So I've had an idea / image in the back of my head for a while, and decided to mock it up. By no means is this guaranteed to be RC11 at this time but I wanted to see if people think it's worth pursuing.

Download (changes made on RED side only - note no playerclip or optimization:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cgkxcpwpuanljme/cp_logjam_rc11test.bsp?dl=0

Essentially - remove cave, move choke more towards where cave is presently, as well as changes on 2nd and mid. A new upper exit on 2nd from logroom satisfies the 2.5 entrance thought process.

Interested to hear what people think. I'm actually probably going to change mid more akin to this version for the actual RC11 (assuming these changes are a bit drastic for right before the season).

https://i.imgur.com/OMebD8g.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/rOzVn6b.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/qoCUa0N.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Lopol1P.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/bJbDlMo.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cYCaWpW.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/cPN9O9v.jpg

cp_logjam_rc11pre1 - https://www.dropbox.com/s/fjtrjcvteajujw4/cp_logjam_rc11pre1.bsp?dl=0

Little slow on the draw here. Life things keep happening! Haha. Putting out one pre-version, if things look OK and no one is hot about the changes I did make we'll ship RC11 for real by the end of the week.

Changes:
-removed the window at last
-added low fence on mid bridge
-tweaked cover on mid
-adjusted the high ground on mid
-adjusted choke ramp on mid side to make slides easier
-rotated spire on 2nd to make climbing to the point make more sense
-added a new small passage from the bridge on 2nd to choke

Screens:

https://i.imgur.com/2nKr8cB.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/dvODm4a.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/P1c0Lbx.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3YNPjd0.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/ugm8Wep.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/apYdvp9.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HhTFgl4.jpg

The above changes for rc11pre1 are all gameplay things largely - so I've been working a bit on details, here's some pics of how RC11 will look once actually released:

https://i.imgur.com/hEbjfvm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CAmxtKX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/apgl2ZP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TxG9J9p.jpg

Also, with the new tweak to choke ramp it's very easy even for bad jumpers like myself to do the following:

https://clips.twitch.tv/RamshackleCarelessBottleTebowing

The idea of playing on a map you have never played on is always frightening, but Logjam looks nice at least. Hope it plays as well as it looks.

cp_logjam_rc11: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7uqtngoebrb9n2t/cp_logjam_rc11.bsp?dl=0

Didn't hear much from anyone against these changes - so here is RC11!

Changes:
-removed the window at last
-added low fence on mid bridge
-tweaked cover on mid
-adjusted the high ground on mid
-adjusted choke ramp on mid side to make slides easier
-rotated spire on 2nd to make climbing to the point make more sense
-added a new small passage from the bridge on 2nd to choke

https://i.imgur.com/hEbjfvm.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/CAmxtKX.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/apgl2ZP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/TxG9J9p.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/Q7Ldi10.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/3zbDUnH.jpg

(3 of these pillars)

so these are still in the map and they happen on one side

99% sure theyre are gonna be illegal but now The People know

edit: gaping asshole in both of the new tunnels but it doesnt affect gameplay

https://i.imgur.com/L9xXxyW.png

Some ideas for improving the mid:

Idea 1: https://imgur.com/a/J5E8DW9
Idea 2: https://imgur.com/a/BN7B1x9

If those ideas aren't any good, last resort in my opinion would be to straight up remove these catwalk/tower thingies. Seems like the standard demo position in midfights is to stand behind the point at the bottom of the hill it's on so I feel like it's too easy for an enemy soldier to jump that catwalk and spam your demo directly from above, which leads either to your demo dying or just not really being able to do anything on mids if they walk away since there's a lack of sight from the left side of the rock. Only counter play I can think of would be to force your pocket soldier to always counterjump the catwalk which would make the mid pretty one dimensional for them.

Drawing to demonstrate what I'm talking about:

https://imgur.com/a/aSi26U1

I know you're still focusing on gameplay elements, and i won't recommend looking into these till you make the gameplay more enganging, fun and balanced. But here are some opinions and nitpicks on the overall looks of the map. These are pretty much only lighting issues and texture issues, but i hope you get something out of it.

https://imgur.com/a/V69Ighc

Thanks for the feedback guys! I wish I caught those spots. Playerclip is an endless job.

PJC, I want to see how this mid turns out. You've got good ideas. Definitely have considered something a la Gran catwalk before. We'll see how this one goes before I muck about with it further.

VirtualSoda, thank you for the list of details. They do matter. The map is still in RC, even if it's not as polished as others. When someone comes up with a list like this (HOI comes to mind... hehe) I tend to work through all of it for the next version regardless. Always good feedback.

Sidenote, I hate lighting in the source engine.

I know this isn't the correct time really for this and I wish I'd kept tabs on this thread earlier, but I'm kinda disappointed you rushed in some major changes the week before it's played in ETF2L.

Some of the new stuff looks really rushed and poorly thought-out, particularly the new cuboid on mid (which makes scout terrifying) and the new rectum by choke (which serves very little purpose from what I can gather).

I appreciate you continuing to work on the map and it's definitely a fun one, but your approach feels off and I think there's better ways of going about managing the map. We must've had 100 versions of it already, at some point you probably need to settle on a particular design without trying to patch out every 'weakness' (which are often subjective between players).

Sure he could've made the changes earlier in the season (or even before the season), but (in all respect) it's not like anyone is going to play the map before the week logjam is played. He already posted screenshots of the new platform on mid two weeks ago so everyone had enough time to give feedback.

I don't know about you, but I haven't played enough games to tell if the new platform is good or bad. The few games I've played it wasn't a problem at all, and I just think people need to play it more to find out of it's good or bad. As a soldier you have so many options if you go left side of mid:
- go behind them in logroom
- go underneath the platform
- land on the platform
- pogo on the platform
- do a high bomb on the building

Sure maybe people haven't played enough on this map to find a good counter to all of this, but in my opinion it add a lot of options on the mids as a soldier, which makes it more fun than all the previous versions.

I think the purpose of the new route in choke is that you have the high ground on second, but the downside is that you can take a lot of spawn and it's easier to trap. Hyce rotated the spire which made it really difficult for the offensive team to take the high ground on second.

It's on me too for sure - I've been out of contact with the scene for several months (probably jan-may or so) so I didn't really have a good grasp on season timelines.

For what it's worth, the test versions have been out for about a month and nobody had anything to say, so I went ahead with it.

There's definitely an issue of ETF2L / ozfortress players playing the map and the vast majority of people I associate with and talk to being NA TF2 players anymore, which also doesn't help.

I suppose my quest for updating the map was always in the hope of getting the map broken into the NA TF2 scene, which I've still not managed to accomplish after 5 years. If NA still doesn't want to accept it, there must be something wrong, right? Couple that thought with just looking at the map and there are some things that I can see that are objectively wrong (which drove some of the changes this time around), that said they probably weren't fixed the best way they could've been because of a lack of testing / etc.

I probably should have thrown in the towel a long time ago. Maybe it's time.

Your opinions and feelings on YOUR map should always come first.
If i were you, I honestly would just playtest this map privately with some of your mates or with people who know how TF2 works
(Players who have a lot of experience in competitive TF2 and know how TF2 level-design is meant to be designed and generally know what class balancing is on a map, etc. General stuff)
And not someone who just happens to be good at playing TF2 and can move in the level.

I find Hydro a fun map, but I sure as hell don't tell other map creators to make a map JUST like Hydro and include its layout in his/her map.

Let's say you're making a dish. You want to make a delicious pasta, and you have happened to create a holy unique sauce that has never been seen before.
Of course your sauce has inspirations from other sauces, but the taste of this sauce is different than the rest.

You're looking for testers, see if you can improve on this sauce and make it in general more tasty. Someone tells you to add in pesto because that's what they like and that's what this sauce should also be.
You add in the pesto and it again tastes unique, but not in a good way.

You call in more testers and see if you can improve this version of the sauce.
You get a second suggestion and someone tells you to put in carbonara.
You add it in and it tastes even worse than the previous version.

Why is this? Because you've added too many ingredients and now your sauce is too overloaded with different tastes and spices and it has become a frankenstein monster.

I'm probably off the train tracks with this post and don't fully understand what's going on and such. But i do want to tell you that this is YOUR map and YOU'RE the designer.

Create a map that you think is fun, let people play on that map, if they don't think it's fun.
(Which is hard to know because people are very used to Badlands, Granary, Gullywash and Process in ETF2L)
ask what they don't find fun, ask for a detailed explaination on why this should be changed and how it should be changed.
Also have as many different perspectives as possible, look for a solution that's fits your style and vision, because again this is your map.

I came across rude and arrogant, I'm sorry.

My main point is that making major changes to a map so often and especially a week before it's played really reduces its appeal to leagues. it makes it look unfinished and not worth real effort to learn yet as it's only gonna get reworked next season. give it time to mature and polish up what you already have is my recommendation - sunshine is a staple in leagues nowadays that teams have had time to learn it, despite a few aspects players dislike. Trying to fix everything is impossible and the issues will definitely change over time as people get used to the map, even if the map itself stays still.

hi, not feedback but rather a request
there are certain server hosting services that dont really have a dedicated map upload feature, but allow synchronizing in with the steam workshop
i was gonna perform this but your workshop version of logjam is way out of date(cp_logjam_rc6)
could you push the update of your workshop version?

Take this as you'd like since 1) this is only a handful of player opinions and 2) I'm an inactive low open NA player but I talk with EU players more than NA players:

When I asked some Mid to Prem players who complained about an update or a map mechanic, "can you leave that feedback for Logjam on the forums?", they said it seemed like it wouldn't matter because you'd just update the map by next week, meaning nothing would ever stay constant. It's the opposite of how people felt about other maps where rather than it being "they're not listening to feedback", this was "they're listening to too much feedback".

This is not the first time you've been told publicly to stop updating and let people get acclimated to the layout; Collaide lengthily mentioned it a while back. This has apparently been a consistent opinion out of many different opinions, even after Logjam stopped being in rotation in ETF2L a while ago before it was brought back.

People from the Cardinal era knows that since I'm primarily a content creator, I will usually fiercely take the side of the mapper's frustrations - which is why I'm telling you what I've been told, because that's all I can do. If that sounds ridiculously more frustrating for you and seems unfair or disheartening, it's because it probably is.

This part is where this becomes a c l a s s i c overdramatic uberchain nerd essay:

Also this is already longer than I wanted a "don't shoot the messenger" post to be, but I feel like this part of my hearsay also needs to be stressed: from listening to Cardinal and Logjam feedback, let alone anybody complaining about a map, is even if players think your map needs to be better otherwise not be played at all - they absolutely 100% know you're doing your best and appreciate that effort. I want people to tell you both those sentiments for themselves.

Hey, just want to add in here that for the rc11 version of the map used in ETF2L Season 33, the map spots shown by gemm in post #546 will be prohibited from being used in all ETF2L matches as of 26th of June 2019. If any team has used these spots already before this date, ETF2L admins will not look into such match complaints.

From now on, using either of these spots can potentially lead to rounds being nullified or defaulted, alongside minor warnings given to teams that use these spots.

If anyone sees any team using either of these spots, please report about it to ETF2L admins in the Discord support chat most preferably.

were updating maps 1 week before we play them and then now making rule changes on forums on the wrong website 2 hours before officials

what is going on

Excuse me? I have only referred this information from our site to here. I can admit that the main site is barely functioning currently and that I had posted this really late today as I had other things to do during the day myself, but I really do appreciate the claim of thinking that we have suddenly started making rule changes on a wrong website as if we haven't made an attempt to do it officially on our site as well. Thank you however.

Posting these here for reference so this thread could get back on track once again after this post:
https://i.imgur.com/SLhTZTV.png - https://imgur.com/a/kZFm2I7
http://etf2l.org/forum/league/topic-35559/

ah, apologies. the site was down when i wanted to check

the map being updated was very clear but these seem like exactly the issues you run into when you update a map a week before its played and noones had time to playtest it properly, never mind potential problems with the new layout

So it never really seemed to me before that the workshop page got much attention, so I didn't bother updating it. Kind of an annoying process to go through, really. I didn't realize this fact though. It's updated now. :D

Uberchain, I appreciate the fuck out of what you wrote here. It is nice to know that people understand where I'm at. I'm not sure what I'm going to end up doing but I will say that logjam is just about done with actually level changes.

I'm not going to stop. I'll see the map to the end and that will be that. Likely graphical changes at this point, unless RC11 is a giant pile of garbage - we'll just have to see on that one.

Anybody have any feedback from the past season? Would love to hear what anyone has to say.

Hello!

I think the fact that we had 9 maps in the pool impacted my experience with logjam negatively so I was more upset about that than the fact that logjam was in the pool.

I feel that the lobby between last and 2nd is a bit too complicated. If you are in lobby looking towards last I think removing the walkway between "top mid lobby" and right side lobby could make it a bit less complicated. leaving the ramp as the only way between mid and right lobby. But I'm not sure that is an improvement or that it is a problem that the lobby is on the complicated side.

Other than that I quite like the map and personally prefer logjam over any koth map (I freaking hate koth and it makes no sense having 1 map with a different gamemode than the rest of the pool). I think the map has a natural flow (potentially a bit easy to flank on because of the 2 large flanks mid to 2nd.) I love the big open choke between mid and 2nd. Allows for some bigboy bombs.

Thanks Alba - give the map a little more time and I think the lobby will make sense for you.

Anyone else?

I think it is a fine map tbh, since it was the second season playing it I was not confused by the overall layout. It is still a pretty big map where sniper is good but I see that as a voluntary choice and the only place where sniper was too strong was on the old mid, which is fine now. Second and last are really cool I think, and mid is fine with the changes. Pushing out of last might be the hardest part on this map, since personally the best thing we found was to push through dropdown but that leaves lobby really exposed, and a sniper can cover all of lobby from second as well which is a bit meh. Overall it is a map that I enjoyed playing, and I'd say that pushing into second is its best feature, with all 3 ways offering various strats so don't change that.

I like the map. It's nice to move around and it has a nice aesthetic. It's quite interesting that you can stand on the ledges in choke. Could be useful as teams push to avoid eating the same spam and to shoot down on sacks.

I think it's probably for the best that you filled in the window on last, even though it was unique. I'm not too sure on the door to second that starts at choke. It feels a bit of an expedient, though I understand why you've tried it. I'm also not too sure on the big structures in the middle of mid. They're quite easy to hide behind and avoid all spam from the high ground on the right, and they present some odd high ground. Maybe I need to play more of the mid to see how they're used. Though I'm a big fan of the old bridge mid anyway.

Window on lobbies/lasts isnt unique, plenty of maps have windows into last for spotting. Badlands, gully, metalworks lobby (not technically a last but still). Don t get why ppl bitched about it its relatively common on maps and allows for spotting without spam opportunties (either way). Obviously info gained is stronger for attacking team but still. If anything what could be argued is position of it.

On badlands and gully you can be punished hard for getting actually up to the window, on Logjam you were completely free to just sit afk and watch through the window at the entire last free of consequence.

if a team is good there is no punish tbh so long as u really dont take the piss but ye i see ur point, especially for less organised play

Yeah I meant like a free one where you can just constantly peek it and call wherever their shit is. I think that makes it play very differently to Gully and Badlands because you can constantly know where all the holding team's players are. Like Kermit said, you probably can't just stand and peek gully window for 5 minutes solid as you move your players around accordingly.

I didn't particularly mind the window though. Would be interesting if it was bigger and allowed the defending team to see more, perhaps. But not worth messing about with.