feedback notes:
-went a lot better than expected
-people hate the b flank but it also kinda worked how it was intended? sorta? im not sure that blue made more successful pushes directly after the train pushed through and i think red was able to hold it better with the train in the way than i expected, but it was decent
-the large flank on C is desolate but also really necessary to win. badwater B does this too but i think its more obvious for players because
a) they know the map better
b) theres pretty much nothing else to do. either you go to a sightline choke hellfest or go to the flank.
if i want players to use the large flank more then last would have to get smaller or something? im not sure
-A played strangely in pretty much every round. one defense was able to lock down the "boy tunnel" (not my decision to name it that) which is sorta what i intended but other times red just sat on top and blue was able to push through no problem. i think badwater A and upward B might work better than this because their tunnels are much easier to spam into and therefore harder to ignore/easier to defend and require a much more divisive victory up top in order to push
plans for the future:
i had kinda already made some plans on scrapping/redoing/reconfiguring the map and pushed this version out to see what i could learn about the layout as it is currently, and i think that helped a lot. it confirmed or dispelled some assumptions i had made about the layout which will inform what i do later.
my plan is to scrap most of B because its the part of the map i like the least. blue pretty consistently pushed through the area before the choke with no issues, and the choke itself is maybe the weakest part of the map, although i maintain that it played close to how i intended and its interesting/unique as a gameplay space.
the new B will be.... something. possibly a reconfiguration of A? (more on that later.) the main thing about this new B is that it will not involve the train. making the train be involved in B meant doing some strange things to the overall layout, where directly after each point the cart enters a choke and has to do a 180. keeping along the cart path makes the map linear, and to get around that i made the path (especially around A>B) do a large detour away from the train path, but the result of that is the weird awkward space that is the open area for B. also involving a train on B means that players have to deal with a train on every single point, which may be fatiguing.
A is also most likely getting scrapped in some way because of a few reasons. part of why im making this map is because i want to experiment with how trains can interrupt a gameplay space and create dynamic situations, especially like what's seen in whiterock B. C is a weird version of badwater final with the train interrupting a height advantage (although it wasn't especially used as such in the test), B has the train running directly next to the payload to interrupt a flank in a really disruptive manner that was also intended to create a push opportunity for blue (which it sorta did, but the choke itself at B lets the idea down), and A is a version of badwater A/upward B.
of those ideas, i feel A is the least interesting. i know i want to move the train away from B, but i also like the idea of B, so i think the plan is to take the idea of B and make an A point out of it.
theres also the alternative idea of adding a second train so all three points can have a train but im not required to squish B into a weird spot. a lot of people commented on the trains so i feel like fatigue might be a real concern but it's hard to say for certain.
tl;dr:
A will probably be redone entirely with the idea of B (train runs directly next to cart path).
B will probably be redone entirely with no train. completely new concept; no idea what it would be.
C will be similar to how it is. bridge with train over a lowered area. may toy with the idea of the cart entering a building before the true finale, but im not certain about that.
potentially include a second train so all three points still have a train while still changing the overall shape of the map, which is the main issue i've had while designing it. this would also mean i don't need to move the idea of B to A, although i still may decide to do so.
