OmahaBeach

[Cat1981England]

Turbo K from Omnipotents has very kindly given us permission to edit his version of OmahaBeach which itself was build upon work done by Wormbo.

There's one or two visual issues which need working on such as the cull distance on static meshes, some open borders, a pool of water with exaggerated waves etc but they are all easily fixed and the edited map looks a thousand times better then the one currently on the server does. The real issue is the gameplay.

What we need is some ideas on how the to improve the gameplay, probably by changing the link setup, but also the vehicle lay out. Noticeable changes made already are - the mines are gone, the Ion cannon and two Dragons have been replaced with Cicada's and a few other small changes to other vehicles, link setup is still the same.

Ideas please people

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[EmanReleipS]

Nice one, boss! I'll take a look at it soon. Here are just some ideas:

I think the node setup is good and should offer good gameplay. I think the issue is the nodes and the vehicle selection. Too many tanks/powerful vehicles. And the center nodes (8, 14) are too open, whereas the buried primaries (10, 11) are too covered. The latter also get camped a lot. I would suggest finding some way to place those nodes on the ground (="unbury" them) instead, maybe inside some small building. Perhaps the buildings with the turrent on top next to the entrance to 10 and 11 could be made bigger and hold the node.

I would also suggest doing something about those huge trees above 3 and 4. It's really difficult to see fliers hiding inside them and it usually turns into a killing fest for the fliers.

For the terrain I would suggest removing those potholes and either adding more uneven terrain (like Dreamus) or adding a bunch of junk that would provide some cover for pedestrians.

Finally, no healing pads. They are mostly used by the Falcons anyway and just help to keep them in the game too long.

[Turbo K]

the Ion cannon and two Dragons have been replaced with Cicada's and a few other small changes to other vehicles,

I thought the small changes were pretty major:
- Mino is gone, replaced by an Alligator (flak tank)
- Falcon is weaker and a much easier target
- Wormbo's Banshee V1 has replaced the Ion cannon.
- Modified Assault Hellhounds have replaced all Benders, Hellhounds, and King Hellhounds. I thought they fit in more with the theme of the map, plus people should camp less in them.
- The fast Scorpions from ONS-Syrma have replaced all the stock scorpions, Stingers, and Tarantulas. They handle much better and I don't think they're immune to shock beams.

[Zon3r]

It looks good, the visuals are really nice. the changes, more or less are good. don't know what to do with the aligator tho, imo it's pretty useless, i can't use it , only the beam is good for me.
i agree with Ema about 10 and 11, at least to get lifted a bit, so it could be attacked from the outside, getting in there is a pain in the ass. bots are not good to test a map, so we need an online test
I would like to add that the hangar doors you have placed in the back of 5, 9, 12, 13 are only blocking shots and pedestrians, vehicles can go through them, i tried falcon, badger, manta, scorpion

[Maniac]

Nice, would like to see it in test.

- The jumppads emitters at base are displaced, maybe others too
- Some raptors would be nice, the sky is too clear now
- The Banshee is great, but fragile - maybe put 1 or 2 more somewhere? The average player skill on the server is not so high, I'm afraid it'll end up destroyed too fast.
- No sinkholes is really, really great
- No mines is even better
- Assault Hellbender fits in nicely
- Replace Deemer with SuperDeemer or place it closer to map center, it's too slow & too far now
- Pushing Volumes at map borders are fantastic

[Cat1981England]

ONS-OmahaBeach-)o(-V3-Beta2. If it doesn't show up in your list of maps you'll need the CEONSS map pack.

List of changes:

Cleaning/bugs:

- Fixed static meshes popping into view.
- The pool of water by the ship now doesn't have waves.
- Removed bomb (I said bomb not bum) hole by node 3 which was connected to the sea but didn't have any water or waves in it.
- Resized jumpad bases and realigned the two that were in the wrong position.
- Fixed node 4 jumpad.
- Slimmed down the blocking volumes on fences.
- Placed blocking volumes on hanger doors.
- Unlit some textures.
- Placed missing fencing around the edge of the map.
- Fixed floating static meshes and a node.
- Placed missing zone info at blue core.
- Banshee and Badgers load from packages rather then mylevel.
- The 2 vehicles which spawn outside the bunker nodes 12 and 13 are now linked to those nodes rather then 11 and 14. I'm not sure if this was intentional, but as they spawn right outside i'm guessing not. If it was intentional i'll change it back.
- Adjusted radar map size so people can see node numbers on radar map. I couldn't squeeze node 15 in though.
- Applied sound to jumpads.
- Removed 2 triangle anti portals. I maybe wrong, but I don't think they were doing much to improve performance.
- Some minor texture editing.
- Moved vehicles inside node 9 to match 4.
- Moved node 3 closer to the ship to provide some extra cover.

Gameplay:

- New buildings at nodes 10 and 15 rather then nevermore walls.
- Added missile silos/ventilation shaft at nodes 12 and 13 to give an extra entrance to bunkers. Move to the centre to go up, to the side to go down, no vehicles can get in.
- Placed jumpad by node 3 to reach nuke.
- Jumpads replaced teleporters at cores so teleport9 is no longer an issue and it stops any chance of tele-killing anyone.
- Removed the 2 huge trees by nodes 11 and 14.
- Moved vehicle health pads to centre node and lowered the heal rate to 20hp per second. They are now useful to other vehicles but place the Falcon in a vulnerable position when it's being healed.
- Weapon lockers changed to custom and not linked to the nodes, lockers the same but re-added mines to nodes 9 and 4.
- Replaced Grenade Launchers with eons version.
- Replaced health pickups with second world war style ones. The only problem is that a message pops up saying that "you have picked up a heath vial +5" when they all have more then +5. I don't know how to change that.
- Added to 2 health pickups to nodes 10 and 15.

Vehicles:

- Replaced EuScorpius at nodes 10 and 15 with EONS Scorpions to help players quickly get to the next node and to counter any tanks moving towards the cores.
- Placed extra Banshee at nodes 9 and 4 to give players more incentive to go and build these nodes.
- Minigun Warthogs have replaced the EuScorpius's at nodes 12 and 13 to help counter the addition flyers and are in keeping with the map.
- Moved badgers back at core and removed one of the tanks. It's very rare that both tanks are used.
- Replaced tank with Aegis at node 2 to help teams defend and hold node.
- Replaced Aegis with Centaur at cores to counter flyers.
- Replaced Assault bender at each core with Warthogs.

Obviously if anyone wants additional changes to the vehicles, or to change them back to how they were please just say. I've increased the number of minigun vehicles to counter the additional flyers and added the Centaur because there's one less hitscan vehicles at cores now that the Hellbender has been replaced.

OmahaLS.png (116.38 KiB) Viewed 13210 times

Even though the map plays very well early on, once one teams gets on top it's very hard to get back into the match and people on the losing team often start leaving once this happens. Another problem is how often this map goes into over time despite the huge amount of vehicles available to the winning team. So I think we need an extra link to each core which would help both teams either get back into the match or win before overtime. It may also help remove one or two of the pillars around each core to make them a little more vulnerable.

Feedback please

[Maniac]

... The only problem is that a message pops up saying that "you have picked up a heath vial +5" when they all have more then +5. I don't know how to change that.

Sorry, have no time to look at it, but my guess is their class is inherited from vial +5 class, and changing the inheritance to health +25 is enough. I'll probably look into it, but no promises.



Highlights:
- removed most of the connections to 1/2
- designed 2 clear prime/second route choices - through (3) or through (1 and 2)
- designed alternate routes for prime route (14-5-2 / 13-6-1) which are linked through 5-6
Points:
- to prevent spamfest in the map center
- to add more strategic vulnerabilities for both winning and losing teams (can't defend primes only for 20 minutes, can't take the center + hangars and have a free win)
- to create more tactical choices (more nodes with 3 connections, less nodes with 2 connections, lowered priority of universal node 1)
- to make side nodes (15,4,9,10,3) more important
- to minimize count of nodes in direct fire range (to prevent spawn on X-move to Y-die-repeat at e.g. 1-2 or 6-2 or 15-14...)
Cons:
- is more complex (requires planning skill, which some part of the players, especially casual ones, lack)
- is easier to lose because of slow team reaction on situations changes
- anything you point out

Edit: added an image

[Maniac]

Just tried out this node layout, and it satisfied me all right. I can even tell it worked out just like planned - with bots, at least.
Please, try it and do the feedback

[Cat1981England]

Sorry for the late reply. I've only played it once with the old link setup so I can't really judge the map yet.

I've put your link setup on Mani. Personally I think nodes 1, 2 and 3 should also be linked, but we'll see how it goes

Anyone have any thoughts about the vehicles? I've seen a couple of comments from people saying that they don't "feel" right.

[Maniac]

I based this setup on the old one, and it doesn't differ that much from the new (Omni version) one. I don't like the idea of 1-2-3 connected because 1 becomes too important in such case. As for me, it damages the tactic possibilities a lot: if you don't own 1, the shortest pathes are (2) - 7 - 8 - 12 - (Core) and (3) - 9 - 11 - 10 - (Core); and your node line can easily be severed at it's start (2 or 3). So, you need either more powerful team to control the middle in head-to-head (and get to the core), or wait until overtime (and play for node count)