KotH Metal Hill

[Montezuma]

This map was fun to play. Health and ammo was pretty spot on.

Mid was difficult to take if an engi got a dispenser up. Same issue as Koth_harvest really. Perhaps add a spot where you can attack the mid from a greater height, without having to be on the roof.

Thanks for feedback, glad you had fun. I've been kicking around the idea of making a second floor on top of the buildings to the left and right of the point that would be accessed from a staircase around the med-pack alcove further back in the buildings. The floor would probably entail some windows and possibly a balcony to attack the point from, but I think that engineers might dominate the point even more if they were to get a sentry up overlooking the point. Just a thought on your height idea

Very difficult to attack. Being on the losing team throughout the entire playtime wasn't really fun because I don't think I saw the cp captured by my team even once.

Possible causes :
The access routes are few, and too convoluted. Basically there are 2 routes that are somewht direct, the catwalks on the right. The vent 'pipe' is pretty gimmicky. Accessing the catwalk on the left is a very long walk (despite the surrounding building being your team's color, the other team can reach it much faster). This means the players on the control point have mostly one direction to watch.
-> Try to shorten the paths to the control point where possible. Your ramps aren't steep enough, most of them are on a 1:2 ratio, sometimes less, make them 2:3. Promote attacking from the left side more by shortening that path.

Then, the entrances into the middle area are very narrow, while mid is relatively open in comparison. This means that if you're trying to get into mid, you can receive spam from many directions through your chokepoint doorway, but you can't spam back. The catwalks themselves are pretty narrow. Spawn exits are also narrow.
-> Widen doorways and catwalks where possible

All of this combined means that once the other team has taken root on the point, they are hard to dislodge, you will die when moving in, and when you respawn, you will have to walk a lot, before dying again.
-> Try changing the respawn times after capture to something closer to an A/D map than viaduct (ie 3/9 or even 2/10 instead of 4/8)


EDIT : one more thing : the bottom part of your ground brush still exists in the bsp. Looks like you have some sort of empty space here : remove the skybox brush on the bottom of the map ?

1. I'm actually at a loss for how to make the travel time on the left shorter. Maybe I'll make the ramps inside the building much steeper (more like stairs) so that going up that side is quicker. A possible solution for this should be in a7, though it might not be the final one.
2. I'll go around and make doorways/ramps/anything wider where possible as I've actually noticed quite a bit of falling/trapping at doors in my own playtests that probably wasn't necessary. Also, do you think that the idea of an upstairs area that's viable for spamming the point (as mentioned above) a good solution to this? Or do you think I'd just be making more problems for myself?
3. I'll get on this. Makes sense to me.
4. That's really just me being a newbie mapper. Just as I saw your comments I was reading an article on how to do a proper skybox and realized how crappy mine was. I'll have it fixed for a7.
Thanks for the feedback man, it's great to hear what's wrong so I can get working on it. It might be a bit before I get the next version of this up but I certainty want to see what you think when it's do. Cheers.

 

[Loc_n_lol]

2. Also, do you think that the idea of an upstairs area that's viable for spamming the point (as mentioned above) a good solution to this? Or do you think I'd just be making more problems for myself?

That's a double-edged sword. It will likely make it difficult to fortify the control point if random spam can reach it, but it can be used by the point owners to spam a counter-capture. I think a better solution, that would also help with the left path, would be :

-connect the room that leads on the air duct thing, to the roof of the building on the left. That roof is good enough to distract and even kill players standing on the point, and it offers much more space and better visibility than the windows, plus it's not far from the catwalk.

It may also be worth trying to put the spawns on higher ground, or at least in part : put a ramp inside the spawn, one exit on top, one or two at the bottom, and scrap the ramp at the left of the spawn, it's rather impractical to use.

Additional optimization tip : put skybox brushes on top of unreachable roofs (those large buildings between spawn and mid), so as to cleanly separate distinct areas.

 

[Montezuma]

Bump for a7b!
Huuuuuuuuuuge revamp which explains why it took me so long to get it out to you. I'm still not sure about how I've changed the point. I've gone through 4 or 5 different variations of it and for the moment this is the happiest I've been with it. Otherwise there's changes to spawn and the routes to mid and stuff like that. Enjoy~ I need feedback like crazy.

 

[Montezuma]

bump for a8!
big changes in this one and I want to give a shout-out to the guys over at hampshire heavies who graciously tested my map and gave me some great notes. thanks you guys and I hope that you players enjoy the new version!

 

[Okrag]

Blu can get into red spawn. Or was it red that can get into blue spawn? I don't remember, but someone can get into the enemy's spawn.

 

[Montezuma]

yeah, that's currently an issue. I'll fix it this weekend, I just had no time to fix it for the time being. I'll just slip it in and give the signal to re-download it. Thanks for the feedback.
edit: done.