Past 72hr Jam Entry Thaw A12

this update is focused on major changes to the C point.

• tore out most of the C point, replacing it with an entirely new point design, keeping only the lobby and part of the left-hand 'upper' route. this C design is a really different direction from either of the previous major iterations, and will likely take a lot of refinement. i'm also unsure how i'm thinking of setting it, so it's tentatively placed outside for now. let's hope it plays alright!
• restructured blu's approach into the left-hand 'upper' route on C.
• added a staircase and overlooking grate into the blu lobby on C, to allow better rotation into and defense of the right-hand 'lower' route. this adds a new angle from which red can harrass the blu forward hold, so i've added a bit of micro-gameplay stuff to make it a more interesting combat angle. this should also potentially help red hold in the upper lobby in the early stages of a C defense.
• doubled the capture time on C. this can be adjusted later with playtesting.
• slightly reduced blu spawntimes on A.
• made spawndoor nobuilds disable when their equivalent spawnroom is also disabled.
• repositioned the spectator cameras on C.
• placed cubemaps throughout the map.
• pickup changes around C.
• various minor geometry, lighting, displacement, prop, texture and clipping changes.

another return to this map, after having a break from it during my first university semester for this year.

• A on this map is really weird: sometimes it rolls and sometimes it's a complete lockout. i've realised that this is primarily due to engineers: if red has two or more engies who know what they're doing, they can use a particular pair of sentry spots to completely and entirely lock down A. this makes balancing the point really hard, since not using this strategy makes the point solidly balanced, but using it makes it significantly red-sided.
• to deal with these sentry spots, ive adjusted some entrances into A: moved the front door to the side to prevent a sniper on the red balcony holding all 3 routes at once and shifted the doorways into the staircase behind A so that a sentry sat on the stair landing can't watch the point, only watching the stairs and pickups instead. i've put a window there so attackers get a warning about any sentries lurking before they try to push the staircase.
• also, made the bridge over the lowground cliff route on A have a oneway door to prevent red flanking behind the flankers while still allowing jumper classes to enter that way (the oneway locks open after A capture). this should generally make the flank more of a useable route to muster pushes in.
• opened up a floor window from the A lobby building's upstairs, turning it into a dropdown to the flank. this should work to make that upstairs area more worthwhile holding for both teams, especially if a sentry is able to watch the flank from there.
• extended the balcony from the A lobby building into the A yard, and gave it some cover. this is just further enough out to allow for some less powerful forms of jumps to get across with precise positioning, and allows for more powerful attacks from above by blu team.
• generally, a lot of these changes to A work to give jumper classes more routes that only they have access to, and make the A lobby building a more useful defensible zone, for both teams.
• added a ramp to ease the flow into the red forward hold building at B directly from the point, to slightly help blu more smoothy push into it.
• its now possible to prop jump up into the B hold building using the cliff rock wall.
• removed the ramp up to the grate balcony from C. while this was useful for red rotation between routes, it essentially meant that blu immediately took the point the moment they managed to take control of the balcony.
• replaced the staircar prop at C, since its collisions are really awkward and weird. it's just a brush ramp now.
• i'm generally still really unsure about C. if this version's changes don't make a solid enough difference to how it plays (which i don't hugely expect them to), i'll probably tear out and redo half of it next version.
• redid some of the geometry of the first blu spawn so that the doors no longer clip through the roofs and the right-hand entrance no longer has a wall that can be seen through using a skybox brush.
• removed some of the cliff wall in the B lobby pit, to reduce detail density and make discerning players far away easier for red snipers.
• nobuilded spawndoors mapwide.
• fixed broken respawnroomvisualisers at the third blu spawn.
• changed the positions and angles of the blu spectator cam overlooking the A point and the red spectator cam overlooking the B point.
• very minor spawntime changes: having blu cap progress on B no longer slightly changes red spawntime.
• fixed the red forcespawn on B cap; it was broken before due to weird I/O.
• minor pickup changes.
• various small lighting, prop, displacement, clipping, texture, and geometry changes.

• restructured and raised the C point and the area directly behind it, and gave more routes up to that area, to make the point less quickly accessible and hopefully more interesting to both attack and defend. this change will definitely need a lot of playtesting, so might be a bit rough around the edges at the moment.
• also added a direct staircase between the upper route's balcony and the highground behind C, to make that route more advantageous for blu and also more easy to rotate to for red.
• the right-hand flank to C is now blocked off until B is capped, to prevent blu players entirely bypassing the red spawn area to pre-backcap C.
• lowered the cap time on C to account for the new harder-to-access point.
• increased red spawntime on C and moved back the spawnpoints slightly.
• fixed the issue causing red players to sometimes get trapped in forward spawns when their spawn changes.
• fixed the broken spawn visualisers at blu's first spawn.
• various minor prop, lighting, visual, displacement, geometry and clipping changes.
• pickup changes.

• adjusted the openness of many of the doorways into the A building, to allow for less tight access for blu and tighter access for red, and to more properly open up sightlines to the red highground from the blu right-hand route.
• fenced off the upper cliff edge over the lower route on A to make it a little safer.
• added a prop jump from the lower route on A up to the central courtyard.
• slightly reduced the capture time on A.
• very slightly increased blu spawn time on A.
• various pickup changes around the A area.
• various minor geometry, lighting, displacement, clipping, prop and visual changes in the A area.

• reverted the previous version's spawntime change on A.

• removed one half of the lower wooden stairs next to A, to require blu players to more properly commit to taking over the highground instead of attacking the point, as they have to do it from a different angle or specifically jump up to the ledge.
• i'm unsure about the shutter in the window of the building ahead of B that half-closes after A cap. it's been disabled this version to examine the effects of doing so, but it may return in future versions.
• a collection of doors shut at the connector between A and B after B is capped, to prevent red roamers harrassing the blu spawn for C from that angle. this doesn't shut off the area, so players in the A area don't get stranded.
• i'm happy with the new blu spawn for attacking C, so i've removed the remnants of the previous one.
• made various changes to the 'upper' route on C to make it more defendable and give more interesting options for red holds or sneaky blu teleporter play.
• a few smaller changes to the C area to help red better punish rushes onto the point.
• doors that lock shut midway through the round now push players out from under them to prevent players getting trapped.
• minor spawn time adjustments.
• various geometry, clipping, prop, lighting, displacement and visual adjustments.
• pickup changes.

• after last version's playtesting, i've decided that i'm going to be going forward with the standard attack/defend version of this map, meaning the primary version string has now changed to cp_. The a/d versions played better, smoother, less swingy and removed a lot of the annoyances caused by the flag, and will in future allow me to continue one of the primary aims of this map (focusing on rewarding player creativity) without having to worry about the negative effects of the flag getting into less-used areas or entering too-defendable zones.
• slightly altered the area behind and looking over the A point, to reduce the floorspace of red's highground and the open ease of defense in the staircase behind. also moved the pickups behind the point so red defenders have to commit more properly to the lowground to access them, and blu flankers can more easily make use of them. testing will be necessary to see what impact this has had.
• removed the raised platform around the corner to the left of the main C entrance. this was too strong of a defensive position for red on B, and made for very awkward pushes that went nowhere near the point. sentries will still be able to be setup on the lowground, but these should now be much weaker and have more limited access to pickups. The door that was accessed via this platform has also been removed, as it didn't serve much purpose beyond rerouting lost red players during setup time, which has happened less and less as testing has gone on and the map's routing has been improved in general.
• cut out the left-hand upper defensive area (red's perspective) overlooking the flank on C. this just spread red players out unnecessarily, and made the flank too unsafe and therefore unused. it was necessary when the flank came out onto the point uncontested, but now that it emerges directly next to red's main defensive platform there doesn't need to be two instances of highground overlooking it.
• changed up the geometry of the right-hand upper route (red's perspective) on C to make it chokier and more difficult for blu to overtake.
• created a new blu forward spawn for attacking C, further back on the sniper cliff overlooking the B valley. this is a little further away, but not significantly so. the previous blu forward spawn is now inactive and inaccessible, but has been kept in the map temporarily in case i want to undo this change.
• red spawns that disable no longer teleport players to the next spawn. instead, all spawn functionality is removed and the doors lock open until the last player leaves, at which point they lock closed. the resupply also disables and sinks into the ground. the area stays nobuilded, though. hopefully this should make respawning just before a point capture feel less punishing, without allowing weird frustrating strategies or griefing using these disabled spawnrooms.
• added locked doors in front of spawn doors that are inactive to indicate that they're not accessible.
• small capture time reductions on B and C.
• various small respawn time changes.
• various minor prop, geometry, displacement, visual, lighting and detail changes.
• pickup changes.

another long-delayed return! hopefully i keep updating it this time

• the eagle-eyed among you will notice that this update post was accompanied by two seperate versions of the map, marked respectively as _a7_adctf and _a7_cp. for a7, i'll be testing both as adctf and as standard a/d, to compare and determine which gamemode i'll be moving forward using. over the map's lifespan, i've recieved a lot of feedback suggesting that the flag doesn't add much to the map, and some discussions around the merits of adctf as a gamemode have somewhat persuaded me: my intentions with the capture points and gameplay of much of this map seem to be incompatible with what adctf adds to a cp map. i'll come to a solid decision on this issue by the next version of the map, aided by the playtesting. if anyone has anything to add to the deliberation here, please do!
• opened the under-bypass route after A, which used to open after A capture, immediately from the start of the map. this should split red more evenly between areas when defending A, and allow for them to push back into the area more easily. also slightly changed the ramp to the highground to make the approach a lil less smooth, to further incentivise using the low route. there's a risk that blu starts using this route to harrass red spawn, but it hopefully shouldn't be too bad and should be easy to watch from above due to the existing balcony over the route. also added some extra geo in there just to be a lil more interesting.
• replaced the quickest ramp behind B with a prop jump, to slightly help red pressure the area from that angle and focus blu routing a bit more after capping the point.
• made the window through which red exits their first spawn half-shutter after A capture, to allow players to shoot in or out but not move through during the defense of B.
• made the side door into the B approach building that closes after A capture reopen after B capture, just to offer another bypass route to blu as they exit spawn.
• tore out a large part of the connector between the B and C areas, moving the C point in relation to the rest of the map, and rebuilt the connector to consolidate and tighten a lot of the routes while making a smoother and more interesting defendable zone.
• restructured the central platform of the C area to be asymmetric, connected to one wall, to reduce the number of lowground routes through the area, add some more interesting asymmetricality between the side routes and move red's defensive frontline forwards.
• made a few previously-clipped roofs around the map traversable.
• minor visual, geo, clipping, prop, displacement and lighting changes throughout the map.
• pickup changes.
• minor respawn wave time adjustments on the adctf version of the map.
• on the adctf version of the map, shortened flag return time to 45 seconds. this should reduce moments where the blu team is forced to push into areas that don't make any sense in order to retrieve the flag.

i had covid and nothing else to do so heres my dramatic return to this map!

- completely tore out red's spawns for B and replaced them with a more angled setup using the same exits. this should make the exits more equally used rather than the lower exit being the primary exit.
- removed part of the cover behind B and moved the highground platform down to make it more accessible to blu attackers trying to hold the area for the extended cap time. also generally changed up the visuals to better communicate where red is coming from.
- replaced the sightline blocker and chute in the centre of the C area with a more established highground defensive platform. This should help to push the frontline further away from the point and give red more control over the area.
- messed around with some routes around C in order to force blu to pass through the main C room wherever theyre going. this should help to reduce the 'unfocused' feeling of the point and keep everyone playing around the central space. i've only touched the left 'upper' route so far, and am interested in seeing how that plays before extending similar changes to the right 'lower' route. i definitely also feel like the lobby area before C is unfocused and confusing as well, but im unsure how to approach altering it so may end up completely tearing out a sizeable chunk of it for the next update. stay tuned!
- removed the flank route from behind C - this was awkward tight geometry, not fun to push through, caused blu to forward hold in an area that made no sense and made red have to defend against all sides with no safe wall to put their back against. Red can access the upper route through their spawn, and blu attackers in that area can use the balcony to attack the point directly.
- opened up the first spawn yard a bit to give red spies (chin) a bit more wiggle room.
- messed with spawn times a teensy teensy bit to help blu hold B when they already have cap progress on it.
- pickup changes.
- various minor displacement, prop, lighting, visual, geometry and clipping changes across the map.

- raised the small shed at B up onto stilts. this allows it to block sightlines across the upper level of B, and opens up the lowground to allow for more comfortable combat in that area. also added another rock on blu's highground behind it to allow for more cover to help them combat red snipers.
- made most of the platform directly behind B an interior, to allow red a more covered approach to the building to the side of the point.
- restructured and consolidated the lowground route on C to funnel players more into the other routes and allow for red to focus their defence more elsewhere.
- removed blu's chicken wire cover in their main entrance to C, which should make pushing the central route on C riskier and give snipers more angles to play with in that area. added a little extra cover behind the doorway to allow safer access to the other levels for blu players not taking the main route.
- flipped blu's balcony on C to the right instead of the left, to prevent jumpers from having the same ease of access to red's grate balcony.
- completely restructured and rebuilt red's final spawn at C, seperating the exits completely.
- you can now stand (but not build due to angle) on the chute at C without being pushed. we'll see how balanced or unbalanced this is.
- slightly rerouted the path towards B point from blu's forward spawn thru a new side room, in order to prevent sniper spawncamping.
- made the 'no flag' visualisers generally smaller and higher to obsure vision during combat less, and moved them back at the entrance to C.
- added flag reset triggers further behind the 'no flag' drop triggers to address cheesing attempts by repeated dropping and picking up of the flag.
- increased A's capture time slightly.
- delayed blu's forward spawn on both points by 10 seconds.
- reduced red's respawn wave time slightly for A and C.
- gave blu a little extra time to attack C.
- dealt with some more cringe gameplay trees.
- various geometry, prop, clipping, displacement, lighting and visual changes across the map.
- pickup changes.
- spectator cam changes.
- added a mapwide generic soundscape.