Holy shit this is what I've been wanting for months, thanks so much guys. I'm taking much of what popcorp (&morgus & kaneco) has said into consideration. A few things might not happen because of flow/sightlines, but overall I really like some of the ideas.

Wari- I really don't think that's a huge issue because of how clipping works and I'm kinda surprised you bothered to boot up hammer and look at it, and once again thanks for snarky feedback that's marginally helpful (going to make the change anyways)

Mid is really in dire need of something changing, it's so open and wide that all you get is 30 seconds of people just eyeing each other, there are very few ways for a roamer to jump without being clearly seen. Most other maps have blind spots/cover to jump from behind, creating a good amount of space for the team as they can jump in without being immediately called. This mid offers none of that.

I talked to you before about this during the phase where it was still being developed actively and being played in double mixes, but I think some of the ideas would try and offer something more on middles and maybe encourage teams to go aggressive more often, in it's current state, any aggression is pretty easily shut down as soldiers are easily taken care of.

http://i.imgur.com/LT4bwyY.jpg

Adding a ramp up top will give a soldier another option of jumping without being seen straight away, it also provides another position for someone to jump to when going aggressive that isn't just on the house.

I'd also remove the path in the bottom left as anything that comes out of there is pretty much dead, it's easy to see.

Not only that but it encourages people to go behind, which one a mid fight you don't want as it just makes it worse, badlands does a good job of this because you can get behind through choke but it's high risk, this however isn't that high of a risk. Going behind through the cave is a lot more high risk as it's easily seen, it also doesn't have much HP so if a scout gets hit going behind he's only got a small kit (like granary) to get back in the fight with.

http://i.imgur.com/oMWaw05.png

The next part is to try and include some borders underneath the new ramp to again try and get some fucking surprise on this map, I'd also suggest completely fencing off the parts on the side because they really don't offer anything and should just be there to provide a bit of cover. At the moment anyone that goes there just gets shat on by a demo.

My final issue is with the shitty ramps near the point, please make the entire section a ramp, like how process has on last, so you don't get caught as soon as you go on to the point. It's really shit and I feel it doesn't encourage teams to move over as you can easily drop down to the point but you can't get back up.

The only other point that would need addressing is to provide some further cover on the middle for soldiers so they can jump, my ideas are only slight ones that might help. Every other map provides some sort of clear cover for people to aggressive without being seen right away, for me this is the major issue of this middle as I said.

I tried to replicate what War said (1st pic), maybe this? took 30~ mins to make

http://i.imgur.com/QCqjown.png

http://i.imgur.com/JfG0CEF.png

http://i.imgur.com/Dgzwsct.png

http://i.imgur.com/dFOKNZO.png

I do agree that something needs to happen to mid but I don't think those points are the solution. I think I'm going to have to re-design mid at some point and I don't know if I want to do that prior to the season or not. I don't really want to throw a new mid out into a competitive season but at the same time the current mid is not optimal.

Just make new mid, don't make it official, let people from Prem doublemixes play and leave opinion

Make a new mid or it's going to be difficult for people to play it this season. If you don't it might lose a lot of popularity and may not be considered in future seasons. The ETF2L map pool is pretty shitty and unstable.

i dont think that making another higher ground on each side will fix the problem of people at the moment just sitting an the already existing one

Moving that pack into the room doesn't make holding choke less viable, you can go for the one on the point and if they come choke you rape them with the height advantage, besides that holding choke is legit, there's just an ammo pack there and no one is going to try to go through choke withour ubering early, pushing choke is just bad for your actual irl health unless you wiped them or bomb through.

Also last cap is awfully long.

http://i.imgur.com/q0aD7Lk.jpg

If this was a shutter pushing into second might be a tad easier from this side without annoying the defenders too much

http://i.imgur.com/IYOsmU1.jpg

And the other way around, if this wasn't a shutter pushing from here into or out of last would become an option

http://i.imgur.com/ya2cohm.jpg

That's how I would make mid better without making a new one, make it narrower, take away the height that covers cave and the one on the spawn and open cave into mid playing with the height to maybe make a fast roamer rollout or at least making it surprising if they come from there, it would also make that part of the cave feel more natural if you turned that wood wall into rock, I need feedback on these from some mastermind,(the mid spawn would have to be moved into logsroom i guess)

Could you straighten the right wall on the way to mid and make it vertical as shown in the picture? If you're rolling out through choke and hit any parts of the sloping wall with your head, you immediately lose all your momentum because it pushes you into the ramp. I find it a bit annoying because your eyes automatically use the bottom of the wall to judge how close you are to it, because the part that juts out is outside of your fov above your head. You could also move the bottom of the wall into the choke a bit, I guess.

http://puu.sh/bABwS.jpg

So I did as popcorp suggested and built a pre-b10, had it doublemixed.

I built a new mid and made a few changes to last and everything was well liked other than a few small issues which I will be fixing and then putting out as b10.

Current changes:
Block bullets clipping @ 2nd floating stickies
Displacement hole 2nd choke
Reduced last capture time from 2.0 to 1.3
Made the capture area a cylinder to reduce wari's autism attacks
Added a prop at last to allow scout jumping
Moved kit+ammo at last
Made secret/sneaky less chokey
Lowered the railings in lobby so that they are flush
Fixed sightline from mid-forwards at 2nd
Moved forwards at 2nd to a more logical place
Moved small kit on top of the spire
Changed a few medium ammo packs to small ammo packs
Re-designed mid
Made upper left at last a shutter

Osiris, part of the reason that is like that is to deal with the sniper sightline from the roof to 2nd. I can clip that to be a flat wall and the same ends is met without a visual change, and it shouldn't mess with collisions too bad.

Here's a screen of the new mid:

http://i.imgur.com/zUnhcvc.jpg

good job u turned via mid into blands mid

pls no bridge mid

Yeah, I was already thinking you made it jut out for the sight line off/onto the cap spire. Clipping seems an absolutely fine solution. Thank you for continuing to change the map and see it through to a final release, which will hopefully get put into the game.

The new mid also seems a lot better. When the mid cap is positioned lower than the rest of mid, it tends to get either standoffish or messy to watch. The variable height you have going now, instead of a pit, will allow players to find an opportunity to initiate more easily, I think. It smacks of Gullywash mid, though I like that it has three entrances to mid instead of Gully's two(unless you count drop down). It gives both teams their own side instead of their own "corner", which seems to be responsible for the frequent side swapping on Gullywash.

I do like the new mid design, but it there's really only one area on the highground that the teams are going to come up. It would be interest if there were some way to incentivize going up on the left side to make for a more varied mid. With how the ramp is set up in that corner, it is death for a an attacking team to try to go up there. If a combo is in that grassy area in front of the bridge, their only real option seems to be going up right by the house (idk can you hop up from the rock?). I think pushing the ramp on the left further up or even rotating it altogether would help create more options when attacking.

No download? :<

I don't know if this will work because now you have only one way to transition from the spam stalemate all mids begin with into a closer fight, and it's through a very narrow bridge, still want to try it out see if it can be worked around pushing close to your cave into the height, with all that said I think this is better than before

it works, played it , it works

download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/i5rtohq2h1ichu6/cp_logjam_b10pre1.bsp?dl=0

A link that's not dropbox: http://fakkelbrigade.eu/maps/cp_logjam_b10pre1.bsp

Where, if you mean this place? :p

http://i.imgur.com/qOie9vE.jpg

Goofs:

http://i.imgur.com/SSejLA6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/nJRY2jI.jpg

Blu Forward

http://i.imgur.com/nCnbzCR.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/ZlszS6s.jpg

Playerclip this maybe?

http://i.imgur.com/bKnvdKr.jpg

Obscure mid :D

http://i.imgur.com/1BZJ5hc.jpg

This feels too much like an afterthought liked it more how it was before, other possible spawn places would be:

http://i.imgur.com/w5D6iMx.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/FziuNPQ.jpg

Also what I meant about the shutter on last was moving the entrance back here:

http://i.imgur.com/vDdTklt.jpg

At the moment there's no way to surprise the defenders on last.

The cave rollout now gets you here when the demo is already on mid:

http://i.imgur.com/5TvmsTn.jpg

If you smoothed out that wall and made the last ramp a rock ramp that was easy to slide off once you finish the first rampslide roamers would love you forever

http://i.imgur.com/1afvul2.jpg

Also, when I'm trying to do it myself I just keep bouncing up off the left side of the cave around here, don't know why, might be just me being bad at it:

http://i.imgur.com/db6duUB.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T5W4lUEiO0Q found a weird glitch that lets you sync rockets whilst standing still

fuck yeah more of hyce's displacement errors

If it's worth anything i prefer the b9 mid because b10 is too reminiscent of blands/obscure. At least this middle plays completely differently from the other maps, you shouldnt try to tailor it to some sort of norm imo.

Also aestethics wise, the two sides of the map are too similar and too close to RED theme (browns, wood). You should try to go for some concrete-styled textures for the blu side buildings, starting by the hut on mid (-> making it in metal or smth) and then the "rollout" house (using said concrete)

Overall I like the pace on mid/2nd, but would like to see attackers have an easier time pushing last.

Okay okay okay hold the phone here guys

I didn't release the beta yet because it wasn't ready for public release, don't hate me too much... there's no download because b10 isn't done yet. You can run around on that prebeta all you want and point out all these things I already know and need to fix because it was a hurried version to test the new mid, lol.

Morgus, frankly those other two forward spawn locations don't work. The one under spire is way too close to mid, and the one in cave is really inconvenient and limiting. Forward spawns should dump you out into the whole arena, not a connector.

The shutter where it is on upper left actually works fantastically well as is right now, it's not necessarily about the need for surprise but rather being able to pop a bit later without being spammed out, yet it's still defendable with pyro and a good demo.

I'm really not worried about a cave rollout either because it puts you where choke would anyways and the choke rollouts are insanely fast anyways.

Desonator I guess I'll look into those displacements (yes wareya they're a pain in the balls sometimes) because that's weird as all hell

Twiggy- I don't really care if the mid is similar to badlands, obscure, gullywash, or whatever anyone else has called it. It plays way better. You don't need a shitty different thing instead of a good similar thing, know what I mean?

Also, the map's in beta. The detailing is by no means finished. Many things will look like afterthoughts as they are part of gameplay changes and won't be done, and yes I'm well aware of how the TF2 styling works guys. Chill. Bitch at me about the map looking shitty when it's in RC.

Thanks all- B10 should be done officially soon.

I like the new mid, I think it does need something raised in the middle, I would just question whether it needs to be a bridge? Personally I would suggest some sort of podium (more like Gully, but bigger) which could be textured as a huge log / tree stump, with wide ramps onto it, etc.

I don't think a fast cave rollout is required, if you hit the soldier one you can pretty much land anywhere, anyway. And it wouldn't make that much difference to the current demo one. However you used to be able to to surf out of left lobby and surf off second point to get to choke, which I kinda miss. It's wasn't as fast, but it was a nice alternative and you could protect the demo.

I do however like the idea of moving 2nd spawn to somewhere on spire, personally I would like to see it under the point, and the corridor under the point opened up a little. Could lead to it being used for more than just occasionally running through as scout.

Finally I would like a way to ramp slide in to last for the pop, because that would be hella fun

Mind you, this is just based on play a dozen or so tf2pickups, not matches, so feel free to dismiss everything I say ^^

Sorry Hyce, all your points are valid.

However, for b10 :
1. on last, two of the three ways are now shutter doors, even with last cap decrease (very good!) i'm not sure this is the best way to ease the pusher's job. Did you try at some point without the main shutter door?

2. on mid, when you go bottom right (trhu healthpack on logroom) you have now no way of getting on your high ground (bridge) quickly as medic/demoman. this way was already unsafe before, but now i don't really know if one can still rollout that way.

anyway this is still better than croissant, so cudos

Just a small thing: would it be possible to flatten the little hut on the side of spire that you can jump on to climb to the point? Would be easier to climb as med (doesn't really apply to the other classes I think, since they all have their own way to get onto spire from choke. This includes making the exhaust pipe coming from the hut bigger as well or w/e, so it's not as easy to fall off.

http://i.imgur.com/KhveiUF.jpg

HERE'S B10 (officially this time you assholes!)!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/l9m4xwhbj9y9zn5/cp_logjam_b10.bsp?dl=0

No screens, couldn't get it to take screenshots for some reason. Mid has a few slight tweaks as does the ramp up from banana- the sniper sightline is 95% gone, and you can still do the neat solly rollout, you just have to fire the 3rd rocket really late.

Changes to B10:

Block bullets clipping @ 2nd floating stickies
Displacement hole 2nd choke
Reduced last capture time from 2.0 to 1.3
Made the capture area a cylinder to reduce wari's autism attacks
Added a prop at last to allow scout jumping
Moved kit+ammo at last
Made secret/sneaky less chokey
Lowered the railings in lobby so that they are flush
Fixed sightline from mid-forwards at 2nd
Moved forwards at 2nd to a more logical place
Moved small kit on top of the spire
Changed a few medium ammo packs to small ammo packs
Re-designed mid
Made upper left at last a shutter
Adjusted respawn times so that teams attacking mid have shorter respawns
Adjusted respawn times so that teams defending last have shorter respawns
Clipped the right side of choke to ease rollouts
Re-added a prop at last that got deleted for scouts to jump on
Fixed a door floor plate
Fixed blue forward's ceiling being see-through
Hopefully fixed a glitch with the displacements at 2nd
Fixed stickies floating on a shutter door at last
Altered the ramps leading to mid to fuck the sniper sightline right in the pussy

Let me know if anything sucks or is completely fucked quick so I can fix it before ETF2L's S19, thanks!