Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Working on a new map? Have a new mod out for swbf2?! Post an announcement of the up-coming release here.

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MetalcoreRancor
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by MetalcoreRancor »

http://rapidshare.com/files/319236115/Z ... f2_beta.7z

New beta, with the house.

Guys, I've recently come into a really difficult situation with this zombie mod.

I cannot win it. No matter what I do, change or edit, short of removing entire zombie personalities/abilities, can make this a winnable map with 1 player.

How, you might ask? Well, after the rebalance I did, I made some zombies resistant to certain weaponry and weaker to other weaponry, and theres many routes for each character to win in this map. The problem? I always do something stupid, or shoot something that has deflection and that bolt kills me. I cannot and have not seen the final wave since I started modding again.

I'm at the place where I have to either remove what makes the mode special and fun to fight, for the sake of the "average joe", or make this quite possibly the most difficult Swbf2 challenge ever devised, as it already is.

On the bright side, I have made several weapon changes, and people should fine this to be a fun mode still.. But I will either have to tone down the zombies, which I do NOT want to do, or tone down the amount of them, which will make this a breeze. D:

Please don't doublepost. Copy your old post into your new post, delete the old post, and then make your new post. -Staff
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by Fiodis »

MetalcoreRancor wrote:I cannot win it. No matter what I do, change or edit, short of removing entire zombie personalities/abilities, can make this a winnable map with 1 player.

...

The problem? I always do something stupid, or shoot something that has deflection and that bolt kills me.
...
I'm at the place where I have to either remove what makes the mode special and fun to fight, for the sake of the "average joe", or make this quite possibly the most difficult Swbf2 challenge ever devised, as it already is.
For one thing, I'll argue against this being the most difficult BF2 challenge ever. I'd also like to argue against that being something one ought to be proud of.

I believe you may be tossing in too many features. Just cut some of 'em. Plenty mods never get anywhere because once something's finished, the author sees something else, likes it, and tries to include it. This resembles that two-tier combat system you had a while back, before you made the (great, in my opinion) decision to tone it down to simple BF2-style.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by Jodandotson »

Maybe this can be one of those things that just keeps going and your not able to win it; or just close to impossible. Nazi zombies is impossible to win, and the wave mode in rep's battle arena is pretty much impossible to beat for single player. If these were not your plans then I am sure you could make small adjustments to the unit health, weapon damage, and unit count to make it a bit easier.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by MetalcoreRancor »

Sorry about my previous post, staff, but I've been able to do that before because I thought I was "part of the project" and entitled to the right that the topic creator has, but I guess I was wrong >_<

On to the response from Fiodis;

Well, it is the most challenging map I've played. And I am counting Maveritchell's creations and the Battle Arena wave mode in that list.

But not the previous versions you guys have beta'd. This current version is what I speak of, because now there is a full field of very tall grass that stretches the distance of the zombie spawn point to the destination. This grass is always seen from wherever you are, so you can't see any zombies until they emerge. Also, there are scattered barrels that when shot, explode in a very powerful manner that destroy anyone near them. A few of them are set to the same team of you to attract some of the zombies.

Combine these factors with the fact that the zombies themselves have had some tweaks, and including increased speed for most, and you have a very fast paced mode with very good chance of dying in the fields.

Which leaves you with staying in the comfort of your 2 story home, trying to fend off whatever zombies emerge from the grass.

This metagame, I'll admit, may seem as if I "saw" a bunch of things and willynilly added them. But it isn't the case, as the game I have now is what I envisioned back in the summer when this was being created..

I think what I should do to consolidate it, is to create 2 seperate zombie wave versions, one team carrying easy mode zombies that are fairly easy and slow, and then have my current zombies come in later, and I will upload that version, call it "Awaiting finalization by Itfactor" and procede to other things. That being said, if a lot of people like the "final" product, I will pursue the notion of crafting a Singleplayer only 1V1000 super zombie slaying epic, with tech that can't be done online that I would of wanted in the map.

--Edit--

I have done just what I said in the final paragraph, and I have to say it worked WONDERS! Now I just have to finish the balancing, add some surprises, finish the localizations, polish..
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by myers73 »

Fiodis, I would highly recommend playing this with team damage on, and AI on elite beofre ever again saying that it is not the hardest mission you have ever played.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by Twilight_Warrior »

Myers, I would highly recommend that before you go insulting other players skill levels, intentionally or not, you should look at the post completely and notice that it was not Fiodis who originally stated that, but the creator of the level itself, Metalcore. Every player has various factors they take into account, and different play-styles might make certian things more challenging then others. Fiodis was making a point (which I, personally, agree with) that a good level is not necessarily the MOST difficult and darned-near impossible to beat, but something that gives a player just the right amount of challenge without conjuring a desparate need to throw your moniter out the window.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by myers73 »

i was not insulting anyone, i just stated that before they judge how hard it is they should play it.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by Fiodis »

Perhaps I have?
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by MetalcoreRancor »

http://www.filefront.com/15349765/Zombie-post-beta.7z/

Edit: this link works. http://www.megaupload.com/?d=WNVDZWB9

Image
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Eagle-eye view from the machine gun. If you let the zombies get into your house, you won't easily get them all gone in time. During this very same game I was capturing screens, I was overwhelmed by zombies and it crashed. Soo.. my recommendation: Kill all zombies, or you WILL die :p

(This is pretty much a finished meta-game of the zombie mod, with only visuals that need updating (new models, etc)
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by Fiodis »

Aside from the visuals you mentioned (the rifleman's fire anim? :?), the other issues are that it isn't....
Heh, how to put this?
Considering that this is the final meta-game, I expected something a lot better. I won't comment on anything visual, only gameplay-related. Still, there are some rather large letdowns.

The house model is somewhat poorly designed, with paper-thin walls and irregular edges. This is a gameplay issue since the basic zombies, with their brilliant jump height of 0, run straight up against a 6-inch edge and cannot go over it, and ram it nonsensically as you shoot them. I exploited this bug ruthlessly for the first ten waves or so.

Then, in the lull between the massacres, I decided to explore the house a bit more. So I went out back to the walkway up (really? I know I said I wouldn't mention visual bugs, but that walkway was so jarring that it overrides my promise in this case) and climbed up to the second floor, where I sniped the next wave and noticed the machine gun mounted on air.

So after that I went down, found the console, hopped in, and it was all over. The game turned into point-and-click whenever you see an enemy icon. To be fair, it wasn't the machine gun's fault; it had been point-and-click for a long while before that. But now the poor zombies stood even less of a chance.

That is, until the flying zombie babies came along and bit my head off. Or, more accurately, until the flying zombie babies came along and did a carefully coordinated aerial dance in front of the machine gun, which not only caused the gun to explode but also initiated a brutal glitch that trapped my character inside the control console while the babies flew into the house and surrounded me, then bit my head off.

However, I had my final revenge. Despite being mauled by undead infants, my character inside the console refused to die, resulting in a repeating sequence of red flashes across the screen as more and more babies showed up. I watched this cycle go on in appropriate horror for a full minute before loosing patience and nuking the ground-texture-less valley with an ALT+F4.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by destructo_bot »

Hidden/Spoiler:
[quote="Fiodis"]Aside from the visuals you mentioned (the rifleman's fire anim? :?), the other issues are that it isn't....
Heh, how to put this?
Considering that this is the final meta-game, I expected something a lot better. I won't comment on anything visual, only gameplay-related. Still, there are some rather large letdowns.

The house model is somewhat poorly designed, with paper-thin walls and irregular edges. This is a gameplay issue since the basic zombies, with their brilliant jump height of 0, run straight up against a 6-inch edge and cannot go over it, and ram it nonsensically as you shoot them. I exploited this bug ruthlessly for the first ten waves or so.

Then, in the lull between the massacres, I decided to explore the house a bit more. So I went out back to the walkway up (really? I know I said I wouldn't mention visual bugs, but that walkway was so jarring that it overrides my promise in this case) and climbed up to the second floor, where I sniped the next wave and noticed the machine gun mounted on air.

So after that I went down, found the console, hopped in, and it was all over. The game turned into point-and-click whenever you see an enemy icon. To be fair, it wasn't the machine gun's fault; it had been point-and-click for a long while before that. But now the poor zombies stood even less of a chance.

That is, until the flying zombie babies came along and bit my head off. Or, more accurately, until the flying zombie babies came along and did a carefully coordinated aerial dance in front of the machine gun, which not only caused the gun to explode but also initiated a brutal glitch that trapped my character inside the control console while the babies flew into the house and surrounded me, then bit my head off.

However, I had my final revenge. Despite being mauled by undead infants, my character inside the console refused to die, resulting in a repeating sequence of red flashes across the screen as more and more babies showed up. I watched this cycle go on in appropriate horror for a full minute before loosing patience and nuking the ground-texture-less valley with an ALT+F4.[/quote]
Now THAT is a review.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by MetalcoreRancor »

I have begun to review the waves and fix them so that it progresses in a better fashion, and I will consider removing the ranged weapons that a zombie has that they take down the turret with, as I also had found that bug you fell into. But I know the flaws with the house. I honestly think it works as intended even with paper thin walls. I will fix the bug that has the zombies stuck against the house. I will be adding a lot more waves if the formula I have now works. That being said... the machine gun is there for a reason. Let's face it, as much as anyone wants to run-and-gun zombies all day, there are some players who will need a means of dealing with a lot of enemies at once, especially those "undead children", and the Martyrs. I am considering working on an idea of attempting to set up a system where a player can choose to "unlock" the console to the turret, by accomplishing some sort of hidden goal. But I would require assistance on that, because I am terrible at lua scripting.

I appreciate your review, and if I have any advice to get to the end of the current map; it would be this: When you see flying bones and skulls flying at your turret, you jump out immediatly, grab the Veteran, and pray-n-spray. I've died every time because the martyrs would rush me, or I would get knocked out by a flying skull or a leaping dead child, and would then get killed by martyrs.

So to prevent large spread panick I have seperated the martyrs into their own special group/catagory with other strong zombies and have them thrown in as spice and flavour to some waves.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by DarthD.U.C.K. »

about the house: its still in the alpha-stage and some parts arent ingame yet but ill imrprove and fix that
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12-15

Post by MetalcoreRancor »

Image

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The Riot shield featured in mYer's map, made by me.

Image

Image

Newest version.
http://www.filefront.com/15441881/Zombi ... -final.7z/

Features a lot of changes, re-balances, new character, SHOULD work online I am going to be testing it shortly to see that.
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12

Post by theITfactor »

Hey everyone, status update time! I'm finishing up my last two weeks at ND, however I'll be heading back for a month starting June 25th. This means work on the map will resume at ~ the start of August. Thanks for bearing with us for so long :)
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Re: Games Complex - theITfactor's final map - updates pg. 12

Post by RED51 »

Welcome(?) back IT! Nice to see this is still in the works!
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