Hydro, a good or a bad map?

[CommodoreKong]

Visually Hydro is very nice and I wish we had more maps with they hydro-electric plant theme before Powerhouse finally gave us another map with that theme.
Gameplay wise it's not very fun. Having the map reset every time a point is capped gets annoying very fast and it's very easy for the map to stalemate if one team caps and point then the other team caps. I've always called that getting stuck in "Hydro Hell". It also has tons of very small and narrow choke points that a demo or solider can spam so easily, though a lot of early TF2 maps have that problem.
I give Valve props for trying something different with the map (obviously all the launch maps were Valve trying different things to see what worked, even Well and Granary both being 5CP maps have the difference of a startup time on Well but no startup time on Granary) but it didn't really work and obviously Valve feels that way too since they didn't make any other Territory Control maps. I am happy to see it was added to the official server rotation though, I feel like Valve should have servers up for all maps and modes and let people play what they want.

 

[Muddy]

Just played a few rounds of it. Overall I quite like it, despite the constant stalemates. The stalemating doesn't bother me quite as much since the rounds keep switching, unlike in Powerhouse where it's just the same thing over and over again. Only concern I have is that it's easy to keep bumping into locked doors while trying to get to the enemy's control point, and also there's the vent above BLU's final point which overlooks one of BLU's spawn exits, making it very easy to spawn camp while remaining almost completely out of sight.

 

[LadyRaee]

Hydro is awesome map, beautifully detailed, only problem... It's too small. There's only one way passage between points and passages are extrely choky.

 

[nickybakes]

Hydro is awesome map, beautifully detailed, only problem... It's too small. There's only one way passage between points and passages are extrely choky.

I feel the small, choke passages make up for the fact that a team only has to capture one point to win the area.

 

[UKCS-Alias]

Hydro has a mixed situation of when its bad and good.

First, detailing wise its excelent. It has low detail, yet still looks good. Every area is clearly identified.
For the gameplay there are a few problems:
- On higher player counts capping the points becomes very hard, and later in the round even harder due to faster respawns. Its stalemate friendly there which for the gamemode is a bad thing.
- As long as rounds stalemate there are 2 rounds you cant play. Instead you are left with the 2 central paths.
- Of the 8 stages, only 4 are available at the start, and 2 of them are spam friendly by being just a single thin path going into an open area. This is extremely hard to fight against and most likely will stalemate even with unbalanced teams. This means that 50% of the time you wouldnt get any progress, with that adding a 25% chance of facing such round twice after each other. This isnt fun. Of the remaining rounds a few still involve alot of thin paths, again being a bad thing. There are only a few stages which can show a good gameplay flow.
- On low player counts its very hard to defend your point and this would promote scout rushes. So getting such map started is a hassle aswel since scout rushes arent realy the most interesting rounds on any map but cp_steel (a rush for cap E).
- Higher skill players can easily lock down the map as there is little room for navigation so they can focus fire. Even ubercharge pushing wouldnt be capable to stop them as its too easy to regain your own base.

Only when the teams are at a good level (not too strong, yet still capable of teamwork) you can see progress which is fun.

Still, even with these downsides i had alot of fun on hydro (note though that other than single random moments which arent realy an indication i actualy stopped playing this map like 5 years ago). But its also the map that would require quite some fixes to be better in the current state of tf2 to make it actualy work again (ie. respawntimes become longer as the wave takes longer, capture times become shorter, some paths widened/new flank routes, enforced sudden death on stalemate, overpowered sentry spots nerfed, better balance on capture zones that are easy to hold down - i remember the dish being a major hazard with stickies).

 

[Moonrat]

Hydro has a mixed situation of when its bad and good.

First, detailing wise its excelent. It has low detail, yet still looks good. Every area is clearly identified.
For the gameplay there are a few problems:
- On higher player counts capping the points becomes very hard, and later in the round even harder due to faster respawns. Its stalemate friendly there which for the gamemode is a bad thing.
- As long as rounds stalemate there are 2 rounds you cant play. Instead you are left with the 2 central paths.
- Of the 8 stages, only 4 are available at the start, and 2 of them are spam friendly by being just a single thin path going into an open area. This is extremely hard to fight against and most likely will stalemate even with unbalanced teams. This means that 50% of the time you wouldnt get any progress, with that adding a 25% chance of facing such round twice after each other. This isnt fun. Of the remaining rounds a few still involve alot of thin paths, again being a bad thing. There are only a few stages which can show a good gameplay flow.
- On low player counts its very hard to defend your point and this would promote scout rushes. So getting such map started is a hassle aswel since scout rushes arent realy the most interesting rounds on any map but cp_steel (a rush for cap E).
- Higher skill players can easily lock down the map as there is little room for navigation so they can focus fire. Even ubercharge pushing wouldnt be capable to stop them as its too easy to regain your own base.

Only when the teams are at a good level (not too strong, yet still capable of teamwork) you can see progress which is fun.

Still, even with these downsides i had alot of fun on hydro (note though that other than single random moments which arent realy an indication i actualy stopped playing this map like 5 years ago). But its also the map that would require quite some fixes to be better in the current state of tf2 to make it actualy work again (ie. respawntimes become longer as the wave takes longer, capture times become shorter, some paths widened/new flank routes, enforced sudden death on stalemate, overpowered sentry spots nerfed, better balance on capture zones that are easy to hold down - i remember the dish being a major hazard with stickies).

In TF2C I stickied the roof of the dish point, and my god so many fucking people never saw 8 of them just hanging up there.

As for sentry spots, yes. The Dam has the two platforms overlooking the point. BLU's final gets several good ones for both teams, while RED's gets nothing. The Turbine room has several disgusting sentry spots, and The Bridge also has the one that you can put on that platform overlooking it aswell.

Generally, Hydro is okay, but it has a lot of the early game map flaws that plagues every god damn one of them. Chokey passages, cheap Engie spots, Stalemates up the ass, and of course really pretty visuals.

 

[Jekyllson]

In TF2C I stickied the roof of the dish point, and my god so many fucking people never saw 8 of them just hanging up there.

As for sentry spots, yes. The Dam has the two platforms overlooking the point. BLU's final gets several good ones for both teams, while RED's gets nothing. The Turbine room has several disgusting sentry spots, and The Bridge also has the one that you can put on that platform overlooking it aswell.

Generally, Hydro is okay, but it has a lot of the early game map flaws that plagues every god damn one of them. Chokey passages, cheap Engie spots, Stalemates up the ass, and of course really pretty visuals.

I don't get the defense of Hydro as a "mixed" map despite such massive gameplay flaws. I mean, Junction, Snowplow, and Hoodoo have all the problems you mentioned, and people love to throw those maps under the bus as examples of "bad" official maps. Is it because of Hydro's polish? Its aesthetic? Nostalgia? Is it because people give it a free pass because it was made for a different era of TF2 gameplay?

I'm not trying to criticize anyone/anything here, I just legitimately have no idea what people see in this map, and I'd appreciate it if someone explained it to me

 

[Moonrat]

I don't get the defense of Hydro as a "mixed" map despite such massive gameplay flaws. I mean, Junction, Snowplow, and Hoodoo have all the problems you mentioned, and people love to throw those maps under the bus as examples of "bad" official maps. Is it because of Hydro's polish? Its aesthetic? Nostalgia? Is it because people give it a free pass because it was made for a different era of TF2 gameplay?

I'm not trying to criticize anyone/anything here, I just legitimately have no idea what people see in this map, and I'd appreciate it if someone explained it to me

There are some fun areas in Hydro. The Dish doesn't have any overpowered sentry spots, and some really fun geometry to fight on. The Bridge has a lot of height variation, along with the Cave area. BLU's final is fun to play on, and so is RED's final. There are problems, which is why it's mixed, and not good. But it has a lot more going for it than just graphics.

Junction, Hoodoo and others all have the same problems as Hydro, but also have their own problems. Junction is disgusting cramped and chokey. Hoodoo has some flat out annoying areas that don't have anything going for them, along with nasty chokepoints as well. Snowplow has the Engineer problem, specifically 2nd and last of the first stage, which they can be absolutely atrocious to attack because of them.

So overall, Hydro is okay. Not amazing, but I wouldn't say it's bad. just has it's fair share of mistakes that other maps have, and sometimes worse. Hell, I'd take Hydro over cp_well ANY day.