- Oct 25, 2007
- 372
- 199
This is going to be a little long and a little rant-y, but I feel it needs to be said as a defense to all mappers who have tried to design for competitive players.
The competitive player never seems to be satisfied. There are several third party maps that have seen moderate success among the 6v6 community (which is the only mode that comp plays) including cp_freight, cp_yukon, cp_follower, and the newly updated cp_gullywash. What's not seen at the end result of these maps is the unreasonable amount of bitching, whining, and shit talking injected by competitive players during the testing phases.
That may be a bold statement, but it is true. When players post their maps here on TF2maps.net and at most general TF2 communities they are met with normal responses thanking them and then the constructive posts pointing out issues that need to be addressed. If you post on a competitive forum you are met by scathing 1-2 line responses and Youtube videos saying you're "f***ing dumb" and then the occasional constructive post pointing out issues.
But I see posts all the time that comp TF2 is "starved for maps", so why are a large number of them jerks to the ones trying to give them more fun?
Some might say to toughen up, but let me ask you: how many mappers ARE competitive players? 2? 4? And how many of them are capable of producing a Valve quality level in a "reasonable" time span? It will take a mapper several months to get a solid map going. Probably more for a competitive player who also maps, since clan players have scheduled events several days a night. That mapper most likely will not want to be greeted by acidic replies by the time they're ready to present their free work to the community (even if they are part of the comp scene). We don't get paid. We don't need to take trash talk from competitive players who think they're god's gift to TF2. We're the ones making the map, not them. So they should post something useful that can help the map out or close the browser.
I believe this is a primary reason that more mappers do not strive to get their map into leagues and played by the top TF2 players. The competitive attitude turns off most people who aren't "into" that facet of the game. It's a shame, because competitive TF2 is very fun and making a map for it typically means it gets a lot of exposure, arguably more than a public server bound payload map. I haven't played actively in a clan in some time, but my philosophy of designing with that part of the game in mind still stands out. It means the level will be rock solid in the end. The sad part is digging through all of the 1 liner remarks aimed at making me feel like I'm the bad guy.
The other reason that more mappers don't strive to map for leagues is because pub modes like PL and A/D are simply more popular on an everyday basis and a lot of mappers come from that part of TF2. 5CP maps, which competitive TF2 uses, do not usually see as much pub time (at least from my past experiences). This also makes sense because pub players aren’t constrained to play TF2 certain nights, so they have more free time.
In the end, competitive players will definitely play a map with Valve's stamp across it. It is a guaranteed shoo-in. The funny thing is, Valve isn't playing in any 6v6 leagues either as far as I know. They get paid to do this, so they must be good at it (this is also the mantra of the paid competitive teams, hmm (EDIT: most top teams probably don't get paid but rather they're sponsored with a vent server/server etc) ). I'm not trying to knock Valve by any means, it's just amusing at the blind faith that comp TF2 has in Valve to make their holy grail levels. Last I checked, 95% of the maps in Team Fortress games were community made before TF2.
Valve does have a good record considering Granary and Badlands, though.
Oh well, I felt I needed to rant and post a perspective of mapping different than what I think most people know of. How many mappers here would really design for comp play? Me, Mangy, Youme (Furnace) I know of off the top of my head. Anyone else had bad experiences with this?
Edit: I'm fully aware that this post IS by definition a bitch post like the kind a comp player would make. The irony. I suppose mappers have the right to make their own too.
8/1 EDIT: Just to dismiss the offtopic part of this thread about "6v6 not being what Valve intended for the game", here is news about the TF2 Beta going on that top clans are participating in to help balance 6v6 play:
http://vilepickle.com/news/2009/08/01/team-fortress-2-beta/
The competitive player never seems to be satisfied. There are several third party maps that have seen moderate success among the 6v6 community (which is the only mode that comp plays) including cp_freight, cp_yukon, cp_follower, and the newly updated cp_gullywash. What's not seen at the end result of these maps is the unreasonable amount of bitching, whining, and shit talking injected by competitive players during the testing phases.
That may be a bold statement, but it is true. When players post their maps here on TF2maps.net and at most general TF2 communities they are met with normal responses thanking them and then the constructive posts pointing out issues that need to be addressed. If you post on a competitive forum you are met by scathing 1-2 line responses and Youtube videos saying you're "f***ing dumb" and then the occasional constructive post pointing out issues.
But I see posts all the time that comp TF2 is "starved for maps", so why are a large number of them jerks to the ones trying to give them more fun?
Some might say to toughen up, but let me ask you: how many mappers ARE competitive players? 2? 4? And how many of them are capable of producing a Valve quality level in a "reasonable" time span? It will take a mapper several months to get a solid map going. Probably more for a competitive player who also maps, since clan players have scheduled events several days a night. That mapper most likely will not want to be greeted by acidic replies by the time they're ready to present their free work to the community (even if they are part of the comp scene). We don't get paid. We don't need to take trash talk from competitive players who think they're god's gift to TF2. We're the ones making the map, not them. So they should post something useful that can help the map out or close the browser.
I believe this is a primary reason that more mappers do not strive to get their map into leagues and played by the top TF2 players. The competitive attitude turns off most people who aren't "into" that facet of the game. It's a shame, because competitive TF2 is very fun and making a map for it typically means it gets a lot of exposure, arguably more than a public server bound payload map. I haven't played actively in a clan in some time, but my philosophy of designing with that part of the game in mind still stands out. It means the level will be rock solid in the end. The sad part is digging through all of the 1 liner remarks aimed at making me feel like I'm the bad guy.
The other reason that more mappers don't strive to map for leagues is because pub modes like PL and A/D are simply more popular on an everyday basis and a lot of mappers come from that part of TF2. 5CP maps, which competitive TF2 uses, do not usually see as much pub time (at least from my past experiences). This also makes sense because pub players aren’t constrained to play TF2 certain nights, so they have more free time.
In the end, competitive players will definitely play a map with Valve's stamp across it. It is a guaranteed shoo-in. The funny thing is, Valve isn't playing in any 6v6 leagues either as far as I know. They get paid to do this, so they must be good at it (this is also the mantra of the paid competitive teams, hmm (EDIT: most top teams probably don't get paid but rather they're sponsored with a vent server/server etc) ). I'm not trying to knock Valve by any means, it's just amusing at the blind faith that comp TF2 has in Valve to make their holy grail levels. Last I checked, 95% of the maps in Team Fortress games were community made before TF2.
Valve does have a good record considering Granary and Badlands, though.
Oh well, I felt I needed to rant and post a perspective of mapping different than what I think most people know of. How many mappers here would really design for comp play? Me, Mangy, Youme (Furnace) I know of off the top of my head. Anyone else had bad experiences with this?
Edit: I'm fully aware that this post IS by definition a bitch post like the kind a comp player would make. The irony. I suppose mappers have the right to make their own too.
8/1 EDIT: Just to dismiss the offtopic part of this thread about "6v6 not being what Valve intended for the game", here is news about the TF2 Beta going on that top clans are participating in to help balance 6v6 play:
http://vilepickle.com/news/2009/08/01/team-fortress-2-beta/
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