2025 TF2Maps Wishlist

[Tiftid]

Every single download has a forum thread attached. If you feel you can summarize your feelings about a map into a star rating, you'll also be able to convey it in a post in that thread.

This is a pussy PR response.
Reviews are visible on the front page of a download.
Messages in the thread are not.
It's as simple as that.

I really am frustrated with the comp scene though, having interacted with them both as a member of TF2Maps.net and as a mapper trying to "sell" my map. There's a fundamental difference here how we think about maps and their creation. Hence my joke about our perspective obviously being the right one, since after all, we are never wrong about anything here at TF2m.

I am frustrated with competitive players/mappers as well.
They have some level of genuine design knowledge about TF2 and map design, but they immediately assume that they have this knowledge, and we don't.
Similarly, we have some level of genuine design knowledge about TF2 and map design, but we immediately assume that we have this knowledge, and they don't.
We should be putting our knowledge together, but childish rivalry and inability to express our ideas in a way that makes sense to the other faction prevents this from happening.

When I became Server Mod, I heavily pushed for the RTV system to be made more visible, and I think map tests have benefitted from it. We've also added more filters and automatic checks to the upload bot, which has reduced the amount of maps with broken logic or missing HDR controllers. I also have no problem encouraging trainee Imp Hosts to skip maps that will clearly not benefit from further testing data. This is a policy hard to put into writing as a generalized rule, because a lot of it is subjective and will vary from map to map. We would rather step carefully than be accused of throwing out perfectly testable maps, which should be in line with your previous point of encouraging the creation of more out-there maps in terms of theme, gamemode, or layout.

I support RTV. Remember when my Steam name was "Tiftid #BringBackRTV"?
I also think that RTV has more benefits than skipping maps which are literally bugged.
The secret key to all of this is retests.
If you, as a mapmaker, feel that your map was unfairly skipped early, retest it.
As a playtester, you should assume that if a map was retested without fixing something you think should be fixed, it is because the mapmaker failed to correctly interpret your feedback. This is not always true, but when it is true, the mapmaker is almost NEVER vocal about it out of shame, so better safe than sorry.
It should therefore be your responsibility to reword or contextualise your feedback in a way that makes more sense.

Cases where mapmakers retest without misunderstanding the feedback are more nuanced, and feed into issues such as "how to understand feedback" and "when is a map finished?" in a way that's not easy to explain.
I wrote a guide about this in 2023, but it got little visibility due to being audio-only, released on April 1st and having my name attached to it.

Basically, your map as a design is a "system" of "design elements" that interact with each other either positively or negatively.
Your map is not finished when it's perfect, it's finished when it's "solved" - when the elements in the system interact with each other as positively as it is possible for them to, even though some negative interactions are still present.
The issues that players identify during playtests are a negative interaction between two elements.
However, when you swap out one of these elements to fix this, you might add negative interactions with other elements of the system, and end up making the map worse overall.

This is a possible reason why a mapmaker might not change something which players have left feedback about over and over again.
And, you can consider this as a playtester! If a mapmaker hasn't changed something you've left feedback about, try to consider how it might affect the map as a whole, and see if you can think of a different change to make which wouldn't negatively affect other parts of the map as much.
All of this is probably what Robin Walker was getting at when he said of feedback about TF2 "We don't want to hear solutions, we want to hear problems" - because random TF2 players are completely blind to the design system that TF2 is, and if these players identify a problem, Valve (who are much better game designers and much more familiar with the system) can do their job, and create the best possible solution.

Outside of the guide, there's an aspect that FlipFTW said some insightful things about, a couple of years ago.
To paraphrase; "The TF2maps servers are horribly unbalanced, so what you want to look at is whether or not the players are forward holding where you expect."
This is solid advice. These servers tend to see a LOT of team imbalance, but if RED is still getting a consistent forward hold on every point (and just losing it immediately because they suck), then your map probably isn't actually that bad in reality.
And if RED is getting two forward holds, then your map will be impossible to attack when the BLU team isn't so overpowered.

This is one of several reasons why I think one of the most important pieces of advice to give to new mapmakers is "watch the demo BEFORE you read the feedback".

 

[Katsu! :3]

Cool Minor Things Post-Humase

• For feedback rounds, let players do a command like "!noclip" so they can get around the map speedier. I understand fbround has a thing for this, but on certain maps it's not enough. (Spectator doesn't always hit right, sometimes you need to actually feel things out with, y'know, slamming your head against a wall)
• Use the blog to announce things! It feels dead! Heck even if it's like the teamfortress.com one where it's like "oh there's a thing going on, go there."
• Fixer-Upper Minor Contest: Take adoptable maps, give people a two-month window, whoever is the most versatile and makes the best map with what they chose is the winner.