Christmas TreeThis one is baffling to me because although I think it's balanced and reasonably well designed, it's very stressful to me and not fun. It will be hard to give this one a final rating when it comes down to it. I do think Engineer is unnecessary in this, as the bases are reasonably easy to fortify with defending players and the existing turrets/projectors. Other than that I can't suggest any changes that stem from anything other than personal annoyance, you know?
CoronavivaciousMan it's too bad no one has stepped up and fixed the script to make it flash less fast huh? xDDDDDD lol
Day of the DeadThis one was improved vastly by removing the burst turrets, so thanks for that. Last night I played it on the team that used to have the burst turrets, and we still won just fine. See? It works out!
NYE Ball DropThis was just never a good idea in my opinion. It's better now for sure, but the whole concept is mediocre. Take it from a guy who's wasted hours trying to make a bad map concept into a good map, it's just not gonna happen sadly.
Pickle PitThere's actual map to this map now, so it went from being like an automatic 1/10 for laziness to maybe 6/10 for being an OK, generic CTF. I would say 4/10 but it makes good usage of Test Items, which is truly a rare feat. But again, no final scores here. I may or may not adjust at the end.
Santa's Sleigh RideIt's been stated on the Discord by numerous people but I'll reiterate: the biggest disappointment of the updated contest was how badly this level was nerfed. The track is maybe half or 3/5 as long now, and that's really sad. It had a better look and feel to it before. I didn't mind getting knocked off the track most of the time and not getting to the end most of the time ... that's the whole point. I honestly hope it's just reverted to its original state.
I can respect people trying to revise their map based on feedback presented here – that's the whole point – but just because one person said "it's too long" doesn't mean you need to change it. Sometimes you should stick to your guns. There were several suggestions in this thread that I ignored for my maps, while I heeded several others.
Spin the DreidelThis didn't come up while I was at the second party.
Toppled Tree TussleThis didn't come up while I was at the second party.
Xmas RageThis didn't come up while I was at the second party.
AfterglowThis one was changed the heaviest out of any, I reckon. Afterglow received a serious glow-up, I really appreciate the integration of many goalzones for a handful of flags – do you put all of your flags at the back and wait for sky_lark to pick them all up while mashing "drop flag," or do you spread them out and try to defend them separately? It's a thinker. Cool map now!
Ballot Counting Simulator 2020I honestly can't stand these small arena Nexus maps anymore, they're just so lazy and uninspired. Thankfully I think this was done in about 10 minutes, so I'm sure no one's gonna be mad at me for saying that.
Beekeeper's RevengeMuch better balanced now, great work. Just make sure to fix the exploit where people can teleport into the wall and destroy the turret killing the Bees' Core, you wouldn't want the runner of the contest to cheat or anything.
Bobdaduck is Freaking DeadThe second time playing this, I literally just parked in a corner and browsed things on my phone.
CervesaI think this ought to have the Nexus open more frequently.
Civil War IIThe addition of Interstates is a nice convenience, but it's also so easy to unintentionally run into Speedzones on accident with all of the visual noise on this one. Not sure if it's ultimately an improvement or a downgrade.
El Gendrado FireSomehow it's legit harder now to actually score, largely thanks to those obnoxious turrets and the slightly-changed angle of getting into the goal rooms. This one went from mildly frustrating to incredibly so – I did not have fun.
Murder Hornets (BM)This one admittedly was a lot more fun with the excessive number of players during the last party. Since you can't count on 18 players to normally be on Bitfighter, maybe set the score limit lower and see if that replicates the experience somewhat? I don't think the capability for vigilant players to avoid death by turrets should be removed outright, but I do think it should be a little more challenging for them to stay alive.
Murder Hornets (NEX)I like that players are now forced to spawn in swarms – it's thematic! And now there's no bases to suicide in. I'll reiterate that arena-style Nexus maps are boring, but this one is a little more strategic thanks to the respawn timers.
Shopping During the PandemicThis one was improved by making the bases far less fortified, but it's still pretty damn easy to camp your way to glory on this one. Case in point – I did just that and won handily.
Social DistancingThis was the map that convinced me to head off for the night.
Socially-Distant Bitmatchskybax's least favorite map of the contest apparently, so you knrled up, mate.
The Big 'RonaNot much needed to be changed here – everyone playing this for the second time realized they should go after COVID-19 first. Making the Cores rotate was a good call. It's unfortunate that the team switching to the winning team works as intended if COVID-19 is in the lead, but for all other teams it will randomly pick one team, decide it's "winning," and throw everyone on that one, even though the scores are tied. Shouldn't it be a random team change if the scores are tied? raptor might look into the algorithm on this one.
The Electoral PreschoolThis one was improved but still reeks of a map that isn't playtested. Also, if your levelgen isn't working, ever consider just ... not using a levelgen? If you're trying to get different states to be worth a differing amount of scores, you could literally just copy+paste the corresponding number of goalzones on top of one another ... yeah it's ghetto, but it's what we would've done in the Zap! days and works just fine.
The Political CompassGetting to play this against alert opponents last night was a lot of fun. We hit the time limit, which was fine. Reducing this to one flag was a good call.