Initially I more or less rushed out this multistage version, assuming it would need some balance changes but nothing too major. Guess who was wrong about that.
I also took the time to review a lot of data from the single-stage version, and made some additional improvements that I hope to backport to that version eventually.
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I found that pickups were few far too generous in some areas, and severely lacking in others. I've done a pass to balance out the quality and quantity of packs you can find throughout both stages.
- Restored small shack at the A rollback hill
I'm not sure why I removed this? The rocks didn't add anything to gameplay except to block a non-problematic sightline.
- Revamp of area immediately surrounding A
This area felt a lot more cramped than the original version, and lacked any good defensive position after the removal of the building separating A and B. I've changed the structure of the mining building to add some more space, and added a small rocky slope to work as a good position to hold from.
- Adjusted cover volumes in the B spiral connector
This route was meant to be an attractive, but risky route for BLU to take when pushing into B. It was fulfilling that role well, but was too easy for RED to take full control of. I've made a few changes that should help address that issue, and make it a more reliable route for BLU to use.
- Moved the doors that close after A is capped further into the mining building
These doors, when closed, block what was originally a popular sentry spot for defending the B choke. This spot is no longer particularly good, so there's no harm in letting it be an option again.
The cart previously moved at a global speed of 110%, which was due to the large size of the single-stage version. Obviously this presents some pacing issues. I've slowed the base speed back to 100% and additionally slowed down the cart where it makes sense to, to discourage BLU rolls (which are frequent).
- Reduced the amount of time gained from capturing each checkpoint
I had already reverted these values to be what CC normally uses, but these seemed to be too long. Maybe they were only set that long for testing purposes?
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- Adjusted respawn times for the second stage
These were still partially using the old respawn times, which gave blue a huge advantage when pushing the final point.
- The cart now starts further back in the seconds stage, and is blocked from progressing for a short time.
This should work very similarly to how CC normally functions now.
- Changed RED spawn locations for the second stage
Red now initially spawns in the orange "happy farmers" shack, and switches to their stage one spawn after the cart has progressed a certain distance. This should make the highground at last less of an attractive exit choice when spawning, and make it easier to set up a defence for C.
- Added additional cover between the BLU spawn and the RED defensive positions around the final point
I don't think that these sightlines were too powerful, but there were a lot of them. This should limit the amount of viable spots for snipers to use and make their positions more predictable.
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- Minor decoration improvements
- Clipping fixes
- Optimisation improvements
- Navigation Mesh improvements
