Let’s play a game. Do you think you can stand on this bin?
Yes, you can. Do you think you can stand on THIS bin?
No, you can’t. How about this bench?
Nope. This one?
Yes.
Overpass has a problem with inconsistent clipping. That’s pretty minor when compared with the issues
that the early CS:GO version of this map had, what with the olofboosts and the killer tables
and what not. But it’s still interesting to find in this latest version of the map.
The problem is that it’s unintuitive. And it’s strange to see it when Valve has historically
been so good at telling stories without uttering a single word, or at being able to lead players
through an environment using subtle hints like lights and props. Mapping is an art form,
and part of it is communicating to players how something will work, without explicitly
telling them or demonstrating it to them. For instance: putting a ladder next to a
raised area will indicate to the player that they should be able to reach it- if not by climbing the
ladder, then by using this conveniently placed nearby prop to boost up onto it.
So when it turns out you can’t do any of this, you feel BETRAYED.
Here’s another example. An empty forklift is large enough that I wouldn’t expect to be able to stand
on its roof, yet its placement here next to this railing, and this half-sized bin that’s in front
of it suggests to me that if I can stand on the bin -which I can- then I should also be able to
stand on the forklift’s roof. Which I cannot. And this is the sort of place in the map where
I’d expect clever hidey spots like this to exist, for when players are trying to
hide away at the end of the round to save. And if you don’t want players doing certain behaviours,
then don’t encourage them by placing props like this that hint that they can!
This fountain isn’t the BEST example of a readable prop, because it looks like you
should be able to reach its higher platforms with a simple boost from another player. But you can’t,
because the higher bits are fully clipped off. Now I won’t be too critical of places like this
in this video, since it IS very hard to create a nice-looking map that always works well for that
kind of behaviour. You end up having to have every wall be uncomfortably tall. And mappers
hate that. So I understand the frustration. That being said, it looks like they intentionally
made the top of these shelves here a boostable spot, just as it was in earlier versions of the
game. But this time around, they’ve clipped it off! Which is MEAN, when it’s such a great
spot to camp, and when there’s so much open space up here inviting players to try boosting to it.
Still. What’s more concern are places that a single player thinks they should be able to
reach on their own… but can’t. Or vice versa. What the fountain does right is to hint to
a solo player that they’re unable to climb it. If I stand on this lower lip,
you can see how it does this- because the higher ones appear above my head height,
which in Counter-Strike terms, means that I can’t get up there simply by jumping. So that’s good.
Prop placement is a balance: you want these places to play well in a competitive game,
and to be intuitive and quick to learn. But you also want these maps to look nice,
and to be like convincing places that are more than just boxes and corridors.
This spot just here really baffles me. It’s a place in the map where a boost WOULD benefit
the player, so you’d think that’s why they’ve added the bin in. But you can’t get up onto it,
aside from this very thin pixel-wide lip on this side, which is so buggy it feels like a mistake of
some kind. And this small binbag placed on top of it… is this Valve trying to tell us we CAN’T climb
on top of the main one? Because to me, it suggests that it was placed to let us climb higher still.
And then last, while you’re stood on this pixel ledge, jumping results in my head hitting an
invisible clip brush over the top of this area, which I don’t think should ever happen in any map,
outside of exotic head boosts. Another place this happens is on top of this crate on bombsite A,
which again, makes feel like it’s a place that I shouldn’t have
been allowed to get up to in the first place. Storage room’s another interesting case. Why have
such an obviously person-sized gap between these lockers if you can’t enter? And this door right
here. It might not immediately look accessible when approached from THIS direction, but from
THIS one, it looks like a clever jump-accessible spot, with these small steps implying they’re
there to help players climb onto it even if they’ve botched the jump slightly, and its
position suggests it enables a sneaky sightline into the site. It’s not too much of a problem,
but they could just switch the door to the other side of the doorway and its potential for
confusion would be diminished, and this overhang will tell players that they can’t get up there.
If you know Counter-Strike’s gameplay well enough, then you can probably predict how the props either
side of this doorway will behave. Yet there couldn’t be a greater disparity to the precision
of their clipping. Presumably to prevent this side from being a camping spot, there has been a
MASSIVE clip brush placed across it like this. You can’t even reach the boxes, let alone climb them.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the doorway, these chairs have been clipped with masterful precision;
you can stand on the seat part of them, or climb higher still by jumping on the backs of them.
However, this nearby sink can’t be climbed on at all, but these water fountains can,
as can these half-hidden bins near the station entrance. Just as a reminder:
this bin cannot be climbed at all. And I don’t have a clue how pallets
work! Some are easily climbable, some are sort-of climbable, and others aren’t climbable at all.
These 2 here! The one on the left, climbable and useful as a shortcut up the stairs.
But the other one? Completely clipped off! Is this sandbag climbable? If you’re boosted
by another player, then yes. If you do a trick-jump from this bit, yes. It’s probably
not too hard a trick-jump because even I can do it. But these props either side, which you’d
think are placed here to help you climb, are not solid at all. You walk right through them.
So there: this prop is not solid. But here, there are 2 of them, AND they’re flipped the
other way around to form a sort-of platform above them! So do you think it’s solid now?
Because it is! But do you think you can climb on them?
No. So why are they even here. Other props could have represented this gameplay intent far better.
So it’s not as though you can even learn rules for each and every object,
because their behaviour seems customised for each and every time they’re placed in the level.
Vertigo has a jobsite table here that you can jump on.
There’s another one here, that you can also jump on.
And this one here, which can be jumped on. Overpass has one here, which can’t be jumped on.
I should have expected them to keep the wall surfing in, since they’re trying
to keep CS2 as similar to CS:GO as possible, and so added a wooden plank here to patch up
a dodgy corner that you could previously camp in, using the wall-surfing exploit.
And this has been semi-successful. The movement in this corner is still
questionable but it doesn’t achieve that much besides looking a bit silly, any more.
I can ONLY assume they had a problem with this corner in particular, since players are still
free to bug out in this corner, hanging up there in the air while ever so slightly
slipping back downinto the slimy sewage again. This yellow pipe is here to block the corner
from being such a powerful camping spot, but it may as well be a triangle since that’s the shape
of the clip brush for it, meaning that when you jump head-on into it, it’ll launch you
out sideways and out around the corner. You can jump down to, and walk along
this narrow concrete ledge here. But be careful of the water, as this
wheelbarrow can block you in the corner, and this plank …well, it did block your movement yesterday
but Valve already seems to have patched it. Now let’s move over to this park. And I love
that this area is themed as a play area, complete with climbing wall and slide. And you bet that in
the old days, a mapper would have ensured that all this was fully accessible and playable. You know,
for fun. But it doesn’t come as too much of a surprise to discover it’s all been blocked off
in this era of competitive play. Though if we’re going to assume it’s for that reason, then it’s
strange that the clipping beneath it is still so awkward, requiring that you crouch to pass under
this bit here. And this low step abruptly stops your movement as you approach it. Valve pls fix.
And open up the play area while you’re at it.
A lot of this video is just covering very minor issues, but you only get one first impression,
and this has been mine with the new version of Overpass, and how these areas
behave versus how I’d expect them to behave. Now I WAS going to mention this area here,
because you’d slide off the rails but could stand on the concrete either side.
And I was going to argue that this was unintuitive because they look roughly the
same angle, and you slide off other areas containing sloped concrete. So your first
impression would be that you wouldn’t be able to stand on these concrete bits here.
It felt really nitpicky for me to point out something as minor as this. Like,
who am I to say these things, when Valve must have deliberately let players stand on this
concrete here for a gameplay reason of some sort? BUT THEN: last night the game received an update
and they changed this area to make players slide off the concrete, just as they do the railings.
So THERE: my points may be nitpicky, Valve MAY have done some things for a reason,
but others may be simple oversights. And THAT’S the value of a first impression,
even if some of my observations may be very minor. I may even be missing the point of some of these
things entirely! But in this case, it seems like Valve thought removing this walkable region
was more important than I considered it to be! I wish there was more consistency. I wish I could
know how these props will behave before I hurl myself at them, instead of being surprised and
then having to figure out why Valve has chosen to do it this way, or if it’s a mistake of some kind.
You will quickly get accustomed to it, Valve will (hopefully) patch up the things they didn’t
intend for, and Overpass will be on its way to becoming a map that’s fun for all the family.