Design
Posted: 19-08-2004 08:03
A few design and composition hints for Deathball Maps. Stuff I've learned from own and other maps where I or others did it wrong IMO. So this is mainly a "what not to do" list.
-Don't try to make the gameplay with your map. There are few crazy maps that work and are fun.
Deathball itself is making the gameplay, not the map (as in Deathmatch for example). You basically just have to give Deathball an empty map to make it shine.
Putting in lots of crazy things didn't work out well so far.
So no pits, no traps, no slopes (they can ruin passes) and crazy stuff. If you like try it, but I've played many community maps which tried too much crazy stuff.
They just kill Deathball.
I am not asking you to make empty cubes, there are more possibilites, but don't go crazy. Just try subtle changes to the original concept.
But it is fun enough to just put the same gameplay arena into new environments, to create a new atmosphere. You will see, Deathball feels different when you play in a new arena that looks different, but plays the same. It's like playing on different football pitches or in different stadiums. It's not like anyone is asking for different football pitches, they are that boring for 200 years now, and the sport is still by far no1 in the world
The fun is coming from something else.
-Avoid bright side walls, you won't be able to see your radar, and maybe the ball
-Also avoid grids or glass as side walls. Because you will see the stuff behind, it distracts too much, and you might not see players or the ball. Have your walls as plain as possible. You need a good compromise between looks and gameplay. Going too much for looks can easily kill the map, and nobody will play it.
-Keep your walls flat. Try to keep any detail away from the gameplay arena, because the ball will bounce off randomly from that stuff.
Nobody likes that in matches, everything should be predictable. I have to be able to play an exact pass using the wall.
-No tight hallways and not too much stuff on the pitch. This just doesn't work at all. Keep it easy, too much stuff ruins the game. You need enough room for passes!
Your main problem should be the enemy, not walls or stuff!
-Keep it flat. Having slanty surfaces here and there can ruin the gameplay. When you try to pass to someone who is just running onto a new surface, the pass will go off aim. And this will happen all the time, I promise.
-Use the standard goal measuring, we have 2 goals in the DB-Statics.usx package. Feel free to use them. If you change the goal sizes slightly in every map, people will get frustrated quickly (especially keepers). This only counts for normal goals. If you go crazy with goals (like I did in DB-Hole) this doesn't matter. These maps are just for fun anyway. Nobody plays this seriously.
-Keep the radar size at 8192 (from top to bottom). This is just because you get used to a certain size, if it changes from map to map, you will fuck up passes for example.
Long passes are always played via the bottom radar. Some people also try to get the right boost distance on the bottom radar, if the scaling is different, you will be too far away from the other guy and boosting never works... So if you can avoid it, use 8192 as size, even if the map is much smaller, just to have the same feeling for size in every map. If your map is bigger.....well, then you can't prevent it. But a good map doesn't need to be bigger.
If you are used to DB-Cube, you will get in trouble when you play DB-Touchdown, because this IS longer, and you will have yourself missing boosts and passes all the time. That's how I found out about the radar problem. Because everything I did, didn't work on that map, because of the radar size change.
-Use the high- or superhigh-detail settings (youractor/advance). So when you set world detail to "low" everything will be gone. Cube is a perfect example for this, if you use low detail, it's all just for a perfect frame rate. If you use Normal (default setting) you'll get all details. Especially the big screen is sucking on your framerate. You can not remove BSP brushes with this, but static meshes. So try to hide all static meshes if possible. Don't be affraid that people will not see all the meshes you put in so much work. But in the end, people only look at them for 5 minutes, and think "cool, but now lets play, how can I make my framerate better?" So do 'em this favour.
-Don't try to make the gameplay with your map. There are few crazy maps that work and are fun.
Deathball itself is making the gameplay, not the map (as in Deathmatch for example). You basically just have to give Deathball an empty map to make it shine.
Putting in lots of crazy things didn't work out well so far.
So no pits, no traps, no slopes (they can ruin passes) and crazy stuff. If you like try it, but I've played many community maps which tried too much crazy stuff.
They just kill Deathball.
I am not asking you to make empty cubes, there are more possibilites, but don't go crazy. Just try subtle changes to the original concept.
But it is fun enough to just put the same gameplay arena into new environments, to create a new atmosphere. You will see, Deathball feels different when you play in a new arena that looks different, but plays the same. It's like playing on different football pitches or in different stadiums. It's not like anyone is asking for different football pitches, they are that boring for 200 years now, and the sport is still by far no1 in the world
The fun is coming from something else.-Avoid bright side walls, you won't be able to see your radar, and maybe the ball
-Also avoid grids or glass as side walls. Because you will see the stuff behind, it distracts too much, and you might not see players or the ball. Have your walls as plain as possible. You need a good compromise between looks and gameplay. Going too much for looks can easily kill the map, and nobody will play it.
-Keep your walls flat. Try to keep any detail away from the gameplay arena, because the ball will bounce off randomly from that stuff.
Nobody likes that in matches, everything should be predictable. I have to be able to play an exact pass using the wall.
-No tight hallways and not too much stuff on the pitch. This just doesn't work at all. Keep it easy, too much stuff ruins the game. You need enough room for passes!
Your main problem should be the enemy, not walls or stuff!
-Keep it flat. Having slanty surfaces here and there can ruin the gameplay. When you try to pass to someone who is just running onto a new surface, the pass will go off aim. And this will happen all the time, I promise.
-Use the standard goal measuring, we have 2 goals in the DB-Statics.usx package. Feel free to use them. If you change the goal sizes slightly in every map, people will get frustrated quickly (especially keepers). This only counts for normal goals. If you go crazy with goals (like I did in DB-Hole) this doesn't matter. These maps are just for fun anyway. Nobody plays this seriously.
-Keep the radar size at 8192 (from top to bottom). This is just because you get used to a certain size, if it changes from map to map, you will fuck up passes for example.
Long passes are always played via the bottom radar. Some people also try to get the right boost distance on the bottom radar, if the scaling is different, you will be too far away from the other guy and boosting never works... So if you can avoid it, use 8192 as size, even if the map is much smaller, just to have the same feeling for size in every map. If your map is bigger.....well, then you can't prevent it. But a good map doesn't need to be bigger.
If you are used to DB-Cube, you will get in trouble when you play DB-Touchdown, because this IS longer, and you will have yourself missing boosts and passes all the time. That's how I found out about the radar problem. Because everything I did, didn't work on that map, because of the radar size change.
-Use the high- or superhigh-detail settings (youractor/advance). So when you set world detail to "low" everything will be gone. Cube is a perfect example for this, if you use low detail, it's all just for a perfect frame rate. If you use Normal (default setting) you'll get all details. Especially the big screen is sucking on your framerate. You can not remove BSP brushes with this, but static meshes. So try to hide all static meshes if possible. Don't be affraid that people will not see all the meshes you put in so much work. But in the end, people only look at them for 5 minutes, and think "cool, but now lets play, how can I make my framerate better?" So do 'em this favour.
