3 Reasons Why Community pl Maps Fail

It sounds like your message boils down to "make pl maps just like Goldrush and Badwater". In other words: conformism.

PS: Since when is dark "dull". If that is true, half the great first person shooters out there are all "dull".

I just generally don't understand what you mean by what you said though as I don't know much about more modern payload maps. The less modern ones are generally good. I know that.

You don't believe the custom pl maps are popular because of those reasons and your personal observations, but the truth is that it is exactly those maps that are the most popular (proper) custom maps out there.

http://www.tf2stats.net/top_maps/
If you ignore all the achievement/idle/dm/surf/orange/valve maps... You would find that the custom pl maps we have, are by far the most popular gamemode and most played custom maps.

The problem is in the end not the maps, but the players/servers who only plays whatever valve feeds them. This is the only reason why custom maps doesn't stand a chance against the valve maps, it has nothing to do with unbalance or simple design or perfect looking themes, good mapnames or ANYTHING else.

It's the valve stamp that does it. Someone could build the BEST map ever, it could be flawless in every aspect. but it would never beat 2fort in popularity, even though it is PERFECT! Sad but true!

Editadd: You and your friends enjoy pl_hoodoo (afaik I've understood), the problem I'm getting at is that you would probably call that a 'fail' map aswell if it weren't for the valve tag it now has.

And to the poster below, Flying Chicken: That is the worst post I've read around here in months.

3 reasons why YOU suck:

1: You make a thread to talk about community pl maps, but you neglect to mention that we put HOURS upon HOURS, even DAYS upon DAYS upon DAYS of work into these maps. And now you show up to claim that they SUCK?

2: You've probably never once played a non-official PL map, therefore you have no right to come here and tell the creators you think their map sucks, though you never played it. And you know that.

3: Just because you do.

Here's what I want you to do:

Boot up TF2, search for a map known as "pl_swiftwater"

Play that on Red and Blue teams, then come back here and tell me straight in the face that community pl maps suck.

Flying Chicken said:

3 reasons why YOU suck:

1: ....

2: ...

3: Just because you do.

Here's what I want you to do:

Boot up TF2, search for a map known as "pl_swiftwater"

Play that on Red and Blue teams, then come back here and tell me straight in the face that community pl maps suck.

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Wow, this community really has degraded.

Firstly he never states that community pl maps suck, more that they could be better and he wants to see them be better.

Secondly I can say straight to you here, right in the 'face' that I personally think pl_swiftwater sucks. There, thats my opinion. Others love swiftwater, I don't- its as simple as that.

No one can go around proclaiming which maps suck and which don't, believe it or not many people like linear maps that focus on tense struggles over areas with limitted side paths to get unfairly flanked from. Others on the other hand may like lots of route choice, different attack options and so forth.

Blue552 said:

I really do believe Valve make superior maps. They hire the best in the industry, have multiple mappers with different tasks. I think it's a little arrogant for a single mapper to say they are as good as all of the Valve mapping team. This is why I think the transition of dustbowl from CP to PL works.

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It's also arragont to say that no one else can produce better maps than Valve. If they were so superior they wouldn't look to the community for maps at all.

Just because they are fortunate enough to have the (awesome) job that comes with the title "Level Designer", isn't necassarily to say that they are infallible. In fact i'm pretty sure the general consensus is that pl_goldrush is one of the most broken maps to date, and of course this has inspired ammatuer designers to attempt to make a better pl map themselves. Who's to say they cannot, certainly not you. So what if we arn't getting paid to do it. That's not how one measure's respect or an individuals capability.

According to your logic, we should all pack up and go home because we don't stand a chance. Yet this community has only grown and evolved over the years and had several of its user's maps officialised by Valve. Not to mention the continued active support from Valve personally, for its competitions (including) prizes, custom map support in steam updates, a new game mode HUD just for our A/D competition and a personal thanks in the TF2 blog for continuing to support custom maps for TF2.

Flying Chicken said:

Ragey Points

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Perhaps he meant Why community pl maps aren't very SUCCessFAIL.

Blue, your points are mostly irrelevant or illogical. Generally, making a map as unique as possible by offering lots of alternative routes and possibilities for gameplay does NOT make it bad. and the exception of this is an exception. Just because PL maps aren't made for Competitive doesn't mean that they should be badly made or expected to be unbalanced. Seriously, you may not like Community Payload, but your publicized reasons for believing so are flawed.

Blue552 said:

WTH?

your argument kind of fails when you look at the pl maps;

Gold Rush = 1340
BadWater = 1139
Hoodoo = 384

then the highest custom has 60 people playing and the rest are <30 if not 0

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(To me, those numbers support my argument...)

I'm not arguing that custom maps are on par (in popularity) with the official maps. You will notice that the same goes for ALL other gamemodes too, not just pl. For reasons I've already stated.

What's interesting is: Would hoodoo even have those 384 players if it wasn't bought by valve?

Custom maps can be of any quality and they will still fail in peoples eyes, but magically when they are bought by valve, they suddenly become acceptable.

Also, quality of the map is not the same as popularity.

Ravidge said:

Custom maps can be of any quality and they will still fail in peoples eyes, but magically when they are bought by valve, they suddenly become acceptable

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I still dont see that map as being acceptable for a valve map. Simply because the map isnt suitable for public games. its the first map that they added that failed however at that part and thats what made it acceptable. Many people learned alot from that map because its 'difficult'.

What i noticed after hoodoo was that valve actualy doesnt add such maps anymore and instead go for maps that have a balanced gameplay on publics, and mainly Yukon. And those are harder to find but actualy are popular. If valve would add another map that is as 'unbalanced' for public games (32 player IR) they would get massive complaints again just like they had with hoodoo. Its also that Youme has improved stage 2 very well which actualy made the map balanced again but had a requirement of having stronger teams on offense.

And that massive gap in player counts on specific maps in the top map list also happens to valve maps:
http://www.tf2stats.net/top_maps/ (note that i look at Avg players)
5 pl_badwater 1103.6
6 cp_badlands 469
7 ctf_doublecross 424.9

More surprisingly a new valve map does worse than 2 custom maps:
8 pl_hoodoo_final 420.6
9 ctf_turbine 410.5
10 cp_gorge 363

However, if you notice doublecross. its gameplay is actualy very poor as its still basicly a combination of 2fort and hallofdeath (which actualy is a good map) to me. A spamfest with anoying snipers all the time. If you compare it to turbine you already see that turbine is alot better as its a very old map but still only has a diffirence of 14.4... thats barely anything.

15 cp_orange_x3 263
Another custom map that does better than most maps. actualy, it does better than both hoodoo and turbine. Its an unofficial map but it beats 22 valve maps. Its actualy more like an unfinished map but it does better than some of the most finished looking maps.

As valve map more people will know your map. Thats what makes the diffirence in player counts for the unofficial maps. And as everyone has that map its logical that they will play it. Imagine if you were able to ensure any tf2 player had your map. Ofcourse it would result in it being played more often. After all, they have the map so why shouldnt they try it. There will allways be a few people that like the map. And many times those people didnt even try to search.

Also, a map that already is a super popular top of the line map often cant be remade. Simply because they would call it a ripoff and flame it to death. Maps do need their unique input that makes it diffirent. Youme did that quite well as its actualy quite close to goldrush yet feels completely diffirent.

Note that 2fort is only popular due to being already popular in TFC. Its one of the worst examples to look at even though its popular. It has a fan group which play the map 24/7 but you wont be able to make such map in tf2 EVER. Its just like dust2 in css and donner in dods. Same story.

Well then, why does a Community Map, with an even higher level of production than Valve ones, fail?

The only thing they lack is popularity, and that's irrelevant anyway.

Blue552 said:

I completely disagree, Gold Rush is not broken at all. It's always been a fun map to play. Just because the veteran players don't think it caters to their level of skill doesn't mean it's broken. If you're looking for intense game play go play CS. TF2 can still be about skill but it's definetly a more casual game.

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You can disagree if you want, but i don't think i read or hear of any complaint more than i do of the first choke point of GR. That's simply a fact of the matter.

Hoodoo is the map everyone loves to hate

But yeah, I don't understand why we are arguing. TF2 might have started casual, but any shooter with class based systems in it with the name of Team Fortress... is going to be competitive. It always has, always will.

If you want to play a casual FPS, go play Battlefield Heroes. This is TF2; this is serious gaming.

Anyways, the main reason that custom maps are balanced more towards skilled players is that skilled players often will sit through the downloads and will actually play the map rather than bitch and moan and ragequit. We balance to the crowd that actually tests the maps.

The reason that custom maps are unpopular is because 90% of the players never even hear about them. If valve would get more pro-active about including them, then tf2 would be laden with maps.

Tapp said:

The reason that custom maps are unpopular is because 90% of the players never even hear about them. If valve would get more pro-active about including them, then tf2 would be laden with maps.

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Or how about a Valve-run download repository that they link to on the main menu at the least? Making the game a 40gig download isn't really an ideal goal either.