Regarding ze_harry_potter (I want your input on this)

Heyo fellow gamuurs!

This is not a troll post as some already thought, but before I start, I do want to make clear that it is not 100% confirmed yet but I am thinking on updating my map.

The last few years people have been asking me to update/fix the map but I didnt either feel like it or I just wanted to play games instead, aside from also learning now programming languages, my agenda was always pretty full! And yes.. I could have been mapping instead of playing but sometimes games are just more fun :)
With that been said...

I have been considering to re-do most of the map entity work and just start "fresh" where I keep all environmental things but most entity work would be re-done as this was basicly made so complex just to fit it all in the map because there is a lot of things going on there, basicly I have been thinking about the following.

-- FIXES/IDEAS/EDITS --
--------------------------------
1: Fix the bugs (obviously)
2: Hopefully!! Try to fix the annoying crash issue on stage 1 ending, which doesnt always happen but yeah
3: Keep environment but redo most entity work for less complex
4: Try fix all the characters so they become use-able, incl. the secret characters, without any powers added
5: Swap from 12 to 6 stages only to reduce playtime, where stage 5 & 6 would take stuff from extreme mode
6: Maybe reduce the amount of wands + reduce level amounts, also make them less OP
7: Rework the final stage fight between Harry & Voldemort, not sure what to do there yet, this was suggested
8: Maybe swap the 'wizard mode stage' with stage 5, because wizard stage seems harder
9: Maybe remove the 'zm stage' as this seems like a bit useless for what it presents, feels like a boring moment
10: Offcourse, I forgot this! But yeah removing the rain aswell this is too much of a FPS killer and totally not required for the map.
11: Fix possible lagg issues with dragon mini stage(s)
12: Checkout bugging items such as Reducio where some zombies do not get scaled back
13: Try and find a way to prevent trolling in the wizard mode, prob. changing the way these items are handled, possible incl. them in entwatch

-- BUGS --
--------------------------------
We played the map yesterday (19/01) & found a few things that need to be looked at & prob. require a fix. I am posting it here so we dont get double reports about it, and so I wont forget it too lol :P

* Troll miniboss possible kills players instantly even after been death
* If possible, rework the Troll moving area so it cannot be glitched true the hallway wall and so it wont target people outside the 'toilet room', but not sure how far I can do this since I prob. have to redo the radar overview for that aswell.
* Removing a few annoying TP for ZM after the spider boss dies, zombies do not need to be TP back, prob. will give a bit more action aswell by doing this
* Deletrius wand seems too OP, since i do not want to remove this wand, im going to check its limits and balance it out
* Collector 'die bug' in wizard mode, this is a weird one, ill do my best to figure this out
* Instead of 1 ZM, prob. going to TP 2 ZM away when Avada is used to make sure the round does not mess up (didnt happen yesterday but this bug can happen)
* Adjust ZM wands to make them a bit more use-able
* Adjust a few hold spots to get more action & make it a bit harder to defeat + having a bit more fighting going on between HM & ZM (not all stages tho but some)
* If possible adjust the respawn time so ZM spawn back faster after been killed
* Then I also saw a few spots where props dont align or where I saw a few gaps between props, not really a bug but something I did take screenshots from to fix aswell

So..
Thats basicly the list of possible things to do if I decide to continue on this, but before I start making my hands dirty I would like to know some input from all of you, this is going to be very usefull to me in the long run, now please only post when you have a valid input on this, I prefer no trolling on this because I do not plan to make another 20 versions for this map. I would like to keep it as minimal as possible to reduce downloads & also time I put in the map. Then I guess we could have this 'new' version in normal rotation while the other 'larger' version could be used for events, or just switch to the new version and throw away the large version, i dunno.. server owners can decide for themselves lol

So yeah, feel free to leave a comment with your ideas/bug reports/suggestions, I will read and try to respond to everyone with my own thoughts about it.
Take in consideration that it has been over 6 years for me that I have touched hammer, so I might need to re-learn a few things before even starting on this :P

I wish you all a great 2021 and I thank you all in advance for any possible help you providing.
Forgive me for my english writing errors, but I am sure you all understand the whole picture.

PS: I do NOT plan to port this to CS:GO, but whoever feels like it can always ask me the files for this new version and port it for me, after I am done offcourse.

WarpedCakez said:

As someone who loves this map, I'm excited to see this map get cleaned up.

I agree with most of the points you have already listed, minus changing the final stage fight with Voldemort. I find the fight to be unique with the DDR, multiple "phases", and intensity without bullshit mechanics. Not sure what you had in mind for changing the fight, but I like it as is.

Going to be sad with the reduction of 12 stages, but I can see why people don't want to bother playing a map that's guaranteed admin extends to beat. I'm also a big fan of the music used in the map and will be disappointed losing some of the epic tracks to defend to.

Still on the fence about how to change the item system if it were to get changed. As of now, I enjoy having a plethora of items to use. It allows for many players to get to be important, even if that is just using fire whenever it's up to slow down zombies for a bit. On the other side, I see majority get annoyed with item spam, so I don't really have any solutions for how to balance that. Just keep in mind, nerf human items -> balance zombie items (or map). I will not be very happy if I see zm items spammed every 10 seconds if humans only have 3 items with 90 second cooldowns (kinda extreme, but hopefully you get the point).

As for the stage 1 bug, not sure if you figured out what the problem was, but I noticed that it happens when all the humans are at the last door and there are multiple items used. Usually at the end door everyone just uses whatever item is not on cooldown, and sometimes I see item get used in chat, and right after get source engine overflow. Could be related to the particles or entities or whatever. I'm no mapper, so just take this as an observation of someone who has witnessed this 4 times.

That's pretty much all I have to say now. It's 1:30 AM for me and I was gonna wait till I get some sleep to reply, but I got a bit excited seeing a ze_harry_potter remake so I typed it up immediately lmao. Gl working on the mess that is this map, can't wait to see it get more love.

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Thanks for this input, I am not sure yet myself what to actually change on the final fight, but it was suggested to change and redo things on it, not sure if that is going to happen since I have no clue yet what to go do there but def. something I will look out for but not sure if I would change it.
I also understand you about the items, basicly I like a lot of items too but it seems like there is almost no good progress for zombies if the items are used in orders, last time i played the map it felt like the items alone could do the entire map, keep zombies constant at a great distance while the rest was basicly just running around, the idea in my mind was to reduce both zm and human items so there would be more teamwork in defending and less counting on item usage. If people use them all at once then yeah a fuckup is easy done but if they use them correctly all in order then it feels like zombies cant progress at all. Even with all the zm items they dont get close enough to make use out of it. That is somewhat my opinion about it tho, not saying others think the same but thats how i felt last time playing the map myself.
The crash issue is indeed the way you mention it, somehow at that last door they can potentially crash due something been overused, i have been thinking about 2 things here: maybe all items at once like you say is too much or could it possible be that the final door is too close to the side of the grid we can map in (in hammer) where the stuff goes out of grid and causes issues? Not sure if that is a thing in hammer/source. Its def. something I will be testing in a seperated 'unreleased' version to make sure what is actually going on. This def. need to be fixed before releasing the new version.

Moltard said:

you should probably redo every entity system from zero to simplify. too many weird workaround to go beyond limits that it's a pain to work with

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Thanks for this input, thats somewhat the idea, keep environment and just redo all entity work to make sure nothing is been complex overdone. Basicly like they say with programming, keep it simple yet effective :P This is def. going to be the biggest job to do but ive been thinking on the same line here as you.

bAka said:

OH B O I, the time as come,

Well first things first,
- Reduce the stages to 6, that's for sure, I love playing that map, but it gets really boring just knowing that I'm going to have to stay there for 5 hours just to finish the map
- Reduce the amount of human wands/zombie wands, as a zombie you literally cant do shit on those tiny little spots where humans are defending with wands and zombies are literally stuck at the same place for about 3min
- Make the skins at the spawn usable
- Remove the garbage dogshit zm mode, thank you
- Recreate some spots of defeding so zombies have the opportunity to infect the humans
- Fix some spots that have fps drops (Spawn for example, when you go down to shoot the dragon to get his egg, that part is laggy af too)

I dont recall anything else that needs to be fixed, but if I remember something, im updating this post.
You need to have a lot of courage to touch this map again skullz, I give you propz for that

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Thanks for this input, most of your listing are on my list to do, could you perfhaps give some extra information about the spots that are OP for humans? This way its easier for me to track down and possible update these locations so it can become more balanced for both zm/hm.
I did not know about the laggy spot with the dragon, will def. put that on my list when im done replying to everyone. Is this only with the first dragon or is this for every dragon mini stage?

William! :D said:

Nobody has said this but remove the weather/rain. It always gets disabled by admins anyway.

Otherwise good luck! It really is a great map!

Edit: I disagree with making the map 6 stages. Keep it 12!

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Thanks for this input, oh damn, yes, forgot about that one, the rain is basicly useless as it causes indeed a lot of FPS drops, even on my machine its causing some FPS problems, how can i forget to include that in my list! Thanks for the reminder :)
The reason why i would go from 12 to 6 stages is basicly for 2 reasons: because I want to see my map been played more often and it seems like the time people need to beat the map discourage a lot of players to keep playing it, especially when it comes to repeating the same 6 stages with only few changes, so I am thinking on mixing up things where few stages would stay in a 'normal mode' and the rest of the stages would be 'extreme mode' but all smashes in 6 stages max. If understand my point english typing is not my best lol

Neon said:

Don't remove the zm stage, just move it to an earlier point since it's not that hard. Maybe block the room that humans currently hold and which is impossible for zms to enter.

Edit: thanks William, remove the rain please. Always disabling it since it's killing the fps so badly.

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Thanks for this input, yeah the ZM stage is a bit of a clusterfuck to me since a lot of people either like or dislike it, and I get a lot of different comments about it (not on forum but ingame or on steam), there are indeed a few OP spots and I honestly have no clue how I am going to address this stage to keep everyone happy, its a 50/50 thing that I def. maybe go make a vote for to see what to go do with this.

jenz said:

i really like that its 12 stages because its a long experience but not many maps can reach this.

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Thanks for this input, yeah same, but eventually its repetitive seen the same 6 stages where only few things change, maybe I could mix it up a bit with just 6 stages to keep overral playtime better, and then maybe this map can go in a normal rotation because its no longer 'too big/long' to play. Thought the 12 staged version can still be used for events or something, maybe if I feel like it, I bring out 2 versions where 1 is 12 stages but fixed stuff and the other newer version with 6 stages and some changes.

Vanster said:

like william said, remove the rain

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Thanks for this input, def. something that will be done, updating my list now. The rain has been a pain for a lot of players its not fun to have it around the way it is right now.

phantom said:

If you do change it from 12 to 6 stages maybe keep the extreme mode version of the bosses. Maybe zm could be redone to make better use of the broom items that are provided. For the wands maybe bring the max level down from 4 to either 2 or 3 since the map would be shorter it gives more people the chance to get max level wands because no one likes being told to not grab any item unless ur max level.

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Thanks for this input, yeah that is same as I am thinking, bosses prob. would stay in the 'extreme mode' state and some deatheaters you only see pop up in extreme mode would be implemented too so they become a part of the new version too, kinda holds up the humans a bit too for zombies to catch up and prob. requires people to think about how to fight and defend at the same time. Wand levels def. get reduced too to match the reduced stage count, this way more people have a fair chance in trying them out.
For the ZM stage yeah this one is kinda something I really need to think what to do with, perhaps maybe even rework the entire thing because it feels so wide and a lot of space is not used properly over there, where it also limits the places for humans to camp and the rest is just overused detail. Def. something to look into it what I would do with this, maybe ill make a small vote to see what people think about this stage.

Ive also been thinking to do this mako vote implementation so people can actually vote ingame if they wanna play the stage or skip & continue to the next stage, but I am not sure if I can map this or if this needs extra plugins to make it work. Not sure how they do this in the mako map but def. something I will ask around to see the possibilities for this option. Its a 50/50 liker lol some people like the stage as it gives a small rest while others just dislike this stage because of the ZM mode and boringness it can bring with it. This one is going to be def. a thinker.

Strongfield said:

Hey Chris, here are my ideas;
- Let the humans wand how they are but buff zombie wands instead (longer duration, less cooldown wise)
- Keep the zm stage because its nice to have a different mode than normal zombie escaping
- Keep the 12 stages, if the players are done for at stage 6 they will rtv, if they want to keep playing they will vote to extend
- Make the wizard delivery mode a little bit easier for the humans because a loss there is very frustrating
Otherwise the models would really add depth to the gameplay and fixes are surely nice

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Thanks for this input, I will def. look out for the wizard mode because it can be indeed frustrating when loosing this round, I was thinking on a saving functionality where it would save the state of collected items and continue from there but that might be too easy, then another idea was to reduce the lever count since one lever is pretty easy to defeat as zombies because its so close to the first stairs where zombies can basicly just jump and kill edgers, finding a good balance here is going to be a thinker.
Models I hope to get fixed, I already talked to a few people I know that can model and they seem to be willing to help me out which i appriciate a lot, hopefully something positive comes out of this. I would like to see them been used aswell, including the secret characters, thought they will not get any extra powers just skins for fun times.
12 stages will probably not stay because this is a no-go for a lot of players and I think my map will be played more often if its just 6 stages instead, maybe even have a chance been in normal rotation, atleast thats what I am hoping for.
ZM stage is a 50/50 thing where I am going to see what I do with this. I know there is a mako map where you can select the mode after winning the map, maybe I can use this same technique for people to vote if they wanna play ZM stage or skip and continue with other stages. Not sure how this voting thing works on mako but def. something I will look out for.
Wands... yeah this is going to be a thinker aswell, either reduce amount of wands or update timings/levels and so fort but def. something I will look into

bAka said:

I cannot specify the exact places where this happens, that zombies dont stand a chance to do anything, but I am sure that in most stages there is something like that (for example before going to the spiral stairs to defeat the dragon and catch the broom (if I'm not mistaken), a room where we spawn), there is a bunch of places similar to that one, where you use most wands and zombies are literally stuck 3/4min. And about the laggy stuff, I think its probably because of what my fellow friends stated above, the weather/rain is lagging most clients, inside buildings it doesnt happen that much, the fps drops

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Alrighty, def. something I will look into then. Cannot harm to check out if there is something that can be changed here.

Alcolo Oasis said:

I personally would like to see the 12 stages being kept. It makes the map very special and enjoyable to tryhard and I think people got used to it and it doesn't prevent the map to be popular as it is. But I can also understand on how people can be tired of the playtime for the map to be fully beaten so it's up to you.

If you keep all the 12 stages, I suggest to increase the max level for wands to maybe 6. Current max level is 4 and it's kinda easy and accessible to players to get this level 4 out of 12 stages, ending most humans to have max level wands.
If you reduce to 6 stages, maybe decrease max level to 3 but make humans wands having an amount of uses. It should promote people to use their items wisely and encourage them to play with more coordination.

About the zm stage, I would say it should stay. It's currently used like a sort of chill/break round in the middle of the tryhard session so it's not that bad. And it's also an opportunity to people to get a "free" level since surviving this stage is not hard.

For the wizard mode stage, is there a way to track who pick the items (broomstick, egg and cup) ? I've already seen few people trolling regarding these items, for example someone triggering the broomstick and intentionally not pressing the lever when we go back so humans run out of time, someone else picking egg but disconnecting right after,etc.

Could you also take a look to the reducer zombie item ? Sometimes there is 1 or 2 zombies not being resized back.

Anyway, I wish you good luck.

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Thanks for this input, yeah ive been thinking on releasing maybe 2 versions where 1 has 12 stages and the other just 6, so the 12 staged is more an event style where the 6 staged could be used for normal rotations. But not entirely sure yet what I am going to do, depends basicly on how much time and effort it needs to do this. But def. something I will consider.
The 12 staged would also be updated to fix the issues but nothing more or less would be added/removed. Just overall fixes.

Same goes for wands, depending on the changes they will change too, so it kinda balances out with the new changes.

ZM stage has always been a 50/50 thing for a lot of players, its either something you like or you just dont like at all. But true that it can be a relief for a moment to get ready for more action. Prob. just gonna make a vote and see how it goes from there on. I do like flying around with a broomstick lol!
As for the items from the wizard mode, i guess i could change the way you pick em up and attach them to a weapon instead, then I could technicly put them in the item list showen on the screen so every human player could see who actually picked it up. Maybe with a 'drop-off' system so it gets 'cleaned' out the list as soon as it got delivered. Ive seen people misusing this myself aswell but never thought about actually doing something with it but now that you mention this, i kinda agree that this could use a change to prevent trolling as this stage is already hard enough on its own. Thanks for notify me on this one, def. adding this to the list to check out and possible update aswell.

The reduce item indeed can have this weird glitch, will add this to the list aswell, that should be a fairly 'easy' fix.

Thanks everyone so far for all the input you gave me, I feel like I did a good thing asking for input first before even starting on this as I can see some things been mentioned that I would have forgotten to be honest. As one whole group we can address basicly everything rather then me going private and just trying! So yeah, thanks to you all for taking the time to come and comment the ideas/bugs/suggestions.
Its def. a lot appriciated. You guys rock!