Forum - DDraceNetwork

This map has a lot of good ideas but also needs a lot of work to be releasable. Some major problems:

• Unbalanced parts - the difficulty and failiness fluctuates too much among the parts. Some parts seem so easy that they could be fillers, even though they really shouldn't be.
• Map structure - The parts are not well connected (they do not flow naturally into each other). Over-usage of teleporters both within parts and between parts contributes to this.
• Mapping style - There are a lot of parts in this map that have great ideas but just aren't implemented well. Relying on a lot of "special tiles" (e.g. dragging lasers, speeders, endless hook, teleporters, weapons, stoppers) can actually be really unpleasant for players, since it makes it difficult to look at a part and intuitively understand how it works. I think it's best to rely on the simplest, most obvious way to implement a part, so that your parts can be cleaner and easier to understand for players.

I took a few zoomed-out screenshots of the map, and in each screenshot I picked out most of the major parts (i.e. anything that doesn't seem like a filler part) and wrote some stuff for each. Most of what I wrote is pretty general, so if I you don't know what I mean just ask. If you feel motivated to refine this map, my suggestion would be to take some time and come up with ideas for parts to replace or dramatically improve most of the parts I marked with red. However, you might also want to just start from scratch and recreate the map with a cleaner structure/mapping style and take only the best parts from the current map.

Wow oblique thank you for that amaizing test, I appreciate it so much, I will work on the map since this week I'm free so I got time to do it

I just have some question, u know when u said:

""Relying on a lot of "special tiles" (e.g. dragging lasers, speeders, endless hook, teleporters, weapons, stoppers) can actually be really unpleasant for players, since it makes it difficult to look at a part and intuitively understand how it works. I think it's best to rely on the simplest, most obvious way to implement a part, so that your parts can be cleaner and easier to understand for players.""


I don't really get it well, I know what u ment that is hard for a player to understand a part, but don't u think that if a part is new, it will take a bit to understand it cause u will not know a part straight away, xD (just asking, wanna learn)

But yh thank you oblique and if u test it with others thanks aswel
I will try my best to redo it

Oh one Last question, u know the red bit u said, should I did them? Or the ones that u put EASY replace them making a bit harder? Also when u said the "downdrag is annoying" should i make it bigger so it's a bit easy to drag?

Oh yh u didn't said anything about the design? XD

Lol sry my translator on the phone

""Oh one Last question, u know the red bit u said, should I did them? ""

I wanted to say to delete them xDD

RealQuiX wrote:
I just have some question, u know when u said:

Oblique. wrote: Relying on a lot of "special tiles" (e.g. dragging lasers, speeders, endless hook, teleporters, weapons, stoppers) can actually be really unpleasant for players, since it makes it difficult to look at a part and intuitively understand how it works. I think it's best to rely on the simplest, most obvious way to implement a part, so that your parts can be cleaner and easier to understand for players

I don't really get it well, I know what u ment that is hard for a player to understand a part, but don't u think that if a part is new, it will take a bit to understand it cause u will not know a part straight away, xD (just asking, wanna learn)

You're right, actually. As I'm looking over your map again, I realize that it was pretty unfair to say that (and it's not as big of a problem as I thought). Using special tiles is mostly a matter of personal taste of the mapper, and there are plenty of maps on DDNet that heavily use these. So it's not necessarily a bad thing.

However, my personal opinion is that these kind of special tiles should only be used when they are necessary (e.g. no need to use a dragging laser with a timed switch if you could just restructure the part a bit). Your map isn't exactly abusing these special tiles, but there are a few parts that could be improved a lot. Here are a few examples:

RealQuiX wrote: Oh one Last question, u know the red bit u said, should I did them? Or the ones that u put EASY replace them making a bit harder?

For the parts that I marked with "Too easy," I think you should remake or replace those with more developed parts. The problem is not so much that they are too easy (there are easy filler parts in the map too, and there's nothing wrong with that), but it just seems like those parts are not really complete and are therefore a lot easier than the normal drag parts in the map. One of those "Too easy" examples also happens in the screenshots I took above, so I guess you can try to rework them like I did.

RealQuiX wrote: Also when u said the "downdrag is annoying" should i make it bigger so it's a bit easy to drag?

Having freeze underneath a difficult downwards drag is extremely faily. The difficultly of the downwards drag is not that bad (though tbh difficult downward drags are not very fun to do imo), so I would just put tele or something underneath.

RealQuiX wrote: Oh yh u didn't said anything about the design? XD

The design is decent, but the parallax on the shooting star is very strange. Also I personally don't like the color of the jungle_midground. Otherwise good job

I found some "cheats"


if you follow this way, you can take infinite jumps for the rest of the map
you can take unsolo, then you back and take shotgun, finally you throw another tee for dont lose shotgun

ooohh i see i see thank you guys i will work on the map ^^
now i understand what u mean

RealQuiX wrote:I want to recall it MoonShine as also suggested by Ravie

Lol I wasn't suggesting a new name

Moonshine
Smuggled or illicitly distilled liquor

idk if its good now ^^

lets see how it is now

ok i tested again with oblique and found more bugs and fix some parts

Well I kinda expected more from the rework. I see you tried to fix the issues, but sadly problems still remain.

To give you an overview of what is bad:

• First part(s) will cause blocking in big teams. It's somewhat hard to pass, faily and players will stand in each others way as they have to move in opposite directions.
• A lot parts use weird constructions to work, some feature badly implemented switch/special gametile features. This is what a lot players refer to as "gay parts".
• The map as a whole is really packed. It often looks like certain parts are only there to fill empty room while on the other hand certain parts seem to suffer from not enough space being available.
• Towards the end parts are way too long. Usually players prefer short parts as they are less frustrating to pass and mates don't need to wait excessively long amounts of time. Also, sometimes the part balance is bad. Meaning one player does long parts while the other one does short ones, or each player only does a certain type of part (drag parts, deep parts, etc.).
• A lot parts are pretty basic or are poorly made longer with basic features. While this might not necessarily be a bad thing, on such a long map it will only cause players to be bored.

I think trying to improve this map would only make it more weird. What I would suggest is to start a new map to make sure to have a clean structure, well working parts, enough space, no time wasting or unnecessary filler parts and a good balance. This way you could also keep the good parts and make the best out of them. You can work on them individually and then implement them into the map.

Unless others disagree, I would like to archive the map.