Map Approval Requirements

It has been updated like 6~7 times. Duh.

Original Post and Final result by Kiriakos Gr96.

Last updated date: 16 Jul 2020.

Appearance

Map must be well-designed in appearance:

• Do not use lights to make over bright areas. Use default power parameter of lights and shadow map size engine mark to create realistic shadows.

• Do not use floating water and/or ladders made from water.

• Do not use deathmatch skins in team-based maps.

• Do not have walls floating in mid-air, these must be connected to the rest of the map in some capacity (in rare instances, it may be alright to have floating walls).

• Do not place lights in walls.

• Do not use barrels, crates, ropes or vehicles in your map.

• Do not use songs in the map.

• Do not use custom player models or custom weapon models directly in your map. This can be confusing to new players.

• Overlap walls and backgrounds to avoid glowing edge effect.

• Don't make visible the end points(left right down side) of the map.You can show the end of the map if the theme allows it (space theme)

• Hint messages are allowed if they are fit to map theme and are only visible for 3-5 seconds. Text dialog messages are not allowed and should be avoided.

• HEX modifiers are allowed for backgrounds, decorations and player models as long as they fit map theme. Too dark or too bright HEX modifiers may not look good in map.

• Symmetrical maps must be aligned by background and wall placements. Objects can be mirrored in level editor by pressing H and V keys. Having your map be symmetrical is not essential, but balance is. So long as the map is fair to both teams, it can be any shape desired.

• Your map must be unique and must be your own. If map is too similar to other current approved maps, the map will not be approved.

• If your map is a copy of another approved map or custom map, the approval request will be rejected and the map will be disapproved.

• Map themes close to PB2 universe are preferred, but not required. Knights, World War 1/2, magic, mythology are a few things that aren't considered in the PB2 universe.

• Pixelated (blocky) art can be something that looks good, but it also can be exact element in your map that looks foreign to style in which PB2 was made.

Gameplay

Keep the gameplay for approved maps natural and realistic for Plazma Burst 2:

• Map must be designed for all gamemodes (COOP, TDM and DM) in order to get approval.

• All players must be able to move around key parts of your map (such as places where better weapons are located, enemy team location, camp spots), including players who play on a high physics setting and have no idea on how to sword jump, self boost and hold the X key (unless map is small enough for new players to see how older players are doing this). To test this, pick up a defibrillator and try to reach every part of your map without pressing X and without trapping yourself in dead end zones (unless these are made as obvious death traps).

• Make sure camping players can be killed on your map.

• HP limit for approved maps are between 130 and 200 HP. Most commonly, 130 HP, 150 HP and 200 HP are used. In rare instances, 250 HP can be given for players.

• Each players "Hitpoints" parameter value must be equal to "Max. Hitpoints" parameter value.

• Do not create invisible pushers. Every pusher must be marked by decoration with an "anti gravity" model. Also sometimes pushers will need to kill or push back players into playable area when they leave it.

• Do not create invisible doors where players will not expect it to be. It is allowed to cover decoration models, custom backgrounds and map limits with invisible doors. But it is not allowed to build invisible structures which will only confuse new players on your map.

• Make sure deadly parts of map will kill players. You can use "red killing ray" decoration to mark them. Red killing rays can also be used to mark map boundaries.

• Make sure players cannot camp at any teleporters. Make teleporters have a cool down or not always activated.

• Make sure players cannot spawn kill at the start of each round. Players must feel/be safe during the first few seconds of each COOP round start.

• Make sure there are not areas of your map that are too large or too small (to avoid spraying or awkward player movement).

• Make sure there are no AI enemies in maps you wish to get approved.

• Make sure the game does not lag when players play on the map. You can optimize your map by limiting amount of objects such as backgrounds, decorations, player count, weapon count, walls, water, etc.

• Make sure your map does not take a long time to load. Recommended loading time is 1-2 seconds.

• Make sure to validate wall placement. Bodies, grenades and weapons must not be able to get stuck between walls due to poor overlapping (recommended to test on "low physics" with "low FPS" settings).

RESTRICTED MODELS AND TRIGGER ACTIONS

Since the user defined decorations, and modded guns are exist, we had to do a separate section to specify which models or trigger actions are banned during approving a map:

Banned player models

• Use player models that have the same movement and hitbox size.

• Only visual changes are allowed to player models such as HEX modifiers.

• Custom player models are not allowed in approved maps at this time.

• Banned player model examples:

  • Drone Controller

  • Civil Security Heavy

  • Civil Security Ghost (visible and invisible)

  • Android SLC-56

  • Noir Lime

  • Falkok

  • Phoenix Falkok

  • Falkok Boss

  • Star Defender

  • Grub

  • Armored Grub

  • Elite Grub

  • Heavy Hero

  • Civilian (male 1, male 2, male 3, female 1, female 2, female 3 unequipped versions)

  • DM player model and etc.

Banned weapon models

• Use weapon models that can be balanced for gameplay that your map is suited towards.

• Certain weapons are allowed in limited quantities while some weapons are banned from approved maps.

• Custom weapon models or weapon modifications are not allowed in approved maps at this time.

• Banned weapons examples:

  • any vehicle weapons

  • alien acid grenade launcher

  • CS-autocannon

  • m4a1

  • glock

  • virus gun

  • invisible gun model

  • shark

  • star defender rifle

  • star defender rocket launcher

  • grenades (as pickup) and etc.

• Start weapons must be placed into each other and underneath the player model.

• Grenades must be spawned with engine marks.

  • Limit HE grenade and teleport grenade count to 3 of each type.

  • Limit shield grenade count to 1-2.

• Players must be able to respawn with weapons by using engine marks to specify how many weapons can be respawned and which slot weapons are given upon respawn.

• A defibrillator and PSI swords are required for all approved maps.

Banned trigger actions

• Trigger actions associated with the "Gun", "Character", "Experience", "Text-to-speech" categories in the advanced level editor are not allowed for approved maps.

• It is best to avoid trigger actions associated with the "Gameplay" category, but in some rare instances, some trigger actions may be fine.

• Banned trigger actions example:

  • camera zoom

  • game speed (slow motion)

  • health regeneration (regeneration speed or regeneration delay)

  • projectile speed

  • gun slots

  • bullet speed

  • bullet penetration factor

  • bullet life

  • impact damage thresholds

  • selfboosting

  • enabling/disabling anonymous mode

  • kinetic module

  • time warp

  • PSI swords

  • forcing players from match.

• The use of other types of trigger actions that can give an unfair advantage are not allowed. Such violation can be understood as infringement and your further maps will be never reviewed.

• Variable syncronization is required for any map that has movable objects.

Playtesting

• All maps must playtested by map developers in their own time before submission an approval request.

• If it looks like maps have not been thoroughly playtested prior to being requested, the map may be removed from approval consideration.

• Your map may be playtested up to five times by the map approval team and contributors.

• If there is not enough improvement between playtests from feedback given by map approval team, we reserve the right to remove the map from approval consideration.

• You can have up to three approval requests at a time.

• The more approval requests there are for the map approval team to playtest, the slower it takes for your map to be approved.

• Even if all conditions above are met, sometimes maps may still not be approved.

Summary

In Editor

All banned features in level editor.

In demo

All banned features in demo section.

Map Approval team and Contributor list

Approval team

• Avalade (Tempus)

• Kiriakos Gr96

• Doomzerker

• Ditzy

• Stryde

Approval team contributor

• CakeSpider

• CreeperHunter55

• Pixelbyte

• IceRGodZ

• kubakuba

• Nyove

• Defensive (Avre)

The only difference between contributor and official approval team are approval teams are based on all PB2 staff meanwhile contributor is handpicked by them to become secondary approval team during play tests.