Hey there, although I've tried loads of custom maps I created my account just for this stunningly gorgeous map.
I spent about an hour looking in every nook and cranny and also playing some 12v12 with bots, here's my list of bugs and suggestions:
Visual Bugs:
1.
Location: Upper corridors of blue base
Bug: Half of the barrel is underground.
2.
Location: Blue Spawn
Bug: Not as much of a bug as the other ones, I just thought the door should be made to look like a door instead of a glass pane, (kind of like no.5), I spent a few seconds walking into the door before I realized you weren't supposed to go there
3.
Location: Capture Point
Bug: Most Valve maps have their yellow/black capture point borders ultra-thin, it might look better if you made it thinner.
4.
Location: Red Spawn
Bugs:
1.(See no.2)
2.It kind of looks like a part of the wall extrudes a lot, make the wall thinner
3.Not a bug, but you could try adding more than a few consoles to the base
5.
Location: Tunnels near blue base
Bug: Some awful clipping going on with the yellow/black border, also, looks like a large part of the floor covers the stairs, bugs are probably linked.
6.
Location: Tunnels near blue base
Bug: A part of the health kit floor decal goes into the wall
7.
Location: Red & Blue Spawn
Bug: A part of the resupply lockers noticably clips into the floor, just raise them a little.
Edit:
8. (Not Pictured)
Location: Blue Spawn
Bug: 2 of the corners of the window right next to the spawnpoint are missing.
Gameplay Design Suggestions:
I agree with your last comment about the team controlling the point rarely loses it because it's pretty easy to defend, (although it could have just been the bots), my ideas are;
- To remove the other 2 walls off the ground floor, making it more accessible for the attackers
- Adding more sniper spots
- Making the water behind the point more shallow since shooting attackers in the water is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel
- Remove the 2 small medkits from the CP
- Make the upper floors of the map more accessible, as in easier to get up to.
Edit:
RED definately seems to have a massive advantage in this map for some reason, I tried letting the game run for a while with equal teams and no players involved and the score was RED:16, BLU:5, I strongly suspect it's because red has a ridiculously good sentry spot to the right of the palm tree in the central area, it's very hard to get to because it's right next to a hill and the sentry can be aimed at the CP from that spot. I propose the possible solution of simply lowering the hill near the control point so the sentry can be more easily shot down.
Visual Design Suggestions:
-Make the control point more neutral in terms of team colors, also, use more persian-ish textures on the CP interior.
-Add more mesh clutter to the tunnels, preferably something persian-y like to pots you have.
Edit:
-Make the round-end laser effect more of a long beam that reaches outside the skybox, a laser that only reaches a few feet is pretty pointless, plus I think it would look cooler
Create a persian-y texture for the interiors, the maps mostly using default textures which subtract from the maps uniqueness, I suggest some patterns such as the ones in this pic:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kharaghan.jpg
Other:
For some reason, (as far as I know this only happens to this map and CP_Obscure) my game lags a lot for a second once the CP is enabled or captured.
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Phew, that took a while, sure hope you haven't given up on mapping because this map is <-> this close to becoming an official community map