New Map--Lanes

Turns out that small water streams cause a disproportionate amount of lag. According to people who know a lot more about terraining than I do, the smaller-scale water effects caused by little streams causes lots of little calculations for their reflections and water-meeting-coast effects. It always seemed to me that the Stream map was noticeably laggy, and I never got the feeling that it was as entertaining as the other maps.

So I replaced it.

Now we have a new map (well, it's technically the same map just without the water and with some new walls) titled "Lanes" and it is very different from the others! It maintains the no back-wall philosophy of Stream but there are two additional lines of walls that run vertically near the center, creating three "lanes" of traffic. I also upped the rate of dodgeball-spawning on that map significantly to compensate for people who might "abuse" the defensive nature of the lanes.

Give it a try and tell me what you think!

And on the side, I'm currently working on a new FFA map that should be out pretty soon. With a more difficult real-life schedule, I haven't been able to implement some of the more "ambitious" additions like I've wanted to, but maps are fun too and surprisingly time-efficient to make!

rut

Talking about lag, it seems that I've been getting complaints from few people for a long while now about cumulative lag, where more rounds you play, the more lag there. To clarify, after the first game finishes and everyone "wants a new game!" then the next game has much more lag. I'm not sure what the problem on this one is, though I'm personally not affected by it.

I know what you're talking about and it's something I've been investigating for a long time now. In between games, every unit is removed and from the debugger I've made sure there's no triggers that are left on and running from game to game. Basically, I can find no logical reason for games to be getting progressively laggier and laggier--it seems to be just something that happens. For me, it's pretty minor to nonexistent when I'm using my powerful desktop computer, but it's very pronounced and irritating when I'm using my laptop.

By the way, I released a new FFA map last night! It's as basic as can be, but I think FFA really needed a gimmick-less map.

Rut

sorry i can't be specific because i don't have much time, but I don't like it xD. The frisbee map is amazing though!

Glad to hear you gave it a try! When you have some time, i'd love to hear what you like/don't like about it. It's super-experimental and I'm more than willing to modify it in order to make it more fun!

first off its buggy! The balls get stuck on the lane dividers.

Due to the nature of how the game works, open spaces and small obstacles will make the game more fun. This is because it is a game using ranged attacks. As the opponent gets farther the amount of skill to hit them increases. That is what makes the game fun. With the lane maps it makes it very hard to hit a long range ball. The times you do hit, it is often luck because of rebound.

Which reminds me that rebounds are bad for the game when overused. Most maps that use it as a border are okay.

I think you are going a bit too drastic with these maps. Use very simple obstacles that don't obnoxiously alter the playing field. Moving obstacles are okay.

The metal map ( forget if thats what its called) Does a decent job of implementing this. It has relatively small obstacles (a bit too big still imo + buggy). The obstacles should pretty much be straight lines to prevent randomness/buggyness
You don't want too many rebounds because it adds in too much luck. I think luck is okay but not too much.

For the map pool I would suggest the following:

1. Map with Rebound borders (sometimes the rebounds on these are annoying but it is acceptable and sometimes interesting)
2. One plain map as the standard map
3. A map with small barriers, close enough to be vulnerable to lobs, but no rebound borders
4. A map with obstacles that either move in a predictable manner or appear/reapear

You might even want to consider destructible barriers. or tiny objectives that give your team an extra ball when broken.

The most important thing is that they are subtle obstacles that can be used in some scenarios but not all.

This is why i like the frisbee map. The other ffa maps have really gimicky center obstacles. It is just free and open and the rebounds are predictable since they don't really rebound twice.

Thanks for the detailed explanation! Do you think it would work better with only one central wall, making it a 2 larger lane map rather than a 3 smaller lane thing? I'll also look into fixing the bugs--I didn't realize dodgeballs could still get stuck on the walls.

I think a map with reflective walls is very important as the 'standard' map because it allows newer players to score kills a little easier, and by keeping the dodgeballs inside the arena the game feels a little faster paced. That being said, my next map will definitely be wall-less as per your request!

Thanks,
Rut

Having an entire lane and splitting the map in half is a bit drastic to me, I think the subtle obstacles make the most interesting gameplay. The lanes map feels like bowling with bumpers on the sides.