thank you man, we'll update mapchamp with this version

Just wanted to clarify since so many people are under the impression that I'm making this thing.

No, I'm not the one making this. FatherBrandon is an awesome and super talented dude, and he's handling most of the mapping for TFCL. He deserves all of the praise here, not me.

edit;

Also, the final name for this map hasn't been decided. pl_tfcl is more of a placeholder.

Not a problem. I am hoping for some sweet feedback from mapchamp before I go ahead with an art-pass on the map.

a payload that doesn't need babysitting... that could actually work

what if one team runs a cnd spy who just stops the cart whenever it's left alone?

so don't leave it?

the point is Blu team doesn't need to left a scout sticking with the cart the whole game, but split out to defense it freely

That then leaves the defending team with one less attack class, and a more or less useless spy that does nothing more than slow down the cart for a few short seconds until it's tapped again.

from when i played it on mapchamp, I really hate some of these sniper sightlines, especially with the lack of flank routes to go fix the sniper problem. Defending first especially, I find myself trying to play heals forward on the tracks and not in the enclosed hallway, and then their team pushes and has a sniper sightline into the hallway and our med is fucked.

There are a few other crazy sightlines too but the BIG PROBLEM I have is that ubered players can't stop the cart. Some real shenanigans right there, ubering in to stop the cart only to find you've actually just fucked yourself, especially on last.

Also put some random objects around the map. i appreciate not wanting to put textures in until the layout is finalized but everything is so bland, callouts are fucking impossible right now

Let me know what you guys think about the 2nd exit for BLU once 'B' is capped. Removing that may make the map play a bit slower if that's wanted.

I think removing it would be bad; I'd lose my mind if we had to keep walking all the way along the tracks to get to the cart with every death. My problem with that forward spawn door is that it's in the view of one of the many long sniper sightlines that can be held with little consequence. I'd prefer that the spawn completely moved, maybe just northwest of the b point in that overhead picture, under the bridge?

Otherwise, consider offering more than one forward spawn door. One forward door isn't an issue in 5cp since if your door is getting camped you just have to wait for the enemy team to cap and then backspawn, but here with the enemy team presumably holding as forward as possible the attackers just have to risk opening the door and dying to stickies. Or they could give up on the forward, waste a shitload of time walking all the way back around along the tracks, and then immediately die to the sniper who spent the time setting up in that area in the bottom right corner.

I am adding a second exit for BLU's forward spawn right now and am also placing some objects to lay out a theme and for callouts. I should have an updated version out later tonight/tomorrow morning.

Red spawn is too close to the end of the payload
Red spawn is too fast imo
also despite the map not being that big its sniper heaven atm

I don't mean to discourage all the work going into this, but if this is going to mainly serve as a test for the new hybrid gamemode, why not just implement it in an already-existing payload map?

Also, one possible idea is to make it so that "slopes" which usually require players to push it or else it rolls back, should temporarily disable the auto-push mechanic until it's all the way at the top, requiring a player to stand by it to push it up the hill before they can leave the cart alone again. It would help stagger the offensive team from fully committing to jumping forward during critical moments.

Worth noting is that I think everyone I played this map with played it wrong. Since the cart keeps moving you can't play it like a normal PL and sit back with heavy engie sniper while the cart stays still. If you do that on this map the enemy team will just get 80% of each point capped. I think it's a situation that pushes the defenders to go forward and block cart so they may not want as many defensive offclasses.

No problem. This map was originally a hybrid of a capture point map and payload where you had to capture a cp first before the payload activated and could be pushed. I wanted to play around with the idea of a straight up tap-cart mode after the cp/pl hybrid mode failed so I went ahead with this release. I do like the slope idea you have and that may be implemented in coming alpha version to test.

pl_tfcl_a9 is now available!

Check out the map overview screenshot below for more information:

http://i.imgur.com/26v8UVi.png

A small album of a9:

http://imgur.com/a/FfguO

Download here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qx7g2e2roplo6vy/pl_tfcl_a9.bsp?dl=0

Changes:

- minor detailing to hopefully help with call outs.
- added a second forward spawn door for BLU
- moved a doorway facing out of the hallway with the bull skull in it slightly to prevent a larger sniper sightline to both BLU forward spawn doors.
- extended a piece of sniper fence next to point 'A' to allow peeking out of the bull skull hallway slightly more when defending.

I still think these sightlines are kinda silly, but the only one I think is totally unacceptable is this one, which forces red to either play the initial defense without heals or just hold insanely passively.

Thanks for pointing those out. I have tried to fix two of those (including the major one you pointed out).

Here's version a10:

Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ecifs4be1y0rg1/pl_tfcl_a10.bsp?dl=0

Screenshots of the sightline fixes:

http://imgur.com/a/PZdH5

I won't be able to work on the map again until Feb.19th. I hope that these changes help out for testing in the meantime!

Thank you all for the awesome feedback so far.

On attacking: Start moving cart, move forward to defending spawn, spawn camp, win

It would be great if there was a third exit that could prevent spawn camps at last.

I feel like it's way too hard to defend in general. I've not played a game so far where the attackers don't roll the cart, it's actually really rare for the cart to ever stop really, you can take so much position in the time it takes the enemies to respawn that the rest of the map ends up just being dead space a lot of the time.

It's a bit of an issue because the majority of the gameplay tends to be around both the spawns. I think the defenders could use a base respawn buff.

Thanks for the feedback so far everyone. I will be back at my main pc and will be able to hopefully address all these issues very soon. New release tomorrow.

How many seconds do you feel the red respawn time should be reduced by?

Really interesting idea. If there's a way to do 6v6 payload, this is probably it. I dig the cart mechanics.

Few things I noticed:
The first spawn exit isn't great for the blue team. You've got an upper and a lower door, and both can be seen from any decent place for the enemy team to hold/stand - it's hard to get out in some cases.

More on spawns - there's the forwards that should have a second door that's got a stop sign on it to start until you're ready to use that exit. When that exit gets enabled, you should also probably make spawn locations that face that exit and make players spawn in those instead.

There's also the area that we called "the sightline" directly to the left of the of the left last spawn door for defenders - it's a long chokey hallway that a sniper can easily dominate. That and the fact that any attacking team can just rotate up there to destroy defenders at spawn doesn't make a lot of sense. Maybe a rework of that area or a one way door out for defenders if you're worried about setup time issues.

We also noted that ubered players couldn't block the cart at last - not sure if this was "the cart was already tipping" or if the cart just didn't recognize ubered players like a regular control point. Not certain how you would fix that but I'd imagine you would want to be able to uber and block the cart's cap.

Anyways. Neat idea, decent layout to start - looking forward to seeing how this progresses.

Awesome feedback. I'm working on going through these as best as I can tonight. If possible, can you please take a screenshot of the area you call 'the sightline' and post it or PM it to me? I was thinking about a 1-way door and I would like to get a better idea of where to place it.

http://i.imgur.com/JTEHaq0.jpg

Looking through the problem door through "the sightline."

A11 is now available and RED has been buffed:

Changes:

- RED's time spent waiting for spawn has been significantly reduced from a possible 18 seconds to 8 seconds (Please test when able and let me know if this is too fast).
- The exit out of RED to the left of the left last spawn door now has a one-way door (RED activated only) to help prevent spawn camp.
- A third exit from RED spawn has been added to help prevent spawn camp and to give extra exit options.
- New visual indicators have been added to let you know that you can not exit BLU forward spawns before 'B' is captured.
- The hallway to the left of the left last spawn door just outside of RED base has been reworked to prevent a major sightline.
- A second series of spawn points facing the forward exits of BLU spawn are enabled when BLU captures 'B' and the older spawn points are disabled.

Updated overview:

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

Album of some changes:

http://imgur.com/a/859Js

A11 Download: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7q2ws9273ljwbo9/pl_tfcl_a11.bsp?dl=0

What about pl_softwood idk. Badwater doesn't have water so why would softwood need trees also the name isn't taken from the what I can find

I'll make a strawpoll before I change the name (when the map moves to beta from alpha) with some options to choose. Thanks for the name suggestion but I don't think I will use 'adjective-wood' to name the map in order to avoid a ton of obvious jokes.

pl_outcast or reprobate or something; everyone hates it right off the bat for being payload in almost every game i play on it

Interesting idea. It's unfortunate to hear about the hatred for it based on the game mode before playing, the goal is to make Payload more playable and that will require a ton of tweaks from a lot testing. It also makes me appreciate the well thought-out feedback I receive here a lot more.