Sidetracked Post Project Analysis

What did I do right?

I play tested the map. The value of player testing cannot be underestimated as it both confirmed problems I had suspected there might be and exposed problems I hadn’t been aware of.

I made revisions. After play testing, changes were made to the map’s layout in response to the player feedback and observations. The map was not tested by professional game testers however and with amateur feedback it was sometimes difficult to decide on how to correct issues that the players had alluded to but often could not seem to be able to pinpoint. The feedback was valuable nonetheless (thank you to all who tested at tf2maps.net) and helped me to address some things players were having problems with.

I received continual feedback from a good friend and mapper. His feedback and suggestions proved to be one of the most valuable additions to the entire process. He helped me work through some of the gameplay issues and helped me understand the properties of some important game entities used in payload maps.

I successfully captured the vision I had imagined for the environment… Well, for the most part. The vast desert plains stretch on for miles without another building in sight and the environment has a subtle purple tinge in the fog and shadows. Had I dedicated more time to the visuals I may have been able to add more details and shapes that make the compositions more interesting and less boxy or rectangular.

I planned the project and started with a solid concept, design, and workflow schedule. By putting my thoughts on paper in a concise preproduction document I was able to formalize my concepts, goals, and work schedule. In writing a production schedule I created self-imposed deadlines that I think helped give me general guidance and focus during the production and a better idea of how much time certain tasks may take in the future.

What did I learn from this project?

I can commit more time to my next project. Using limited time effectively and wisely ensures the project reaches the desired quality before the deadline. There was about a week out of the 40 days of production where I really didn’t do much work on the map. As a result the art and gameplay were not at the quality I wanted them to be at when the project ended. I also did not have time to import a custom model for the map, but I did test a basic model at least and will definitely add custom models to future projects.

Test early and frequently making revisions along the way. I did not devote enough time to player testing which would have drastically improved the final product. In my workflow schedule I planned only one day of testing and revisions near the tail end of the production. I ended up testing the map twice which allowed for me to see if my changes made any improvements to the issues players were having problems with but, however beneficial this was, two play tests were not enough. My changes, while significant, only solved part of the problem and a big issue still remained upon release.

Ensure the map contains key entryways accompanied by more tedious or risky alternate routes. I noticed a problem with pacing early on and realized only after the map’s release (after the 40 day trial) how to solve this problem. Like I said, I had solved part of the problem but, as the second play test had revealed, I had not fixed it entirely.

The problems I noticed after the first play test were that the map was too chaotic and wins occurred too quickly and easily. It had no direction and players didn’t focus team efforts in moving the payload. In fact, one player could easily move the payload to the enemy base and capture it (thereby winning the match) while the other players were distracted and busy battling all over the map. The map wasn’t too large necessarily it was just too open and didn’t have a choke point or an area of strong contest. One thing I suspected was causing the problem and had gotten feedback on was the fact that players had no reason to travel through the central building. This was because they could easily circumvent the entire building by traveling around its sides. I attempted to solve this problem by blocking off these sides making it necessary to travel through the building to get to the enemy base on the other side. This proved successful in creating a slightly more linear flow and encouraging players to focus team efforts in moving the payload.

But the map still felt too chaotic and the constant flood of enemies made it difficult for players to defend their base. Some testers suggested making an area in between the spawn and the center building while my friend suggested making the interior of the center building larger so it would allow more time to fight and longer time to push the carts through. I wasn’t too keen about the idea of adding another area in between the spawn and center building. Adding more buildings would mean making the environment look more populated and could change the originally intended tone for the setting but more importantly I just wasn't so sure this would help.

I decided to spend some time away from Sidetracked and review some resources Valve had published some time ago about their development process. It wasn’t until after listening to their developer commentary in TF2 that I had realized what the problem was in Sidetracked.

First, Jim Hughes’ commentary in Gravel Pit confirmed my friend’s suggestion of making the center building larger. Hughes mentions how “the most chaotic combat tends to occur when the size of the room fails to support the number of players fighting in it.” This is certainly true as play testers felt the interior space of the railway station was too confining. I had only made small changes to increase the size but I think it will benefit from the addition of more space still. Hughes also pointed out, “to [avoid this chaos] we built a wide open area with several entrances and gave players a variety of attack and defend options at various heights.” Check. There’s something I had done right in my map—I had created a number of entrances routing players from inside the center building outside to either base.

Enlarging the center building should help reduce chaos but what about outside? Bay Raitt’s commentary in Well helped me realize what I now believe has been the core problem with Sidetracked. He explains,

“Stalemates generally occur around doors where teams have a strong defensive presence on either side. To help counter this we provide alternate routes with high travel costs which become more attractive only when the enemy has strong defenses behind the main route. The number of enemy entry points to an area is crucial to its design since it’s extremely hard to hold an area when enemies approach from multiple fronts.”

That last sentence is what struck me. Key areas in Sidetracked are too difficult to hold because of how many entry points there are. I knew that providing alternate routes was important but I suppose I hadn’t considered the possibility of there being too many. But it’s not only the number of entry points that is the problem, it’s the fact that all the entry points have the same relative cost in travel time, risk, and reward.

The example Raitt mentions is when a map has a highly contested choke point with no alternate routes for flanking. This, he said, results in stalemates (both teams losing). Sidetracked has the opposite problem but with the same principle: matches were being won too quickly because of the lack of strong defensive capabilities and the chaos brought on by too many indistinct routes. The routes all have equal and insignificant costs and are indistinct from one another. So, because there is no main entryway or chokepoint between the center building to either base it is “extremely hard to hold an area when enemies approach from multiple fronts” and at the same pace.

With these revelations I will likely eliminate one of the four entry points on either side of the center building and make at least one of the three remaining routes more time consuming and risky. Doing this will make the other two routes more highly trafficked and will concentrate combat into only a few key areas. This, along with adding more interior space, should reduce chaos, provide for more coordinated and concentrated combat, and hopefully make the map a lot more fun.

I started this project as a way of challenging myself to develop better methods and habits in level design. I’m happy with how the project turned out after 40 days of development but even more excited to apply what I’ve learned in this process to future endeavors.