Map Layout Vs. Game Mode

[Lacry]

Introduction​

In TF2 there is plenty of maps, many of them has halloween or smissmas versions, but there is other kind of maps I want to talk today, and those are the maps that have multiple modes, like Well, it has a CTF, 5CP and ARENA version. The question is, which one fits better the map layout. I think you probably like the most the mode you like the most, in my case CTF is my favourite mode, and thus CTF Well is my favourite version. So the first thing we'll be doing is listing all the maps that have different modes, and make some comparisons.


Badlands
5CP / ARENA / KOTH

This maps is really interesting, since it's a map from TFC, and back then it was a CTF, but when it came to TF2 it changed to 5CP. In this case i think the best one is 5CP since its the closest to the original version. And after that I think I prefer the ARENA version, I think is too open for KOTH.


Foundry
5CP / CTF (Mannpower)

In this case I prefer the CP version. The CTF version is too big in my opinion, tho is probably that way because it's a Mannpower map, a mode that not many people like to be honest.


Gorge
5CP / CP (A/D) / CTF (Mannpower)

My favourite in this one is the original CP version. I do think the 5CP is fine (can't say too much since I'm not a big fan of 5CP), but the CTF version is not very good, again it's a Mannpower map.


Granary
ARENA / CP

In my opinion this is one of the most underrated TF2 maps, and of course I prefer the CP version, but the ARENA version is fine too, but not as good as the original one.


Nucleus
ARENA / KOTH / VSH

This one is interesting cause I feel it's one of the few maps that work as good for KOTH and ARENA. I haven't tried VSH enough for this one unfortunately. Fun fact; the creator of PD (Egan) used this map when testing PD, and honestly I think this map could work for PD too.


Sawmill
ARENA / CTF / KOTH / PD

This is the map with the most modes in the game, with a total of 4. Surprisingly all of them are pretty good in my opinion, the one I don't like as much as the others is probably the ARENA version, which is funny cause is the first version and currently the only one you can't play in official servers (Valve bring back arena, please).


Thundermountain
CTF / PL

I have no idea how they came up with this. A PL map turned into a CTF map, I don't have much to say in this one, other that I really don't like the CTF version.


Well
5CP / ARENA / CTF

This map, like Badlands, is from TFC, and still is a CTF map. I like the CTF and CP version in this case, but not so much the ARENA version, probably because half of the map is blocked, and ARENA maps should be very open.

So... what other game mode could work in X map?​

As we seen before, there is no rules when it comes to changing the mode of a map, but most of the times we don't want to alter the original layout too much, to do that I think we should stick to whether the map is symmetrical or asymmetrical. Lets see which game modes are symmetrical and which ones are asymmetrical.

Symmetrical	Asymmetrical
Arena	CP (A/D)
CTF	CP (CENTRALIZED)
CP (3CP/5CP)	CP (PYRAMID)
CP (DOMINATION)	MVM
KOTH	PL
PASS	TC
PLR	VSH
PD
RD
SD
VSH

Gamemodes that are symmetrical are easier to swap between them than asymmetrical maps, cause you mainly only have to change the size of the map or some small areas. Now obviously not every single symmetrical mode can be swapped with other ones, obviously that will depend of the map layout, but I do think there is certain modes that can easily swap between them.

ARENA <> KOTH
ARENA > VSH
3CP/5CP <> CTF (Especially 3CP in my opinion)
3CP/5CP > ARENA (Using the middle area)
CP (DOMINATION) <> SD
KOTH > PD

From here is just trial and error in my opinion. Again, it will mostly depend of the map layout, so who knows what might work for each map.

Conclusion​

I don't have a definitive answer to how to pick the most apropiate game mode for a map. But I think its' something it should be more talked about, especially if it can heavily improve a map.Right now I'm making a 4CP map (Maple Falls) and people is struggling a lot with the last point, but maybe changing the mode to CTF could improve the map a lot.

Anyways, thanks for reading all this bunch of words together!

 

[Tiftid]

I'm not massively experienced on all of these maps since they're not usually well-regarded, but Arena -> KOTH in particular sticks out to me since people in the community often say things such as "Harvest and Suijin were WRONGED! They were meant to be Arena maps!" (and Nucleus, to a lesser extent).

And looking at it, I can kind of see it.
Harvest's biggest problem (or best feature depending on your outlook) is the spawncamping, but as you cannot spawn in Arena, you also cannot spawncamp.
Suijin's biggest problem is all the side angles that let the enemy team snipe you before you even get to the control point, but that's not a problem in Arena since both teams only get one chance to roll out to the control point.

However, I'm not completely convinced that they'd be amazing Arena maps.
Harvest would still have Soldiers and Demomen wreaking havoc seconds after the round starts and being a nuisance behind you as you try to approach the cap, and Suijin would still split the teams up so much that you could look at the scoreboard a minute into the round to find out that your terrible teammates have all taken bad 1v1s and died and you're alone against a massive enemy team and there wasn't much you could have done about it.

And as for Nucleus - well, you know how it is. Massively prone to sniping and spawncamping, it doesn't even pretend to keep the attackers safe until they reach the CP.
I tend to find it's very similar in PD.
You see, a lot of people treat PD as just "team deathmatch", but it has a lot more nuance to it than that.
I know this, because I've played team deathmatch maps that just let you grab the points off the ground to score them instantly, and they're always worse than PD would be because they don't have that central capzone.
In TDM, if your teammates suck, they're feeding the enemy team points without you being able to do anything to stop it.
But in PD, if you're a single amazing player with a terrible team, you can hold the central capzone, and all the points that were fed to the enemy team become yours again and you can still win.

So making the CP unsafe as much as Nucleus does doesn't help PD either.

I think there's some merit to converting A/D to 5CP, and 5CP back to A/D.
What they did with Gorge was pretty clever - Valve seemingly (according to the developer commentary) wants 5CP to actually not be very back-and-forth, so they made it so that mid was the hard-to-push into B point, 2nd was the slightly-less-hard A point and last was the not-hard-at-all BLU spawn exterior, so that the defenders would stay at their spawn and let the enemy team repeatedly attack them and eventually win.
But ultimately, I think all gamemodes are better with a litte back-and-forth, so I don't think they ended up with a very fun product.

I once considered converting cp_badlands to an A/D map.
What I realised pretty quickly was that the spire was going to have to be the forward hold for A and B respectively, since any other method would have been putting the points too close together and resulting in them rolling.
So, BLU last was BLU's lobby to attack A, BLU 2nd was the A forward hold, mid was the A backward hold and BLU's lobby to attack B, RED 2nd was the B forward hold and RED last was the B backward hold.
Kind of funny that 5 capture points have to be compressed down to just two, but I think it's unironically the best way to do it.
Oh, also, RED should probably get a forward spawn to defend A, and BLU a forward spawn to attack B.
I do think it can have interesting results; an A/D map with a symmetrical A point.
However, it's a major challenge to design mid so that RED can enter it to defend A, but RED can't enter it when they're defending B because that would mean they could use mid as a second forward hold for B.

Also, some food for thought is that when Sandy Petersen joined id software as a designer working on DOOM, he was basically replacing a guy called Tom Hall, so he had to finish Tom Hall's maps, and he said that finishing a Tom Hall map took about the same amount of time as making a map of his own from scratch.
I do think it's about the same for gamemode conversions (as long as you want to "do it right" and make whatever design changes will best suit the map in its new gamemode), so I think you should only make a gamemode conversion if you're convinced it would give you something better (whether that be a new gameplay idea like a symmetrical capture point, or just popularity through people's knowledge of the old map) than if you'd made a map from scratch.

 

[Lacry]

I'm not massively experienced on all of these maps since they're not usually well-regarded, but Arena -> KOTH in particular sticks out to me since people in the community often say things such as "Harvest and Suijin were WRONGED! They were meant to be Arena maps!" (and Nucleus, to a lesser extent).

And looking at it, I can kind of see it.
Harvest's biggest problem (or best feature depending on your outlook) is the spawncamping, but as you cannot spawn in Arena, you also cannot spawncamp.
Suijin's biggest problem is all the side angles that let the enemy team snipe you before you even get to the control point, but that's not a problem in Arena since both teams only get one chance to roll out to the control point.

However, I'm not completely convinced that they'd be amazing Arena maps.
Harvest would still have Soldiers and Demomen wreaking havoc seconds after the round starts and being a nuisance behind you as you try to approach the cap, and Suijin would still split the teams up so much that you could look at the scoreboard a minute into the round to find out that your terrible teammates have all taken bad 1v1s and died and you're alone against a massive enemy team and there wasn't much you could have done about it.

And as for Nucleus - well, you know how it is. Massively prone to sniping and spawncamping, it doesn't even pretend to keep the attackers safe until they reach the CP.
I tend to find it's very similar in PD.
You see, a lot of people treat PD as just "team deathmatch", but it has a lot more nuance to it than that.
I know this, because I've played team deathmatch maps that just let you grab the points off the ground to score them instantly, and they're always worse than PD would be because they don't have that central capzone.
In TDM, if your teammates suck, they're feeding the enemy team points without you being able to do anything to stop it.
But in PD, if you're a single amazing player with a terrible team, you can hold the central capzone, and all the points that were fed to the enemy team become yours again and you can still win.

So making the CP unsafe as much as Nucleus does doesn't help PD either.

I think there's some merit to converting A/D to 5CP, and 5CP back to A/D.
What they did with Gorge was pretty clever - Valve seemingly (according to the developer commentary) wants 5CP to actually not be very back-and-forth, so they made it so that mid was the hard-to-push into B point, 2nd was the slightly-less-hard A point and last was the not-hard-at-all BLU spawn exterior, so that the defenders would stay at their spawn and let the enemy team repeatedly attack them and eventually win.
But ultimately, I think all gamemodes are better with a litte back-and-forth, so I don't think they ended up with a very fun product.

I once considered converting cp_badlands to an A/D map.
What I realised pretty quickly was that the spire was going to have to be the forward hold for A and B respectively, since any other method would have been putting the points too close together and resulting in them rolling.
So, BLU last was BLU's lobby to attack A, BLU 2nd was the A forward hold, mid was the A backward hold and BLU's lobby to attack B, RED 2nd was the B forward hold and RED last was the B backward hold.
Kind of funny that 5 capture points have to be compressed down to just two, but I think it's unironically the best way to do it.
Oh, also, RED should probably get a forward spawn to defend A, and BLU a forward spawn to attack B.
I do think it can have interesting results; an A/D map with a symmetrical A point.
However, it's a major challenge to design mid so that RED can enter it to defend A, but RED can't enter it when they're defending B because that would mean they could use mid as a second forward hold for B.

Also, some food for thought is that when Sandy Petersen joined id software as a designer working on DOOM, he was basically replacing a guy called Tom Hall, so he had to finish Tom Hall's maps, and he said that finishing a Tom Hall map took about the same amount of time as making a map of his own from scratch.
I do think it's about the same for gamemode conversions (as long as you want to "do it right" and make whatever design changes will best suit the map in its new gamemode), so I think you should only make a gamemode conversion if you're convinced it would give you something better (whether that be a new gameplay idea like a symmetrical capture point, or just popularity through people's knowledge of the old map) than if you'd made a map from scratch.

Yea, i mean, is not just change the mode and that's it. When I meant changing the mode I also mean making some changes in the layout, it's something different for each game mode, that's one of the reasons why I don't like the Mannpower maps, they were lazy with them, they didnt made any major changes.

I think a good example of this is my map Seashore. Seashore is my favourite map, and i think people like it, but unfortunaly is an ARENA map, which is a very unpopular mode. Considering the layout of the map, I think it could be turned into a CP (Domination) map, but that would require a lot of work, the spawn areas would have to be done from scratch, and a new CP area would have to be made. It's possible to do, but it would take a lot of time, and CP (Domination) is not exactly a much popular game mode than ARENA. So in this case I dont think its worth the work to do it.

I want to point out Tinyrock, it was an ARENA PLR map, they changed to VSH and that got added to TF2. So there is potential with changing the game mode of a map, but you have to decided which one would fit better, what you would have to change and at the end if its worth it. It's something im gonna try with the maps im curretnly working on, and also cause some people just like seeing X map with a mode they actually enjoy.