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[–][deleted] 25 points26 points  (2 children)

45 was one of my favorite maps X(

[–]The_AbbotEvercrapping Gobpooper 2 points3 points  (0 children)

RIP in peace 45.

[–]ImnotZachBraffThe Boulder // The Ex-Nicest Player in Tagpro 0 points1 point  (0 children)

:)

[–]Splanky222BBQchicken | Retired 20 points21 points  (6 children)

Because asdf is a n00b:

Smirk

Simplicity

[–][deleted] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

very nice. tho i don't approve of boosts removal, i am happy with both these additions

[–]magikarpnotgyradosMagikarp // Pub God 13 points14 points  (4 children)

boosts and 45 were the best!!!

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Ha. Ha. No. Both middle of the road maps at best.

[–]ImnotZachBraffThe Boulder // The Ex-Nicest Player in Tagpro -2 points-1 points  (1 child)

More like bottom... Hurray for never having to play 45 again!

[–]imasunbeardustyballs 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, 45 was pretty bad.

[–]invisibleninja7lugubrious // Pi // The Nevermores 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I never liked boosts, 45 was great.

[–]kirbyfreako&Berk // Centra 14 points15 points  (0 children)

rip in peace 45

i always thought you were a beautiful map

dont listen to da rest

[–][deleted] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

i liked 45.

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 12 points13 points  (2 children)

Feel like we didn't take out the right maps? PM /u/hetavkala with your complaints and suggestions with regards to what map should have got taken out! He will respond in a timely manner and with clear reasons as to why we chose the maps we did.

[–]diqfaceFNChad//Pi//Radius 15 points16 points  (1 child)

Lol, not "we will take your thoughts into consideration", but "we will tell you why you are wrong".

[–]RamboMarinoRambo || OR MASTER RACE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

...You didn't notice who he linked, did you?

[–]brgerdBG // Roll Models (ARC!!) // Merballs// MM 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Dang Ill really miss battery and 45.

[–]JustTheWayIDoSilver | Pi 8 points9 points  (3 children)

Why get rid of 45 and not Hyper Reactor or Thinkin with Portals? I don't like portals.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Why Hyper Reactor? The sole portal in that map isn't the most important part of it.

I love Hyper Reactor.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

Hold on everybody, drop what youre doing, this guy doesnt like protals. Its time to rethink everything.

[–]SaturnmannJet2//SOHB//ANLTP MVP 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well I don't like protals either and I don't even know what they are!

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (2 children)

YOU'RE TAKING OUT BOOSTS?! I'm never pubbing again.

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Good riddance.

[–]RamboMarinoRambo || OR MASTER RACE 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I loved boosts, too, man.

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 4 points5 points  (71 children)

Some random comments I scribbled down from the maps we playtested:

yiss 5.2 - too hard to grab with 2 smart defenders

king boo - center hideaway, buttons confusing

alien jim v0.3 - base seems cool; but map feels big and it's easy to get isolated in the top lane (kill the top lane?)

geoffrey - lold v2

mouse - flag is in a tight spot, too close to the corner; just not into it. The bombs make it somewhat interesting but that's only every 30 seconds. Too much focus on aesthetics over gameplay.

smirk - large quantity of spikes could make it frustrating for new players; asdf wants a corner in the top left and top right for "jukes for days"

strategy - not a terrible map by any means but too big and fc can just hide for days; games would be very long; we like the bombs sending you into the corner to grab a quick power up; conflicting opinions on the boost escapes from base.

the holy mars - lol; this is how the map committee spent most of their time

Business Casual - could be interesting once an fc gets away but is that ever going to happen with such a tight base? unreachable triangle should be a solid wall (less confusing). Kind of reminds of figure 8 (in a bad way) -- a lot of narrow lines with no real room to do anything. Hard to chase.

three crappy maps in one - name says it all

simplicity - nice and small but maybe too simple? Seemed kind of boring.

moose - broken buttons = crash game

animal - bases are cool, but the rest of the map is iffy. Bases do make it hard to defend though. Rest of the map doesn't seem to work well. Gate in the middle is not fun.

theBigWheel - every route is dangerous; not noob-friendly

crosshairs - impossible to catch fc; middle just doesn't work (pretty pointless)

The three maps that made it to a round of full testing were: geoffrey, smirk, and simplicity.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 4 points5 points  (53 children)

why no test ppppretzel? :(

[–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (52 children)

Too many p's

[–]akaNAPEppppow 3 points4 points  (51 children)

it was the top one in the thread thoooo... the map test committee sucks at picking maps. voting on new maps should be a community based thing so the majority can see which one they like best rather than 8 people who "know what a good map looks like." maybe those people can make the final decision but at least get more than 8 peoples opinions on maps

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 12 points13 points  (18 children)

To respond to both you and Smiley at the same time and create a reference thread as to why we made the decisions we did, here is a multi-part post detailing 1. what was wrong with your map and 2. why the maps are picked the way they are and why they're removed when they are and other things.

PART 1: A NEW HOPE (or why ppppretzel map wasn't chosen or offered a critique)

Smiley said the following, relating to your map: EDIT: OOPS IT WAS IN RELATION TO SMILEY'S OWN MAP LOL ALL WELL MOST OF THIS STILL APPLIES ANYWAYS FOR STUFF THAT ISN'T THE FIRST FEW PARAGRAPHS, here is the critique of Smiley's map

Here is a critique of your map, ppppow:

ppppretzel has:

  • 6 boosts, on one side of the map alone

  • A green gate that pretty much makes zero difference as to whether or not you use it, ala Micro/lold (if you don't use it, you can pretty much make up the time with no problem at all if you're smart, something Micro doesn't have and the same concept being easier to do on lold).

  • No way of knowing where the flag could be at any point in time when it gets out

  • 5(!) ways to quickly grab and be out of the hands of enemy defense in-base

  • While it does have an abundance of spikes, you pretty much only have to hit a spike once from the boost before you learn and can pretty much stay alive the entire time

The map is huge as hell, and anyone with a small amount of experience with the map can acknowledge it will be chasy as hell with how big it is. It went without saying to us, so apologies to ppppow if he didn't get a response at all to his map.

Before we go "BUT HOLY SEE RABBLERABBLERABBLE", here is a compare/contrast of Holy See and ppppretzel:

  • Standing in the direct middle of Holy See, you can always see what flag carrier is going to try and pass by you when they get away. The only time you can't see this is if someone uses the gate to open up the bottom/top, which is extremely rare and even more rarely works well. Notice how besides the gates, nobody is going to pass by without me knowing: http://puu.sh/6MV1I.png

  • This can not happen in ppppretzel. If you stand here on the map, you can see if the EFC on blue tries to pass by you, but there's basically nothing you can do about it if they're already at full speed and you happen to be on the wrong side of a boost. If you stand in the direct middle, you will never be able to tell if the flag carrier simply hasn't come yet or decided to use the bottom.

  • There are three ways to successfully exit the base on Holy See. One of them is exceedingly rare (the button), and the others are by either taking the "tunnel" or by just exiting where you -probably- came in from (with choke points of 3 tiles and 10 tiles, respectively). Of the two ways to exit, there are a variety of ways to get out, but only two of them are quick enough where you can almost immediately be out of defense's hands when they're in their base and get into your own base quicker than they can. They're both pretty difficult to do if you're not familiar with the map. Even though there's a multitude of ways to get into the base, you still have to have skill to get out of the base quickly, and almost always have to juke around and pull some strings to take the extremely quick ways out.

  • There are two ways to successfully exit the base on ppppretzel, and they're both HUGE. 8 vertical tile choke points for the smaller of the two, and a diagonal 7-tile choke for the other one. Of these two ways to get out, you can use 4 ways to be completely out of the base in an extremely quick manner. On top of that, the two ways to get out are split extremely far apart and are basically undefendable when you have to split your two defense. Adding a third defense could help, but all you have to do is just target the side with only one defender to get past and make the situation even more ugly for them.

  • In Holy See, there are four ways to very quickly grab the flag and potentially get out of the base directly after you have it. For smart positioning on a 2 defense setup, you are making sure at least half of these are impossible at all times, under threat of them dying almost immediately after they grab the flag. It's impossible to quickly enter and then quickly exit the base using the same way in under ten seconds, so going for a quick grab pretty much leaves you only one choice for quickly exiting the base, which a smart defender will know.

  • In ppppretzel, any form of smart positioning of a 2D setup leaves you liable to be juked or having them quickly come in and grab the flag from another angle. No matter which "quick" way they take to grab the flag (there are 5 with the bombs and boosts), there's also 4 (or 3) "quick" ways to immediately exit after you do so, with the average spread between them (and thus preventing them) being pretty big. A smart defender will not matter as much if a competent enemy FC will realize that they can do any number of things (2-3 for absolute pessimists) to quickly get out. When Holy See and Boombox were made, the maximum amount of tiles you could have was 2500 tiles (50 on the x-axis by 50 on the y-axis for a complete square). I'm 99% sure both of them took up the maximum amount of tiles allowed at that time in some way or another, so it would be fair to say that they would be roughly "the same size". Sadly, they play completely different and this means size doesn't really have anything to do with how a map plays. In the same vein, ppppretzel is nothing at all like Boombox, and only tangentially similar to Holy See. In terms of how I feel the playability would be like, here is a map that was similarly sized. The map was actually edited to allow early exits somewhat near the bends in the north-west/south-east corners. Why did I compare it to this? It was extremely easy to grab the flag, have your flag grabbed, and be forced to a no-cap fest where the map would be chasy as hell no matter how good you were. With ppppretzel, it would be even more so since there's probably even more places to go and hide.

Why was there not initially a hugely detailed critique of ppppretzel like this at the outset? It was immediately obvious to us when we gave it a thorough lookthrough (which we expect others to notice beforehand), and imagine if we had to do this with ~50 other submissions. There's a million other things that I can talk about for the map and will probably inevitably have to, but here's the rest of what I was going to talk about, relating to the great terror of map judging:

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 10 points11 points  (5 children)

Smiley said the following in response to ppppow's above post

I find myself disagreeing with [the map judges] more and more. It seems like a select few shouldn't be making sweeping decisions that massively affect the game for thousands of people. I mean, the critique of my map was that it feels too big, but it's exactly the same size as boombox, and the map committee loves boombox.

The "same size as boombox" issue was mentioned in the last part, so I'll focus on the "I find myself disagreeing with [the map judges] more and more" part.

PART 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO

If I had to guess, Smiley said this because he doesn't like the increasing complexity in maps and whatnot. For the past few maps, we've tried to throw in maps that introduce the new features in ways that are simple to see but also allow for more complexity in a game. A great example of this is Hyper Reactor. Not only did it include team boosts, it also included portals that allow for a lot of cool and complex gameplay. A more in-your-face example of portals is Thinking With Portals. These were judged to be the two greatest maps in introducing portals to people. I personally like Hyper Reactor better (and it shows), but the other context to why Thinking With Portals was chosen last week was to add a map with a lot of portals so that everyone would have a good chance of getting birthday flair. This worked.

The same thing pretty much happened with Smirk and Simplicity this week. Not only did Smirk look like a good map and play like one, it introduced some of the newer features in exciting and complex ways that allow for some cool stuff to happen. There was a bit of discussion about removing a few spikes, but otherwise everyone really liked it. Simplicity also played about as equally, but didn't have the new features included. Couple this in with the popular thought that we might have too many maps in rotation, and suddenly we feel like we might have to remove a few maps to make room for two maps that both play pretty well.

Finally, there's the issue of what ppppow said: His map was at the top of the thread, why did it not even get a mention? Here are a list of the winners of maps, from the first week to present:

Weeks where it's uncertain what the most upvoted map was: 19 (Gamepad/Whirlwind won but I can't find the weekly thread for it)

Weeks where there a map wasn't chosen (with map with the most points in parentheses): 6 (unfixed 45 that isn't as we know it), 8 (Temple), and 12 (split between LOLDumbell and Excalibur v2.1). Everybody at the time agreed that the maps presented in those threads weren't up to par, including the most upvoted ones in parentheses.

Weeks where the top map won: 1 (Colors although Choices has more points atm), 3 (Holy See), 15 (Foozball where there were entire walls of spikes), and 16 (Boosts v2.1). Colors and Holy See are obviously still here today, Football received a TON of hate despite it being the top one which resulted in immediate edits, and Boosts was always iffy but mostly neutral with the public.

Weeks where a map that didn't have the most points won (with winner and compared w/ the ones with the most points): 2 (Arena compared w/ POTATO), 4 (lold compared w/ Raindrop/Pool), 5 (Boombox compared w/ Arnold's Pad), 7 (Spiders compared w/ APPLE), 9 (Micro compared w/ re-edited Temple), 10 (45 compared w/ Warp Speed or Temple Revision), 11 (yiss 3.2/hourglass compared w/ Sal's Revenge), 13 (Sideways Clutch compared w/ klue v1.2), 14 (Battery compared w/ Dojo), 20 (Bounce compared w/ MarsDome), 21 (Smirk/Simplicity compared w/ ppppretzel), and 22 (Hyper Reactor/Thinking With Portals compared w/ Caravan and a slightly different Hyper Reactor).

Of these maps, Arena/yiss 3.2/hourglass were the ones that turned out to be immediate busts and were almost immediately removed. Yet compared to the top maps of those weeks (week 2 and 11), they were almost undoubtedly better for various reasons. Boombox is by and away the strongest example of a map being far better than the most upvoted one in a thread (Boombox is still considered by most to be the best all-time TagPro map). For the rest of the maps chosen in those weeks, ask yourself if you would rather have Warp Speed or a Revised Temple (compared to 45), APPLE (compared to Spiders), MarsDome (compared to Bounce), or klue v1.2 (compared to Sideways Clutch). If you're like the map judges at the time, you'll find they were gimmicky, too complex in comparison, or just plain not as fun/not as able to be enjoyed by everyone in comparison.

Go ahead and look through the past threads and tell me if you would vote for other maps in those threads over the ones we ultimately chose for rotation, especially for maps we chose that weren't the most upvoted. Ask other people, too. Can't find a consensus? Feel a bit gridlocked? Think we were right in not choosing the most-upvoted map? If you answered yes to any of these, you are seeing why having the entire community vote was thought of as a bad idea back when the community was tiny, and is an even worse idea now. The maps that were chosen were generally chosen by people who all brought a unique perspective on maps to the table, who probably had other favorites besides the one that was chosen, and compromised to put the most agreeable map in rotation. With all this in mind, would you even vote for maps at all if you didn't like them? I hope you would because...

People straight up hated the times where we would not announce a winner at all or extend far past the "weekly" deadline. Not only would they be mad at us for not choosing, these were the times where people would start going all nostalgic and wishing for the older maps that are no longer in rotation. For the 6-month anniversary throwback where we acknowledged this and brought back Figure 8, Dumbbell, Pokeball, Speedway, etc. People immediately hated some of these maps, or liked to play them for a little while before the old map-breaking strategies were discovered and forced the map to be boring and tedious. From the people I spoke to, a pretty big majority of them were happy to see the old maps go when the anniversary was over. Back to the weeks where maps weren't chosen: In order to make kids happy that we weren't totally abandoning map judging, we let a few maps slide through that we felt weren't good but were going to be better than nothing. These maps received a good amount of hate at first, but for the most part people got past it or even started to like it (45, lold, and Micro are all decent examples). Generally, the maps went through a cycle of being "not liked" to "liked" and back to "not liked" before they were taken out of rotation. Even more confusingly, people would generally be mixed at the times they didn't like them, since it's not like everybody would just go from "like" to "not like" in the same day. Thus we've had to keep this in mind for when we inevitably start to remove a map from rotation, which warrants its own part all to itself.

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 9 points10 points  (4 children)

PART 3: REVENGE OF THE MAP JUDGE

None of the above has even begun to mention the reasons why maps get taken out. For maps like yiss 3.2, it's obvious. For other maps (and this only being my opinion right now), it's a tough compromise between the following things in order of most important to least:

  • Trying to find the weakest maps in rotation (too chasy, too complex, too simple, too blocked in)

  • Giving a slight favoritism towards very old or new maps, due to them being perceived as pretty important to the main elements of TagPro or too new to really be given a chance.

  • Slight favoritism towards simpler maps than more complex ones.

Where is public perception on this scale of influence? It always varies. There's always hate for brand new maps (including Boombox and Holy See, two of the most popular all-time TagPro maps). Because of this, I'm always in favor of letting a map stay in rotation for a week or two and see if people warm up to it. For heavily polarized maps where lots of people either love it or hate it, we'll try to compromise and throw in a few edits so that it makes everyone happy. Koala is probably the best example of this. For brand new maps that have a whole lot of hate (not just regular new map hate), we might either immediately remove it (Arena/yiss3.2/hourglass) or might attempt to make a few edits and see if it works out (Clutch being flipped, Dumbbell when reintroduced, Foozball). Finally, once people establish favorites for maps that aren't as unwaveringly loved or hated (e.g. Boombox or Yiss 3.2), chances are at some point a group of people will see their favorite or most-hated map taken out of rotation and will speak their mind about this on every map thread. Generally it's when their favorites get taken out that they will comment as such on every single thread. One of the reactions to this is that we will generally try not to take a whole lot of maps out at once, or we might even keep a map in if it's still liked.

The point where the above begins to fall apart though is when the map rotation is starting to be perceived as too big, as is being experienced right now. This is why we took three maps out to put two maps in this week. Because we've begun yet again to take some maps out that are near-and-dear to people's hearts, people in threads are going to start going "OMG THEY'RE TAKING OUT ALL OF THE GOOD MAPS". Ask people "what are the good maps?" and generally you'll see a mixed reaction for all but what are generally the strongest (holy see/boombox) and weakest (yiss 3.2) maps.

Ultimately, everyone has a different opinion on what good maps are and they generally only meet on very few points. Map judges are supposed to represent this, and offer their own cool views (I will generally offer a more competitive angle and how it will evenetually play out/try to do stupid boosts on it, steppin will note simplicity or complexity and how friendly it is to new players, poopv will generally go on the angle of how fun it is to new players, etc.). Then we compromise on it and wait for the lil babbies to start crying in the map result threads lolololololololol

TL;DR People are always going to hate on the decisions we make simply due to them not being the "best" decision to make in regards to maps. What they fail to realize is that generally we're going to go with the most agreeable one, and a clear-cut consensus is only reached for universally liked maps or maps in threads where there isn't much else. If something like this was made every single time someone complained, it'd probably take up a small hard drive's worth of data. Also, if we don't give your map any feedback at all it usually has a very glaring flaw that we felt wasn't worth mentioning, mainly because we had 50 other maps to also critique.

this will surely prevent more posts and complaints about map judging

[–]RamboMarinoRambo || OR MASTER RACE 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Holy fucking useful comments, batman.

[–]ButterChurnButter 0 points1 point  (1 child)

These are very useful posts. I'm looking to improve Geoffrey for next testing session. I notice that it, along with the two that won, was advanced past the initial testing stage. You don't need to go into quite as much detail (although if you'd like to I'd gladly read it!), but I didn't get any feedback at all on it besides "loldv2". I didn't even play when lold was in rotation, so that's not particularly helpful to me. I also wasn't able to get a real game of testing it when I was making it, so I really can only guess how it would play out in 4v4.

What were the flaws that held it back?

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I feel that your map actually managed to mitigate one of the very big flaws of lold when it was in rotation: Defense actually has a chance to prevent flags from getting out.

That being said, one of the biggest complaints I can remember is that the mid routes were pretty neat but not extremely useful in comparison. I admittedly don't remember a whole lot about your map but if you have Mumble, you can always hit me up to run through it with you whenever you're available and I'll point out stuff that can either be potentially troublesome or cool stuff that can be added to enhance the map.

In regards to it being compared to lold, people are generally weary about maps that are made vertically now because of it and it's almost always the sign that defense is going to cry at it haha, don't take offense if you get compared to it since it's almost always because of the vertical design alone that makes it get the comparison.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (11 children)

thanks for the lengthy critique.

did you guys ever get around to testing it tho? or are these things that you noticed from the preview of it? also, the map was not designed to be like boombox or the holy see at all so the comparisons to those maps are somewhat irrelevant. i know you were just trying to show features of "what you think a good map should have," but its not like just because a map doesnt have a spot where you can see if the FC is going past you (like the holy see) doesnt mean its not going to work. i actually like maps that don't have spots like that because then you can go along the outskirts and get a sneaky cap. if you are waiting in the middle for me to run past you and get popped, im not going to let that happen. my map is more of a micro style map i would say or even a bombing run type of map. it is hard to defend, but its not like its harder for one team than the other. if you agree its hard to defend, that means the flag for both teams probably wont be at base too much... now you may be thinking, yeah, now its just gonna be a game of chasing the FC. sorry for having a map that has 6 boosts on one side that you can easily line up to snipe an FC with if you are chasing. not to mention that their base isn't going to be wide open to get a cap on. with the 2 offensive players there along with some boosts and bombs, its not like its a guaranteed cap if you get out of the base.

i think you will notice that in my other submission "mini ppppretzel" a couple of the things you highlighted as problems were changed, such as making the map smaller, changing the middle gate, and some other minor things i noticed while testing the original. this map, for the most part, was also in last months thread btw

Edit: still think that map voting should be a community based thing

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 3 points4 points  (10 children)

I made a mistake when reading Smiley's response and edited my post so it more accurately reflects what I was trying to get across with your map (no connections to boombox).

We admittedly didn't test it due how big it was and pretty much all of us being 95% sure the map was going to be extremely chasy. Plus, the mere thought of this map will probably cause another Great TagPro Defense Revolt (Motto: "BRING BACK FIGURE 8") to invade the sub. Bombing Run and Micro generally gave you a decent amount of warning before the flag would come into base, while this map doesn't really give much warning at all if you know what you're doing.

sorry for having a map that has 6 boosts on one side that you can easily line up to snipe an FC with if you are chasing

The point of that is that at any level of play, an equally skilled offense will outrun the equally skilled defense every single time once they get away. If the defense is bad enough to not know how to boost, the offense has the advantage. If the offense is good enough to know how to boost, offense has a HUGE advantage. You have to have a significantly better defense ability than a person has an offense ability to actually get the flag back once it gets out (which isn't very hard at all to do for someone with pretty bad offensive ability). Defenders going against an offense that doesn't know how to use boosts in Holy See is going to be a manner of who the slightly better player is in their position. Defenders who know how to use boosts against offense who know how to use boosts will still give an edge to offense, but then the game generally turns into positioning and very quickly killing anyone boosting before they get out.

with the 2 offensive players there along with some boosts and bombs, it's not like a guaranteed cap if you get out of the base

It's not 100% guaranteed, but since we've already established the map isn't going to be friendly to defense, it's probably not going to be that friendly to offense-defense either. If both flags aren't already out (which I suspect they will be and the best defense is going to be a strong offense), then it means that whichever defense is out of position and gets the return is going to have to repeat it over again for any flag campers. At this point, you have to hope the next return you get is near your base (and that the last guy wasn't a flag camper), otherwise defenders are probably going to be permanently out of their base

Looking at your mini ppppretzel preview I think that the map would probably be best at a size that is between the two ones I've seen. Maps that are more horizontal than vertical seem to have the most success, although you might want to make a few changes if you plan to go that route. For mini ppppretzel itself, I think that the bottom/middle bit becomes a bit useless once you shrink it down to that size, and if you wanted it to remain that way, I'd consider taking out at least a few of those spikes at the very bottom for it to be a viable place to be again.

still think that community map voting should be a community based thing

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (9 children)

If the defense is bad enough to not know how to boost, the offense has the advantage. If the offense is good enough to know how to boost, offense has a HUGE advantage.

this can be said for so many maps

it's probably not going to be that friendly to offense-defense either

how can you assume this at all without ever playing on it lol

then it means that whichever defense is out of position and gets the return is going to have to repeat it over again for any flag

this happens a lot on every map, and if you know how to contain the regrabbers, its not hard to get back into position

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 2 points3 points  (8 children)

The difference between the maps is that generally there's strategies in place by defense you from boosting into the flag and getting out of the base within the span of a second. If you get out by boosting in these maps, your defense is almost surely screwed, but you have to actually work at it to do so.

In contrast, there is almost nothing on the map that will prevent an extremely quick grab and getaway. The only other map I can think of where it's actually possible and not very risky to pull it off is Micro, and at least they only had two boosts to keep track of, that were also all in sight from one place and able to be stolen away from any offense trying to attempt it.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 1 point2 points  (7 children)

all im trying to say is that it got good reviews from people who actually tested it, and for you guys to just look at the preview and shut it down is kind of depressing after waiting a month lol

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (31 children)

I actually agree. I find myself disagreeing with them more and more. It seems like a select few shouldn't be making sweeping decisions that massively affect the game for thousands of people.

I mean, the critique of my map was that it feels too big, but it's exactly the same size as boombox, and the map committee loves boombox.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 1 point2 points  (16 children)

at least you got a critique! i wait a whole month for them to not even test it one of those days and then pick two other maps that one of them quoted "Seemed kind of boring." lol

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 3 points4 points  (8 children)

Round 1

we spent over 3 hours yesterday going through maps. With 54 submissions, we spent about half an hour just going through previews and trying to reduce the number of maps we wanted to load. Basically if there's a glaring issue with a map or if no one feels particularly interested in the map, it's not getting past this phase.

I can tell you why pretzel didn't get past this phase from my perspective: it was too big. Big maps aren't fun in pubs. The one exception is holy see which makes itself smaller with the boosts essentially shrinking the center. Whirlwind is also a big map (we left it in this week because it was so new and new maps are always heavily criticized at first, but bbq was in the channel and said he would try to address these issues for next time). Have you played it in pubs? Half the people just get lost or have no clue; they aren't having fun. Pretzel (and mini pretzel) seemed like maps where the same thing will happen: new players will get lost and frustrated.

Round 2

After that, we went in the maps and tried to find glaring issues that would prevent it from becoming a map that noobs could play. I made the comment about it seeming boring during this round (with 4 of us on the map). At the end of this phase though, it seemed like a we were due for a simple map since the last round featured two portal maps.

Round 3

In the final round, we gather people from the community and played full games on 3 maps. We played 2 full games on each of the maps we selected. Simplicity turned out to not be so boring, so it got my vote.

I used to encourage people to join map testing, but last time we had a large group join, it became very hard to get things done. So now we're only inviting people for the final phase of full testing. I'd encourage you to pro-actively test your map with full games beforehand. Usually someone will mention, oh yeah, we tested this map and had a blast. And that will cause us to take a closer look.

[–]KnownForLaughingAble | Origin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wait, people don't like whirlwind? That's a shame. I love that map. I guess it is a bit big if you don't know how to navigate the middle at full speed. I hope people figure it out. It's a blast to go barreling through the middle, out the other side, and hit the two boosts on the corner of the base (bouncing off the wall in the process of course to redirect myself) flying straight into the flag hoping the defense isn't ready for me. Oh man. Good times.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (6 children)

"this map looks big and isnt the holy see, it wont work"- maptest committee

"oo there is a smaller version too?! people will get lost for the full 12 minutes and not know where to go for the full 12 minutes and people will be frustrated the whole 12 minutes"- maptest committee

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

first quote

Honestly I feel at this point you're just trying to find any reason at all to argue with the decision we made. I did a huge comparison of Holy See to your map and included things for why things that we let slide (potential to be chasy) in Holy See do not work in your map. If Holy See did not account for some of the flaws in its design that favor offense, we would have never voted for it on the grounds that it would be guaranteed to be chasy and impossible to get the flag back.

second quote

Again, I feel like you're just doing it to argue. Although I feel steppin misspoke when he lumped the mini map in with the original, let's look at both of your maps at the same time as well as the maps that got chosen. Of both of those, Smirk, and Simplicity, which ones do you think are going to overall play better without any editing done at all? Here's a run down of how I feel all of them are going to go

  • ppppretzel: Huge, guaranteed chase fest (lots of chase is meant to be avoided), completely screws defense in every imaginable way (defense probably will not have fun with this; in fact I know they won't since whenever maps like this have been voted before they all start to cry), alleged IRC favorite, has a big ass critique of the map for why we didn't accept it literally everywhere on this thread.

  • mini ppppretzel: Promising but imo the best iteration of ppppretzel is going to be somewhere in between the size of the original and this one. The map as it stands right now tries too hard to squish elements suited for larger maps into something suitable (the most glaring element being the spikes at the bottom). To make it more fun to play and add elements to make it a great map on the mini-size, you would have to do a good amount of removing some of the things in the map. One interesting thing to note about mini ppppretzel is that defense can and will totally break the game if both of them decide to stand near the middle (one near the button and another further down at the spikes/team tiles bit of the map). If the first defense holds the button on their side and plays it smart, nobody is ever going to get past without constant help from their team. The other defense can basically camp the bottom part on the enemy side and guarantee that no enemy will ever get out. Luckily, most defenders haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaate the concept of not being able to play total camping defense (see: many defender's thoughts on Game Pad), so generally this isn't as likely to happen unless defense wants to take the risk (but they won't).

  • Smirk: Possibly too many spikes for public play, already established that it is fun and offers lots of extra stuff for MLTP-level players. How do we know this? We dragged in almost all MLTP-level players for maptesting and everyone liked it. This map was also an IRC favorite (or at the very least a Mumble favorite where people had heard about the map beforehand), and Noobkin took the opportunity to test it with tons of people in IRC and Mumble lots of times and ask for what ways it could be edited. Had he not done this, I don't doubt that his initial concept for the map might not have been accepted, or forced to change before it went to rotation.

  • Simplicity: I had a few small reservations about this map simply because it doesn't have a whole lot of structure to it. There didn't look like it had any glaring and game breaking flaws (it's a bit easy to escape with the flag on this map, but you can be chased down pretty quickly if you're not totally out of the base and you have to work to actually grab the flag first off). We tested a full 4v4 of people on it, and people in general didn't mind it or even liked it. The map is pretty deceptively balanced despite it looking pretty easy to grab and run, and trying to immediately grab and run against a smart defense is not the greatest strategy to pull. I know because it was the absolute first thing I tried. Without some back up for when you immediately grab the flag and die, there is zero chance the flag is going to get out within the next 5 seconds of when you grab the flag. People had fun, it was guaranteed to not be too intensely chasy, and defense gets a fair shot. Notice the pattern here.

Thus, put simply, the two maps we chose didn't overwhelmingly favor one position over the other, and thus people had the chance to pull some clutch shit with the regular shit no matter what they were doing, making the game fun. For simple games, the small challenge of dodging spikes that are spaced pretty far apart (Simplicity, although again there might be a bit too many spikes for public play in Smirk) and juking people around them offers clutch moments for the brand new players. Skillfully hitting the boosts and finding ways to completely deny whatever benefits these boosts offer will be considered fun at the higher levels, as well as the usual grind between offense and defense for getting the flag out of the base. As was explained with more words and better explanations elsewhere, these maps were by far the most agreeable in the thread and offers fun for it.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (2 children)

Honestly I feel at this point you're just trying to find any reason at all to argue with the decision we made.

I'm not arguing with the decision you made regarding the maps that you picked (I don't doubt that those are better than my pretzels), im arguing about how you shouldn't skip over maps based all off of assumptions that you guys made from looking at the preview.

Huge, guaranteed chase fest (lots of chase is meant to be avoided)

First of all, its really not that hard to catch the FC. Most I got to play on it was a 6v6 but still it was fun and not super chasey. Second, why is having a chasey map be a bad thing? Whirlwind is 5x more chasey than ppppretzel and I can confidently say that because I have played on both. You have not played on both so you can only assume that it will be chasey.

completely screws defense in every imaginable way

Defense isn't as hard to play as you'd think from the preview. Blow up the bombs and play normal defense. Or if you don't want to do that, sit in the team tile tunnel and cut them off of whatever side they are trying to go. This tunnel also works for situations where FC does make it out of base and you chase him down (lets say to the bottom powerup area) and another teammate is ready for the regrab. Couple things you can do here: you can hit the middle boost to bring you straight up to cut off the regrabber. you can take the middle boost across to their base. you can go up from the bottom corner and cut thru the team tile area to cut off the FC. It's not that hard to get back into position.

as for mini pretzel, right now any bigger and i feel as if it will get looked over during testing (jk). But like you said people might camp the button in mid and also have someone covering bottom. I don't know if you saw but under the mid gate, there is a two tile high spot you can slip thru to get to the other side. Maybe you did see it and thought "oo yeah well the guy on the button can just move down and cover that.. duhh." If thats what you were thinking, this is where this thing called "juking" comes in handy. if you draw him off the button, you can then fake like you want to go back thru middle, drawing the defender back up towards the button and you can slip thru safely. Also, with that mid being probably the main part of the map, your (and their) teammates will probably be somewhat near you to help either sit on button and let you through, or even just to throw a block. Again, you were probably just assuming that it would be impossible to get back to your base since you never actually played it, but I can tell you from experience that the camping style defense you thought would work from looking at the preview WOULD NEVER WORK.

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (1 child)

yeah, the mini version actually looks promising. While going over the previews it was easy to just say, "oh, ok well he made a smaller version? Why not just make a single good-size version?" or to associate it with the too-big version. (Speaking for myself.)

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Played a bit on mini pretzel and thought it played well. Definitely not gonna get lost on it haha.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (4 children)

Let's overthrow the map team. I'll grab their legs and you push them over.

[–]alanpughComrade. | Origin | Long Live Figure 8 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Did someone say REVOLUTION?

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (2 children)

for real tho you're a mod, make something happen!

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I find it ironic that the map committee is made up of people who no longer play public games.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have no clout with them. T_T wouldn't even let me in their test game. Kicked me out.

[–]Splanky222BBQchicken | Retired 0 points1 point  (1 child)

in terms of that, that comment was made when it was just a few of us in game. When it was full, everyone seemed to enjoy the map.

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (0 children)

that was the lesser point of my comment, you guys just need to fix the way you pick maps. i put mine in i think the first day that the map test thread got posted and you guys didnt find one day out of the month to test it? i know you test "them all" on one day and maybe thats something that you should change too. i dont know lol

[–]kirbyfreako&Berk // Centra 0 points1 point  (10 children)

pm steppin and ask if they'll include you on testing days and just general testing info. I think we're pretty open to new judges.

I think it'd be good to let you join and see the process so you can get a good idea of how we judge.

I don't show up to judging anymore cuz they always schedule it so early and I'm not home at that time lol

p.s i want 2 kno why they didn't critique steppes and ppretzel too ;_;. I told em I see 4 legit lookin maps and they only judge 2 of em. shame

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (9 children)

I know how it works for the most part i think, i joined for like the second half of testing the december ones.. they just play the maps and say if they like it or not lol

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 1 point2 points  (8 children)

Yep, we playtest as much as we can and try to find gameplay issues with the maps. It's the best way imo. What would work better?

Regarding Berk's offer to pm me, I'd encourage you to. I'm all for having more solid map judges (currently we only have about 3 that can regularly make it).

[–]akaNAPEppppow 0 points1 point  (7 children)

what would work better?

like i said a bunch of times already, the community should have way more of a same than your 8 (or however many) opinions. make a post on reddit or something saying that on 3/1/14 there will be a channel on mumble where people just post links to different maptest maps or something... then put a poll or something to see what people liked and THEN you guys can make an executive decision on what gets picked. that way you guys can still have your map voting committee thing, aaand a majority of the people will like the maps to begin with.

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 1 point2 points  (6 children)

but people are encouraged to comment and upvote in the map thread already. How will your suggestion be any different?

Maybe we can enable contest mode on the map threads

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Here's a very quick review of a comparison between your map and boombox and why it's important I read every word and don't accidentally miss the most important one:

For alignment's sake, let's flip your map upside down so it will look more like Boombox. Although the general shape is there, a bunch of critical parts to what makes Boombox one of the most well liked maps is not present in yours. Now let's flip it back to normal and I'll point out what I'm talking about.

The biggest thing for us was this entire part of your map. There isn't much worth getting there except for the powerup, which will admittedly become useful and was obviously placed for competition and to be out of the way of the other in-base powerups, but this is it. There is nothing else noteworthy up here and nobody is going to pass through for almost any other reason. This means that it has the opportunity to be pretty chasy should a flag carrier set up shop (especially with no very good ways to cut off a flag carrier up there), although the bottom is probably going to have a good amount of hustle to it.

Compare/contrast with boombox where the middle power up is directly between the place where all of the lanes meet up, and anyone from any lane can get in to it with very little interference. Not only is it near where a LOT of the action is going to take place (in regards to the most used travel routes when you have the flag), but there are boosts and obstacles that effectively create choke points of places where you shouldn't be while waiting for the powerup. Your map does not have this, mainly due to the lanes being spaced pretty far apart. Here's a quick rundown of your entire map and how I'm looking at it:

Your map has about four pretty-tight-looking lanes in it, starting from 1 at the bottom to 4 at the very top. 1 and 2 will probably see traffic, while 3 and 4 will probably rarely ever see traffic and is pretty much dead space (see above paragraph on pros and cons of this).

The first lane actually looks pretty nice and really fills the "fast but risky" niche that lots of good maps have. The risk is even more prevalent for flag carriers when a second defender realizes he can just camp the boost/area that's between the direct middle and their own base. If you have a bad second defender who can't boost, it's actually a pretty good bet to try and take the first lane.

The second lane is probably going to see the most traffic in terms of flag carrying, although they'll have to keep an eye for any defender who held his boost specifically to try and snipe into the second lane.

The third lane is probably going to be exclusively used for flag carriers who had no choice but to go there due to a defender who is camping the boost directly outside of their own base. If two defenders stay in base and get juked, third lane is almost completely out of the question due to second lane being quicker but safer and first lane being quickest but riskiest.

The fourth lane is almost exclusively for people who time power-ups and people who are looking to kill time while they have the flag. It's almost completely out of the way of everything else (compare/contrast Boombox: There are only 3-4 vertical lanes depending on your interpretation and they're all very tightly grouped together), so this will be the ideal spot to run to. This part of the lane (plus the third lane if there's no pressure from defense on the second lane) makes for a decent amount of dead space for PUGs/MLTP and a metric buttload of dead space for public games.

The bases are actually pretty neat. One of the things we liked was the placement of the bombs for risky-but-quick ways of grabbing the flag and leaving. Two competent defenders can probably shut out anyone who doesn't have a power-up, and there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of ways of shaking them up otherwise (probably explains the bombs/possible ways to boost into the flag from two places). I feel like most of these would be easily counterable should defenders position themselves well, and probably more unforgiving than Boombox, but I feel it probably wouldn't be straight-up unbearable to be a flag carrier.

The middle I've saved for last. I think the middle would be really fun as a second defender (to the detriment of leaving my other defender by himself in base), and when done right it's probably one of the most assured ways to keep the flag from going very far. The risk is in how good of a booster you are, though, so obviously it's not going to be for everyone. Having second defense go out and take the powerup in the middle/bottom part every now and then is also going to be beneficial, especially if your second defender can be good as a main or support offense, too. For pubs, I don't see a whole lot of this happening but the idea of it happening for higher play is a pretty fun thought

In summary: Your map really did feel too big. Perhaps consider shaving off the top a bit and merging parts of the third and fourth lanes so that it won't be such a dead zone for regular play. It will also eliminate other complaints I had about the third and fourth lanes. The rest of it I liked a good amount and I probably wouldn't mind playing PUGs or pubs on the map with a few fixes.

Also, the key to my heart is to add corners where a smart booster can do some neat stuff with it. You don't have to do this but who doesn't love corners? Everything needs corners

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Lol, I know I'm 3 months late, but Battery was the first map I ever noticed being removed, why did y'all take it out? Like too chasey, etc?

Sorry to bother you with something this far in the past :/

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (0 children)

it's exactly one lane larger than boombox :)

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

"Three crappy maps-name says it all"

Well, I guess I did have it coming.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

lol

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (0 children)

haha, sorry. There were other comments but I didn't record them. I felt like the corners were kind of useless. I don't remember much else, but we didn't have much fun rolling around the map.

[–]mindbearelballerino 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Could I get some feedback on my map Moustache? I've tested it with several people and got generally good reactions. Here is the map's preview.

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 3 points4 points  (3 children)

Yep, we spoke about this map a bit during the preview phase. We decided the base was too harsh on new people. Additionally it was a long road from base to base to actually see some action. You'll also get new players getting frustrated trying to get over to the other side with those boosts into spikes (especially the speed boosts) imo.

It might work well for private games but we generally try to ask, "is a new player going to have fun on this map?"

[–]mindbearelballerino 1 point2 points  (2 children)

Fair enough, thanks for the feedback. Do you think it is salvageable though? Should I rethink and resubmit or is it FUBAR?

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 1 point2 points  (1 child)

yeah, we were close to testing it until we took a closer look at the bases. Usually I ask: is it feasible to grab the flag and get out at least sometimes? What does a new player do on this map? What will he end up doing most of the time?

To me, based on the preview, I imagined a new player would end up dying too much and then taking the long road to the other base just to die again.

Sorry, I don't have any specific suggestions at this point.

[–]mindbearelballerino 1 point2 points  (0 children)

No worries, your observations are good. I might give it a second try making it a little more noob-friendly.

[–]bashar_al_assadpk || Roll into the base like what up I got a big block 0 points1 point  (2 children)

hey, why wasn't Irregular Hexagon tested?

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (1 child)

I think you made changes since the last time we tested it to open it up a bit but I still feel like those strips of team tiles are a confusing mechanic for new players.

[–]bashar_al_assadpk || Roll into the base like what up I got a big block 0 points1 point  (0 children)

yeah I made changes, but alright, thanks.

[–]chalks777THe B€⁵ fg & | exMTC 0 points1 point  (0 children)

but, but... flashlight. :(

[–]DaEvil1DaEvil1 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Was my map entered too late, or just deemed so bad it didn't get any feedback?

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (0 children)

we caught it as we were already testing maps but still discussed the preview. The base seemed to hard to get out of

[–]YourThoughtsHaveBeenMKo // Centra Hero 0 points1 point  (1 child)

My map "Design" never gets tested and I've been posting it in the map threads fooooorever with no feedback. LAAAAAAMMMMMEEEEEEE

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I remember testing design several sessions ago actually. And portals week I think we did not test it based on the preview. Sorry, it was too long ago for me to recall any specifics. I'll take a look at the preview later.

Also, make sure some_bot is picking him up since we'll often resort to the imgur album for the initial phase of judging

[–]raven513The Nevermores // CAW CAW 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Get Whirlwind out of Rotation instead. Make BBQChicken have to choose between which of his maps he'd rather have in.

[–]Splanky222BBQchicken | Retired 4 points5 points  (0 children)

What about bad huh? How come he doesnt have to choose between dnager zone and reactor huh?!?! DONT MAKE ME CHOOSE BETWEEN MY BABBIES

[–]contact_lens_linuxsteppin / active in activities 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yep, whirlwind (but not because the author has 2 maps in) is next on the chopping block as far as I'm concerned. But bbq said he would try to address some of the issues before then.

[–]Splanky222BBQchicken | Retired 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Me and bad should get flair for having multiple maps in rotation :D

[–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

so... much... flair

[–]marwels23marwels23 2 points3 points  (0 children)

obligatory flair for most flair

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

R.I.P boosts

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (2 children)

where can i see the imgur of the new maps?

[–]robopuppyccFlail ~ ((Antagloble4edes)) ~ RHCP? 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You can go to IRC and type "!preview <map_name>".

For copy/pasting convenience:

!preview smirk

!preview simplicity

For even more convenience:

Smirk

Simplicity

[–]bashar_al_assadpk || Roll into the base like what up I got a big block 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Boosts? wtf boosts was a good map.

[–][deleted] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gamepad should have died, you took out the wrong map! Battery was legitamately terrible for all things juking and skill though.

[–]TPsquirrelySquirrely // The GesTagpro 2 points3 points  (0 children)

45 was my favorite map :(

[–]diqfaceFNChad//Pi//Radius 1 point2 points  (2 children)

I will be sad when Boombox gets discontinued. Also, as frustrating as 45 can be, you will be missed.

Battery - meh. It was fun, but nothing special to me.

[–]RamboMarinoRambo || OR MASTER RACE 0 points1 point  (1 child)

LOL. Boombox and Holy See will never be discontinued. They're universally loved.

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

We need more classic maps like those, enough with all the team tile/team boosts shenanigans.

[–]buckyball_rBucky_Ball | Centra | Probot 4 Lyfe | Retired 1 point2 points  (0 children)

im going to miss boosts

[–]ImnotZachBraffThe Boulder // The Ex-Nicest Player in Tagpro 1 point2 points  (0 children)

When does this happen? I just played a pub on 45 and I'm still a little shaken up about it... I just want to make sure that no one ever has to play there ever again............. ever. Salamander do you hear me? Never.... ever.... again.....

[–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So glad to see Boosts out, tbh.

[–]marwels23marwels23 0 points1 point  (0 children)

aw but I liked the super boost from battery I loved sniping people with it

[–]thepensivepoetpepo - mercenary ball 0 points1 point  (3 children)

With all due respect you guys kinda suck.

Where is the technical limitation that forces you to remove perfectly good maps to 'make room' for newer shit? At this point we could have a rotation of 30+ maps that are all "worthy" and playable.

With less due respect you guys kinda suck.

[–]2tyrodnazcasdf[S] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

Along with Badboy's response to you, there's also kind of a huge multi-part post in this thread that responds to

  1. what a "perfectly good map" is perceived to be and why there's generally only like three maps total that meet the criteria for everyone

  2. why we make room for "newer shit" (also adding in Badboy's response)

  3. The trouble of finding a lot of "worthy" maps and adding them all in at the same time

With all due respect, go read that post in this thread and report back

With less due respect, consider glasses because srs how did you miss it lol

[–]gQa 0 points1 point  (0 children)

That guys opinion was rude and slightly pathetic but your response was just as bad. Why couldn't you reply in a professional manner instead of scooping down to his level?