some fountain #thoughts
A got a total redo and people are slowly learning to play it, though I don't think it plays like I hoped. Here's what I had imagined a good forward red defense would look like:
There are two main holding areas, (1) which is closed quarters and doesn't have great control over the open routes, but is necessary to hold to prevent blue from gaining an important high ground, and (2) which covers most of the open area. There are some issues with assuming red players will hold here - in addition to the fact that players may be used to how the old A is meant to be held, these spots are not obvious, they don't always offer great cover or retreat, and maybe most importantly, they have no synergy. Let's take a look at Gorge:
Here we can see a greater number of positions and better retreat options, but maybe most important is that these positions share a lot of common ground in the area they cover. Players on red are choosing different positions based on their class and intended strategy, but they are going to be attacking the same blue players from multiple angles. On Fountain A, this is barely the case, and instead red team is trying to hold two completely different fronts. It's not great, and the area needs to be refocused.
B is probably the most consistent point in the map right now. I'm not sure how much people are having
fun, but it seems
balanced. In recent testing it has been the only point to net red a win besides D.
One question that has come up is this corner choke. What if there was more area to fight in back here? I don't know. I can't tell how people feel about this. I think the corner might be fine as it is if the rest of the point area becomes better to play in.
I think the significant issue with this point is that red isn't really sure where the "good" hold is once they lose the corner. The team becomes confused and unfocused if there isn't a good engineer nest to galvanize the team, but this doesn't happen by default. Here are the main holds:
(1) is intended to be the default hold, but it doesn't work great. Good engineer holds typically have the engineer built in the back with their teammates up in front, relying on the engineer for resources, and letting the sentry take out enemies that overextend. However, this doesn't exactly work when the area isn't already a good place for the majority of the team to hold from, is it? The covered area for the sentry and the covered area for the player is the same spot. If you try to hold out in front of the (1) sentry spot, you're subject to sightlines and height disadvantage. Not great.
(2) and (3) are more difficult hold positions that end up being much better for red team, as players can actually hold in an area with cover while defending the cart from a distance, and they can fall back to be protected by a sentry. This dynamic could be improved in these areas, but the point is that this dynamic should apply to (1), since this is where the majority of the team will enter the area. (2) and (3) should be riskier hold positions, but not necessary to not get completely rolled.
C is weird because typically payload points are at the end of an open area to help ensure that blue team has cleared the open area of red players before capping. Typically red will also be limited on their entrances to the area because this helps ensure red has a hard time pushing back out once they have lost that ground.
C currently fails because it is just on the wrong side of a choke, and it is possible (if not
frequent) that blue cheeses the cap without actually pushing red out of the open area. So, one possible conclusion is to move the point in and increase the difficulty of pushing the cart to the CP:
However, this doesn't solve the issue of being limited on their entrances. There are three routes in and out of this building, both usable by either team. For this to work, the routes out of the building would need to be redesigned such that blue has the advantage once they occupy that ground - and there's not really a good way to do that here. Also, the outdoor area is pretty good for spamming into the building, so blue would likely still be cheesing the cap even in this scenario. So:
What if we move the point even further out? This design would meet both of the typical requirements for a point: At the end of an open area, and red's options into this open area are limited. The hold at the old C point spot would exist, but there would be another layer of holding available to red (which has happened on some tests).
To help balance this out, red would probably spawn at last instead of a forward. This may cause some timing issues with C as it is since blue would be reaching further into the building before encountering red team, but that can be adjusted by delaying the door opening after capping B, much like how Barnblitz B's turntable gives red time to set up. There is also already a decent amount of slack built into the start of C, which is typical of payload maps for pretty much this exact reason.
D plays decently but has sightline issues and lacks things to do for a lot of classes. It is an open area for DM where snipers and soldiers rule. There is an area to the side that can be an interesting area to contest from a gameplay perspective (as evidenced by Wilson continuously planting a blue teleporter in the back area, due to neglect from red team), but it doesn't actually offer a large advantage to attacking last. You're still subject to a lot of the same sightlines and you get no height advantage.
So, for redesigning the point, I want to try and think of the point as MAIN and FLANK, where MAIN is where the cart goes and is a more open area to "duke it out" (where the same sightlines may apply), and FLANK, a secondary area for both teams to contest that offers high ground and cover for both teams that will help with controlling the area. This would be similar to the buildings around Badwater last, or the rooms around Upward last, etc. Some area that is ultimately necessary to control, but not directly connected to the cart path, requiring both teams to split their attention.
You'll have to use your imagination here for what FLANK would look like. Imagine there's an area with good cover that can take out the main sentry nest from out of range.
