I’m not a fan of Behemoth or Launch Site but to be honest, when playing fiesta I can handle them, I don’t like them, but I can put up with them.
At least with Behemoth (and BTB maps), I like the use of timed kill zones instead of blockers because grapples aren’t restricted in movement but don’t lead to people camping on top of the map’s structures. People can hop out of flying vehicles for a kill or two in the kill barrier on top of structures and as soon as they leave the structure, the kill timer stops again. Much better than a hard, invisible barrier that doesn’t feel natural.
I can grapple around the circumference of Behemoth, grapple around and onto the outer ring, get on top of East and West Towers and have free vehicle movement (omg someone said something nice-ish about Behemoth!?).
Same can be said for the smaller maps, majority of the blockers are ceilings and any other areas have timers or instant kill zones.
Now for some reason Launch Site is a different world - see a wasp, hop in that, whack into blocker over the whole of Operations, whack into blocker over Bridge/Closet, whack into blocker over Tower, whack into blocker at any height between Tower and Operations (and if going anti-clockwise here you can get stuck in a blocker dead-end).
(Not to mention if it’s a banshee instead of a wasp, 2 of those whacks will blow you up!)
This affects vehicle movement massively, extremely restrictive, a kill timer for pedestrians over the mentioned areas rather than blockers would open up air vehicle movement and lead to some grapple/repulsor plays.
The blockers over the buildings around the circumference are fine as these are obvious and work well as the edge of the map (although making the buildings taller into the ceiling would have made it more obvious and easier for you to create).
It would not be OP with a timer as it would be the same as any other map and the buildings are so big you’d have difficulty doing any shortcuts on foot with grapple that would make any significant difference to gameplay AS LONG AS YOU MAKE SURE TO SIZE AND POSITION THE TIMED ZONES CORRECTLY!
Having air vehicles over those areas wouldn’t be OP because in fiesta the weapons and grapple can counter them (and can’t remember which other gametypes have air vehicles but there’s skewer/snipe/grapple etc in them anyway and plenty of cover).
Over Operations, props such as aerials could be positioned (being careful to add pedestrian timers to these too) and/or large slopes to stop vehicles camping low and peeping up, and/or add areas that are taller to keep a path through but VISIBLY block other paths.
eg. remove all blockers over Operations, make the part on roof that looks like an airport control tower much taller into ceiling blocker, add a pedestrian kill timer and a slope over the rest, add aerials if necessary.
Another example of the problems the blockers on this map cause - if you are in a wasp over the dam, near the grav lift and see an enemy with the skewer near Launch Pad, you are limited with the blockers over Operations to get cover, so you fly around them then try and fly down below the height of Operations but during this time you are taken out by the skewer because although you can’t fly through the blocker, they can shoot through it as it’s not a projectile blocker, very unbalanced and very unnatural, banging into it, feeling for a blocker’s corner in a place where you expect to be able to go as you’re flying twice the height of the building.
Please, if this map is staying, switch the blockers out as above. If this map is being removed, in any future maps - use kill timers in place of blockers to avoid ruining movement with the new equipment and air vehicles.
