Gameplay Dimension

pl_Industry also breaks the mould for payload maps in its gameplay.

There are two "normal" payload map types. First is a "single stage payload", such as Badwater, in which the attacking team pushes the bomb along a railroad track past 3 checkpoints to a final bomb objective checkpoint (where the bomb blows up with an earth-shattering and very satisfying KABLOOIE...!). Second is a "multi-stage payload", which is the same thing, except broken up into 3 mini-stages. Think of Goldrush (see the image below). Now the attacking team pushes the payload past 2 or 3 checkpoints in the first stage, 2 or 3 in the second, and 2 or 3 in the third, with the explosion - the ultimate objective - only occurring at the very last checkpoint. (Meanwhile, of course, in both map-types the defenders are trying to stop the attackers.) The map curls in a "C" or "U" shape, to maximize the amount of gameplay you can get out of its square real estate.

pl_Goldrush To the right is a map of Goldrush, the first payload map. It is a three-part multi-stage map. Only one stage may be played at a time. (Click to expand.)

What I did in pl_Industry was make a larger, 7 checkpoint single-stage map. So basically it is a multi-stage map (like Goldrush) that runs in a single-stage (like Badwater). I did this for two reasons:

First, the multi-stage payload (like Goldrush, above) is basically the same thing as the single-stage one, except there is this interim set-up period between stages. I know Valve did this because a multi-stage map is large, and it takes a long time to push the payload past all those checkpoints. But after all, the whole point is to get to that final explosion. If you're really into getting to that ultimate objective, breaking it up into 3 stages probably makes the entire journey even longer than if they were kept together. You have to wait through the round end period and next-stage set-up period three times instead of only once, to get to that big BOOM!

Second, by taking what is a multi-stage payload and opening up the entire map as a playing area, I think it makes the map more interesting, strategically. You can put in avenues of approach to the objectives that are unconventional. You can build in longer bypasses and so on to get around roadblocks.

This ability to bypass I believe is important. Many payload maps now seem to have been designed with a deathmatch mentality. They are narrow areas. The bypasses there are are short. That's great for deathmatch. Problem is payload, I think, is a much more strategic, team-oriented game-type. You have this big objective which gradually is pushed along, both teams knowing where it is at all times and thus able to converge on it from different directions. Thus experienced TF2 players on the defence know all the nooks and crannies of these narrow approaches, know where to set up the sentries that make it impossible for this highly visible payload to move forward, know where to demo spam, to snipe and so on, and can pretty easily impede progress of the payload.

In the map of Goldrush, shown above, the blue areas are the playable spaces (grey is unreachable scenery). The coloured hotspots, as of this writing, represent accumulated deaths - places players have been killed in game, with the red zones the densest concentration of kills. You can see that right after Stage 1-1 there is an incredible hotspot - many players have died here. This point on the map is very very hard to get past. It's a log jam.

Thus payload maps, as they're designed now, are a frustrating series of sacrifice plays: players leap forward, kamikaze-style; nudge the payload an inch; immediately die; wait; and do it all over again. Or gameplay quickly descends into deathmatch, players simply giving up on developing the teamwork and strategy to move the payload forward, and instead just racking up personal kills. In either case, the attackers usually lose (since the defenders win by default), and later stages of the map are, in a sense, wasted. (Notice how few kills there are on Stages 2 and 3? Not as much play happens there.)

Now the game loses its original focus: that of an attacking team working together to move an objective relentlessly forward, and of a defending team trying to come to terms with that strategic reality of this shifting, unpredictable assault and use its own teamwork to counter it.

You can see this in Valve's own statistics about wins and losses. Below is a link to a chart that (as of this writing) notes the percentage of wins of Blu and Red. Notice the three payload maps on this chart - Goldrush, Badwater and Hoodoo. In all three cases, the attackers (Blue) lose much more often than the defenders (Red).

Round Wins By Team To the right is a chart, by Valve, showing the percentage of teams wins, per round (stats as of this writing).

In the military it is well-known that defence is easier than attack. If you are going to assault an objective, strategic rule-of-thumb says you need to have 3 times as many troops as the defenders to ensure success (2 to 1 is a maybe win; 1 to 1, forget it). This is why the troops were bogged down in the trenches of WW1. Keeping this in mind, remember that Payload is a game type that is very team oriented, because the entire focus of both teams is on a single objective, one that is much like the frontline of a battle, ebbing and flowing.

But what if we took, say, Goldrush, and opened up the entire map as a single-stage map. Sure, it's a lot bigger, but now, we can put in bypasses to enable the attacking team to get the payload past these logjams and free things up.

Hypothetical Single-Stage pl_Goldrush What a single-stage version of Goldrush could be like. The blue arrows are avenues we can build in for the attackers to get around defender sentry bunkers.

This is the philosophy behind pl_Industry. It's a single-stage map of multi-stage size, with a network of central bypasses which the attacking team can use as a shortcut to bypass any roadblocks the defenders have thrown up. It spirals upward - the payload moving through a factory, and up successive levels, ultimately to the factory's rooftop.

(A technical note: TF2's technology won't permit more than 5 capture points on a single-stage payload map. Therefore I decided to put in  only 4 actual capture points [A2, B2, C2 and the bomb objective of D], along with 3 "semi-caps" [A1, B1 and C1]. These latter points act like full caps - extend the attacker's time limit and prevent the payload from rolling any further back - but they aren't official ones - players don't get points for capturing them.)

Overview of pl_Industry Top level view of pl_Industry and the payload bomb path. (Click to expand.)

In addition to the official bomb path - which moves mainly through large open spaces, along a longer path, gradually rising - there is a secondary network of bypasses: a series of narrow maintenance halls and rapidly rising stairways that help the Red attackers get to the official bomb path in several different ways in order to outflank any defences that Blu may have set up. Blu may counter-attack its way into this network - but these secondary bypasses are more built to favour Red moving up them. There are forward, secondary Red spawns as well - so Red players frequently spawn near the fighting.

Strategy Map of pl_Industry Schematic outline of the network of bypasses for Red to outflank the bomb path. Blu may counter-attack these bypasses.
A Red Bypass 3D view of a core bypass for Red: from the main Red Spawn up to rear of the Office. Secondary Red Spawns are forward; other bypasses branch off.

These longish attacker bypasses pl_Industry's are more conducive to strategic team play - but you have to commit to a longer movement time before you get into contact with the enemy. What I am hoping is that, with more space and approach avenues to play with, both teams are going to talk to each other more and plan out what they're trying to do, and the experience will take payload in a slightly different direction.

So these longer movement times (particularly for the attacking team) is a gamble on my part, as a large multiplayer map risks alienating players: they get lost in a maze whose logic is not immediately clear (as it is with shorter bypasses), or they don't like paying the short term price of having to move longer.

To accommodate this, I put in many directional signs to keep players from getting lost.

I also provided a space just outside each spawn room which the enemy cannot get into, and in which there is a small area of cover (like a nook) where a couple teleporter entrances can be built, safe from cherrypicking spies, but not safe from, say, demos or soldiers.

This means each team is better able to make use of teleporters, advancing their reinforcements rapidly to more unpredictable places, leading to more strategically interesting and varied situations over each playing of this map. Not the same old chokepoints bogging the payload down each time. The game is more about positional strategic warfare now. And that means teamwork.

So if players will stick it out and learn this map, I feel they will come to appreciate that it will present a much more strategically fluid situation each time it's played, and give a lot of replayability. In other words, I think the map may move faster after all, as the players trade in frustrating repeated deaths in the narrow confines of a map like Goldrush for the ability to move and outflank more, their investment paying off when they can move the payload more rapidly with less resistance.

In the military they have a saying about urban combat: "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast." It's paradoxical, but that's the experience I'm trying to yield for players through pl_Industry. The opportunity to not only outfight, but to outthink...

Next: The Release...

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