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Quoted from GeneSIS^

better than obscure easily. that bottom route on last is kinda useless imo, no cover at all and u cant sneak with scout. other than that great map, should be in map pool for next season.

shhhhhh! its for spies!

Nice map overall, but:

– Too hard to push last
– Slightly too sniper friendly
– Too many entrances and exits into the house between point 1 and 2, and overall a little bit too flank-friendly for scouts

I think the main problem I have with the map is that it doesn’t flow very well. There are too many corners/right angles/height differences accompanying the multitude of flanking routes and sight lines are really inconsistent. I think you’ve stretched the map too wide and the result is quite a bit of ‘dead space’ where you’ve added more flanking routes. I’ll admit I didn’t look at the earlier iterations of the map to see how things have developed, but the general pathing layout is quite uncomfortable. If anything I think you’ve tried too hard to create an interesting design, but in the end have sacrificed practicality.

The second point is quite messy in particular. It caps too quickly in my opinion, given the proximity of the dropdown for scouts (for which there is no real way to deal with – one of the reasons that last point can be difficult to cap). The multiple height levels and obstructions (the fences) screw over the medic whose movement becomes incredibly predictable because there is no room at all to dodge (not to mention he has very little vision giving the number of easily accessible flanking routes around). I think you should completely scrap the path under the bridge (and thus the bottom floor of the building), change the dropdown into something similar to the side passage between 1st and 2nd on gullywash, and remove the fences (perhaps leave a small portion of the one near the window to allow scout access).

What sherydin said about turning the drop down route into a similar shape to gullywash lasts right side would be fantastic, you could also extend it further into the cp to male it more of viable attacking route along with the opposite side.

I’d also consider scrapping the route under 2nd, making the drop down into a section for all classes to use would remove the need for the bottom entrances/exits.

Last and parts of second are the only issues for me, middle is fun.

Also fix that waterfall noise :/

I enjoyed playing this map yesterday, although the middle of this map doesn’t provide much diversity as a soldier.

Few things I would change:
– Make both higher platforms over the middle narrower
– Remove the window from the dropdown on second point. Way too easy for the defending team to see what’s going on and wait for backcap.
– Remove one or two entrances from the area between first and second point to second point. If I remember right there are 5 ways to get to the second point. Also very backcap friendly.

Map looks nice and as I said, it was fun to play.

I think last is hard enough to push out from as it is, without scrapping the scouts chances of a lucky back-cap. I think that the whole point in it is to create the scenario that you don’t normally find in a lot of stock maps. The normal holding area for this map has a clear view of the drop-down. however i have had an idea.

collis has a red light that activates when the waterfall door opens. could you not intergrate a similar solution for the drop-down? it shouldnt be in an easy to see location obviously. the team would need to be holding aggressively to be able to see it. possibly even a warning light above the last cp to show that someone has entered the tunnel? i dunno just a thought anyway. (but removing the window like gear said would be a good idea if you implemented this)

I don’t understand why people think the map is too flanky?
sure last point has quite a few routes. (a couple of which could do with tightening up to make them more spam friendly. such as the downstairs area between 2nd and last and the ramp leading up to the top level from there.)
But second has only 2 routes + a tiny window!

There are 2 routes through the whole map. and they criss-cross. deal with it.
Besides, several teams we played were holding too passively on second point. and that just makes the flanks easier. many teams including us didnt pay enough attention to the right hand side of the map. leaving only scouts to defend against whole team pushes through that side. a 3v3 split of the team is possibly favourable

tbh it was more a case of teams not covering the flanks that are there, mainly because they had never played the map before. Rather than there being too many flanks.

none of the flanks are any more difficult to defend from than badlands house/vally or the granary drop-down at forward spawn.

Thanks to everybody who’s providing feedback, it’s the only way for me to be able to improve on the map. I think a lot fo the confusion regarding flanks is not being used to the map and not knowing how to divide your forces to successfully defend. I think the distribution of the flanks is allright, and I will probably keep it this way.

One thing I want to do with last is make all attack routes equally viable – I think a lot of people underestimated the bottom attack route, but the right hand side attack route from lobby seems a bit weak compared to the left one. I’ll have to try different solutions to solve this.

About the dropdown being overpowered – I might try increasing the cap time to avoid double scout back caps, but I still think it’s a huge tradeoff for teams to send off two scouts to backcap when defending last. It’s a long run with a really high risk – if there’s a solly waiting for them theyll be sitting ducks, and if the attackers decide to push at that time it will be nearly impossible to defend last. I’ll try removing the window, but in older versions without windows the route was hardly used at all because it was too risky.

I currently have a few teams from the american leagues who try new versions of the map on a regular basis, and it would be really nice to have that here in Europe as well to see how the map works with different playstyles. If anybody’s interested in getting a chance to try test versions of the map before their public release, please contact me through steam and I will be sure to keep you updated when new versions are out.

With the b9 being played in ESEA I want to keep new official versions at a minimum for the time being, to avoid confusion regarding what version will be played. By releasing new versions with small changes often I can try out different ideas and see how they affect the gameplay, but I don’t want to release them too publicly if something doesnt work etc. So it would be great if anyone is interested in helping me out with this.

Changes I’m planning on trying out are currently:

– Removing the window in dropdown
– Increasing the cap time of 2
– Making the bridge over mid more narrow
– Adding cover to the bottom route at last
– Moving the right attack route up a bit to take it closer to the cap
– Removing the left ramp on last cap point
– Anything I haven’t thought of yet.

Oh, and I’m considering changing the *unfortunate* name. What about cp_meadows?