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I posted this on the steam forums as well to give that thread a bump.. but I figured I’d paste here too as more people might care ;)

I played the map in the One Day Cup tonight and really enjoyed it (despite getting rolled 5-0). I think it could be to the maps advantage that it’s fairly linear, and thus fairly easy to grasp when you first play it.. which hopefully should allow people to get some positive experiences out of playing the map the first few times without getting perplexed and cranky and vowing never to play it again This shouldn’t necessarily be to the detriment of the map in regard to play over the long term either as though the 3 point areas are set out linearly the areas themselves are pretty diverse and topographically interesting environments to have a nice fight in

One thing I did notice from speccing some of the other games in the cup was a tendency for there to be a bit of a standoff between points 2 and 3 if neither team wins mid decisively. This is however no worse than on granary say so I don’t necessarily think it’s a problem, although it might be something to watch out for if it happens in too high a percentage of games spent testing the map (if nothing else the lower timer till a stalemate makes this less of an issue than on granary anyway).

Overall though I think it’s looking really good and hope to convince my team to play on it some more soon :>

Besides that door bug, we really enjoyed playing this map.
One of the best custom maps out there.

/me votes for primary map-pool!

This is why its still in it’s beta stage i guess and of course the door and the sticky bug will be fixed :p

Cheers

Byte

http://www.gotfrag.com/tf2/forums/thread/418107/

Not much Detailing at 1st/5th Point.

And I saw that a well placed sentry on the bridge on last, can view all entrances to the last room. Intended?

Some things I noticed from the matches I watched yesterday:

1) Nobody wants to push CP2 from middle on the right hand side because of the obvious height advantage given to the other team from the crate and how easily spammable that area is. That basically reduces it to the heavies always pushing from the same doorway which seems to be preferable to mixing it up.

2) Problem with pushing from this doorway is that the uber is either forced by stickies or spam really early and because of the sheer size of CP2 the defending team can hold really far back. This results in the entire offensive uber becoming push->force uber->retreat pretty much every time that both teams have ubers.

3) Spawntimes on last seem really…weird? I don’t know whether they’re a result of extensive playtesting but I think they might be the reason why, when the teams are rather even, the map turns into one big stalemate. It’s nice that you want to ensure a fight on last every time but I don’t see why the defenders get ~8 second respawn reduction from losing their 2nd point. That initial respawn means that they can always set up a somewhat decent defensive position (with/without uber depending if they lost their medic).

It also leads to the weird side effect that it’s actually better to wait until your respawn wave before capping 2nd if you push out, noticed in a few instances like with Origo that he had 4 seconds left to spawn before frog capped their 2nd back and then he had to wait 12 seconds :D

4) Why such long respawns on the attackers when attacking last? Their spawn is quite far back considering they still have 20 second respawn and with the relatively short distance between 1st and 2nd, the attackers (even if they barely defended) usually have a good chance to push out. On most maps being wiped when attacking doesn’t result in the defenders reclaiming 2nd unless they have lots of their team up and take a quick initiative to push (granary is a good example of this).

So really to wrap it all up, middle fight is fine but then pushing 2nd is a bit of a stalemate, if you cap 2nd then the defenders have too much of an advantage and a failed push onto last means they’ll probably get 2nd back again. If you don’t get 2nd when you push from mid, they’ll get mid and then we’re back to the same situation with roles reversed :D Back and forth stalemates all round!

“1) Nobody wants to push CP2 from middle on the right hand side because of the obvious height advantage given to the other team from the crate and how easily spammable that area is. That basically reduces it to the heavies always pushing from the same doorway which seems to be preferable to mixing it up.”

I would suggest you play and learn the map first before making that comment, because if that was me luckily as i know the map, if the heavies wanted to push right it would require a soldier and or a demo to do a jump thus landing on a crate OR if one had half a brain, one soldier would go ramp room and push through their while the other 2 do a jump or try and advert from spam and then go aggro, the fact that the defensive team can not see them is a BIG plus for the attackers, yes sure someone can call it, but how good are teams comms usually to call a detailed attack? Not very… Doesn’t even have to be that combo of a solly in the ramp room could be 2 scouts pushing far right and a demo and medic and soldier and one soldier hold the left because he can easily with a health pack right next to him.

My advice to you for 1) is play the map first and learn it, you will eventually figure out a way to attack the right side in an affective manner, most of the teams last night who played had hardly played this at a pcw/tournament level, and they admitted this and know that it would take time to adapt a play of pushing on the right but it is possible especially if you have good sound and can hear the demoman stickying left this would conclude that an attack from the right side is more promising and worthy (is one example of a scenario etc).

“2) Problem with pushing from this doorway is that the uber is either forced by stickies or spam really early and because of the sheer size of CP2 the defending team can hold really far back. This results in the entire offensive uber becoming push->force uber->retreat pretty much every time that both teams have ubers.”

I assume you mean pushing cp3 to cp4 left side aka through the house? if so.. then in previous version the door was even smaller, it has been widened enough to put a paramount of spam on the defenders, such that they do not need to uber everytime, it’s been proven in play testing over a gazillion times, so again i suggest you play it and experience it yourself see if you can grasp anything when pushing from cp3 to cp4 left side. Again if u noticed some clans last night in the cup were very nervous and didn’t want to lose so they made sure they kept their uber i’m sure if they knew and had played the map over a gazillion times it would make whichever medic think twice about ubering, they’d probably expect a soldier or demo to check it and take out the stickies, which is what happens all the time in pickups.

Also the most fundamental thing you’ve mentioned is that the defence team can drop back all the way while the attackers try and push, relating to this a demo putting his stickies above the door way does choke up the attackers however the demo being so far back he can not judge when to det if the player is out or not, this is when the attackers (usually a soldier as seen many a times in pickups) will rj out and the rest follows. If i wanted to create a free flowing route aka badlands i’d of made badlands for u again.

“3) Spawntimes on last seem really…weird? I don’t know whether they’re a result of extensive playtesting but I think they might be the reason why, when the teams are rather even, the map turns into one big stalemate. It’s nice that you want to ensure a fight on last every time but I don’t see why the defenders get ~8 second respawn reduction from losing their 2nd point. That initial respawn means that they can always set up a somewhat decent defensive position (with/without uber depending if they lost their medic).”

Spawn times for last are fine if you want the actual numbers its 8 seconds + initial 5 that makes 13 seconds (the initial 5 is when you’ve just died and then it comes up with the spawn timer).

So thats 13 secs to spawn. Once you have spawned it takes.

– 3 seconds for a Scout to reach the cp1 so thats 16seconds.
– 3 seconds for a Soldier to reach cp1 so thats 16seconds.
– 2 seconds for a demoman to reach cp1 so thats 15seconds.
– 5/6 seconds for a heavy to reach cp1 so thats 18/19seconds.

Now considering how close cp2 is to cp1 that is why its only 8 seconds, this has been calculated on purpose to the wire. I know what i’ve done here and stand by it. Just to prove it the cp1 spawn to cp2 cap point distance on granary is double the distance than of what it is on obscure, and granary has the timers set to spawn from 13-19seconds. that makes half of that somewhere on the lines of 7-10 for me. I’ve stuck with 8 and pushed the spawn entities back. So trust me it’s been figured out enough and play tested enough.

“4) Why such long respawns on the attackers when attacking last? Their spawn is quite far back considering they still have 20 second respawn and with the relatively short distance between 1st and 2nd, the attackers (even if they barely defended) usually have a good chance to push out. On most maps being wiped when attacking doesn’t result in the defenders reclaiming 2nd unless they have lots of their team up and take a quick initiative to push (granary is a good example of this).”

Your one and truly only valid point saved the best to the last, although a 20second respawn time is bs as i don’t think it’s set at that i will go check tonight, however i think you are correct on this, the distance from cp3 to cp4 is longer yet spawn times are longer i.e. 12/13 seconds (this is what i believe and remember its set at). However this will be changing in the next update, good valid point there so thank you Vali, as for the rest i stand by how the map is constructed.

Cheers

Byte

As I said on SourceTV, adjusting the spawn time for BLU might be necessary to keep that point balanced.