Custom Map #1732: [pac] payback round 2. By: GuardianDragonlord

Started by AutoPost, June 11, 2021, 03:28:25 AM

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This topic is for discussion of map #1732: [pac] payback round 2


Author: GuardianDragonlord
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Vyce223

So, just as last time unfortunately quite laggy off the bat and it gets even worse the longer I seemed to go on so I decided to end it at about 10m in-game time and it eventually ended at just under 15 minutes ingame time but in reality closer to 30 min (at 4x) unplayable otherwise.

In terms of the map, you're given a lot of tools, but when you see the things that are given to you already (though I never got anything out of my spawners with starting timers of I believe 30 min from nullification, though it'd give me like 50-100 of whatever), and you get a lot of highly powered emitters along with yours being incredibly strong.

Clearing your starting square is the hardest part, then you push left with field gens, clear up some room... and scrimmers in a row across the bottom will pop within a couple seconds and send out around 250 each wave you send of them doing HEAVY pushes opening up emitters on the inside causing a cascade effect of the enemy losing everything nearly by a second wave.

I think some things need to be toned down (creep gen) as well as in some cases where enemies are spammed too much some times it can get a bit to the point where I end up wanting to just cheese and finish the map instead of having fun playing through it. But that might be mostly the lags fault.

favour6

frick me, i'm getting nailed by the missiles to the point i'm being pushed back....     
ok so i finished it, but once you do manage to break out there is nothing to stop you going straight for the rift lab.

rowlet

Way too laggy to even really function as a map. I top out at 20 Fps.

knightace

Hm...I think I'm getting a picture of the issue with these maps. You're trying to make them grandiose- huge, world-ending assaults. Big offense vs big defense.

The problem is...when you're trying to compete at such high levels, balance becomes extremely difficult. If one piece fails in either offense or defense; then the other side simply excels and crushes the other with little to no resistance. It's hard to balance 'checkpoints' to be capable of resisting the intense pressure possible.

I can see what you went for with this map. The intent was good. Start by reclaiming the bottom right quadrant...then advance south-west- but only so much as to free your other units. At that point the resistance should be too strong that you need to take the western path just above it- clearing out the mortar defenses...because you are supposed to be hemmed in from advancing north by the walls, Thors, AC and bombers.
Problem is...they don't hem you in at all. Emitters are so powerful that you can just shove right through them without concern.

Indeed...emitters are SO powerful, the rest of your arsenal is pointless. A stash is multitudes weaker. An egg gen is incapable of providing any benefit...even a 500egg pop is just too slow to compete with the power of the emitters. Spores are pointless, they'd get shot down. Skimmers...why stun when you can just overrun. Blobs- well they were useful with initially opening the south-west quadrant. To this I have to say - nice. As powerful as the emitters are...blobs actually served a purpose...even if temporary.
- The rest of the 'special' units were just pointless distractions. Not necessary at all.

If this were to be fixed I would suggest nerfing Emitters hard...but also nerfing enemy ranged defenses HARD. This would allow the player to have some playground to test how to advance against a dangerous map with their arsenal of tools, rather than just spam emitters and win.

Edit: Oh and unlike the others I didn't experience too much lag. There was some, but not enough to annoy me. Maybe it has to do with me having visual settings on 'maximum performance', due to having experienced lag in the past and finding that this helped. Maybe it's because I have a powerhouse of a PC. I don't know. - how do people figure out how much FPS they're getting?

InwardChaos

I think that part of the lag issue is the custom units, specifically the laser units. In one of the authors previous levels, where you play as the humans and have a bunch of the pre-built laser units, that I had a significant frame rate increase when I deleted the laser units. Same happened here, where once most of the laser units were dead, my frame rate went to normal levels.

As for this map itself, getting out of the starting corner is a bit tricky, until you realize that there aren't any snipers guarding the southern building groups. A few well placed blobs gets things rolling, and then I spammed "scimmers" until they beat the map for me. I do like how you gradually get stronger as the map goes on, thanks to the ERN forge producing ERNs that get added to your available ERN count.
A few small bugs I noticed with regards to the custom units. The small laser units don't get hit by blobs, as in they pass right through them, and the runner drones can't target custom units with their self-destruct attack. The last one isn't as big of a deal, as they take out the pylon network powering the custom units, which is just as good as taking them out.

Malignantmind

Basically once you secure the pre-placed emitters on the bottom, you can just unleash rows upon rows of sporly units and completely overwhelm any air defense the enemy has. Your creeper generation is so high that it creates an endless stream of spores that can't be shot down in time and you're basically guaranteed to free the emitters trapped well behind enemy lines, not to mention just dump an ungodly amount of creeper right on the rift lab.

Still an ungodly laggy mess, and if you don't care about speed, you can just hit play and walk away from your computer. You'll win without doing a single thing.

Vyce223

Quote from: Malignantmind on June 11, 2021, 03:09:42 PM
and if you don't care about speed, you can just hit play and walk away from your computer. You'll win without doing a single thing.

Did test this myself for some weird reason, but around 1:15 you start to clear your corner and by 1:30 you end up taking the whole map. All without pressing anything.

CS Z

Quote from: Vyce223 on June 13, 2021, 09:13:49 PM
Quote from: Malignantmind on June 11, 2021, 03:09:42 PM
and if you don't care about speed, you can just hit play and walk away from your computer. You'll win without doing a single thing.

Did test this myself for some weird reason, but around 1:15 you start to clear your corner and by 1:30 you end up taking the whole map. All without pressing anything.

The first payback map's remake (1.1.0) was winnable without doing anything in roughly the same amount of time as actually playing the mission.  1 hour 30 min sounds like a sufficiently long time for an automatic win.

porkrind427

First map of yours I have played. It was fun but a little laggy. Once I got a foothold in the corner I just spammed blubbers by the hundreds until they did all the work for me. IDK why that is so satisfying, but man it really is.