to the server
@HalfCreeper - Head of Map Team
@ginie1 - Head of Tournaments
@frogmike - Tournament Admin
@Hivlik - Map Manager

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 04:24 AM

1+ looks pretty good

Last edited on 25 June 2017 - 04:31 AM by Luancool

-1
Impact was a good map

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 04:32 AM

Why would this be a -1. Atleast 1 person in this community knows competitive unlike the others.

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 04:33 AM

+1

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 05:19 AM

+1 Impact 2 looks great!

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 06:06 AM

+1

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 09:28 AM

Looks cool just because mattatop made it
+1

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 09:47 AM

This is true but mostly because people don't submit maps often. I have ideas to make map submissions and testing easier in the future, when dev resources allow it.

As for this particular map: looks good but obviously would need to be tested to see if it works the way you want it to. When we get around to updating CTF the plan is to throw out all the current maps and create an entirely new map pool. I wouldn't expect this map to be added soon, but I can definitely see it being taken into consideration in the future.

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 01:05 PM

Impact was a Halo ctf map too

Looks good

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 03:52 PM

I'll be honest, this doesn't look very good. I don't quite have the time to explain why on my lunch break, so I'll take a closer look at this when I get home tonight.

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 08:26 PM

I'm way too tired to type anything coherent so here's an incoherent video I recorded.

Posted on 25 June 2017 - 09:38 PM

Has some really good points in this video. Although there is some problems with the current impact map I'm kind of neutral on this edited map.

And the hidden lane outside could be used if someone was defending that lane and u want to sneak around them and get to the flag. (Although this would be dumb for most players to do and would probably only me would use it effectively in CTF.)

Last edited on 26 June 2017 - 02:48 AM by Kiivo

This has definitely made me change my ideas about the map
Regardless I enjoy understanding the thought process behind maps to see whether they do have good elements or not to them
I still think the map has potential possibly with a few adjustments and it is possible as you said that you might be wrong about some stuff
Honestly I think the best way is to add it to the scrim servers anyways so a large majority can test is out xD
If the problem with the current maps is due to a lack of play testing, if more maps can be released soon proper play testing can happen and result in the best maps possible for the tournament

Last edited on 26 June 2017 - 08:01 PM by Mattato

Great, I love this feedback Reshif :)

I'll start by defending my rationalization behind how I designed the lanes, and then I'll respond to the overarching ideas you brought up about CTF and CTF map making on Badlion.

1. The 'steep' vs. 'shallow' lanes - By saying it is harder to run along the steep lanes, I meant that if there is a defender its significantly harder to push that lane, because behind caught in any sort of bow fighting will give you an enormous disadvantage, both being caught in bowspam and behind left in the open. I assume that in a match there would be one player placed further back to defend the flag.

One thing that I confused myself on though is my placement of 'arbitrary weird walls' on the lanes in the imgur album (my bad btw, I uploaded the older zip file by accident). I want it to be slower, not necessarily impossible, for the attacking team to get to the flag from the steep lane compared to the shallow lane, and I tried to accomplish that by creating those walls. Those walls both make it harder to strafe arrows and make it easier to stop moving to hide behind cover. Compared to the shallow lane, in which it's far easier to strafe around arrows with no soul sand, a more gentle slope, and fewer blocks in your way, it is harder to run up when someone is at the top trying to hold you off.

My thinking behind the lanes were: A smart team will push on the opponent's shallow lane, which will force teams to spread players between the two lanes dynamically, but if you want to run back it is far harder to run back the way you pushed because the steep lane on your side is slower and your opponents are rotating over middle, or going to your teams' flag to block you from capping their flag. In my mind, that forces rotations and makes the 'moshpit' a medium for rotating, not a giant irrelevant fight out of spawn.

Maybe I was thinking too idealistically and you are correct to say that it will turn into a giant mid fight, but I envisioned the map to have fights on the side lanes while mid was used for rotations, where holding the openings into the lanes is vital to slowing down your opponent's rotations and speeding your teams' up. I'm not sure if I'm wrong to think that though - A team will do what is easiest and as they improve, what is most efficient in completing the objective on a map. Since the middle fight does not lead to the objective, the side lanes do, teams would go for side control?
Why would you fight in mid when you can get to the side in 2 jumps? You don't get any advantage from being in middle.

As for the small side lane, I agree with what you say. I want to have a small, higher-risk path to and from the objective, but I think I placed its entrances poorly.

About the size - I could see this map supporting more players, but the size forces smart player spreads because it is harder to recover from poor spreads - Which goes back to the statement I made about how to map forces aggression. I should have explained that comment more, because the way I'm making it sound is that every team will camp the flag and stop rotations out of fear of making bad spreads and losing a side. What I meant by that is that it forces reactive play. Unlike the other CTFs, rotations take time and are therefore costly. I'm writing this paragraph in an edit and I don't have any more time to respond, but I'll update this later with more explanation.


I think that covers the crux of what you said about my map.


2. Overarching map ideas - Moshpits in maps and flags

What you brought up when you talked about how flags are all in one position in Badlion CTF and how moshpits do not encourage rotations is really interesting.

I think the main problem with CTF is that a single flag spot is static, and it leads to the stuff I wrote in the OP; Painlooping, bad gameplay, lack of strategy, etc. - Just like you said. There is a real lack of transparency in how CTF works though - Can there only be one flag? Can both flags spawn on the same spot? Can you cap the flag in the same spot as another team? Before I left the map team I created a map challenging a few of those questions, and the response I received was: It's not possible. Revitalizing CTF requires maps to play differently, and that is very hard with the current limitations. One of the best OCN maps ever made, Desert Sanctuary, has 3 flag spawns and has many methods of rotating, but it also utilizes that moshpit - The center flag spawn is a giant clusterfuck, but since the flag moves between multiple respawns it is also used to rotate between flags. With Impact 2 I tried to have middle be that, but looking at it now, its too small and for the most part, irrelevant to the objective, so it won't be used the same way.

Back to the drawing board I guess, but seriously, thank you for making that video it sparked a lot of thoughts and I hope it'll lead to some more indepth conversation about competitive CTF.

Posted on 27 June 2017 - 05:01 PM

I'm still not entirely convinced on the shallow vs steep having enough of an impact, but that's not really a problem with the map either way. Also, rotating through mid isn't a matter of players not knowing that they should be somewhere else, it's a matter of getting through a 1-block chokepoint that's right outside the spawn.

Most importantly though, 1-flag CTFs are entirely different from a KotF map like Desert Sanctuary. Despite both of them technically having flags, CTF is a "capture" objective like CTW whereas KotF is a "control" objective like KotH or 5CP. Applying design principles from KotF to CTF makes about as much sense as applying CTW design to 5CP.