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Anything Goes Contest: Level Feedback/Discussion

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sky_lark

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Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:00 pm

Post Thu Jun 03, 2021 9:36 pm

Anything Goes Contest: Level Feedback/Discussion

Thanks to everyone who submitted levels and played during tonight's contest party! This contest has been awesome thus far.

This is the feedback/discussion thread. It's intended for folks to give their thoughts and suggestions for improvement. Levelmakers can make minor modifications to improve their levels during this one-time edit period (open thru Monday 6/7 at 12pm EDT).

The Levels
  • An Ode to Synthwave (ZC)
  • Anchor (RET)
  • Assault (RET)
  • Boss Battles (RET/Offense Defense)* (ineligible for voting)
  • Chaos Theory (NEX)
  • Clogged Pipes (CTF)
  • Construction (CTF)* (ineligible for voting)
  • Containment (COR/Soccer-ish) (ineligible for voting)
  • Death Bump (HTF)*
  • Definitely (COR)
  • Forcefield Fortress (CTF)
  • Geode (RET)
  • LED But Worse (HTF)
  • Nested (RET)*
  • Pep Pep Er Oni (BM)
  • Rave for Downers (BM)*
  • Release the Kraken (CTF) (ineligible for voting)
  • Ridge (CTF)
  • Rigatony Rugby (COR/Soccer-ish) (ineligible for voting)
  • Spawn Tax (SOC/Race)
  • Super Smash Hoes (BM/Survival)*
  • The Level You'll Vote For (COR)
  • Zombies Survival III (COR/Survival)
*Denotes has levelgen
Last edited by sky_lark on Wed Jun 16, 2021 12:16 am, edited 4 times in total.
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numbers

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Joined: Wed Aug 26, 2020 12:00 pm

Post Mon Jun 07, 2021 10:32 am

Re: Anything Goes Contest: Level Feedback/Discussion

me when i late feedbacks (couldnt be me)

An Ode to Synthwave.
Fun map! I really like the theming on the minimap, though none of it is seen when actually playing the map.

Anchor.
This is pretty mediocre. The gameplay is okay but Blue seems to be bullied by Yellow and Red flying through it. Additionally, the look of the map is not all that good, I would like it more if the rungs(?) connecting either one of the edges with Blue made a perfect semicircle instead of a rounded half-rectangle (maybe i'll post an edit in Paint.net). It just feels like this level was made in five minutes.

Assault.
I want to like this one, but it's way too deadlocky. Sure, it's supposed to be that way and you're supposed to keep your energy and health up so you can storm the opponent with all you have, but with only two players on each team (or god forbid a 1v1) the gameplay suffers.

Chaos theory.
Good mix of gamemodes! Though, it becomes very easy when you realize that you just have to use sensorboosting to fly around and get all the caches, since the forcefields are open often enough with a respectable amount of players. I'm ambivalent on the art(?).

Clogged Pipes.
Pretty straightforward, though the density makes attaining that hard. An interesting gameplay quirk is that using the ResourceItems you can completely lock down a path for an opponent player, since they block everything except Burst and Seeker. Needs a LoadoutZone.

Death Bump.
Not really much to say on this one. Creative idea but it's gimmicky.

Definitely.
I don't like this one. The EnergyItem in the center seems like an afterthought, the map design is blocky, the ResourceItems serve no purpose, and worst of all, you have to switch to Bouncer to effectively get at the cores on the sides, but there are no LoadoutZones so you have to suicide to do so. Please put more work into this one.

Forcefield Fortress.
Sorry if you want to use shield, because repairing is excessively vital here. If you forget about that stuff like me, or have more pressing matters at hand like getting the opponent's flag, sorry buddy. Maybe add some self-regen to the forcefields so it isn't as harsh. I like that you can zip across the top or bottom using a sensorboost or turbo to get to the opponent's flag faster.

Geode.
Love the color scheme here. Other people say that the lines make for a lot of visual noise, but I don't really get that problem. The three flags for only two capture zones is a bit weird, and if someone likes making terrain they can easily flood the place with asteroids using the asteroid spawners. The two ResourceItems in play are just enough in case someone wants to set up a teleporter, but not too bad that everyone spams Forcefields. Speaking of which, forcefields aren't actually too powerful because of the density of the diamonds in the middle.

LED but worse.
I'm pretty ambivalent on this one. It isn't bad but it isn't good, and the points from the Goalzones tick upwards a bit too fast.

Nested.
Good art and fun map, though the portals to the goalzone areas look like they weren't meant to be used by the other team.

Pep Pep Er Oni.
There's nothing much to say about this map. It's just a good old bitmatch with some circular walls strewn about. Bumping in to the pepperoni testItems for changing loadouts is very clever. The arc at the top looks a bit funky, you should use an angle of about 48.80 degrees (yes, I measured it, don't @ me) to get it to look perfect.

Rave for Downers.
bwbwbwbwbwbwwbwbbwbwbwbwbw [thats the sound it makes when you go though a ton of portals in a very short time]

Ridge.
Looks like someone took an inspiration from Rumble for Planet 7. I don't really like how many ResourceItems there are, it's too easy to create giant forcefields spanning nearly the whole length of the outer paths or a ton of turrets and forcefields surrounding the flag.

Spawn Tax.
It's possible to get out of bounds so fix that. The gameplay is a pretty simple mix of Soccer and Bitmatch, just rush your equivalent goal and score, or get kills on the other team. However, the goal part isn't too obvious, so maybe fix that. The spacing in the middle 'walls' is just barely small enough to prevent players from going through it,

Super Smashed Hoes.
Good levelgen! Players bumping into each other kind of messes it up but it's still very fun. However I'm not sure the damage corresponds to the actual damage the weapons do? Also, the text might need to be a bit longer-lasting.

The Level You'll Vote For.
I love the art and the map shape, though the little bits of wall around the cores get in the way and should be turned into Lines.

Zombies Survival III.
I don't really like zombies survival maps. As well as that, the art isn't too good.
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sky_lark

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Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:00 pm

Post Tue Jun 08, 2021 2:12 am

Re: Anything Goes Contest: Level Feedback/Discussion

Sorry for not posting earlier, was out of town Fri-Sun. I understand the revision period has passed, but still wanted to get these in for future editing's sake. Also not commenting on every level, just the ones I had thoughts on.

Anchor
I enjoy the creativity of a 3-team RET, but since it doesn't seem like engineer can be placed on the curved sections, and the majority of transportation is through the curved portions, engineer doesn't seem to have much value. I'd maybe think about removing that and/or adding a couple neutral turrets/lasers to the curved portions to make defense more feasible.

Assault
This map is a lot of fun for 2v2 or 3v3, but also quite tough to score. Might be worth removing the regen on the lasers/turrets or switching to HTF.

Chaos Theory
Numbers has pretty much mastered this one, and the strategy seems to be to jet around to each flag spawn area and wait for flags to appear. Trying to hunt for other players or kill waiting folks seems to be a losing strategy. My suggestion would be to either add far more flag deposit areas or limit the number of deposited flags to 1-2 in order to better incentivize combat.

Geode
Gorgeous to view, but tricky to play. Might be worth adding more contrast in the color shades, removing some of the lines, or switching to two teams instead of three. Something to make navigation and identifying enemies easier.

LED But Worse
I'm not going to say this is better than LED, but it plays fine. We had some nice strategic moments in a come from behind win where we basically held onto one flag in our base, then continually picked up and dropped the three flags in the opponent's base, preventing them from racking up points while we slowly scored. Needs either a higher cap or a slower attainment rate, the map ends very quickly if you're not on your toes.

Nested
Damn I had an idea for a minimap but this blew my idea out of the water. Very cool application of thread's mirror levelgen, and very cool looking level all around. My suggestion would be to add some little arrows onto each of the lines so it's a bit clearer where those lines/portals lead. I figured it out eventually but took me some time.

Pep Pep Er Oni
It looks like you can't switch your loadouts, but if you touch the pepperoni in a certain way, you are able to. I'd just take out a couple of the testitems/polywalls on a couple of the pepperonis to make super easy/clear loadout access, plus this has the added benefit of concentrating combat around these areas

Rave for Downers
Lower the score a bit please. It looks cool and all, but gets a bit stale as you hunt for enemies. 8-10 should be good imo

Ridge
Gone back and forth on how I feel on this, but imo the laser in each base should either have a much faster regen or not be able to be destroyed at all. The big appeal of this map is that the flag-runner has to take one of the side routes while defense can catch up using the ridge. If the flag-runner can just escape back onto the ridge then it kind of hampers this feature.

Spawn Tax
Very impressive how smoothly this plays for something that can be so finnicky like speedzones and soccerballs. Imo there shouldn't be a waiting area though. If a team builds up a lead, it's tough to catch back up, especially if killing an enemy won't necessarily result in a point for you (if that player doesn't go into the arena).

Zombies Survival III
I love each of these levels, but it's still really hard for humans to win. Zombies can just camp the core entrance and run out the clock. Maybe have multiple core entrances, with each portal leading to a mutual one-time use portal that then leads to the core destruction area. This might help.
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bobdaduck

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Joined: Thu Mar 11, 2010 1:39 pm

Location: Utah

Post Tue Jul 06, 2021 9:38 pm

Re: Anything Goes Contest: Level Feedback/Discussion

Sorry I'm so incredibly late to this, many personal things came up and I've been stressed out of my :zapdance: for months, but I felt bad because I was actually pretty pleased with the quality of most of these maps so I wanted to make sure to give everyone feedback on them! Also bots don't work on like hardly any of these maps which means I don't have to worry about "team balancing". I'm a critic at heart but just know despite the poor ratings for the maps im proud of all of u and it felt like bitfighter was actually competitive for the first time in a while

An Ode to Synthwave (ZC)
A simple and classy zone control. I would have liked to see a little more innovation rather than centralized gameplay with a couple of escape hatches, but it follows the formula well and the formula is popular for a reason. 6/10

Anchor (RET)
Unbalanced, since red and yellow have no quick way to assault each other, but both have a quick way to assault blue. I don't really like it, I think if it was me doing it I would incentivize the center corridors and make the side corridors long and cluttered/costly. That said, this map isn't obnoxious to play. 5/10 for sparseness.

Assault (RET)
A little low effort so I can't rate it highly, but plays well. A good example of minimalism. Maybe a nonintrusive levelgen or solid decoration could make it more interesting. The side projector adds a lot. 5/10

Boss Battles (RET/Offense Defense)* (ineligible for voting)
I am a little tired of onslaught maps, they're all kind of emperor's revenges but without the turrets being preset, but emperor's revenges were always low-effort dungeons that were only really fun like once every couple of months. I think the recent wave of zombie maps is a much funner type of one-sided dynamic. I can see this particular map being fun when people are specifically in the mood for it, it doesn't have a lot of the annoying maze-like features others of its genre have (the levelgen makes this a TON smoother), though the third area isn't the best, I think it feels too porous and indefensible. 4/10, because I would rather play the other maps, not because the mapmaker was not skilled.

Chaos Theory (NEX)
Interesting concept, a bitmatch with bonus grabs and different kill stealing. I think it misses a little in its execution, but maybe its just because we didn't play with enough players. Less bottlenecking and outskirts-oriented play would make the map feel less barren.

Clogged Pipes (CTF)
The tragedy of the commons is quartz' manhole cover map being remade with a billion resource maps in all the corridors, this feels awful to play even if you win. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Clunk. Pretty, but no gameplay to speak of. 3/10

Construction (CTF)* (ineligible for voting)
I don't think there's a need for all these timer mechanics, Castles™ was plenty of fun to engineer the crap out of even with teams being allowed to go at each other from the get-go. Honestly, I feel like this map is really well designed, and the engineer gimmick takes away from that a ton. I think this could be a great map of multiple gametypes if you just removed all the resource items and the core. The levelgen could be more intuitive. 7/10

Containment (COR/Soccer-ish) (ineligible for voting)
Haha what the heck I never played this one. I like the gummy resources, I wish the concept was developed into a real map (4v4 scale?) rather than the proof of concept we're getting here. 4/10

Death Bump (HTF)*
Really good use of slipzones, and levelgen, but unfortunately the map is simply not fun to play. Also, rather than submitting three versions for different sizes, the levelgen could be modified to open areas up on load, or even dynamically. Death for misstepping is harsh penalty in a map designed to force missteps, and also the red and stuff makes the map quite confusing. There's a lot of room for improvement here, maybe have some regular gameplay in some section of it or something? 4/10

Definitely (COR)
I think the linearness of the map makes defense a losing game. The stopped cores are interesting but don't add much, I don't think the map maker put in a lot of effort 4/10

Forcefield Fortress (CTF)
This plays pretty well for how simple it is. I think there's room to make it more interesting without losing from the core gameplay, and the "fortress" could be made more robust by making repairing forcefields more valuable. A different gametype could shake things up also. 7/10

Geode (RET)
Why

LED But Worse (HTF)
The text in the center is very good. In principle I'm against HTFs with massive score limits and velocities that make no sense. 3/10

Nested (RET)*
In principle, the gameplay on this map reduces to a simple circle, so it would feel better if that's what the map was. The HUD concept is great, but there's not really any gameplay. Thankfully there's not a lot of flags or a high score limit but its still kind of boring, it feels like a generic map even though it isn't. I'm also against maps that are deliberately confusing, on principle. 5/10

Pep Pep Er Oni (BM)
Honestly the testitems as barriers makes gameplay feel pretty open, to me. Score to win and time should be reduced, good at what it is. 5/10

Rave for Downers (BM)*
Does this map need a review? What am I supposed to critique?

Release the Kraken (CTF) (ineligible for voting)
Kind of a fun novelty map, I'll need to play it with a decent amount of people to figure out its strengths and weaknesses. Its a little confusing but once you figure out the like, two, routes, its not confusing anymore, so that's fine. 6/10

Ridge (CTF)
Engineer feels like a cop out here, like you're trying to leave it up to the players to make the map interesting. I don't like how long all of the routes are, and I think a different gametype such as core would suit it better. 4/10

Rigatony Rugby (COR/Soccer-ish) (ineligible for voting)
the soccer maneuvering is tricky enough that the cores should have a lot less health- I'm against soccer gimmick footwork maps, but this is fine for people who enjoy the genre, since there's normal dogfighting for it. Probably mostly spray and pray shots on goal though. 4/10

Spawn Tax (SOC/Race)
This one is kind of miserable to play, and I don't know how to salvage it. Its like, you're getting harassed, but you can't really harass back without falling behind, but if you don't your team will fall behind too, and also there's a bunch of just stuff in the way. 2/10

Super Smash Hoes (BM/Survival)*
Kind of fun to see my smash bros script getting mileage again, I feel like it has more potential than this though. Rotating speedzones are a funny touch. Kind of empty, 4/10

The Level You'll Vote For (COR)
The whirlpools are very interesting, but the clunk-clunk-clunk is kind of irritating, because it keeps you from being able to disengage from the core, but in a way that requires a lot of maneuvering around little dots you can barely see while you're being shot at. I've got a gravity well script you could replace them with maybe? I would open up the spawns and make an extra set of corridors between cores. 5/10

Zombies Survival III (COR/Survival)
Well its another huge zombie map, I feel like these pretty much all play the same way, humans can win but like only if no human dies for the entire time, I think that part could be rebalanced so zombies can't camp (as much). the engineer thing is interesting, I don't think engineering is powerful enough to keep the zombies out here, I'd be surprised if zombies have ever lost on this map. 4/10
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Santiago ZAP wrote:bob doesn't make new maps, he makes new gamemodes
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sky_lark

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Joined: Wed Mar 10, 2010 6:00 pm

Post Thu Jul 15, 2021 9:32 pm

Re: Anything Goes Contest: Level Feedback/Discussion

Thanks bobdaduck and all for the comments and reviews! Very helpful to have feedback so we can improve as levelmakers :)
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