Maps not designed for rushing to the end

[evilgrins]

Something that gets complained about a lot in many forums are MonsterHunt games online where some of the players don't appear to be interested in killing all the monsters. For whatever reason, they seem to be in a rush to get to the exit and killing only the fewest number of monsters possible to do this.

Why do they do this?
· Could be they don't like the map they're on and want to get to the next one
· Could be they're deliberately trying to piss other players off
· Could be they're invaders from Planet X

One of those isn't so likely...

While not the initial reason I got into editing maps, sometimes I do keep this in mind while working a project. Trying to make aspects of a map tricky for anyone trying to rush to the end. At least give the other players more time to try and kill everything else.

There's a popular map called MH-LostInTimeV2 where you fight through a Skaarj base, go through a portal, and wind up in a land filled with dinosaurs. To access the exit you gotta kill some dinos, activate some stones, and gain access to an ancient temple where there's another portal inside that is the exit...

...I swapped out some of the dinos on the map with truly hard to beat monsters, so even if someone did rush through the map, they'd really be in a fight once they got to the end.

Went skimming through the edits I've got setup for downloads, to see if I had any handy for combating these map-rushers, and here's what I've got:
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/112419.html
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/108646.html
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/105687.html
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/93958.html
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/99452.html
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/86952.html
· https://unreal-games.livejournal.com/71247.html

Does anyone else know of maps that would slow down map-rushers?

[Nelsona]

Yeah, we can debate this problem because is similar to another one, Server Configuration. Here I mean general MH servers configuration. When everything is a score hunt and a regenerator then maps "mitigated" for these mods not real MH maps are mainly SH!T. Exactly this is the problem of maps having End available/reachable for no purpose. You simply can touch that End without the need to work for that task. I can recall such maps and admins happily threatening players to hunt monsters rather than removing stupid works. No names for now because, I had a "friendly" chat with such a genius at GameTracker in the past and I don't need other debates around such stupidity...
ALL but ALL this problem is MAPPER and no one else. In 2018 we have knowledge to address even original map "un-edited" because... in more edits I don't see real fixes but duplicated bsp errors and the rest of nothing-fixed stuff. It's not only about map's mechanics, rushing to end or such, it's geometry, items, DevPath over boundaries, generally map's performance is crapped up as long as clowns have not hear about ZONING and problems keep going with BREAKING map for various reasons (bad triggering, bad actors crashing game/server), not only End is problem here but generally the initial concept makes a map to go into a shitty situation.
A map well configured for Ending properly is that AbsoluteZero but here we have a rain with projectiles which might crash client at lightning problems proving that spamming type mapping was never good. Life goes harder when you really have to enter into rooms as long as we had zero paths in original map, like mapper was paying for paths and could not add 20 PathNodes (yeah it do takes 10 months such a task...). As you can see rushing a map is based on mapper rushing to deliver his "present" for community without having enough game-play experience and some of them not even computer-operating experience (maps with spaces in file-names and other craps like that).
If exist an annoying map for sure patch file(s) for NavAdder might be doable but... this means files - already listing redirect takes ages making life harder for updates, HOF repositories have 17770+ files in redirect, definitely new maps are not a need just for having the same errors or other NEW errors for one single "fix".
If in future I will have more free time, I will use it for inspecting server and figuring which map are really stupid and no player is voting them because they can be definitely removed and server will gain a "speed-up" in the deal with files functions else we do have only an useless load with UNR junks. If Bratzilla was a maps hunter, this habit was not good - I went into the same situation in the past but later I've quit doing this - it did not help me at all. As a note I have currently 204 maps loaded in my gaming ground shared through 2 MH game-types and 1 MonsterHuntArena so to speak real MH maps used by me are even less than 100... while in the past I had even 600+ - FILES not maps as I could see later...

As completion: I'm not even subscribed in more forums with supposed MH mappers as long as I don't see any new guy MH mapper doing things for UE1 last time, just spam, bad setup, they do work generally like NOOBS with no clue about On-Line problems. Why would I start a storm with people having a poor experience but suddenly "addicted" to spread pain rather than fun ? I can use that time for more constructive purposes... Maps consuming less Net channels than usual, smoothing things - READ this well and think about it, I wanna see how many "mappers" can get into this Level... these are my goals in 2018 rather than going over engine's boundaries, it's hundreds times better to stay inside UE1 rather than outside.

[evilgrins]

Exactly this is the problem of maps having End available/reachable for no purpose. You simply can touch that End without the need to work for that task.

One of many reasons I prefer maps where the END is either behind a locked door or inside a boss monster you must kill...

...or cannot be touched to end the map until the boss monster is killed. I mean, you can touch it but it doesn't do anything while the BIG BAD is still stomping around.

[Nelsona]

Tell to those "guru" types to write in their MH "tutorials" more about "TECHS", I mean options for a MonsterEnd trigger rather than talking about green horses on walls, and then probably mappers will have a minimal clue about what to do and what to avoid to do.