Today, I felt like analysing this map.
A6 walk times:
BLU to A forward hold from 1st spawn: | 12 s |
BLU to A backward hold from 1st spawn: | 17 s |
RED to A backward hold from 1st spawn: | 6 s |
RED to A forward hold from 1st spawn: | 10 s |
| |
BLU to B forward hold from A backward hold: | 4 s (this should be equal to or greater than RED's walk time to the B forward hold) |
BLU to B forward hold from 1st spawn: | 20 s |
BLU to B backward hold from 1st spawn: | 25 s |
RED to B backward hold from 2nd spawn: | 6 s |
RED to B forward hold from 2nd spawn: | 12 s (this is a lot longer than 4 seconds!) |
| |
BLU to C forward hold from B backward hold: | 10 s |
BLU to C forward hold from 2nd spawn: | 17 s |
BLU to C backward hold from 2nd spawn: | 21 s |
RED to C backward hold from 3rd spawn: | 2 s |
RED to C forward hold from 3rd spawn: | 7 s |
Here are where I would place the lobby, forward hold and backward hold on each point:
Using these benchmarks, we can analyse the events of a demo:
a6 demo1 (US) analysis:
1st round:
- A: Captured by BLU; it seems like RED was given a fair enough chance at a forward and backward hold, although the backward hold wasn't very strong to the point of near non-existence
- B: Captured by BLU; RED and BLU met at the backward hold; however the point did not roll because RED won that fight, pushed forward and assumed a forward hold; BLU's upper route onto the train tracks seems very annoying for RED to deal with since it goes directly from BLU's lobby to the backward hold
- C: Captured by BLU; sort of rolled even though RED was given a fair chance at a forward hold, which is most likely cause the number of RED players who reached the forward hold was very small - an instant respawn after B is capped could help alleviate this
2nd round:
- A: Captured by BLU; fair chance at a forward and backward hold, no massive complaints but the backward hold fell quickly at the end and didn't really feel exciting; more on this later
- B: Captured by BLU; rolled for much the same reason as C in the first round
- C: Defended by RED; RED enjoyed a brief hold over BLU's lobby, but the well-chosen width of the lobby eventually dismantled that, but RED was still left with a forward hold afterwards; generally it looked pretty tense and fun
3rd round:
- A: Defended by RED; fair chance for a forward and backward hold, no outstanding complaints
- B: Never attacked
- C: Never attacked
4th round
- A: Captured by BLU; fair chance for a forward and backward hold, no outstanding complaints
- B: Captured by BLU; same as the 1st round
- C: Captured by BLU; same as the 1st round although RED put up a slightly better fight
The events of this demo reveal a number of issues, some of which arise through walk time and some through rotate time:
- RED's rotate time for the A backward hold is very disadvantageous for them, which can sometimes lead to the point being stomped disappointingly by BLU
- A and B are too close together, which can sometimes invalidate the B forward hold and lead to the point unfairly rolling as a result (RED and BLU end up first meeting at the backward hold, and if RED loses that initial fight it's an unfair roll)
- There's a route on B that goes directly from the lobby to the backward hold, which can invalidate the forward hold (this admittedly wasn't a persistent issue during the demo)
- BLU's walk times to B and C are a little intense compared to RED's, which can make the points feel too difficult in cases where the point doesn't roll (I think this is mostly a non-issue for C)
Before offering solutions to these, I want to take some time to praise the lobby areas.
Each of the three points has a really wide lobby area with routes to the next point's forward hold area which are really far apart for RED, but less far apart for BLU.
It's exactly the way a lobby area should be, discouraging RED from pushing into it, and it gives me hope that all my ramblings about rotate times and forward holds won't be alien to you.
Right, now for the solutions:
- Use game_forcerespawn to instantly respawn all dead RED players when A and B are captured, to reduce the chance of B and C rolling
- Add a new arena between A and B equivalent to roughly 8 seconds of walk time, or 2400 hammer units
- Give BLU a forward spawn to attack B so that this new arena doesn't balloon their walk time to ridiculous levels
- Rework this particular route to be less covered from the forward-holding RED players:
- Redesign the A backward hold with the goal of faster rotate times for RED and longer ones for BLU (this example layout still has pretty unfavourable rotate times, so a more overarching refactor of the hold would be better):
- Make it quicker for RED to access health in the A backward hold
Additionally, here's something that bugs me about B:
- All of RED's routes to B lead them into this one huge underpass sightline, which is harmful to class balance and the strength of the backward hold:
I was originally going to complain about how C has a case of "enjoy pushing through this sightline to rotate" syndrome, but then I realised that RED can easily alleviate that by rotating through spawn, and BLU has the height of the steps to ensure they can safely rotate before entering the arena, and the arena is actually really cleverly built to split it into two halves - one that encourages long-range combat and one that encourages close-range combat - so that all classes can be accomodated in a smallish space.
So, honestly, C looks like a lot of fun, and if A and B can be polished up to that same level of fun (which for A is not that far away!), and then this map can receive a great artpass which feels like Tokyo without feeling too alien to TF2, then this will be one of my all-time favourite TF2 maps, no question.