Post by icyhotspartin on Jan 22, 2019 8:50:28 GMT
Hey NextLevelDesigners,
Hope I've caught you at a good time - I'm proud to officially release Broken Weave as a Next Level Design scoop!
This one's been gestating for a while, but came together quite nicely overall. My aim to provide much more complex art, geometry, and gunplay, in a tighter 2v2 package has hit the target in a lot of places.
Taking design cues from the three maps that came before it (Zarathustra, Hell’s Bells, and Thanatos), Broken Weave eschews my (apparently usual) philosophic babbling for a more easily discernible environment. You won’t get lost, you won’t have any trouble identifying different areas of the map, players don’t get oversaturated by lights, and there are only three places you could possibly fall off. Maybe four. They are much more well thought-out this time, not meaningless deathpits like they used to be.
In that vein, every position on the map is dangerous in 2v2. The idea is to force the players to move, or be killed for their inaction. Spawning is predictable, but the spawning player has ample opportunity to get out of harm’s way and/or cycle to a more offensive position without being killed. Teams that play tightly together are more prone to losing in fights against split teams because of this. Smart players will learn very quickly to use every part of the map to their advantage - movement is key, and weapons/powerups are located in mildly inconvenient areas. This is not because the map is a variation on the open-air pancake design, but because the pathing spirals around itself in many places and provides counters for every position at regular intervals.
Before you ask, yes, there is still a hint of framerate lag. Yes, there is some bumpy terrain that plays bad without default movement on. Yes, there are custom weapons. Yes, I might make a very small edit here or there in the coming week to fix these things. I’m happy with my work.
Structure and Pathing:
The structure is multi-tiered, multi-dimensional, based on the following sketch.
The idea was to take familiar and regular shapes, superimpose them, and extract relationships between their borders to use as pathing, and their intersections as anchor points for the design final form of that design, all the while maintaining an understanding of what 3D relationships between these various paths would mean for the gameplay itself.
Interlocking and weaving paths are meant to break up sightlines organically and provide interesting ways for players to traverse the map without relying only on clamber. These paths serve as a dancefloor of sorts, one that forces players to commit to a choice of action when confronting opposing players. Ideally, this choice is motion - standing still on these paths is not conducive to long-term survival or victory. However, they provide excellent vantage points for players to induce creative and unexpected encounters/counters, oftentimes empowering lower positions against higher or mid-level positions.
The teleporter path is functional, as well as aesthetic - it delays teleportation by a couple seconds (extendable by using spartan abilities, but not exploitable). The path itself is a direct copy of the tunnel it is entered in, the bottom portion of the map visible from there, and the view of the environment from the top of the tower. The exit point is exposed to the entire map, and expedient players can and do get caught at the exit.
Spawning:
Spawn points on the map are nothing too special - there are no ‘dedicated spawn areas’, other than locations that are hidden from view from most of the map. Team spawns were split after realizing that the race for height and power-ups at the beginning of the match simply wasn’t very interesting if both players on each team were to run into each other and all die from grenades within 3 seconds of starting the match. [see Second Draft]
So instead of scrapping the design, I made it more segmented, and split the spawns, so that both players had the option to converge on a location, or to try and outmaneuver the opposing team and catch them from the rear, or form some kind of pincer.
Weapons:
No autos. While I briefly considered having an SMG on the map, or Needler, these weapons never function as intended, and far too often result in free - read ‘effortless’ - kills. I’ve never been the best player, so I actually came into this project looking for something that could help me tighten up my aim and movement coordination, one of the keys to Halo’s competitive lockbox. So, keeping medium distance duels accessible but challenging had a lot to do with the weaponset intended for the map.
Long distance is still an option, but players will have to pick up one of the rifles placed on the map - either the LightRifle or the Carbine. The Sentinel Beam makes a return as well, placed at the lowest point of the map. Very useful when used to pin down a player across the map, or to force movement, or with Damage Boost equipped, the Sentinel Beam’s power is checked by the macrogeometry that breaks up the longer sightlines. The map features a two-shot Fuel Rod Cannon. This is self-explanatory - spamming does not factor in, ammo is limited, and shots must be more precise than with a Rocket Launcher.
There’s also a new addition, the ‘Magic Magnum’. This was a product of my last experience with swapping ADS animations for the SMG on Hell’s Bells. It merges the aiming characteristics/magnetism and animations of the projection SMG with the mechanics and magazine size of the vanilla Magnum - which results in far more accurate long-distance dueling, and a cool, unique aiming feel.
Full list of weapons and timers is as follows:
- Magnums - 30 second respawn
- Grenades (2 Frag/2Plasma/1Splinter) - 30 second respawn
- Light Rifle - 110 second respawn - 2 clips
- Carbine - 110 second respawn - 2 clips
- Sentinel Beam - 120 second spawn - 70% energy
- Fuel Rod Cannon - 170 second respawn - 2 two-shot clips
- Magic Magnum - 120 second respawn - 1 clip magnetized
- Damage Boost - 170 second respawn (in teleporter path, hold X!)
Art:
I took everything I learned about lighting, pathing, piece saving, sound design, framing, sightlines, and color temperature/value and threw it into this one, because the art was largely necessitated by the goals of the geometric structure of the map. The original version attempted far more micro detail, which not only detracted from performance, and made gameplay hard to predict and very unwieldy; rocks were everywhere, terrain stuck out in funny ways… nothing quite fit. I had to radically redesign the natural areas, and even a large portion of the structural area to make sure that players had clear choices, cover, and proper segmentation. I decided to go for a much more naturalistic approach, but one that still made shapes and pathing apparent. Somehow I was also able to get lucky with the terrain textures and overall color palette so that things look relatively natural.
What follows is a glimpse at the map's overall evolution prior to release.
Thanks to:
Sethiroth - for taking some time to cast a keen eye and provide practical feedback.
Xandrith - for stroking my ego - among other things
Multilockon - for getting my brain fired up to forge again.
The SOUL FLAME - for playing this over and over.
Box Rippin - for playing this over and over as well.
Brendan Fraser for the synth - VERY cool bro !!
The FH kiddos, for their fine-toothed combing for bugs.
And all the Customs randos for their continued betrayals and propensity to quit after dying once.
icyhot
PS: Tune in soon for the first of many installments in a philosophical exploration of Level Design, and a much more detailed writeup of this map and the reasons for its shape!