So we played the map today (10 PM EST) and it actually went a lot better than I predicted. Now that right spawn is no longer a chokepoint that can be easily camped to kill the bots in a cheap manner.
- However, we noticed a huge problem:
The sentry gun can be placed on top of those boxes. As a result, this happens:
The sentry buster blows up at its spawn because it cannot reach the sentry. That is something you should patch immediately, as it makes the game way too easy for the engineer.
- Gatebot pop file for a non-gatebot map is not really a great idea. If anything, you should have kept it to a rottenburg mission instead. For one, the hats are distracting (since seeing a gatebot hat immediately rings "gate defense" to most competent players), and in addition, they cannot pick up the bomb. So they just awkwardly camp at the bomb hole and attempt to kill players as they come out. That doesn't make it hard, but makes it broken. If your map is not going to be a gatebot map, stick to non-gatebot missions.
- I don't know if you do this already, but you should make the robots cut through the path that's right next to the 2nd upgrades station (and the little house-like building with the health pack - see Alias' screenshot #2 to know what I mean). I actually liked that as a flanking route, since players cannot just blindly watch only the main path. They have to pay attention to both paths or else something will sneak up from behind to deploy the bomb (or ambush players from behind).
That being said, I did notice some flanking going on, but it wasn't that great of a flank. Like maybe 1 robot went down that path for every 10 that went down the standard path. However, what I wanted to get to is that you should make it an actual possible bomb carrier path. That is, make it a path that most the robots can go through, and allow the bigger, longer path to be used as a flank route. That can help change up the game by a lot.
- Not a whole lot of robots are utilizing the used-to-be chokepoint path, or the middle spawn. Maybe it's because of the pop file mostly spawning bots at the spawnbot marked on the left path, but variety would be nice.
- WRITE YOUR OWN POP FILE! Part of the fun in custom maps is the custom mission that comes with it. We have played all valve missions to death already, so new waves would be amazing.
