Level Design Orel required improvements

[Oi!Oi!Oi!]

I know this belong more in "Ideas and Suggestions", but since all the Orel threads are in general...

My list:

1- Obviously, fix the bridges to make them smoother to cross. Also, instead of having 4 red circles showing the bridge segments that can be destroyed on the map. Simply have one. Then it will be easier to know if the bridge is still there or not.

2- Only give pistols (edit: and binocs) to tank crew and nothing else, but have 2 sappers slots on each team that can blow up bridges and tanks. This will eliminate most of the cheap bailing out and suicide satchel commando actions. If a regular tank crew bails out, he will have to find a way to get killed or walk for 15 minutes back to tank spawn.

3- Remove the radios that are in the middle of nowhere. Keep the spawn radios and those located on objectives.

4- Make the hills and other elevations smoothers and less triangular.

5- Fix the flying trees and wheatfields.

6- More details on the houses, grass like on arad, more vegetation and better looking water.

7- Matching camouflage patterns on the German tanks. The grey Stug and Panzer III stand out too much.

 

[Heinz]

excellent suggestions, all of them.

 

[Monkwarrior]

- I suggest removing the satchel class.
* Blowing bridges adds little to this map IMO.
* Clown-cars will only be used for spotting & capping, not for satcheling.

- Fix the getting stuck at West Field, the grass there has collision.
- Fix the forward spawning
- Fix the no-arty zones (= spawn zones)
- Fix an exploit, which I won't reveal here

Monk.

 

[1.AR[GSC]=[ENIGMA]=]

No sapper class at all. Instead place satchels at the bridges with long respawn times. Now you (clowns esp.) have the choice of taking them and trying to blow one tank with the two Satchels provided or blow a more strategic target such as the bridge - dilemma dilemma ( )

Spawn radios need to be removed, the ones at initial spawn at least until Arty coords placement is fixed and wont carry over from one round to next.
Also the incredibly funny subhumans calling arty just for laughs on own spawn resp. just outside to blow leaving tanks over and over will be unemployed and - hopefully - leave

Softer hills and terrain etc, yeah...

Good points overall

 

[Nimsky]

You guys are giving poor Slashbot way too much to read when he gets back

The 88vs76 is the best version I've played by the way, so I hope he makes it like that!

EDIT: leave the radio at the ruins!

 

[Oi!Oi!Oi!]

8- Fix the freaky white glowing stairs at Ruins. They are a pain in the ass climb up or down from.

No sapper class at all. Instead place satchels at the bridges with long respawn times. Now you (clowns esp.) have the choice of taking them and trying to blow one tank with the two Satchels provided or blow a more strategic target such as the bridge

Good idea, but then anyone can blow up bridges. I prefer the idea that only sappers could do it. It will still eliminate the problem of tank crew quickly escaping their tank at close range to blow up another tank. Or bailing out and hiding on terrain until enemy tank comes close.

I'm sure most tankers can handle having only 2 guys to look out for, instead of every single tank being a potential satchel bomber.

- I suggest removing the satchel class.
* Blowing bridges adds little to this map IMO.
* Clown-cars will only be used for spotting & capping, not for satcheling.

Blowing bridges forces the enemy to use a single route. It's much needed when the time to capture the last objective arrives. It also prevents flanking move on the east and west fields.

 

[1.AR[GSC]=[ENIGMA]=]

Thats the point ie everyone can take them out if he gets there.

IF you include a sapper class, people will, for example, chose sapper, get in clowncar and drive somewhere were is tiger or other strongpoint, blow up, get killed in process and respawn as sapper - repeat. Once the bridges are blown there is no need for sapper anymore anyway and it will be used just for that purpose then.

If you put satchels on bridge, you may consider bridges rigged for demolition, so everyone, as is now, can blow them but then satchels are used up (long respawn time - 20-30 mins), so if anyone thinks its better to pick up satchels and go tank hunting with them, he does not help his team at all since bridge will still be there but satchels are gone and taken out tank will be back in 5 mins as well.

 

[Quietus]

8- Fix the freaky white glowing stairs at Ruins. They are a pain in the ass climb up or down from.

Yeah I don't know who makes a staircase that you have to crouch to walk up. A little more effort please. They are glowing because they have no texture. Non-advancing spawns, bridge in the middle of nowhere,too small texture scaling on river bed. The general layout (terrain) has great potential but it needs alot more effort and thought put into it to make it a quality map. If you're gonna bake a pizza "cook it all the way", no one wants to eat something "half-baked".

 

[Druidor]

My only real main gripe of this map is the intolerable distances from the spawns to the action.

I was playing today & the axis had the hills we were killed & all of the axis spawned at the start spawn location rendering any form of counter action defunct as it takes around 2/3 minutes to get back to the hills in which time the opposition have set up to defend fully.

The destroyable icon on the map serves no function as it is there wether the bridges are intact or destroyed. Have it so that it changes to a X or something if the bridge is blown.

Lower the grass height as the driver cannot see bugger all in some areas as it is well over the cockpit fov.

Make the water a bit murkier it detracts seeing crystal clear water & gleaming river bank/beds.

 

[Quietus]

My only real main gripe of this map is the intolerable distances from the spawns to the action.

I was playing today & the axis had the hills we were killed & all of the axis spawned at the start spawn location rendering any form of counter action defunct as it takes around 2/3 minutes to get back to the hills in which time the opposition have set up to defend fully.

The destroyable icon on the map serves no function as it is there wether the bridges are intact or destroyed. Have it so that it changes to a X or something if the bridge is blown.

Lower the grass height as the driver cannot see bugger all in some areas as it is well over the cockpit fov.

Make the water a bit murkier it detracts seeing crystal clear water & gleaming river bank/beds.

I've gone up to bridges still indicating being intact only to find them not. The river water looks more like lime flavored Gatoraid than water, I want to quench my thirst whenever I see it. Anyway, as I said it has potential.

 

[Oi!Oi!Oi!]

The bridges appear on the map as four red circles which are really close to each others. Each circle represents a section of the bridge which can be destroyed. If one section is gone, the red circle turns gray. It's hard to see it among the 3 other remaining red circles.

My only real main gripe of this map is the intolerable distances from the spawns to the action.

It is required, or else the team defending its last objective will easily be able to fire at attackers from their spawn.

 

[Quietus]

The bridges appear on the map as four red circles which are really close to each others. Each circle represents a section of the bridge which can be destroyed. If one section is gone, the red circle turns gray. It's hard to see it among the 3 other remaining red circles.

Hmmm. That's needlessly complex and confusing then. Just make each bridge either destroyed or not, we don't need to have 4 different destroyable segments visually and objectively depicted for each bridge. EDIT: stupid me I didn't see you mentioned the problem in your first post, duh. Anyway......yeah that really needs fixing.

 

[Mike_Nomad]

Yeah I don't know who makes a staircase that you have to crouch to walk up. A little more effort please. They are glowing because they have no texture. Non-advancing spawns, bridge in the middle of nowhere,too small texture scaling on river bed. The general layout (terrain) has great potential but it needs alot more effort and thought put into it to make it a quality map. If you're gonna bake a pizza "cook it all the way", no one wants to eat something "half-baked".

Please fellas, remember its only Beta One (1). I'm certain when this map is finished, it will become a map among maps to be fondly remembered. Not to mention a new standard in map size.

 

[SasQuatch]

One other serious issue is performance improvements. Im pulling as low as 7 fps in a lot of area's on my test rig, average fps is about 10 to 15 all over the map in general.

Test Rig: AMD 2000, 1 gig DRR, NV GF4600Ti 128 Mb

The major gameplay tweaks should be: Spawn setup, bridge damage indicators.

 

[\\<.Adnauseam]

One other serious issue is performance improvements. Im pulling as low as 7 fps in a lot of area's on my test rig, average fps is about 10 to 15 all over the map in general.

Test Rig: AMD 2000, 1 gig DRR, NV GF4600Ti 128 Mb

This is strange!
If i go to the Heights my fps slow down to 15-18 fps on some areas (near the houses mostly), but if i stay in the plains (where the most interesting fights take place) i get between 35-70 fps.

My rig is similar to yours:
AMD MP 2200 x 2
Quadro 900 XGL

Maybe the drivers?

 

[\\<.Adnauseam]

Just another quick reaction.

I find it quite strange that people are asking for more details in the houses while also asking to strip the tankcrew class from their MP's. For me this is a tank map and if anything the houses (especially the inside) must have the fewest polys possible. Now i'm not a big fan of beeing shot dead off my StuG cupola but when it happens i really think it add to the immersion. I'll say leave the crew's mp in! On some german tanks MP40s were also part of the tank equipment.

 

[Heinz]

decent ideas fellas. again, remember this is a beta release of this map, and the original mapper is off in China somewhere. doubt there's much free internet there, and if I was him, iw ould not even check this crap to begin with.

Enigma was cool enough to help us out with the 88vs76 version, and that's about all we'll get until the mapper (Slashbot) gets back.

still, with all it's roughness, it's the best map in the game right now (the 88vs76 version, that is. ).

 

[Divinehammer]

I dont think most of the houses need details at all the map is about tanks. Having to go house to house on the heights is a little much also all those details are bringing down FPS. I also think that the major spawns should be brought in closer to the battle. I am thinking just south of the south village and at the Y intersection NE of the North Bridge. I have never seen any combat in the 5 min commuter lanes. Tank Factory respawn times need to be smaller.Also I dont think that blowing up the bridges adds much to the game maybe make one or two as an objective make the rest cap zones. Tanks can just drive through the water though it is slow and boring. So blowing the bridges really has no effect.

 

[SasQuatch]

This is strange!
If i go to the Heights my fps slow down to 15-18 fps on some areas (near the houses mostly), but if i stay in the plains (where the most interesting fights take place) i get between 35-70 fps.

My rig is similar to yours:
AMD MP 2200 x 2
Quadro 900 XGL

Maybe the drivers?

Nope, it's the map I have the latest drivers, but the card is previous Gen or maybe even previous previous. Still, it's a test machine to test all maps with. So if it runs proper (doesn't need to be 'perfect') on this machine, the map is well optimized.

 

[Elton]

I think Orel is a truly excellent tank map and most of the strategic elements are completely sound. It's size promotes greater cooperation and team communication.

As an alternative solution to the complaints about sapping, do without explosives altogether and make the bridges vulnerable to tank fire.

I like the remote radios and the spawn placement is ok, if a trifle biased in favour of the Soviets. Actually, I have yet to witness a bona fide 32 player Wehrmacht victory at Orel (bots and noobs are easily defeated).

Apart from the cosmetic tweaks mentioned above, my fps plummets when going hand-to-hand in the buildings. But even with a ping above 120, I can blast away in a tank quite happily.

P4 2.4Ghz 512RAM Nvidia5950 256RAM