sc_Scientists

[Trainee]

######## Beta 3 version is released: please check the link below ########

Hey guys!

I am working on the Sven Co-op defense map sc_Scientists and was hoping to get some feedback here on what i did so far :-)

It is for 1-6 players and hopefully quite challenging
I made 3 difficulty settings: 1-2Player, 3-4Player and 5-6Player
I recently added boss units to every of the 10 waves
You are the only thing between the helpless scientists and hordes of monsters!

http://scmapdb.wikidot.com/map:scientists

Background: The Alien Slayer's Gamble
Last night, the player, Gordon, had been boasting to two scientists after a night of heavy drinking, claiming to be the ultimate alien killer. He was quite the show-off. The next day, as they were on their way to the cinema, they received a message: a horde of monster zombies was headed their way. Gordon, not wanting to appear weak, reassured the scientists that nothing would happen to them and that they could rely on him completely.
Little did he know, this would be the ultimate test of his bravado. The scientists, looking at him with a mix of hope and skepticism, followed his lead. As the sun dipped below the horizon, casting eerie shadows across the deserted streets, Gordon led the way, determined to prove his claims right.

Map objective: Defense
Objective: Protect your two scientist friends during the 10 waves of zombie hordes!
Specials: Use Turrets, Sentries, Marines and Floor-trap for a short period (Cooldowns)
Specials#2: Most beautiful painting you have ever seen

Thanks :-)
Trainee

[Chimz]

Sure, sounds interesting and I'd love to be helpful.

Got my hands full right now but I will check it out with friends in about 11 days and give some proper feedback.

[Adambean]

Sounds similar to sciguard 1[scmapdb.wikidot.com] & 2[scmapdb.wikidot.com]. :)

[Trainee]

That sounds wonderful Chimz!

I cant test it with other players, because i dont know any sven coop players :D
I am working on the Beta 3 version right now. I hope i will get it uploaded before you guys get to play it, so the feedback would be on the current state of the map :-)

[Trainee]

Yes i noticed that there is a similar map! I played Sciguard 1 because i was curious what Tuesday's Avenger did. Apparently had the same idea, but the outcome is (luckily) totally different :-D

Thanks for the Sciguard 2, i was looking for it the other day :-)

[Trainee]

Hey Chimz! I have not managed to work on the map as much as i wanted to and now my thesis is due in two weeks. So i will need at least 3 weeks for beta 3
Hoping to get your feedback on beta 3 when its done :-)

[Chimz]

Having trouble gathering the aforementioned friends. If they don't come, I'll just solo it in the next few days.

[Game Over, Man]

I will solo it with a blindfold and a 40oz of beer

[Chimz]

Feedback

Alright I played the map solo, 3 times. Not once could I make it further than wave 4 on the "1-2 player" difficulty. With cheats I only made it to 6.

Of course it's obvious that you designed the map for more than 1 player, with how the buttons and equipment are set so do consider that my feedback is way different from what you'd get playing your map in public servers.

Feedback

The visuals of the map are nice. It's not too crowded and doesn't obscure combat. The closets look nice and I liked the painting :P

I liked how each round had a boss with unique visuals, especially the zombie (soldier?) boss whose attack animation consisted of multiple attacks. Really breathes some fresh air into the enemies we've fought for a decade (and even now in the map). I'm hoping you will find a good model for the Alien Grunt too as he stands out for being vanilla among all of them.

Bug

Top blue portal's trigger doesn't dismiss small creatures (like hornets). So if a hornet gets inside, all the players get flashed with the blue screen.

Don't Jump In

The first thing that comes to my mind whenever I try to remember my experience is how we can't jump down from the top level. I didn't know we weren't allowed to and the witty warnings were not something I payed attention to when I was jumping into the middle of a warzone. So it was actually on my 11th teleport where I actually saw the message and realized why I was being randomly teleported so much.
Take into the account that these teleports seem to be able to stack, and you'll find yourself constantly teleporting. This can be a serious issue where in a public server, multiple players don't realize this in time and keep jumping down, stacking teleports for every few seconds.

So that does make me wanna ask what the point of the having the open balcony is. If it's just so players and marines can shoot down, then just place clip brushes to entirely stop players from jumping down.
But I get the feeling it's there (with its 10 seconds) for players to jump down in a crucial moment to save the scientists or something, so if that is the case and you want to keep it, put a giant holographic sign there that says don't jump down or whatever efficient way comes to mind.

Layout

Frankly I was expecting a more varied layout. The flat square room that gets spammed with enemies is just uninspired. With everything there is, I think you spent most of your time and creativity on everything else.
An arena wtih some elevations (ups and downs) and obstacles would be much more fun and unique cause currently this setup makes me think I'm playing a reskin of Stadium. Enemies being spammed inside while I jump down to fight them.
Put some of your creativity into it and it'll be a lot more fun.

Wave Progression

I know it's time-based but for every wave (except 1) I found that the wave "ended" when I still had 2 dozen enemies and the boss alive. So when I would finally kill them, I'd only have a 10 second breather before the next wave started.
With the limited Editor, I don't know of any ways to make this better like having it end when only a few enemies or left or something.
But since each wave has at least 1 boss, you could set the timer to start from when the boss has spawned. I think this would greatly improve the wave progression as it is centered around the tankiest enemy in the wave.

Solo Time-killer

As much as I had problems trying to keep up with the ever spamming enemies, I'd like to say that I did find myself enjoying it when I wasn't being crushed.
There are a lot of people out there who play this game solo, or spend a lot of time solo. I think this map can be excellent for such audience. If you could set a new difficulty level for only 1 player, then people could still play this alone, face some good challenges and have fun. Yes, I know the difficulty 1-2 players exist but you know as well as I do how much difference there is between solo and duo play.

If the solo mode is made, I can see myself playing it.

As for the current state, I'd suggest going easy on the houndeyes and remember that the Alien Grunt is a beast who will follow scientists like a shadow and beat them to death in a matter of seconds. Be careful of the power creep when he is dropped in.

[Chimz]

Just remembered your map. Any progress?

[Trainee]

Originally posted by Chimz:

Just remembered your map. Any progress?

Hi Chimz!

Sorry for not responding! I implementing your feedback for the next version already back in November, but then i managed to break my laptop and had a mapping break due to that.
When i started mapping again a few weeks ago it was because i had an idea for another map, so i was excited to do that first.
I just uploaded the first beta: http://scmapdb.wikidot.com/map:slumber

So after releasing the first beta of slumber i am going back to my scientists map :-)
Funny that you write when i am just about to continue my work on that map :-)

Thank you for all your feedback! It is great to have so much input on different aspects of the map! And asking you about the map motivates me to start JACK right now! :-D

[Trainee]

Originally posted by Chimz:

Just remembered your map. Any progress?

Chimz, beta 3 version is ready to fly :-D
You can find the download in the Link above :-)
Your feedback really helped me to improve a lot of stuff!

I did a lot balancing work, so i hope it is not to easy/hard!
I managed to finish all 10 waves, but the scientists needed a lot more hitpoints :D

I did not much balancing work on the 2-5 player settings, so that would be next :-)

[Chimz]

Version 3 Playtest

Difficulty

Hahah, thanks Trainee
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3244564467
On Chimz Solo I was able to finish on first try, with Gorge scoring a frag somehow! lol

It did get really chaotic at the last waves, where I had to use satchels even in proximity of the scientist. For some reason I totally forgot to use the HECU and Sentry support buttons. Satchel and Tripmine for the win!
You could also light up the buttons a little to better help them standout in a chaotic situation. A light entity placed on it can be turned on and off depending on if the button is ready for use or not.


I also forgot to use the RPG and Minigun. Mainly because, playing alone, I had so little time in-between rounds that I was busy restocking satchels and tripmines, and healing the Scientists and never noticed that the doors to those weapons were opened, until the map was over. I don't think this would happen in a match with multiple people, just for someone playing solo. If it does seem like something you'd want to improve, you can add some kind of notification. A custom sound, plus the announcer saying it opened.


Overall, even though it got so hectic at the end that I had to explode satchels next to the scientists, I still finished with one scientist at 2877hp, and the other 4313 hp (I did heal them a few times). Maybe it was a bit easy, maybe I just improved since I had played the last version 3 times. In any case, I think the difficulty is good in general. It's the lowest difficulty and should be the easiest, and not everyone has hundreds of hours in Sven so what I think might have been a bit easy may be hard for someone else.

Awesome job!

Layout

The fighting area is much nicer to look at now. Frankly I had bigger height level differences in mind, but can't say that the current one isn't effective. It did make it a lot better. For what you're going for, I think it's sufficient.

As for the boxes, I found this part to to be mvp, letting me take cover from a lot of the Vortigaunt attacks.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3244578564
The other boxes, while not useless, served me much less in my play. Except for the one on the left, sticking to the wall. That one was little more than decoration.

Wave Progression

I've also noticed that you did put the round-end on the boss death. Thank you!
Funny thing is, I finished some rounds too early (by killing the boss sooner by accident) which caused me trouble by having less time to prepare, but what can I say: I'm the one who asked for it lol. As I was tackling the short preparation times I had in those rounds, I was laughing about how it felt like shooting myself in the foot.

But still, it is much better compared to the old system. Now, there might be a few rounds that give you less time to prepare, but back then, it was all of them.

Thank you!

Thank you for listening to my feedback. I know you asked for it yourself, but even so, I've seen a lot of people ask for feedback and then listen to none of them.
You however, listened and improved your map. Cheers!

I don't have anything else to share for now.

[Trainee]

Your feedback was super thought- and helpful, thanks for giving me your thoughts on various aspects of the map! :-)

I dont know what Gorge did to get a frag, but he is such a killer!

Difficulty

My last two rounds were also very chaotic and crowded. Would you suggest to reduce the monster amount, or is it okay for the last round to be so stressful and keeping the players busy?
There is a game_text that informs the player of new weapons in round 4 and 7, but when you did not see them, than they are not enough. I knew that they were coming and did not see an issue there. I am implementing a sound for that as well.
I am thinking about another teleporter that gets the player fast on the upper level + i move the controls for the marines up as well. I will try something there and see if you like it better :-)

I am glad that you kinda liked the difficulty on Chimz Solo mode now. I managed to finish all 10 waves as well and it was not that easy. I kinda like how that turned out! I havent got the chance to test it with other players, so i am not sure how the other difficulty setting turn out.
The monsters are in generell equiped with more / much more Hp on the higher difficulty setting + there are additional not only stronger monster but also more monsters and grunts spawning inside the building to cause some distractions. So it may be okay, but i have not tested it yet :-)

Regarding the Layout:

The boxes are a little bit randomly placed. So there are some random trigger that decide at the beginning of the map, which boxes are placed. I hoped for a higher replayability for the map with random things like that :-)
So maybe next time the box placement is better placed or worse placed for the players :-)
But all in all i can improve the box spawn possibilities.
So that there is always some kind of bigger box in the middle + sometimes more or less useful boxes around the area
The explosive boxes in the alien spawn area are by the way also randomly placed :-)

Regarding wave Progression:

Yes i changed it to what you suggested and i find it better now but encountered the same problems. That the wave is ending and there are still monster spawning
So i havent managed to set it up correctly yet, but i want to add an Boss is Dead AND 90 seconds have passed multisource function. So thats the goal and i hope to get there. Multisource is not working as i think it should and the twhl tutorial on multisource entities did not helped me much on that :-D I think i set it up almost right, but that there is still a bug somewhere.

Katana as a possible new weapon

http://scmapdb.wdfiles.com/local--files/map%3Ascientists/sc_scientists_b4.png
I had the idea to add another melee weapon, so there might be a katana in the beta 4 version :-)

There might be another few weeks till beta 4, but i hope you get a chance to look at it when its ready to bounce :-)

[Chimz]