Yeah, I have seen all of these, I like them. I didn't want to use the most known ones but it seems there are not many after all.

I would appreciate pictures for the map loading screen, if you want to collaborate.

Yeah but there are lots of objects that can be improved. For instance today I noticed that Vossenack's church has impenetrable window glasses. Things like that could get a fix.

The Panther already is in a strategic intersection. The russians have to go through its line of fire in order to capture any flag from the sector. I´ve changed the german tank spawners so that tanks will come into battle only after Boulevard is taken. If I added additional defense (like the dugin Panther) to Boulevard it would be impossible to cap by the russians.

The number of vehicles has been reduced already since previous tests. In which sector do you think they should be reduced and why? I ask this because tank spawners change from sector to sector so it may be alright in a sector but too many in others. If I am to reduce the number of soviet tanks then I have to reduce the availability of AT weapons for the germans to keep it even.

I thought about limiting grenades from the start but I got some complaints about it when I started to create the map. After this test it is clear that kits should not have more than 1 grenade.

I´ve tested reducing the viewdistance and I got to the best possible point. Increasing it is not necessary but decreasing it makes the map look weird, I´m not touching that. I tested fog too and it also make the map look weird with the current light settings. Undergrowth view distance has been reduced to the minimum without making it look bad. Lightmap and skybox tweaking is something being considered.

I will definately look into replacing the Chateau and the church, other than that there is not a LOT more I can do right now to optimize the map before I get into model tweaking. I can remove a few open buildings but I know it won´t make a big difference because I have tested it already.

On the topic of optimization:

There are non-stock FH2 buildings that don´t have proper LODs and thus they tend to lag the game. I think those are the number one problem behind lag right now. The thing is I have to learn how to fix those models myself and I don´t even know if I will ever achieve it since I know little to nothing about modeling.

My goal is to release a playable Berlin as soon as possible and afterwards work on a patch with a variety of improvements regarding gameplay, optimization, aesthetics, etc.

There are yet lots of things to do to make the map ready for the new map-pack so first I want to address the most important stuff.

In general I need to keep the staticobject count where it is now (less would be even better). In order to widen/open an area of the map I would need to close/delete another area first to keep the number of statics fairly even.

I will analyze the first round we played since it had around 70 players.

----

1st Sector:

It resulted in a horrible bottleneck-grenade-fest so definately something has to be done about it. Originally there was an extra passage appart from the 3 streets. I ended up taking it away but maybe I will have to either re-open it or make the streets a bit wider. Connected ruined buildings and wider flagzones could definately help avoid the grenade spam.

2nd Sector:

Again, too many players for too few narrow streets. Expanding this sector is not an option since it lags the most so I would rely on weakening the german assets. Maybe limit more the machineguns and statics AT guns.

3rd Sector:

Make Boulevard flag un-recappable and add some infantry-only passage to allow some flanking through the ruins to get out of the choke point. This is where the main battle goes on and it´s a very wide sector so I wouldn´t modify much here.

4th Sector:

I put a lot of effort and detail into this sector so I don´t want it to become the german mainbase. Instead I would keep it as it is but also remove german tank spawns at this point so the russians would expect to finish this off in around 5 minutes.

---

Back on optimization:

I agree on replacing some open buildings but keep in mind that the heaviest statics do not belong to stock FH2 and if managed to fix those then probably the lag problem would have diminished.

Lastly, I copy-pasted bleed settings from Seelow Heights. In Berlin it seems people die a lot more so I would rise the tickets a little bit to give the russians a few more minutes to reach the last sector of the map.