[MAP] Waterlogged :: Potato's Custom MvM Servers

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Pillow 16 Jul, 2018 @ 4:00am

[MAP] Waterlogged

Waterlogged has been a big project, I've worked on it since the canteen crasher was brought to my attention. More people have helped, in some way or another, than I can possibly remember. However the map would not be where it is today without the input of the 6 other people listed below. I know that is one more than the maximum contributor count allows, but I cannot choose between these people as their input has all been invaluable for the project.

Name: Waterlogged
Entry Type: Map
Contributors: Xarcks, Sergeant Crwhips, Pope, Lee Harrold, Alexander Harrold, Scoutfingers

Each of these people have contributed to the project in their own ways as follows:
Xarcks: This is my map, I made it.
Feminist Pigeon has been supporting the project since the very beginning with both designing whole areas of the map, but also hosting during early testing, and has been an important tester throughout the development.
Dr. Pope set up a private test server, just for testing waterlogged, arranged testing sessions throughout the later development. Brought in a lot of new perspectives and people into the project.
Alexander and Lee Harrold have been on testing teams from the beginning, I don't think they missed many testing sessions and have definetely played a big role based on their feedback and experience with the game (I'm primarily a 2c player, but these two play every tour available, so their insights have been more complete than my own ever could have been). On top of that, Lee Harrold also made the intermediate pop file.
Chip has helped with testing, but also voluntered to help me write the popfile, without him we'd still be stuck with a buggy mostly unplayable mess of a popfile.
Scoutfingers has helped mostly with early testing and idea generation. He also helped gather people together for testing sessions. Scoutfingers is also aware that he may not be the most deserving of contribution, and says it's okay if he's not included.
I suppose that's your call then.

Things to note, this has all been a learning process with me, this is my first major mapping project. Because of this, things like optimisation may not be top notch. Also I don't know how to edit nav meshes, and I'm sure that the experience could be improved a lot with even simple changes to how the nav mesh works, the current one is just an automatically generated one.

Edit: Extended contributor list and "things to note" section
Edit2:
Changed the contributors list, Chip asked to be removed since he has is no longer involved with the project and got his badge through other submissions.
Feminist Pegion is removed from the project because she is no longer involved in the project and I'm no longer on speaking terms with her.
In exchange for these removals, Sergeant Crwhips has been added to the contributor list as he has been working to make the mission files, when he got involved with the project, this project already had 7 contributors, so I could not promise him a spot, however Chip suggested I'd give his spot for Crwhips.
With these changes to the contributor list, this project is now at 6 or below, and therefor require no special exceptions for extra contributors.

Last edited by Pillow; 3 Dec, 2018 @ 10:51am

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Originally posted by Interrobang:

This submission has been accepted into the campaign.

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Showing 1-15 of 33 comments

Pillow 16 Jul, 2018 @ 4:01am

Download version rc2c: https://www.dropbox.com/s/f23akuanw15au0w/mvm_waterlogged_rc2c.zip?dl=0

Hydrogen 16 Jul, 2018 @ 7:01am

We can allow more than 6 contributors but we need a short explanation on how each person contributed meaningfully to the map for us to honor that. You do not need to write a big essay, just a couple sentences per person is fine.

If you can provide us with that information, everything is good. Thanks!

Last edited by Hydrogen; 16 Jul, 2018 @ 7:04am

Pillow 16 Jul, 2018 @ 11:25am

Originally posted by Hydrogen:
We can allow more than 6 contributors but we need a short explanation on how each person contributed meaningfully to the map for us to honor that. You do not need to write a big essay, just a couple sentences per person is fine.

If you can provide us with that information, everything is good. Thanks!

Cheers, I've written a summary of the main contributions of the people on the list.

Hydrogen 16 Jul, 2018 @ 1:59pm

Okay, I'm convinced by your summary. I'll accept your group of 7.

We don't expect your map to be perfect (no map is) and minor issues will not hurt you. However, I will defer the official assessment to the judges, who will leave their evaluation here when they get around to it. (Don't forget to submit a testing request to the gameday thread if you didn't already!)

Thanks.

Last edited by Hydrogen; 16 Jul, 2018 @ 2:05pm

Sntr 19 Jul, 2018 @ 2:38am

The map feels really freaking big, pretty overscaled and doesn't have a lot of height variance or good areas to hold once you get pushed out of the front (and even at the front, the only decent place to hold is that choke because every other location is so open that you just get shot near-instantly)

Also, it's apparently a gatebot map with Engineers that teleport bots in (Area 52 did this too but it's not often you see people do this) and feels like it doesn't even have a lot of gatebots other than inf support or really small clumps and without the gate or Engineers to close the distance, the waves can easily take forever (I also don't know if the bomb carrier running off the ramp instead of down the ramp is intentional or just nav_generate being good at its job)

Some of the kits are oddly placed, especially that max health kit that's dead center in an area which can work as a bombpath (the building with the steep ramp can also trap the bomb inside itself somehow) and the map has flashing/blinking lights which feel incredibly out of place on any tf2 map (not to mention they don't look very 'realistic')

Our hatch area also doesn't really feel like a hatch at all because it's basically an empty room like Mannhattan but without the multiple exits or space to fight in that is Mannhattan's hatch (you really don't want to actually have to fight at this hatch because it's so cramped) and having a single spawn exit just begs to have us get spawncamped by Robots (please add another exit or another spawnroom alltogether if possible, being trapped in your spawnroom is miserable)

There are some nice sets of detailing here and there (I really like the icebox spawnroom, hasn't been done before and looks pretty nice, too) but there also are some weird things like that brick building which has a stone trim on it, the incredibly high archways and the lack of enviromental fog (this would really help make the map look better, gives you a nice sense of depth)

It also feels odd how the other side of the map has this snow theme going on while the other side has some alpine theme in the theme of Lumberyard.

I believe the 'stock' mission for this is your Advanced mode, we played it to give the map a better shot at showing the way it plays.

And most what I can say about it is without the demo is that you should try to avoid having Robots with above 'regular' health values that also aren't bigger or anything, we had a bit of confusion when the Heavies were taking a while to die before someone noticed that they have 450 health

Also you REALLY should not hide Robots on the wave bar (there was a wave with Soldiers and most of them turned out to be blackbox soldiers and another wave had Battalions Giants without the classicon), feels really frustrating when you can't really trust the Robots on the wave bar to be what they claim to be.

With all that said, here's the demo file[potato.tf] for our run.

Pillow 19 Jul, 2018 @ 4:09am

Thank you, for starters the giant backup soldiers not having the right icon was actually a known which I had somehow completely forgot about. I'm not good at making pops, so i just ecperimented a lot with this one, but I can see how higher health robots would be confusing for sure. I had some issues with the tanks if the gate got captured during the wave before it spawned, I don't actually know if that still happens, because I opted out for either having gatebots or tanks.

The map is very open and big, which was sort of the point. In my testing we were able to hold ourselves in multiple areas, this might be due to variations of robot paths and the team composition, tbh that was always a concern since my testing teams consisted almost entirely of "mvm allstars" if that makes sense.

The theme variation was an attempt at making it a bit more unique or fluid or whatever, but I believe I lack the correct blend texture to go from the right type of snow to the right type of grass, so the differences turned out quite stark.

The hatch area concerns might be well founded, though I don't recall ever getting trapped in there, our teams often ended up defending by the ramp outside.

We didn't run into the bomb getting stuck ourselves I'll have to check out the demo to see exactly what you mean for that.

I'll make some changes and see what happens, thanks for the fast feedback.

signalmax 23 Jul, 2018 @ 12:49pm

Okay, just a quick thing because nobody has mentioned it yet: remove those flickering lights. The way dynamic lights like that work in source is weird, but it boils down to it making a unique lightmap for *every single combination of dynamic lights you have*, which increases your file size DRAMATICALLY. The tiny bit of extra detail isnt worth the file size and performance hit they cause.

Last edited by signalmax; 23 Jul, 2018 @ 12:49pm

Pillow 17 Aug, 2018 @ 3:02pm

Download version rc3a
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/7gl1muyq4jb6pd4/AABIomRmpuB0ga-ywuHVQKDta?dl=0

A bit late to the party, but finally after a lot of changes and things going wrong, I've made a version of the map I'm more happy with.

Changelog:
Theme completely changed to snow only! (A lot of the snow textures don't mix and some are ugly, working on it.)
A lot of new high-ground areas added throughout the map to give the players more areas which are more easily defendable.
- A building outside of the gate (also some cover right in front of the gate to bottleneck the robots a bit more)
- A balcony at ice path
- A small raised platform in the area between the gate and the hatch.
A new spawn room added, quite far from the old one, this along with reworking the hatch area with more cover, an extra door and a raised platform is added in an effort to make it less cramped and make it harder to get trapped in spawn.
The little hut with the ramp has been replaces with a more open house where the robots will jump down instead.
Overall map lighting changed to be cooler.
Also no more flickering lights, hooray.

Ontop of this, the popfile has also been reworked: wave 2, 3 and 4 are shorter and had structural changes, wave 5 and 6 are completely replaced.

Things to note: I have not had the chance to run a test on my own yet, I wanted to get this posted asap. Chip (he has reworked the popfile) has told me that he still intends to change timing and make balance tweaks to the pop.
The map is still huge, the hope is to have more gatebots and engineers to help shorten the map in case the team gets pushed back.

Last edited by Pillow; 17 Aug, 2018 @ 3:09pm

Pillow 22 Aug, 2018 @ 7:50am

Download rc3b
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/fzd58cnytpwv7w8/AADYWB_TWWq_zpkDGVp2Jibga?dl=0

Map changelog:
Added a nobuild zone outside one of the spawn areas for the robots, previously you could stall the wave forever by building a sentry there.
Changed a bit of terrain at the ice path.

Pop changelog:

Advanced:
Fixed a game breaking issue that caused bots to not spawn in properly.
Fixed some minor issues with robots.

Comes with a new pop made by Sergeant Crwhips under the name of mvm_waterlogged_Advanced.pop

Intermediate:
Reduced support count spawned on Wave 5.

Last edited by Pillow; 24 Aug, 2018 @ 4:17am

Pillow 24 Aug, 2018 @ 1:12pm

Download rc3b
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/ankesr48gzjj1oc/AACVDBdofU3zH7F249NwghSOa?dl=0

Map changelog:
Improved some navigation and fixed a few texture and navigation bugs

Pop changelog:
Advanced (Crwhips):
Fixed a broken bot on wave 2.

#10

Pillow 31 Aug, 2018 @ 9:29am

Final release.
Download rc3d
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sh7753beioqufor/mvm_waterlogged_rc3d.zip?dl=0

Map changelog:
Improved some navigation and fixed and navigation bugs.
Added nobuild zone on the container at the front.
Fixed minor issues.
BSP is repacked for final release, reducing the filesize from 65 mb to 20 mb.

Pop Changelog:
Old Advanced pop (Now named Thorium Thunder, made by Chip) is now expert.
New Advanced pop (Now named Coldfront Cancellation, made by Crwhips) is now the main mission. (This mission was tweaked a bit, made a bit harder in places and reduced starting money to 900)
New intermediate mission (Named Flu Fight, made by Crwhips) is selected as the default mission for this download.
Old intermediate mission (Named Klondike Killzone, made by Lee Harrold) is now named accordingly.

#11

Jakapoa 11 Oct, 2018 @ 1:03pm

Side player spawn is very far away from the hatch, and opens up directly into a gigantic sightline.
Remove teleporters from engineers. This breaks the map badly. Robots will use teleporters that are behind gates, and have to run up to the gate. Even worse, robots that teleport in in front of the gate will have to take a long walk back through the front to get back to the gate if bombpath_right_nav_avoid is enabled (I think they can't even path back to the gate if bombpath_left_nav_avoid is enabled).

Last edited by Jakapoa; 11 Oct, 2018 @ 1:05pm

#12

Slimeakku 11 Oct, 2018 @ 3:52pm

This map could really use another gate spawn. Even when the bots cap GATE A, they have to go a long way and the person (Crwhips) who made these missions seemed to really underestimate the map. The dam would be a really great spot for a GATE B. Remove the teleporters from Engies, they really do mess the flow of the mission. It's also a gatebot map and engie bots with teles defeats the purpose of gatebots.

Intermediate was a mess. It felt like a Normal than an Intermediate. The ridiculous amount of cash we get is only there for the last wave which is just an endurance advanced wave. There's also only one tank too which isn't good either.

Advanced was also messy. Giant Push Deflectors don't need the boss health bar on last wave. The Heavy Mittens boss gets stunned when the gate was capped. The only time they pushed us back on both of these missions was the last wave. We were able to defend ourselves perfectly in that choke in that large open room which isn't a good thing. I wasn't paying much attention to the missions because like before, the robots couldn't get past the choke until the last waves. The "locker room" spawn also has this weird fence on it for no reason and just feels out of place.

Last edited by Slimeakku; 11 Oct, 2018 @ 4:17pm

#13

Pillow 30 Oct, 2018 @ 2:29pm

Download rc4:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/yqht8isrk68oovh/mvm_waterlogged_rc4.zip?dl=0

Changelog:
Major map changes:
Map now uses vertex lighting.
Secondary spawn changed to be in the hatch area, on the opposite side of the hatch.
Gate B added at the dam along the ice path.
Engineer nest fixed (Changed to start disabled and then enable in groups as the gates get captured, mannhatten style)
The right flank at the front has been changed, this should hopefully add more variety to the gameplay at the front and provide a path for the robots to bypass the standard human defense if no care is taken to cover the top flank area.

Popfile changes:
Advanced (Colfront Cancellation) changed named to Cold Shoulder on the grounds that a mission already accepted (shiverpeaks coldfront coalition) had a very similar name.
Advanced ported to support gate B. A few changes made to make it harder, some things were fixed.

Intermediate Flu Fight now supports gate B and is a bit harder.

Keep in mind, at the time of posting this, I have not had time to run actual play tests of the new missions, and Crwhips who made the missions have not had time to properly work in the changes to the flank route at the front in the new version. These are known issues on my end and I hope it won't cause too many issues. I simply just ran out of time.
Crwhips is working on a advanced2 which should take better advantage of this new front area, which I can supple at a later date. However for keeping up with the deadline it will not be included in this download.

I have run my own full scale test, and I can confirm that the mission and changes to the map works as intended.

Edit: Updated download, forgot repacked version, oops.

Last edited by Pillow; 17 Nov, 2018 @ 11:39am

#14