Jump Pads

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If I'm not mistaken, Gorge was something of an experiment by DeadGuy to design a map that encouraged side routes. In some ways, it's quite successful -- as has been noted, llamaing is less common, and decent front routes are few. I believe the "rockiness" of the titular gorge in the middle of the map is purposeful -- it's skiable, but not healthily (at least, not unless you take decent care and work to find healthy routes). The sides, on the other hand, are rather gentler.

It's still a rather new map, and it may well have some flaws. Now that it's been several weeks since its release, we can start to think about ways to fix it up and polish those rough spots out.
 
Tribes1 was kinda hard. Rarely did saw anyone play that. Why didn't they invent skiing in the first place before they made maps for it?!
 
Chi-Ro said:
[...] but what happens when Legions starts to advertise, new people come, and they find themselves half health before they even get to the other side of the map? [...]
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A) You're exaggerating.
B) They'll learn where and how to ski.

This has nothing to do with "elitism" or a too high skill curve. Easymode skiing is just very very bad for a FPS+Z (same goes for stuff like the DM6 rail jump in Quake, or similar moves in UT) , and Leejunz already is damn easy in that regard.
 
It is the way it is because after actual testing people determined that going the direction you are moving was a better interface for the jump pads. I originally had them working off your look vector but it proved to be finicky especially for people maneuvering in non-trivial ways or tracking a capper as they left the base.

So there.
 
im fine with the pads, but their placement is kind of odd. i think they should be further off to the sides of the base and forward more. i dunno, i like things about gorge, but its still all about front OD caps instead of side routes because the bases are shoved in a corner and the flag is accessible from 360 degrees, and the map is basically one big (albeit jagged) bowl just like all the rest of them except zenith (and arguably frost, but honestly frost is so tiny and the bases are clearly designed to encourage front caps).
 
Daphinicus said:
If I'm not mistaken, Gorge was something of an experiment by DeadGuy to design a map that encouraged side routes. In some ways, it's quite successful -- as has been noted, llamaing is less common, and decent front routes are few. I believe the "rockiness" of the titular gorge in the middle of the map is purposeful -- it's skiable, but not healthily (at least, not unless you take decent care and work to find healthy routes). The sides, on the other hand, are rather gentler.

It's still a rather new map, and it may well have some flaws. Now that it's been several weeks since its release, we can start to think about ways to fix it up and polish those rough spots out.
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Llamaing might be less common (due to the position of the flag stand) but route capping on Gorge is a pain. I have tried it many times and have found it very hard to hit the flag at decent speed. One of the problems is that the bases are located at the corners of a square map. This makes it so that one has to come in from the front side of the base. But the problem with this is that there are these huge hills circling the back half of the base. So, if one does hit the stand from the front side at good speed, you crater into these hills.

In pugs and pubs, I see most cappers hitting the stand (whether from the front or the side) and ODing out front or waiting on the back hills and skiing down to hit the stand. This is an indication of a map being unfriendly to route capping.

Gheist said:
A) You're exaggerating.
B) They'll learn where and how to ski.

This has nothing to do with "elitism" or a too high skill curve. Easymode skiing is just very very bad for a FPS+Z (same goes for stuff like the DM6 rail jump in Quake, or similar moves in UT) , and Leejunz already is damn easy in that regard.
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If "elitism" is when people think it has to be hard to ski in Legions, then yes this definitely has to do with it. Skiing is obviously more than "W and RMB". It incorporates a lot of techniques that we tend to take for granted. I will not go into them in this thread. The link that you pointed to talks about hitting hills properly and smoothly to sustain speed and how fall damage helps players do so. It doesn't reflect on the fact that if the terrain itself is rugged and hard to ski on, there is not much a good skier can do to avoid cratering.

Mabeline said:
It is the way it is because after actual testing people determined that going the direction you are moving was a better interface for the jump pads. I originally had them working off your look vector but it proved to be finicky especially for people maneuvering in non-trivial ways or tracking a capper as they left the base.

So there.
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Unless I have the jump pad between me and my chasing direction, I find it annoying to reorient my movement precisely so that I am jumped in the direction that I want. Now, I just rj instead of wasting my time doing so.
 
Homingun said:
[...] It doesn't reflect on the fact that if the terrain itself is rugged and hard to ski on, there is not much a good skier can do to avoid cratering. [...]
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And this is where you're wrong, and you know it. Don't try to argue just so that you can argue. If a bowl isn't perfectly suited for skiing, well, maybe it shouldn't be. You get falldamage two or three times, and then learn how to avoid it (maybe by just not using that bowl/slope). If you still use that very bowl to ski, then you do it while knowing that it'll hurt. It's a conscient decision that you're making, weighing pros and cons. There are lots of ways, all over the map, that bring you from stand to stand without a problem. And then there are some that hurt. You choose which route you take.

phanakapan said:
[...] their placement is kind of odd. i think they should be further off to the sides of the base and forward more. [...]
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The pads are placed near the stand, so that chasers that help in flag D can hop onto them. If you're positioned "further off to the sides of the base and forward more", you can just use the slopes at/below the towers.
 
At first, I thought the jump pads launched the player in a direction based on a line from the center of the pad to the spot that the player landed on. Was surprised when it didn't happen, because I honestly think that would give the player more control over which way they want to launch, rather than a straight line based on the direction they're moving, since if one wants to get out of the base quickly through the front and is between the jump pad and the exit, he/she would have to go behind the jump pad first, instead of just hopping on the edge of the pad.
 
Seymour likes the idea of a 'one way' directional jump pad (ala Quake 3). Basically, no matter how you're approaching the jump pad, it will launch you in a specific direction. This would help players 'aiming' issues with the current iteration. The downside being that the item becomes even more specialised in its use.

As for the terrain itself, personally, I'm a big fan. I don't view it as more difficult, but more interesting.
 
Gheist said:
And this is where you're wrong, and you know it. Don't try to argue just so that you can argue. If a bowl isn't perfectly suited for skiing, well, maybe it shouldn't be. You get falldamage two or three times, and then learn how to avoid it (maybe by just not using that bowl/slope). If you still use that very bowl to ski, then you do it while knowing that it'll hurt. It's a conscient decision that you're making, weighing pros and cons. There are lots of ways, all over the map, that bring you from stand to stand without a problem. And then there are some that hurt. You choose which route you take.
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So you are saying that players should memorize the terrain of each map. Maybe cappers and LO have this leisure, but as a chaser, I do not. I rarely hit the same terrain the same way twice while chasing unless I am heading straight to the enemy base. Besides, I am looking and shooting at the flag carrier most of the time while glancing once in a while down to look at where I should be landing. If a terrain looks smooth, then I should not be taking fall damage from it. This is not the case with Gorge and a couple other maps.

P.S. I have a reason for everything I say and hope to promote a good discussion.
 
I tend to agree with Homingun on the general need for user-friendly terrain; unless the player does something stupid, they shouldn't be punished for trying to get from Point A to Point B. Maybe they won't get there as FAST because they didn't optimize their routes, but getting there with reduced health because of random bumps isn't very fun.

That said, I also enjoy Gorge immensely because it IS so very different from the gentle slopes of every other map. It's a harsher climate for battles and it punishes more than it rewards, which is nice to see from time to time. It's definitely not a newblood-friendly map, that's for sure, but one map out of six? That's not a bad ratio to be favoring thoughtful play.

So, I guess I'm on both sides of the fence on this one. =)
 
Homingun said:
So you are saying that players should memorize the terrain of each map. Maybe cappers and LO have this leisure, but as a chaser, I do not. [...]
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A) You shouldn't reduce yourself to a single postition, especially not in a Beta that's far from done.
B) Chasing, when it comes to skiing, is the hardest position you can choose*. As LO you usually want the quickest way from base to base. That doesn't change, it's always the same. A Routecapper's target (the flag) is always at (or around) the stand. You have your set amount of routes, and you're done (and as a Chaser, you have to know all those routes too - after all you want to prevent them). As Chaser, your target (your flag in the hands of a Capper) is a moving one. Usually you can only guess which route the Capper intends to take home, especially when OD gets used. Additionaly, you start your chase at a much lower speed than that pesky Capper. So yes, you have to know the terrain. Better than anyone else. You have to be able to improvise, have to know as much combinations of viable hills and slopes as possible. Drifting around inconsistently won't bring you anywhere. Good Chasers are, first and foremost, good skiers. Shooting comes later, after you've got that down.
Homingun said:
[...] I rarely hit the same terrain the same way twice while chasing [...]
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Maybe you should try that. It helps.

*Especially with Leejunz' scale issues and all the other stuff that doesn't really help.

Edit, for clarification: A Capper usually has a well thought out return route, and an initial speed advantage. How can a Chaser expect to catch up to him without knowing the terrain? That's simply impossible. And I'm not really talking about Gorge here. That's a general point. As a Chaser, you have to memorize the terrain to be able to catch up to a Capper who memorized the terrain (of his route) himself.
 
On the note of chasing:

Most chases are only successful if the enemy overdrives out or is partially slowed by the HOF. If they get out with a grab at 200, odds are knowing the terrain will not allow you to catch the capper. Chasing involves trying to stop the enemy carrier before they grab (body block/shots), or to stop them midfield before they get back to their spawn, at all cost. This is usually done with rocket jumps so that the chaser can get from 0 speed to a speed that they can overtake the capper. With two rocket jumps and maybe one down slope most players can cover a map. Chasing doesn't mean "memorizing" the terrain, it means you're smart enough to find the shortest path to the capper so that you can kill them. The idea that you need to memorize a map to chase some one down is preposterous. To be honest the best chasers I see in game are good because they can improvise intercept paths. You don't memorize down slopes, you find them. I'm disappointed that you have such absurd beliefs about how chasing is done, Gheist.

Edit: As for the jump pads, I think they're fine. It's basically a better rocket jump for chasing. Now the middle of Gorge? That's a crap hole. It doesn't really bother me, but the fact that you can crater on just about everything down there is a little silly.

Edit #2: When is the IFF fix coming out?
 
Floks was tame compared to gheist, who was basically calling spartan an idiot half a dozen times in his posts, and then deleted my post when I called him on the absurdity of gheist questioning spartan's judgement on chasing, because for some reason he thought I would agree with his totally incorrect 'points'.
 
I certainly haven't memorized routes and terrain. It is not required as a chaser to memorize all the maps and routes on that map. However, it would in tern give you a better understanding of where you're trying to go. I was a capper before a chaser, and I can say that actually experiencing the routes gives me a sort of advantage point, because I know where they're going, and I can intercept them. (unless they cut to a different route, GRR.)

The discussion could really go both ways. It isn't required, but it would certainly help a little.
 
Darklord said:
Floks was tame compared to gheist, who was basically calling spartan an idiot half a dozen times in his posts, and then deleted my post when I called him on the absurdity of gheist questioning spartan's judgement on chasing, because for some reason he thought I would agree with his totally incorrect 'points'.
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You go Girl! *Snap Snap Snap*

But ya - had been planning on saying much the same, tbh.
 
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