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Big thanks to the playtesters from the Raidboss community for running Neighbors during their Sunday 10-mans! Also thanks to @Interfearance for a lot of very solid feedback. After taking all that into consideration and reviewing demos, several issues became clear.
The map has long suffered from openness and long sight lines. I'm slowly but surely going through the process of creating better separation between areas to alleviate that. Here is the first of many changes in that direction.
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Added a fence above T garage to cut off long sight lines towards road. It also makes this side of backyard more room-like so players can push for control and hold it. The cool boost from the hedge below is no longer possible, but I feel like blocking visibility here does way more good. There are also more ways to use smokes and molotovs with this setup.
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Replaced my janky func_detail ventilation domes here with some models i didn't know existed and added a platform below.
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One of the main issues of the A Site approach was how many entrances it had. Even though three of them were non-standard (windows), it still proved to be too overwhelming for players and made it virtually impossible to hold the site solo. So I've closed the windows to living room and bedroom, leaving only the window to kids room open. This changes a lot. For one thing, CTs can peak backyard and then retreat behind the building much more safely. I've even added a protruding wall to give CTs additional cover when defending a push towards backhill.
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I also moved part of this fence forward and added a porta potty for more cover at the top of the hill.
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And I replaced the planks of wood against the tree with bags. The net result of these changes is an area that's a bit tighter with more deliberate angles and a better progression for cover.
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Now this one is huge. I completely blocked off farside (the eastern outdoor side of the map) to effectively reduce the map to 4 lanes instead of 5. It was too easy for Ts to abuse that route and flank the hell out of CTs. It also drew focus away from the driveway and basement hallway approaches to B Site. I've known all along one of these routes needed to go, I just needed to see the map meta develop a bit to make the right call.
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With farside gone, I didn't see much reason to keep the grating and planks at the top of pit so I removed them completely. Now players can drop in smoother and feel less claustrophobic while playing this position.
I'll get into the changes on A Site in my next post. I gotta get the hell to bed! To be continued...