- Feb 17, 2013
- 414
- 488
This is an experimental map, designed to test the actual design strength of the heatmaps.tf tool.
So this is fruition of a discussion I had with Frozen on this thread. The discussion was about whether heatmaps compiled by Geit's heatmaps.tf actually made valid evidence when deciding what direction to take a map. Make no mistake: people do use the heatmap tool to evaluate their map and it is very useful for compiling data on sniper or engineer locations. My fear was that mappers could examine the heatmaps whichever way they liked and come to the conclusion that the heatmap supported the decision they already favoured: effectively a form a confirmation bias. For example: a red splodge on a heatmap indicates both a region which stalemates and is too chokepointy, or a valid hold location that should be reinforced with health and ammo, depending on what the mapper already believed by the time the heatmap was available.
This is made worse by the fact that I do not know of a mapper who hasn't played his own map before studying the data: if the round went poorly, he's already formed strong opinions long before the accompanying data is available, and if by then he's tested several times, then he's able to reinforce his belief and will expect the heatmap to agree with him.
The end result is that heatmaps become effectively useless except in very large data samples where you are unable to attend or watch every match and miss a large proportion of the "sniper/engineer spots".
My testing method: prove that heatmaps can accurately describe gameplay without interference from personal bias by iterating on a map based on heatmap data alone: I will not attend testing sessions; I will not read in-game feedback and I won't even do bot testing.
I plan to iterate a handful of times before taking the blindfold off and examining my handiwork first hand. I'm also getting a friend to test the map technically without spoiling the experience, but please let me know if there are any technical issues as long as you do not reveal the effect they had on the game. I plan to submit each version for playtesting at least 3 times over the course of a month or so and will start examining heatmaps with more than 1000 deaths. I'll try and mix it up between US and EU as well.
TL;DR: Please do not leave feedback on the play as they will be considered spoilers and ruin the experiment: either post your opinions using the spoiler tag (knowing that I won't read them until much later) or wait until I declare the end.
Also, I guess I should apologize for probably inflicting a terrible map on you guys, forcing you to play it a bunch, and then not even fix the issues for the next version. :cool1:
So this is fruition of a discussion I had with Frozen on this thread. The discussion was about whether heatmaps compiled by Geit's heatmaps.tf actually made valid evidence when deciding what direction to take a map. Make no mistake: people do use the heatmap tool to evaluate their map and it is very useful for compiling data on sniper or engineer locations. My fear was that mappers could examine the heatmaps whichever way they liked and come to the conclusion that the heatmap supported the decision they already favoured: effectively a form a confirmation bias. For example: a red splodge on a heatmap indicates both a region which stalemates and is too chokepointy, or a valid hold location that should be reinforced with health and ammo, depending on what the mapper already believed by the time the heatmap was available.
This is made worse by the fact that I do not know of a mapper who hasn't played his own map before studying the data: if the round went poorly, he's already formed strong opinions long before the accompanying data is available, and if by then he's tested several times, then he's able to reinforce his belief and will expect the heatmap to agree with him.
The end result is that heatmaps become effectively useless except in very large data samples where you are unable to attend or watch every match and miss a large proportion of the "sniper/engineer spots".
My testing method: prove that heatmaps can accurately describe gameplay without interference from personal bias by iterating on a map based on heatmap data alone: I will not attend testing sessions; I will not read in-game feedback and I won't even do bot testing.
I plan to iterate a handful of times before taking the blindfold off and examining my handiwork first hand. I'm also getting a friend to test the map technically without spoiling the experience, but please let me know if there are any technical issues as long as you do not reveal the effect they had on the game. I plan to submit each version for playtesting at least 3 times over the course of a month or so and will start examining heatmaps with more than 1000 deaths. I'll try and mix it up between US and EU as well.
TL;DR: Please do not leave feedback on the play as they will be considered spoilers and ruin the experiment: either post your opinions using the spoiler tag (knowing that I won't read them until much later) or wait until I declare the end.
Also, I guess I should apologize for probably inflicting a terrible map on you guys, forcing you to play it a bunch, and then not even fix the issues for the next version. :cool1:
Last edited: