- Dec 20, 2021
- 4
- 0
Haven't worked on this in probably over a year, so I thought I might as well post it here for inspiration's sake, or if someone wants to pick it up.
As the title suggests, this is my attempt at balancing a payload race map for 6v6, using the regular competitive ruleset. I chose Nightfall because I thought the 3rd stage had a lot of potential, so I removed the first two stages and overhauled this one. It's been playtested multiple times in my usual pug group (albeit over a year ago), and we just used the normal 5CP scrim config, first to 5. It was a fun map to DM on, but it has some issues that I think would be better suited in creating a new map instead of fixing this one. Here's some of my philosophy and things I've learned:
We obviously don't have any PLR maps played in sixes, so we don't really know what a balanced and competitive PLR would look like. But in my opinion, in order for it to be taken seriously by sixes players, it should have some of the key things that make sixes unique and enjoyable. I narrowed it down to midfights, the combo/flank dynamic, ubers, and having both pushing and holding opportunities. We see all of these in both 5CP and KOTH, which is why they both remain dominant gamemodes, despite their flaws. For this map, the biggest issue is ubers; it's just very hard for a medic to survive long enough to get one. Whether it's because of the map's small size, the very open layout, the speed of the cart, or all of the above, uber ad/disad rarely comes into play, even with kritz. If you do manage to get an uber, you're either rolling the enemy team, or just not engaging, which means your cart is probably way behind, so you end up losing. There's a number of solutions to this, but I think the crux of the issue is that rounds are too short. It's like KOTH but if you only had to own the point for a minute (maybe a minute and a half), so you always feel like you have to fight again right after you spawn. There's never really time to build your ad, stage a push, set up a defense, do a sac, etc. So yeah, cart checkpoints, slowing the cart, lengthening the track, would all help I think.
The other big issue is midfights. I thought that the highground area with the crates (pic 3) and the window by choke (pic 4) would be super dominant positions to hold. (And they kind of are.) So I imagined that teams would rollout to the top half of the map right away, fight over that positioning, and then send a player or two to push cart after the fight. In practice, though, having as much cap time as possible, as early as possible, turned out to be more valuable. So instead, teams would just start the round with 4-6 people on their cart. Then, by the time the tracks meet and a fight takes place, the carts are already halfway through the map, which further shortens the rounds and exacerbates the uber issues mentioned above. I think the only way to fix this is just with a different layout entirely.
I tried to give more options to flank by adding more packs and areas to go behind (pic 5), and the house (pic 1 & 2) was made to be a holdable/defendable area for the team that's losing. These things worked okay, but it was hard to tell with the other issues present. The very open layout lent itself very well to scouts, so some more indoor areas might feel better for projectile classes. Also, there seems to be a lot of viability for non-traditional sixes classes, which I don't think is a bad thing, though some may disagree.
All in all, I don't think I'll be coming back to this map, although I don't think I've given up entirely on the idea of sixes PLR. If anyone wants to use or continue it, feel free, no need to ask. If by chance you do end up making something out of it, it'd be cool if you mentioned me as a credit, but also keep in mind that the original-orinigal map was made by Psy, not me. Thanks for reading, and here's to sixes payload race
CREDITS:
Nightfall by Psy - https://tf2maps.net/members/psy.1059/
Mini BLU shipping container model by hutty - https://tf2maps.net/downloads/urban-shipping-container-01-blue-retexture.412/
As the title suggests, this is my attempt at balancing a payload race map for 6v6, using the regular competitive ruleset. I chose Nightfall because I thought the 3rd stage had a lot of potential, so I removed the first two stages and overhauled this one. It's been playtested multiple times in my usual pug group (albeit over a year ago), and we just used the normal 5CP scrim config, first to 5. It was a fun map to DM on, but it has some issues that I think would be better suited in creating a new map instead of fixing this one. Here's some of my philosophy and things I've learned:
We obviously don't have any PLR maps played in sixes, so we don't really know what a balanced and competitive PLR would look like. But in my opinion, in order for it to be taken seriously by sixes players, it should have some of the key things that make sixes unique and enjoyable. I narrowed it down to midfights, the combo/flank dynamic, ubers, and having both pushing and holding opportunities. We see all of these in both 5CP and KOTH, which is why they both remain dominant gamemodes, despite their flaws. For this map, the biggest issue is ubers; it's just very hard for a medic to survive long enough to get one. Whether it's because of the map's small size, the very open layout, the speed of the cart, or all of the above, uber ad/disad rarely comes into play, even with kritz. If you do manage to get an uber, you're either rolling the enemy team, or just not engaging, which means your cart is probably way behind, so you end up losing. There's a number of solutions to this, but I think the crux of the issue is that rounds are too short. It's like KOTH but if you only had to own the point for a minute (maybe a minute and a half), so you always feel like you have to fight again right after you spawn. There's never really time to build your ad, stage a push, set up a defense, do a sac, etc. So yeah, cart checkpoints, slowing the cart, lengthening the track, would all help I think.
The other big issue is midfights. I thought that the highground area with the crates (pic 3) and the window by choke (pic 4) would be super dominant positions to hold. (And they kind of are.) So I imagined that teams would rollout to the top half of the map right away, fight over that positioning, and then send a player or two to push cart after the fight. In practice, though, having as much cap time as possible, as early as possible, turned out to be more valuable. So instead, teams would just start the round with 4-6 people on their cart. Then, by the time the tracks meet and a fight takes place, the carts are already halfway through the map, which further shortens the rounds and exacerbates the uber issues mentioned above. I think the only way to fix this is just with a different layout entirely.
I tried to give more options to flank by adding more packs and areas to go behind (pic 5), and the house (pic 1 & 2) was made to be a holdable/defendable area for the team that's losing. These things worked okay, but it was hard to tell with the other issues present. The very open layout lent itself very well to scouts, so some more indoor areas might feel better for projectile classes. Also, there seems to be a lot of viability for non-traditional sixes classes, which I don't think is a bad thing, though some may disagree.
All in all, I don't think I'll be coming back to this map, although I don't think I've given up entirely on the idea of sixes PLR. If anyone wants to use or continue it, feel free, no need to ask. If by chance you do end up making something out of it, it'd be cool if you mentioned me as a credit, but also keep in mind that the original-orinigal map was made by Psy, not me. Thanks for reading, and here's to sixes payload race
CREDITS:
Nightfall by Psy - https://tf2maps.net/members/psy.1059/
Mini BLU shipping container model by hutty - https://tf2maps.net/downloads/urban-shipping-container-01-blue-retexture.412/