Climacophobia version 2

Cover seems to have been lost in transition. I feel like you're getting closer, but what you need to do is think about how players are going to move through these areas. The staircase shown in picture 7 is absurd in length and will in no way benefit gameplay. This goes for steep ramps as well. Your aesthetics definitely got a boost and the map does feel more natural because of the move. But I highly consider you re-do the staircases and think above player movement and gameplay while you're doing it.

 

I believe what he means is that you should just ditch the single staircase concept altogether. Rather, use smaller staircases linking to several floors within the building instead of just one. Perhaps you should consider making the floors open to the outside world as opposed to being artificially closed off from the rest of the map. Something like this would greatly help players feel as if the map is an interconnected singular work, where every action in one extremity of the map will be able to have some influence on the rest, as opposed to a random patchwork of independent buildings, where the gameplay within each one is unaffected by what goes on outside of it.

Furthermore, you should try and make the entire map feel a single interconnected unit, with each part being linked intrinsically to the next. You can accomplish something like this by removing the covering around both of the "base" buildings on either side of the map and, after walking around the rest of the map to see what lines of site each location can have on the bases, placing cover only in areas where it is deemed to be strategically necessary. Give them enough to fight against a spawn camp, yet too little to camp the bases themselves. Make sure each piece of cover is "flawed" by being certain that at least one location on the map can place sight lines on it. Do this with each piece of cover, with different locations being used to fault each of them. Ideally, someone should be able to move from cover that is flawed by a certain location to cover that is impervious to attacks from that location, yet vulnerable to attacks from another location too far away for an enemy to simply walk towards in the same time it takes you to get to that second piece of cover,

Another notable issue present on this map is the extremely long sight lines. The long LoS (Lines of Sight) allows players to shoot at enemies from across the map and kill them long before the enemy is able to find cover. This is something you would want to avoid on any map, and much more so on a Big Team Battle map where a large portion of the player's time will be spent walking from one location to another. Being shot into an inescapable death within seconds is something that no person could enjoy, and it only becomes that much more frustrating when you've spent a good half minute walking across the map before your death, only to be forced to repeat the process over again. You want to place a central structure on the map, or several side structures, or both, to allow infantry the freedom of movement they need in order to traverse the map without fear of instantaneous and inescapable death. There should always be some way for a high-caliber player to escape an enemy; the only time you should ever be condemned to death is when it is a result of your own poor positioning, and when literally every pathway on the map forces you into some kind of a poor position we have a serious problem, because now the only way to prevent yourself from this instantaneous damnation is to camp within the safety of your own base. You need to give players the tools required to push onto their enemy's stronghold, and in your map's current, empty state it lacks that.

Speaking of the effect additional buildings can have on gameplay, you should consider adding some central structures to promote aggressive gameplay. Without some kind of central structure or incremental side structures, gameplay on your map will become a bit too camp-friendly, with people being far more able to defend their base than assault the enemy. Good maps tend to feature some kind of foothold for players to gradually advance towards; some vague buildings or structures barely strong enough to support temporary encampment against an enemy team, creating a very dynamic chokepoint for players before they advance on the next subsequent enemy foothold. What this means for gameplay is that the incredibly vast expanse of land between bases - something that would have originally allowed shots to be taken at players anywhere from one base to the other, and thus would have made it much harder to move from one base to the other without being shot - is broken up into several smaller expanses within which you can only be shot at by enemies who are in or near that specific expanse. The result is that players camping at their respective base will only be able to effectively put down enemies who are within the stretch between their base and the first foothold following it. You can no longer send shots across the map as effectively as you could in an empty map. You must play aggressively and advance on the enemy base if you want to stay competitive and not "hand over" all of the footholds after the first one following your base. This creates much more varied gameplay; rather than everyone taking shots across an empty map because it's the most effective thing to do, you will have some players making a risky advancement forward while other players give them weak support from behind, and while even more players ride on vehicles through controlled safe zones and slower players advance on their teammates in the front.

Important Notices: When I say "foothold" I'm not referencing a miniature base or castle placed in the middle of the battlefield. I'm talking about something more subtle: a garden of rocks, the underpass pillars to an overhead bridge, or a curve in the map's outer walls, placed naturally throughout the map at intervals that players can easily cross. Make it something that requires constant teamwork to hold and constant assault to take. Think of the foothold as more of a LoS breaker than an actual base or gate to pass through. You should never have to go through a foothold; they are purely incorporeal and if the enemy puts up a weak defense at one there is no reason an enemy player shouldn't be able to go around the foothold and bypass it altogether. You can find a good example of footholds in this Team Fortress 2 gameplay. Notice how at 12:30 the Blue Team manages to clear the Red Team out of their nearest foothold and, using that location as a springboard, they mount an immediate attack against Red Team's next foothold. This is what I'm talking about - You want the foothold to be one of those things that you'll notice if it's missing on a map and won't notice if it's properly implemented: being nothing more than a location and a rally point, it does not have to be a physical structure itself so much as the result of surrounding structures creating a chokepoint playspace. That being said, this chokepoint of sorts does not have to be the result of a constraining linear path coming in from either team's side; this will actually serve to deviate from otherwise good gameplay. Make it something surrounded by multiple branching paths of assault, like the map you saw in the TF2 video, avoid linear paths and bridges like the plague, as they will force a players into horribly constraining paths which they can only choose to deviate from by jumping off.

One more thing:

Spoiler

Shield Doors of any kind should never be used as windows and walls, as they lead to standoff gameplay. My general rule is that a player should never see someone without having a clear firing line on them; windows and shield doors should not be used in a competitive setting.