I actually wrote a detailed post with the problems I saw while pugging this map, but the forums logged me out half-way and it's lost
So I'll try to summarize it:
In general, the bath and falls cps on this map play like 3v3 shock TDM. It's frag-heavy, clusterfucky, and rather idom-like. This is because of a few general problems:
- Most of the outside area is used for spawning and a couple random pickups, but often you get multiple players spawning out there and shooting at each other, forcing you to fight them to be able to start getting to your point. This contributes to the map's fragpower-biased flow.
- Bath has one main funnel-entrance up a ramp. There are other ways of getting to the point, but spawns funnel most traffic through here. This makes the point very, very easy to hold, as you can just stand/crouch in place and cover this spot. Not to mention that most of the time the enemies will only need 1 shot. The whole cp reminds me a bit of corner on Cinder, except the enemies spawn farther away (giving you more time to stack before going back to shooting the funnel ramp) and there's an amp that makes it a dedicated 2 person spot.
- Going to bath off of most spawns, you pass by or are visible to the falls player. The 2 cps are fairly close. You often get a shot from this guy on the way to bath, or you get a shot at him. Sure, it doesn't happen if your team controls falls, but it's just not good to have a cp that is this easy to push off of or this close to a cp with one main path.
- Because of the 2 previous problems, bath is insanely easy to hold with an amp. This is the biggest problem with bath, it's easier with amp than any other cp on any map. It's easy to hold without an amp, but with an amp you can comfortably shoot the aforementioned funnel-like ramp all day and drop on belt and armors after killing the enemies with little risk. You can also kill the falls guy on the way, but bath is so easy to hold by itself that it's not all that necessary.
As some evidence, here are stats for the last 2 mountainman games:
http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=9705http://www.ownedwell.com/utstats/?p=match&mid=9739Note the amp graphs: extreme positive points on all amp runs. This is because you don't have to spend much time stacking with amp, you just have to sit on the point and take the belts freely when you can. On no other map do you commonly see +30 net points on multiple runs in one map, unless teams are very bad.
It reminds me of sdom-malice, having to 4-shot double kill 2 players right after I've spawned sometimes just to get on the path to bath. Also, powerups have relatively little importance except for the amped player, since you often get 5-shot not long after picking up belt. But on mountainman, an amp is insanely powerful at bath. There are many good sdom maps where amp runs are very powerful, but this takes it to an extreme. It seems that the effort in dedicating even 3 players to killing a stacked amped player sitting at bath can be futile long enough that it hurts as much as it helps.
I try to keep an open mind and give good suggestions, but I'm not sure what to suggest here. Honestly, I think there are other maps with much more potential, sorry wndg.