Next version is out. It has an slight displacement gap in the cave, sorry

screens of the changed mid building are up, and the map is now on serveme if you want to run tf2c or mix

thanks x

thank you- If it helps, I have tried on firefox instead of chrome and its worked for me, I can make lobbies again.

A new version, a12 is coming out, here is the changes

This version I mostly looked at changing mid up. Mid has been a really polarizing topic generally. A lot of people thought it was decent, and a handful thought it was terrible. I knew for a long time that the mid could do with improvements but frankly there were more pressing things to test.

From my earliest testing I already knew that the flow of mid was 'alright'. Teams choose a side and the team that controls the high point better generally wins. I think the mid has the potential to be very fun, it has a very centralized fighting area for soldiers- I don't think any other map mid acts so heavily as a "spire" - any high ground which can't be easily dominated by scouts is going to be a fun area for soldiers to fight on. Unrelated, I think any map that rewards going forward for demos is more fun for them. Scouts just have fun if they can dm things. Medics must be able to survive the mid to find it rewarding. 

So now for the problems of the mid. 

Soldier- Although the tower does centralize the positioning of the soldiers, there is a lack of vision on the top which turns dm fights into just peeking the corner and shooting the other side. It's passive and not very exciting, and punishes people for walking forward and taking control correctly. 

Demo/medic- The lack of HP on the mids prevents demos from walking anywhere that isn't just onto the point. This means if your soldiers aren't winning up top the demo doesn't really have that many options to do much but launch stickies up top. This is a fine strategy but a few more options for pushing are needed. For medics there's just too few health packs. A bomb can force the team out just by hitting 100. 

so-
reworked mid structure:
-building isn't a gpit ripoff
-more vision up top
-flattened roof
-lowered windows
-moved cave health pack a bit closer to structure and towards team control
-changed to medium
-added prop cue, should stop players trying to jump to the top of the structure on mid

Result-
The vision increase up top prevents hiding behind walls and peeking. You can hide there, but you can just fire rockets next to the wall to cause damage. This should make the 'spire fight' more dm based and far less passive. The flatter roof just makes scout a bit less good up there, while still able to deny jumps an already present soldier has a much better chance. 
On the scouts side though, the lower window means that scouts can jump up there without the winger. Means scouts will be surprising people more often, rotating faster and generally it should just feel a lot more fluid.
The forward health pack gives the aggressive team a bit more steam. It's also in front of the enemy hut and where the enemy medic is going to be taking health, so the option to lock them out is there now, just gives meds and demos the flexibility to do more. The tradeoff of height VS health comes into play, it should be interesting. Cave rollout improves aswell, which wasn't being used at all. 

I've also reworked the hut into something more reasonable. The hut before was just killing space and really didn't contribute anything to the mid at all. Now you can walk on it as all classes, which should make the mid feel a bit more spacious. This I feel is okay since the lower ground players will be playing with a medium health pack. It also acts as a great place to hold far back as a passive force mid while you have disadvantage, which is definitely something that was missing from the mid. 

Misc-
Fixed clipping on stairs (was using wrong clip texture smh!!) 
Giant arrows became non-solid
Fixed up a very thick spawn wall which felt strange
Fixed up the cave to be a bit more friendly to walk on and also fixed an infinite stuck point
Tweaked spawn times, last pushes and contests should flow a little better

Please let me know what you think! As always if you have any last minute suggestions, feel free to give them! newest screens and dl will be here soon enough, I'm compiling over night. I'm hoping this will be the final alpha :)

Just thought I would update, dl link and screens are there now :)

what if we were to change the way maps are played in 6s generally

say we increased the pool to include some less favored maps, in etf2l we have certain maps a week, we could maybe change it to be playoff style, each team is allowed to pick a map and weekly the decider is pre-chosen like now- and we do away with ties and just have a winner in an official. So in that case maybe open teams might choose to play swiftwater and high teams still would probably not. If teams pick an aids map you can drop it and beat them on the 5cp map you chose and the decider.

it might be awful who knows but it could be a good compromise if that's what's needed to happen?

Obviously if you make friends with players who never win (because they have a spy and engi) even in matchmaking you're not going to move to a league and be surprised that you aren't winning.

You're not supposed to move to a league unless you're actually good. I am terrible at csgo (DMG or something) and I don't know any smokes or flashes- and don't know how to spray. Therefore I will not enter league play because these are core mechanics that make you win.

If you aren't good enough to realise that scout medic and demo make you win then you shouldn't be playing league games, and that's just what it is. Even in silver level league of legends everyone copies whatever the current pro players are doing. It's not a big thing.

that's because LoL players are invested in the pro scene. I have never even tried to follow pro LoL and I can still name pro players from when I was playing, doublelift, dyrus, wildturtle, xpeke because they were the hot subject. I don't know who any of those people are or what they even main, but I know what they look like because I saw them on the home screen loads of times. You don't really get that branding in tf2- nobody knows who the teams are, nobody knows the players, you're lucky if you find someone who knows who banny is.

the main issue is koth maps generally aren't made for 6s- koth gets a bad rap from 6s players from the mostly hl oriented maps that release. Those maps tend to not be that good on 6s, for example coalplant wasn't very successful in EU 6s but ashville was pretty successful for a long time in HL, afaik

for the most part I don't think it's that outlandish for people to create upcoming koth maps that can succeed- however koth maps are a mixed bag, and you can't learn a lot from them.

What I mean by this is that if you're making a 5cp map, you can look at what process, badlands, snake, etc do well, and you can take a lot of ideas and inspiration from them. When you look at koth, it's much harder, because even viaduct isn't even that well liked in lower divisions. Some teams don't scrim via at all outside of the week, in eu at least. (although seems most prem teams like it)
So IMO at least to create a successful koth map you need to know a lot about 6s, and most mappers don't play 6s.

Hey, I am working on this again, since I am at uni again and haven't got loads to do right now. Plus season started and I'm motivated to try to make something good. I've been working a few weeks on new version. Here is a writeup of main changes.

a11 writeup

2nd- Reduced severity of height advantage on point
removed easy access to balcony
added clutter to point (this allows access to balc, but not as a general route, blocks sight)
added bonus width to point (ground area remains similar)
added prop between choke and pit
added more consistent prop route from pit (should allow a scout through in pit to come behind choke quickly)

This should reduce the power of holding on point. Combo classes now are slower up to balcony which should mean pushing through cave becomes more viable, before teams could hold close to choke and be in the better holding spot by the time the push happened. These changes should allow for a better rock paper scissors game to go on and generally be better for attackers, who can capitalise on unexpected pushes far better, and punishes out of position combo players. 

In terms of attacking, there's a few changes. The biggest change to main is that scouts can no longer follow up as easily as they're much more predictable getting up now, as they have to hop on a box first, which can give a free rocket if it's expected. The prop near choke should nerf spam from far back and give medics a bit of a safe space, while also nerfing choke to pit pushes, which I figured would be really strong slow pushes if balcony sees more play. 
Also, the clutter on point gives better vis blocking on lower, which will hopefully mean aggro from lower, whether it be sac(k) plays or uber vs no uber pushes have a higher success rate. 
Finally, I tightened choke at the top of cave, due to the fact that cave pushes are generally scout ubers and the ubers were coming out really late. This should tone down the effectiveness a slight amount by nudging the medics closer to ubering earlier.

ps- I've changed the sightlines in cave - it's such now that a surprise sniper can get a balcony pick, but a called sniper can be avoided simply by hugging the wall a bit. Snipers on the top of cave can peak, but this is a very aggressive angle, someone should be holding there. The important thing is that you can't snipe freely from the bottom of cave now, which was an oversight of shortening the cave route. 

Please let me know what you think about these changes :)

I focused mainly on 2nd, but here's some more mid changes changes:
Raised mid a bit so that it blocks a sightline from choke to choke
Extended cave slightly further toward middle, should allow a better uber for cave vs sniper pushes.
-If snipers defending mid continues to be a problem, I'll be changing the huts to block sightlines, for now these changes are enough to test. 

Misc:
By popular demand, gravel has been clipped. Sorry for not doing it earlier. (other clipping too)
Map is no longer having an identity crisis
Replaced ramps with stairs (dw they're clipped, no splashbugs and rampslidable)
I've also added general signposting. This should definitely help if you want to run a tf2c/tf2s/dblmix/pickup or whatever. 
General improvements in polish and detail
We have sound now - Should no longer do that gullywash demo bug as there are soundscapes now. You got your bird noises near the trees and rustling, your running water sounds, your wind noises in tunnels and your machinery inside the lobbies.
Clipped a couple of hiding places. 
FPS is slightly better - please report if you're seeing FPS problems, I'm still not done with the optimization but it'll help me gauge how urgent it is

I'm right now doing full compile, but if you happen to have played a game and remembered I can find useful, now is a great time to bring it up, ty x

just wait for setsul to wake up

Imo we need to start a bit smaller, I don't think valve would want to add a cosmetic for each team, perhaps just start with an allclass jacket or hat, where you can unlock styles that give it a fat team decal by purchasing team stamps, like the map ones. It's the same end result, but less assets so maybe more likely to be acceptable. Maybe you could get holographic decal with 5 stamps or something. Stamps contribute to valve, major, and to the teams themselves?

Perhaps you can get the jacket along with a csgo style souvenir case by tuning in to the stream?

Idk plenty of ways to implement this kind of thing really.

yes there is, ban it if people want it gone

personally I don't think I'd like to see this happen again

the problem with fixing stalemating is that as long as you have a team that has an advantage that team will always attempt to stalemate it

there is no way you can equalise the advantages perfectly and you can not have a symmetrical push map that's also balanced for attack/defence play in that way.

also giving the winning team a disadvantage for winning is retarded

honestly this is the best they could do, realistically for valve

this plus those cs:go crates you get from watching majors would be fairly easy to implement and it would genuinely make a large difference, I don't understand why it hasn't been done

I don't really like men that much anymore since a bad experience but I don't get any attention from girls at all, since I'm small and skinny and not particularly masculine- so I just kind of will myself/kid myself into thinking I'm still attracted to guys, because it's so much easier than facing the truth that I'm not even slightly conventionally attractive and my standards are set way too high from years of men fawning over me.

what to do

mostly spot on

I am a bit confused by the concept to be honest- what is the difference between this and AD map? It appears to just count the number of cp sets capped in total over a certain amount of time, VS amount of time over a total number of caps, which is basically the same measurement. It serves to further confuse me when one of the aims is both to not allow teams to park the bus, but allow '5cp defense,' which is park the bus.

If I understand it correctly, it's an AD map where the other team can also push and recap. But there's also a mid? How does this mesh? Is there any reason why red would ever even want to turn up to mid considering if they do and lose they will then lose the next point, versus the possibility that they win and gain a point which is presumably the easiest to attack?

In my opinion, in order to justify an entire new gamemode, you have to clearly state the problems that it solves, and how it does it. I don't really understand how this solves the problems, I'm sure I am probably misunderstanding it completely.