Map Iteration #1 - sonkiboy/SewageUnderpass GitHub Wiki

From my peer reviews, and even my own playtests one aspect of the map became clear; the bottom half of the map is boring! To break that down a bit more, there are a few reasons why I need to rework the underground. 1) there is no reason to go down there other than quickly getting out of the main arena above it and 2) it's too open and doesn't promote fighting in that area. I was worried about adding too much in the underground, as I was worried about balancing issues and didn't want it to become too busy. Yet I decided to at least start experimenting and adding things, and pull back later after testing.

Before:

After:

This is what the underground area looks before and after I reworked it. It's a pretty drastic change from the original, but I feel like a lot of the issues I had were addressed. First in the center I added a gazebo-like structure where the players can fall down onto from above. The height is brought up from the original, as players were taking damage from going down, and while I initially saw that as a risk/reward situation, it just made people avoid going down that way. I also wanted this to become a place people will fight over, which was suggested by one of my friends Nate who reviewed the level. From the start I wanted to add a rocket launcher or grenade launcher to the level, and thought this was a good place to put it. I placed it on the bottom part of the gazebo so anyone down there can gain access to it, however the ammo is placed above it. This brings me to the next additions, the four blocks around the gazebo.

I initially added them to break up the open areas of the original version of the underground, but then had the idea of adding a rocket jump challenge. While I personally do not like challenged that involve the player having to hurt themselves, but the mechanic is very fun to use so I felt that it would be good. You can jump up on top of the blocks from the outer side of it, and not only is there some goodies there for you to collect, you can use the rocket jump to hop onto the top of the gazebo to get the ammo and armor without having to drop down from above. Other than that I added some ammo behind the pillars in the corners to entice players to go back there, but now with this iteration I am looking forward to seeing how people interact with it.

The next area I reworked were the two stairwells that connected the underground back up to the main area. The initial design I will admit was very rushed and had some glaring issues, mainly the open nature of it and the danger you put yourself in when traversing.

When initially making it, I had the idea of adding a wall through the center to help make it less open, but didn't like the restricted movement. It would make players have to walk directly into danger and if you were going up you were at an innate disadvantage. One of my peers said they didn't like how there was no cover, and thought of how I could get around this. I came up with the idea of having two pillars where the paths round back on themselves, that way there are still points of cover, and if you need to quickly get out of danger while on the ramps, you can fall between them downwards. This falling behavior then led to the idea of putting the platforms that bridge between the pillars, that way they can break the fall of players and control how far they move down. I also took this as an advantage to put some nice items in the rooms to entice players to venture into them other than needing to get up from the underground. Along side this, I put a new door way in that connects these rooms to the lower hall and the upper hall, as opposed to the original that only connected to the upper hall. This creates new loops within the pathing of the level and adds more options for player mobility.

On the topic of the halls, one of my play testers Jiovanni suggested adding more cover to the halls as they were entirely open and agreed whole heartedly that they needed it.

While it isn't much I feel like this adds some new strategies to the way people navigate the lower hallway. Both of the blocks have similar behavior in mind, giving cover to those fighting in the corridor, while being exposed to those who are coming up from the underground. On the left of the picture you can see the new doorway leading to the lower hall way, which has a direct line of sight to those who are hiding behind the block next to it. Same idea goes for the block further down the hall, it provides cover when fighting with those also in the hall, but anyone who comes out of the portal further down the hall can easily shoot at them. This is all currently in theory, so I'm interested to see how people interact with it when play testing. I also am excited to see how the waterfall will change sight lines by introducing a distorted view of the hall way from the main arena.