I feel like it's important to mention that most Halloween maps are variants of normal maps. Every one of ICS's maps are this case, so yes, they exist. Other funfacts would include that there IS a normal Moonshine (yeah, I never knew about this) and that Laughter's normal counterpart is a Slaughter, a map that takes place in a Slaughterhouse, which is just, so different from the reskin.
It was going to be named Gored (and it's workshop page still has it called that,) but when Valve e-mailed the creator to ask to make his map official, they never asked what to call it so he didn't tell them the name and it just got added as Gorge Event.
@@darkiusmc979 yep, can confirm! I wanted it to be called cp_gored. Also the skeletons are there to prevent the instant backcapping of last that I saw happen so many times on the regular version of the map. And they only appear once right after capping A, unless 12 people happen to fall into the pit which is extremely rare. I basically just wanted it to feel like a spooky version of gorge without any insane gimmicks because I didn't like the direction a lot of maps were taking at the time. I guess its just par for the course now, hah.
@@pux0rb yeah, but idk, the name gorge_event has it’s place in all our hearts! (Great job on the map btw, brings back good nostalgic memories of halloween vibe)
@@thunderspark1536 even do I am a medic main I don't even like vac medic it's just saying fuck you I'm not going to let you play till you push hard or you Uber I'm not gonna save the game I'm going to expand it
If I'm not mistaken, Mountain Lab and Mann Manor both came from an artpass contest, where participants were given a pre-built map with no textures and told to decorate it, with the winner being put into the game. The two winners were...well, I'm sure you can guess. But, this is also why Mann Manor technically isn't based on Mountain Lab and isn't called something like "mountain_lab_event".
Los Muertos is honestly a blast as medic engie and heavy too, and the fact that sniper is automatically put into a disavantage because of the way the map is laid out is a major plus in my opinion, opening the way for every class except for sniper to have fun is something not a lot of maps can succesfully pull off but it makes the map a lot more enjoyable in it's own way.
My biggest problem with the ICS maps is that they all feel way too similar. They feel like filler halloween maps. Precipice is my favorite screamfortress Payload even if it's unbalanced because the setting feels unique and I like playing my favorite classes on it. I also love Maple Ridge of Event (fun as spy) and hate Helltower (too many scouts on the map in my experience). Haven't played Cursed Cove in a while but I remember being meh on it (yes I am bad at the game).
When I first played Terror I thought it was one of his other maps. And then they brought it back in the Christmas update, it's not a bad map but did we really need it in two updates in a row?
I'm still mad they didn't add the regular version of koth_laughter, the map is just that fun. Similar to Los Muertos where there's no major gimmicks or anything, it's just a good map with some halloween decorations.
I think farmageddon is REALLY good. Like, best Halloween map of all time. Because of one simple thing. It makes fighting the skeletons fun. How? The skeletons drop the weed killer, so you are actually achieving something by killing them. Not only that, they drop TWICE as much weed killer as players. So clearing the scarecrows is not only fun, but viable! The map is fantastic, I play on it exclusively for this scream fortress.
Slasher is a map that I always dread playing on because matches usually tend to be very one-sided, probably because I see a lot of people camping in the underworld basically allowing their team to get all the spells, meaning anyone trying to cap will get smacked by a meteor shower or a Monoculus. Oh, and Engineers really like to place Mini-Sentries on the point making it even more frustrating to actually cap. The Erebus placement was totally something I saw coming bc the first time I played I even saw people complaining in chat about it and that's not something I usually see a lot of.
I seen that too. At first I hated it bc it was so confusing. But, its actually one of my favorite maps now. 🤷🤷🤷 alot of people will hate but I love it.
because when u give one team an advantage for already winning it feels semi Bullcrap to try and cap especially if there no cool down to go to hell and get buff/spell
Absolutely mad bruv. Truly bonkers. Really quite good. Jolly good show. Well done. Fantastical. I hope you enjoy your evening. Great job. A real knockout. But most of all, Bumpin.
These are the community maps where the halloween versions were added to the game officially, but the original version were not. Hellstone/Millstone Moonshine Event/Moonshine Brimstone/Fifthcurve Maple Ridge Event/Maple Ridge Cauldron/Bagel Gravestone/Rumble Laughter/Slaughter Moldergrove/Undergrove Erebus/Ambush Sinthetic/Synthetic There's also Sinshine/Sunshine - Sunshine was added a year later
I for one am glad Fifthcurve was never added, because Brimstone is utter hell in a way that I know translates to its normal form for sure. Oh sure, we wouldn’t have random Merasmus spells breaking everything, but you’d still have ungodly chokes that are next to impossible to push through with balanced teams.
Also Mann manor is like, one of the lords of choke points. Pushing to last is a cramped, choke point mess. The map looks great and all, but the actual manor itself is such a spammy annoyance to play in.
@@StockLlama which is why I think they should have retrofitted Mann manor with spells, since although I agree that spells are a bit much for new players playing Halloween maps for the first time and having the contract system push those new players towards the spell-less maps is a much better and noob friendly way of introducing Halloween maps to them. Mann manor *desperately* needs the stalemate breaking properties of spells since it inherits the meat grinder design from the original map that isn’t fun to play in in any game (if you say operation metro and lockers in bf3 and bf4 are meat grinder maps that work, you have as much credibility as the 2042 devs had at 2042’s launch.)
the general attitude is similar to w+m1 pyro, tf2 is a game based on high risk reward burst damage shots (rockets, pills, shotguns, sniper shots) where if u hit an attack u do loads of damage but if u miss it leaves u open for a sec. heavy n pyro on the other hand have sustained damage which ignores the high risk high reward design philosophy, and while pyro has very limited range n options for that burst damage heavy just has a lot of health and a lot of damage so even if u hit ur shots on him he can still mow thru ur health usually before u can kill him. additionally his biggest weakness is that he needs to constantly be looking where hes shooting and has no splash damage or mobility making his biggest weakness coordination n teamwork, but in normal casual tf2 especially the most casual side of hightower n the like this basically doesnt exist, everyone jus wants to run around n click on the bad guys n heavy can totally shut that down without requiring any teamwork from his own team.
@@nya69 Idk Heavy is a good antithesis to a majority of classes and basically is a great counter to most classes in range since he can chip away at them.
@@silverdededestruction2197 thats the reason why ppl dont like him, he doesnt fit with the general philosophy of the game n is able to counter most other classes without the normal rock-paper-scissors effect, his counterplay instead coming from strategy n teamwork which isnt necessary or super common in most other places in the game. fat scout on the other hand totally fits since its close range burst damage like scout except trading speed for health
Engineer exists defying all Tf2 gameplay philosophy. *Nobody cares* Some bozo youtubers: OMG HEAVY(Great Blu) SNIPER and DEMOKNIGHT(Zesty) ARE OP AND OR DEFY TF2 GAMEPLAY PHILOSOPHY Me: ... *Doomer face* "What the actual fu-"
Honestly, I agree with your hatred towards Erebus. Its base map, Ambush, was bad enough, and adding spells and crumpkins was the WORST IDEA EVER CONCEIVED. And the contract is literally only possible on RED, cuz BLU will get an approximate max of 8 points IF THEY'RE LUCKY against even a decent enough defense.
Now I’m just wondering why the hell one of ICS’s maps gets added every year. I’m not gonna attack the guy, because I doubt he’s even the reason. I’m looking at Valve. What the hell are you smoking, Valve? Do you have a contract that requires you to do this? Is ICS just stuck on the Scream Fortress checklist and nobody on your staff bothers questioning it? Actually…yeah, that’s probably it.
I absolutely agree with Monster Bash, last year when I played it there was one match where the lobby room with the staircases was completely shut down because of one sentry. Cauldron is my favorite Halloween map because it's a reskin of Bagel, it's super simplistic but not to the point where it feels like it was made in 10 minutes.
To anyone who dislikes Ghost Fort, remember the Loose Cannon and Scorch Shot still have knockback during the truce. Knocking people into the pit when they go for health makes the map fun despite the round timer.
I think i can enjoy playing Hellstone now and then as long as I play it with the mentality that it encompasses the chaos of Scream Fortress maps by just locking you in a map with every monster and mechanic available and I just roll with it I prefer that on a Halloween map much more over a forgettable and kinda boring map like Maple Ridge that just plays it very safe almost like a normal TF2 map (which is not why I play Halloween maps in TF2)
Agreed. Personally, I would swap the positions of Hellstone and Brimstone on the list. Hellstone has you fight through everything Scream Fortress could possibly throw at you, but the actual match of payload tends to progress just fine regardless. Whereas in Brimstone…it doesn’t, because it’s chokey as hell, and that kills any fun you can have way more than Monoculus spam ever could.
On a personal note, back in 2018 and after, Maple Ridge has frequently devolved into a friendly server for me. I don’t know if it’s the lack of players or the atmosphere, but it kinda just devolves. Also, Erebus is an event version of Ambush. And I can safely say I hate both of them.
I know it was a long time ago, but I remember playing a halloween version of a map made by a L4D2 mapper back in the day. It was extremely small, close in, yet it played surprisingly well. Only on one community server for like a year before disappearing forever. I don't remember the name of the halloween version, but I do remember the original, koth_basement. I know it will never be popular, updated or anything like that. The person who made it went off the rails for a couple years and is now making her own game, but I had such fond memories of it, even if the entire made being the size of a control point was rather ridiculous.
I actually like Hellstone and Brimstone because of their clustered and chaotic nature. It makes for fast paced fun anarchy for me. And I utterly despise Graveyard. It's too small, so anyone not playing a tanky power class is going to immediately die.
As much as I like Halloween events, the maps and gameplay feels like information overload. You’ve said it before where you feel like you aren’t doing anything and I feel like that when playing almost all of the Halloween maps. It’s a fun time but a time that feels more chaotic than normal tf2
Don’t forget that one full health kit spawn on Ghost Fort that’s camped by Cloak and Dagger spies that trick you into jumping to it, collide with their hitbox, and fall to your death.
I’ve actually never encountered anyone complaining about capping on Helltower before. Usually people wanna either get their contract done or try to win the arena hell fight at the end.
excited for this year's one, got 1 month to go! keep up the fantastic work, hope ICS or whatever their name is makes a better map this year and not another "Stone". good luck!
I actually kinda like Slasher. But that's probably because all the 2018 maps are kinda nostalgic for me. I started playing TF2 in 2015, but I never played during a Halloween event until 2018. So I'm guessing that I look at maps like Slasher, Monster Bash, Gravestone and Cauldron through rose tinted glasses.
This is super late, but Mann Manor isn't based Mountain Lab. Both maps were released simultaneously and are based on a naked layout Valve released for some kind of competition. I believe you can still find the promotional video for the competition on UA-cam.
I do like the goody thing on Graveyard (except that I couldn’t figure out HOW to heal as a ghost), but one round on this was enough for me to understand why we don’t have official arena maps.
Been a longtime TF2 player since before the first Halloween map was ever added. It's literally always my favorite time of year! And you made a good list that shared a lot of similar opinions I had towards them. The only small exception would be I wish you enjoyed Monster Bash more. Personally, it's my favorite map. The design is the best, and I always like the rush of just turning a corner and not knowing what to expect. It's a map that demands your attention to a higher level. I think someone else, it really does feel like a Quake map. Plus I think WAY too many people forget about the hole in the middle to potential get powerful spells. That can usually turn the tide of things if you're getting wrecked (since you also get crits upon exiting the tunnel).
"It's not like overwhelming that you can just shut down entire portions of the map" he says, while showing gameplay of him playing Engineer, shutting down an entire portion of the map
33:26 I really agree with your take on Gravestone here; the whole "if it were just the map then it'd be a lot of fun" thought process. I'd go a bit farther and say that a couple of the environment hazards are irritating as well; Hell is surprisingly difficult to get through if you're below 125 HP and can be camped pretty easily too, but the big thing for me are the saws in that middle-ish room. They fly out of the walls randomly without any warning and can instakill you. I can't tell you how many times I've been on an absolute rampage as Spy, just to see my HP drop from 200 to 0 in a tenth of a second because a saw decided to pop out of absolutely nowhere. Kinda falls into the same annoyance factor of random crits and random bullet spread, and I know that Halloween is meant to be a cluster, but my God, there should at least be a little warning. Nearly every other Halloween hazard gives you some sort of visual or audio cue so you have time to get the heck outta the way, but not these things. Still, love the rest of the map. Great layout, fun flank routes, good variation in verticality, and every spell can be put to really good use, which is surprisingly difficult to say for them on other maps.
Honestly, a lot of the bad maps in this game are bad solely due to Sniper sightlines. You can break through engie nests with uber, but you cannot avoid a hitscan headshot by the Sniper on the other end of the map. Halloween maps already are so chaotic, I feel like the best of those maps are ones which you can easily move around the map and focus on avoiding the spells and projectiles instead of the little hitscan dude which you can barely make out.
I've never played TF; but watching your videos makes me want to give it a try. Even if I suck at it; I'll still want to play now! 💚💚💚 And may I also add that your vids are high quality. Subscribing was inevitable! :D 💚
15:13 Mate, it's really easy to defend _any_ point with sentries only. Gorge isn't the problem. it's the sentries. They're so damn overpowered that even an entire team of bots can't beat them. Honestly the community is extremely hypocritical for crying about bots when crutchineers are just worse bots.
I loved monster bash when I was a demoknight. Especially always not trying to go to the middle, instead always trying to flank them etc. Don't remember much but I remember I had a blast.
my favorite memory from los muertos is triple pipe juggling an enemy demoknight because i hit his feet midcharge. dude straight up just quit immediately.
Monster Bash is super fun as pyro because of airblasting people off of things and spy, because there is so much going on that it's easier to find unsuspecting victims.
If theres a sentry in Mann Manor and the hhh spawns, you can’t play without being a power class. I shouldn’t have to switch class so i can mildly have fun.
I feel like every time I return here to watch this ranking, I think more and more than Erebus should be its own tier. And I'm genuinely terrified of next Halloween map
I hate Graveyard, because its an arena type map: small, takes so long to complete the painful contract, if you die sure you can heal your teammates, but you have to wait for the round to end before you can actually continue the contract and if one team gets even the slightest edge over the other then its almost a guarantee win, you gotta go out of your way to get more than 4 points per round and that will usually get you killed anyway, I believe it also has a unique bonus objective of "surviving 500 damage" or something like that, which is pretty much impossible to do if you dont play as the heavy, Graveyard is a map of pure suffering for me and I cant believe im saying this, but I would rather play on Erebus
Honestly, I like maple ridge a lot. Like, it's not the best map, but the moat, the houses, the church, the off-center point, the fences, it all comes together to create an experience that's just fun no matter how you play. I 100% agree the map makes it too easy to spawncamp, personally I'd pull a 2fort/doomsday and have the spawn rooms drop you down into the surrounding buildings, maybe with some spellbooks so you can walk into the fight as ready as possible. The Feild out front of spawn would still be there though, so if anyone *really* wants to, they can still get up there cause havoc, they just wouldn't be able to get into the corner with a heavy medic combo 57 seconds into the game. (Yea, I am basically suggesting just taking the spawn areas and raising them up like 20 ft with a sheer cliff to the main building. And yes, I am very tempted to have one drop that will deal fall damage, maybe that goes down to a path directly to the most, idk.) But, uh, yea. I like Maple ridge. It's the best "mixed bag" map for me because the highs are high (That fucking church has seen so many impromptu duels and accidental ambushes), and the floor for the lows is honestly mid, which is pretty damn higher then most maps. I honestly wish this map was in the base game, it's just fun. And at least it'd be a KotH map I like that other people would want to play on. (#Koth_King boiz represent)
"Many will disagree with monster bash" Yeah. The size is far too small and as you said, really makes it annoying to fight. I honestly like hellstone. You can actually be a little bit tactical with HHH. Call me someone who enjoys chaos because I don't mind skeletons and bosses. I also disagree with the player destruction maps but as you said "then just get better" (jokingly) well.. dodging is something to do too.
IMO Monster Bash has the same problem as junction, where it feels more like a map made for an SFM short that got put in TF2 rather than a map actually made for gameplay.
The thing I really like about monster bash is the crits from the pit can take normal strategies to the extreme. Is it balanced? No. Is it fun to fight? No. Is it stupid fun to use? Yes. I literally carried a team on monster bash by jumping into the pit with base jumper / airstrike soldier, going berserk on people with crocket bursts, and then once the crits are done just go back into the pit again.
I forget which of the ICS maps’ files was called fifth curve event (think it might be Brimstone; honestly just remember it as fifth curve event), but yeah, that one I’d put in suffering. Oh sure, Hellstone throws more stuff at you (multiple Monoculi is stupid), but Brimstone’s chokiness is honestly leagues least fun for me.
I personally fuckin despise Sinshine/Sunshine. I will never forget that one match when one round literally lasted half an hour. It was a constant back and forth with both teams fighting over last. And right when the timer is about to run out, some scout caps a point and now you’re waiting for 10 minutes. Probably my least favourite moment in the whole game.
fun fact: sinshine was added into the game about a year before the normal version. (2015 halloween vs MYM update) and as the only 5cp map, it has terrible stalemates, i hate it
"Sunshine is a great map because it's used in comp leagues!" You mean the comp leagues that design their maps as if half the classes don't exist? Sure, whatever you say.
Ghost Fort and Viaduct used to great maps until valve introduced the truce with contracts. The bosses were so much better when both teams could still kill each other
It's fascinating how much your dislike of chaos influences this tier-list. I cannot get ENOUGH of the ICS maps; I love playing them. The absolute bonkers chaos factor just appeals to me immensely - because if I wanted bog-standard TF2 gameplay, I'd just go play the standard maps. I get that all year round - but I only get Halloween madness once a year, and getting blindsided by a gibus-pyro flinging meteor-shower spells is half the appeal for me personally. As for the 'double monoculus' - they don't spawn at the same time by design. In fact, if the defenders are doing well, the first monoculus will be killed and gone before you reach the last one. Monoculus 1 is on a timer, Monoculus 2 spawns when the attackers enter last.
The first time I played on Erebus, I went for a rocket jump behind the team the second the gates opened as an attacker. I ended up backcapping 10 seconds into the round because the cap rate is so goddamn fast, and point B was just that close to spawn.
Not every community map has the same contracts. For example, hassle castle doesn’t have pumpkin bombs, so it’s other bonus is win a round on hassle castle.
i like the chaos of bloodwater, but i can see why people don't. also its funny that you can just place stickies in the blood pool and people have no way to know that they're there
I was in this one Slasher game where there was a fake Great Blue but he looked like he was doing something the real one would do AKA camping the hell entrance in hell's side with scottish resistance.
Sometimes I feel like the only person who likes truce on bosses. I want to engage with and fight the boss without worrying about the other players killing me, the boss is difficult enough! It's definitely a problem on maps with frequent boss spawns though.
Honestly I dont mind the Skeletons but I also have been gaining demo the past month and its like lay a sticky at your feet, walk away and detonate when skeletons step on it and kill them all.
46:10
Not having a god tier sniper on the enemy team makes EVERY map more enjoyable.
True that
True that
True That
True that
True that
I feel like it's important to mention that most Halloween maps are variants of normal maps. Every one of ICS's maps are this case, so yes, they exist.
Other funfacts would include that there IS a normal Moonshine (yeah, I never knew about this) and that Laughter's normal counterpart is a Slaughter, a map that takes place in a Slaughterhouse, which is just, so different from the reskin.
Me going in: Oh boy, I can’t wait to see where he ranks Hellstone!
…
Pain
OOF
I don't get if your saying that hellstone is a good map ot not, I think it sounds fun at least
they really missed the opportunity to call gorge "gore"
It was going to be named Gored (and it's workshop page still has it called that,) but when Valve e-mailed the creator to ask to make his map official, they never asked what to call it so he didn't tell them the name and it just got added as Gorge Event.
@@darkiusmc979 yep, can confirm! I wanted it to be called cp_gored. Also the skeletons are there to prevent the instant backcapping of last that I saw happen so many times on the regular version of the map. And they only appear once right after capping A, unless 12 people happen to fall into the pit which is extremely rare. I basically just wanted it to feel like a spooky version of gorge without any insane gimmicks because I didn't like the direction a lot of maps were taking at the time. I guess its just par for the course now, hah.
@@pux0rb yeah, but idk, the name gorge_event has it’s place in all our hearts! (Great job on the map btw, brings back good nostalgic memories of halloween vibe)
@@poyloos4834 Thanks my dude, I appreciate it!
Helltower is perfect tho, props to valve
As a Medic main, I like Monoculus maps because I get to use Vacc without feeling like a dirtbag.
On the other hand, there’s me with the Quick Fix watching my heal target get annihilated while I’m ubering them.
Cons: you get cyberbullied
@@poffzihavenoidea531 I do! I understood that reference.
@@thunderspark1536 even do I am a medic main I don't even like vac medic it's just saying fuck you I'm not going to let you play till you push hard or you Uber I'm not gonna save the game I'm going to expand it
@@stabbingtime9372 at this point ive only used the vacc against bots
I really like the "Thor" tier pun, that one's very good
How the hell did this comment have no replies
skeleton
No
Yes
Agreed. I liked it too.
If I'm not mistaken, Mountain Lab and Mann Manor both came from an artpass contest, where participants were given a pre-built map with no textures and told to decorate it, with the winner being put into the game. The two winners were...well, I'm sure you can guess. But, this is also why Mann Manor technically isn't based on Mountain Lab and isn't called something like "mountain_lab_event".
Los Muertos is honestly a blast as medic engie and heavy too, and the fact that sniper is automatically put into a disavantage because of the way the map is laid out is a major plus in my opinion, opening the way for every class except for sniper to have fun is something not a lot of maps can succesfully pull off but it makes the map a lot more enjoyable in it's own way.
My biggest problem with the ICS maps is that they all feel way too similar. They feel like filler halloween maps.
Precipice is my favorite screamfortress Payload even if it's unbalanced because the setting feels unique and I like playing my favorite classes on it.
I also love Maple Ridge of Event (fun as spy) and hate Helltower (too many scouts on the map in my experience). Haven't played Cursed Cove in a while but I remember being meh on it (yes I am bad at the game).
When I first played Terror I thought it was one of his other maps. And then they brought it back in the Christmas update, it's not a bad map but did we really need it in two updates in a row?
I'm still mad they didn't add the regular version of koth_laughter, the map is just that fun. Similar to Los Muertos where there's no major gimmicks or anything, it's just a good map with some halloween decorations.
I think farmageddon is REALLY good. Like, best Halloween map of all time. Because of one simple thing. It makes fighting the skeletons fun. How? The skeletons drop the weed killer, so you are actually achieving something by killing them. Not only that, they drop TWICE as much weed killer as players. So clearing the scarecrows is not only fun, but viable! The map is fantastic, I play on it exclusively for this scream fortress.
Nice Gamemode ideia
Slasher is a map that I always dread playing on because matches usually tend to be very one-sided, probably because I see a lot of people camping in the underworld basically allowing their team to get all the spells, meaning anyone trying to cap will get smacked by a meteor shower or a Monoculus. Oh, and Engineers really like to place Mini-Sentries on the point making it even more frustrating to actually cap.
The Erebus placement was totally something I saw coming bc the first time I played I even saw people complaining in chat about it and that's not something I usually see a lot of.
I seen that too. At first I hated it bc it was so confusing. But, its actually one of my favorite maps now. 🤷🤷🤷 alot of people will hate but I love it.
because when u give one team an advantage for already winning it feels semi Bullcrap to try and cap especially if there no cool down to go to hell and get buff/spell
@@missspider3572 are you a demo main
Absolutely mad bruv. Truly bonkers. Really quite good. Jolly good show. Well done. Fantastical. I hope you enjoy your evening. Great job. A real knockout. But most of all, Bumpin.
Thank you, young chap/chapette.
Delighted opinion, bruv. Spot of tea?
These are the community maps where the halloween versions were added to the game officially, but the original version were not.
Hellstone/Millstone
Moonshine Event/Moonshine
Brimstone/Fifthcurve
Maple Ridge Event/Maple Ridge
Cauldron/Bagel
Gravestone/Rumble
Laughter/Slaughter
Moldergrove/Undergrove
Erebus/Ambush
Sinthetic/Synthetic
There's also Sinshine/Sunshine - Sunshine was added a year later
I for one am glad Fifthcurve was never added, because Brimstone is utter hell in a way that I know translates to its normal form for sure. Oh sure, we wouldn’t have random Merasmus spells breaking everything, but you’d still have ungodly chokes that are next to impossible to push through with balanced teams.
@@isenokami7810 I got to play normal Fifthcurve several times - the map is genuinely fine, except for a sniper sightline on C BLU can't avoid.
Bloodwater feels like somebody said "There's no way you could make Halloween Badwater suck!" and somebody else took it as a challenge
The biggest problem with this year’s maps was that most of the time they were completely unplayable from the lag issues
I thought that was just me wow
Also Mann manor is like, one of the lords of choke points. Pushing to last is a cramped, choke point mess. The map looks great and all, but the actual manor itself is such a spammy annoyance to play in.
@@StockLlama which is why I think they should have retrofitted Mann manor with spells, since although I agree that spells are a bit much for new players playing Halloween maps for the first time and having the contract system push those new players towards the spell-less maps is a much better and noob friendly way of introducing Halloween maps to them. Mann manor *desperately* needs the stalemate breaking properties of spells since it inherits the meat grinder design from the original map that isn’t fun to play in in any game (if you say operation metro and lockers in bf3 and bf4 are meat grinder maps that work, you have as much credibility as the 2042 devs had at 2042’s launch.)
I genuinely would want to hear why you think heavy is poorly designed, I'm curious now because I've never thought of that, I'd love to hear
the general attitude is similar to w+m1 pyro, tf2 is a game based on high risk reward burst damage shots (rockets, pills, shotguns, sniper shots) where if u hit an attack u do loads of damage but if u miss it leaves u open for a sec. heavy n pyro on the other hand have sustained damage which ignores the high risk high reward design philosophy, and while pyro has very limited range n options for that burst damage heavy just has a lot of health and a lot of damage so even if u hit ur shots on him he can still mow thru ur health usually before u can kill him. additionally his biggest weakness is that he needs to constantly be looking where hes shooting and has no splash damage or mobility making his biggest weakness coordination n teamwork, but in normal casual tf2 especially the most casual side of hightower n the like this basically doesnt exist, everyone jus wants to run around n click on the bad guys n heavy can totally shut that down without requiring any teamwork from his own team.
@@nya69 Idk
Heavy is a good antithesis to a majority of classes and basically is a great counter to most classes in range since he can chip away at them.
@@silverdededestruction2197 thats the reason why ppl dont like him, he doesnt fit with the general philosophy of the game n is able to counter most other classes without the normal rock-paper-scissors effect, his counterplay instead coming from strategy n teamwork which isnt necessary or super common in most other places in the game. fat scout on the other hand totally fits since its close range burst damage like scout except trading speed for health
@Blackout true thts also a good point, defensive playstyles r always seen as less fun especially in such a fast paced aggressive game
Engineer exists defying all Tf2 gameplay philosophy.
*Nobody cares*
Some bozo youtubers: OMG HEAVY(Great Blu) SNIPER and DEMOKNIGHT(Zesty) ARE OP AND OR DEFY TF2 GAMEPLAY PHILOSOPHY
Me: ... *Doomer face* "What the actual fu-"
I disagree with some of your opinions, but I can see where you are coming from. Great video!
Also dang the casual shade thrown at Zesty
Honestly, I agree with your hatred towards Erebus. Its base map, Ambush, was bad enough, and adding spells and crumpkins was the WORST IDEA EVER CONCEIVED. And the contract is literally only possible on RED, cuz BLU will get an approximate max of 8 points IF THEY'RE LUCKY against even a decent enough defense.
Now I’m just wondering why the hell one of ICS’s maps gets added every year. I’m not gonna attack the guy, because I doubt he’s even the reason. I’m looking at Valve.
What the hell are you smoking, Valve? Do you have a contract that requires you to do this? Is ICS just stuck on the Scream Fortress checklist and nobody on your staff bothers questioning it? Actually…yeah, that’s probably it.
Cursed Cove was one of the first Scream Fortress maps that I've played, so it was nice to see that it was at the top
I absolutely agree with Monster Bash, last year when I played it there was one match where the lobby room with the staircases was completely shut down because of one sentry.
Cauldron is my favorite Halloween map because it's a reskin of Bagel, it's super simplistic but not to the point where it feels like it was made in 10 minutes.
To anyone who dislikes Ghost Fort, remember the Loose Cannon and Scorch Shot still have knockback during the truce. Knocking people into the pit when they go for health makes the map fun despite the round timer.
Better play is to go spy and stand there invisible
I think i can enjoy playing Hellstone now and then as long as I play it with the mentality that it encompasses the chaos of Scream Fortress maps by just locking you in a map with every monster and mechanic available and I just roll with it
I prefer that on a Halloween map much more over a forgettable and kinda boring map like Maple Ridge that just plays it very safe almost like a normal TF2 map (which is not why I play Halloween maps in TF2)
Agreed. Personally, I would swap the positions of Hellstone and Brimstone on the list. Hellstone has you fight through everything Scream Fortress could possibly throw at you, but the actual match of payload tends to progress just fine regardless. Whereas in Brimstone…it doesn’t, because it’s chokey as hell, and that kills any fun you can have way more than Monoculus spam ever could.
And I'm the weird guy who just finds dealing with pumpkin bombs annoying enough, so maps like Maple Ridge event are god-tier in my eyes.
On a personal note, back in 2018 and after, Maple Ridge has frequently devolved into a friendly server for me. I don’t know if it’s the lack of players or the atmosphere, but it kinda just devolves.
Also, Erebus is an event version of Ambush. And I can safely say I hate both of them.
k.......p..
..
p..l.p.pp..
m.l.p..
I know it was a long time ago, but I remember playing a halloween version of a map made by a L4D2 mapper back in the day. It was extremely small, close in, yet it played surprisingly well. Only on one community server for like a year before disappearing forever.
I don't remember the name of the halloween version, but I do remember the original, koth_basement.
I know it will never be popular, updated or anything like that. The person who made it went off the rails for a couple years and is now making her own game, but I had such fond memories of it, even if the entire made being the size of a control point was rather ridiculous.
“It’s just a fun map, there’s no other way to explain it”
*proceeds to explain why it’s fun*
I actually like Hellstone and Brimstone because of their clustered and chaotic nature. It makes for fast paced fun anarchy for me. And I utterly despise Graveyard. It's too small, so anyone not playing a tanky power class is going to immediately die.
As much as I like Halloween events, the maps and gameplay feels like information overload. You’ve said it before where you feel like you aren’t doing anything and I feel like that when playing almost all of the Halloween maps. It’s a fun time but a time that feels more chaotic than normal tf2
30:20
“not like overwhelming that you can just shut down entire portions of the map”
*Shows clip of him shutting down a portion of the map*
To be fair, you can somewhat easily get behind the engie, even as a heavy or Pyro.
Don’t forget that one full health kit spawn on Ghost Fort that’s camped by Cloak and Dagger spies that trick you into jumping to it, collide with their hitbox, and fall to your death.
I’ve actually never encountered anyone complaining about capping on Helltower before. Usually people wanna either get their contract done or try to win the arena hell fight at the end.
excited for this year's one, got 1 month to go! keep up the fantastic work, hope ICS or whatever their name is makes a better map this year and not another "Stone". good luck!
12:18 you forgot a helltower bonus. The bonus is that you get to go to hell when you cap.
I actually kinda like Slasher. But that's probably because all the 2018 maps are kinda nostalgic for me. I started playing TF2 in 2015, but I never played during a Halloween event until 2018. So I'm guessing that I look at maps like Slasher, Monster Bash, Gravestone and Cauldron through rose tinted glasses.
This is super late, but Mann Manor isn't based Mountain Lab. Both maps were released simultaneously and are based on a naked layout Valve released for some kind of competition. I believe you can still find the promotional video for the competition on UA-cam.
Hellstone is fun when you force yourself to forget about the skeletons and mini-bosses
Amazed that the spread of the maps is "technically balanced" (even though most would agree a "top-tier centric" grouping is better).
I do like the goody thing on Graveyard (except that I couldn’t figure out HOW to heal as a ghost), but one round on this was enough for me to understand why we don’t have official arena maps.
you know it's ultimate when it's over an hour long
I LOVE Monster Bash and Farmageddon, definitely top tier maps for me. To be fair though Player Destruction is my favorite gamemode
hey girl
same
Been a longtime TF2 player since before the first Halloween map was ever added. It's literally always my favorite time of year! And you made a good list that shared a lot of similar opinions I had towards them.
The only small exception would be I wish you enjoyed Monster Bash more. Personally, it's my favorite map. The design is the best, and I always like the rush of just turning a corner and not knowing what to expect. It's a map that demands your attention to a higher level. I think someone else, it really does feel like a Quake map.
Plus I think WAY too many people forget about the hole in the middle to potential get powerful spells. That can usually turn the tide of things if you're getting wrecked (since you also get crits upon exiting the tunnel).
42:29 according to the dev commentary, corner peeking is another weakness of the sentry.
"Pulling a Zesty Jesus" has to become a common term in the community. I like zesty a lot but he can overexaggerate.
Probably worse than the overexageration is the blatant transphobia
@@PantheraLeo04 damn, really?
I like his videos in general, sucks if he's a shitty person
"It's not like overwhelming that you can just shut down entire portions of the map" he says, while showing gameplay of him playing Engineer, shutting down an entire portion of the map
33:26 I really agree with your take on Gravestone here; the whole "if it were just the map then it'd be a lot of fun" thought process. I'd go a bit farther and say that a couple of the environment hazards are irritating as well; Hell is surprisingly difficult to get through if you're below 125 HP and can be camped pretty easily too, but the big thing for me are the saws in that middle-ish room. They fly out of the walls randomly without any warning and can instakill you. I can't tell you how many times I've been on an absolute rampage as Spy, just to see my HP drop from 200 to 0 in a tenth of a second because a saw decided to pop out of absolutely nowhere. Kinda falls into the same annoyance factor of random crits and random bullet spread, and I know that Halloween is meant to be a cluster, but my God, there should at least be a little warning. Nearly every other Halloween hazard gives you some sort of visual or audio cue so you have time to get the heck outta the way, but not these things. Still, love the rest of the map. Great layout, fun flank routes, good variation in verticality, and every spell can be put to really good use, which is surprisingly difficult to say for them on other maps.
Regarding Harvest, I would move ghosts to spots where usually snipers stand. That would make this map perfect.
Honestly, a lot of the bad maps in this game are bad solely due to Sniper sightlines. You can break through engie nests with uber, but you cannot avoid a hitscan headshot by the Sniper on the other end of the map. Halloween maps already are so chaotic, I feel like the best of those maps are ones which you can easily move around the map and focus on avoiding the spells and projectiles instead of the little hitscan dude which you can barely make out.
I agree with you mostly but monster bash and cauldron are like a or s tier maps absolutely fun to plan on
I fucking love screamfortress
I've never played TF; but watching your videos makes me want to give it a try. Even if I suck at it; I'll still want to play now! 💚💚💚
And may I also add that your vids are high quality. Subscribing was inevitable! :D 💚
Give it a go, it's free to play and quite fun.
Harvest event is my all time favorite map and you can’t change my mind
15:13 Mate, it's really easy to defend _any_ point with sentries only. Gorge isn't the problem. it's the sentries. They're so damn overpowered that even an entire team of bots can't beat them.
Honestly the community is extremely hypocritical for crying about bots when crutchineers are just worse bots.
I loved monster bash when I was a demoknight. Especially always not trying to go to the middle, instead always trying to flank them etc. Don't remember much but I remember I had a blast.
my favorite memory from los muertos is triple pipe juggling an enemy demoknight because i hit his feet midcharge. dude straight up just quit immediately.
Monster Bash is super fun as pyro because of airblasting people off of things and spy, because there is so much going on that it's easier to find unsuspecting victims.
Apparently hating Erebus bridges two completely different fandoms. (Tf2 and Warhammer 40k)
Hey I'm in this video! During the Precipice part, I'm the one in chat named vinyl #chumbuds, had alot of fun playing with ya
28:8
If theres a sentry in Mann Manor and the hhh spawns, you can’t play without being a power class. I shouldn’t have to switch class so i can mildly have fun.
oh no, you had to trade off being the third spy/sniper/scout?
@@CAMSLAYER13 ok that’s a fair point
I feel like every time I return here to watch this ranking, I think more and more than Erebus should be its own tier.
And I'm genuinely terrified of next Halloween map
Ok great video now I need a 10 hour long video of every map incoming the Halloween maps that take 5 years to upload to UA-cam.
i actually love hellstone because it's just random chaos and random chaos is one of the things i play tf2 for
it's not a good map but i love it
I hate Graveyard, because its an arena type map: small, takes so long to complete the painful contract, if you die sure you can heal your teammates, but you have to wait for the round to end before you can actually continue the contract and if one team gets even the slightest edge over the other then its almost a guarantee win, you gotta go out of your way to get more than 4 points per round and that will usually get you killed anyway, I believe it also has a unique bonus objective of "surviving 500 damage" or something like that, which is pretty much impossible to do if you dont play as the heavy, Graveyard is a map of pure suffering for me and I cant believe im saying this, but I would rather play on Erebus
Honestly, I like maple ridge a lot. Like, it's not the best map, but the moat, the houses, the church, the off-center point, the fences, it all comes together to create an experience that's just fun no matter how you play.
I 100% agree the map makes it too easy to spawncamp, personally I'd pull a 2fort/doomsday and have the spawn rooms drop you down into the surrounding buildings, maybe with some spellbooks so you can walk into the fight as ready as possible.
The Feild out front of spawn would still be there though, so if anyone *really* wants to, they can still get up there cause havoc, they just wouldn't be able to get into the corner with a heavy medic combo 57 seconds into the game.
(Yea, I am basically suggesting just taking the spawn areas and raising them up like 20 ft with a sheer cliff to the main building. And yes, I am very tempted to have one drop that will deal fall damage, maybe that goes down to a path directly to the most, idk.)
But, uh, yea. I like Maple ridge. It's the best "mixed bag" map for me because the highs are high (That fucking church has seen so many impromptu duels and accidental ambushes), and the floor for the lows is honestly mid, which is pretty damn higher then most maps.
I honestly wish this map was in the base game, it's just fun. And at least it'd be a KotH map I like that other people would want to play on.
(#Koth_King boiz represent)
"Many will disagree with monster bash"
Yeah. The size is far too small and as you said, really makes it annoying to fight.
I honestly like hellstone. You can actually be a little bit tactical with HHH. Call me someone who enjoys chaos because I don't mind skeletons and bosses.
I also disagree with the player destruction maps but as you said "then just get better" (jokingly) well.. dodging is something to do too.
what makes ghost fort Thor tier is the combined anger of both teams in vc whenever Merasmus level 30 spawns
Cursed Cove is the map is truly hate like no other map has ever made me hate.
49:07 Nuns commence incanting as the lightning strikes mine temples thus electrifying mine chambers wholly scorching out thine sovereignty so
IMO Monster Bash has the same problem as junction, where it feels more like a map made for an SFM short that got put in TF2 rather than a map actually made for gameplay.
Junction doesn't even look good tho. The flow into each point is so wack
30:10 heavy is good on cursed cove . You can take the flank routes and ambush people , then go to mid and charge with your tean to victory .
The thing I really like about monster bash is the crits from the pit can take normal strategies to the extreme. Is it balanced? No. Is it fun to fight? No. Is it stupid fun to use? Yes.
I literally carried a team on monster bash by jumping into the pit with base jumper / airstrike soldier, going berserk on people with crocket bursts, and then once the crits are done just go back into the pit again.
ICS has good maps imo. They're some of my favorites. Sinshine, Eyeaduct, and Ghost Fort can go to hell, though.
"No offence to ICS" *proceeds to say something offense* man made a free map that isn't Wutville, that's good enough for me
I forget which of the ICS maps’ files was called fifth curve event (think it might be Brimstone; honestly just remember it as fifth curve event), but yeah, that one I’d put in suffering. Oh sure, Hellstone throws more stuff at you (multiple Monoculi is stupid), but Brimstone’s chokiness is honestly leagues least fun for me.
3:47 poor hoovy
Take a shot every time Blue says 'skeletons.'
I’m fixing zoomed
🍻🤘🏻
I personally fuckin despise Sinshine/Sunshine. I will never forget that one match when one round literally lasted half an hour. It was a constant back and forth with both teams fighting over last. And right when the timer is about to run out, some scout caps a point and now you’re waiting for 10 minutes. Probably my least favourite moment in the whole game.
fun fact: sinshine was added into the game about a year before the normal version. (2015 halloween vs MYM update)
and as the only 5cp map, it has terrible stalemates, i hate it
"Sunshine is a great map because it's used in comp leagues!"
You mean the comp leagues that design their maps as if half the classes don't exist? Sure, whatever you say.
@@darkiusmc979 so?
@@darkiusmc979 It is fun as hell as soldier, scout, sniper, or demo + medic. But it's kind of a drag with anything else
Ghost Fort and Viaduct used to great maps until valve introduced the truce with contracts. The bosses were so much better when both teams could still kill each other
35:05 this is when i accidentaly tapped my phone screen and saw the duration of the video
image halloween map called kidneystone where you collect your enemis kidneystones
Los Muertos not getting put into rotation is a crime fight me
It's fascinating how much your dislike of chaos influences this tier-list.
I cannot get ENOUGH of the ICS maps; I love playing them. The absolute bonkers chaos factor just appeals to me immensely - because if I wanted bog-standard TF2 gameplay, I'd just go play the standard maps. I get that all year round - but I only get Halloween madness once a year, and getting blindsided by a gibus-pyro flinging meteor-shower spells is half the appeal for me personally.
As for the 'double monoculus' - they don't spawn at the same time by design. In fact, if the defenders are doing well, the first monoculus will be killed and gone before you reach the last one. Monoculus 1 is on a timer, Monoculus 2 spawns when the attackers enter last.
The first time I played on Erebus, I went for a rocket jump behind the team the second the gates opened as an attacker. I ended up backcapping 10 seconds into the round because the cap rate is so goddamn fast, and point B was just that close to spawn.
excellent video
thanks for all the great work
I had painful time playing pit of death and after I did my last contract on it I never played it again
I love how he doesn’t like monster bash but atom smash is so populat
Not every community map has the same contracts. For example, hassle castle doesn’t have pumpkin bombs, so it’s other bonus is win a round on hassle castle.
I think the oppressive hazards and enemies speaks well to the "scary" theme, but that's just me. I get challenging maps can be frustrating.
i like the chaos of bloodwater, but i can see why people don't.
also its funny that you can just place stickies in the blood pool and people have no way to know that they're there
i feel like the truce system ought to just be up to a vote whenever the boss spawns in
I was in this one Slasher game where there was a fake Great Blue but he looked like he was doing something the real one would do AKA camping the hell entrance in hell's side with scottish resistance.
Did you forget to swap out the Bloodwater text for Hastlecastle?
Erebus is the only ICS map named correctly
cursed cove and mann manor is the shit
Sometimes I feel like the only person who likes truce on bosses. I want to engage with and fight the boss without worrying about the other players killing me, the boss is difficult enough! It's definitely a problem on maps with frequent boss spawns though.
watching this before scream fortress tomorrow. learning
Honestly I dont mind the Skeletons but I also have been gaining demo the past month and its like lay a sticky at your feet, walk away and detonate when skeletons step on it and kill them all.
Graveyard is one of my worst nightmares