I was more wondering what you intended, more than saying to change it. Thanks for listening to the feedback. A couple other things I found:

Visual glitch at RED 2nd FWD-Spawn:
http://imgur.com/olbfx74

The health and ammo packs don't align with the marking on the floor:
http://imgur.com/SDtrzd9

These sightlines:
http://imgur.com/bNQKWqB
http://imgur.com/nm1nmA4

And I personally recommend switching around these 2 healthpacks (http://imgur.com/Qq6vLKN http://imgur.com/4FStGr1) on mid. When testing rollouts I found that most demo rolls led you to the current small kit, although on all (or most) active comp maps, there is a medium healthkit for the demo to pick up. In this case, he either just has to pick up the small, or go way out of his way for the medium.

Thank you again, I'm not sure how you did that looking through the door but I'll look into it. Markings are fixed on next version.

I don't mind that first sightline, the goal is that it should play similar to blands or process, on when you see sniper, it's immediately the best call to go and push through flank instead. But the cave one I will definitely look into. It's my goal that players can hug the left wall (from defender screen perspective) to avoid sniper. As far as I can tell, it's possible to avoid 95% shots this way. For instance if you heard that he missed one shot, you can walk immediately to the left hand side and he can only see you again at the regular pop spot. Therefore one fast shot could be a big play aswell, I think it's bad design if on 66% of pushes the sniper will be pretty poor. He should have a place in the game. I will definitely track it further, if it would show itself as a problem in game then I will fix it for sure.

I'm about to write a huge essay for my design choice on the mid health packs. This might bore you but I think it's important for me to justify it, otherwise on next version if I don't change it you might feel ignored and that's not what I want for people that took the time to DL and even look through.

There's actually a large number of reasons for the health pack positioning. Imagine that this is swapped, in this case what is the reason to ever use the rollout from pit? Or even the rollout from cave? There is no rock paper scissors, demos will always rollout choke. That's boring for both demos when the rollout is 100% free. Compare it to granary, the first sticky you place goes on the health pack, or on the top. You get a nice reward for reading your enemies playstyle. Most maps use the hp in that way. On process you can go to large hp, read he goes to large hp and get 40 dmg free, or maybe he goes right fast and you find suddenly that now you're in the worse position.

So for me the goal is that it plays similarly, so let's say you do go choke that's the safe route. You're slow to take ground because you haven't got full hp and maybe if you try it you get bombed and die. So if they both go choke it's neutral. But then what if he goes shutter. He has full hp from the rollout, he's a little slower but he can walk forward immediately. So he can contest the cave health pack, maybe he walks across and you can't beat him because he's got more hp. On the other hand, if you read him to go shutter, perhaps you get a free stick on him and this changes the dynamic completely, now he's got no flexibility on his mid, he's in the corner, he can't push.
Maybe he goes cave, and you're too far away to do much to him, but he can sticky your hut and you lose control of top. Maybe you go cave and he's faster than you through shutter and he kills you. Maybe you're faster than him and you kill him. There are fast rollouts through both of these that involve air pogos. But if you did that and the other guy went the same way you did, you just got to mid with low hp and you didn't affect him.

And when you add the roamer who can do fast rollouts through all sides, take whatever hp the demo didn't, it just adds another variable into the mix.

In my personal opinion this is just so much more interesting than just both demos go one way every time, and I hope that you'll agree. That's not to say that if it turns out everyone disagrees with me then I'll ofc have to suck it up and change it. :D

More general reasons include that it just rewards aggressive play to have neutral mid health packs instead of rewarding people to wait for bombers. Aggressive mids breed fast rounds, and that's just more fun. Also, when backing out, you can either choose to back out with lower hp, risking chaser who could be buffed, or you can back out through a medium health pack and the chaser can go choke and be behind you. Gully mid does this extremely well.

After some more experimenting with rollouts, I found that it really only takes 2 stickies to get to mid, leaving you on 130ish health once you get there, so the small pack is fine. I really like your ideas for this map, and I respect your feelings towards how it should play. Everything you said makes a lot of sense. With the sightline, I was just more asking if it was intentional, not saying to remove it. Thanks for listening. One more thing I noticed that I'm sure was not intentional was that you can trap this front surface of this rock, and the stickies are completely invisible.
http://imgur.com/87ZjCVO
Love this map. Hopefully we'll see it played more soon.

Congrats on getting this into the ETF2L Winter Map Cup !

Hey thank you, I'm glad you agree and I'm also really glad you don't take it as a slight, I really worry about that :)

I've just released a small update for the cup.

• Fixed a few pixel walks (fence on last, corner on choke -> 2nd)
  
• Left sitting on the sign on 2nd, I think it makes sense personally
  
• Fixed invis respawn visualisers
  
• Fixed being able to see through some doors when right up against it, due to misaligned door controller.
  
• Fixed a couple of graphical errors, unaligned decals, nodraw in some places
  
• Improved clipping in lobbies, a few props were accidentally solid and causing sticking.
  
• Fixed a splash-bug on the final cp, and the gravel from last/2nd far left is splashbugless also.
  
• Fixed one side of the map having a small hp, while the other had medium. I chose medium, pls let me know if it might be nicer with small.
  
• Reduced the sound channel load, this fixes a bug affecting a small amount of ppl which caused sound errors including unheard hitsounds - please lmk if this issue persists for anyone, I've only heard it reported 2 times but you can't be sure.
  
• Finally, I improved the 3d skybox, it's still a placeholder, but at least if it'll be casted maybe it'll look less bare
  
• E- Almost forgot, there should be FPS improvements on mid/2nd. I haven't heard any complaints about it, but no harm done right?

(I'll fix that trap next time I guess, didn't see till today

That's all for now. I'll wait till after the cup to see flow problems, other things that should be fixed. Once again this should hopefully be the last alpha. :-)

Please, HMU with ideas if you're playing this in the cup, I'm almost begging for feedback and discussion at this point - I'll upload a short video on rollouts and how I envisioned the holds, hopefully this will reduce the confusion of playing a new map?

I am about to release a new version, but I want to make absolute sure this sound bug is 100% fixed first, so looking for a group to run a test on private version, to see if it's working correctly before I do it publicly, please add if you would run dblmix or etc on it. It would have bad fps as it wouldn't be full compile.

Other than that here's the small amount I fixed

• Fixed a few clip errors
  
• Added respawn visualisers on 2nd forwards
  
• Fixed holding spawn doors open
  
• Fixed various stickies clipping into rocks
  
• Fixed stickies clipping into hut roof on mid

I've also reworked my respawns completely, it doesn't look like tf2 likes it when you change the spawn timers negatively, it appears that when you do so it's possible to 'skip' a respawn wave, which seemed like it was resetting you onto the next one, as players were reporting spawn times going up massively on enemy caps, which shouldn't have been happening.

I've tried to keep the flow mostly the same, but this might need tweaking.

Realised I hadn't released the actual version, it's up now. There's no mirror on serveme atm, my premium ran out, but the dropbox link is updated now, please to be enjoying :)

Next version will hopefully be centered around improving the lighting, among any gameplay feedback I get

I only got to play one game on Drudgery yesterday, so I'd need to play more to give some more feedback. However, pushing last felt like a pretty miserable task. The entire floor being flat was pretty uninteresting to play in, and all the entrances felt super cramped and I had to use through every time. I vaguely liked the rest of the map, but last night need a big rework. Interested to see what others think, we might have just been going about pushing wrong

I would also like to hear more about this- the feedback I've had on the last has generally been really polarised, some people like it, some really hate it.

So I guess to receive the best feedback it's important for me to say exactly how I imagined the scenario to play out. That way it's possible to know exactly what is going wrong, then I can figure out why that's happening and fix it up.

My aim on the last was always that a team holding lobby would be highly successful and able to push out, while a team giving up lobby would usually get crushed.
So the last was designed in this way with 3 main features:-

• The entrances are close to the point, especially top left- hoping that attackers would get cap time easily in uber ad situation - the space of the point is more width than length, reducing uber travel time
  
• The entrances have a lot of free space behind them- hoping that attackers could get off good spam and force defenders into a poorer position on their less spacious area
  
• Sniper from big shutter can't be denied by defenders without a big commitment, given they aren't in the window room

Similarly to a badlands forward hold, the solution to break the hold was always supposed to be double scout through main lobby, kill demo, go toward cap, get force. You could then either fight them on last if the cap time/frags whatever were good enough, or at least you can kite uber and try to take position in lobby.

To what extent do you guys think these design choices worked, did they have the intended impact on the game?
Would also be extremely interested to hear if the difficulty pushing is to do getting into the lobby itself, getting cap time, etc.

Hope to hear from some of you :)

I can't comment terribly much on last, I never really had a "good fight" on it. I would say the wall/shutter to the left as you leave last is a bit interesting, we had a few guys try and jump over it (unsuccessfully), but you can shoot over it - maybe make it more obvious you can't jump over it, and probably put skybox down to it to prevent spam over it.

The biggest things that I noticed was the way the flank routes to mid were - pushing 2nd-mid, the one on the left goes from a building into a little cave that puts you VERY far into mid - this could potentially work, though might lead to people wrapping a bunch. That said, as someone who's made a map with a cave - unless the cave is pretty huge, people aren't going to like it. It doesn't give the flank anywhere to fight, and you can get splashed out pretty easily.

The other flank that goes from underneath 2nd onto the shutter into mid- well, it's a big ramp up that gives all the advantage to the team pushing from mid to 2nd. I suppose it might be balanced in that they then have no advantage on mid, but overall I don't know if it's the best design choice.

The 2nd was interesting, as was the mid. I liked the main structure on mid, though some of the ways the displacements interacted with it and the ramps were frustrating to walk over as you got stuck sometimes.

Wish I had more gameplay feedback, but I also had only one round on it.

Congratulations on your map being included in the TFTV map cup dude. You've put a lot of work into the map and I look forward to seeing it played.

this shutter door in last goes up a little too much
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870327264

i kinda wish i could jump to the platform where the electric tower is placed on mid
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=870327289

it's core that you can't get up there, I am gonna put a fence that shows that you can't get up, since this seems to be reoccurring

next version doesn't have a shutter there anymore, so no problem now

thank you for hosting lobbies on my map :D

So my recommendations for changes to this map are to start with re-designing the routes from 2nd to mid, and re-considering the region below and above 2nd point. The mid point itself seems pretty interesting and worth a shot still, last seems serviceable if a bit wide at the moment.

2nd itself is a bit weird, it takes time to rotate up or down and those regions are just closed off enough that it's hard to engage someone in those areas.

The biggest issue is the transitions to mid. The main choke is pretty wide and boring really, it's a very simple level design choice that probably works well enough. The other two, not so much. The cave is really tight, puts you very far into mid, and is not a terribly interesting place to fight - other than the slope to mid, it's relatively flat. The lower exit that ends in the shutter is very wide and a big slope with not much variation - again, not a terribly interesting place to fight and anyone that would presently use it would either be going for some kind of surprise play on 2nd or sneak their way to mid rather than taking tons of spam at the main choke.

tl;dr I do think the mid and lobby are pretty cool, I wouldn't say it's time to scrap the whole map yet. I would work on the flanks/alternate routes.

Alright, this is my final call for feedback. I've got a small list that I'm working on in the OP. This is the main takeaway I got from twitch and the various testing thingies.

Thanks again

(thank you hyce, didn't see this while I was typing :)

I will definitely be making changes to the original chokes. Thank you)

Drudgery had some very weird aspects to it. The ones that come straight to mind:
1. Even with the spire and two tetris things, mid felt vast and empty. Can't decide whether this is just a visual issue on my end.
2. The 2nd hold is, theoretically, crazy strong. I feel like teams did not play that high ground properly; I felt unassailable standing up there.
3. 2nd caps almost as fast as last, making backcaps when trying to push mid extremely dangerous, especially since you have to cover two flanks that are far apart
4. Last itself is strangely cramped. Most of the room by the far shutter is dead room that no one really wants to stand in. I did like the concept that last brought, though; trying to find a good defensive position is very difficult, to the point where I was considering forgoing a real last hold at all except in desperate situations and just trying to hold lobby. If the goal really was to make it difficult to defend, then the attackers need more props to play around. As is, they either play on the ground or have to jump up to the easily spammable ledges.

This map is full of weird, unfamiliar ideas, but I have trouble saying it's actually bad..

as an edit, i dont have time to make a real reply to you right now, but I want to clarify that other than my first point these weren't exactly meant to be criticisms. I more wanted to point out some unusual concepts that I think contribute to why people are having so much trouble adapting to this map.

For the first point I think I agree? I think the 'side' is the right size, but the front I guess, can be reduced. I think that should probably happen, no use to have that space anyway since it's meant to reward aggression, so the extra space standing in choke is useless. I originally left that space as medics complained a lot about double jumps and no room to play, however that was before tetris was added. This will be changed.

The rest of them are very entertwined. The problem is such:-

In order to have a situation where stalemates on last don't last forever, there MUST be a high conversion rate from a correct push into last.
Then, you have to punish the attackers heavily if they manage to screw up.
The solution, from my eyes, is clear -> the map should favor a blands style forward hold. This allows teams to push out, and allows teams to push in. This solution SHOULD work, because forward holds are easily breakable. This I discussed a few posts up about how to attack last. The implication afterwards is hopefully on failed forward hold break, free 2nd for defenders.

Then, the 2nd hold has to be strong as. In the case it isn't, the defenders must immediately go back to lobby. Assuming you lose 2 on 2nd defence, you lose lobby immediately, therefore you lost last, in theory. Therefore it should work as a gamble, commit to 2nd and risk losing a round, or just force, go to lobby and attempt a push out later. Even though it's a strong position, it's hard to leave from.

Now, the problem turns out the solution isn't good, for whatever reason, people either don't find it fun or it's just not working somehow. I can't really figure out why it's not working the way I planned it, and the issue is the majority of the map breaks when this is either not working or unfun. The entire map is based around that idea.

To summarise

• I will 100% shrink mid, lengthwise.
  
• I will raise the cap time of 2nd, from 5 seconds, to 6.5 or maybe 7.
  
• As I rebuild last, I will definitely be making sure that the shutter side has some more interesting features and areas to play in.

Thank you very much for the feedback.

I agree some changes need to be made to make the connecting tunnels more "interesting" but please whatever you do do NOT change the mid too much. I think it's simplicity is actually quite elegant and fun and adding more shit or more dimensions to it is not always the answer. I have been dying waiting for a map that is extremely simple in its concept and allows for matches that are won based purely off of simple decision making and team execution as opposed to the norm of strategys or outsmarting opponents per say or taking 1v1 dm fights to get a pick all the time(not the right words but, it's the best I got). I really don't think the 2nd point needs to be changed much for the same reasons, a lot of people will give you criticism based on trying to get your map to play similar the ones already in the rotation as opposed to creating a unique play style of map which I think you have done beautifully here.

Playing this map was honestly one of the funnest matches I've played in tf2 over the last 9 years I've played.

Hey all, just bringing this back up to say drudgery is back in active development. I'm basically done for the year at uni, and well prepped for exams, so I have plenty of time to finish this off finally.

The changes you see might not be too big, but I think it's enough that it might make the map quite a bit better. It should still retain the same simplistic charm some people liked, but I think it should be well improved. If that isn't enough to convince you, please read this review by "drezzo" of premiership level and nunya fame.

drezzo: This map is absolutely beautiful.
drezzo: i can feel the heart and soul you poured into this project
drezzo: and it shows

I am just ironing out a few kinks in the 3d skybox, then the next release will be here.

Thanks. If you'd like, please view screenshots here.

Full changelog and explanation follows, feel free to skip

Beta2
This version is a total rebuild of the existing drudgery, cleaned up, lit properly (with HDR), and the detail is stronger (still to do -> custom CC and soundscapes)

This should improve performance, and it should hopefully look a lot nicer.

last changes:-
I've moved the point a little further toward the shutter. This should make top-right feel a bit more spacious for the defenders, but increases damage falloff of people in spawn, such as heavy. It also increases the power of the shutter push slightly. 

The ground has been changed from that horrid concrete block to a nice grassy area. Flat ground makes you really easy to hit, these slight undulations should allow people to play normally, which should be more fun than playing floor is lava. 

It's important to note that this isn't supposed to make the shutter particularly viable for actual uber pushes. I still envision and would like attackers to be forced to take lobby before pushing, the shutter area remains as a kind of risky 'fast push' if you get a wipe, or potentially a slow push with sniper. 

Lobby changes:-
I've removed the lobby shutter, I believe the shutter was too easy to hold and it was holding off a lot of the play in lobby. Teams were often preferring to avoid lobby even if they had an advantage and despite it actually being faster to go lobby. I've replaced it with a double-choke structure, which shouldn't be impossible to hold, teams will just have to put a scout or soldier with the demo, so not a big change for defense, but it should feel more 'safe' to go into and requires a larger commitment to hold instead of just being a free pick for defenders.
This should also improve pushing out-  teams usually went out window to avoid the shutter, which meant usually losing someone or the entirety of lobby and made it awkward.

I think the removal of the shutter should centralise the play around the lobby a bit more healthily, with the outside acting more as an extra route instead of the main one, as was originally intended.  

I was planning on also removing the other lobby shutter facing last, however upon testing it's obvious that having vision that far isn't workable, it retains the same issue of a very low risk low commitment hold, and also opens a sniper can of worms.

2nd:- 

Small scale changes during the rebuild. The 2nd point and balcony have been moved away from the lobby ever so slightly, the point has been biased away from the balcony a little bit, this should reinforce the isolation playstyle I hoped for. Balcony is harder to escape from which pushes it toward a full commitment, while the slight movement of the point away increases falloff, this will hopefully keep allowing attackers to play the point even with the increased cap time, changed from 5.5 to 6.75, which will hopefully help alleviate some of the captime problems.

Mid + connector changes:-

The ceiling of the main route has raised and the choke made larger. On the left side (looking from mid) the shutter now opens up further into mid, which gives mid a bit less of a boxy shape and also gives attackers a little bit of incentive to go through the shutter sometimes. While the shutter moved forward, the main choke moved back a bit, so mid defense teams should have to commit more instead of standing up top and spamming, then leaving usually unpunished. This should have the effect of allowing teams to go through into mid without using uber, instead of having a situation where nobody can go anywhere without using and you just leapfrog uber ads with nothing actually happening. I considered adding an 'above' route to main and creating a balcony, for usage of pushing mid, but I really didn't want to give teams the option to do a pussy boy mid aka sitting up there the whole time, couldn't find a way to make it viable to push but not go to mid.

These changes should make for a much easier mid push and be a little more interesting with the connection. I am hoping it allows teams to rotate a little faster to and from lower, making it less dead space. 

The middle and lower mid connector areas are connected via a shutter. The shutter/pit/lower area now has a bit of actual dimension to it, more information can be seen in the screenshots. The aim is that teams should want to control the health pack, however there's risk involved for both teams, the mid team has to worry about the shutter being held by their teammates, as someone can easily cut them off, and the 2nd team should be worried that the exit is on low ground, so overcommitment to holding it should easily result in getting picked, you can't just jump out without any risk.

The hope is that lower becomes a much stronger and more flexible flank, along with having push potential if it's left passively guarded, which should make teams want to control it, for instance control here allows teams to rotate between mid choke and shutter very quickly, which gives more flexibility on mid, while pushing from lower remains solid when attacking second. This should be a lot more interactive than both teams just watching the exits and I think a lot of micro flank fights could happen here. Hopefully this will result in a lot of picks to push off of and more fluid gameplay.

For cave, I opened the top so it's more like a valley now. This should make it faster to traverse and stops a single soldier denying a team. The vision the mid team has is a lot stronger but I think the speed increase and extra space balances it out. I think it will work quite decently. It could be hard to force here, and it's almost as fast getting into shutter -> deep second as the enemies can exit, so uber ad pushes are going to be super strong. This will also help alleviate uber leapfrogs.

I also put a fence on the upper radio tower on mid ok you guys win stop trying to jump up there please x

DL out :)

please enjoy, feel free to look around, give it a cheeky like on workshop if you have time, and if someone happens to be bothered, I'd appreciate a serveme mirror as mine expired in my season off

love, me

http://imgur.com/a/AL0CL - Some specific parts of the map in that post.

Overall, I remember mids feeling a bit vacant and open, but also very fast paced. I guess it's because I'm not used to the map, but playing above the point felt very strange as soldier, as did the entire mid. It's pretty simple and elegant, though, so I wouldn't change too much about it. Holding second seems extremely strong if the entire team is up, but I think with all the different entrances and limited exits, you could probably push into second with one pick. Pushing into mid seems like a nightmare though; you can hold and get good damage from valley without having to sacrifice too much. Most of the other team team can spam pretty hard and leave very quickly with the new spawn door. Valley itself seems to lead fair into mid already, maybe move it back a little? And everything about last feels weird to me. I seriously have no idea how it would play out.

That's all bad speculation though, I'd love to see this map actually be played seriously. Seems interesting and unique, with a neat concept behind it!

some of these such as the roof, are side effects of having no collision on rooftops, and can be seen on snakewater. On the other hand, if these roofs are solid, then it's hard to double jump off walls, so I like it unsolid just for consistency. I will fix those clipping problems right now, but I will probably be leaving the signs as solid, as people didn't seem happy with the idea of me removing every cheese spot before ))

I'll also reduce the lightmap size on some of those smaller areas, hopefully this will fix the issues on doorways, b2a will be up in about an hour maybe

Big thank you for taking the time to look at me map

long design choice paragraph on last spawns feel free to not read
talking about sniper, I moved the blocks as one of my biggest complaints was that once you do lose the window room, you can get this really awful uninteractive section where a sniper sits in shutter and you can't do anything to him. Jumping him results in him closing the shutter, and you die to whoever is in window. The moved blocks hopes that there is at least a small amount of counterplay, as the sniper there has a huge line of sight that forces you into spawn, which is a huge deal on this map. Importantly, the counterplay involves also going into spawn, but your team is able to stay outside.

So the spawn design in drudgery is unique in that if you're attacking the point, you're also attacking the spawns. As opposed to maps like badlands where if you're playing the point the people in spawn come out above you. There the spawns are punished with travel time, here they're punished with position instead. The reason I think this is better is that it punishes people in spawn a lot more. In maps like snake you can jump directly to the point immediately on soldier, which means if you are playing engi you sit in spawn, sentry dies, you change back to roamer and then the punishment is extremely low. Here the demo is always going to be sat in a position where he can smash the point, the upper spawn, and the lower spawn. Importantly, the spawns are made that the lower ones always spawn first, so coming out of spawn you always come out the lower one, which is the one where the position is worst.

Going into spawn on drudgery works as a panic button and only that, I don't think it's fun gameplay to have people rotate through spawn during an uber and come out the other side with 2 vac charges, this is one of the main reasons the spawn is the way it is, with a large rotation. The spawns are close to the point and in direct vision, as that means that heavy going into spawn, or engi, or anything like that, is immediately punished. Coming out of spawn results in 100 damage onto yourself, as the spawn is directly in contest with the demo and whoever is on top of point. I like this design choice as it's also a huge punish if the attackers are too scrappy in their point play, the defenders will get out for free in a position which is pretty good.

I like being able to snipe to shutter from spawn as it solves this issue without compromising the design goals of my spawn positions, and it's also a risk, because if you miss, changing back will usually result in you having a low impact on the last fight due to the difficulty in coming out at full hp.

If it shows itself as a problem, I'll rework and recreate it as a standard spawn in b3/rc1 or something, no problem, we will see :)

e- next version out, fixed some weird lighting and hide spots and a missed clip wall
love, me

small suggesstions
http://imgur.com/a/OBIuv
edit: part 2
http://imgur.com/a/mKCB4

http://imgur.com/a/2ThBp

Fixed all misplaced objects in next version, thanks - sign in the wall was intentionally there but actually it looks pretty shit you're right

DW those edges are all blockbulleted on all sides.

Will smooth out mid and move clip on wall near shutter

Ty x