Intro
Corridors
The main hall way is the fastest way to reach the enemy flag but it is separated by the pit of death. The player is mostly covered here by some walls and has an easy to access jump pad that will propel them over to the other side. The main hall also house the main bridge that connects both of the floating platforms in the left and right corridors.
The flag can be found in the main hall sitting on a raised platform. The platform can be accessed by a jump pad or by crossing a small bridge from either corridor.
Forced to go with the flow
The problem with this straightforward design is that the player can not change direction. Once they choose a corridor to traverse they must remain committed to reaching the end. There isn't enough flow in these hallways to allow the player to double back or to even change direction. Once they begin heading toward the enemy base they must stay on course. If they were to turn around they will surely be shot by enemy players.
The main corridor features a bridge that leads to the opposing flag, the huge issue here is that the ceiling is too close to the player. It really restricts what the player can do, they can't jump or dodge and with the resulting splash damage of explosives this bridge can easily become a hindrance to anyone trying to make use of it.
Lack of Soft Cover
Most of the cover is found in the main left and right corridor. The areas that are lacking cover are the quick pathways that float above the three paths. Originally this was intentional. The idea behind this was that the player would take a risk with the barren path so that they can have a direct route toward the enemy base or to their own base when they are carrying the flag.
Each piece of cover here is solid, there is no blending of soft cover and when we have certain pieces that look like they might be low enough to jump over it turns out that almost every cover piece can't even be jumped over. The ones that can require two jumps in quick session to pull off.
Haphazard lines of sight
If you take a look at the image to the left all you will notice how those cover pieces obstruct the players line of sight. From this point in the level the player can't properly asses their situation and therefore they are wasting time trying to figure out where they are and what they need to do instead of actually enjoying the map.
Theme?
A theme is when or where the map takes place. For example if we were to say this map was going to take place in the corridors of a sunken cruise ship that has washed onto a desert Island, that is a theme. The theme is what ties everything in the map together in terms of what it is going to look and feel like. The theme needs to have some sort of subject involved in it. It needs to be instantly recognizable.
So as you can tell this is not a pretty map. It looks awful, it looks like there was no thought into how it was going to look at all. It needs a real theme to tie it all together. We know that this level has a "Pit of Death" and that can serve as something that we ca build on to incorporate into our theme.
How can we improve this level? - Define what the theme is! - Make the flow more fluid and circular - Make the routes not as direct - Give players options to retreat and fall back to - Limit the number of double jumps - Improve the lines of sight - Add soft cover - Improve the spacing of the map - Make the player spawn more clear with use of colors and lights. - Add color,symbols or landmarks to help the player identify where they are in the map. - Better spacing in all the corridors |
Conclusion
@Dannylv100