Demo: https://testing.potato.tf/demos/mvm_desolation_a5_generic-1679951092.zip

• The mission you provided is nothing short of unplayable. It's best to use a thoroughly tested mission for map testing so that you know for sure that if players are unhappy with something it's most likely the map's fault and not the mission's.
  
• We really couldn't get a lot of good information due to how bad the mission was. So for now we'll only say a few things:
  
  
• The map has few alternate routes to get behind robots, and the available ones are ludicrously long and require you to expose yourself to robots either ways.
  
• Even if you only plan on having one route for the robots, the players should have more ways to approach the robots without exposing themselves to them for too long.
  
  
• Tanks dropping down look very awkward, their back half clips through the world and their fall looks very unnatural.

Demo: https://testing.potato.tf/demos/mvm_watermine_rc7_int_hydrophobia-1679948393.zip

• This map is incredibly open and linear with limited cover, and the only flank route in the whole map is too long to use for most classes.
  
• A consequence of this is that hitscan becomes egregiously strong while projectiles become relatively weak.
  
• While this can be addressed on the mission side, it's best not to make a map so lopsided towards a damage type in the first place.
  
  
• The very limited amount of flanks available mean that it becomes very difficult to get behind robots if a class can't cloak or disguise, causing classes that rely on ambushes such as Pyro and Scout to suffer greatly as they must fight bots head-on which they are not good at without team support (medic/mad milk/banners).
  
• This map will greatly benefit from significantly more alternate routes available for use. In most maps, you can get behind robots in most of the map without being seen as any class via the use of flank routes.

We did not mention Demoknight ONCE in the feedback post, just in case it wasn't clear that we didn't even want you to balance anything around him specifically, as it would be very bad to do so.

The issue here is that the mission SIGNIFICANTLY FAVORS Engineer (and Heavy) and every other class has a hell of a time compared to them, causing the difficulty to be polarizing depending on how good those classes in your team are.

Yes, it's Intermediate, but this is still an issue even on worse teams. Teams with a bad Engineer/Heavy will suffer a lot more than those with a bad Soldier/Demo/Pyro/Scout/Medic/Sniper/Spy. Even worse for those who don't even have Engi/Heavy on their team.

Originally posted by Tindall Berry:

Then you'd pick Engineer and act surprised that the intermediate waves with a lot of cannon fodder are suddenly easier to clear.

1. You really shouldn't underestimate Engineer's damage output at low money and overestimate the others'.
   
   
2. HP sponges still need to be killed before they reach the bomb hatch. Engineer and Heavy happens to do this MUCH better than other classes at low money, especially $400.
   
   
3. Even Phlogistinator is really bad against wave 1's Giant Demoknights due to how little money you have and how they have 50% fire resistance. Soldier, Demoman, Spy, Sniper and Scout do not do anywhere enough damage at this cash. All while a half-decent Engineer and Heavy solos all 5 giants in this wave.
   
   
4. Intermediate can definitely be balanced to favor other classes more! Wave 6 and wave 7 here do an okay job at that. Doe's Doom is a good example of an intermediate mission that doesn't discourage other classes and not favor Engineer too much.
   
   
5. Something you can do to favor other classes more on low money is to put significantly less giants and tanks and put more common swarms. This allows aoe classes to be a lot more effective against the wave's main threats, primarily Soldier/Pyro/Demoman/Sniper. Engineer and Heavy specializes at single target damage output, so this favors them less.

Originally posted by Tindall Berry:

...They weren't a problem in the demo though...

We're not intermediate players. Even if we use bad loadouts and limit player count we can't undo having more experience and better gamesense than the average intermediate player.

If we could summon up to 6 randoms to play a mission at any time, we would! But we can't(at least not efficiently), so we make do with what we have.

However, we certainly do have enough experience to say that we believe said robots will very likely be a problem with actual random, intermediate-tier teams. And this is what the feedback regarding the scatterguns and SMGs are based on, experience.

If you choose not to do anything about them, a later judge run may find them actually problematic, look at the previous feedbacks in this mission and regard your choice as being too stubborn to listen to feedback, potentially leading to a strike.

Originally posted by Tindall Berry:

...I also think it's a good idea to give players the ability to move forward after being pushed early on in a wave...

In practice though, players have a hard time pushing back a constant swarm of robots, while at the same time the robots are too weak to make progress, leading to a long stalemate that only changes when the strong bots finally get into the front line.

If you really want to give players time to move forward after being pushed early on, spawn NOTHING. Spawning anything will result in either the aforementioned scenario or a bot potentially slipping past the front line and backcapping.

Feedback for custom upgrades will come later in a separate post.

Demo: https://sgp.potato.tf/demos/mvm_akure_rc1a_int_bronze_and_bristle-1679037065.zip

Strike, Pass, or No Strike?: No Strike

Team Lineup:

• Bazooks (Demoknight -> Engineer -> Demoknight)
  
• DaMno (Pyro -> Scout)
  
• Quantum Apple (Soldier)
  
• watermelon (Demoman)

• Most of the waves seem to greatly favor Engineer and screw up close-ranged classes like Pyro or Scout.
  
• While some waves do try to be unfavorable to Engineer, the majority of the waves had robots that can't do much against a sentry gun but will mess up other classes hard.
  
• ^ This is especially true for the early waves that demand a high amount of single-target damage output at low money, which is what Engineer and Heavy specializes at while other classes are really bad at.
  
• Even though it is Intermediate, missions should try to balance out matchups for each class. Try to make things easier for other classes and less favorable for Engineer.
  
  
• There was a LOT of downtime in the mission where players were only fighting against commons that don't pose a threat at all, waiting for the relevant robots to spawn.
  
• ^ this was exacerbated by how big Akure is, and how Giants need to travel a very long distance before reaching the players should they get pushed.
  
• ^ Ideally there should always be something threatening on the field at all times. Engineer bots help with improving pacing on most subwaves due to how large the map is and how many subwaves have slow giants. Of course, subwaves would need to be balanced with Engineer bots in mind.

• See general feedback, this was the worst offender by far as even Pyro can't do much at $400

• See general feedback.
  
• The whole wave being static in common types doesn't help either.

• See general feedback.
  
• Giant Scattergun Scouts are not to be underestimated. They can very easily take out most classes with their high accuracy and medium damage. Not something that belongs in an intermediate, and exacerbates the issue said in general feedback.

• Asides from the Giant Burst Fire Soldiers, this wave doesn't really do anything that wave 3 didn't already do better. FaN Super Scouts aren't stronger than wave 3's Scattergun Scouts either.

• Giant SMGs make the issue said in general feedback even worse, and is generally an unpleasant bot to fight against. High accuracy with medium damage tends to kill a lot of classes except those who invest into tanking attacks, usually Heavy and Engineer.
  
• Intermediate missions should also be forgiving for those that don't buy crit resistance - they're intended to be beginner friendly missions, and many new players don't even know that you can buy resistances.

Demo: https://testing.potato.tf/demos/mvm_lotus_a7_adv_ledmotif-1678759457.zip

Strike, Pass, or No Strike?: No Strike

Team Lineup:

• Bazooks (Sniper)
  
• washy (Soldier)
  
• Whurr (Engineer)
  
• watermelon (Medic)
  
• Skin King (Scout)

• Giga Mallet: There's very few reasons not to use this over anything else as Demoman. Realistically the only attribute that matters is the free 2s of crit on kill, which is worth way more than what Eyelander can offer, on top of not having its drawback. Every other attribute is just icing on the cake.
  
• Big Shot: Direct upgrade to stock revolver, but likely a healthy competition to Diamondback. Okay for now.
  
• Blast Box: It's hard to believe that doubling your blast radius is worth severely crippling your fire rate in any scenario. It's not even necessarily better against swarms since more rockets is usually just better. Having Beggar's as its competition really does not help either.

• This mission demand way too much damage output for the cash given. The output demanded may be reasonable for Expert difficulty, but not Advanced.
  
• Nearly every wave has a lot of straggler commons. Consider moving them to support limited.

• Armored Sandmen with 5 Uber Medics at this cash is expecting way too much from Advanced-level teams. They're strong in many aspects and extremely punishing if you fail to drop the medics.

• Persians make up the majority of the force in this wave. At this cash they really screw over every class EXCEPT engineer, causing the wave's difficulty to be very polarizing depending on how good your engineer is.
  
• It doesn't help that the rest of the wave also performs poorly against wrangled sentries.
  
• If the pop Giant Medic takes teleporter and activates uber, players are pretty much guaranteed to lose. This level of punish does not belong in Advanced.

• The amount of raw health in this wave is already pretty absurd, adding bigheals on top of it makes it even more difficult for other classes to keep up with how Heavy would perform this wave.
  
• It also has low firepower overall, causing Heavy to perform even better and other classes relatively worse compared to Heavy.
  
• The main source of damage this wave is the normal skill Deflector Heavies which exacerbates this even further.

• The Mega Heavyweight Champ's projectiles are difficult to spot due to a lack of a flashy projectile trail.
  
• 6 Giant Heavies in 20 seconds with relatively strong common support is once again demanding way too much output.

• The Giant Medics can heal each other at random. They can also heal the skeleton boss.
  
• The Giant Black Boxes also feel overtuned due to how difficult it is to dodge their projectiles especially if you are at ground level. Doesn't help that the map is pretty short on high ground and most of them have walls behind them which causes the rocket to splash and hit you anyways.
  
• The wave seems to give up after the Giant Medics. 8 Giant Rapid Fire Soldiers with Scouts and Pyros aren't even harder than what wave 3 threw at red even disregarding money.
  
• Skeleton boss gets stuck pretty often and can kill ubered players.

• This wave is much less difficult than the other waves when considering the amount of money players have. It was the only wave that properly felt like an advanced difficulty wave.

If you overbuffed the mission because an earlier feedback said Engineer is too good on the mission, don't get the wrong idea.

The problem was that Engineer is too good on the mission AND every other class suffers miserably, so the difficulty ends up being polarizing depending on how competent your engineer is.

It is definitely possible to make easy waves that don't favor Engineer significantly more than the other classes. Take a look at missions like Mean Machines and see how they do it.

Demo: https://sgp.potato.tf/demos/mvm_sharp_rc9_exp_gilead_gehenom-1678348339.zip

Strike, Pass, or No Strike?: No Strike

Team Lineup:

• Bazooks (Soldier)
  
• Lemonee (Pyro)
  
• royal (Spy)
  
• Jammechanic (Scout) -> GeoEffect (Heavy)
  
• Ihaz (Demoknight) -> dareaperkid (Demoknight)
  
• coffe ground (Engineer)

• The mission has made progress addressing the concerns brought up on the previous feedback, but more work is needed to fully resolve said problems.
  
• As said in the previous feedback, many wavespawns still have a low maxactive with a high totalcount, causing them to stretch out for a long time if red gets pushed.
  
• This happens many times in the mission, but wave 1's demomen and wave 4's heater heavies are the most severe cases.
  
• Almost everything said in the previous feedback applies again here, try to spot more of these in the mission and find a way to make them less tedious if red gets pushed.
  
  
• Ignite-on-hit Heater Heavies are not very fun to fight against - having an upwards of 60 damage for having a single bullet hit you really screws over classes that rely on dodging attacks, but do nothing against classes that rely on tanking them.

• The constant jarate spam in this wave is still not very fun to fight against.

• While not spawning him with the bomb is definitely an improvement, Scattergun Serenade still has the same problems mentioned in the last feedback, and it's not that unlikely for random teammates to kill the bomb carrier and give him the bomb in public games.
  
  
• Upgrading the Vaccinator Medics on the Giant Pyros to giants on top of sending a beefy tank is way too much to handle at once. As is teams pretty much need Spy in order to stand a chance against the back-to-back Giant Medic pairs, and it really does not help that they shut down one damage type each.

• The Giant Backup Soldiers couldn't do anything on their own, even after being assisted by the Bazooka Soldiers and Uber Medics. It was only when the Deflector Heavies come in that the subwave becomes capable of pushing against red.
  
  
• Using "No self blast dmg" 2 causes rocket trails and explosion particles to disappear. Change it to 1 to prevent this.
  
• While we do want the boss to be able to destroy sentries, we don't want to make Engineer unplayable against the boss. As is, 3x damage against buildings on top of everything else it has will instantly destroy sentries whenever he sees it. He likely doesn't need any damage bonus against buildings in the first place.

Demo: https://testing.potato.tf/demos/mvm_doppler_b12_exp_object_oriented_obliteration-1677726739.zip

Strike, Pass, or No Strike?: No Strike

Team Lineup:

• Averagegamer (Soldier)
  
• Bazooks (Demoman)
  
• Package O' Lies (Scout)
  
• Skin King (Engineer)
  
• Whurr (Sniper)
  
• watermelon (Medic)

• This wave has way more samurais than wave 3 where red has three times as much cash, and they stack up easily. If red doesn't have classes that are good against samurais (or players on said classes are screwing up) the samurais will easily spawncamp red and pave a clear path for the other bots.

• Agent Annoyance becomes extremely punishing if red gets pushed to hatch, as he will always choose to fight and he's not particularly easy to get rid of due to his hp.
  
• ^ it doesn't help that the other bots in the wave are very strong at area denial.
  
  
• The persian giants in this wave do not use the persian persuader icon.
  
• The bat scouts in this wave do not use the bat icon.

Demo: https://testing.potato.tf/demos/mvm_saxford_b6_exp_benign_boulevard_judge-1677569200.zip

Strike, Pass, or No Strike?: No Strike

Team Lineup:

• colonel (Soldier)
  
• washy (Heavy)
  
• Bazooks (Demoman)
  
• Mo (Scout)
  
• territori64 (Pyro)
  
• Skin King (Engineer)

• Please test your mission publicly before submitting it for judging! You can join our discord server here[discord.gg] and test your mission as many times as you want. Only submit your mission for judging once you think it's ready.
  
  
• While we did tell you to tone down your mission in our previous feedback, you definitely overdid it. Now it's hardly an expert mission.
  
  
• The early waves have a lot of robots that are very awful to fight against as most classes, but can do little to nothing against sentry guns. Force-a-nature swarms and normal+ skill Scout swarms are an example of this.
  
• The later waves are just underwhelming overall, barring a few exceptions.
  
  
• It's typically not a good idea to make a subwave wait for tanks to die. Tanks don't make bomb progress on their own, so if little to no bomb carriers spawn with them and the next subwave waits for tanks to die, it'll make no difference whether the tank died immediately after spawning or moments before deploying bomb.
  
• ^ So in practice, the tank serves no purpose if subwaves wait for it to die if it is not properly supported, which happens to be the case in this mission

• Like said in general feedback, normal skill Scout swarms are very tough to fight against as classes like Pyro or Soldier(at this money), but can do basically nothing against sentries. Try not to have waves that significantly favor Engineer while being awful for every other class.

• See general feedback.

• Not sure why these Giant Demomen aren't just alwayscrit. Canteen-using bots not only look bad and are noisy, they also have a pretty hard to identify icon as is. Most players will likely get caught off guard by the sudden crits.
  
• Why do these bowmen have increased damage? They usually have 0.5x damage in valve misisons causing them to do 85 damage due to how huntsman dmg bonus works, but in this mission they have 1.5x damage causing them to do 155. They one shot most classes with relatively high accuracy, but they don't have enough damage output to take down tanky classes like Heavy and Engineer, causing the wave to once again significantly favor those classes.
  
• See general feedback. The only thing that tries to push this wave are the Giant Heavies + Uber Medics.

• Ok, the Giant Shield Medics do pose a significant threat here, due to how the map is laid out. Props to that subwave for being basically the only thing that tries to be hard to Engineers in this mission. Everything else just pales in comparison, maybe not the Giant Heavy + UMeds in wave 3.
  
• It's really jarring to see Giants with only 1200 health, they're better off being minigiants.
  
• Giant SMGs are too weak to do anything (see general feedback) both firepower-wise and hp-wise
  
• Really not sure why these Giant Shotgun Heavies have their 0.5x damage turned to 1.5x damage just like the Bowmen. Compared to valve's Giant Shotguns they do TRIPLE damage - instantly killing ANYTHING that dares to be within its field of vision. Not even 750 health Heavies stand a chance. They're not fun to fight as anyone as is.

• Once again an underwhelming wave where only one or two bots actually try to push through red.

Demo: https://testing.potato.tf/demos/mvm_sharp_rc9_exp_gilead_gehenom-1677565428.zip

Strike, Pass, or No Strike?: No Strike

Team Lineup:

• colonel (Demoman)
  
• washy (Soldier)
  
• Damno (Engineer)
  
• Bazooks (Heavy)
  
• Sparroh (Scout)
  
• Mo (Pyro)

• Subwaves generally stretch out for a very long time as bots have a low spawnrate alongside a low maxactive. This causes many problems:
  
• In the earlier waves, bots never build up enough force to get past a sentry. Coupled with the weak giants that can't take down a wrangled sentry, any decent Engineer would stomp the early waves.
  
• While in the later ones they need a strong giant to have a chance at taking down sentries. This is probably okay if not for the massive downtime between each giants where red is shooting at harmless commons that can't fight back most of the time.
  
• The low maxactive in comparison to the totalcount will cause commons to straggle HARD should red get pushed. This is because the giants will keep spawning while the commons are blocked by their low maxactive, causing the giants to finish up much earlier before the commons.
  
• Be careful with just raising up the maxactive on the commons with no other changes! This may cause them to stack up hard if red gets pushed and they'll just steamroll to hatch unchallenged.
  
• There are many ways to fix this problem as a whole without causing the aforementioned ^ side effect.
  
• You can try to reduce the amount of commons you spawn and try to put more emphasis on the giants, or...
  
• You could give the commons a high spawnrate alongside a high maxactive and adjust the bot type accordingly to accommodate for their new numbers.
  
• Of course, you're free to try out your own solution for this. Just be sure that bots can always get past a sentry gun at all times, nobody likes downtimes where they get to do nothing.
  
  
• There are many bots especially throughout the earlier waves that pose a significant threat to most classes, but can do little to nothing against a decent Engineer with good sentry gun placement.
  
• Missions should ideally try to make things equally favorable for each class across all waves. As is, teams with a decent Engineer/Medic will roll the mission hard while teams without are going to have a harder time.
  
• The specifics will be discussed in each wave's feedbacks below.

• Normal AI pistols are miserable to fight against as any class but Engineer/Heavy. Their relatively high accuracy makes their shots difficult to dodge and their damage is enough to kill classes like Demoman but nowhere enough to take down a sentry gun or a Heavy standing behind a corner.
  
• They do spawn in very low numbers which makes them more tolerable for other classes, but this cycles back to the problem discussed in general feedback.
  
• Any bot with extra melee range should have a visual indicator for their new melee range. As is if you didn't look at its stats there's no way of telling how far that giant fan scout's hits actually reach. This is usually done via enlarging the weapon by the same amount as extra melee range.
  
• NO bots in this wave, asides from the spy support, can do anything against sentry guns. There are too few loch n load demos to make a dent against sentry guns, let alone wrangled ones.

• Persian swarms with extra rapid charge recharges and constant jarate swarms are all very awful to fight against as most classes, but once again cannot do much against sentry guns. Regular Giant Demos aren't great at taking down wrangled sentries either.
  
• Bonk Scout support is not fun to fight against, every now and then when red gets pushed to hatch they will just deploy the bomb while invulnerable, and if your soldier/demo doesn't intercept that properly you just lose to something you couldn't do anything about.

• Scattergun Serenade falls into the same problems as normal AI Pistol Scouts mentioned in wave 1, except 10x worse.
  
• ^ If your class can't tank hits, you die instantly. There's no dodging expert AI hitscan from a distance.
  
• ^ If your class tanks hits, the boss can't do much since it doesn't have enough damage to take down tanky classes/sentries.
  
• ^ This is exacerbated by it being a speedy 7500 HP Giant Scout, demanding a form of slowdown (usually bodyblocking).
  
• ^ The 3x damage bonus against buildings helps a bit but also would feel very unfair for Engineer. You need to keep a balance between being fair/not resorting to cheap tricks, and not having a bot get hard countered by a class while being miserable for the others.
  
  
• We're not sure what the tank support accomplishes. 12500 HP tanks die to the wind blowing, and support tanks need to die for the wave to end if everything else dies before them.

• See general feedback. Crit giant deflectors are the only thing pushing in this wave. If they die the wave can't do anything.

Engineer seems to be the real hard counter to this mission's waves, especially early ones. Worry less about classes like Sniper/Spy. Try testing without Engineer and see the difference.