Lobby Recap Recap for CTG Lobby 9/18/13

[Psychoduck]

First of all, please vote on the player count for the next CTG testing lobby which will be held in two weeks' time.

Provide feedback for the following maps below.

1. I Com Ober Da Hows by The Psycho Duck (Symmetrical map on Forge Island with Scorpion, played Dominion and Multi-Flag CTF)
2. Embark by Flying Shoe ILR (Asymmetrical urban map on Forge Island, played One-Flag CTF and Extraction)
3. Linchpin by Wraith2098 (Symmetrical map on Forge island with hog jumps everywhere, played Extraction and Multi-Flag CTF)
4. Conversion Test by Kurosaki Tensei (Conversion map on Erosion)
5. Traxus by Squally DaBeanz (Conversion map on Forge Island)
6. Rogue by Squally DaBeanz (Asymmetrical Longshore-inspired map on Forge Island, played One-Flag CTF)

I'll be posting my feedback tomorrow. Thanks for testing, everyone,
Artwright987,CasualInception, DeathGodzilla, Flying Shoe ILR, Jesus in Malibu, Kurosaki Tensai, Master Debaytes, SloppyApples, Swash, Vientus, wraith2098

 

[Skyward Shoe]

Hows: Dominion felt good, first time I managed to hold Bravo for a full game. I didn't have too many issues here, we had to fight for it but it as a good game. CTF was alright, more an issue with flag in Halo 4, but I felt that the alpha-charlie flank was usually the best route because of body-spamming.

Embark: What I picked up is that I need to work a bit on flag away spawns for 1 flag, namely by the orange and cyan buildings. I'm not sure 1 flag will ever work perfectly because of auto-pickup, but ah well.

Linchpin: The games we played felt pretty good besides the super fast flag. Extraction points C and D should be more central so that players can contest them more easily.

 

[Psychoduck]

1. I Com Ober Da Hows: I was a bit disappointed with the quality of feedback i got on this in-game, to be honest. Issues which clearly arose due to team imbalances were attributed to flaws on the map by several players, and players on the losing team complained after Dominion but suddenly liked the map after they won the CTF game. I will look into the supposed Dominion spawning problem, but I am fairly sure was the cause that even when Red Team owned Alpha base, Blue spent a lot of time pushing it, leaving Charlie to still be the main place for red Team to spawn.
2. Embark: I was distracted for much of these game, as I was dealing with some drama between two friends of mine. Anyway, flag played as good as ever. I could see some tweaks to spawns making it even better, though. Extraction played better than before with the alterations made to the spawns.

I'll get the rest of this written later.

 

[wraith2098]

I Com Ober Da Hows by The Psycho Duck - I wasn't very happy with the feedback myself, if you can even call it feedback. Sounded more like Halo Waypoint empty complaints. I personally enjoyed Dominion and thought it was playing well. I didn't get a chance to see how Spawning was while the other team had the Scorpion but I heard Red team complain about being spawn trapped so maybe check film on that one. Bravo definitely has more breathing room, and felt easier to attack. Hard to say how defense was because I felt like I was rarely attacked while defending Bravo. I want to see some more testing with a strong dominion team to really see how Bravo feels.

Flag felt pretty good, more fun than I expected it to be. Pulling the flag was a challenge all the way to the base. My major concern is the lack of movement on Scorpion side. Maybe the flag location can be moved closer to Sniper spawn?

Embark by Flying Shoe ILR - Unfortunately we had to deal with players getting lagged out and some overall lag issues, but the final two rounds went pretty smooth. I'm not sure if you opened up red base, but it felt like pulling the flag was a little bit easier than before, maybe it was just the teams though. I enjoyed the lines of sights and the struggle for map control they create. You can pull the flag out of the base, but getting the flag passed the Rocket street is a fun challenge. Our team managed to hold off the flag run by controlling the street once the flag was pulled.

Extraction was much better this time around, specifically the spawning. I thought the game flowed nicely and there was a strong push for all extraction points. Our team was even able to hold off Red teams base to extract their target.

I think overall Embark feels pretty good, I didn't really see any major issues. I would like to see a lag free game though. Otherwise, it might be time to get some testing done on that cave map of yours.


Linchpin by Wraith2098 - I need to make more adjustments on the Extraction points, bringing them closer to each other. Spawning seemed to be an issue as well. I can add more spawn points around the map and reduce spawn points around the bases, that should help. I thought the Rocket Hog felt better on Linchpin. What did you guys think, Chain Hog or Rocket Hog?


Conversion Test by Kurosaki Tensei - The overall layout of this map was nice. I like the idea of using Erosion's terrain to create an uphill push for each base. I'm sure several issues were already covered, but I'll list mine here just in case anything was missed.

• One way shields, please throw all of them in a pit and burn them.
• Extraction hills are way too big. You shouldn't be able to convert outside of the cylinders.
• Alpha was too close to the offensive initial spawn and way too hard to contest. It felt more like the defensive team was actually on offense the first phase.
• Bravo was too hard to attack and too easy to convert for the defensive team. I think this is also a result of spawning creating issues. The defensive team had more accessibility to the structure overlooking bravo and made it difficult for the offensive team to control.
• Mantis should not be able to get inside Charlie.

I would like to see you continue forging this map and improving it. I believe there is potential for a pretty good map.


Traxus by Squally DaBeanz - The new location of Alpha worked pretty well, much better than before. There was a balanced push for both teams and the 'waterfall tower' was very effective. I thought it was too easy for the defense to steel the chain hog after Alpha got extracted. I would like to see the Chain hog moved closer to the offensive base or even off to the left of Alpha near the crate small. Bravo worked much better with that added line of sight blocker preventing Charlie's location from being a defensive position. I was able to sit on the 5x1 over the top of bravo. You might want to soft kill that.

Rogue by Squally DaBeanz - The flag location was very easy to spot, good job on that update. I still think the Rocket hog for the defensive team is too easily forgotten because of its location. There were a couple times I saw the Rocket hog sitting untouched because nobody even knew it respawned. I think it could work moving the hog into the Sniper room or close to it so it is visually in sight of the defensive team. Spawning for the defense created a constant flag run towards Gold side because you knew that the defense would never spawn over there. More spawn points in Gold area would be nice.

 

[Kurosaki Tensai]

As I only played on Squally's maps, I will give what feedback I can:

Traxus: I feel the Warthog near the Alpha point is too easily stolen by the defense team. I guess that room could be made farther down that wall and still work properly.

Rogue: Once we got our bearings this was a pretty tactical map, which is always fun to play with 6v6 teams. I noticed one of the rocket hogs is often forgotten because it spawns inside a room where most of the action takes place on the second level. Maybe it could be moved closer the the underpass to the left of Defenders or something. Otherwise this map is extremely well made in my opinion.

 

[ShockBolt21]

Would you let us test more casual maps in these lobbies? I have a map that has a similar degree of competitiveness as "Defend the House," your latest THFE feature.

 

[Psychoduck]

I find myself in pretty much complete agreement with Wraith's feedback from here on out. I'll add a few of my thoughts, though.

• Linchpin: As you mentioned, the spawns and the location of some of the extraction points could use a bit of work. This map is really big, and spawning so far from the objective in flag, and having the objectives so far apart in Extraction were the biggest problems I noticed during the games we played. If you can centralize a few of the Extraction sites a bit more and toodle around with flag spawns it'll really improve the way the map plays. Aside from that, everything felt pretty good. My team complained about not being able to counter the warthog without spawning with plasma pistols, to which i facepalmed and immediately proceeded to kill the warthog with a sniper rifle. I never got a chance to use the warthog in the games we played, but I'm kind of a supporter of the chain hog in most situations, honestly.
• Conversion Test: Wraith pretty much hit on everything. I know your spawns weren't functioning properly, and that's where a lot of the problems came from, but I still didn't see much definition in the routes to the objectives. I would watch the phase 1 theory video again and pay extra attention to the parts where I'm talking about defining routes. I know that video was devoted to phase 1, but much of it applies to phase 2 and 3 as well. Other than that, just let Shoe and I know if you want some more in-depth feedback in forge.

• Traxus: I don't have much to add past what's been said by Wraith and Kuro. Everything is playing better now, though. I still would like to fly around in forge and look at a few things, but hopefully you're reaching the repetitively test and tweak phase at this point.
• Rogue: This map is feeling really good to me, at this point. I do see the validity in what Wraith and Kuro said about the defender warthog, though. As I said, One Flag just feels awkward to me in this game to begin with, but I think this map supports it quite well.

Would you let us test casual/competitive maps in these lobbies? I have a map that has a similar degree of competitiveness as "Defend the House," your latest THFE feature.

Well, any map that is designed around standard Slayer and Objective modes is fair game here. Defend Your House is a mini-game, though. It's generally best to keep mini-games separate from competitive maps in testing for a few reasons. So, the question is, is your map designed around a special gametype or standard ones?

 

[ShockBolt21]

...the question is, is your map designed around a special gametype or standard ones?

Here's the map. It uses a slightly modified ricochet gametype and is certainly more on the casual/minigame side. I don't think it would really fit in the lobby.
BTW when will the phase 2 design video be released?

 

[Psychoduck]

Here's the map. It uses a slightly modified ricochet gametype and is certainly more on the casual/minigame side. I don't think it would really fit in the lobby.
BTW when will the phase 2 design video be released?

Yep, looks like a minigame to me.

I'm not sure exactly when the next Conversion tutorial will be released. I like to be very thorough in my explanations of Conversion, so naturally these videos are excessively time-consuming to make. Hopefully I'll find the time to finish the tutorial series soon.

 

[Master Debaytes]

1. I Com Ober Da Hows -
   • I know everyone is saying that the feedback in the lobby for the map was crap, so to sway the redundancy that has already been stated here, yes it was. Now personally, I really enjoyed the map. For Dominion, I had some issues with B. Duck, I know you said you opened it from a previous version of the map, but that middle base it still too closed up in my opinion. It might be a good idea to lower the platform for B...? I'm not sure. But to me, there was only one sensible route to take to get into the B base, which was through the middle area by the laser spawn. Other than that, I wasn't seeing any major issues with Dominion. It's more of a problem with the gametype itself than the map. As far as CTF, I'm going to completely agree with Shoe here. Not too many problems here either, other than the actual gametype being broken itself.
2. Embark -
   • Both games, it was the same issue: Spawns. Teams were either spawning too close or too far from the objective. I also didn't have a major issue with the Warthog, like Duck said. I need to play the map again, hopefully without anyone lagging out, to give some better feedback.
3. Linchpin -
   • Wraith, I gotta say, I loved the map. I loved driving around on the map, whether it was with a Ghost or a Warthog and I even had a couple of laughs getting splattered. I preferred CTF on the map, but Extraction played fairly well on it. In my opinion, it's the best map I've seen from you so far. The only thing I don't get is the turret off to the side of the map. It's not exactly centered to the main area and it's not useful to the map when most of the fire is focused inside the center structure. I don't know it just seemed out of place to me.
4. Conversion Test -
   • Now this map had a TON of issues with it, most of which we told Tensei in game. First thing, the spawns. The attacking team always spawns at the very bottom of the hill. When trying to defend B or C, it was impossible because you would be sent across the map with every death with no hope of saving the conversion of the site. Speaking of sites, B and C had a similar problem where the site could be converted just outside of the intended area, giving the attacking team somewhat of an advantage (disregarding the spawns). The Mantis for the last site just should not be there. A warthog would make a lot more sense. Also, the explosion generated at the B site is WAY too explosive. Either increase the time interval it takes for the explosives to resapwn at B, or reduce the size of the actual explosion. I'd personally do both.

These are the map I had proper feedback for. I enjoyed Squally's maps a lot and I really don't have much to say about them.

 

[wraith2098]

Thanks Debaytes, glad you had fun on my map

I see your point with the turret so I moved it to a position with better lines of sight. I also did a lot of work with the spawning and I think I've got a good setup right now. I decided to add several weapons on map Assault Rifle, BR, DMR, Carbine, Plasma Pistol, Suppressor. It makes sense to have the ammo lying around as well as a plasma pistol especially if I'm going to continue using restricted loadouts.