Whenever I'm developing a map and confidently identify a major issue, I tend to halt development until I can properly solve that issue. Since I have a lot of projects going on simultaneously, I tend to switch projects whenever this happens, letting the problem simmer in the back of my mind until a solution starts to form. I've been in this spot with this project for the last month-ish.
Snowbase Stage 1 has been living in the shadow of this particular specter:
Spawncamping to win is more or less a valid strategy on any map, so this isn't the most directly helpful feedback. In addition, spawncamping isn't really
required to win on this map, as the red spawn is quite some distance from the point. However, playing the map and watching demos reveals the actual issue - Blue players who are playing to win can use the sewer route at B not for high-risk flank plays towards the point, but instead to just spawncamp.
I was aware of this possibility when I had originally designed the point, but didn't consider it a big issue, as blue players going this way are quite vulnerable to attacks from behind. However, I failed to consider a few things:
1) Long respawn times for red mean that blue players managing to get even just a few kills this way will have a significant impact on the round.
2) Even if this is somehow balanced, it isn't fun for red.
3) If we assume that red's possible counterplay (attacking the spawncampers from behind) makes this balanced, red's counterplay requires good team coordination to pull off, with players getting spawncamped alerting their teammates on the point of the threat, and alerting them
quickly, and the teammates on the point coordinating a proper response, splitting enough resources off to deal with the threat without completely abandoning the point. You can't expect that from a pub team. On the other hand, all the blue team needs to do this is a power class with a medic who both want to spawncamp. Worst case scenario, this strategy becomes the meta for blue and they don't even need to coordinate at all.
So, what to do about it? My first thought was based on the history of the map - this sewer route has always been here, but spawncamping only started being an issue once I had changed the sewer route from a dropdown to a stair, so surely these things must be related. What if we made the route a bit harder to use as a retreat? This would make it easier for red players to catch blue players out while they are retreating.
On reflection, this probably doesn't solve the issue. Which is more likely: Making this a two-way route enables spawncamping,
or making this a two-way route lead blue players to discover spawncamping was a viable strategy? Maps are not black boxes where you put players in one end and always get the same results out the other end. The strategies that players use will develop over time, and map changes may help unearth strategies that were always there, just undiscovered. We need bigger changes.
Ok, so what if we redesign spawn to make it less campable? Let's give the spawn some high ground, maybe adjust some cover.
This also doesn't work. It will be easier for red players to flush blue players out of here, but the worst-case spawncamping scenario is a demo lobbing stickies to the spawn door and just waiting for red to respawn (which they can track by just watching the scoreboard). This change doesn't really do anything to fix that. We could also consider moving red spawn entirely to a different side of this area, but the same demoman can still do the same thing. (I didn't even bother mocking this up.)
The conclusion that I've come to is that, because of the wide variety of classes and weapons in TF2, there is simply no way to give blue a shortcut route directly to red spawn and make it not abusable by at least one class. That sounds really obvious in plain text, but sometimes you need to do a lot of thinking to make sure your simple answer is correct.
So, the solution is to just block off this route. Let blue use the sewer route to get under the point and flank behind a red forward hold, but don't let them walk directly to spawn. A transparent barrier like metal bars or grating will help keep
some element of risk that I want for this route. Blue is in a lot less immediate danger with this route, and it also removes options for red... on the other hand, it will make a red hold in this back area significantly safer. This change will probably require some balance changes elsewhere to make it all work, but removing a match-ruining strategy should be worth it.
