This is my second map. It is in early alpha, but it's fully functional. It takes place on a cliff, at a satellite dish which they fight for. The map will for the most be in a miningtheme. I am satisfied, but let me know what you think!
The front part (with the truck) in screenshot 1 looks like it could be a little less open (just maybe some cheap cover). Mark off where the capture area is, and then toss it up for gameday, or stalk in chat until an impromptu appears.
Just so you know, the name Shock was taken by an old map made by Snipergen. Think about renaming it. http://www.jeroendessaux.be/detailsshock.php
I agree: the second screenshot is excessively dark. Balancing darkness is tricky, of course. When you get to the detailing stage you can make an "excuse" for it being somewhat dark...broken lights, etc...but for now put some lower-power point-lights to give it something. I think the comment about the central point is good: there needs to be a bit more cover or visual breakup. You could probably use a few extra rocks or something to achieve this without much trouble. Ultimately the "cover" issue is best fixed by playing the map on a gameday/impromptu, so I'd encourage you to submit it for one. See how it plays, and where the spots that are overly exposed are, and then make adjustments. Edit: I forgot to add one thing. Even though this is an alpha, don't be afraid to use a bit more variation on red/blu sides. The central building is good, being neutral, but maybe use some of the red/blu dev textures for the respective bases to give players more visual cues about their location. Keep at it! -Colin
I'm not too sure that having the point inside a building is a such a good idea. That can tend to make it very easy to defend the point once it's captured.
Nice map, the bots seemed to enjoy themselves. 1. you can scouttriplejump onto every single roof. 2. health & ammo is very scarce. 3. once the point is capped and the opposing bot-powered team of awesomeness has an engie, it's all over. 4. truck-related sightlines. 5. ledge thingy that's not walk-on-able in front of the spawn. That's all the things I could find.
Bots don't really provide useful feedback. They're good for very basic stuff- checking where players meet, and so on, or for bumping the size of a test with players up to size, but for anything even slightly more complex than that, it's no good. For example, your third point, that the point is hard to recap from a sentry, is unbalanced because players are better at taking out sentries than bots.
This part of the post makes me think you trust in bots ability to test maps way too much. As Swordfish said, they suck, they provide barley any worthy feedback or insight into how well map plays if everyone on server is bots.
The point is that whenever the enemy team has a sentry in the middlehousey, it'll be very easy to defend. (thanks to both the fences and the walls inside of the house, the sentry'll be sticky proof as well) But yeah I overrate the bots at times.
