What makes a good Passtime map?

Asd417

Sample Text
aa
Mar 20, 2016
1,451
1,031
I'm making this thread to help people find many people's opinions on this gametype's perfect map composition. (Unless someone already made a similar thread)

After walking through pinewood and warehouse, I noticed a same pattern:

1. The map is linear like an actual football field. Sniper sightlines are cut by tall transition buildings.

2. It is generally divided in three areas: (Red Goal Area) | (Mid) | (Blue Goal Area) and the transition between those areas are very short.

3. Seems like the Speed Boosts are generally placed in a way which helps advance or retreat but not in a way to help the bomb go faster. (Well the bomb carrier CAN use the Speed Boost but they are rather disadvantaged by using it. In Pinewood the bomb carrier should take a longer route, and in Warehouse, the bomb carrier is put in significant height disadvantage. So in my opinion, it is safe to assume that the speed boosts are for the others preferably when they are not directly fighting. It can also be said that it was placed to compensate the long travel time.)

4. Height dynamics does not seem too much of a thing in pass maps because warehouse has quite a height difference while pinewood is relatively flat.

5. Looks like Valve is strongly encouraging the use of teleporter in transition areas as the areas with medium metal box are usually enclosed. Sentry farming for both team in these areas looks appropriate. Also, the two maps show lack of metals as there are small metal boxes which are sparsely placed, just enough to give mercs some ammo. (But since mercs drop metals, most of them won't even need to walk around to find ammo.) Engineers are discouraged to farm because Engis do need a good source of metal to farm in the hectic nature of Passtime.

6. (What are your opinions?)
 

worMatty

Repacking Evangelist
aa
Jul 22, 2014
1,257
999
1. The map is linear like an actual football field.
This is not required of PASS Time maps. In Warehouse it makes it easier to understand where the ball is because it's easy to adapt it to the HUD. But after Warehouse was released, the HUD logic was expanded to use path_tracks and alternate branches so mappers can build non-linear layouts that could have more than one wing per base.

Sniper sightlines are cut by tall transition buildings.
This is the same in any map. Buildings block vision.

2. It is generally divided in three areas: (Red Goal Area) | (Mid) | (Blue Goal Area) and the transition between those areas are very short.
No it isn't, and no it's not. If you look at Warehouse there are five zones. Each team has a base zone, there is a single mid zone, and a buffer zone between mid and base. Buffer zones provide space for fighting to spill over into, slows down the progression of the ball to a goal so the game doesn't feel too fast, and they give a defending team time to get to their goal if they were killed whilst assaulting mid and the enemy has possession and is headed their way. Before the ball comes back into play at the drop site, a team can leave some of their players in their buffer zone to set up a defense should the enemy take possession.

3. Seems like the Speed Boosts are generally placed in a way which helps advance or retreat but not in a way to help the bomb go faster. (Well the bomb carrier CAN use the Speed Boost but they are rather disadvantaged by using it. In Pinewood the bomb carrier should take a longer route, and in Warehouse, the bomb carrier is put in significant height disadvantage. So in my opinion, it is safe to assume that the speed boosts are for the others preferably when they are not directly fighting. It can also be said that it was placed to compensate the long travel time.)
Sounds fair. I wouldn't say that speed boosts aren't for use by the ball carrier, though. You rightly observed that their location in an exposed space makes them risky to use, and I think their reason for being is to alleviate concerns by players over the time taken to traverse the map. Jump pads assist with this, too. Notice that in Warehouse, the player who initially takes the ball from the drop site is probably going to be running around on the ground, but the jump pads are on higher levels so teammates and enemies have options for trying to catch up.

4. Height dynamics does not seem too much of a thing in pass maps because warehouse has quite a height difference while pinewood is relatively flat.
I have a feeling that Pinewood has less dramatic height variation because play testing of Warehouse showed that players don't often pass between ground and roof level, or the designers wanted to encourage passing, so put more action at eye level.

I think PT maps need to be larger and more open than usual, because ball carrying and passing needs to take priority over regular gameplay. If a map has lots of separating architecture, players won't often see the ball or the action surrounding it, and so won't be able to get a sense of which team is doing well, and whether they should be attacking or defending. If the action is only confined within regularly-sized spaces, then it can devolve into a spamfest and the objective is forgotten. Longer, wider maps make understanding the HUD easier because the scale is higher, so icons on the screen and on the bottom bars move slower, which gives the player more time to work out what's going on. Snipers and engineers shouldn't be nerfed, but they should always be vulnerable. Each class needs to be given stuff to do that employs their skills and abilities. Scouts deserve to be able to run fast with the ball, as their primary purpose is to get between areas quickly. They pay for their speed with a reduced amount of health, and no weapons whilst carrying. The map should be designed so that the speed of a scout shouldn't matter, so there should be time for defenders to get to their goal before the scout does.