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Level Design Actual Ladders, not improvised stairs using blocking volumes?

Is there such a thing yet? I've got a couple of very long vertical ladders and I've gone the route of blocking volumes arranged in a steps pattern. However since the ladder is completely vertical (mounted to the wall, not a leaning ladder) my "steps" are only 2 units in depth which results in a very quick ascent and descent. Going up isn't much of an issue, but coming down can be deadly. I tried creating a tunnel blocking volume around the "ladder" to keep the player from falling. It makes it better, but doesn't eliminate the occasional death from falling. Also Zed pathing issues are prevalent.

So the question is, is there a working ladder solution? I see there is a Ladder volume in volumes, but I tried playing with it without results. My guess is that it's a vestigial feature of UDK which doesn't work in KF2 SDK.

Any information would be appreciated.
 
Bashing together a makeshift ladder with stacked blocking volumes is the only reasonable solution. It works somewhat well on slanted ladders but, as you've discovered yourself, becomes increasingly wonky the more vertical it gets.

My best guess as to why there is no official support is the logistics involved with the AI.

1. It would require a whole set of mocapped crawling animations, and probably new attack animations as well, for a feature that is essentially very low-key and doesn't fit well with KF2's playstyle in general.

2. It would make funneling zeds into a single vulnerable climb extremely easy, making that area of the map very trivial and easy for players to exploit. Unless the ladder is ridiculously wide, the Zeds would be able to only climb it 1-by-1, becoming pure cannon fodder.

3. Tripwire have been pretty zealous about not having obviously hazardous locations that can cause accidental or careless player deaths. Even on official maps where you'd logically be able to jump off a ledge and suicide, you can't because of blocking volumes. Having ladders would invite lots of player injury or even death, with no feasible way of nursing them with invisible walls without it looking and feeling ridiculous.

While I would like to see official support for ladders, I don't think it will happen. Logistically it's just too much messy work for too little reward.
 
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Seanchaoz;n2308952 said:
Bashing together a makeshift ladder with stacked blocking volumes is the only reasonable solution. It works somewhat well on slanted ladders but, as you've discovered yourself, becomes increasingly wonky the more vertical it gets.

My best guess as to why there is no official support is the logistics involved with the AI.

1. It would require a whole set of mocapped crawling animations, and probably new attack animations as well, for a feature that is essentially very low-key and doesn't fit well with KF2's playstyle in general.

2. It would make funneling zeds into a single vulnerable climb extremely easy, making that area of the map very trivial and easy for players to exploit. Unless the ladder is ridiculously wide, the Zeds would be able to only climb it 1-by-1, becoming pure cannon fodder.

3. Tripwire have been pretty zealous about not having obviously hazardous locations that can cause accidental or careless player deaths. Even on official maps where you'd logically be able to jump off a ledge and suicide, you can't because of blocking volumes. Having ladders would invite lots of player injury or even death, with no feasible way of nursing them with invisible walls without it looking and feeling ridiculous.

While I would like to see official support for ladders, I don't think it will happen. Logistically it's just too much messy work for too little reward.



I definitely understand all of this, I was just hoping there was an official way to do ladders and I was just overlooking it. I have a very vertical map and was trying to provide another way for the Zeds to make it to the rooftop as well as provide another escape route for players. My jerryrigged ladders work, but there is definitely a possibility of death or health damage on the descent. Pathing for the Zeds isn't very good either. So I may have to just remove the feature from my map.

Maybe I'll add another stair access to the roof on the outside of the building. I already have a fire escape so this option feels redundant and sort of stupid. Maybe I'll just have to put the fire escape right to the roof, though that sort of feels dumb as I don't know if I've ever seen a fire escape go right to the roof.

At present my map only has one point of entry for the rooftop. Essentially they can get up to the top floor from either the stairs or fire escape. However to get to the roof top, you have to take a set of stairs from the top floor up to the roof access building. This is a kill zone for the Zeds if the players all camp the rooftop as the Zeds have to come through one set of double doors. To try and force them off the rooftop, I put the trader pods (two of them) outside of the office building in the yard. I also spawn the players on the middle floor with Zed spawn volumes on all the floors (but the middle floor) and rooftop with other spawn volumes outside the office as well. This forces the players to rush for the rooftop if they want to camp it on the first wave as Zeds can spawn below and above as well as the rooftop. Once they make it to the rooftop though, it seems pretty trivial to camp it.
 
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Sounds like a level design problem - if its a tall building, maybe you can do what was done on the original Offices, and have them spawn from inaccessible areas of the roof. The other option could be to have them drop down from another higher building if its a city sort of environment. Theres always a possibility to chuck portal spawns on the roof as well.
 
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