RD asteroid

Bakscratch

Finisher of Maps
aa
Oct 29, 2010
714
1,492
rd_asteroid feedback

So, i'm posting a thread up for each new Valve map, please leave feedback here.

Valve, if your looking at this please check out http://feedback.tf2maps.net/map/rd_asteroid/ for feedback left by people when on our servers, you can download a .vmf with all the feedback including the locations of where people were standing looking at when placing the feedback. Paste special them over the map's .vmf or something.
 
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obsidiian

L1: Registered
Jul 6, 2013
40
5
It's pretty difficult to find your way around but fun once you get the hang of it. Some stairs need clipping.
 

Doktor Richter

L3: Member
Feb 13, 2014
115
89
It's got a sort of "2fort" feel: long narrow paths, relatively little "neutral" space, and intel hidden in a labyrinth. The gamemode doesn't seem to work too well with less people, either. The concept seems really fun, though.
 
Mar 23, 2010
1,872
1,696
I loved almost 100% of it. The vents are really hard to get out of and its your only viable way out when stealing points. i was surprised to see me not spending most my time walking because of how giant it is. I found people just kind of appeared behind me even at B but I probably missed something.

add a ramp up from the lower bridge at mid plz
 

Harribo

aa
Nov 1, 2009
871
851
So, i'm posting a thread up for each new Valve map, please leave feedback here.

Valve, if your looking at this please check out http://feedback.tf2maps.net/map/rd_asteroid/ for feedback left by people when on our servers, you can download a .vmf with all the feedback including the locations of where people were standing looking at when placing the feedback. Paste special them over the map's .vmf or something.
 

xzzy

aa
Jan 30, 2010
815
531
The underground route is a little weird.

It feels like you're on another map it's such a long run.

Pretty much everyone is bitching nonstop about it but I see potential. The game mode is better than CTF, the map does make sense it's just easy to get lost because there's only that one dev texture.

It feels like they're really trying to go overboard on the route options to avoid any 2fort problems, I played for 30 minutes before realizing there was an underwater path. This isn't a bad thing, it's just a thing.

The floating debris is a neat effect that should be fun to include in maps. Hopefully they play around with low gravity on the map too.
 

Idolon

they/them
aa
Feb 7, 2008
2,105
6,106
My biggest issue with the map is that it's really big. I almost never had more than one other person with me, and I hardly ever saw more than one enemy at a time. People are so spread out that it feels hard to do anything teamwork-wise.
 

puxorb

L69: Emoticon
aa
Dec 15, 2013
531
798
It took me 10 minutes by myself trying to figure out what the hell the objective even was. Also, the announcer says something at the beginning about collecting energy things, but its so long and hard to remember...the whole gamemode just seems over complicated. I get that we have to destroy enemy robots to get points, but at one point there was an intel in the map. I got it and had no idea what to do with it, I brought it to my base but nothing happened. I have now been playing the map for about 20 minutes by myself and still have not seen the intel once. Where did it go? Under what conditions does it spawn? What does it even do when it spawns? I literally have no idea.

But despite the criticisms I have, this was really fun to play on with a bunch of people, I'm hoping to see some things either changed or made more obvious, because playing for points is something unique to TF2, and I'm sure custom maps will take this new mechanic and come up with new uses for it.
 

Turbo Lover

Fight me under Glasgow Central Station
aa
Feb 15, 2011
333
344
Disclaimer: This feedback is based on preliminary opinions formed from only a handful of rounds played, it is subject to change.

The map that houses the new gamemode is probably the weakest aspect of Asteroid, as Idolon said, it's huge and teams are spread very thin - there's not a lot of team co-ordination present. The built-in teleporter featured in each team's spawn seems to be a stopgap solution to long travel times, but once setup ends, this teleporter only exacerbates the spreading out of the teams by staggering their arrivals to mid. Additionally, by taking the teleporter, you skip over the interior of your base where the enemy team should be attacking robots and gaining points. As for mid, it could best be described as "Space 2Fort" from the battlements that lead to a raised area with access to the other team's battlements and the lower area leading into the enemy base via long tunnels, it's very dull.

The first thing that needs to be changed is that teleporter, it either needs to go or lead elsewhere in the base - it could possibly change destination depending on how far the enemy has pushed in to your base, spawn near B if the enemy have capped A, etc. If the teleporter were to be removed, then the spawns would need to moved up, closer to the mid.

The gamemode itself, on the other hand, has a lot of potential, I feel. On one of the rounds I played, both teams had about 280 points and it could go either way, and it came down to deciding between pushing hard into their base to try and score the last few points we needed or sneaking into their vault and taking their points as a means to halt their progress. That kind of prioritisation of objectives has a real draw to it that can lead to interesting gameplay. However, the robots themselves are kinda lame, shooting jerky windup toys isn't very fun or challenging or glamourous and the real fun is in trying to rob the other team of their points.

There were a few ideas kicking around in chat about what setup would make the gamemode more fun and less of a snorefest. Setting the points up in a Gravelpit configuration would reduce the size of the map, leading to less team spread. An Attack/Defend setup was also discussed, one team defends the robots while another tries to set up a reactor, which would also eliminate the problem of teams not grouping up to work towards the objective but I have no idea how the point robbing mechanic would work in this setup and it'd need to be wary of creating chokes that end up being spamfests. Else it's just a matter of time before the robots are destroyed and the defenders fall back, even when the attackers never broke the other team's hold on the area.

I definitely had fun with this gamemode and I'm looking forward to playing more, and we'll see how these assessments stack up after a few more rounds.
 

Fantaboi

Gone and one day forgotten
aa
Mar 11, 2013
892
1,050
I'm going to try and run this as much as possible on the Australian server: 27.50.72.254:27055
Enjoy.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
My initial impression was... it's like a cross between CTF and DOTA? I guess? I don't know much about DOTA other than you apparently spend a lot of time killing AI mobs, it's a long-ass way from your home base to the enemy's, and the matches last forever, both of which are accurate descriptions of this map. I figure it was only a matter of time before Valve tried to stick a DOTA mode into TF2, and I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't go all the way with it. I don't know what going all the way would look like, but I know this ain't it.

And yeah, puxorb is right; I have no clue what the goal is other than shoot the little CL4P-TPs in the enemy base and then the HUD goes ding when there's stuff. Nor do I understand why a gamemode this complicated needs to exist. I've seen my share of community maps that tried to do custom gamemodes, all of which have gone over like a lead balloon except for CSF (and even that has yet to get attached to a map that makes it past alpha), and this puts most of them to shame in terms of both complexity and randomness. Here is what I think the objective is after playing it twice: Destroy the robots, collect their thingies, when you reach a certain amount, you can go in and steal the enemy's big thingy and take it back to your base. There are three big thingies per team, and whoever gets all three of the enemy's first wins. How far off-base I am should give you a good impression of how impenetrable and confusing this map is. It doesn't help that there's something wrong with the announcer lines, which I noted in the feedback as being way too quiet for some reason.

As far as the map layout itself, there are three impressions I came away with: One, it's too damn big. Like, how-can-Valve-have-not-noticed-this too damn big. To put it another way, if you need to put teleporters in your map, it is too damn big. Even accounting for the amount of space that you supposedly need for all the robots, and personally I only ever encountered them in that one small room you arrive in first. When there were no robots there, I didn't know where to go to find them. Which brings me to point two: It's too damn complicated. The route in and out of the room with the big thingy in feels like an intentional joke, and I've managed to get completely turned around a couple times on my way into the enemy base. Is there even a route out from spawn that doesn't involve the teleporter? I have yet to find one! And thirdly: Why are there laser beams? Why not just put a window there? Or better yet, nothing at all because there's no good reason why getting to the big thingy should involve such a long, winding path.

Can I just be blunt here? If somebody posted this map on our site, I'd say it was ambitious, but rubbish, and recommend starting over or at the very least completely reworking both the gamemode and the layout. Or more likely I wouldn't say anything and all and hope they'd go away, like the Finalway guy. I seriously have a hard time believing Valve actually made this, and I'm worried for the future of TF2 if this is what they were hoping would be the Next Big Thing. Then again, maybe that's why they're doing a beta test. They knew there were problems and didn't want to release it to the public before they'd had a chance to weigh in.
 

Pocket

Half a Lambert is better than one.
aa
Nov 14, 2009
4,694
2,579
Valve's so two thousand and late.
 

Freyja

aa
Jul 31, 2009
2,994
5,813
My initial impression was... it's like a cross between CTF and DOTA? I guess? I don't know much about DOTA other than you apparently spend a lot of time killing AI mobs, it's a long-ass way from your home base to the enemy's, and the matches last forever, both of which are accurate descriptions of this map. I figure it was only a matter of time before Valve tried to stick a DOTA mode into TF2, and I'm kind of disappointed that they didn't go all the way with it. I don't know what going all the way would look like, but I know this ain't it.

It is nothing like DOTA. Forget this comparison now, because you're only making me angry with it. The only similarity is that the robots could kind of be like creeps, but even that's a huge stretch.

That said, I feel a lot of your criticisms of the gamemode (not the map) are misplaced. Learning a new gamemode is always going to take a while - and a gamemode being complicated, and thus taking a little longer to learn isn't by default a bad thing. SD confused the heck out of me for a while too, and so did MVM even.

I think the biggest source of confusion that IS unnecessary is the A->B->C mechanic of the bots. I'm not really sure what the point is, as it seems to only slow down the game by preventing robots that are worth more from being killed. Which consequently leads to counter-acting what I think the mode is for, which is removing the ability for the defenders to camp a single place. I'm not really sure how to solve it, perhaps gravelpit style would make more sense. But I feel that simply making the deeper bots have more health would serve a similar function while still rewarding players that successfully evade defenses.
 

puxorb

L69: Emoticon
aa
Dec 15, 2013
531
798
Alright. So I played it again last night for about 90 minutes, and I can say that once you figure out how the gamemode works, its a lot of fun! But I still do have some complaints:

It isn't obvious enough what the objective is, or what anything really does.

For instance, there are 3 waves of robots to attack. One cannot attack B robots until A robots are killed. This is not obvious until you have wasted all your time getting through enemy defenses in order to see the thing that you just busted you ass to get to is invulnerable. When you think about it, is this really necessary? I know as you progressively get closer to their base they give you more energy capsules, but its also hard enough just to get to them, so I think there should not be separate waves of robots. Getting to them in the first place is its own reward.

I understand the point of the intel now but It NEEDS to be more obvious what it does. One voice line at the beginning of a round simply isn't enough. Once people had figured out that we were destroying robots for points (a very simple concept that valve failed to make obvious like other gamemodes), I had to explain to them several times exactly what the intel actually did.

As for the layout of the map, I don't know why anyone would call it small. I think its actually a perfect size, except that the gamemode itself doesn't really allow for much teamwork so everyone is constantly going into different areas alone. (Especially since 50% of people still don't fully understand the gamemode)

So my final thoughts are that this is a very fun map, it just needs a lot of clarification. I like the break from fighting in one single area at a time, like in cp, 5cp koth, or pl. Its a nice idea for getting points to win. Also, defense is very important on this map. My team had no defense and we were absolutely wrecked because of it. And lastly, to anyone who found this not enjoyable, try pairing up with a medic and going into the base. You can really get a lot done.

Hope to see things fixed and improved, its a total blast with 24 people!
 
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