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\"reworked\" Ascent

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Default Ascent with some Callouts

Hey guys, many people I met in Valorant do not really like Ascent. Me and a friend of mine worked on a concept to make Ascent a more enjoyable map. Here are some ideas.

It seems like the choke points on A and B side are some of the main issues on this map. The options to take a side are really restricted. Therefor mid control seems like one of the most important things which is only decided by two long range crossfire aim duels (Top mid <-> Bottom mid / market and Mid link <-> A Cubby).
If one of the two defenders in mid dies, the other defender is in a really bad spot and has to fall back really far so he wont get pushed by two sides.

Trying to fix this issue we added doors at bottom mid as well as a chest next to market. This offers more opportunities to push bottom mid but also allows the mid player to defend from saver positions. Now in exchange, to give attackers a bit more options, we added a little staircase at top mid. Not much of a deal but a small "Is the Operator peaking from top or bottom" opportunity.
Since this will make mid more defender sided we added a one way door (e.g. bind teleporter door) from A main to A cubby. This will give Attackers at least one spot with multiple push options without mid control. It also forces the A Cubby defender to play from A garden which should be fine with the new, saver bottom mid.
Now the A spot will be much easier to push, therefor we added a staircase from A rafters to hell. Hell (underwood, underheaven, how ever you call it :) ) is kinda known as a defender trap, since you wont be able to get out of it. With stairs going back up the A defender got better options to survive the first push but you will be able to aim for the stairs as soon as you got side control. Which makes it a dangerous spot for a retake.
We also removed A Wine. Since the post plant also gets stronger due to the "stairway to heaven" ;-) its just fair to remove another typical post plant spot and make sure that A Main Attackers can only peak the spike from one side.

Lets talk about B Spot. On most Maps one spot is hard to overtake. Therefor we decieded to keep the choke point in front of B Main but change the defender options. B feels kinda weird, as a defender you only got a limited amout of good positions.
For post plant most attakcer are hidding onside (default corner next to catwalk, B back, behind the boxes onside). but wont be able to hold the spot as aggresiv as the defender could since the other defenders can rotate pretty fast to market and defender spawn.
To bring more balance to B side we closed the vision from Market with a double Box. Now one less defender aims for the choke point, but will be there if the attacker team pushes the side. Same goes for the first wall of the boat house.
We decieded to keep the small corner next to market to keep the random suicide plays (e.g. on an eco round).
The major change will be B Back. We connected B Back with Catwalk and made it a little smaller.
This will offer a new defender position. At round start the defender will probably aim for catwalk and can fall back onside as soon as the attacker are breaking through. Its also easy to be smoked but offers enough possiblities to keep the defender ingame.
B Side would have 2 major defend spots B Back under Catwalk and B Stairs next to the defender spawn. Good smoke options would be Catwalk, Market and Stairs but the defender would still have enough options to change their position and the new B Back would give some great options for post plant mind games.

Last but not least we made the attacker spawn a little bit shorter and closer to the map. Right now the attacker spawn feels completly wasted and is only their for rotations. Due to the faster rotation we left a small peak window for a mid bottom defender at mid top to either gather information or even hit an operator shot. Keep in mind that mid bottom will be easy to smoke off with the new doors.

In our opinion those changes would give the map Ascent much more possible plays and make it more enjoyable on bothsides wihout changing the whole idea of the map. Mid control will still be an important thing.

Let me know if you like Ascent as it is right now and how you like our change suggestions. Surely they wont be perfect and we are not shooter map designers, but to talk in riot words, over 5.000 hours combined tactical shooter experience cant be wrong :D

Kind regards