Complete Clocktower V & Valley of Ruin V

Introduction:

Good morning, afternoon, or evening, whatever it may be on your clock. Today, I am here to present two maps that I have worked on for the past few weeks, only showing a couple of people the work in progress of these maps and even the final products. I decided to rework two maps that I figured not a lot of people would think of doing, as they are both currently in rotation. These maps are:

• Clocktower
  • Reworked the original version
• Valley of Ruin
  • Reworked the fourth version

I have decided to list both of these maps as version five, as I'm aware that there is a fourth version for both of these maps.

I'm going to be up-front and say that I didn't necessarily focus on the gameplay aspect of things the entire way through with both of these maps. I mainly built these to get my mind off of things, which then lead into heavy aesthetic designs and taller buildings. However, after taking a couple of glances and factoring in the recent-ish nerfs, I'm hoping everything should be fine, even though a common theme throughout my maps seems to be issues with Ninja having an advantage. I am sure if one nitpicks hard enough, they will find issues with Ninja on at least five points of each map. But, the point is, the maps should be fine from a gameplay standpoint, and I will do whatever is in my power to help fix the gameplay issues the map may have that are major. On the note of fixing issues, I do not want any aesthetic complaints, because I simply don't care what you think in that regard.

Anyway, let's get started, shall we?

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Map #1: Clocktower V (325031)

So, this was the first map that I decided to do and when I got the copy of the map, I had a very vague idea of what I wanted to do -- I wanted to make the map dark and gray, because I feel that in a medieval scheme of things in terms of a clocktower, that is how I imagine it. So, I went with an extremely gray theme with only hints of color to represent the red/blue team. It may not be the best thing to look at, but I quite like it.

Changelog:

• Spawn
  • Completely gutted out
  • Added an elevated area within the room with a design in the back
    • This is the "actual spawn"
  • Changed the doorways going to and from the left and right rooms
  • Added a different light source
  • Changed the outside aesthetics to better fit the theme
• Flag room
  • Completely gutted out
  • Added dark oak pillars to fit the "dark" theme
  • Flag remains in the back with two large arches going into the flag area
  • Edited the two side pathways leading into the flag room to be:
    • Better looking
    • Restricted (in terms of structure placement)
    • More "straight forward"
    • Larger (in both width and height)
  • Slight changes to the width of the building, but nothing major/noticeable
• Clocktower
  • Completely gutted out as well as knocked down
  • Significantly shortened the height
  • Added four ways to go up and down
    • Sponges going up, water going down
  • Area to walk around on once going up
  • The clock reads 3PM (15:00), just in case you were curious
• Surronding buildings
  • Some were completely gutted out, some were just experienced minor edits to fit the theme
  • For those completely gutted out:
    • Started the buildings from scratch
    • Made them connect like the previous buildings
    • Added a Church to fit the "Medieval" theme as well as other buildings
    • A couple of the buildings have entrances connecting to other buildings as well as the area in front and behind them
    • Sponges and ladders were also used for mobility purposes
  • For those tweaked to fit the theme:
    • Aesthetic changes as well as sponges added, ladders added, etc
• Complete removals
  • Fountains, benches, etc. -- to put it simply, it's all buildings and walking space

Screenshots:

Click to view imgur album!

Thank-you('s):

@Krabzz - WorldEdit as well as moral support
@Xelia_ - Map giver

That's all for Clocktower V.

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Map #2: Valley of Ruin V (327582)

This was the second map that I did of the two, and I was quite determined to do two specific things:

• Make the flag room overground
• Make the underground half-decent

I think I succeeded on both of those measures.

This is another highly aesthetic map. As mentioned earlier, I build these maps to get my mind off of things, which means that I focus more on the aesthetics of a map than the gameplay. Of course, I see gameplay as the most important aspect, but considering I'm just building to pass time and I don't mind too much if these get rejected, I'm okay with putting a focus on aesthetics. Anyway, I decided to go with (of course) a ruin-like theme from the start, but adding more structures than the original version as well as the fourth version ever had. Also, if you look at the red-side hill opposite of spawn, I decided to put "Bird" in honor of @Birdgirl, as the map list says she made the original one. If I'm wrong, I apologize, but I know you did at least one of the versions.

Changelog:

• Hills
  • Completely gutted out
  • Made the hills smaller
  • Slabbed the hills for accessibility purposes
• Spawn
  • Completely gutted out
  • Made it more of a "building" rather than a "room in a hill"
    • Note: Some of it is partially in the hill, but that gives it more room and a look I quite like
• Flag room
  • Completely gutted out
  • Attempted to erase all signs of underground usage
  • Made it into an actual building, thus an "overground" flag room
  • Two main entrances as well as a tunnel entrance
    • I will speak more about this tunnel entrance later in the change log
  • Added two ruin-like walls a fair distance before each entrance to stop major headshotting
  • Added an actual flag on top of the building to show "hey, this is the flag room!"
• Tunnel entrance
  • Completely gutted out (it went out with the hill)
  • Made the tunnel reach the flag room to work as a viable entrance
  • Made it look like a "cave/tunnel"
  • Restricted (in terms of structure placement)
    
    • Note about the tunnel entrance: It starts in (roughly) the same location as the previous ones
    • Note about the tunnel entrance (2): There is a good chance that there are messed up vines as shown here. If you encounter some of these, please comment with a screenshot of the messed up vines and its coordinates, this will only be true for the red side of the map
    • Note about the tunnel entrance (3): There is a good chance that one or two of the ores may still be Lapis. If that is the case, please comment with a screenshot of the incorrect ore and its coordinates, this will only be true for the red side of the map

    ​
• Underground
  • Completely gutted out
  • Made it an actual underground that curves and looks like a cave (kind of, at least)
  • Restricted (in terms of structure placement)
  • Added four total entrances, two for each color:
  1. Next to spawn
  2. Across the river, next to the red/blue connected building with the walkway

  ​
  • Lapis ore to represent blue, Redstone ore to represent red
    
    • Note about the underground: There is a good chance that there are messed up vines as shown here. If you encounter some of these, please comment with a screenshot of the messed up vines and its coordinates, this will only be true for the red side of the map
    • Note about the underground (2): There is a good chance that one or two of the ores may still be Lapis. If that is the case, please comment with a screenshot of the incorrect ore and its coordinates, this will only be true for the red side of the map

    ​
• Surrounding structures
  • Added a lot of surrounding structures
    • Bridges, buildings, custom trees, etc.
  • Added a gravel/cobblestone pattern on the floor
  • Added grass on the floor
  • Added bushes along some of the trees for Archer coverage
• River
  • Completely gutted out
  • Re-did the entire river
  • Added lily-pads and bridges for mobility purposes

Screenshots:

Click to view imgur album!

Thank-you('s):

@mh__ - WorldEdit and added the bushes
@Krabzz - Moral support for the first two seconds of the maps creation
@Xelia_ - Map giver

That's all for Valley of Ruin V.

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Conclusion:

I'm looking for as much feedback as possible on both of these maps, as I'd like to see at least one of them get into rotation (or, at least tested,) even if it's rather unlikely. I'm looking for gameplay feedback only. If you have any questions about the map, please feel free to ask.

ID's:

• Clocktower V
  • 325031
• Valley of Ruin V
  • 327582

Thank you.

 

ok just to make this clear - clocktower is meant to look dull. that's what i was going for - ill respond to everything else later

The point of Clocktower is to look dull, but I might edit the floor and play around with things like @sportyman56 said

I have plans for maps that aren't stone brick/stone based in the future, I just felt like those blocks were best suited for these maps. But, don't worry, I'll be changing it up more in the future ^^

I appreciate the feedback, let's start with Valley of Ruin:

I'm not too worried about flag shooting, as at this point it is at least a little bit more difficult, and, with a flag room with three entrances/exits, I think it's okay to have a couple of harder places to headshot. However, if they're directly out in the open, I'm more than willing to fix it.

My problem with sponges is that it fixes a problem, but it starts another problem in return. The sponges may stop Soldier from being OP, but, they give Archer a whole separate playing field. I'd rather have to deal with the annoyance of Soldier, which has a cooldown (though, it may not matter in some or even most case scenarios,) than deal with Archer, which is practically unstoppable until they run out of two stacks of arrows. This is why I generally avoid the use of sponges to get onto taller buildings, completely due to one class and one class only. I'd love to help Soldier from not being so OP on this map, but I don't want to go back to the original's issue of Archer being OP, because in my opinion it's way worse to deal with Archers. However, I completely understand what you're saying in that Soldier is now slightly OP and due to the way the class was created, that's slightly out of my control. The way I thought about this, however, is through hard counters. Not the best way to go about this, but it's the only way it'll work through the maps design. In the Archer spots left, the Archer headshots the Soldier (hard counter) and the Ninjas would do as much damage as possible, and even a recovery Pyro. If you have another suggestion besides sponges, or have a place where the sponge won't completely ruin gameplay (Archer,) please tell me.

I could raise the valley by three blocks or so, I'll wait for other people on that though.

Clocktower V:

I understand the Dwarf OPness and a back entrance is completely possible, but I'll wait for more thoughts on that before I make any changes.

I can add more sponges since there are already ways up and down the buildings.

Barriers in the main routes could do, I'll wait for more thoughts on that.

I'll definitely add more texture to the paths, however, directed to everyone here, the map is going to remain having a dull feel, that's just what I was going for. So, the paths might have more texture, but the actual map is going to still feel dull, dark, and extremely gray.

Thank you for the feedback, @sportyman56

I'm glad you like Valley of Ruin V

So, let's talk about Clocktower V then.

I'm well aware the map is dull, as that's sort of the point. I will play around with floor textures, though.

The map I believed is shortened by like, three blocks (it's just how I went about the middle when creating this.) If people want it shorter, I could maybe try to make it shorter since there is some room between things, but that would be a lot of playing around and a lot of people would have to agree with this. However, I don't want to say it's defense OP because once you're out, there's a lot of room for Soldier to do damage, Medic can use its webs to get away from the defenses, Heavy works as a great tank, and Chemist could capture or support. If I add more sponges to get onto the buildings, as @sportyman56 said, that might help balance it out a little bit more.

Thank you for the feedback.

 

@b0squet Consider Valley of Ruin V for the next wave only, chances are unlikely but might as well