Kappak (Version 2c)

[Shade Guy]

Apologies for not being specific about the weapons, in the future I might be able to point some specific things out.

With the death pits in Gurgu Volcano, the reason deaths are so common is more about...I'm not sure how to explain it, but it's like people don't realise if they jump down this ledge, they will lose a frag. Often with stuff like this it helps to make it more obvious that there's nothing down there. For example, you could put more 'railings', not like Tomahawk fences, but more like the edges to Heat Man's stage, just 32 unit blocks along the edges of the stage so people don't accidentally fall off mid-battle. And I guess some more Beat spawns would help, too.

Also, the lava section where the ETank is in the same map; after jumping in to grab it, I was very hesitant to try and jump out, since to me it felt like if I tried to jump back onto land I would die. It took me a while to notice the lower part of the rocks which were safer to jump to. Same thing happened to Korby, who was circling the rocky island trying to figure out how to get off. Similar to the other issue, making it more obvious that this jump is possible would help a lot.

[Kapus]

Alright, I'll remember that.

Thanks for the feedback and such.

[Gummywormz]

Software is allergic to your skyboxes.

[Kapus]

Thank you, Gummy, but everyone else already posted that issue.

[MusashiAA]

-My song for Gurgu Volcano doesn't seem to properly loop. Why didn't you tell me?. Also, why didn't you tell me to make a FF1 boss music remix for KAP01?

Doesn't loop properly? I thought the looping was okay.

Yeah, it appears using wav songs instead of ogg songs doesn't make the loop perfect. This also happens in Wood Man's Revenge as well. So I should find a way to convert those songs into ogg

[Korby]

I have a few problems with the volcano map. Most notably the lava right in front of the Proto Upgrade. I want to go into the center of the building, dagnabbit  

[Tesseractal]

Well, Kapus, you seem to have demonstrated interest in improving these maps, so I'll share some thoughts.

Here's some incidental music.

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Message brought to you by The Royal Court~

KAP01: This map suffers from the old "FPS problem". When making jumps, if the platform you're jumping to is too far below your FOV, you can't reliably make the jump and you die. The most egregious case is the Crystal Eye spawn - you can't make the jump UNLESS you jump down first, to a platform you can't see if you're on the move. Which is counter-intuitive, so most of us went for the jump and fell in the lava. Note as the creator of the map you wouldn't have this problem, as you'd be aware of all the "blind spots", but these blind jumps frustrated the lot of us greatly. The interior section seems to have improved a bit in complexity, which is nice. My main issue is the Proto Buster spawn - all this traversing to get an item, and then you have to... turn around?

As for weapons - considering this map as a "wide open" map, you did good by remembering to include critical Blizzard and Magnets. However, some of the weapons placed fall flat because of the setting - Cutter doesn't have a lot of walls to bounce off; Slash Claw doesn't have any close quarters to ambush people. Tomahawk and Snakes are great additional long-range weapons that could be added here (Shadow and Yamato take care of the close-range weapons quite nicely). The main issue though is that MagKnuckles generally outclass anything from sheer usefulness - or BlizKnuckles, BassKnuckles, etc. and because of the map size, you might want to reconsider having both in the map. My personal favorite solution to both the above problems - drop the Buster upgrades in favor of Super Adaptor. With Super Adaptor in the Proto spawn, you can immediately equip it and make the jump down the waterfall. It'd help with the rampant blind falls, and help people get around the map faster in general. Because the inner-area is lava, Beat doesn't really help much. Both Beat and the Item-1 are too sparse to really see use; more of them could also work if you don't want to go for the Super Adaptor. I say go for the Adaptor Upgrade, and I'm certain Chinchilla would agree.  

KAP02: Loop's a tad off. it also isn't the awesome Rockman Exile version Anyway, the immediate gripe I have is actually the severe lack of power weapons. Really, there's not much to get the match going. On my game here, I won most of my frags with Power Stone... a bit of an odd choice for the "star" weapon. The only "rapid fire" weapon here is Yamato, and that's quite out of the way and limited in ammo, so you're left with a bunch of slower weapons. P-Stone, Charge, and Tomahawk don't compliment the others real well as they're all 3HKOs. Snakes are a good low-tier weapon, Magnets are surprisingly ineffective, but because of the mutilations, Wind Storm and Wild Coil are largely useless. This map screams for a high power weapon like Shadow or Quick that's not too far out of the way to speed up matches.  As for possible weapon additions? A "bomb" weapon would certainly help here, take your pick. Speaking of the Wild Coil area, it seems a tad barren, naked, and yet also cramped - when you spawn from the teleporter, there's almost no room at the platforms you have. Rather than leaving that area as a giant gorge, you could add some "mountains" into it to spice it up. Or at the least, lengthen the platforms up at the top so you're not inclined to tip-toe around them so much.

KAP03: For Thunder Bolt and Drill Bomb, two lackluster weapons, going up a mountain of stairs is a bit much. Weapon diversity seems a bit lacking here, something boomerangs / shields / bombs could fix up. (For clarification, Drill Bomb does not count as a bomb weapon! The splash damage isn't high enough per clip to be of any use! Anyway.) This map is on the verge of being too large, as it seems each large open area's entry/exits seem to point away from each other, almost to the point of confusion. In a way, it almost relies a bit on Super Adaptor too much. I suppose with 3D floors it'd be possible to make corridors to help connect it a bit more... I'm unsure how to respond to the item-placement.

KAP04: As with above, the value of Drill Bomb is a bit overplayed here. I also find Freeze / Crystal one of the most redundant weapon choices imaginable here. Ring seems to outclass the majority of the "ground" weapons so try going for some diversity like shield or bomb weapons (see above comment about Drill). Water Wave, Thunder Beam would possibly fill an interesting niche here.

KAP05: Treble is a bit strong to be in the center there (particularly on Ken's servers), and symmetrical E-Tanks is a bit much, so kill two stones with one roc by moving Treble to one of the E-Tank Spawns. (Blame V2C for Treble's insane power, which rivals Cossack Buster. I need to remind Chinchilla to remove them from the CTF maps) Ring Boomerang outperforms most of the weapons here as well.

"UNKNOWN MIDDLE TEXTURE "CANSKY" ON THE FIRST SIDE OF LINEDEF 1335
etc.
etc.

Loading KAP06...

This map actually has the opposite problem of 01! In the outer "Wind Storm" area, the majority of that area I did not go to because I assumed it's a death pit. That's right, it was actually so low I couldn't see it, and didn't go down there (only after Korby's leap of faith did I venture down). The fence surrounding Tomahawk seems unnecessary. I'd be careful about Eddie in this map, as it allows for potential WindHolding. Yikes.

KAP07: This seems like something out of one of my less-malevolent nightmares. Main gripe: Having to bounce on springs multiple times to gain height is downright cruel. What happens is that while you're boinging, someone else sees you and stunlocks you with Drill Bomb. Now you respawn and you have to go get weapons again, which is... difficult. Given the size of the map areas, the only weapons that were useful to me were Ring Boomerang and Crystal Eye. So after I respawn, I could spend a huge chunk of time just going for those weapons. Sure, weapons like Needle/Thunder/Air etc. were there to "tide me over", but didn't provide a whole lot in the long run. (Drill Bomb's great in the short run!) Adding any number of weapons here would be a plus, but I'm thinking more of the long range ones that we saw in KAP01: magnets, Blizzard, "Yamato", etc. so I don't feel like I'm wading through a bunch of weapons that are mediocre for this map's size. This map is incredibly purple. The tango rush spawn is an "awkward" stair case area that you could easily replace with a Burst Bubble (or springs, if you like those. But don't make me jump off them twice!)

[Jc494]

I'm not sure if anyone said this or if you've done it already, but if you raise the Skybox view point actor by a little (10 or 20 is good) it would fix your skybox problem. If this has already been said, or you have already done it, forgive me.

[Kapus]

Thank you for the extensive review, Roc. You have raised a lot of good points!

And thanks to everyone else who took the time to play around with this pack and provide feedback. You have given me lots of insight, and I take all your points into consideration.


I thought I'd take a break from mapping after this, but looks like I still have more work to do!

[Kapus]

Done fixing up KAP01

Change log:

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Water Wave moved to Slash Claw's spot. Water Wave's original spawn replaced with Search Snake
 Crystal Eye and Proto Upgrade rooms now connect
 Rolling Cutter replaced with Silver Tomahawk
 Made it easier to get back from the E Tank platform
 Added some 32 height railings to block off some cliffs
 Hard Knuckle replaced with Super Adapter
 Software Skybox problem fixed

Just need to fix up the music, then I can move on to the next map.

[Jakeinator]

Can you please make a second download for mediafire? My computer doesn't like sendspace for some odd reason... .

[Kapus]

Version 2b released.

I think I was able to address all of the problems up to this point. File is uploaded to Mediafire this time instead of Sendspace.

[Kapus]

Version 2c released.

I'm bad for having to update this again within a week.

[Shade Guy]

Psh, that's nothing. Remember the release of MM8BDM version 2A? Released 2B a day after.

Hopefully I might be able to conduct some further research into these maps and suggest things accordingly.

[Kapus]

Hi, guys.

Working on the MM8 expansion has given me lots of mapping practice and experience. Since I'm done all my MM8 work now, I figured I'd go back and try and make kappak less of a crappak. My good friend Lakister, who assisted me in my MM8 maps, offered to help fix up the Kappak. Together we will be fixing up old maps as well as making brand new ones.
This new version of Kappak will be called Lakapack, as it is a team project by Kapus and Lakister.




We are just about finished work on KAP02. Here are some screenshots of the updated map.

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I will post screenshots and progress of the other maps as they come along. Stay tuned!