Name: Jonas
Location: Düsseldorf/Munich
Posts: 572
We all want them. So lets have an eye on what makes a map a good one.
Imho a good competitive map is also an awesome map to spectate.

I think the following aspects make a map exceptional: benefiting different play styles, compelling interresting and creative fights/moves and that certain something.

Lets consider them attentively.

Fights/Moves:

Let me give you an example first and explain it from there: ZTN.

What makes it so loved and special?

Every room has different and creative fights. Stairs and corners in ya/pg room, vertical fights, sneaky traps and agressive pushes that embrace qls full weapon arsenal in the ra room, the Mh hallway where movement players shine and shaft and rl skills are your friend. sometimes you even see godly long distances rails.

T7's Mh room is in my opinion the most interresting venue and best designed room of the new school maps,almost the same for the ra room. T7 is sadly not tooo balanced imho, it has 3 heaviliy vertical rooms, (mh/ra/railya). T7's just missed the step to a titan-map like ztn by a hairbreadth imho, but its still good.

We are tired of plain simple ground fights when playing. Same counts for spectating.
Room architecture has to offer the players and spectators new and creative shots, weapon usesage and so on. Its so important that the rooms open up wide angles for shots.
And they must not narrow the player to one weapon (like T2, boring shaft only anyone?). Maps should really favour at least a combination of 2 weapons in most situations (shaft rl, shaft rail, rail sg, rl rail etc) or in other words, you should be able to archieve kills in a sensible frame not by ony using one weapon.

Maps have to be flavoured with some of these aspects as well, id call it "playthings" :

sensible rocketjumps
gren spam opportunitys
corner rails and whole-through rails (e.g ra to rail ledge on dm6, on t7 you can aim through the pillars at the rail room entrance,,,)
special movements (like the ledges on the walls on t9, or the possibility to move fast, like the corner-hitting moves for example on dm6 from ya to rl, they are so fun and change the dynamics to a important extend, or take the ztn rush from the teleporter exit to its entrance at the rocket launcher over the shards, the dm13 jump from pg ya to center map/shaft hallway entrance etc )
closable doors

you can continue the list on your own if you like

Last thing i want to mention are 2 different map types: Toe-to-Toe maps like t4, t9 or q4 wise phrantic. On the other hand the meet,fight and fallback maps where you loose enemy contact to a stronger extend (ztn,dm6,t7,dm13,,,,).

Mappools should be balanced around these 2 types. Im happy we have t7 and t9, both feeling so different.

I'm also very fine with maps lacking a key gun. I'd love to have a balanced mappool with like 60% full weapon aresenal maps and 40% narrowed arsenal. It changes faces of a map completely.

I'll end this wall of text right here, i might go into depth on the other aspects as well if you respond productively.

greets