Description
Red River is a payload map for Valve's Team Fortress 2 designed for 100 players and set in an janky abandoned mining facility surrounded by a snaking river death-pit. In July 2023 Valve released an update to TF2 which included a small patch note that increased the player limit from 32 to 100. Being a big fan of large player counts in multiplayer games I absolutely had to design a map to test the potential of the increase. Adding 68 players to the game is a huge shift to the overall gameplay dynamic. This shift, in addition to an increased difficulty in setting up a 100 player server and filling said server, meant I had to test the first few versions on the only popular 100 player community server in TF2. So, I rushed to make a layout in the early stages of the new player count.
The first three versions of the map tested with 100 players were extremely large, open battlefield styled layouts with very few chokes and extremely long sightlines to test the limitations of the new player count since the way each team counters each other is drastically different to 24 players. Example: a sniper spot that would be strong with 24 players will lose its strength when the opposite team has 15+ snipers countering it. The initial battlefield styled layouts were semi-successful but still felt as if something was missing and had some annoying gameplay elements that were undesirable.
Over time the 100 player community developed a few map design preferences so some of my goals for the current version were catering specifically to said preferences rather than simply testing limitations. Personally I think these preferences were developed because there are no well done serious 100 player maps yet. So I mixed these preferences with ways I think would take advantage of increased limit. The biggest preference was a demand for seeing a lot of players on screen at once. Since the current maps were all designed for 24 players it felt as if when you saw a lot of players at once they were all just on the flat main route sort of overflowing the space which feels cramped and a bit stifled.
So, one of the main ideas I ran with was designing around opening up all rooftops to be walkable parts of the gameplay space. This gives more playable space without expanding the overall footprint size of the map's layout. I provided a lot of access to the rooftops so they essentially act as a second layer of terrain rather than a strong holding position. Roof access also allows players to see a large number of enemies at once but they aren't contained to a single flat area as it spreads them out over multiple height tiers.
Due to limited access to the 100 player community server in a map testing context, I had to iterate and test the current version using a stock 24 player server. Hoping to design something that would be functional, but not perfect, for stock to larger (24-64) servers; I was aiming for that great flow and gameplay feel I've learned through my experience with previous stock designs but with extra space for 100 players to expand into.
Personally I find the current version to be very successful but the map is currently on hold until I setup my own 100 server and continue testing because I can only learn so much about the current iteration with 24 players.
-Greyboxed layout and iterated via public playtesting
-Refined map balance, flow, and pacing
