This is a TWI forum only public beta release - it is not on Steam workshop or any other map site. I am releasing this build in hopes of getting some feedback on the current state of the map, and because a few people have been impatiently poking me to do so ;D Any and all feedback is highly welcome!
Beta notes:
- The hotel is largely unfinished. The lobby is playable but lacking a lot of detail, textures and lighting. All of the back rooms are blocked off by barricaded doors. These will be opened in later versions. This also means that right now, the hotel trader pod is on an awkward location, and that the upstairs area is currently a dead end with no spawns, making it an easily exploitable area to hold off the zeds.
- Ambient audio is only half-done at this point, it is still being worked on.
Feedback I am particularly interested in:
- Difficulty; Is it too easy, too hard, just right? The main street is a semi-open location which naturally makes for easier survivability. This is intended as I know many people (myself included) enjoy maps with freedom of movement. To counter it being too easy, there are multiple obstacles to break mobility a bit, as well as explosive cars to be wary of (can be detonated by Zeds that fire projectiles, like Husks and bosses). There are also very few ammo and weapon spawns on the main street, forcing players out into the more narrow and restrictive alleys and buildings to scrounge for resources.
- Performance; I have a fairly beefy PC making performance gauging a bit difficult sometimes. I've been using Burning Paris for FPS comparison and so far the map is running at equal or higher frames with still a bit of final optimization to be done. One of the reasons I believe is the dark lighting and dense fog, which has allowed me to set some fairly aggressive draw distances without sacrificing too much overly noticeable visual quality. But again, what works fine on my PC might not do so on others.
- Zed Spawning; I have purposely tried to avoid putting spawns close to corners as I dislike it when Zeds spawn right around the wall you are trying to flee to. Many Zeds will spawn on roof tops and come plopping down into the streets. From my solo testing I'm quite happy with it but I haven't tried it out with multiple people in the map.
- Lighting; The map is dark. That's a big part of the theme, it's night time in a smoggy city. But is it too dark? I've been tweaking lighting across the map a lot, and it is marginally brighter now than the earlier versions, but still very much on the dark side *mechanical breathing*. Most of the bright light sources are destructible, however many of them are located in spots where they are not likely to ever take damage unless you literally aim for them, while the ones that are in exposed areas (such as the modular street bulbs) have a fairly high health setting and immunity to many forms of damage to avoid them breaking too easily. Many soft ambient lights were added to dispel some of the extremely dark areas while still retaining the gloomy atmos.
- Map size; For solo play I feel that the map is very adequately sized, but I'd love to hear how it feels in a 6-man group (or larger).
- Trader Pods; The map has 5 pods currently, spaced out nicely across the world corners, so to speak. I'm considering a 6th, though until the map is fully built I feel that 5 is a good number. The hotel pod is temporary and might be moved as development of that area moves forward.
- Pathing; Any critical pathing issues you find I'd like to hear about. Zeds or players getting stuck or moving into places where it's obviously not intended. I realize the truck mounting the burning car is climbable, it has path nodes for zeds but it's a precarious spot that the AI might not be able to handle and players can exploit. I'll probably restrict it at some point.
TO-DO LIST:
* More overall detailing, world clutter and probably some more light tweaking.
* Finish the hotel lobby and then ideally add numerous back areas and halls, and possibly a few accessible hotel rooms. This is kind of a "maybe" thing though as I'm not sure it's worth the effort since the map gameplay primarily takes place out in the streets probably)
*
Possibly expand the indoor area on the waterfront (below the pub)
*
Maybe look into adding some random dynamic events. Nothing final yet.
* Add more ambient audio and emitters.
