Other Review a map - Woodcastle Arena

https://www.brawl.com/threads/39239/

thank me later

i like the map, but i found that the middle and the sides are underused.
people don't like to play middle because there isn't any good positions to play. mostly because the little huts at the middle are blocking the view.

the sponges are helpful but they skip most of the action, maybe remove some sponges at spawn and at the middle.

i also don't like how the spawn is split in the middle because as engineer i want people to use my teleporter to the maximum potential.

the building, not the 4 smaller buildings. is also underused. nobody actually go there because there's a sponge that send them directly to the middle maybe remove the sponge or change the direction.

engineers are pretty op especially in the tunnels so are archers. but i also don't want the areas to be restricted either. so ya...

overall, the problem is that the sponges send the players directly to the middle and then to the flags or laziness and lack of action.

my shift key is broken.

 

Think of the split spawn point exits as somewhat engineer balancing for all the narrow hallways

I personally did find it confusing the first few times I played it, and even though I liked the huge amount of cover and stuff, it just felt a bit TOO cluttered, and since I have a habit of overdoing things, that's saying something.... And it just felt that 99% of the action was on the lower elevations of the map, like the flag, tunnels and center. The flag room is pretty well designed except for the fact that only a few classes can exit through the elevated step (soldier and ninja). I can't really say much more without repeating myself.

 

The elevated step is the only problem I have with it. It makes Ninja capping a complete breeze, and makes an otherwise balanced flagroom Soldier OP.

 

I like the map in a way I like arena, because it's great for killwhoring. But when you want to play objective, it doesn't provide the satisfaction you get on playing a map like standoff

 

this might not make that much sense but ill try to explain and illustrate it as best as i can

i think that the map is too centred around mid. what i mean is that the sponges from spawn take u to mid, there are sponges at mid that are often used and there is the tunnel thing slightly ahead of the sponges that people often use. this means that everyone is funneled to mid to a big choke point where there are always chemists/engineers/archers/mages, etc.

also, i think the map is too easy to defend on. the green part i marked out (assume im on blue) is a part of the map that is very easy to defend.



this makes offense a pain and if you do then get out, as i mentioned earlier, you have to pass through the mid which is just a cluster of kill*****s and that makes it pretty annoying. once you get back to the green area (assuming im a blue capper) it becomes really easy to hold the flag because you are very close to spawn and your own flag.

if you switch the pov to the recoverer now, you can see similar problems. they find it really easy to defend but once the flag carrier gets out its often difficult to recover because of the mid. if the flag carrier does get past mid then they are fairly safe as i mentioned earlier, which makes it really difficult to recover and generally not that enjoyable.

so when u combine all of these factors it generally ends up being not the enjoyable

 

It definitely needs a more obvious route to the flagroom, and it's easy to get disorientated in the tunnels, which are pretty small and claustrophobic. Not sure how you'd go about fixing that, though.

Aside from that the mid's pretty useless, although I'd hesitate to delete it completely since that would change the gameplay a lot and people seem to like it as it is. All I'd recommend is making the flagroom more obvious.

 

I'm pretty sure the beacons is a dead give away. Also the easiest route is get launched by the sponge in the beginning at spawn, then enter the tunnels from below.

 

i like it cuz u made it. i vote it back into rotation
@whoeverthefthispicksup