Before I get into the nitty gritty of the map, I want to talk about the HUD. I preferred the previous version because it was easier to see the status of each bot group at a glance and the positioning of each group icon allowed them to be used as a rough indication of where an enemy that has stolen the core is - if the thief icon is above B, he's in that area, etc. Also, when both teams' cores are in play, the HUD can be difficult to read as the cores are dropped and picked up again in rapid succession and the bars slowly try to catch up, only to repeat the process as the core is picked up or dropped again. I think the simplest solution is simply to have the shaded bars represent cores stolen by the enemy. A different solution could be to use two bars - a shaded red bar to represent points stolen from RED, and a shaded BLU bar to represent points stolen from BLU,
like so.
Without further ado, let's move on to my map feedback.
I have not felt so frustratingly useless and ineffective at changing the course of a round as I have felt playing Asteroid in a long,
long time. I like to think I'm pretty good at TF2, so when I play pubs, I feel like I can turn the tables of a bad game if I push myself that little bit harder. That is not how I feel on Asteroid. Instead, I feel like I'm constantly grasping at straws, I feel like I need to be everywhere, killing everyone and doing everything, or we're going to lose.
The main issue that I see, is that the position of the entrances and exits to each team's base, the layout of the room that contains the bridge with bot group B on it, and the power of the trigger volumes that modify respawn time, all make it very difficult for teams that have been forced back into their own base to push back out of it. I've mentioned this twice before, but I'd like to go into further detail now.
A defending team will typically try to defend from the lobby area of their base, being able to hold this area means you can control who enters and exits the base, but should a defending team be pushed out of this area, this control is transferred to the attacking team, and they can lock the defending team inside their base to prevent them from scoring points. Furthermore, from this position, the attacking team that has established a forward hold in the enemy team's lobby has instant respawns at all times, while the defending team that are already being prevented from leaving their base or scoring points to win, must wait the full 6-12 seconds at all times. From here, the fight moves on to the water bridge room.
Looking at this area, doesn't it look an awful lot like mid? The parallels that can be drawn between this image and Asteroid's own mid - which in turn draws parallels with 2Fort's mid - are uncanny to me. It may not be a perfectly symmetrical mid, but it's close enough that it plays like one, and that's what hammers the final nail into the coffin for our defending team. For all intents and purposes, breaking the attacking team's forward hold on their base and pushing into enemy territory are synonymous to the defenders. But it's a losing battle, because no matter how many enemies you kill, reinforcements just keep coming in thanks to those instant respawns - to say nothing of any teleporters hidden in the base - and every defender that dies just means you're outnumbered that much more. Even if you manage to defend your side of this secondary mid in your base, the enemy will win eventually as they have unrestricted access to bot group A - B and C aren't that much harder for them to kill either, but even without those bot groups, they're going to win eventually. The defending team's last resort is to make a desperate attempt at the enemy's core - which is in no way a reliable win condition.
So the team that has established a forward hold in the enemy team's lobby eventually scores the full 300 points and wins the round, while the defenders are cooped up in their spawn with only a handful of points. And just in case you weren't convinced that this is what happens, we have the numbers to prove it. I personally played 20 consecutive games of Asteroid - changing servers regularly - and recorded the final scores of each team. Additional data was provided by Tumbolisu and Howling Techie, bringing the total games played up to 28.
Turbo Lover said:
300-0
300-0
300-91
300-10
300-5
300-4
300-82
300-0
300-20
300-90
300-16
300-17
300-51
300-29
300-14
300-40
300-174
300-0
300-107
300-5
300-82
Tumbolisu said:
300-114
300-69
300-28
300-79
300-70
300-12
Howling Techie said:
On average, the winning team on Asteroid wins with a point lead of 258. Uncertainties created by unbalanced teams and stolen cores can be accounted for by adding or subtracting 7. It's also worth noting that of the 28 games played, only one game's losing team ended the round with a score greater than half of the winning amount, and only three losing teams ended the round with over a third. If that's not proof, I don't know what is.
Thinking about how I'd improve this map, the first and most obvious aspect to change would be the instant respawn triggers - whether you weaken them, shrink them, or remove them entirely, something about them must be done to prevent one team from having so much presence in the enemy team's base. But there's still the water bridge room, and even with the total removal of the instant respawn triggers, a few teleporters will still turn this room into a second mid - just a better balanced one. That's not what you want to have inside your own base. So, we've gotta make it easier for a team to attack the front of their own base.
First suggestion, lower the bridge with bot group B on it, the door leading to the bridge from outside the base, and the platform overlooking the bridge that is closest to the outside. The platforms overlooking the water bridge aren't quite even but pretty close to it, tipping that balance and creating some powerful height for the defending team would go a long way to making the lobby an easier position to attack.
The first screenshot shows a platform that hangs over the right side of the room that has access to a vent, this vent drops down into the room with the medium healthpack and medium ammokit from the square on the roof in the second screenshot. Those two weird shapes on the right of the second screenshot are supposed to be glass. A big problem with moving into the lobby area from the defender's perspective is a lack of visibility of what's in there, more windows in the area should help with that. The vent is there because there are very few ways to actually get to the second floor of the lobby as a defender, the stairs that bot group A encircle are seldom a viable option as that's where a lot of enemies cluster, leaving you with only the glass tunnel along the left of the water bridge room. Not only does this vent dropdown add another route, it's one that can't effectively be used by the attackers, and would be useful for taking out enemy sentry placements inside your lobby - which are disgustingly common.
Lowering the water level here would allow for a tunnel to punch through the area underneath the lobby and come back out in your team's cave. This tunnel would most likely need to be a one-way out of the base so as to prevent Scouts and Spies being able to bypass almost all of a team's defences, but a route that takes you outside of the base while completely avoiding the lobby would be invaluable to core thieves, which are heavily relied upon by teams which are losing. The thief not only gains a safer way past the enemies at the gate, but a nice escape route to make use of when they have taken the core. Of course, it need not be used by core thieves alone, should the enemy be rooted inside your lobby, it would act as a convenient flank.
Whether or not my suggestions make waves, the thing I want to see most in the patch notes for this map is "Layout has been adjusted with the overall goal of increasing defenders' ability to push back out of their base." as it's this key fault with the map that is making me angry and frustrated on a map I think has a lot of potential.
P.S. I've been thinking the core mechanic splits teams up a little too much, and I think that's an opinion others have voiced, but I need to test more before I can say for sure. I'll let you guys know how I feel about that after another 20 games of Asteroid.
God help me.