Drain Revisited

download: http://beta.xonotic.org/autobuild-bsp/dr...204d01.pk3


Drain with some item placement changes, that are meant to make the gameplay (especially duels) a bit more challenging. (basically to avoid the situation which takes place now, when one guy is waiting on nex, grabbing easily both 50A and mortar while the other player is left basically with RL and MH only)

Nex is swapped with MG and 50A from mortar room is moved to "sewers". I also added some armour shards in the place of moved 50A.

Discuss!

I asked kuniu to make these changes after playing the map a few times, and again vs srkdy yesterday. Map is a good concept & can be played tactically but needed a few changes to stop it being all top dominated + chaining armours so easily = win. Basically if you have two very good players, one can just hoard the top with the nex + 2xarmours and you can't fight to get back up there as your left with a RL/MH and machinegun, no armour possibilities at bottom.

Changes help allow opponent to control top area, and/or one on the bottom area with accessbility to the nex and forces opponent to have to come down to grab the nex + 2nd armour, hopefully for a more balanced gameplay.

As kuniu says, discuss

I havent played the revised version yet, but the only issue i saw with the original was the 50armor by the nex. Remove that, maybe add a few shards instead, and youre good to go. Unless there is something im missing, but i think controlling the nex and 1 50 armor is hardly game breaking. I think the other player having the mega health, rl, and electro at their disposal is definitely a fair fight. Plus its not impossible to get the nex with smart electro use and timing. Player in control drops down to get 50 armor, other player pops up under next and spam electro combos until the nex respawns.

Or maybe it all just sounds good in my head. I certainly dont play at the level of kojn and srkdy.

It's also possible to put a 100a up top where the current 50a is also. then you have 1x100a, 1x50a (the one in the sewers) and 1x MH.

I can assure you, when the opponent has both the 50a's and the nex and you have neither, one nex shot and you have 180 health your down to 90 health and no armour. Make's it very difficult to get a frag once you die, and it's hard to challenge for a nex when your trying not to take damage, in the old version you can easily grab both the armours and go back up for the nex within 10 seconds (time it takes for weapons to spawn in duel).

Nex hasn't been removed, just it's positioning with the mg has been swapped over, so nex is where mg was and mg is now on top.

Ofcourse please play some game's on it, and give some feedback

I just played a couple of matches vs. Galtah and I like the changes so far. It makes me move a lot more than the original item placement, which was too easy to control all armour+nex. The map certainly felt like it had a lot more flow to it and I was in new situations that rarely happened in the original, due to the domination of the top-level. I'd need to play more vs. different opponents in order to feel out the strategies that have opened up on this map, but for now it gets my seal of approval.

It's up on my Washington, D.C. server if anybody wants to test it out.

Ok, i played it for a while, and I really like it. I like not having to stay in 1 spot the whole match. At first,. the old nex area seemed useless except for the armor, but I now I see that its a good spot to listen for your opponent.

My 1 wish, is that the mortar be moved down to where the 50 armor used to be, maybe not in the middle but in that area, and maybe the armor shards below it be put in it's place to fill the void. I always hated the mortar placement since it's so dangerous to get.

after one and a half games vs. srkdy: 10/10 would definitely play again!

one very minor gripe: the ammo next to the mg + nex were not switched, so the nex has bullets next to it and the mg has plasma, but that's my only gripe

Yeah, I asked for it to be like that, if people think it's better to put the ammo with each of the gun's then it can be swapped back over to the appropriate weapons again , my thinking was, you'd get ammo from the electro.

If people prefer the map with these item fixes, I as the author also approve of them and think the fixes should go into default Xonotic. It was supposed to be a duel map so yeah, duelers should get to pick what they want!

Having bullets at nex and cells near mg sounds dodgy, though. :o

Just FYI!

Thanks for the fixes, kuniu!

Idea: there are some barrels on the lower part of the map. How about making them destructible like those in red-planet?

Rafallus, that's just a matter of copy-pasting the effect. Should be very easy to do, so just feel free, upload your version to the autobuild server and do a merge request.

Having bullets at nex and cells near mg sounds dodgy, though. :o

I agree. I seen no reason not to have the MG ammo next to the MG. As for the nex, I personally don't think the "too much nex ammo" issue that people have complained about is relevant in a duel, especially with the electro being such an ammo hog. I'm fine with the cells being on top by the mg, but i don't think it really affects the map balance much either way.

I'll ask kuniu to replace the ammo's back around then.

As for destructable barrels. It's a duel map, not sure how appreciative duel players will be of this feature (most likely will not want it), I personally would not want it, think it's best left on redplanet.

The problem is that would create inconsistency between maps (official no less). I see three possible solutions:

1)Simplest: remove barrels altogether from the map. If desired, bigger container can be put in their place (like, again, those on red-planet. They are not destructible there, so I see no problem, and their size is around that stack of barrels on drain)
2)Longest: enable it and actually playtest to see what it adds. If not liked, see point 1.
3)Most flexible: enable it by default, giving server-side setting to disable destructible scenery altogether.

I'll ask kuniu to replace the ammo's back around then.

As for destructable barrels. It's a duel map, not sure how appreciative duel players will be of this feature (most likely will not want it), I personally would not want it, think it's best left on redplanet.

I would probably end up shooting the barrels at the start of the round to get rid of them, unless I found a way to use them as a trap. There are enough maps with death traps in them, it's nice to have a few with none. It seems the map works well without any hazards, so why change it just for the sake of changing it?

ok, i swapped ammo packs, so cells are next to nex and bullets next to MG. New download link in the first post.

I kind of don't like the idea of destructable barrels too...

I agree with rafallus - consistency is important.

I agree with rafallus - consistency is important.

This is true. I see no problem with the barrels being replaced but crates.