[Map Study] Territorial Control: Hydro (tc_hydro)

[MissionBrief_]

After a medium sized discussion in the good ol' TF2Maps.net chatroom I decided to make this map study after the discussion about Hydro.
Well where do we begin with this map? At the beginning of course.

Stalemates:

The most well known and easy to see flaw about Hydro is how prone to stalemates it is. Stalemates can occur either within rounds or between 2 Rounds. In round stalemates happen due to the nature of a map with 2 Control Points. Progression in-round for hydro is either very sudden and very push heavy or does not occur at all. I like to call a stalemate that occurs when the map is going back and forth on a round in Hydro a '2 Round Stalemate', as it occurs between two rounds and results in no progress in the map.​

Clutter:

Hydro is very cluttered. It only takes one play through to find this out. This happens as the map is too small for 6 Areas all designed for different rounds. As a result of this, Hydro gets incredibly cluttered with routes to different areas left and right. Causing players to get confused, leading into our next point.​

Confusion:

While not Hydro's fault entirely, the map makes no effort to explain itself or what players should and should not do. Even if players were not understanding of the mutli-stage nature of Territorial Control, the map should at least present an easy to understand objective which players can easily navigate to(Refer back to Clutter). Feel free to also vote on the poll about whether you or not understand Hydro.​

Multi-Staging:

I'm apart of a rather large minority it would seem, I enjoy maps that are multi-staged better then those that are not. It would seem that the majority(At-least in TF2Maps.net Chatroom) prefer single-staged style of progression in their maps(Game-mode independent). Hydro for this very reason does not appeal to this group as it's entire premise is that there are several stages that last for fairly short bursts of time(Well that is if it isn't stalemating).​

I hope that my map study about Hydro has given you greater insight into the TC Game-mode and some of the flaws about Hydro.

Remember to vote on the Poll as it could give even better insight as to the percentage of players who understand Hydro to those who don't(Also we won't judge you if you admit to your lack of understanding)

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Stalemates:

The most well known and easy to see flaw about Hydro is how prone to stalemates it is. Stalemates can occur either within rounds or between 2 Rounds. In round stalemates happen due to the nature of a map with 2 Control Points. Progression in-round for hydro is either very sudden and very push heavy or does not occur at all. I like to call a stalemate that occurs when the map is going back and forth on a round in Hydro a '2 Round Stalemate', as it occurs between two rounds and results in no progress in the map.​

The stalemates are a result of poor map flow. Even with just 2 cps you are able to get a game to get into a state where it no longer will stalemate. Hydro is based on large open area connected by thin paths. This is a blueprint for disaster balance wise. The map should allways be more open than a control point. This allows the attackers to focus on a single point of defense and forces defenders to spread fire. Hydro does the opposite on that.

Then it also is focussed mostly on early ninja caps. Respawn rates decide the flow of the map and the more respawns happen, the slower it goes. With 30s respawns im very sure hydro gets alot of captures. But that isnt fun. But if they forced short respawns early on that become longer over time (reaching 30s in 5 mins) then eventualy a team will be overtaken.

Clutter:

Hydro is very cluttered. It only takes one play through to find this out. This happens as the map is too small for 6 Areas all designed for different rounds. As a result of this, Hydro gets incredibly cluttered with routes to different areas left and right. Causing players to get confused, leading into our next point.​

Hydro is not cluttered at all. Most rounds only feature 2 paths and sometimes 1 additional flank. Compare that to most maps that have 3 paths by default where the widest path is already wider than the 3 thin paths of hydro combined.

Confusion:

While not Hydro's fault entirely, the map makes no effort to explain itself or what players should and should not do. Even if players were not understanding of the mutli-stage nature of Territorial Control, the map should at least present an easy to understand objective which players can easily navigate to(Refer back to Clutter). Feel free to also vote on the poll about whether you or not understand Hydro.​

Its as simple as it can be, there is no explaining required as the map initialy should already show its objective. And you might not instantly learn it. But do you hear any people complain about snowplow being confusing? This only happened the first week. People learn new gamemodes fast enough.

Multi-Staging:

I'm apart of a rather large minority it would seem, I enjoy maps that are multi-staged better then those that are not. It would seem that the majority(At-least in TF2Maps.net Chatroom) prefer single-staged style of progression in their maps(Game-mode independent). Hydro for this very reason does not appeal to this group as it's entire premise is that there are several stages that last for fairly short bursts of time(Well that is if it isn't stalemating).​

Single stage progression is easier to make in a map. That why mappers prefer to make it (and this includes valve since it saves time to make such map).

Multistage also has the problem of forcing teams to go through setup times again. But since dustbowl and goldrush are still popular i dont see a problem with it. Its a calm moment in which a less good defending team at least has a chance to prepare again.

The current multistage maps (exclude snowplow from this) however also feature 1 major problem: they have thin paths. For a good flow in a map you want to avoid relying on thin paths. Yet dustbowl and goldrush both have plenty of these. For a part they are liked (easier kills), but many players just dont like these and will no longer bother pushing since its most of the time useless effort. For newbies its ideal as it heavily slows down progress and shows a clear reward for defending such gate as the win chances increase alot.

Hydro on this part fails aswel as if you managed to cap 1 point. you are back to the same situation. And what i also notice is that in hydro either you see no caps at all, or you see constant counter caps without any progress overall.