I tried making the level really open as I feel it gives players a lot more freedom of movement during fast paced matches. This level was intended to be played in more casual games, so I thought giving a lot of room to blast others would make things more fun. As Ragnarok said, I was under the impression that if the PUs were placed more convieniently, players would feel more comfortable getting them in midplay. However, this just became an annoyance in a couple of JDC events, it seems players always try to get to that spot first and then just fire away. I should have probably swapped the Bouncer and Toaster PU around, or something along that context. At least I made sure not to have a Seeker PU, which the beta had and that just killed the gameplay. I've learned from my mistake, and in my future levels I'll try to discourage this kind of camping.

One issue I feel like bringing up are key items being placed too close to CTF bases. Take a level like BBlair for example. Players camping the blue base have to make very little effort to get the two power ups surrounding the base above and below. This means that players feel completely comfortable hanging around there for lengthy periods of time, and since they have a consistant source of firepower they have plenty of fend off enemy players. The problem this causes is that for other players it's too difficult to approach the base as the defenders have a constant supply of ammo and so are not likely to be shifted any time soon. To counter this kind of camping I feel that PUs should be placed as far from the bases as possible, or at least in a way that makes it so players have to temporairly leave the base unguarded so that they can load up, and in that time players can attack the base unharmed.

Yet, I'm also feeling that these kind of cheap tactics can make a level more fun. Players naturally, as Blur said before, like levels they can win in; and will probably do anything they can to do so, no matter how cheap it may seem. Levels like BBlair and Semi have several so called "cheap tactics", however they're only called "cheap" by the victims of them. If a player knows he can do something that will give him a likely victory, he is obviously going to do it. I think that although players should be discouraged to try and win soley on simple tactics and be required to use more strategy and planning to win, but they should not be completely discouraged so that they feel too restricted by the level design so they can't play how they like to, and I feel that levels that are too restrictive on a player's personal choices are not very fun. I do agree that Seekers are often overused during gameplay though, and while it can be extremely annoying for some, others find it more fun when they can use them easily, and most of the popular levels I find allow easy use of them.

This a difficult issue - do we force players to play more strategicaly and conservative with their ammo, or do we allow them to play as prefered and give them the chance to spam seekers if they wish?