de_sparity got played on a reddit playtesting session the other day.
I was kindly invited for a game where I proceeded to get my ass kicked, but it was an enjoyable
and, perhaps more importantly, educational experience!
I've played the map for countless hours over the past months but it felt different when
playing with skilled players in a proper 5v5 environment.
This video has several purposes.
Firstly I'd like to thank the hosts on reddit and everybody who played the map.
I can't think of a better opportunity to get feedback on it.
The entire session was very well run and I enjoyed it a lot.
Secondly, I'd like to talk about the feedback and how I've changed the map.
It's sad that most maps are released and then generally ignored.
How is the mapper supposed to get better if they don't know what they did wrong?
Even with feedback, playtesters are only often around for a couple of versions before getting
bored.
And this is the problem- a map isn't ever really finished.
Time and time again I've made tiny adjustments to the map and am like 'yup, definitely finished
this time'... only for people to get back to me with perhaps a hundred bugs and decent
suggestions for me to include in the next version.
But also from the playtester's point of view, if they're only trying out the map once or
twice, their feedback is only really telling part of the story.
I don't think that you can give fair opinions on the balance of a map after just one or
two games.
We've all played matches on a map where we've found one side easier than the other, only
for the roles to be reversed in the next game for no apparent reason.
Particularly if the map tries new ideas, it can often take several matches for players
to become acquainted with the layout and even more for advanced tactics to appear.
It's easy to say that it's unbalanced because one type of attack trumps a certain type of
defence, but all it takes is a discovery of a new position for it to potentially flip
the balance on its head.
In particular is this section down middle.
People have complained about how vulnerable CT's are when rushing to B, even though there's
another route down around the back that takes a bit longer.
I want people to have to make difficult decisions.
The middle of this map is a high-risk high-reward area.
At the beginning of the match I played, players would rush to both sites, but after a couple
of rounds several players would hang around in middle since it's such a valuable area
to hold and allows for quick rotates into either site.
de_sparity is a very small map.
This is deliberate, it's the opposite of a map like nuke where there's a lot of running
about before you get to a fight.
This makes de_sparity very fast-paced.
As CT's you have the time to rotate around through Terrorist spawn, which really adds
another layer of sneakiness to the gameplay.
I felt overwhelmed at points during the playtesting but like I said, it takes time to get acquainted
with tactics and I feel it served as a refreshing change from the large slow-paced maps that
I'm used to.
That being said, I have made one major change to the map following the reddit night.
I've closed up yet another passage in middle which should delay terrorists by a second
or so more.
Whether this is better or worse remains to be seen but it will stall Terrorists who want
to rush A and will make the other routes more attractive.
Even now it's not perfect- the adjustment is boxy and a bit of the graffiti has been
cut off, but gameplay-wise it's potentially a step in the right direction and I'm working
on further improvements in even later versions of the map.
A knock-on bonus from this change is that I have been able to further optimise middle
which should boost frame rates.
I've learned time and time again is that it takes A LOT of change to radically alter how
a map feels.
They aren't the finely tuned fragile things I thought they were a couple of years ago.
Overpass is a great example of a map that has undergone several large changes and yet
is still overpass at the end of it.
But slightly better.
It was nice to have a feedback page for people to post suggestions after the reddit night.
I've tried my best to fix as many of the issues as possible and have replied to many individuals
on this page.
I'm not spoiling for an argument and defending my map.
Or at least, I hope I'm not.
I hope that I've made their suggestions feel appreciated by mentioning what I've changed
and what I've kept the same and why in a bid to help them to understand the thought process
that goes on when adjusting a map.
I've also closed up a couple of corners since the fewer places somebody has to check, the
fairer the firefights are.
I hate being shot in the back or from a dark distant corner as much as the next person.
This means that the last Garry Spot has had to go.
It's been replaced with a tree but people have already pointed out the branches are
sticking through the walls in places which I'll try to fix for the next update.
The remaining two entrances to the middle house are rather narrow.
The reason for this can be seen going way back to the original version of the map where
these weren't even the main routes through the area.
Now that they are I may widen both to stop players from blocking each other.
For now I've just made this snow easier to climb.
It was a messy part of the map that's been causing me problems for a while.
I've never had a problem with this, but I've been told that bombsite A has issues with
HDR and that it's hard to see players against the dark cliff face.
I've added a light and some WHITE PAINT to the cliff.
This really is a strange town.
I heard a nice little suggestion about naming this part of the map seahorse, since there's
a memorable little mark on the wall.
Unfortunately it's got white paint on it at the moment, but here's the same one in CT
spawn.
I have also replaced the white wall with a brickier one here since the HDR was too great
for some people.
That being said, there's now reduced contrast so perhaps it's harder to spot people against
it?
I haven't named parts of the map yet.
This is mainly because the nav mesh is a nightmare to adjust but it's also because I think the
best names crop up naturally.
If I tried naming places myself I'd call them something silly like 'meowbeanz' or 'yumyum'.
I'm still stubborn about short A being called short A and not catwalk.
As somebody else said, the map's small and simple and the areas are varied as they are
so it's not hard to understand where places are when somebody calls them out.
I will add proper names to them at some point, honest!
This is an interesting one.
Apparently somebody tried jumping through this hole in a match and was disappointed.
I have now removed it to prevent confusion, further simplifying and optimising the area.
I try to include as many suggestions as possible, but sometimes it can't be done.
A lot of people point out the TINIEST of problems and I look at it and go... ngh, is it even
worth fixing?
This sort of issue arises when you have a lot of detail.
Compare a Mario level to Crysis 3.
I'm sure you could find a thousand more bugs with the latter's levels just because there's
more that could go wrong.
As you add more it gets easier and easier to fault, it's one of those annoying issues
in life.
Speaking of which, I've fixed the annoying error that people got here after minimising
the game.
Apparently Source doesn't like textures on displacements so I've gone back to a more
basic roof model and it's fixed the issue.
It just means that it doesn't look quite as good.
I feel like removing displacements from the roof areas completely since they cause another
type of graphical glitch as well.
I'm not alone in this- you'll find one on the aptly named Mirage as well.
There are sudden changes in the colour of the snow in places.
This has been a real problem for me and I'm not sure how to 100% fix it.
I've reduced how obvious these joins are by moving the displacements about and by remaking
some sections but it's a bit like pushing air bubbles about underneath a sticker.
They've still got to go somewhere, it seems.
It's something that's easy to point out but difficult to fix and I'll continue working
on making these joins less obvious.
And now for this spot.
I haven't removed it.
This can seem like an obvious exploit that should be removed immediately but... should
it?
There's another like it in bombsite A as well though it takes 3 people to get up onto it.
Both are hard to achieve in the heat of battle and I almost feel as they could balance themselves.
If it becomes too popular a place then people will end up looking there first and therefore
they won't be as appealing.
It's one of those things that really needs experienced playtesters to decide whether
it should be in the level or not.
Similar places in maps like Cache and Inferno lead to interesting situations.
Is it really worth removing every spot that gives you an advantage or will it just make
the map boring?
That's it really.
The final thing I'm going to cover are the SMALL bugs.
I've had a couple of faithful playtesters send me every single graphical glitch they've
found, down to the edges of displacements, oddly placed plants and specks of ice on models.
I admit it, I look at a lot of these and laugh about how critical they're being.
But it's still nice to know that the issues exist and if it bothers one person, surely
it could bother more?
Thanks to these kinds of posts I have added small graphical tweaks across the map, like
adding detail to corners or moving props so that they don't stick through walls.
Look at the barrels in the corner.
I was told that the shadow was a bit overpowering but in a way I like it, it kind of simulates
ambient occlusion!
Perhaps I'll add it back at some point.
And then there are the sweet, genuine suggestions.
At T spawn I wanted a cheap way of making an interior.
I settled for an EXIT sign.
What I love about these things is that it really stirs up some people's imaginations.
I was told that it would be nice to have a room in there with seats and the like.
I know that it's extra, pointless detail that will simply sap framerates and I questioned
if it would even be visible, but I did it nonetheless.
I added some chairs which can't actually be seen in-game at all.
They fade out as you step away from them so they're not too hard on your framerate.
I guess I'll remove them at some point but it seems a shame for some reason.
That concludes this video.
Once again, thank you to everybody who has helped make de_sparity what it is.
Unfortunately it hasn't been included in the next operation, or if it has, I don't know
about it.
Also, it's my birthday today.
Maybe
next year Valve.