From what I've seen on kaidus' stream playing your slightly changed versions of Gravelpit I've come to the conclusion that your versions are just getting rid of the whole "hold" thing on points and each point turns to a dm-fest to hold it as much as you can because there is so little time on the clock teams just try to rush as much as they can.
If you really want to change it , I would keep it as it was and just work on clipping certain things like stairs to act as ramps and generally polishing the map as it is an old Valve map with flaws.

Yea, some previous tests had 1/2 cap times and more reduced spawns which turned to shit. This version should be more balanced.

I never thought the spawn timers were an issue, nor the map time. Last tim this map was played in UGC, I didn't really know a lot about map exploits, so I can't comment on that.

when we play tested it in new-new map pugs, the drastic shortening of the cap times took away a TON of defensive tactical possibilities. Things like retreating to C then repushing to keep B became completely undoable unless organized extremely quickly.

Removing interesting dynamics like that took away the huge amounts of fun I derived from the map.

The whole point is to remove extraordinarily long defensive times on this map. Once you're passed a certain time, everyone knows the game is over but the attackers still have to throw themselves again and again at the points in an attempt to win. The changes are to speed up attacking - defenders by definition will have a harder time, times to attack will be quicker and the map will be faster paced.

The repushing mechanic is almost completely removed, yes. But as an attacking team the purpose is not to defend the area you've just secured. The reduced times also open up defensive options like the iron-man defense, which you now only have to hold for 3 minutes rather than 6.

no

fuck you hellbent

iron man defense on gravelpit has always been incredibly shaky ground, though, adding a stricter time limit isn't going to change that, because it still remains inconsistent and fragile compared to simply holding the better point. at best, you'll just make the safer option just as fragile, and then defense is stepping on eggshells

e: just in case ppl misread this as pessimism: I love the idea of a remade gravelpit, but I think that, if you genuinely want iron-man to be viable, you need to change more than just a couple of timers. one-third of the map is entirely useless for 90% of games, that should be addressed

what's wrong with regular gpit

They become an issue when the cap times are reduced, far too easy to roll the whole map in one push.

nobody wanted to play it

Reducing the time gained for capping is a bad change for both sides, since as previously mentioned, it forces a lot more forced fights with time constraints. While I agree with reducing cap time and reducing red spawn times as a balance for this map, the real changes this map needs are located in point A and point B, since A is chocked up as a freebie cap for offense.

What I feel should be a change for this map is to completely reconstruct the way A-C-B connect, so that Iron Man Defense becomes more feasible as a defense option, but more fun. Defending B is so easy, defending A is so hard, and C is a decent point to defend and push. I feel like point A would need an overhaul on spawn-access for Blu, rotating power for Red, and then the map would play out much better in my opinion

and people wanted to play viaduct & gullywash instead?? what the hell is wrong with y'all

ur surprised that the map where 90% of the time there is an engie on one of the teams is less popular than the fast paced koth map

ok

it was changed cause fan favorite team changed it cause they were shaky on it and with that they used the hive mind to vote it off

koth_coalplant suffered the same demise

there is nothing wrong with how the map was played at all, the map was always played as intended and never broken or flawed under any circumstance, people just don't like the A/D game mode or you would see other A/D maps in the rotation im sure.

although I appreciate your guys work on this I really don't see how these changes will change anything about the map or make it likable or make the game play generally better because it was already played how it was supposed to be played.

Well I think the changes started cause some EU guys requested them. When you are used to playing 30 min timelimit all the time, a bo3 on gpit can take way too long.

Also I'd have to disagree, I don't think 60 second cap times were ever intended for 6v6 games...

koth...

"as intended" was with far more than 12 people, if you haven't forgotten. or would you say this same thing about other giant pub-friendly maps?

intent means little, especially in a game that intended to always have random crits, when this map was made.

this is such a silly argument considering badlands was made under the same circumstances, doesn't really matter that the game is a pub game, gravelpit was played FOREVER in 6v6 and it was completely functional and provided good games, weather you like the map or not it was one of the most balanced maps in 6v6 TF2, but it was removed because no one likes a random A/D map (same reason I think viaduct should be removed, random game modes are retarded, think if CS randomly put in a hostage map to their rotation). no one pushed for it to get out until eMg sucked at it and pushed it out.

i feel like a solid third of the map being ignored wasn't intended

if you want to argue about the merits of A/D you should probably look at like edifice or something where the map's heatmap was relatively disperse

like a lot of the gayness about the gamemode came from B being really offclass friendly, more so than anything intrinsic, since there's not much different from an A/D map and a 5cp map when one team has a 2 point lead and a 5 minute server time.

I would much rather play gpit over viaduct or sunshine

I think if there was more ammo around then you wouldn't really need an engie much imo (at least on C maybe). 2 scouts worked well back in the day, but engineer was just easier to execute + dispenser (especially with health dispenser bug).

Added bonus of the engie was that you'd almost always force an early uber, but with new unlocks these days it might be interesting to play again.

I think a big problem with the map was that you pretty much had to always set up on B ONLY (yes iron man existed but that was p gimmicky). The other one (which probably has some disagreement with others) was that red spawn was way too far from the C point. Especially if you were a medic, it took you like 15-20 seconds from spawn to spire.

EDIT: Just thought about loose cannon defending on this map. *shudder*

im biased as a scout player i guess, viaduct is just a big dressed up chokepoint to me

i don't like gullywash cuz the ground is too fucking bright

This would contribute to engineer being a lot more common, but it also makes it less unbearable for the ammo-intensive classes.

Exactly, if there was a better connection between A and B, and B wasn't naturally closer to Red Spawn, iron manning/alternative setups would be more common and thus more interesting to attack AND defend.

Yeah spawn just kinda sucks imo, especially needing to ctap just to reach spire from the platform. Maybe if there was like a two-story spawn like goldrush's final spawn, and it had a bridge or catwalk that reached spire or something?

Absolutely disgustingly correct. Maybe the spawn tunnels could be altered in some way to reduce the power of spam (would be a general improvement without including loose cannon spam in the equation). Even just props like barrels and crates would serve as a way to mitigate spam's power.

Well one of the reasons no one ever defended A was because it was impossible to retake compared to B. The fact that retakes are almost removed if gpit has fast cap times may mean A becomes a lot more viable.

I agree here, but the solution is adding more good a/d maps to the rotation. If you had to play 2 or 3 a/d maps every season people would actually try to get good at them, and the strategies involved would probably be drastically different from what we're used to in 5cp tf2. But as it was, there was no incentive to get better at gravelpit.

You could have A/D dominant teams and 5cp dominant teams, sort of like how some teams are more dominant on koth than others are.

Tf2 is 8 years old now, putting an entire gamemode of tf2 proven to be reliably competitive back on the table might be exciting. Just in time for matchmaking.

I like the idea of a faster, time based a/d game-mode. Like 15 mins. If you enabled the quick fix it might get really exciting.

What's wrong with Edifice?

Sightlines are huge for sniper on defense and offense, it's almost required. The iron man strat is also easy with a heavy because the A and B connectors are so close.

Yes, if A and B were equidistant from Red spawn, Gravelpit would actually have some flavor to it, instead of giving A for free and defending B for 10 minutes