[VSH] A new map, 5 map edits, BFB nerf and fixed spread for shotguns suggestions

[Fragancia]

Hello! I've decided to make this thread to suggest if my map vsh_project_powerup_a16 could get playtested on your VSH servers, along with a few map edits of existing maps which are the following:

• vsh_toys_b2_skial_v2
• vsh_manncohq_v14_skial_v1
• vsh_spaaaaaace_v1_s3_skial_v1
• vsh_castle_siege_b11_skial_v1
• vsh_weaponsdepot_lz_b2_skial_v1

The changes made to these maps are quality of life changes, such as more health and ammo pack scattered around the map, map exploit fixes and more! I've suffixed skial_v[number] to the map names as I don't know what naming conventions you use for edited maps made for the community, let me know if this is wrong.

More information can be viewed in the changlog spoiler.
Let me know what you think, if you agree or disagree to these changes, I made them based what I thought needed changing.

Spoiler: Changelog

vsh_toys_b2_skial_v2

• Added more health and ammo around the map
• Trails attached the bosses to make it easier to spot the boss in a crowd(up to 4 trails are supported in case multi-bosses ever become a thing in VSH)
• Medics gain 6 seconds of faster ubercharge rate at round start to help mitigate the lost time charging ubercharge when the time is counting down to start the round
• Stages change everytime Hale wins a round
• Active capture point unlocks automatically after 2 minutes left on the clock.
• Teams can't switch teams to prevent issues with the map logic
• Active stage control point opens automatically after 2 minutes
• Mission briefing shows a description of the VSH gamemode

vsh_manncohq_v14_skial_v1

• Added more health and ammo around the map
• Nerfed the func_nobuild on some buildings where engineers could benefit building on without the spots being too powerful
• Trails attached the bosses to make it easier to spot the boss in a crowd(up to 4 trails are supported in case multi-bosses ever become a thing in VSH)
• Medics gain 6 seconds of faster ubercharge rate at round start to help mitigate the lost time charging ubercharge when the time is counting down to start the round
• Made a non solid roof vent prop solid
• Mission briefing shows a description of the VSH gamemode

vsh_spaaaaaace_v1_s3_skial_v1

• Added more health and ammo around the map
• Trails attached the bosses to make it easier to spot the boss in a crowd(up to 4 trails are supported in case multi-bosses ever become a thing in VSH)
• Medics gain 6 seconds of faster ubercharge rate at round start to help mitigate the lost time charging ubercharge when the time is counting down to start the round
• Falling off the map as RED does not result in death anymore, you'll be teleported back onto the map
• Made some spots with high potential of griefing for engineers unable to have buildings built on them
• Fixed Hale being able to get out of the playing area near his spawn, he'll be teleported onto the map
• Preemptively made some rocks outside the playing area not solid to players to avoid potiential exploits
• Clipping has been improved all around the map
• Capping the point time slightly extended from 4s to 10s
• Broken gravity feature fixed, hit the red core to activate lowered gravity for 30 seconds, cooldown is 90 seconds, audio cues for when gravity turns on or off
• Mission briefing shows a description of the VSH gamemode

vsh_castle_siege_b11_skial_v1

• Added more health and ammo around the map
• Trails attached the bosses to make it easier to spot the boss in a crowd(up to 4 trails are supported in case multi-bosses ever become a thing in VSH)
• Medics gain 6 seconds of faster ubercharge rate at round start to help mitigate the lost time charging ubercharge when the time is counting down to start the round
• Mission briefing shows a description of the VSH gamemode

vsh_weaponsdepot_lz_b2_skial_v1

• Added more health and ammo around the map
• Trails attached the bosses to make it easier to spot the boss in a crowd(up to 4 trails are supported in case multi-bosses ever become a thing in VSH)
• Medics gain 6 seconds of faster ubercharge rate at round start to help mitigate the lost time charging ubercharge when the time is counting down to start the round
• Fixed the doors closing automatically even if a player is within the required distance to open them
• Boss AFK killer has been improved, it kills faster and is more precise
• Mission briefing shows a description of the VSH gamemode

Spoiler: Mission Briefing

Spoiler: How the trails look like in-game

Click this to download the map edits

One more thing, I have 2 config files for the maps: vsh_toys_b2_skial_v2 and vsh_project_powerup_a16
These config files are to be placed at tf/cfg on the server, which execute only when the mentioned maps are loaded to be played on. The configs contain these commands and will take into effect upon execution:

tf_bot_quota 3 expert
tf_bot_quota_mode fill

These are commands you are instructed to setup when installing VSH on your server which can be seen here https://forums.alliedmods.net/showthread.php?t=244209 but the way it differs from the configs is that tf_bot_quota is set to 2.

The config commands do the following, fills the server with 3 bots when a player has joined an empty server and the bots get kicked out as players join teams and when there's 3 players on server, all the bots will be kicked out.
It functions the same when a server is dropping in it's population, bots will fill in when there's below 3 players on the server.

Any changes made by the configs will be written over by the server config as the map specific configs execute after the server config when the server changes to another map as long you have those commands in your server config with the settings you want them to have for the other maps.

This is to keep interference with map logic and gameplay on these maps to a minimum, the maps work fine without them but it's always nice to take precautions to ensure everything goes smooth. Right now, 2 bots to fill in isn't enough, this situation can happen with only 2 bots filling in:

Spoiler: Game waits forever

the game is stuck like this forever until one player decides to switch to the empty team to get things started.
And since there's a player already in a team, the second bot is kicked and won't fill the empty team because the quota is set to 2.
A player stuck with the game like this may not realize that they should switch to the empty team for the game to start.
Setting tf_bot_quota to 3 will ensure there will always be someone on either team whether it's a player or a bot and this will no longer happen.

Click here to download the configs

Now onto the subject of my own creation for the VSH gamemode, vsh_project_powerup_a16, the name is currently a placeholder and the map is in it's alpha stages, I feel I've done all the testing I could have done on my own and with friends and now I feel it's ready for playtesting on a populated server. This map is designed for the VSH gamemode so keep that in mind if you decide to use it for Freak Fortress 2.

This map includes some features which I think people might like, and these are as follows:

• Custom voice lines for all classes (Battlecry, Cheers, Jeers, Positive, Negative, Spy!)
• Custom death screams, including ubercharge drops
• Custom taunt music for the following taunts: Kazotsky Kick, The Didgeridrongo and The Bad Pipes
• Special abilities granted to each class to mix up the gameplay
• Easter eggs and more

Here are some pictures of the map itself:

Spoiler: vsh_project_powerup

Click here to download the map

There's also the matter of the addition of Baby's Face Blaster, it was ported over from Freak Fortress 2 as this thread leads me to believe https://www.skial.com/threads/addition-of-baby-face-blaster-in-vsh.71572/
The OP of the thread believed it to be balanced to which I disagree, BFB as of now outshines all the other scatterguns with weapon attributes like these:

Spoiler: BFB weapon attributes

Why would you ever need to use the stock scattergun or any other primary when you have a weapon that deals more damage and lets you hit the speed cap in one meatshot? In the hands of a decent scout, you can basically take out huge chunks of Hale's health all on your own, his damage capabilities rival, hell I would even say outperforms the damage classes, why would you bother to hunt heads for increased speed and health to increase your capability to deal damage more reliably as a demo(knight) knowing the risks that comes with it when you can just equip the BFB and throw in some crit-a-cola usage and you got a way to deal great damage with minimal risk because the speed boost lets you escape hale's range with not many ways for Hale to do anything about it without a well timed rage.

Most of the downsides of this weapon are negligible at best, the health reduction doesn't do much as the damage sources in this gamemode for RED are either Hale, fall damage or map hazards, fall damage can be completely negated with Scout's double jump and Hale deals 202 in damage everytime except for Easter Bunny which deals 195.
Weapon spread increase doesn't really take into effect until you are gravely injured which you will rarely be given the aforementioned.

So given the problems this weapon has, I'd like to suggest a new build for this weapon shown below

Spoiler: New BFB

• Scout's movement speed has been slowed down to 369 Hammer Units per second from 400, which puts him at the speed of a demoknight with 4 heads.
• Clip size is at 4 before you need to reload
• Meatshots deal 89 and crticial meatshots deal 153
• Boost reduced by a quarter of the boost bar on double jumps

Let me know what you think of these changes for the weapon.
The aim was to make this weapon more of a side grade.

And lastly, introducing fixed spread to the VSH servers for weapons that fire multiple pellets at once, e.g shotguns.

Spoiler: How the spread looks

Valve added a configurable variable (tf_use_fixed_weaponspreads 0/1)with the Meet Your Match update for competitive that can be enabled for fixed spread, set the variable to 1 for it to take into effect immediately. I believe this can be a good addition as shotguns get more reliable in terms of dealing damage and not being at the mercy of random number generation.

And we have reached the end of this post, thanks for taking your time reading these suggestions.
Let me know what you think of all this. Again, thanks.

Special thanks to @Khed for all his help and being the best guinea pig.

 

[Luke]

I don't think you should be doing custom music to replace existing plugin music or taunts etc., either. People are already accustomed to the vanilla/plugin music... changing it will potentially cause confusion. A map shouldn't do that much, there's a difference between maps having sound effects in places vs replacing existing sounds.

There should be continuity between all the maps on the server in terms of these elements, the map should just be the environment in which these existing plugin elements (or vanilla elements) are happening.

From my perspective, it looks like you've just discovered that you can do these things - so you feel like you must do all of this. Like when people begin making maps and decide to do lots of stupid stuff, just because they can.

 

[Fragancia]

He means don't make an all-in-one thread. If you have a fix for a map then make a thread for that map with the fix. If you want to change the gameplay make a thread to change gameplay. Etc... It gets confusing as to what you're trying to achieve.

But it's only small things I'm fixing, stuff I forgot to do and didn't notice, do they really need their own separate thread?
Well fine, I'll just make a thread in mapping sub-forum.

 

[Pedro the fabulous]

He means don't make an all-in-one thread. If you have a fix for a map then make a thread for that map with the fix. If you want to change the gameplay make a thread to change gameplay. Etc... It gets confusing as to what you're trying to achieve.

That's not what he meant. Luke replied with his explanation above this post.

 

[Luke]

That's not what he meant. Luke replied with his explanation above this post.

No, that's partially what I meant.

It's half that he's put what looks like 6+ suggestions in one suggestions thread,
It's half that he's doing things that I don't think he should be doing at all.

 

[Fragancia]

I don't think you should be doing custom music to replace existing plugin music or taunts etc., either.
People are already accustomed to the vanilla/plugin music... changing it will potentially cause confusion.

Just to clear up one thing, I'm not replacing the plugin music, I'm stopping it from playing so it doesn't play when the round start music and the music 2 minutes left on the clock starts to play and having those play at the same time is very unpleasant to the ears. I'm using the option the plugin developers gave the mappers to use and as I see it, there's nothing wrong with that.
It was mostly likely requested by other VSH mappers, I'm pretty sure vsh_megaman used it.

The default taunt music aren't replaced, they are still there but I added in more music that can play, they're chosen randomly.
So this will not interfere with people's music mods of the taunts.
Regarding the potential confusion, yeah it may happen the first time but people will get used to it soon after, like they do with everything that's new to them. It's not something that affects/hinders gameplay, it's an non-important part of the map that's used to enhance the player experience.

From my perspective, it looks like you've just discovered that you can do these things - so you feel like you must do all of this. Like when people begin making maps and decide to do lots of stupid stuff, just because they can.

I've been fiddling with these things for years since 2011 in my spare time as a hobby, making map projects testing the limits of the tools given to the mappers throughout the years by Valve, there's so many things available to mappers which they just don't know about so I decided to make a map utilizing these tools to their fullest for a more enjoyable experience for this community, as thanks for the great servers, the great moments I've had there, the good people I've met throughout the years playing on them.
This is not it though, I will try to contribute more for this amazing community, be it through donations, maps or whatnot. Pretty much everything in my power to do.