Thread: cp_observatory_b5

This map is now loaded onto server 1 and will be vote eligible. It's looks to be a combination of Gravel Pit and Steel, with multiple cap points (A & B), which open up alternate paths to C once capped.

Discuss it here.

http://www.fpsbanana.com/maps/67139

Fun map but I'm not sure it's the best for the server. With only 12 players to split between the two points the first attack of each round is kind of a coin-toss or Rock Paper Scissors to see who strikes where and whether or not RED has more defense at the point that BLU picks. If they're successful, BLU gets one of the advantages of the point that they capped, plus time, and a direct attack at C. Then, if you weight too heavily at C (which you might have to do thanks to a strong BLU attack), you lose the other point, giving them the full points. It just seems like both points are lost causes unless you gamble correctly.

That said, B is a little easier to hold, and C is defendable with a relatively small handful of skilled RED players. It's a little similar to Gravel Pit in that you should probably just sacrifice one of the points (A, in my opinion), or maybe send token resistance (two scouts and a pyro, that kind of thing), while committing the bulk of your defense to B. Two guns and a decent sniper can seal a lot of trickling attacks, forcing BLU to have a coherent push or fail each time. The trouble is that C is unlocked, so you need something like a very talented Heavy and possibly a Sniper/Demo to keep the longer-ranged classes off the Heavy's back (and, of course, a medic). Given the platform of C, maybe a Pyro would also be good.

Of course, this is only from playing the map 3 times. More discussion on the strategy would be good.

Anyway, I really like the map, it's very beautiful (but I think this caused some framerate issues for people). Hopefully we can play it more often.

For the first couple rounds it seemed that the attackers had a strong advantage. Unlike Dustbowl where you can dedicate your entire force to guarding one point, then another and then finally the last point. For this map the defenders are always split into two groups until the other team has taken both A and B. This makes it so that you really need some strong defenders that can hold a point by themselves otherwise it's always half of your team vs their whole team.
I think I'll need to play it more to really decide whether I like it or not.

Originally Posted by p5ycho_p3nguin

This makes it so that you really need some strong defenders that can hold a point by themselves otherwise it's always half of your team vs their whole team.

This of course assumes that their whole team is attacking one point, which they may or may not be doing.

The map's like Gravel Pit in that sense - just having two open points to defend doesn't in and of itself make it poorly designed.

I like the map so far. Apparently, the guy who did Steel did this map. And my team was actually able to successfully defend C in our second runthrough last night, although it did appear that attackers did have the edge in the previous games.

I for one am looking forward to playing it more.

Attacking C really forces you to take B in order to blow up the bridge from defenders spawn to C. Since B is very hard to break if it is defended the attacking team, it seems the attackers are in an very steep uphill battle.

Although if Attackers take A then they can get to C right outside their spawn. With the bridge for the Defenders still up though its pretty much a stalemate. Even when defense split from B and C the Defenders have a major height advantage.

The biggest problem I see is that when the bridge is destroyed, the Defenders only have one direct path to C, which in most cases will be camped by the attackers. This forces defenders to run way out of the way to A or B to defend C. This flips the dominance from Defenders to Attackers which is the opposite of the beginning of the map.

Basically this is the opposite of every other Attack/Defend map where the where the norm is defenders have an exponential decay in relation to points held and difficulty.