Accepted Infection - Tower

[Lorjo]

Map Name: Tower
Map Authors: Lorjo
Game Type: Infection
Map worldborder: The walls made of cobble are already the boundaries from the map, you can place the boundaries at those blocks
Download: On create the warp name is "Tower"
Preparation time: 45 seconds
Round time: 6 minutes
Spawn Location: Only one spawn at the bottom of the tower listed by the sign

This map is based off of my favorite Minecraft Classic zombie tag map by the same name "Tower". The unique gameplay of this map is in the vertical aspect. Players must parkour their way to the top in order to survive. The top provides a dirt block with hiding places and convenient ways to escape back down below past hunters. namely the famous glass drop block in the original map.

 

[HKCaper]

Hi Lorjo, I wanted to just post a quick response to your map.

I am glad to see you have submitted a map, and I also want to thank you for your efforts. It is always nice to see new maps being submitted, so it is great you decided to build one.

There are some things I really like in your map. I think it is awesome how the map focusses on parkour to survive, rather than hiding/running for an entire duration. Besides this, the map is an actual parkour map, instead of a map where the "parkour" kills more survivors than the hunters do. The vertical parkour brings a new element to infection, which makes your map stand out. I also think that if you manage to get to the top, without being tagged you have a big chance of wining, which is nice.

I do see some complications. I have been trying out the parkour quite a bit and figured out the following things. From where the redstone parkour begins and upwards I see no problems, however the first halve of the parkour could cause irritations. The parkour is not difficult, but it is not easy either. In addition, if you do mess up on either brick/gold/diamond parkour, you fall down quite a bit. This means that the map heavily favors those, who are good at parkour. Besides, if someone does not like parkour, they would probably dislike the map and decide not to participate/logout. I do have a suggestion. Maybe you could improve the first halve by adding some more security in the form of small platforms or larger platforms as "checkpoint", so it is not as bad if you mess up 1 jump.

I want mention one last thing about the prep/round time on the map. Round time seems good; not to short (so you can parkour), not to long (if you make the parkour up, you have a big shot at winning). I would like to see the prep time be a little bit longer (15 sec is enough), so you can parkour for a bit longer, before you have to parkour with a hunter on your tail.

Once again, I really appreciate you making and submitting this map, and I look forward to hearing what others have to say about it. Keep up the good work :)

 

[Lorjo]

Hi Lorjo, I wanted to just post a quick response to your map.

Let me start off by saying thank you so much for your feedback I appreciate it so much!

Firstly, about the gold and up parkour. I have had feedback from another saying as well that it is hard to catch yourself upon falling and I agree. Upon doing multiple runs of my map I have found the problem mostly to be in the corner jumps of gold and diamond. Thanks to your feedback I have added some small chandeliers under these areas to allow players to catch themselves.

Second, on the prep time. I have found after multiple runs that it takes a little over one minute to get beyond the redstone parkour and about 1:40-2 minutes to get to the dirt block. I wanted the map to start before anyone can reach the top as the classic map tower did to prevent zombies camping the top. A lower prep time forces zombies to descend in order to catch players before they can keep going. I still feel 45 seconds of prep time is optimal however if I see more feedback on the issue I will certainly up the prep time.

Thank you so much again!

 

[Guest35486]

Hi Lorjo, thanks for the submission!

I've checked the map several times since you've first told me about it in-game and I'm glad to see that you've updated it to improve the gameplay.

Preparation time: 45 seconds

The preparation time is fine in my opinion. It allows people to scatter around the map instead of just waiting at the top.

The unique gameplay of this map is in the vertical aspect. Players must parkour their way to the top in order to survive. The top provides a dirt block with hiding places and convenient ways to escape back down below past hunters. namely the famous glass drop block in the original map.

I understand that this is your intention, but I would like to bring up my concerns:

Likes others have mentioned, it takes around 1 minute and 30 seconds to get to the top. This is ignoring the possibility of failed jumps. If all the Survivors make it to the top and a Hunter who is not great at parkour gets chosen, it will be boring for the Survivors and frustrating for the Hunter. Since the map is so segregated, it is hard for a Hunter to catch up to Survivors at the top if they've fallen, especially in the lowest section.

I suggest adding jump pads to allow people to quickly skip sections, as well as modifying the parkour. Now, I would like to state that I know that this is not your intention. However, this map seems more like a race, rather than a tag-like Infection map. I'm sure it worked in classic, mostly because there were a lot of players. However, AoD does not have that many people online most of the time. This suggestion will still keep the map a parkour map, since individuals can still utilize the parkour course, but will prevent Hunters' frustration of having to climb all the way up again. Instead of the focus being getting to the top to distance yourself from the Hunter(s), it will be navigating a parkour course to hopefully get rid of the Hunter(s).


My second concern is this part of the map:

Spoiler: Screenshot

Ladders and water are annoying, just simply because it takes so long to climb/swim through them. This part seems like it's made simply to stall other players. It also seems relatively empty and boring.

I have several suggestions for this portion of the map. Add additional path ways on the sides, along the walls, etc. Change them into platforms with jump pads if you rather have a break from straight-forward parkour courses.


Again, thanks for the map submission. Feel free to disagree, correct me, or ask me any questions.

 

[Lorjo]

Hi Lorjo, thanks for the submission!

I've checked the map several times since you've first told me about it in-game and I'm glad to see that you've updated it to improve the gameplay.

Let me start off again by saying thank you so much for the feedback I really appreciate it and take it into account.

Firstly about the parkour, after doing a few more runs and failing the parkour on purpose I can see some frustration for those not at good as parkour as some players, and I agree this could be a concern if the hunter selected is not as skilled at the parkour. I thought of ways still giving the advantage to those who parkour but tried to find a way those less skilled can skip the majority of it. I have now added a jump pad at the top of the ladder above spawn. Players will only need to complete one level of small parkour (around 3 blocks of jumps) to get to the ladder, once at the top the jump pad will skip them up to the diamond layer. I feel this should even the odds enough.

Secondly about the ladders and water, I hated both of these parts of he map but I was building late at night and didn't really take into account how to fix them. Thanks to your feedback I have replaced the ladders AND the water with jump pads for a smoother transition of levels.

Again thanks so much for the feedback I appreciate it so much :)

 

[Guest35486]

Hi Lorjo, thanks for making some changes!

I have now added a jump pad at the top of the ladder above spawn. Players will only need to complete one level of small parkour (around 3 blocks of jumps) to get to the ladder, once at the top the jump pad will skip them up to the diamond layer. I feel this should even the odds enough.

Here's the jump pad:

Spoiler

And here's the part you can reach:

Spoiler

Now, here are my concerns:
1) 1x1 jump pads and holes are generally a bad idea. People can easily miss or get stuck on them. Having a 1x1 hole is not ideal since people can easily miss it, hit a block, and fall down. As shown in the picture, you have to jump to get to the jump pad, meaning that the player cannot center themselves to directly launch them through the hole. Make both the jump pad and the hole bigger.
2) Currently, the parkour doesn't seem to fit well with the jump pads/ladders. I know that they were added later on, but I feel like you need to adjust the course due to the addition. Though it does feel a little cramped, perhaps expanding the map would help?

 

[Lorjo]

Hi Lorjo, thanks for making some changes!

Here's the jump pad:

Spoiler

And here's the part you can reach:

Spoiler

Now, here are my concerns:
1) 1x1 jump pads and holes are generally a bad idea. People can easily miss or get stuck on them. Having a 1x1 hole is not ideal since people can easily miss it, hit a block, and fall down. As shown in the picture, you have to jump to get to the jump pad, meaning that the player cannot center themselves to directly launch them through the hole. Make both the jump pad and the hole bigger.
2) Currently, the parkour doesn't seem to fit well with the jump pads/ladders. I know that they were added later on, but I feel like you need to adjust the course due to the addition. Though it does feel a little cramped, perhaps expanding the map would help?

I've now redone the ladders a bit to make it more open, you can now walk into the jump and I have widened the gap of the diamond level to make it easier landing, in doing so I also redid the parkour slightly to make sure players won't fall by mistakes, I also touched up some parts of the map that there were slight mistakes like mismatched stone levels

Thanks for the feedback

 

[Comp]

Thanks for making these changes that Arelic and Hk have given feedback on.
Having a look around the map, the game play doesn't seem to bad - its certainly different to what we currently have, but I don't seen any harm in giving it a try. If players don't really like the map then it could always be removed.

The only issue I have with the map right now is I think the blocks you've used makes it look a little ugly? I can't say I'm exactly a great builder myself, so I can't really give any good advice on what to change to make it look a bit nicer, but can I ask that you head over to create and ask some people Specialist+ if they would give you some tips on what blocks to change to make it look better? I don't think you need to change the parkour, I think a few block variation changes would help, and this will be pretty easy if you select the map with world edit and just do a //replace.

I'll decide on the map after you've had an experiment with some different block types anyway, sorry to keep you waiting

 

[Lorjo]

Thanks for making these changes that Arelic and Hk have given feedback on.
Having a look around the map, the game play doesn't seem to bad - its certainly different to what we currently have, but I don't seen any harm in giving it a try. If players don't really like the map then it could always be removed.

The only issue I have with the map right now is I think the blocks you've used makes it look a little ugly? I can't say I'm exactly a great builder myself, so I can't really give any good advice on what to change to make it look a bit nicer, but can I ask that you head over to create and ask some people Specialist+ if they would give you some tips on what blocks to change to make it look better? I don't think you need to change the parkour, I think a few block variation changes would help, and this will be pretty easy if you select the map with world edit and just do a //replace.

I'll decide on the map after you've had an experiment with some different block types anyway, sorry to keep you waiting

Asked zelz for help on block choices he suggested a wood theme, after experimenting with different types I decided a light to dark wood theme should do for the first tower and some logs for the stone brick tower, should look more in sync now.

 

[Comp]

Ok thanks for editing the blocks - it looks a lot nicer now. As I said in my previous post, its different to the maps we currently have, but the best way to see how it will work is to simply give it a try on the server.
So, the map is currently in rotation, let me know if there were any issues after importing it
-Accepted