The Classless Update: Stepping Sideways to a New Low...

[Tehrasha]

[Stormcaller3801]

I'm going to agree- two sappers = two dead porters. Still, this means I might be able to actually keep all my stuff intact. Although I'm anticipating a lot of death -> respawn to all gear being sapped -> wrench the 'porter -> teleport in time to see everything blow -> die to Spy.

[Arcalane]

[Sekh765]

Yea. Poor engineers thought this was a buff for them. Oh they will come to hate it. I can now destroy two tele's at once, if I time my spamming right, and STILL make him have to run to spawn.

[Stormcaller3801]

KotH looks to be ending up about as expected, particularly on Nucleus. Viaduct wasn't as bad, one or two instances of being killed as I left the spawn but checking locations on the screencaps looked like the individual was heading back into the central area. Similar with Sawmill. Then the server reset, I left for a while, came back and played Nucleus, and it didn't take long before RED's chat shifted from idle chatter and tactics to more and more irritation with a Spy and Pyro who were continuously camping. Pyro burning people as they ran out, Spy waiting for people to run back to the gate to refill at the cabinet.

To be fair that's what was being said- I got burned to death leaving spawn once myself, but I tended to die without a chance to run back to spawn. The only occasion I can think of where I got hit going to spawn was a Pyro who, as I was attempting to enter the spawn point, airblasted me up into a corner of the doorway so I couldn't enter, I ended up getting stuck on something, and then was burned to death.

[Sekh765]

KOTH is actually much better at preventing spawncamping then I thought it would be.

Viaduct has built in spawn protection as part of the map. Theres the huge open area, then the tiny courtyard right outside your spawn building. Basically, people shouldn't be going through those little buildings into the other teams staging courtyard unless they are killing teleporters, much like any other map. The buildings prevent random rockets, demos, etc from just spamming near the spawn door just by glancing over there.

Sawmill is similar, as the spawn doors are well inside a building that you can't get inside. I am very impressed with valves design on these maps, and find KOTH to be one of my new favorite game types. Hats off!

[Stormcaller3801]

Viaduct's really not a problem, mostly because it was built for KotH. Sawmill I've seen Pyros hang around outside the RED building and just light up people, similar with Spies- though that seems to typically be more of a 'I chased someone this direction and oh look, more targets' than premeditation. Mostly because after they die it doesn't happen again.

Nucleus was terrible though. I made a point of when I reached a BLU door, backpedaling or running down another hallway, but there was constantly Snipers, Heavies, and Soldiers coming down the stairs to the left of the main door and blasting at it, as well as the aforementioned issues with a Pyro and Spy that I told Witchie about.

[Sekh765]

Nucleus in general seems to have not been optimized as well as it should be for KOTH. I can't remember right now but isn't there only a single exit from the spawn door? In general, the map has super long sightlines that make snipers ridiculously powerful for the team that owns the point, and the spawn door is rather obnoxiously exposed.

Yea, I agree that most of the people that might be considered "camping" on sawmill are just guys that were chasing someone down and ended up in that courtyard area outside the spawn door. I haven't personally had any nasty experiences with players on the KOTH maps yet though, except Nucleus, and that wasn't camping, just the maps fault.

[Stormcaller3801]

I can't speak for BLU, since KotH doesn't seem to scramble teams and there was no autobalancing, but the RED spawn has three exits that I'm aware of. The one most commonly used due to the fact it gives you best access to the point and is directly in front of you leads to an area where you can go left to get around a wall and then proceed to the point, or go right and head down stairs and away from the point, but do allow you to move around with less chance of encountering anyone. There's another stairway down that leads to a second exit, and again, you're let out in an area where you have a long slog to the point, but decent odds of running for a ways without seeing anyone. The third exit is to the left, and leads to the middle of a curving hallway that you have to follow a significant distance before you have the chance to head for the point.

In other words, there's plenty of variation if you're playing Arena and just want to run around shooting people. But if you're playing KotH where your main goals are going to involve being on, near, or shooting at the point, there's effectively one door you'll want to be using.