I thought Waste and Vitalism were fun.

waste is too much of a clusterfuck I heard :(

I thought Koth_Waste provided some of the most intense and exciting games to watch (and play, I assume). I heard good feedback on Croissant as well, and I think it does have a lot of potential and would like to see it in the future. I agree with Sal about Canalzone, it's madness to cast, and should be banned from existence. I would like to see more payload, so really enjoyed Barnblitz and Borneo. However, those matches tend to be long (sometimes over an hour)and chokey. I think they need some tweaking (like taking out the stupid turntable in Barnblitz).

is canalzone that map with like 10 points?

Yup, pretty much. Canalzone is the one that has 8 points that can all be capped simultaneously. Also, the domination meter charges for each team, and when it reaches 100%, the team wins the round.

canalzone and waste were the only maps I really didn't like this season

Canalzone was really awful, I didn't at all enjoy that

i pretty much hated every map except waste, and croissant. waste worked really well for HL, and even with all croissants flaws, i think it played well

i liked croissant and obscure

its not badlands

koth_waste was one of the best maps I've played for koth. It's not nearly as cluttered as ashville or viaduct can be.

cp_vitalism_rc4 was amazing. It's remarkably balanced and every class has the chance to shine.

cp_obscure_remake_ugc_rc2 was another great map. Nice and big with lots of good flanking.

My favourite map of the season was actually pl_borneo. Up until the last point, anyway, as that point was ridiculously cramped. After that map, I'd say a tie between cp_obscure and cp_croissant, which were both pretty balanced cp maps.

I kind of liked koth_waste, but it seemed too small. [Have played the payload version.] I think I'd like the map better if it were not so crowded.

If by "pretty balanced" you mean "easy to roll in pugs" - gg last night

I've definitely had the most casting requests for Borneo and Waste.

Waste, Croissant, Obscure, Borneo, and surprising 5th fav map, Canalzone. Those would have to be my 5 fav maps from this season. Vitalism was a bigger clusterfuck than waste ever could be, barnblitz and that stupid turntable, and Standin was just not fit for hl format.

I know I'm probably gunna get heat for liking canalzone, and I agree that from a casters standpoint that it's probably a living nightmare to cast, but from a team captain standpoint, making strats for that map and executing them properly when there are so many points to keep track of just makes the team feel good as a whole. Also, there are so many points, that your team can really make up whatever strat you want, and there's no reason that with proper execution it wouldn't work. I dunno, I just really enjoyed scrimming and playing that map in particular.

There seemed to be a trend of maps too small or too cramped for many classes to do anything.

Barnblitz suffers from every point except one being completely enclosed. Basically a series of terrible chokepoints that many classes can't maneuver around.

Vitalism highly promotes turtling, which is obviously the most fun you can have in this game. The spawn time really needs to be increased from 5 seconds and this map will flow a lot better. Also having the spawns able to completely swarm around the intel room is idiotic. Otherwise, it's an interesting idea that's just poorly implemented.

Borneo was better, but still just wasn't very wide and accommodating for 18 people at a time. Defense on payload is often about giving up certain areas and falling back before you get wiped. It felt really really easy to do that on this map because you had a lot of cover, whereas other payloads have long, open areas between points that make it a bit harder to retreat and set up another defense. Like barnblitz, there was a lot of overhead cover which make attacking difficult sometimes.

I actually enjoyed Standin quite a bit. It's a pretty strategic map that still has a lot of action. It's frantic, but large enough that its not just a clusterfuck. Plays better in 9s than 6s, imo. Every class has something important to be doing, but not necessarily all at the same spot. Reminiscent of cp_steel, in a way.

Canalzone is like standin on steroids. Our team wasn't even interested in playing it based on things we were hearing from other teams scrimming. The nail in the coffin for me was when Bonus told me they won scrims by simply avoiding fights and only capping points. Sounds pretty lame for a shooter.

Waste wasn't terrible, but again was a bit too small. Too many blind corners. It was really easy to get gayed on this map, not to mention it's basically sniper heaven.

I enjoyed both 5cp maps, but that also might be because of the other maps surrounding them. They were more standard, and large enough for every class to actually function. They have their own issues, but were pretty much the best maps available last season.

When a pug is a roll, I thought it was normally due to the captains picking imbalanced teams and not the map itself. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, I've only played 3 or so highlander pugs since they started.

I was being facetious.

Vitalism was pretty cool....

The map was mehh, but I enjoyed the capping mechanics a lot.

There are a couple of maps out there with interesting mechanics that could be explored more. The capping mechanics on Vitalism and HAARP seem like they could work on maps that aren't so turtle-friendly. The domination mechanic of Canalzone could work well on a more restrictive, less chaotic map, although I could see it becoming a case of "oh they're 20 percent ahead, the only way we can win is an all-cap" and that could end up being disappointingly boring.

it seems like everyone who enjoys canalzone is worried they'll get hate, and yet it's perfectly fine to like waste

this is ridiculous in my mind because I think waste is almost as damaging to the "idea" of koth as canalzone is to the "idea" of a tf2 map in general

koth maps are supposed to be dynamic and switch hands a lot, prompted by the much faster spawn time for the team without the point. waste, however, is so small and so chokey that whichever team has the point can easily just forward hold and spam the other team out, meaning that whoever gets the point wins the round most of the time.

I think the casting requests are because koth maps are inherently fast-paced and kill-heavy. it's still not a very good map imo.

From lobbying the maps on a consistent basis I would say Canalzone stood out as by far the worst map of the bunch. Borneo and Standin played pretty well (everything else was okay at best). I think playing Badwater or Upward twice a season would be something to consider. Those maps are just on another level for highlander.

I want to give highlander a try with some friends eventually but a lot of the stale-matey maps are keeping me away from trying out the format in a league.

vitalism sounds good on paper but it was really bad in practice
canalzone was really dumb and it was way too easy to adjust to a team's strats
standin didn't really stand out (sorry) to me

really the only map i liked was croissant but that's because i snipe

the problem with being an expatriate is you're so out of touch with the new hot maps ):

Canalzone was interesting but ultimately just not enjoyable to play. I honestly liked the idea of it and maneuvering the map was fun, but as soldier all I really did was cap points. I also played a handful of lobbies as heavy on canalzone and all I did was defend the same two or three points. I'd consider those to be the two extremes: the roamers who cap and the heavier classes + medics who just defend the points that give them the most advantage. It was just a boring map to play on. Easily my least favorite map of the season.

Standin, on the contrary, was fantastic. Both teams hopping back and forth between three points made it really fast paced and dynamic without being, well, canalzone.

Obscure also gets a mention. Best 5cp map of the season. I really want to see it come back. It feels like granary except with a midpoint that's a little more suited to highlander.

http://www.ugcleague.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11285

Vilepickle, the author of canalzone has been hard at work taking feedback from ugc players to improve upon his map and the domination game mode. Hes made a lot of changes I think many will like. If you hated canalzone at least give it a try sometime this season as we will be organizing a few testing sessions with his latest version.

croissant: good hl map fun to play
barnblitz: love the map for random pubs it was bleh in password'd pubs
vita: ugly piece of shit hated it
standin: pretty good for hl, shockingly enjoyed it
canalzone: worse than vita, didn't know it could happen
waste: fun as demo, dm heavy and really fun to play
obscure: flowed really well, prefer the winter one
broneo: okay map, really flowed awfully and tooe easy to defend

I only backed up for a team but I liked most of the maps. I feel people just don't like change.

Croissant was a big favorite of mine. I really think that it was one of, if not, the best map this season. Was a lot of fun and was pretty sizeable enough for the 9v9 playstyle. Obscure was pretty fun, but I would've preferred playing the snow version of it. I thought Standin would be really shitty, but it turned out to be very nice all in all.