A review of the new map after playing on it for a week: I love how pretty it is. Hate everything else. It is navigation hell for any land dwelling dinosaur. There's still nothing to do in the oceans. This map's only good for flying dinosaurs. They made the quests even more thinned out and even harder to complete in groups. And half the time the quest giving dinosaurs are empty or give you quests you cannot complete in the area you are in. I still hate the respawn system, but now your land dwelling dinosaur has chances of respawning on an island where you have to swim back to the mainland.
All in all- it's a nice effort but fuck it's not a very fun experience so far.
This is something a little new for the blog that I'm hoping will be enjoyable. I'm going to talk about individual maps in the game, especially those known for being unbalanced. What better way to start things off than with Dustbowl, one of the original six maps?
Dustbowl tends to be very difficult for the attacking team to win. This is in large part due to the way the map is set up. Let's take a look at some key spots on the map.
As we go through these pictures, I'll ask you to bear one thing in mind: if a team has to go to somewhere, the goal is to minimize the damage they take while getting to the point. This is something that is a major problem on Dustbowl: there are many areas where BLU will have to expose themselves to sentry fire, explosive spam, Sniper shots, and more if they want to even have a chance to kill the defending team.
The first major struggle for BLU team is getting to the first point. All three spawn exits lead to wide areas of open ground leading up to the capture point. RED can easily shelter in the building, but there's very little cover for attackers to benefit from, meaning they take a lot of damage as they rush up.
Approaching the second point can be tricky. BLU has great holding spots in the mineshafts just before this area, where it's almost impossible for RED to root them out. But to approach the point, they have to take one of two routes: through a narrow, straight stairwell directly into the RED hold, or across a wide swath of open ground that's easily visible from RED spawn.
Second stage, first point. It's quite difficult for BLU to get inside the house leading to the point, and RED can resist them fiercely by spamming into the narrow corridors. The main path also gives RED the height advantage, particularly while they hold the shed near the front, which lets them bombard all BLU spawn exits.
After the first point, BLU has to go through a couple of choke points, most of which emerge right in the heart of RED defenses. Defenders can set up on the patio this photo is taken from, but they can also build fortifications on top of the mineshafts, allowing them to hit emerging BLU players from both sides.
This area is BLU's best bet for taking the next point. They can come out the one-way door on the right and go into the building, which has ammo and health reserves. But it's an enclosed space, meaning RED can spam the entrances with explosives. At least it gives the attackers an area to hole up in.
This isn't the hardest point to take on Dustbowl, but it's easily second-hardest. The building to the right of the image has a height advantage and narrow windows from which RED can fire out on BLU spawn. Behind the building is a great place to build dispensers and sentries. And the path near the top-middle of the image is just outside RED spawn, giving the defenders easy control of a sightline that BLU will have to walk through to reach the point.
This straightaway is between the first and second points on the final stage. BLU turns left into a long corridor in which they have little cover, while RED has a height advantage and can easily spam the corner. To boot, see those windows at the very back? Those are very easy for RED Snipers to hide in and take shots at attackers. It's common for Dustbowl to end with the BLU team unable to advance past this corner.
This is why the last point of Dustbowl is the hardest. BLU has very few options for the attack; the main route is straight and has no cover. There's a flank route on the left side of this image, but it requires crossing the main path, which means crossing a RED sightline. An alcove on the right is an easy holding point for defenders. The only other flank route requires attackers to pass through a wide-open ravine that is in full view of defenders, who will have the high ground.
Conclusion
If I had to pick one thing that makes Dustbowl difficult, I'd say it's the open spaces. Because BLU has to take points, they always have to move through these spaces if they want to progress. But because there's so little cover, they are forced to take damage as they move. This is an attacker's disadvantage, and on other maps, it's mitigated by giving them more cover, including (often) a high-ground position and more viable flank routes. Dustbowl:
has little cover for attackers;
has few flank routes;
has extremely narrow flank routes that are open to defending spam.
For the uninitiated, I recommend the delightful early-TF2 meme "It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Dustbowl." (Maybe don't listen to it in polite company.)
Is Dustbowl unbalanced? Yeah, sure. But - and I want to stress this - it can still be fun. It's not like every match on Dustbowl is a guaranteed RED win, and individual players can have really great moments regardless of which side they're on.
And what's even more important is that Dustbowl was one of the first maps. Valve and many, many community mapmakers have been practicing their art for over 15 years now, meaning that, if you start on Dustbowl and move through maps in chronological order, you can feel how much designers (both Valve and community) have improved. When you're on Dustbowl, there's nowhere to go but up.
