Match/CTF Level Rotation - 2.1 Public Beta

MAPM7: Troll Zarro Celestial Sanctuary Zone

Really this map is perfectly fine (certainly a lot better than the 1.09 AGZ thok-off-pit arena), but I wish, as I stressed during one of the first playtests of this map, that there were more tails/knuckles stashaways were Sonic can't go (unless you switch chars). Really, there's only ONE such place on the map, but supersonic can get to it pretty damn easily.

A really good place for this would be some upper room above <HERE>, that can be entered/exited from <THE WATERFALLS> in some way, be in from that protruding chunk between them, or from inside the waterfall 'pipes' themselves. Hell, that protruding chunk could be a view-window to the room so you know it exists. Or something.

The main outside room has a noticeable tendency to lag at high resolutions.


MAPMA: Gray boredom Granite Gorge Zone

It's not that I don't like the map, it's just that the map is visually depressing. And boring. And everything freaking blends together into the same grey mess. I mean I know there isn't much other use for the textures and flats in the main game, but holy crap is there a reason why.

You have a <GOOD TAILS LOCATION HERE>, yet with nothing actually here. Couldn't there be a ringbox or SOMETHING? Despite the water for the waterfall coming litterally from nowhere, there's nothing visually interesting up there at all. And it's such a small, closed off area, that it doesn't make a good sniper location, either. Ergo, entirely worthless space.

Incidentally, what is <THIS> doing here?


MAPMB: Thesaurus Extinction Overgrown Thicket Zone

Really there's nothing wrong with this level save for the name and the dull music.

Although it could stand to be a good idea to put more on the trees than just empty space, if I'm able to go on top of them. (And yes, I did find ONE tree with a rail ring and some ring boxes. But how would I ever normally find it if none of the OTHER treetops are inviting?)


MAPMC: Red U-Turn Amber Ravine Zone

This is an improvement over Granite Gorge, but it's still visually one-dimensional with its singular colorset. In all honesty I only really dislike this map for <THIS U-TURN>. It makes me come to a sudden halt to find myself cornered in confusion because there's no open space at ground-level, and you have to seriously make a U-Turn to keep moving. Which I frown upon greatly.


MAPMD: Impress Zarro Marine Grotto Zone

This is the most visually impressive of the bunch for me.

<THIS ROOM> does tend to lag badly on higher resolutions, however, and it might be because of the <OPEN WINDOWS>. Which, I really wish there was an easier means of recovering from jumping out them accidentally, as I almost didn't make it back inside after jumping out with tails, expecting a solid barricade...


MAPME: Reasonless Slowdown Crystalline Caves Zone

Nothing really wrong with this map, save for <ONE ROOM> which causes sonic-thokkers, like myself, to have to slow right down to 0 in order to get through the room at all. All those pillars could probably do with being removed entirely for just an open room with upper entrances and some decorations.

Incidentally, there is a rather <OVERPOWERED> tails-only item box that you can access very easily from that same room. And it isn't hidden either.


MAPMF: DAT LEVEL Acid Plant Zone

This map is a very nice improvement over the original, primarily due to all the new textures making it exceptionally easy to navigate, and looking good to boot. I only found <A FEW TEXTURE FLAWS>, and the same room being one with only one entrance/exit to it, making it rather... strict. I do recall a lot of firefights going on at the hallway leading to this room because of this, during the original pre-good-texture tests.


MAPMG: Nostalgia Vibe Secluded Woodland Zone

I get Mushroom hill flashbacks traveling from the brighter green to the grey-green parts of the level. This is a good thing.

Unfortunately, this will happen excessively often, as it seems to be the ONLY way for sonic to get to the upper part of the zone. Which is rather restrictive. I couldn't be one to say whether this is a good 'reverse balancer' or not, regarding player abilities, though I will be one to say that tails and knuckles shortcutting straight up would probably just lead to getting sniped out of the sky.

Also the center room lags LIKE HELL'S OPEN GORGE in high resolutions.


MAPMH: Surprise Shockpad Orbital Hangar Zone

I cant tell whether to like the map or not. On the one hand, the working end-level plungerbox working made me smile. On the other, OH GOD MY EARS.

And tell me, what does <THIS> look like to you? "Oh a red ribbon". Yes, I know there is electric paneling there. I know this because every time I forget it's there, I run onto it without any natural evasive tendancy. The same can be said for the hallway version, and <THESE CHIP DECORATIONS> (key word, DECORATIONS,) as well. It isn't a matter that I cannot jump to avoid it, it's the matter that never before have I had to, because NORMALLY you have to fall onto them first, because there's usually a gap big enough that you don't immediately step onto the panel, so much as auto-leap from fast movement. Yeah, I know you want it to actually be there to hurt players, and I'm sure it will anyway, but I shouldn't have to jump when running would cross the gap in any other instance. In short, raise the caution tape and lower the panel.

Finally, <THIS JUMP> really annoys the crap out of me for no real reason, and it's because it LOOKS LIKE sonic should be able to get to it but he just baaaaarely can't. I wish it were lowered, just... because.


MAPMI: No Comment Diamond Blizzard Zone

This zone certainly isn't bad, but it doesn't present much else that the OTHER TWO snow/ice stages prior didn't already cover. Although I certainly prefer this over the Cirno-Fanboy-Zone.

Infernal Cavern Zone:
Scatter seems like a weird choice to put in the dead end. I always found Bounce to be much more powerful in this stage, so maybe the two should be switched?

Frost Columns Zone:
Didn't Radiant Caverns teach you anything? Intense colormaps might look cool, but they make it hard to distinguish certain shields from each other. Unless 2.1 had distinct shield sprites and you're keeping the fact under wraps, you should remove the colormap.

Meadow Match Zone:
Oh boy. At this point I'm pretty sure nothing anybody says will get this one removed from SRB2. I just don't understand why you would include it when it offers so little compared to all the other official maps. It's basic, sure, but so are other maps in the rotation. This one's just so shallow that it becomes really boring once you've played it a few times. And I still don't get the point of these useless diagonal springs after all these years.

Granite Gorge Zone:
Remind me of the merits of this map versus any other map in the rotation (besides Meadow Match). To me it seems like a particularly pointless exercise in making a map with a solid build but nothing at all unique about it. It's perfectly playable, but it does nothing to facilitate exciting combat. In other words, there's nothing in here that's worth fighting for.

Overgrown Thicket Zone:
Not the most interesting thing ever either. All rooms are more or less the same, with lakes that seem to serve no practical purpose (I do like the few underwater tunnels that are there, but most of the lake terrain seems to be there for the sake of it) and some generic hills here and there. The treetops could have been a potentially interesting factor, but they're not used much. At least the map is very easy to navigate, so I guess it can stay if you really want to include it. And lol the name.

Amber Ravine Zone:
I'm aware that space restriction, along with height variation, is part of this map's appeal, but a few areas, especially in the underground tunnels, overdo it. There's something wrong when a 150% size increase plays better than the original.

Marine Grotto Zone:
Pfft, Marine Grotto. Thesaurus Failure Zone.

Crystalline Caves Zone:
That one room with the multicolored square platforms needs to go. It's immensely irritating (you can't see anything because of the pillars on each side of the platform) and takes way too long for way too little payoff. Everybody is just better off avoiding it and living with the disadvantage of having no Grenade ring. Oh, and this is my personal pet peeve, but I don't like the yellow and purple ice textures.

Acid Plant Zone:
Green slime is the most pointless hazard in SRB2 ever and I hate to see it encouraged by using it in an official Match map. Not that the stage is bad, but I'd rather see it go than use green slime so prominently. Oh, and as other people have mentioned, the texturing is very distracting and impractical. Although the textures look nice, there's too little contrast.

Secluded Woodland Zone:
There's only one way to reach the whole upper area as Sonic, which is a major annoyance in an otherwise stellar stage. It kinda goes against what you originally had in mind with the level, but there should be a way to reach the upper area right from the main room, preferably with a spring.

Orbital Hangar Zone:
If level architecture moves, it should have gameplay relevance. If it doesn't, make it static so people aren't distracted. In general, purging the excessive amounts of pointless scenery would do this good. Better yet, make it relevant for gameplay.

Lime Forest Zone:
The rings on the trees don't float. And I think it's high time we admit how uncomfortably cramped the bases are and how tedious and quite frankly boring it is to go through the excessively long underwater route is. Unless you can redesign the map to change that, it should probably be scrapped.

Cloud Palace Zone:
I like the bases, I really do. But the main path between the bases is annoying in its overstated straightforwardness. In almost every game I ever played on this, people spammed their shit all across the main path, and the upper path, which is too remote by comparison, was almost empty. Something should be done about this.

Silver Cascade Zone:
Again, if something moves, I except it to be relevant in some way.

Icicle Falls Zone:
So what's the point of the solid scrolling water right next to the flag? It makes no sense.

Twisted Terminal Zone:
I've always hated two things about this stage: The first thing is that the large empty area in front of the bases is... well, large and empty. This leaves plenty of space for stupid flag carriers who want to play a little game called tag with their opponents. The other thing is how strictly separated the "base" part and the "center" part are from each other, with only one way real way in or out. Even with the anti-gravity, this is a chokepoint.

Nimbus Ruins Zone:
Ew. Floors and sides of the platforms should at least have a vague relation to each other. For example, the regular DSZ walls with mossy DSZ floors. But please don't mix castle bricks with DSZ bricks on the same platform.

Nostalgic Pass Zone:
The only name that would sound even dumber is Memory Lane Zone. Anyway, this map kinda reminds me of Granite Gorge and Overgrown Thicket (pfffthahaha) in that it's solid and well-built but lacks any distinguishing features.

Dusty Barracks Zone:
Where are my epic tumbleweeds?

Clockwork Towers Zone:
As much as I love this stage for its manifold entry and exit methods between bases, the bases themselves are simply too complex, with too many 180° and 90° turns where you never know where you might land. You should probably just cut out a good deal of the map's back-end in favor of more streamlined bases with paths that are easier to remember.

Molten Fissure Zone:
You know what's really annoying? The blue base is clad in blue and the red base is clad in red. So far, so good. But the middle part is clad in orange-reddish, which makes it really hard to discern where the red base ends and the centerpiece starts. Another problem is that the two paths from the base are lined up in such a way that the first thing you see when you exit one path is the other path back to the base. This makes it extremely easy to go in a loop. The staircase behind the tunnel path is also easy to overlook.

Radiant Caverns Zone:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA COLORMAPS! Please, for god's sake, remove them! I also don't like how the bases appear to be a giant clusterfuck of indiscernible winding corridors at first, until you find out what leads where. And lava textures for harmless water are not a good idea.

Techno Laser Zone:
Whoa, are you sure you want to include this one? I never played it, but the shrinking gimmick needs very careful balancing and I remember a lot of complaints in that regard. The only thing I can say is that I think the teleporters behind the Grenade panels are a stupid idea. CTF is all about knowing where you are and where you want to go. Teleporters make that hard.

Conveyor Conflict Zone:
Gray gray gray walls, gray floors, gray ceilings, gray conveyors, gray everything. The occasional pits in the indoor rooms are pretty hard to see amidst all the gray. Please texture with more contrast. And the outdoor path feels just as needlessly tacked on as it really is. Wasn't the original problem with this stage that Tails was too slow to stand a chance? Wasn't that problem kinda rectified because Tails is now faster? And even if it's still a problem, the space path with its low gravity and air countdown is quite simply a nuisance. Please come up with a better idea for an alternate path or scrap the stage.

Dual Fortress Zone:
Two things. Remove the bushes from the Scatter location, they obscure my sight. And why does the window opposite to the flag have bars when you can jump through it? Either remove the bars, spread them farther apart or block the window.

Aquatic Base Zone:
The full-glass tunnels have very low visibility. And I feel like you kind of relied on the beauty of the off-limits scenery rather than making the stage itself particularly interesting.