About ladder maps

[nobodyhome]

The ladder map pool was updated recently (for a list of changes see the changelist thread), and I wanted to take this moment to ask you guys your opinions on the ladder map pool in general. Here are some of the things to consider:

1. Since we are in the ladder "off season" (the final rankings have been "officially" determined and the showmatch played, but reset has not yet occurred--this will happen when I finish with some of the new features planned, hopefully in 2-3 weeks), I wanted to take this time to put in some new maps for thorough playtesting. tbd_focus has been thoroughly played in competitive league, but tbd_bowserscastle, tbd_scrapyard, tbd_underpark, and ball_asteroids have yet to be played. If you happen to play these maps in the next few weeks, please post your feedback about these maps here, so that we know which maps are good and which are not, and if they are not, so that the issues can be fixed.

2. Are there any maps that you guys consider to be really bad? I removed ball_mayhem (1) from the map pool because of the almost universal hatred of it, but ball_cross was kept in the pool because there seemed to be a lack of consensus regarding it. One map to mention is tbd_justice, which has a total of only 42 games played on it out of 2,480 total tbd games. In-game, I've heard some main complaints about it: background too white, left-right imbalance, bottom bomb route too strong, top lobbing route too strong. What are the main issues with it? If these issues can be identified and fixed by pig_bomb, then perhaps the map will be played more often.

3. Recently there have been a few new maps made by people that were considered for putting into ladder, but didn't quite make the cut. These include ball_atmosphere and ball_cube. Remember, if you are trying to make your map official, that there are certain traits that all good maps tend to have. These include a standard map size, a standard distance between spawn point and goal for ball maps, and straight edges for ball maps. If you really want to make your map good and ladder-suitable, talk to those who have considerable map-making experience, notably maimer, pig_bomb, and mandrad. Also, map making takes effort--if you want your map to be good, you have to be ready to make many many changes (based on people's suggestions) to it after the initial draft.


What do you guys think? One of the things that keep Altitude from stagnating is more good maps. I'd like to have many more good map makers pop up in the community, but map makers can't make good maps without player feedback. Putting these new maps in the ladder is a way of encouraging more people to start making maps as well as giving existing map makers an opportunity to get more feedback.

Please post comments about anything related to maps here: the new maps that I put up, existing ladder maps, as well as potential good maps that I've missed putting into the ladder that might be considered.

EDIT: fail, wrong section. Can a mod please move? Thanks.

[York]

Originally Posted by nobodyhome

tbd_asteroids have yet to be played.

O yea, tbd_asteroids is NEVER played. Did you mean ball_asteroids? If so, that is a great map, I would totally add that to pool.

[Shiro]

I know this has nothing to do with the questions...
But why does NastyManatee have a 16 win streak on the news but his highest win streak was only 5?

[[Y]]

Originally Posted by Shiro

I know this has nothing to do with the questions...
But why does NastyManatee have a 16 win streak on the news but his highest win streak was only 5?

mana is a pro haxx0r

[nesnl]

Originally Posted by Shiro

I know this has nothing to do with the questions...
But why does NastyManatee have a 16 win streak on the news but his highest win streak was only 5?

His highest TBD win streak is 5, but his highest BALL win streak is 16.

[pig_bomb]

you can just leave justice alone at this point, I'm not going to be updating it anymore

[D4rt]

Originally Posted by pig_bomb

you can just leave justice alone at this point, I'm not going to be updating it anymore

Umm... you must?

[Sunaku]

First, I'll take this opportunity to thank you (and all the people involved) for making the ladder and for all the work behind it. I'm sure the whole world is grateful for a place to contain all the rage this game can produce

On to suggestions, as I have no idea how the coding works or if the following is possible, feel free to ignore it if it's nonsense.

About the maps popularity, maybe adding a rating system in game for the maps would help tracking players' preferences, like Team Fortress 2. It would be something like a /vote rateMap giving a variety of choice from "Heaven" to "Terribad" or numbers on a scale.

Originally Posted by nobodyhome

I'd like to have many more good map makers pop up in the community, but map makers can't make good maps without player feedback.

While we try to test new maps as much as we can on arr servers, it's not always the best conditions (number of players, unbalanced teams, etc) to get a good idea about a map. The thing is, the ladder gathers the best conditions to test maps in a competitve setting which is why I wonder if there could be a way to introduce maps before the grand approval.
Practically, I'm thinking about having the maps available on the ladder server, but if it's not thoroughly tested, to leave it out of the /random and just available for specific /start vote. Again, don't know it it's possible but that way people willing to could play the map in a proper setting and help improving it if necessary.

Concerning specific ball maps, I think asteroids is quite good now, along with cube. Also we briefly tested a modified version of cross during SkyLeague, which seemed better than the current one. On the hating part, while I like funnelpark's graphical theme, it's a bit too much of a crashfest and whale paradise.

[Pieface]

If pig doesn't intend to update it any more I honestly think tbd_justice should be removed from the map pool. You already gave the main reasons: extremely bright background that causes headaches, overpowered lower bombing route, large open spaces, etc. I've found personally that the bomb runs on that map tend to be one person diving Rambo-style into danger ahead of his teammates and whether or not he gets to the base is generally mostly luck. Unless the map can be edited so as to be more friendly to competitive games I say remove it altogether.

[nobodyhome]

1. Voting /rateMap is a good idea, but implementing that takes a bit of time. At this stage in the game, I'd rather just gather feedback. It's also fairly easy to tell which maps are popular by just how much it gets played and from personal experience--it's easy to see that asteroids, core, cave, and grotto are heavy favorites, while mayhem and heights are more mid-tier, and justice, locomotion, and woods are hated by everybody.

2. Leaving new maps out of the start_random is a good idea, and can be done fairly easily. Will try this for subsequent map introductions.

3. People seem to say that ball_cube is good, but from conversations with Maimer he is of the opinion that cube has many problems. Maimer, if you could list the problems about it here then we can have a discussion about it and see whether cube is worthy or not.

4. I am ok with taking justice out if it seems that people still hate it and pig is done with the map. I hope that this doesn't discourage pig from making more maps though.

5. I'd like to see map makers take a more collaborative approach to making maps. There are people like Eso who make universally praised maps in terms of layout, but aren't too good at graphics (heh focus) and then there are people like Hartz who are good at graphics but have some layout problems in their maps. If people would work together on maps more then perhaps we'd get better results.

[Radium]

please remove bowsercastle from the list.
I played it today, not so fond of it.

[York]

Originally Posted by Radium

please remove bowsercastle from the list.
I played it today, not so fond of it.

OMG I HATE IT.

/vote kick bowerscastle

[elxir]

These are the best maps, in my opinion:

1) planepark
2) core
3) cave
4) grotto
5) mayhem 2
6) snow
7) darkwar
8) asteroids - played this for the first time today. Amazing map.

9) labyrinth - similar to cross, but the smaller size makes vertical passing (and the associated tactics) a viable option. it is basically a better version of cross.

10) mayhem 1 - lolwat, you say? yes, I like mayhem 1. games can drag on, but they are often amazing games that require top notch play to get anything done. i miss it.


These are maps that I dislike:

1) cross - terrible. the whole game is based on which team can mass more firepower behind the ball. passing is a joke.

2) funnelpark - i used to like it because it was new and shiny, but now i hate it. the lengthy tunnels all over the map make the whole thing an annoying guessing game. the ball indicator isn't that accurate. Also, the stupid thing in the middle that covers up the ball indicator and roughly 1/4 of your screen is annoying and dumb. if this map were opened up a little more (and you could actually turn around in the tunnels) it would be a lot better.

3) cube - bleh. backwards goals. bleh. also the color of the walls is LOLWAT

No comment:

1) atmosphere - haven't played it more than once or twice.

[elxir]

Originally Posted by Radium

please remove bowsercastle from the list.
I played it today, not so fond of it.

if this is actually on ladder, lol. it's a fun map, but it's far too cluttered and ridiculous to be a ladder map.

[Mandrad]

Originally Posted by elxir

2) funnelpark - ... Also, the stupid thing in the middle that covers up the ball indicator and roughly 1/4 of your screen is annoying and dumb. if this map were opened up a little more (and you could actually turn around in the tunnels) it would be a lot better.

I usually dont care about dumb but... have to say i consider dumb to make dumb comments way out of time. Do something for the game, enhance your timming for dumb comments.

[BoboTheTiny]

Bowsercastle is awesome, I love it. Keep it please.

[Radium]

Originally Posted by BoboTheTiny

Keep it please.

Please no.
And I'd like to see ball_atmosphere in ball ladder, seems like a good map

[Evan20000]

I honestly loved Bowsercastle. I don't think it was very competitve on a league level, but it was sure fun as hell to play.

[Radium]

Well yes, it could be a fun map to play on a pub or whatever, but thats my point, it is not fit to be a competitive map.

[poofighter24]

I am unstoppable on tbd_bowserscastle, unless you have mata on the other team. tbd_scrapyard is 100% win, tbd_underpark's background is WTFDISORIENTING.

Also, I hate ball_asteroids beyond belief. I mean, what is the purpose of those god damned little pebbles? There are no skill shots possible in a competitive 6v6 ladder game, the only way to score is to push your way into a dunk. It's fun for bombers and heavy cannon biplanes because there are so many straightaways to spam into, but anyone flying a light plane is immediately in ball_hell.

Thank you beyond thanks for removing ball_mayhem, that map is absolute hell. Beyond that, a map that is generally universally hated (and trust me, I've played enough ladder games to know what people hate) is ball_lostcity. I mean, cool, it's nostalgic and crap, but it's just not a good ball map. If you fly up, you get nuked to oblivion. If you go through the one ridiculously tiny middle passage, you get nuked twice as hard. The only real way to push to the basket is through the bottom, and that is a cluster**** any time someone drops a wall there. That one passageway is also way overpowered if you have a competent ball carrier pushing it low with whales/bombers and a couple speedy receivers flying up for the lob. Also, what is the purpose of the area behind the goal? All it does is make people crash and any time the ball lands there everyone just says to let the ball die. I don't hate lostcity as much as I hated mayhem, but that's only because the games don't take as long on that map.

I'm not a fan of tbd_focus, but I hate pretty much all neutral bomb maps in general. I also "played" a 31:44 game on focus at 5:00 AM, 25 of which entailed me sitting there watching Matattack rack up 1000 more experience points than I had in the entire game.

-_-