This topic is for discussion of map #1124: PAC Shaper Adaptation 2
(https://knucklecracker.com/creeperworld4/queryMaps.php?query=thumbnailid&id=1124)
Author: UberWaffe
Size: 320x120
I'm still learning the balance to making maps that are tricky but not too hard.
So feedback on how this compared with the previous map #1112 would be appreciated.
Hint: If you are struggling with the airship guards, then watch them closely.
You might want to check the shape of the egger...
*sigh* This is exactly the issue with creators. There is such a thing as too much. Don't use the lessons from another map to destroy the next. The need to make the flooders 5x more expensive because they were overused in the first map is ridiculous. Now, in this map, they are so needed because of so many hard hitting and spammed units, but they take a quarter of a million creeper is just asinine. You can't even use any of the extra units because there are so many spammed missiles and snipers, it's a slog. Yea, I know the airships go back to refuel and rearm, but pared with the sweeper, the airplanes, the airdrops, it's just too much of literally everything. Then, the extra units all cost 5k creeper to spawn, the spores are useless, it's just too much. I will win this map, but it will only be because I spammed the flooders, and that's because there is no other way. There's too much anti creep, and too many hard hitters to slog through. I am an hour in and half way through this. It would be better if uncapping that whole in the first part was worth anything, but the crazonium renders it essentially useless.
Well, i eventually just spammed the crap out of skimmers, blobs, and spores to get past all the crazy. Works, but still tedious.
Quote from: Kaiden on March 22, 2021, 08:56:24 PM
You might want to check the shape of the egger...
Can you elaborate? Is it too difficult to distinguish from the Blubber?
Quote from: Jican on March 22, 2021, 11:20:40 PM
...it's just too much of literally everything...
Problem with mapmaking is that you know your own idea, so you inherently know how to approach obstacles, especially since you end up play testing it several times.
Hence why I am trying to learn what works and what doesn't.
So at what point did you get stuck and had to start spamming flooders?
Was it at the mid-way point with the aircraft and the airships?
Did you manage 'easily enough' with the first few obstacles?
- Getting past the first few snipers and cannons to unblock the emitter in the corner?
- Unblocking the emitters in the pit?
Quote from: Jican on March 22, 2021, 11:20:40 PM
...It would be better if uncapping that whole in the first part was worth anything, but the crazonium renders it essentially useless.
It was meant to be a large pit of creep to make units with. Was it not useful as such?
Should it rather have been free to flow creeper all around and pressure the enemy defenses?
I just beat the map myself and my feedback will follow answering a few questions you asked the other guy as well
Quote from: Jican on March 22, 2021, 11:20:40 PM
...it's just too much of literally everything...
Problem with mapmaking is that you know your own idea, so you inherently know how to approach obstacles, especially since you end up play testing it several times.
Hence why I am trying to learn what works and what doesn't.
So at what point did you get stuck and had to start spamming flooders?
Was it at the mid-way point with the aircraft and the airships?
Did you manage 'easily enough' with the first few obstacles?
- Getting past the first few snipers and cannons to unblock the emitter in the corner?
- Unblocking the emitters in the pit?
I had to start spamming flooders once I reached the enclosed area of AC with 3 creeper spawners nullified. There wasn't enough creep available to break through even after I held 1/3 of the spawners that came nullified there the AC breeding just was too much. even when I tried entering with creep of my own. There just seemed to be too many snipers where I couldn't target but 3 skimmers where I actually wanted them to go but to do that I had to sacrifice all creep production to do so, so I started SLOWLY building a flood, to then build another further down with since my only source that wasn't pushing back a metric ton of AC was in my starting area.
Quote from: Jican on March 22, 2021, 11:20:40 PM
...It would be better if uncapping that whole in the first part was worth anything, but the crazonium renders it essentially useless.
It was meant to be a large pit of creep to make units with. Was it not useful as such?
Should it rather have been free to flow creeper all around and pressure the enemy defenses?
[/quote]
I will agree it did serve this purpose, very well once I was able to put in about 8 flooders.
Now, with my feedback otherwise.
A bug report of at minimum skimmers and spores being shot at the endpoints of the portal things. (near spawn first emitter). My final push was probably around 500-1000 skimmers to the end to destroy everything and roughly 50+ ended up circling that area like it was a toilet.
I wish there was more ERNS to earn along the way. While static emitters allow you to control the map more and still make this unique to other PAC as of now in CW4 I do believe that upping from 3 ERNS total to more would allow less reliance on flooders because as of now I don't see a way to beat this without them.
Thor.... Well, ruined a lot. I tried as hard as possible to overwhelm the top right corner with spores. Thousands that brought my 2080TI down to a slideshow. Even with half of them out of ammo I couldn't penetrate enough to make any dent in it that way. Where as Skimmers were quite the opposite. A couple hundred and it delt with it perfectly fine. I however do think that they served some purpose in slowing down progress forcing you to be creative, but again more ERNS would have allowed more creativity.
Snipers/Missiles just... too many unless again it comes back to flooders being able to create enough creep where you can then HOPEFULLY have them create enough blobs or skimmers or spores to overload but they likely will head down to the far right side of the map unfortunately. The AI is really against us in this one.
Other than those gripes. I did enjoy the map honestly.
Quote from: Vyce223 on March 23, 2021, 09:46:01 AM
I just beat the map myself and my feedback will follow answering a few questions you asked the other guy as well
...
Other than those gripes. I did enjoy the map honestly.
Awesome, thanks. That feedback helps a lot.
Ok, first, the egger looks like a penis. If this gets me banned so what, but yea, it does, 100%.
Now on to my thoughts on the map. As it was mentioned, the area where the two islands meet is simply too small and by the time you get to it, there is so much AC that it's almost impossible. My idea was to create a ton of flooders, but that didn't happen because by the time I made so many, they were all destroyed because I killed the sprayer that had so much built up AC, it literally flooded the map. I am not going to lie, i was so mad at that point that I literally spent an hour making flooders only to have them destroyed in a matter of seconds.
The area you designed for creeper production ended up being just that for me. That is where I bred my spore/blob/skimmer masses, and really the only way to get anywhere in this map. I was only able to beat it because of the nonstop flood of units, but again, it was a tedious process that became a chore half way through. Uncapping the native emitters was fun though, because it took some serious thinking on how to do it, and that's where I had the most fun. The first half of the map took around an hour, and that's about the time I like to spend on a map. The rest of the map took longer because of the AC flood that happened.
Not having any ERNs, as was mentioned before, really limited game play. You were stuck, and I'm going to use coin this phrase for your creeper units, "buying" units to get anywhere, and eventually had to continue to buy these units from the middle onward. The island design kept any attempt at massing creeper from being able to do anything, and to top it off with so many units at the chokehold made it a slog. Let's break down the list of what was guarding the chokehold.
Anticreeper, a lot of it.
Sweeper
Multiple Airships
3 Fully decked out airstrips of AC and bombers
Mortars
That, over a relatively small part of land, was impossible to get over with mass creeper due mostly because of the heavy hitters, IE, Airships and Sweepers. In the end, I spammed enough skimmers to uncap the emitter on the final island and was able to start working from there, but I had to spam so many blobs, skimmers and spores to make the, what, 10 airships?! ammo run out and keep on the stress so the AI didn't rebuild energy. It was doable, and I enjoyed the map for the most part. I hope my words and critique are taken as a positive thing. I hope you keep making more PAC maps, because so far, you are the best PAC map maker in this game right now.
I made slow but methodical progress through the map, the ridge in the center was kind of a slow part because my strategy involved mostly waiting for the airships to run out of ammo as I made mesh across the void, and slowly built up to take out the air strips. From there it's methodical process again until the final bit, where the best strategy just seemed to be spamming ridiculous amount of units. I had maybe 70 air sacs and 200 skimmers alive at a time... and ~200 air sacs and ~800 skimmers later, the airships started running out of ammo and that front finally fell. Part of that may have been because the majority of the skimmers/air sacs felt the need to go check in at the starting emitter before attacking.
Also, I thought it was odd that there wasn't a single ERN around the map. If you want to have a target beacon to distract an airship, that's 1/3rd of your total arsenal.
Quote from: Jican on March 22, 2021, 11:20:40 PM
*sigh* This is exactly the issue with creators. There is such a thing as too much. Don't use the lessons from another map to destroy the next. The need to make the flooders 5x more expensive because they were overused in the first map is ridiculous. Now, in this map, they are so needed because of so many hard hitting and spammed units, but they take a quarter of a million creeper is just asinine. You can't even use any of the extra units because there are so many spammed missiles and snipers, it's a slog. Yea, I know the airships go back to refuel and rearm, but pared with the sweeper, the airplanes, the airdrops, it's just too much of literally everything. Then, the extra units all cost 5k creeper to spawn, the spores are useless, it's just too much. I will win this map, but it will only be because I spammed the flooders, and that's because there is no other way. There's too much anti creep, and too many hard hitters to slog through. I am an hour in and half way through this. It would be better if uncapping that whole in the first part was worth anything, but the crazonium renders it essentially useless.
You know, I just won with no flooders? I just kept spamming skimmers. It took me 15 solid minutes to get past the 12 thors at the end, draining their ammo packet by packet, but I did it. Yeah, it was a slog. But the flooders were intended as a "cheat code".
Quote from: WithersChat on March 24, 2021, 06:36:24 AM
You know, I just won with no flooders? I just kept spamming skimmers. It took me 15 solid minutes to get past the 12 thors at the end, draining their ammo packet by packet, but I did it. Yeah, it was a slog. But the flooders were intended as a "cheat code".
I also beat the map without flooders during testing (I always make sure I can when submitting the maps).
That said, I will admit my map design here was poor.
I have a long way to go in polishing up my map making skills.
Honestly the biggest problem with needing to spam so hard on the shapers to win attrition isn't the creeper production, I believe it when you say you've done it without flood, but the big thing is how much attention you need to give the shapers your building because you need to constantly replace them to win attrition and the lack of control has you mostly at the whims of the flow for when they pop. I would like a "repeat" option for the units (unit replaces itself after destruction or something) and while a whole lot less necessary I would like a pop switch (on/off, will it pop when full or not, otherwise waiting for your order)
Other ideas to increase control options; A singularity option, maybe for the sac/skim/blob/egger(/flood too because obviously if you do the others) that doesn't directly feed the internal but actively draws in creeper in a large area (if you do the pop switch make sure the singularity doesn't function while the thing is full, so it doesn't make them an impromptu wave machine, though maybe it won't be a problem considering the vanilla sprayer)
- On/Off for disabling creeper collecting (and any other features), I wonder if you could apply the normal unit on/supply/armed (again, on/supply should probably disable singularity function if incorporated) and maybe supply's use can just be disabling creep collection but allowing other things to fill the collection like that caretaker I think you mentioned
brain fried but last note: I must stress I am not a map maker and can hardly understand how hard it is, but I know it can be quite complicated and, more so the coding part, I really hope I am not overstepping, just some of the ideas I'm getting seem cool but also automation options can easily make attrition feel much easier/not as bad
Quote from: superbrias on March 24, 2021, 09:37:19 PM
Honestly the biggest problem with needing to spam so hard on the shapers to win attrition isn't the creeper production, I believe it when you say you've done it without flood, but the big thing is how much attention you need to give the shapers your building because you need to constantly replace them to win attrition and the lack of control has you mostly at the whims of the flow for when they pop. I would like a "repeat" option for the units (unit replaces itself after destruction or something) and while a whole lot less necessary I would like a pop switch (on/off, will it pop when full or not, otherwise waiting for your order)
For repeat function, I have a map coming soon with a reworked shaping unit you may like. No pop switch because too broken however. (And no flooder)
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Other ideas to increase control options; A singularity option, maybe for the sac/skim/blob/egger(/flood too because obviously if you do the others) that doesn't directly feed the internal but actively draws in creeper in a large area (if you do the pop switch make sure the singularity doesn't function while the thing is full, so it doesn't make them an impromptu wave machine, though maybe it won't be a problem considering the vanilla sprayer)
Do you want shaping to fall completely into unbalanced side?Quote
- On/Off for disabling creeper collecting (and any other features), I wonder if you could apply the normal unit on/supply/armed (again, on/supply should probably disable singularity function if incorporated) and maybe supply's use can just be disabling creep collection but allowing other things to fill the collection like that caretaker I think you mentioned
You can't use the built-in one, because you have to tag shaper units as enemies, or they're targets for blobs, skimmers and all that. (Skimmer fountain on impeller output points, you see?)
Quote
brain fried but last note: I must stress I am not a map maker and can hardly understand how hard it is, but I know it can be quite complicated and, more so the coding part, I really hope I am not overstepping, just some of the ideas I'm getting seem cool but also automation options can easily make attrition feel much easier/not as bad
So, no singularity, and no pop on/off I think, unless I feel it may be useful. That's for my version at least, if UberWaffe wanna implement these they can.
So the best solution I can find for the endgame is to throw wave after wave of skimmers at them until they reach their kill limit and shut down.
Quote from: WithersChat on March 25, 2021, 12:49:06 PM
You can't use the built-in one, because you have to tag shaper units as enemies, or they're targets for blobs, skimmers and all that. (Skimmer fountain on impeller output points, you see?)
Ah, glad to learn that. Wasn't sure what criteria they were using for the targeting.
I once again thoroughly enjoyed this map. trying to find the weak points was a challenge but worth it in the end. got a 42min on my last run, but Ikkon got a 36 min. Man, i would like to see that run! I agree with the flooder being nerfed. the price seems high but fair in speed running terms. i guess alot people wanted a ez mode. i head there next :}
First off, I've been enjoying your PAC maps a lot, despite how long they take me.
For this map, it was simple to get midway with typical stack+emiter+mesh+crimson.
Then I was stuck and experimented with specials.
Then I discovered you can just egg things into oblivion.
Special spam kinda killed it for me.
It took away the precision problem solving needed to beat other PACs like #870
I like another user's idea of having on/off option for permanent special buildings.
Using creep as a resource is a great mechanic.
Permanent specials with a constant drain could prevent spam.
I would also make them all more expensive.
The gunships at the end become insanely easy to deal with once you realize you're able to order them to move places... I found that out while trying to target their power poles under them and when I tried to move the target, I moved the ship.
So I just beat the level at 2.5 hours. I like it, but it had some pacing issues . The First 1/3 of the level was insanely hard, I had to fight for every tiny little inch. The 2/3 made me almost rage quit, when I hit the choke point with the thors i just couldnt get past it. Until I spent almost an hour building floods that gave me enough creeper to build hundreds of blobs at once and overwhelm the defences. After that the last 1/3 was just mop up and way too easy because of hundreds of blobs constantly flooding his final stand.
The flood take WAY too long to build, 10-15 minutes each, but once they are built they are decidedly game changing. I would tone down how much creeper they emit, but make them cheaper.
It's a slog. It might feel like less of a slog if the Flooders didn't take several minutes to build. It may have been for the sake of balancing issues, but I would've preferred if you lowered the output of each individual flooder instead of raising the time to build them. Granted it's going to make people fill up their maps with it, but even in normal gameplay it's normal to fill up the whole of your territory with Towers and Miners where ever possible.