I'm growing to understand that the simplest way to fix this map is to rebuild it from scratch, which is a lot of work. The alternative is dropping it, I guess, but I think fundamentally it's good, so I don't want to. Mostly I'm just going to scale things down and move stuff closer, but I also have to entirely rethink B, and the things I do scale down aren't all necessarily going to scale down by the same amount.
This is a good time to post any in depth feedback about what you think the map should be if you've been playing it. This is the point where the entire map is about to change, in some places more than others.
This is also the time to talk to me about how to make defensive engie nest areas around A, because I evidently have no idea. I am hoping making A smaller will help.
Here's my theory:
Artpass map's 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are about equidistant from each other. The map is structured so that once B is capped, BLU doesn't need to really ever see it again, which helps condense the map significantly. Flaws: The artpass map could really use a shortcut or forward spawn for BLU; they spend far too long walking without engineers. C is really labyrinthine, and it becomes easy to die to random players even before B is capped. Cap times are really fucking long.
Hella went for an approach like Gorge, and I think kind of fails. Both teams get forward spawns depending on who owns A and B. Teams constantly move forward or backward as points are capped, meaning RED engineers end up having to leave their teleporters behind in an A/D map which seems odd (probably since most A/D maps use shortcuts rather than forward spawns). Also, I had to do a weird thing where the RED forward spawn becomes part of the lobby before C in order to fit it in, which isn't ideal to me. Flaws: All that, and the layout sucks. I also tried to make the cap times much faster than the artpass map, and I think in the end I balanced around fast cap times too much.
Putting a RED forward spawn into this map doesn't really do much for me. There's not a great place to put it for several reasons, and most center around B being bad. Normally I'd consider just redoing B and joining the A stuff up somehow, but I feel that if I continue to do that I won't get a good map, hence the rebuild. Similarly, there isn't really a good place or way to cut out a lot of RED's walk time with a shortcut, which I believe to be a much more elegant solution, as it helps defense understand the map faster, which is vital for new players.
The other thing is cap times must be long for a 3cp map to work. It gives RED a chance to respawn and get to the next point to defend it. But the 80s for A on Artpass is obscene, imo. I think A on this map is 22s and people whine about that already. Hella was like 12 or 15 or something, and it was actually much too fast.
What I have now is close, and I think it shows because people like the map, or tell me they do. I like it also, but there are problems. My points are almost equidistant from each other, but not quite, and they're too far apart. I think the cap times are right, but the interaction around the C cap and RED spawn is a bit much; RED should probably be further back. On the way the map is now, that sounds awful, so that's another thing to address in a rebuild. So much of the space on the map just feels wasted.
I don't know. Thoughts? Any other 3cp theory comments?
