let me give MY two cents to everyone here and then some. also hi I'm the creator if it wasn't known. I'm gonna also air out my grievances with the broader JB community and Panda not in a rude way, just the things that irk me in general. I'll acknowledge when I'm wrong, and defend myself when I think I'm in the right or at least not in the wrong.
1. You guys are absolutely blind and are unwilling and unable to figure things out for yourselves. I've shown multiple times where the other armory button is and it's just outside the MCA on the catwalk that goes along the perimeter. There are plenty of other maps that have random and esoteric entrances into armory that people figured out and learned themselves. This is not a valid criticism. A valid criticism would be saying that it needs to be even more obvious, but the method to get in isn't exactly complex. A high risk high reward scenario or a low risk medium reward scenario.
2. Valid, this did not come up during the hours of playtesting we did (one of which I wasn't even in the country for)
3. Ditto ^
4. Completely invalid criticism. This is a stylistic and functional choice that is this way due to the limits of the Source engine. Simultaneously, this is also to prevent people from sneaking through the sides of doors. I put the aesthetic of the map at a higher priority compared to some other mappers, and that resulted in some decisions like this. I wouldn't have done it like this now, but it's not really that big of a deal, y'know?
5. Semi told me this could be fixable serverside, but he hasn't done that yet. It's not his fault, and I'm not sure how this was missed during playtesting. See my final statement at the end of this essay for why this and everything else wasn't fixed.
1. Thanks, and I somewhat agree. However there are many other maps that have minigames this spread apart, there's just more of them. Density is what matters here, and I should add more minigames. Again, see the final statement for why I haven't.
2. As I mentioned in the first response on the last post, there are literally two ways. I've shown them every time I've been on the map and you guys are still incapable of figuring things out for yourself like has been done on like 50% of the jailbreak maps made pre-2018 or so. They all have stupid ass spots for their "armory open" buttons or breakables that wouldn't be noticeable by your layman player, much like the one in my map. Boot up the map solo, look around, experiment, and learn as everyone else has done with every other jailbreak map in history. They didn't complain about it because the people who figured out the original secrets are like 35 now and that knowledge has been spread down through the "generations" of players. Those original secret finders were cool with dissecting maps and discovering SECRETS because they're supposed to be SECRET. Not every map needs to have a dozen green glowing arrows pointing to a breakable or armory button to make it a viable secret. That's the whole point.
Thank you. We need more brilliant minds like yourself.
See the final statement, thanks for the compliments by the way, glad you enjoyed the concept, which is the most important part for me. I loathe box and maze maps, they might be "more intuitive" for gameplay but introduce absolutely nothing new to this dying genre of mapmaking.
It really isn't that hard, I could nerf it further but I've seen people die at parts that they are just way over-complicating, like the first wall wraps on stage 1. You don't even have to wall wrap, just go to the edge and jump to the next platform. Also yeah, the textures are weird and, again, see the final statement as to why this isn't as "fixable" as I want it to be.
Totally agree.
That door was one of the first doors added in the map. You can't add slanted doors to my knowledge in Source 1. Please don't fabricate mapmaking experience to pass judgement on something you know nothing about. This has nothing to do with laziness and is such a dumb critique. Also, wow, who would've thought a random medium-chance event with fog would make moving around and finding things..DIFFICULT?? Also also yeah some of the minigames not being stoppable is an issue and see the final statement for why I cant fix that.
Do not pass your relative inexperience (at least at that time) as a mapmaker and compare my map that is building upon, at the time, 4 years of hammer experience to your first, flawed map. I wouldn't do the same to you. I do agree with the complexity, some minigames fall into the sunk-cost fallacy range where I think the map would be better without them...but can yall just learn the damn map? You guys complain so much about a map you don't know anything about because you don't play it. Admittedly, the map isn't fantastic, so that doesn't help with player retention and playtime, but you have to learn the map to learn the games like literally any other map. Your Mario Galaxy map would be confusing as all hell to me because, for one, I've never played the series, and two, I don't immediately know how every individual minigame works besides the mainstays. The bossfights, unique vscript minigames, etc, all need to be learned. That is how jailbreak has operated since it was first created; walking into a map knowing every minigame is utterly boring and a waste of mapping time in my opinion. Also see my earlier statement about minigame distance where it's less about the travel time and more about density, etc. Also, again, it's confusing because you need to learn it, yada yada.
Final statement:
Yes, I know the map is imperfect. Yes, I know it's clunky and has issues. Yes, it's frustrating. But, guess what? A lot of this would be fixed if I could trust Kevin to update the map when I pushed an update. I came as a refugee when SG Gaming imploded like 2 or 3 years ago. Despite the community getting a little weird at the end, when I updated a map made for that server, a hotfix or update would get pushed within a day or two, sometimes within hours. I could have a lot of these issues fixed within weeks. I could have a lot of requests fulfilled and minigames added. I could fix most of the bugs and make the map way more fun. But, the fact of the matter is, I can't. Especially knowing that it will be between 6-8 months between updates, so I can't do real-environment playtesting with you all to push hotfixes. Until this impass is resolved, this map will not be updated further. This is not an ultimatum, because I hardly doubt Kevin will care about my gripes, but this is just how it is. I'm not passing blame on to Kevin or any other staff here at Panda, only expressing my annoyance with the speed at which updates are pushed and how I am physically unable to do real-environment playtesting to fix these annoying little bugs and issues.
With that being said, I condone the deletion of this map. While I believe it is a genuinely good map, it is highly flawed, much like most of my maps (well maybe the others aren't good per se, but I don't think they're awful). But please, for my sake and for the sake of future mappers (especially solo mappers) in this genre, please, for the love of god, actually learn the damn maps youre playing on. Stop asking to be handheld through the process of finding all the secrets and learning the minigames. Actually play the maps and quit complaining about "X is too confusing" or "Y doesn't make any sense and it scares me." Just play the map and all of your questions and concerned will be answered. Or, you know, join the discord, @ me with your question, and I'll respond. I have about 50 other passions and projects I involve myself with on a yearly basis, and mapmaking is not one I spend a lot of time on, so I can't just walk everyone through the process anytime you get stuck (but I will be happy to help you over dms or text chat).
Thanks for listening to me ramble. Let me know if you all have any other questions.
