Megapieman asked me for my thoughts on a6a, so here's some thoughts!
I wasn't sure where to start, so this is a bit scattershot. I'd love to give it a full write up along side my whole PASS Time design theory document that I'm working on, but that's not ready yet and I don't have time for a proper 16-page write up at the moment.
Mid:
At a glance and from the demo I don't think I'm a fan, but it might feel better while actually playing it. It's hard to tell what is supposed to be the main route for pushing through, and everywhere in it feels dangerous. The geometry implies that attackers should push through the right (when looking at mid) but that's a terrible small doorway with less options than going left. I do like the sort of one-way thing you're trying to do to ensure teams can push through mid, but it feels strange to navigate at the moment. I can't measure it, but I think this is narrower than both Gigantic's mid and all of the official ones. District is
technically narrower, but it's split into three different routes to allow teams to slip through. Mid seems to work from what I can tell, but it doesn't feel good. The feelings of spaces in general are hell to try to explain, let alone fix if they feel off. Sorry I can't really explain it better.
Courtyards:
This map seems to be attempting to follow in the tradition of Brickyard and District by having transition courtyards between Mid and the Goal Areas. At the moment I don't think it's entirely working; it's very unclear what is intended to be the main route and what is a flank. District has a split running down the map that breaks it into two distinct areas: the Subway, and the Streets. Attackers generally push through the Subway, and the ball is generally returned via the Streets. Teams can push using the Streets, but it's generally harder. Here you've got the outside route and the interior route seemingly attempting to mirroring that, but it's just confusing players instead. I regret leaving feedback about emphasizing the interior routes in my initial feedback on a1, since it seems that's come a the cost of the outer route being improved. Both routes are just that as well; routes. There's still no real places for teams to prep for a push on the goals. The inside of the building could become that, but at the moment it's too dangerous since defenders can slip through the forward spawn from near the bonus goal launcher.
Spawns:
I'm personally not a fan of having a spawn behind the run-in goal, but that's a topic for my longer piece on PASS Time theory in general. Short version of the bits that matter for your map: Having playable space behind the last goal increases the possibility of allowing teams to run the clock by hiding with the ball after scoring once, and can obscure possible threats to attacking players making a run for the back goal.
The forward spawn is somehow too far forward, but not backwards enough at the same time, which is honestly kind of impressive? First, we'll address the forwardness: on all official maps the forward spawn exits into the goal areas (except District, which has reasons for that that are outside the scope of this feedback that involve routeing, map scale, spawn change triggers, and overall map structure). Here, your main forward exit skips that, exiting into a buffer area which also seems to be the main route for attackers. I'm not entirely sure what that's doing to the gameplay since I only really have a single demo to work off of, but it's something to keep in mind. I have a feeling that this might be why pushes sometimes stall in the courtyard before reaching the goal areas. Now for the backness of the forward spawns: the right exit for the forward spawns almost feels like it should be the back spawn based on how the routes work? I really don't know, something about it feels off. I really think it's a routing issue since where it exits doesn't connect directly to any routes towards mid. I'd maybe lower it to connect to the hallway under where it currently exits if you aren't planning on rebuilding all of the spawns and whole goal area? That would make it harder to hold the bonus goal launcher, and stop defenders coming from the back spawn from being able to rotate though the forward spawn as easily.
Goal Areas:
In my big document on PASS Time theory I'm working on, I posit the idea that PASS Time has three distinct goals in order to split up teams and make defense harder by forcing teams to have to guard more ground than reasonably possible. Here, you've got them set up so they can all be covered by one sentry. District also has this issue, but the goals are at different heights and are
just far enough apart that there's always a blind spot unless the sentry is just sitting in the middle of an empty courtyard.
Overall structure:
I don't think the courtyard -> goal area transition is working at the moment, which is where most of the issues are coming from. At this point I think it might be interesting to lean more on the outside route, and try working the building into a more one-way route heading out towards mid for defenders. The way you've built the goal area seems to be promoting a fight across the width of the map, but then you're allowing players to slip in under the throw-in goal, breaking this pattern. Shifting the fight to make attackers come in from the outside route and defenders sticking to the building side would probably help. Brickyard, District, Timbertown, and Gigantic all do this to varying degrees. The blue and red arrows on the right of this image from my upcoming PASS Time break down show how this works on Gigantic:
(The orange bit is showing how I've separated the run-in goal into its own semi-protected space, and the purple bit is showing how I've tried to use height and cover to break up the goal area and give attackers an alternate route, but those are both outside of the scope of this feedback for now)
In the end, I think the biggest issue is player flow and routing; there's no clear attack and ball return routes, making the map feel very chaotic. You've done a decent job at building routes that allow players to flow nicely from their forward spawn into and across mid, but the way you've set it up means that that route is shared as one of the main routes for attackers, turning it into a more head-on-head fight than I think works for PASS Time. Because of this at all times it's unclear how to best approach the goals as an attacker, which leaves defense scattered and allows solo scouts to slip through.
There's lots of ways you can approach this feedback, and I'm interested to see what you think of it! Do note I'm coming from the perspective of trying to stick as close to the style of the official maps as possible; there's plenty of room for experimentation and that might not be the right approach for this map in the end. Good luck!
