Now, a few technical things and nitpicks. If you want the bots to not shoot until they're out of the spawn, you need to have the func_respawnroom extend all the way to the edge.
This is already the case. In fact, it goes about 64 over the edge by now. I think this has to do with some other bug which ill have to find out. This is regardless of the spot where they stand.
You should add paint patch overlays to the ground where pickups spawn at, the first time I went on top of the middle building I thought there was no ammo up there because the Engi had taken it and there was no other indication it was there. The full ammopack immediately to the right of the spawn doors, is too far out of the way, I didn't even notice it was there until I took a fly around your map in spectator. And just as a matter of preference, I think that making the healthpacks use the Hallow'een models would fit right in on this map, don't you?
The patches is indeed a todo. im aware of that, and the healthpacks didnt have the halloween model due to halloween mode being off. Still, if there is a permanent way to enforce it on on the map i would like to know it.
More serious balance stuff: A forward upgrade station. A trend shared among many MvM maps from this site, they've proven themselves invaluable for minimising player impatience time and time again, making it so they don't have to run back across the whole map in-between waves to upgrade.
And that is also exactly why there isnt one. On ghost town (coaltown_event) you have the choise to either attack or upgrade. This forces you to make a choise.
If i would add one up front it would have 2 issues.
- It break the map flow. If you are able to hold them easily at the front and you arent upgrading you eventualy are making it harder. Thats a design thing and it stops you from being able to spam canteens.
- Those lockers are disabled during waves... guess what. there is no point to having them as its all 1 big wave.
That i have alternative missions with multiple waves isnt going to change me on that part. After all, those are a bonus and not the true mission i base the map on.
And while you've only got one wave, I know that when I was playing I felt it was too long of a walk to justify upgrading mid-wave, so I feel you'd benefit from having a forward upgrade for the small breaks that separate different parts of the wave.
That is exactly why there isnt one. Im keeping it to ghost town in the way it works.
You can even have it lock and unlock when a WaveSpawn ends and another WaveSpawn starts, so people don't just buy loads of crit canteens in the middle of a fight. And it would serve to liven up some of the
blank walls you've got going in places.
Many waves have gaps of like 10 seconds. There isnt even enough time there to upgrade in the first place.
That's the biggest gripe I have with your map. There are a few places in your map that saw almost no traffic, even from robots. The high up side routes, in particular, seemed entirely desolate save the odd Sniper or Engineer.
That is true, they arent being used alot. Only in 1 wave bots seem to take some of those paths but only very minimal. These flanks were originaly more designed for players and later on we simply allowed bots to take them aswel. But for example the bomber wont use it and this makes most bots not use them.
Speaking of Engineers, I didn't feel they were a threat at all, perhaps you could mess with some of their
attributes to make their sentries pack more of a punch, or make them teleport in like in other missions.
There are 3 engy types:
Combat only: Walks in, only builds sentries
Normal engy: Walks in, builds tele and sentry.
Teleport engy: Teleports in, builds tele and sentry.
The big problem on this is the part where they build teleports. I dont want them to build one as it breaks the map flow. A good team can easily stop them and this would make waves too easy. A less good team might get a teleport in and get wiped down. For this matter i only used the sentry building one. I however could improve his HP and maybe increase his sentry build speed. I think that would be more ideal. They still dont spawn too often.
I'll be looking forward greatly to the next version, especially those "harder missions" you've got cooking, it'll be a treat to see what madness you've come up with to top this.
Those harder missions are just normal wave types (i for example also made some normal, andvanced and intermediate type of wave). They arent a wave 666 type. Still, on those waves you will see the flanks being used more often.
Still, thanks for the feedback.
EDIT: And as a sidenote, i am aware i can add upgrade stations in the front. And if i do i would have them active at all times. But as you said, you get crit canteen spam that way. A thing that in the back gives a tradeoff. Instead, what if i made the gaps between just a few waves larger so you can buy some upgrades at about 3 times without having too much of an issue? This still means you could lose some valuable time, but again. The risk is less. Gaps are easy to make since it allways uses the waitforalldead parameter to seperate waves.
A forward stations to me sounds like im going to add alot of issues in the map balance wise. Because, what if i add it too far up in the front. you wouldnt even be able to reach it. And too far in the back it would be pointless. During waves you will recieve so much spam that you arent getting a chance to upgrade because youll die in the process (which takes you back to spawn aswel). Not to mention that alot of waves push you back anyway. And in that case the walk suddenly is short.
EDIT 2: After a looking at what settings the engies have i managed to make them teleport in but not build a teleporter. The only attribute they need is:
Attributes TeleportToHint - this makes them teleport to 1 of the hint objects you can place in the map.
and
TeleportWhere spawnbot - Makes them build teleporters.
It also gives a large line for a short moment to show where the teleported in.
So 1 issue is tackled.