Shepherd

Fun to play with bots, the map is really pretty, and the view outside T spawn is absolutely picturesque. Just a few things I noticed myself ... You should be aware that players can lock themselves out of the playable map area if they hop the wall using the car just outside T spawn. It's also a little hard to tell at first glance where to plant the bomb at silo.

Looks sweet, good luck

Looks really nice, looking forward to having a look around

the buildings are looking super nice

The hub works very different from playtests. Anyone who wants can play them on the hub whenever they want so there will be multiple games every day. It would be quite impossible for you to be present. You also won't get feedback directly after each game like in a normal playtest.

Was able to play this on Insane, an aussie community server. Super super pretty, love the theme and how well detailed everything is while remaining clean and readable! I did feel like mid was tight and a little windy, and B main felt a little too simple compared to A having 4 T routes. Some routes felt claustrophobic and that gaining space required waiting out a smoke, clearing 4 angles, and getting remoked having gained a single corner. Widening some spots might help. I can see B has gone through big changes, but I actually quite liked B, but I did have thoughts on simplifying the CT route, and adding a risk reward drop route from mid. With that, I have some visuals!

I absolutely adore this A long, its beautiful and flowing and readable. The only real gripe I have is with the catwalk-drop from mid. It wasnt used much in the game I played but it also felt a little out of place. The clipping over it actually stops jumps from their peak, but it also felt odd having a third route from mid leading out to the A site. I think forcing players that want to play Long, like on Dust 2, to wrap back around through mid, to outside bedroom(barn) and then re-entry into long is actually a fun gameplay element. If you ever wanted to try a version with the A bombsite larger or shifted, making part of the site visible from parts of long might be fun. A little dust2 inspo, but its fun! I also thought instead of removing this dropdown, you could somehow simplify the A con and add this as the second route from mid instead of third.

Speaking of mid!

I think it could be wider still - There was many rounds on both sides that involved smoking, nading and mollying around these mid corners for half the round. Anytime a smoke cleared, there was another smoke coming in, with very little way for either side to confidently take ground. Widening it so one smoke or molly isn't enough to cut mid in half might be good, forcing smokes further back towards A con or B yard, and allowing for more active mid gameplay. Might need some pushing and pulling of the edges of houses to not open up any crack angles into a con but i think it'd make it more fun.

A very minor suggestion is to open up the T B route here, as most rounds this doorway would be consecutively smoked, naded, molly'd. Its a bit tight, and by opening it up a little you allow Ts to hide their head below the balcony wall to get to the otherside of the angle, but also allow some play around the smaller CT incind. A minor thing but most rounds I was T, there was no point trying this route.

B site is a pretty good example of a simple site, though I wouldn't be afraid of playing with angles and widening up B main a little, perhaps adding a midsite crate or expanding the site just a little towards CT. A gripe I had and saw others fall for it too was this jump-shaped haystack that is clipped off. I actually think this would be an awesome spot to open up for players, and as you see the 4th jump...

Even possibly opening up this alley and back patio as a very tight, risky route from mid to B. Requires a skill jump or boost to get to from B site, and is easily smoked or molly'd to force players to wrap through B main. I think this second attacker route would add a really fun dynamic to this site. I think it might play like window in dust2 b or drop on cobble b.

CT route into B though, I'm not a fan having a barn with a few angles to clear, that opens into site, but also opens into a small lurk yard, that has a 50/50 engagement eitherside, then into another barn with a lurk corner close.. its a lot to clear to retake from CT. I think B CT could be simplified by removing that small yard between the 2 buildings, and straightening out the angles in there allowing CTs to better opt for swinging site, or moving around the side hall, similar to ancient A site with CT and temple.

Those are some of my thoughts, overall I think its super pretty and was good fun! I think in places it's a little cramped, and worth widening up routes and playing with opening or closing routes. I hope to play it again real soon and get more of a feel for it. Hope this helped!

Thanks for detailed the feedback, Uncuepa! Interestingly, the Mid => B path you mentioned was one that we planned on potentially implementing early on:

I'll give some brief context for one of our ideologies when designing the map. We wanted to see what would happen if Mid was rotated. So instead of having a standard 3-lane approach, how would it play if Mid was like this:

Ultimately, I think it resulted in some fun engagements but we, as well as you, noticed this huge problem area:

With these lines of engagement so close, not to mention narrow, there were a lot of games where both teams would spam grenades, then rush in to finish anyone off. It made for a really chaotic first 20 seconds of the round and the winner honestly was more based on luck than anything else.

To solve this, we're introducing a more classic 3 lane approach, which includes removing Catwalk entirely - a point that you had brought up:

Since I'm on the topics of ideologies and things we learned, A-site is also being adjusted. Originally, the silo was meant to block different angles depending on where the player was holding:

In addition, the "corners" could also be smoked:

The idea was to give the site more of a "dynamic" playstyle. Unfortunately, what ended up happening was there were too many corners for Ts to hide behind after planting the bomb, which made it very difficult for CTs to clear the site. As a result, we're simplifying this as well. This includes another good point you brought up - removing one of the Mid => A entrances.

I'm optimistic about these changes, and it's funny to me that we both came up with many of the same conclusions. Mendaxyz and I will update the Workshop in a few weeks and I really hope you give it another try and let us know what works/doesn't work.

Thanks again!

Hey all, we updated Shepherd today. Our focus was fixing the gameplay and layout issues that we saw during playtesting, most of which were discussed above. Next, we'll work on an art pass to bring everything up to CS2 graphical standards.

Before:

[Blocked Image: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2494522727…letterbox=false]

After:

[Blocked Image: https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/2655810939…letterbox=false]

Feel free to download it from our Steam Workshop. Feedback is welcome.

We pushed a pretty big update to Shepherd, which improves both gameplay and the visuals.

The silo was reintroduced to A (back by popular demand). However, we also felt that the far end of long was under utilized by players, since it was just a dead-end without much cover. To fix this, we opened it up and added a shed:

I'm really excited for this because it makes much better use of the space, while also creating interesting paths for players to attack from. In addition, it does these while limiting many of the harder corners that made the first iteration frustrating to play.

B was also updated. While it had already played decently in playtests, the theme didn't match the rest of the map. Developing this also provided some opportunities to make the layout a bit more engaging:

During playtests, Mid gave Ts a huge advantage and it was too easy for them to take control. We reproportioned it, removed some corners, and added cover for CTs. It's hard to screenshot this but here's what it currently looks like:

Lastly, a lot of attention was given to replacing dev textures, and improving the atmosphere:

There's too much for me to share every change, so here's the link for anyone who wants to check it out: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/fi…/?id=3287246469 Enjoy!

great changes. the map improved a lot =D