This article is for everyone who wants to map for Goldeneye Source, Dev team members and Goldeneye fans alike.
Having the right guns and ammo in the right places will make or break a map. Today we are going to learn about how to properly place items in maps.
In Goldeneye 007, there are six eight levels of spawns*, with three patterns based on the loadout, and maps had as few as six spawns (basement). Goldeneye Source is of course accommodating many more players and more weapons, so there are now seven spawn levels. This is likely to increase to eight with Beta 4's release.
(* only seven are significant in any way, and all 007 loadouts can be represented with six spawn levels.)
When you create your map, your first concern is the key weapon spawns. These are the ones that you see when you look at your floor plan and say "a gun goes here, here, here..." obviously most medium-sized rooms get one, big rooms get two, a few hallways are fine, too. How many of these your map supports determines how you assign your spawn point values.
Your first concern is the Level 7 spawns. You should always have two Level 7 spawns. The 'best' weapon on the map spawns on 7's, so you want to ensure that there are two places to find it. Only one 7 is like a black hole, it draws all the players in one direction and leads to a lot of spam. Keep them spaced apart, and consider how team play is affected by them. If one side has better access to the 7's than the other, it's not bad, since teams switch domains every round, but it does mean your map will be an attacker/defender map in team, instead of a neutral battlefield. Choose the style that suits your map. Facility is naturally an attacker/defender sort of map because of the chokepoint, Complex is certainly a balanced battlefield layout. Additionally, in Man with the Golden Gun, the AuG will choose a home randomly from Level 7 spawns and spawns marked as AuG-friendly. Use this to control how much variation the AuG location has in the MWtGG scenario.
When placing the other key spawns, remember they all should have two associated ammo crates, though they don't need to be near the weapon. Also, you may put a Level 7 ammo crate in an empty area to encourage players with a unique ammo weapon to travel around. 007's Temple has some crates that associate to a different slot than the nearest spawn so you can get Rifle for your AR33 without going across the map to its spawn point, where someone else just picked up the AR33 and all the ammo, causing you to take 70 damage for 10 bullets and a wait for the resupply.
For the rest of the key points, try to keep the numbers balanced. If you have eight key spawns, one of each and a second 7 is probably perfect. If you have twelve key points, two 1's, 2, two 3's, two 4's, two 5's, 6, and two 7's will serve well. Fill extra 2's and 6's last since a 2 is usually a duplicate of 1 or 3, and a 6 is usually a duplicate of 7 unless the loadout carries six or seven distinct weapons.
Once you have delicately designed your key weapon spawn patterns and the map feels balanced, you are faced with the player count problem. Because we can have so many more players, you need more spawns for players, and more weapons for players. What to do about this is quite simple: place player spawns where you can, and give them a weapon and one associated crate as needed to ensure that no spawning player passes another spawn point before reaching a weapon. Choose power levels that are in accord with the path the player spawns on.
Along any path between intersections, the weapon spawns should either be all the same, or ±1 in quality from one end to the other. Looking at Goldeneye 007 again, in Library, the longest path runs across the catwalks. From one end to the other, the spawn levels are 5, 5, 6, 4/Armor, 3. The idea is that if you are going from A to B, you only get one weapon for crossing that path. When you see an intersection, you can get a different grade of weapon. In Library Catwalks, coming in the back side, you get grade 5 from the ramp, through the hall, and over the big square room (6 is the same as 5 except in MWTGG); the only time you see a new weapon is when you reach the fork in the road, where you can go left for Armor or right for Level 4.
In this way, you can ensure that all your spawning players have a chance at a gun. By adding two (or three) of one weapon spaced along a path/region, a player is getting the same weapon he would get for going to the key weapon spawn, but isn't left standing around and getting into slapfights over it. This is also good for team play, where the team is happy to spread out (and get into combat) to get spare low-level weapons along these paths, rather than having half the team waiting on the next Klobb to appear.
ARMOR!
Armor is huge. Armor is vital to every player, and it causes the Black Hole effect, since there is a great reward for AC-10ing all day. Like with your Level 7 spawns, you want no fewer than two, and you want them spaced enough that everyone can get at them. For Goldeneye Source, I would like to see no fewer than three armors on every map. There should be two full armors spaced out properly, and at least one half-armor in areas that are far from both armor and a powerful weapon. Remember that half-armor encourages a player to camp for the respawn, so put it in a place that is exposed and has poor weapons. Big armor belongs near, but not too near, big weapons; Level 4 and better. You want to ensure that camping the armor means being attacked by foes with high-grade guns. Make the armor desirable, but risky.
I'm going to call out some current GES offenders so you Dev mappers can shape up.
Runway: The half armor should be a full, the full in the far area should be a half, and the underworks needs a full armor somewhere. There are a few dead spots that could hold an armor, or a spare weapon. The weapons down there are a mess; read that thing about pathing again, change the levels around and move the spare guns into the empty spots around the main path.
Temple Classic: Need a full armor on the far side of the map, and a half around the mid area, the ramp/T-junction has an armor in a third-party map for Alpha, and it rocks, so that's a good place for it. Extra guns along the paths will help tremendously here.
Facility: Facility could use some duplicate weapon spawns. Good places would be Level 1 or 2 on the crate by the armor, same beneath the bathroom stairs, the maintenance stockroom, something sensible in the little door near the deadend stairs, the room with the red-lit vent, in the four-tank room with the isolated crate, and a Level 1 in the bathroom vents. Frankly these are kinda close together, but Facility is a tight map so such is rather unavoidable.
Summary:
* Figure out where your team spawns are going and balance your key weapon spawns first.
* Decide where your multiplayer spawns are going.
* Ensure every multiplayer spawn has access to a spare gun with zero or one ammo crates if it is distant from a key spawn.
* Extra guns only give players a tiny amount of ammo, so spare guns will not serve as a replacement for ammo crates.
* Have a Level 7 crate somewhere in the midfield if there's a place for them. (And be aware that they will contain explosives in Mines/Grenades/Explosives.)
* Other level crates can be added if you have nice-looking out-of-the-way spots for them but the location is unsuitable for a weapon.
* Ensure extra guns are of the same type as other guns along the path, so the balanced weapon pattern you designed with your key spawns is not distrupted.
* Test it out on all the loadouts, including Random!
* Have a plan for armor to keep players thinking about where they need to go.
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Topic: VC's Lecture Hall: Entity Placement for Mappers (Read 27980 times)